The Jewel Box (7 page)

Diamond Sharp

It
was Sunday morning, presumably. The headache was worse than usual, the throat very raspy from all those ciggies (“the tobacco is toasted and does not aggravate the throat”—oh,
please
). The mirror showed a drawn, squinting figure in long cotton wrap with pallid skin and wine-stained mouth.

“Dear God,” said Grace, in an unrecognizable (even to her) and otherworldly voice, and made gingerly for the door.

Outside her room, all was far too hectic. Tilly was playing with two girls who belonged to some neighbor or other. She had dragged forth practically every toy she and Felix possessed, and had lined them up in rows on the stairs for a game of toy shop. The girls were currently fighting over who was to be the shopgirl and who the customers (all of them wanting to be shopgirl). Felix was not in evidence but could be heard screaming from some distant room, his screams overlaid by
the occasional, “No, Felix. That was a
no
,” in the familiar Irish voice of Edna, their “domestic” and the children’s unofficial nanny. More distant, but shrill, were the uneven tones of Grace’s mother practicing the alto part from bits of Handel’s
Messiah.

“Auntie Grace, Leticia’s being beastly. Tell her to stop it.” Tilly’s upturned face had round, pink doll cheeks painted on, possibly in lipstick purloined from aunt or mother. The other two girls had identical doll cheeks.

“Not now, sweetie.” Grace, clutching at the banister, picked her way down between toys. “Auntie Grace is indisposed.”

“But—”

“Remember our agreement about Sunday mornings, Tilly…”

The girl huffed and folded her arms in a sulky manner. Grace flapped a limp hand to swat this vision away, and then pressed on to the foot of the stairs, and beyond to the dining-room door.

“Behold. It has risen.” Nancy, fresh-faced and shiny-haired, was seated at the table with a cup of tea and a piece of Victoria sponge. Opposite, pouring from the best silver teapot, was their American neighbor, John Cramer. He too was glossy and healthy-looking. His eyes were the rich, shiny brown of the conkers she’d gathered with Tilly last autumn.

“Dear God!” Grace drew the cotton robe together at the neck. If only she could shrink, dwindling away to nothing inside the wrap.

“Charming,” said Nancy.

“So nice to see you again, Miss Rutherford.”

“Do call her Grace,” said Nancy. “She’s always found ‘Miss Rutherford’ aging and spinsterly, isn’t that so, Sis?”

“I’m sorry. I…Would you excuse me?” Grace turned for
the door, but Cramer was pushing a plate toward the nearest empty chair, saying,

“It’s very good cake. And there’s way too much for two people.”

“Well, thank you. But I can always have some later. I’m rather…” She turned to Nancy. “Have I missed breakfast?”

Nancy raised her eyebrows. “Darling, it’s almost three.”

“Ah.” That explained Tilly’s contempt when she’d mentioned their Sunday morning “agreement.” Hunger was overcoming her squeamishness at being caught in her dressing gown. And anyway, Nancy had clearly already staked her claim to John Cramer. So why should it matter if she looked a wreck? “Perhaps I’d better have some cake, then.”

It was Cramer who cut her a slice, and Cramer who filled her cup. In doing so, he dribbled tea onto the white cloth and, with a muttered apology, rushed out for something to mop it up with.

“So,
this
is interesting.” Grace took a mouthful of cake. “It’s not
every
morning that I find you cozying up in here with a ridiculously handsome man. He certainly seems to have his feet under the table.”

Nancy frowned. “He came over to see how Felix is. I do hope you’re not about to embarrass me.”

“Me embarrass
you?
If anyone should be embarrassed around here, it’s me. Just look at the state of me!”

“Indeed.” Nancy’s mouth shrank up, becoming pinched and pursed, the way it always did when she was angry. “What time did you come in?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Cramer reappeared with a towel, and dabbed ineffectually at the spilled tea.

“Don’t worry about it, John,” said Nancy. “It was due for a wash anyway.” This was a lie.

“All right.” Smiling across from one sister to the other, he slid back onto his seat. “So where d’you go last night, Grace?”

“Café Royal and Cave of Harmony.” Grace had to work hard not to care about her appearance. It felt strange, stepping back to let Nancy have first dibs on a man. Nonetheless, it was the right thing to do. While she was telling herself this, she could hear her own voice chuntering on about her night out. “Then off to a party in an artist’s studio in Bloomsbury. Terrible paintings but some good gramophone jazz and a rather interesting statue of a mythical god thing with antlers and six arms. Made a jolly good coat stand, actually. Later still, a few of us headed off to Hyde Park. There was some specific reason for that, but I can’t recall what it was. I don’t suppose it would make any sense in the cold light of day anyway, do you?” She turned to Nancy. “Lovely cake, sis. Did you make it yourself or is it one of Edna’s?”

“John brought it over.”

“How kind of you, John.”

“Not at all,” said Cramer. “It’s nice to have some friendly neighbors to share it with. I’m stuck in the house on my own so much that I’m worried I’m losing the ability to make conversation. And to tell the truth, my housekeeper bakes so much I’m thinking of padlocking the oven.”

Outside the room, the cacophony was growing louder.

“Do you work at home, then?” asked Grace. “What do you do?”

“I’m a journalist. The England correspondent for the
New York Times
, but I do bits and pieces for other papers, too. On the side, as it were.”

“How fascinating. Are you planning on staying long in London?”

“I don’t know. I’ll stay as long as it remains interesting.”

Grace sipped her tea and let her gaze meet his. “Do you find lots to interest you here, then?”

“So far, yes.” His stare intensified. She felt as though he was rifling through her thoughts. “As to the future, who knows?”

“How about your friend at the Savoy? Is he of interest?”

Nancy seemed about to say something, but then there were screams and cries from the hall—violence breaking out among the four-year-olds. With an “excuse me a moment,” she got up and went out to restore peace.

Alone together, Cramer and Grace looked at each other across the table. She shouldn’t have mentioned it, of course, but she hadn’t been able to resist it. Really, it was too intriguing. She’d been wondering what Cramer’s business with the Devil was, and why he’d been so put out when Cramer turned up. Now it seemed likely that it had to do with newspaper journalism. This made her even more curious as to who her Devil might be…

“What exactly do you know?” asked Cramer, quietly.

Grace eyed him. Weighed things up. “Everything.”

At this he seemed to relax. “I doubt that very much.” And with that, he got to his feet. “Nice seeing the two of you, but I have to be going. I have a piece to write by five o’clock.”

He reached for the door handle, then hesitated, and looked back at Grace. “I’d steer clear of him if I were you.”

“Why?”

Cramer shrugged. “If you already know everything, you won’t need me to tell you.”

Later, when the children were in bed and Catherine sat with her friend Clementine playing rummy at the dining room table, Grace persuaded Nancy to take an evening stroll with her through the quiet streets of Hampstead, and then coaxed her into the Mitre. Nancy, who was rarely out and about without the children, feigned reluctance to enter the public house but then became quite giggly at the prospect.

“Here.” Grace set two gin fizzes on the table. Her hangover had cleared remarkably well—and after all, bubbles were a sort of restorative, weren’t they? All the same, her nose was oddly sensitive. She was acutely aware of the smell of the room. A cloying, damp smell. The beer-soaked carpet, never properly cleaned. The stench of wet dog.

“I should warn you”—Nancy took a first sip—“Mummy’s on the warpath.”

“Concerning what?” Grace was busy surveying the lounge bar. She’d chosen a good corner seat from where she could see everyone who came in or out.

“Your column.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. She was reading it this morning—last week’s—muttering all the while, and then she threw the paper down and went off, still muttering and cursing. You know what that sort of carry-on leads to.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Grace’s smile slipped slightly. “I wonder what she found so objectionable?”

Nancy shrugged.

Grace played for time, drawing her ebony cigarette holder out of her bag and fussing over the lighting up. “I’m supposed to review restaurants and nightclubs. But I’d like to think I do rather more than that.”

“You do.”

“But?”

“There isn’t a ‘but.’ Not exactly. And I honestly don’t know what upset Mummy.” The pupils in Nancy’s blue eyes contracted slightly. “But maybe…”

“Yes?”

“Well, you write as though you assume everyone is like you. Going out every night to the best places, wearing all the latest fashions, and
worrying
about it all. You write as though these things are the most important things in life, and you seem to be saying that people who don’t live that sort of life are…well…worthless, pretty much.”

Grace felt stung. “I don’t think that. You surely don’t believe that of me?”

“Darling, you can take a little criticism, can’t you? Your column’s so popular—you’re doing so well…I suppose I have just the smallest suspicion that most of your readers
don’t
lead the sort of life you do. They read your column at the end of a long, hard day, when the children have gone to bed and they finally have a chance to put their feet up. They’re on the outside looking in. Reading Diamond Sharp is like going to the theater. Or perhaps to a zoo.”

“Nancy.” She reached out and took her sister’s hand. “Please don’t talk that way. I’d change places with you in a second if I could. Tilly and Felix…”

“I know. Really, I do know.” A heavy glum look crept across her face, and she pulled her hand free. She was clearly thinking about George.

Grace searched about for a distraction. “Hey, Nancy, take a look at those two chaps at the bar. No,
don’t
turn around so obviously.”

“What about them?” Nancy was all wide-eyed innocence.

“Gosh, you’re such a sap. Haven’t you noticed how nice-looking they are? I haven’t seen them in here before.”

“Grace, you’re incorrigible.”

“Well, they’ve looked over at us a few times. It’s not so often you get
two
that are halfway decent. Not in the same room at the same time, let alone actually together.”

Nancy was becoming a touch panicky. “Don’t do anything. Please. We’re having a quiet drink. That’s enough for me.”

Grace sniffed. “Please yourself. Just don’t let it be said that I don’t do my best for you.”

“I’d never say that. You’re a darling. I’m just not…”

“I know.” Grace was still watching the two men on stools at the bar. Well-dressed men in their mid-thirties deep in conversation together. “So, what about our new friend John Cramer?”

“What about him?”

“Come
on
, Nancy.”

“He’s a neighbor. He’s been kind to me.”

“For goodness’ sakes!”

“He likes being around the children. He has a daughter at boarding school in the States and he misses her. His wife died years ago.” But she was blushing as she said it. She had always been a blusher. She’d never been able to lie convincingly or keep secrets. Not like Grace.

“Got to know him quite well, haven’t you? Just how much time have you spent with him?”

Nancy’s mouth pinched up—the embarrassment turning to anger. “Why shouldn’t I spend time with him? I’m stuck in the house all day every day with Mummy and the children—and for
once
there’s actually been someone around who I can have a nice walk with now and then, and a bit of intelligent conversation. John Cramer has shown me nothing but courtesy and respect. We’re both lonely.”

“I see.”

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?”

Nancy gestured wildly. “All…knowing and superior. Grace, you look like Mummy on a bad day.”

“That,” said Grace, “is possibly the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Well, you deserved it.” Nancy gulped down the rest of her drink. “You have hundreds of gentlemen friends who are just friends. Can’t I have even
one
without all these raised eyebrows and suggestive comments? Is it because you go out to work and I don’t? Does one need to move about in the world of men and business in order to be allowed platonic acquaintances? I need friends just as much as you do.”

“Oh, Nancy, I was only teasing.”

“Well, just so long as you understand. There is nothing more than friendship between John Cramer and me.” She was cheering up again. The storm had blown over. “But what about you? Who’s the mystery man you keep on about in your column?”

“I don’t
keep
on about him. I’ve mentioned him twice. Anyway, I don’t really know who he is. Just about the only concrete thing I know about him is that he and John Cramer don’t get on with each other.”

“Really? Why on earth is that?”

“I’ve absolutely no idea.” She drained her drink and smacked the glass down on the table.

“Gracie, I do hope you’re not going to get yourself tangled up with someone horrid. You need a nice man to settle you down. What’s wrong with dear old Dickie? He’s thoroughly adorable and we never see him these days.”

Grace considered her reply but then decided not to
bother. Nancy probably didn’t expect a coherent response in any case. Glancing up at the bar, she saw two empty stools where the nice-looking men had been. “They’ve gone and left,” she said. “Typical! Men just don’t know a good thing when they see it, do they? Shall we have another drink?”