The Jewel Box (6 page)

“I knew I’d find you here.” He sat down beside her.

“Clever boy.”

“I have to talk to you, Gracie.” There was a breathiness in his voice. Had he been running or something?

“Couldn’t wait till tonight, eh?” They were going to a party, the four of them. It was to be their last evening out before the boys left for their regiment.

“No.”

She was contemplating the view. Her favorite view in all the world. The city laid wide open, spread out before her as if displaying itself just for her personal amusement. The fresh morning air smelled vaguely metallic. The scent would be gone in an hour or so—it would sweeten and ripen. She looked at George. He was nervous, she realized. Nervous of
her
.

“It’s like this, Grace.”

She tried to look into his face, but the sun was bright and she found she was squinting. He’d apparently run out of words. “We’re leaving on Monday.
Monday.
I almost can’t believe it.”

“Me neither.” Grace’s voice was small and quiet, belying the fact that inside her, everything was huge.

He looked so lost. She wanted to put her arm around him. Dare she put her arm around him?

“Grace…”

“Will you be together? In France, I mean. You and Steven?”

He frowned, as though she’d said something very odd. “We’ll be together at Wrexham. As to later on…Well, I don’t know.”

“I like to think of you together,” she said. “I can’t imagine you without each other. Buoying each other up. You must think about Nancy and me in that way, too.”

“Yes,” he said. And then, “Well, no, actually.”

“Really?” This was interesting. “You mean, you think of us
apart
from each other? Separated?”

“I think of
you
. Just you.”

She focused on the dome of St. Paul’s in the distance. Kept her gaze there, fixed on that dome, as her breath quickened.

“George? Are you saying…”

“You
know
what I’m saying. It’s how I’ve always felt about you. Always.”

She swallowed. Stiffened. “Say it then. Make it real.”

“I’m going away, Grace. And I can’t go away without knowing…” His voice trailed off.

“Say it. I can’t believe in it until I hear you say it.”

“Hello, you two.” A large person stood close by, partially blocking the sun.

“Mother.” Grace felt it all ebb away—the tension, the heat in her. “Where did you spring from?”

“Spring?”
Mrs. Rutherford gave a snort. “I’m not the ‘springing’ sort. Now, come and walk with me, both of you. George, dear, you can help me persuade my daughter that she should go to university, as planned. Did she tell you she’s thinking of passing up her place? No, I didn’t think so. Can you credit it, after all the battles fought by women like me so
that silly girls like her could get a decent education? She says she wants to do something ‘useful,’ and yet she didn’t even come with me to the big march about the Right to Serve. Neither she nor her sister. Honestly, these girls of mine…”

Grace watched George get to his feet. As he took her mother’s arm he shot her a look—a look full of
such
longing. A look that made her feel the bench might give way under her.

The party was a farewell dance, held at the home of the supremely wealthy Perry-Johnsons, in honor of their son Frederick, who was also heading off to a commission. No expense had been spared. A full dance orchestra was playing in the lacquered ballroom, where many a black tie, starched shirt, flouncy dress and uniform were spinning about, watched hawkishly or enviously by elder types seated at card tables on the fringes of the room, sipping punch. Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford, who preferred to spend their evenings reading in quiet companionship at home, were not present. As ever, their unchaperoned daughters were trusted to conduct themselves sensibly in the company of George and Steven. And as ever, the girls—one dark, one fair—were in the midst of the dancing throng but detached from the generality of the crowd: the switching of partners, the constant cutting-in. No boy would dare to cut in on the Rutherford girls when they were dancing with those redheaded Wilkins boys. That foursome was private, somehow, and had become increasingly untouchable over time. These days they cut in only on each other.

Spirits were high among the four. The laughter verged on hysteria. Their arms, thrown about necks and around waists, were tight and needy. Grace, dancing with George, marveled at the solidity of his body, the deftness of his steps. His hazel eyes had their usual tranquil quality, but she thrilled at her
newfound knowledge of what lay behind that tranquility. She wanted to be alone with him, and yet the postponing of that moment, the drawing-out of the day was in itself delicious. An instant later there was a deliberate collision. Nancy’s pretty mess of giggles and girlish blond curls were for a moment brushing against Grace’s face, before she found herself whirled away by the leaner, longer and more waspish Steven—who laughed and whispered something unintelligible in her ear, and then led her off, away from the dance floor, out through the French doors and into the humid green darkness of the gardens.

“I love this place,” said Grace. They were walking, arm in arm, between elegant trees—weeping willow, cedar and oak, the leaves rustling just slightly. Here and there were little clearings with statues of Greek gods at their center—or fountains, stilled for the night. “It has a quality. I can’t explain it.”

“It’s all silvery and magical,” said Steven. “Anything could happen out here. Don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

And then his mouth was on hers, and she was pressing her body to his—really pressing. She’d been kissed before—by other boys, by George, and even by Steven himself—but not like this. She could feel him, through their clothes, pressing against her—that bit of him that she wasn’t supposed to know about, but couldn’t ignore. Her mouth was open to his, their tongues working against each other. She could smell him, fresh and metallic, like the grass on the Heath that morning. His hands had been on her back, but now he was touching her breasts through the dress—and she was letting him do it. And then she thought she glimpsed someone standing among the trees, watching—and finally she broke away.

“Well, well.” Steven raked a hand through his hair, and
stood smiling, gazing openly at her body. “Who’d have thought it, after all this time? Was that my going-away present?”

Grace was looking about her—looking off, into the trees. If someone had been there at all, they’d gone. “I don’t understand,” she said eventually.

“What is there to understand? I wanted to kiss you. You wanted to kiss me.” His eyes were almost the same color as his brother’s, but without that tranquil quality. There was something animal about Steven’s eyes.

“But what about George? I thought…”

“You thought what?”

“I thought you’d decided between us, you and George. I thought…”

He frowned, but still appeared amused, beneath that frown. “Oh, Gracie. We’ve never been able to decide between you. Just as you’ve never been able to decide between us. That’s been our predicament for a long time now, hasn’t it?”

A breeze had whipped up out of nowhere. Grace shivered. “There’s something you don’t know.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” He made to put an arm around her again, but she drew away from him.

“I saw George today,” she said. “On Parliament Hill. He was trying to say something to me. He was trying to…”

“Trying to what? Propose to you?”

She felt herself blush, through the darkness.

“Well, that sly old—” he began.

“He didn’t actually propose,” Grace said quickly. “But he’d decided between us. He made that clear. Tonight, watching you dancing with Nancy, I thought perhaps you’d agreed something together.”

“Gracie, darling.” He pushed a stray few strands of her hair behind her ears. “We hadn’t agreed anything. If we had,
do you think I’d have been kissing you that way? Eh? Come here.”

They were kissing again. She couldn’t help herself—it was just too delicious. But when their mouths finally came apart, she blurted out, “What about Nancy?”

“What
about
her?” His arms were still tight around her. “Are you asking me whether I’d have kissed her like this?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Grace. I’d have kissed her too if she was out here instead of you. You’re beautiful girls, and you’re so alike and so different—and each of you is more special, more valuable, for the existence of the other one. Like a pair of paintings or vases or something. Any man in his right mind would want you both.”

“Let go of me!” She had started to struggle against his arms, and now she broke away. “You’re utterly immoral, Steven Wilkins. And you’re trying to say that George is the same way as you.”

He put his head to one side. “But so are
you
, Grace. Admit it to yourself. Where are you going?”

She’d started to stride off, twigs cracking beneath her feet—and he had to run to catch up with her.

“You’d never have kissed me if you weren’t going away. What a liberty!”

“But I
am
going away.” He drew alongside her. “And if you want me to choose you over your sister—if you want to be my sweetheart and send me perfumed letters and little locks of hair, and miss me and long for me—well, I couldn’t be more honored, Grace. And I’d miss you right back and long for you.”

“If you think I could
ever
long for
you
!” They’d arrived back at the house. Some men were standing about on the
terrace smoking cigars and drinking brandy. Among them was George.

“Hey, big brother,” Steven called.

“Excuse me.” Grace didn’t want to look at them—either of them. Stepping quickly through the French doors and into the dazzle of the ballroom, she cut a path straight through the dancers, and out into the hall.

Tears were blurring her vision as she blundered for the bathroom. She didn’t know what to think or believe anymore. She could barely begin to unscramble her own emotions. They were torrid—she knew this much. And probably horrid, too. Was she really so shallow?

“Grace!” The bathroom door opened to reveal Nancy, who immediately flung her arms around Grace and squeezed her in a tight embrace. “I have something to tell you—but don’t you
dare
tell Mummy and Daddy—”

“Oh, Nancy, listen…”

But Nancy was flushed and excited—too excited even to hear Grace. “George wants to marry me, Grace. It’s a secret for now but—oh my darling, isn’t it just the most fabulous news!”

Since my Paris trip last year (Oh, what a glorious heaven of fashion, food and frippery—can life ever be so brightly lit again?), you’ll recall that I have been searching in vain for a London café which serves really good patisserie. Actually, even
adequate
patisserie would be enough to bring a smile to this West-Ender’s wan little face on a damp spring morning. Well, fellow pastry devotees, I finally have news. A whisper reached me earlier this week of an establishment on Baker Street with the colorful name “the Morning Glory,” alleged to be serving croissants “as good as you’d get on the Rue de Rivoli.” What could I do but scuttle straight over with watering mouth?

It’s a funny little place, the Morning Glory. The light is a touch bright, the tables rather close together, and the cutlery—let’s be honest—not the cleanest. But the pastries—the
pastries
…Best of the selection I tried (and I
did
try a selec
tion, and fear that my hip bones may vanish henceforth beneath a layer of blubber) were some Danish concoctions. The croissants weren’t quite up to Right or Left Bank standards but did, at least, have Gallic aspirations. Also available were a startling array of egg dishes, served up by a truly fearsome woman with a mustache.

To nighttime: An almost-reliable rumor says Ben Bernie, the undisputed King of New York’s Dance Orchestras, is about to cross the pond for another short season at the Kit-Cat Club. You simply must go, whether you caught him last year or not. Nobody, but nobody, makes my feet fly like that man.

Now, indulge me a moment. Let me hurl myself upon your tender mercies. The fact is, I have had enough of being an Intelligent Woman. What’s the use of having a well-oiled brain in this great “modern” city of ours? One doesn’t get adequate recognition at the office even when one is constantly outdazzling the utter mediocrities one works with. Neither can one put this great organ to the purpose of registering one’s views in the election of a government until one begins one’s fourth decade (less than a year ago, in my case, so no voting yet). And perhaps most bruisingly, men—the sort of men one might like to receive a certain kind of attention from—simply want to talk.
Talk.
I’m witty, you see. I’m a woman of experience and culture, and they want my
views
on things: the latest hit theater play, the dinner at Tour Eiffel, the right way to wear a scarf or possibly what they should do to attract the dim girl they’re hopelessly in love with. What good is
conversation
, I ask you? If I was dull, they might be forced to find a more exciting way of passing their time with me.

That is all. Or, actually—no, it’s not.

Last week I was entertained briefly (very briefly, as it turned out) at the Savoy by a certain Devil-in-a-Dinner-Suit. Yes, for those of you who pay close attention to this column, I did pre
viously try to pretend that it was my sister, not me, who encountered this person. Apologies for misleading you, dear reader (my wrist is duly slapped), but a girl has to consider the small matter of her dignity. Anyway, said gentleman was called abruptly away from the Savoy, before the ice in our cocktails could so much as begin to melt (by the way, do try the White Lady, should you happen to stray into the Savoy’s American Bar), but promised that he would hunt me down via this newspaper. Reader, no missive has been received. Now, sir, I don’t take kindly to people who disturb my dignity unduly. If you don’t reveal yourself again posthaste, then I shall be the one doing the hunting down—and let me tell you, Devil, that my temper is as sharp as my bob!