The Jewel Box (35 page)

By now you will all know where to go for a jolly evening out in the West End and I shan’t waste any more ink on the subject. Instead, I want to talk about a subject of somewhat more substance than where to go for the perfect bob cut.

My mother, Catherine, was a suffragette. In her tender years she marched with the WSPU and was arrested for hurling eggs at members of the Liberal Party. Even now, in her dotage, she goes as often as she can to Women’s Freedom League rallies and bangs on endlessly about their four demands. (For those woefully ignorant souls who know nothing about the demands, they are: (1) pensions for fatherless children; (2) equal guardianship; (3) equal franchise; and (4) the rectification of the Sex Disqualification [Removal] Act.) I must confess to having ignored, rolled my eyes at and even mocked my mother as she launches into her lengthy speeches on the plight of Twentieth-Century Woman. Frankly, I’d much rather spend my day off at home painting my toenails, sipping a gin fizz and listening to jazz on the gramophone than go out to Speaker’s Corner or some such place to stand in the rain with a placard. In fact, let’s be honest, I’d rather spend the day having my toenails yanked off one by one with a pair of pliers to the strains of Beethoven’s Fifth than at one of those rallies.

And yet, dear readers—and yet, I rather believe that I’ve always promoted equality for women. My words are less weighty than those of my heroine Catherine (that’s not sarcasm, Mother, you really are my heroine, in spite of ev
erything), but emancipation has many faces. Some may seem trivial, but this trivia is the very fabric of our lives, yours and mine. Is a woman truly emancipated when she’s tripping over her own petticoats? Is it fair and equitable that a young lady is forced to stay home with a book on a Saturday evening for fear of her parents’ disapproval while her even younger brother is out dancing the night away at the Hammersmith Palais? Why should it be that the woman who dines alone by choice once in a while should have to tolerate being pointed at and whispered about by all those half-cut idiots propping up the bar? And while we’re on the subject, what’s wrong with a girl taking a cocktail or three of an evening? Drinking is fun for females too, and we’re not “loose women” or “secondhand goods.” Come to think of it, maybe some of us are. Maybe there’s nothing wrong in that either.

That’s the end of my rant. Now I’m off to dance my finest Breakaway in pastures new (the Breakaway, for those who’ve been hiding under a rock lately, is a Charleston with extra frills). I’ll be back in dear old London sometime when the moon is full and the band is playing fast. Look for me at cocktail hour and you’ll know me by my splendidly geometrical bob (the name of that man, by the way, is Marcus Rino), by the lipstick smear on the side of my glass and the smoke rings I’ll be blowing. If you see me, come over and we’ll have a drink for old times’ sake.

It’s been a pleasure, my darlings, and I only hope the pleasure has not
all
been mine. May your nights be long and your dresses short. Always keep your head clear, your mind open and a spare pair of knickers in your handbag, and remember that Life Is the Spice of Variety.

Kisses.

Grace Rutherford

Alias Diamond Sharp

Dickie
had reluctantly agreed to Grace’s only stipulation for her farewell lunch party: Keep it small. In addition to the two of them, there would simply be Sheridan, Dodo, Margaret and Nancy. Nancy, who was still out on a limb, being avoided by Grace as though she had done something terrible.

When it came to the choice of venue, Dickie took no notice of Grace’s list of preferences and booked Tour Eiffel. Grace was vocal in her protests but secretly glad. It was soothing to know that whatever else might change, Dickie would always be Dickie.

She’d made an effort for this lunch, choosing a printed chiffon dress by La Samaritaine, all petals and softness and luxury. It had been a gift from O’Connell, but she was determined not to let that put her off. It was far too nice a frock to
be left on its hanger for personal reasons and enjoyed only by moths.

When she entered the restaurant, there were only three people seated at the corner table.

“Here she is.” Dodo’s eyebrows were even more finely arched than usual, and she was wielding a cigarette holder longer than any Grace had ever seen. Margaret, sitting beside her, had her mouth stuffed full of bread and had to wave her greeting. (Could
anyone
eat like that girl?)

“Darling sis!” Sheridan was becoming a little overexuberant about their newly discovered bond. Just how many people had he told? “I’ve instwucted them to bwing their finest champagne and they’ve gone to delve in the cellar. Dickie’s paying, so I think we should enjoy ourselves, don’t you? Serves him wight for being so outwageously late. And what about our divine sister? Is she a habitual late awwival too?”

“How extremely annoying of the pair of them,” snapped Grace, more from nerves than genuine irritation. “They know very well that I like to be the last to arrive, and I’m on the dot of my usual thirty minutes en retard!”

“Oh, weally, Gwacie. Lateness is so vewy last year.”

“Dickie had urgent business at the
Herald,
” said Dodo. “He said he’ll be here as soon as he can. Actually I think there’s something afoot.”

“What sort of something?” Intrigued, Grace took a seat at their window table.

“I don’t know, but he had a very shifty expression on his face.” And Dodo did something extraordinary with her eyebrows.

“Nobody’s expwession could be as shifty as that!”

The champagne arrived, and some very good French onion soup.

“So, Grace, why Edinburgh?” asked Margaret.

Grace shrugged. “May as well be there as anywhere else. I’m off first thing in the morning. I’ll stay with an old school-friend for a bit. Then we’ll see.”

“Awfully cold place,” said Sheridan.

“Doesn’t bother me. I look good in furs.”

“There’ll be some nice cashmere in the shops this autumn,” added Dodo, in a making-the-best-of-it tone.

Grace looked from one to the other of them. Three skeptical faces.

“It’s bonkers,” said Sheridan.

“You’re just running away,” said Margaret. “And there’s no need to.
He’s
leaving anyway, after all.”

“This is not about O’Connell,” snapped Grace. “Frankly, you’re welcome to him. Bon voyage!” Then, in a lighter voice, addressing them all: “People don’t have to stay in one place all their lives, do they? Perhaps I want to go somewhere where nobody knows me. Perhaps I want a new adventure. Margaret should understand that perfectly well even if the rest of you don’t.”

“A toast.” Dodo held up her champagne glass. “To new adventures!”

Grace clinked her glass with theirs, wishing she could feel more wholehearted about this new adventure of hers. She’d be all right when she got there, surely? Millicent was kindness itself—she’d said Grace could stay as long as she liked. Edinburgh seemed rather wonderfully foreign in prospect without being too far away. She’d considered Paris, but suspected she couldn’t be properly witty there, hampered as she was by her schoolgirl French vocabulary. There was New York, of course, but…no…Edinburgh was the best plan, all things considered. She’d certainly
manage to dazzle in Edinburgh. She’d conquer the place in weeks…wouldn’t she?

Sheridan leaned over. “You can always come back.”

But Grace hadn’t properly heard him. Her eye had been caught by something down in the street. A figure in white on the far side of the road.

She started and blinked. A bus was blocking her view. Another blink and it had moved on, and he was still there.

O’Connell, in his white suit and hat. She couldn’t make out his expression but she was certain he was smiling. That usual sly smile of his. He was gazing up at her. Right into her face.

The room around her continued as normal. Her friends talking, smoke wafting up from cigarettes, Joe the waiter coming to collect the empty soup dishes. But Grace was holding her breath.

He was here to see her, she was certain of it. He was about to cross the road and enter the building. Rudolph Stulik would be all over him at the door and he’d be ushered over to their table like the long-awaited guest of honor and he’d sit down in Dickie’s place and Margaret would be all wide-eyed admiration and Dodo would flirt and Sheridan would stir things up and…Well, what
then
?

She hadn’t expected to see him again.

But he wasn’t crossing the road. He was still standing there. As she watched, he raised his hat with a flourish, then set it back on his head.

“He promised he wouldn’t make a nuisance of himself.” Margaret’s eyes were cast down. “He wanted to say good-bye.”

Grace looked back at the sun-drenched street. O’Connell wasn’t there anymore. A cab was pulling out into the traffic.

“Hello, stranger!”

Grace twisted around to find Nancy standing beside their table in a turquoise dress and with a fetching new bob cut, softly waved.

“Nancy, darling.” There was a tension in their hug. A distance. Each of them was trying to look happy to see the other. Each of them was sizing the other up, endeavoring to work out what was going on behind the smiles.

“Have I missed the soup?” Nancy glanced at the empty bowls. “Do you think they’d fetch me one if I smiled nicely enough?”

She looks radiant, thought Grace. I’ve never seen her looking so radiant.

Dodo was signaling to the waiter. Margaret was glancing edgily from one sister to the other.

“Wight!” Sheridan seized Nancy’s left hand, Grace’s right hand, and his moment. “If I don’t say it now, I never shall. Gwace, you absolutely
mustn’t
leave. We’ve only just discovered each other, my lovely sisters, after all these years. We should all be together and be nice to each other and look after each other like a pwoper family.”

“It’s utterly daft that you’re leaving,” added Nancy. “What’s happened to you, Grace?”

Grace looked down at the table. At Nancy’s hand, held in Sheridan’s. There was a ring on her finger. A ring so big it would weigh your whole arm down. A huge ruby with tiny diamonds clustered around it.

“Nancy! You’re engaged!”

“Wonderful, isn’t it? You’re the very first to know. Well—you were
supposed
to be. But then Mummy came across the ring in my underwear drawer this morning and jumped to
such
a wrong conclusion that I had to put her straight. Can you
believe
the nosiness of the woman?”

Grace managed the kiss and hug. She did her best to smile. But it was all she could do to keep from crying. The higgledy-piggledy drawings, etchings, paintings and cards all over the walls of the restaurant had never looked more like crazily chaotic gravestones. With Sheridan calling for more champagne, and Dodo and Margaret gasping and clutching at Nancy’s hand, she hotfooted it out to the bathroom.

“So,” she told her reflection in the mirror, “here we go again.” She turned on the cold tap and then stood there, gripping the edges of the sink, peering into her own face without really seeing anything. Why had Cramer kissed her the way he had on that day? Why had he told her all that rubbish as they sat there on that damned bench? Were they downright lies or, like George, did he just not really know himself? Bloody man!

She hadn’t allowed herself to believe him, even as he was making his declarations of love. Experience had taught her that she couldn’t. She’d known that she should get right away from an engagement that she’d assumed was inevitable—but even
she
hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly, before she’d even left town! Before her memories of their walk on the Heath and the things he’d said to her had begun to cool down. Well, at least she already had her suitcases packed and her ticket bought. She was certainly not going to hang around the happy couple and wait for it all to go wrong—not this time.

This time she would do the right thing.

But then again, was it really the right thing just to leave and say nothing to Nancy about what had happened between her and Cramer? Wasn’t it her duty, after all, to warn her sister that her fiancé’s newly declared love might not be quite so steadfast and enduring as he was presumably making out?

God, if only it didn’t all hurt so damned much!

“What are you skulking about in here for?” Nancy came in and closed the door behind her. “And why have you been avoiding me so fastidiously? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were leaving town because of
me
.”

Grace found she couldn’t speak. She turned off the tap and stared down into the sink. There was a single dark hair lying in the basin, perhaps one of her own.

“Tell me you’re
not
leaving town because of me?”

Still Grace couldn’t speak.

Nancy moved closer, put a hand on her shoulder. “Darling Grace. I know it’s been hard on you, having to look after all of us. It’s become too much for you, I see that. Mummy was shocked when you lost your job, but I wasn’t. It would be too much for anyone after a while, always having to put others first the way you have. It must have ground you down over time. I think perhaps that’s what drove you into all the madness with O’Connell.”

“It’s not that—”

“I wish it was you getting married, Gracie, I really do. It’s your turn. It should have been your turn years ago. But that isn’t the way it’s happened. And don’t you see—it’ll be more likely to happen for you too now. You won’t be looking after me and the children anymore because there’ll be someone else to do it. You’ll be free to live your own life.”

Grace took a couple of steps away from her, retreating from the hand on her shoulder—the hand with the ring. “I wish it was as simple as that,” she said quietly.

Nancy looked confused and slightly crushed. “Sometimes life
can
be simple. I’m going to marry a lovely man and have a beautiful wedding. I want you there at my side, not off in Edinburgh or some other faraway place. Grace, you’re not really
going off to stay with Millicent, are you? Moon-face Millicent from school?”