as they held hands and walked down the street. They had done what they came to Paris to do. And Jeanne Lanvin had created the most magnificent bridal gown in the world.
When the box with the dress in it arrived at the Ritz, it was three times the size of any of their trunks, and had a wooden crate around it that had been made especially to protect it. Now they could go home to Alex, and Eleanor’s father. They had been gone for five weeks by then, and they still had to get to California by train, after they docked in New York. Eleanor could hardly wait until October. It was going to be the happiest day of her life, in the most beautiful dress in the world.
“Ready to go home?” Louise asked her after two men carried the crate to their suite on the ship. Eleanor smiled as she nodded. Ready indeed, and Alex would be waiting for her, which was the best part of going home.
Chapter 3
The trip back to New York on the luxurious SS Paris was uneventful. Every time Eleanor walked into her cabin and saw the huge crate from Lanvin there, it gave her a thrill, knowing what was in it. For the moment, it was the symbol of her future with Alex. She could hardly wait to wear the dress. It made her debut dress by Worth seem plain by comparison. Her wedding dress was going to look absolutely regal, and innocent and feminine at the same time. Jeanne Lanvin was a genius with immense talent, and had been the perfect choice for Eleanor’s wedding dress.
Eleanor had told Wilson all about it, and she couldn’t wait to see it. She had spent a week with her family in Ireland, and was grateful that Louise had let her go. She had her own cabin in second class on the ship, which was a nicer accommodation than most lady’s maids were given by their employers.
They only spent two days in New York, and stayed at the Sherry-Netherland as they had on the way to Paris. It was a beautiful new hotel that had opened two years before. It was late May. The weather was warm and balmy, and Eleanor and her mother couldn’t wait to get home. They boarded the train to Chicago in a first-class compartment, with a second one for Wilson, and all their trunks and the crate from Lanvin. They changed trains in Chicago, and Eleanor could hardly sleep on the last leg of the trip. All she could think about was Alex, and the months ahead. She wanted time to speed up now until their wedding. Five months seemed like an eternity to wait for the big day when she would become his wife. It was hard to imagine how much she had come to love him since they met at her debut five months before.
As the train pulled into the station in San Francisco with Eleanor and Louise looking out the window of their compartment, Eleanor in one of her Schiaparelli sweaters and a new red hat she’d bought from a talented milliner on the rue du Bac on the Left Bank, they saw them waiting on the platform. Alex and his future father-in-law stood side by side, Alex with an armful of red roses, and both of them smiling broadly. Eleanor dropped the window and waved, and the men saw them. Charles beamed happily at the sight of his wife, and Alex looked as though he might explode with joy. The serious, slightly somber young man he had been for nearly a decade had disappeared, and he was wreathed in smiles. Eleanor rushed down the steps as soon as the conductor opened the door of their carriage, and flew into Alex’s arms. He dropped the roses on the platform and held her tight and kissed her, as Louise and Charles hugged a little more circumspectly but were obviously pleased to see each other. There were porters waiting to collect their bags and trunks, and Charles instructed them. The car was waiting for them outside, with two additional cars for their luggage and to give Wilson a ride back to the house. He smiled when he saw the enormous crate from Paris emerge from the train.
“Is that it?” he asked Louise, and she nodded with a smile.
“You’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” The dress was perfectly simple in its lines, but laden with embroidery and pearls, which had