No Time For Love (Bantam Series No. 40) by Barbara Cartland

no further need of money.
    She wished she had asked Mr. Donaldson more about the clothes she would need in Sorrento, but told herself he was unlikely to know any more than she did.
    She was aware that in the sunshine one needed white or bright colours and there was very little in her existing wardrobe which would be of any use.
    Besides with her one hundred pounds she was determined to look her best for Elvin, and perhaps be a worthy visitor to the Villa of which Mr. Donaldson had spoken so warmly.
    The difficulty of course was that she had no time to have anything made.
    The best clothes in London from the best dressmakers were designed for each individual customer and were fitted several times and took at least two or three weeks to be completed.
    Her mother’s best clothes which she wore on special occasions had all been made by a dressmaker in Hanover Square, but even so they had not been very expensive because the Doctor’s wife could not have afforded anything extravagant.
    Larina went first to Peter Robinson in Regent Street where there were dresses ready made.
    She found two light gowns which could be altered by the following day to fit her. They were pretty, light muslins that were not expensive and were in fact the only gowns in the shop that were not much too large in the bust.
    “You are very slim, Miss,” the fitter said as she pinned away at the superfluous folds of the material.
    “I know I am not fashionable,” Larina said with a smile.
    “I daresay you’ll put on a bit as you get older,” the woman said comfortingly.
    The silhouette popularised by the American Charles Dana Gibson had swept England. His magazine-drawings of lovely women standing with a pronounced forward tilt, had brought into vogue ‘the Gibson S bend’!
    Larina knew she would never have the ample and protuberant bosom or the definitely curved behind which was accentuated by the swing of the skirt, and often by discreetly hidden little pads.
    One thing she was determined not to buy were the boned, high necks which most ladies affected in the daytime and which Larina knew were very uncomfortable.
    Instead she chose gowns which had a piece of soft muslin round the neck which ended as a bow in the front or alternatively a bow at the back. It was modest, but definitely not boned.
    “It would be too restrictive in the heat anyway,” she told herself, feeling a little guilty that she had no desire to be fashionable.
    Then as she was wondering where she should buy her evening-gowns, she remembered that she and her mother when they had been in Switzerland had been looking at the pictures in ‘ The Ladies Journal ’ and had seen some very attractive designs by Paul Poiret.
    Underneath them was written:
    ‘This French designer is trying to change the trend of women’s clothes to what he calls a more graceful, flowing look. His new ideas, like his new creations, are causing a sensation in Paris as well as in London.’
    “There would be no harm in looking!” Larina told herself.
    She knew that Poiret’s shop was in Berkeley Street, and with a feeling of being utterly reckless she took a hackney - carriage instead of trying to get there by omnibus.
    Ordinarily she had been far too shy and too nervous to enter the luxurious precincts of such a shop by herself, but now that she had no future she had developed a courage she had never had before.
    If people were surprised at her behavior it did not matter; if people criticised her she would not be here long enough to hear it! Even if she did something outrageous it would be forgotten in three weeks’ time when she was dead.
    Quite boldly, not even worrying about her somewhat dowdy appearance, she entered the shop and asked to see some of their models.
    “We have very few’ models to show at the moment, Madam,” a very superior looking Vendeuse told her. “Monsieur Poiret’s new collection from Paris will be shown next week. At the moment we really only have the garments that are in