Paper Doll
Authors: Janet Woods
| Paper Doll |
| Janet Woods |
| Severn House Publishers Ltd (2012) |
A moving romance set in the 1920s—Julia Howard is a perfect daughter to her father, a now-bankrupt toy manufacturer who created a paper doll in her image. Julia longs for freedom, but marries wealthy businessman Latham Miller to please her father. Latham soon proves possessive and controlling, and when Julia is reacquainted with troubled war hero Martin Lee-Trafford, the attraction between them grows to love. But when Julia gives birth to a child, she faces a heart-wrenching decision—for if she runs away with Martin, she'll be forced to leave her beloved son with Latham.
Table of Contents
Recent Titles by Janet Woods from Severn House
AMARANTH MOON
BROKEN JOURNEY
CINNAMON SKY
THE COAL GATHERER
EDGE OF REGRET
HEARTS OF GOLD
MORE THAN A PROMISE
PAPER DOLL
SALTING THE WOUND
THE STONECUTTER’S DAUGHTER
STRAW IN THE WIND
WITHOUT REPROACH
The author invites comment from readers
via her website:
or by post:
PO Box 2099
Kardinya 6163
Western Australia
Janet Woods
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First world edition published 2010
in Great Britain and in 2011 in the USA by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
Copyright © 2010 by Janet Woods.
All rights reserved.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Woods, Janet, 1939–
Paper doll.
1. Fathers and daughters – Fiction. 2. Adultery – Fiction.
3. Nineteen twenties – Fiction. 4. Love stories.
I. Title
823.9'2-dc22
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-333-4 (ePub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6970-8 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-300-7 (trade paper)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
Congratulations to the Romantic Novelists’ Association
on their 50th birthday
1921 London.
R
osie the paper doll had been one of the Howard Toy Factory’s best sellers for the past eleven years. The doll had been a gift for Julia Howard’s tenth birthday. Her father had created the doll in his daughter’s image and she’d been given the task of naming her, a task which had afforded her many hours of thought and pleasure before she’d decided on her maternal grandmother’s name of Rosie – something that had pleased the old lady before she’d passed on.
The latest and final doll had been released on to the market four months previously, when Julia had turned twenty-one. They’d had a party in the factory, with sherry and sandwiches for the employees, which had been rather jolly. After that was a dinner party at home, with a mixture of her father’s friends and her own in attendance. Her best friend, Irene Curruthers, had rather shocked people by playing the vamp. Posing on the piano in a pair of silk lounging pyjamas, she’d held a gasper in a long black holder and had made eyes at all the men, including the hired pianist.
Irene could be an absolute scream at times, Julia thought with a grin.
Irene had taken an interest in the Rolls belonging to Latham Miller, who was a friend of Julia’s father – a rather odd friend she’d always thought because her father was almost ready to retire whilst Latham was in his forties, and considerably younger.
Julia had to admit that Latham was attractive in a saturnine sort of way, with the grey edging into his dark hair at the temples. There was something rather deliberate and forbidding about him. He’d always been polite when they met, and, unexpectedly, he’d given her a brooch for her birthday. Although it had been sweet of him, she’d been obliged to protest at the expense and had tried to return it.
‘Good grief, you silly girl! The trinket cost next to nothing,’ he’d said, and had laughed it off, which had made her feel like a fool and left her thinking that the stones, though mounted in silver and gold, were reasonably small and were probably paste.
Latham had taken Irene outside to show her how to drive his Rolls, and they’d gone off together with her at the wheel. Irene had looked a little self-conscious and crumpled when they’d returned.
‘Latham gave me a driving lesson,’ she’d said loudly, and Julia didn’t understand why she’d sounded so embarrassed about it until one or two people had sniggered.
The Rosie doll was now thoroughly modern. Like Julia, she was slim-hipped and small-breasted, and her boyish cardboard form was dressed daringly in feminine peach-coloured combinations edged with lace.
Rosie’s hair had also changed along with that of Julia’s. From dark ringlets with ribbons the pair had progressed to the latest hennaed bob, a colour that suited the clear green of her eyes. Sales of the doll were slow though, even through the lead-up to Christmas.
‘The economy hasn’t recovered from the slowdown during the war and exports are still down,’ her father had said, and he’d looked so worn out that she couldn’t bear it, and had hugged him.
‘But we’ll be all right won’t we, Daddy darling? I mean . . . we have money in the bank and property, and there are the jewels my mother left me. If need be I can sell those.’ The thought of her mother, who’d died in the first wave of the flu epidemic when Julia was eighteen, saddened her. ‘I don’t think I could tolerate being poor, especially when I remember Mrs Brewster, who has a husband who was gassed in the trenches to look after, as well as two children. She looks so old and worn out, though she’s not much older than me.’
‘Yes, she does. But she’s a good woman who never complains about her lot in life; I’ll say that for her.’
‘I could look for work, too. Perhaps I could train to be a secretary or a nurse, so you wouldn’t have to pay me an allowance. That would help, wouldn’t it?’
Her father had smiled at that. ‘My darling girl, I need you to run my household. Besides, you practically faint at the sight of blood, so what sort of nurse would you make?’
‘Not a very good one, I imagine. I could learn to use one of those typewriting machines I expect, though. My spelling is good and it doesn’t look too hard. All you have to do is press the key with a letter on it, like playing the piano.’
‘Of course you can learn how to use one, dear. A girl should always have a skill to fall back on. I’ll buy you a typewriter and you can enrol on a course. However, we’re better off than most people, and things will improve before too long, so I don’t think you need to sacrifice your allowance.’
‘Oh, good,’ she said with some relief, because she’d heard that wages for women were low.
The typewriter had arrived in due course, along with a box of ribbons. Her hands had got covered in ink putting the ribbon in position, but then she’d been too busy to try it and had put the machine in a cupboard, telling herself that she’d start the course.
Her intentions had come to nought though. When the time came the course had been full and the woman in charge of it had gazed with disapproval at her for some reason. ‘It’s not a hobby. The course is designed for girls and widows who need to support themselves, and who are training for a career. There’s a waiting list. You may register and I’ll notify you when, or if, there’s a vacancy.’ She gazed at the application form. ‘You’ve never worked, it says here.’
‘Well, not for money, of course. I’m good at organizing though; everyone says so. I’ve sat on committees, helped to arrange dinners and balls to raise money for various charities . . . and I run the house for my father.’
The woman had looked so stern that Julia felt guilty and had shelved the idea of becoming a typist for the time being. When notification of a place on the course had arrived the timing turned out to be inconvenient and she couldn’t take advantage of it, for she’d have had to cancel several long-standing engagements.
Right now though, she hoped sales of the Rosie doll would pick up. Julia had designed the fashions for the paper doll’s coming of age. Rosie would go through the final year of production in tubular dresses with real beads, a coat with fur collars and muffs to match and the latest cloche hats. To finish her wardrobe off was a beautiful calf-length wedding gown made of paper lace. It had a sweet little veil of real chiffon attached to a beaded band that fitted around her forehead.
Julia gazed at her father and smiled. ‘Rosie’s a bride without a groom. We shall have to design a hero husband for her . . . a returned soldier perhaps.’
Benjamin Howard shrugged at the thought. ‘I’m in no hurry for you to wed, my dear. Besides, people want to forget the war. I had high hopes for you and Dickie Henderson. He was a fine lad with prospects. Damned shame, really. What an appalling loss of life the war was.’
‘Poor Dickie, they never found his body.’ She shuddered at the thought that he might be ground into the Flanders mud. Her late fiancé seemed remote from her now, unless she wore the diamond ring he’d given her. She avoided thinking about him if she could. As Dickie would have said, Life goes on, old thing, it’s no good moping. ‘Dickie was such a good sport, and such fun to be with, and the same with Nigel Devison and Willie Carpenter, though I never thought Willie would be a hero, not with his stammer. He was awfully shy, you know.’
‘Only around you. I think the fellow was in love with you.’
She laughed. ‘You think everyone is in love with me. Men are in short supply now, and if you want grandchildren to inherit the factory and your estate I shall have to find someone to marry me and father them before it’s too late. Goodness, all the eligible men are being snared as swiftly as possible, and there are a suspicious number of babies being born, supposedly premature.’
‘You won’t do that, will you, my dear?’
‘Do what?’
‘Get yourself into a spot of bother. Men don’t respect fast women, especially if they’re tricked into marriage by them.’ A look of embarrassment stole over his face. ‘I’m only saying this because you haven’t got a mother to tell you these things.’
Julia felt her face grow pink. ‘Good gracious, how can you think such a thing? Mummy and I had a good chat about the birds and the bees when I was sixteen. And before she died, Grandmother Howard gave me a lecture on becoming a woman.’ Her grandmother, sweet old thing, had been frightfully stern and prudish. She’d said the marital union was something women had to put up with if they wanted children, and that they didn’t actually enjoy it, even though men frequently indulged the wicked side of themselves with their wives.
