The Jewel Box (36 page)

Grace was back at the Register Office on that crisp winter day, years ago. Standing with her mother, widows together, watching her sister, the war bride, marrying George.

“I’m sorry, Nancy. I couldn’t be happier for you, but I’m still going. It’s as you say—I have to start putting myself first.”

A frown appeared on that oh-so-clear brow. A look of suspicion. “Are you jealous? Is that what this is?”

“No.”

“You
are
. You’re jealous. I know that face! My God, Grace. You had your chance with him. Do you really begrudge me your leavings? Do you begrudge
him
happiness?”

A shake of the head. A great welling up.

“You didn’t want him, Grace.”

She couldn’t hold it back any longer. “That’s not true! I was confused at first—O’Connell made it all confusing—but then I realized it was
him
I was in love with, not O’Connell. He asked
me
to go to Paris, Nancy. He asked me
first
. I said no because of you. Because he’s yours. And now…Well…I can’t be around you both. Just can’t!”

“Oh,
Grace!
This is so
silly
.”

But Grace was rushing for the door, bolting back out into the restaurant, and colliding with Dickie, who’d just arrived at the top of the stairs.

“Hey.” He grabbed her to steady her, and looked down at her quizzically. He was so much smarter than usual today. Debonair, even. His hair had been newly cut. His suit was crisply pressed, and he was altogether more handsome than he’d ever been. His very
eyes
were more handsome.

He let go of Grace now, and looked past her to address someone else. “Hello, my love. Did I miss our big moment?”

Grace glanced from Dickie to Nancy and back, and something dark that had sat inside her for a long time shifted out of its hiding place and scuttled away. It was the nastiest, blackest thing—something like a spider, but heavy, so heavy. It had squatted inside her for years. Perhaps since that night in 1915 when she’d kissed Steven Wilkins and Nancy had become engaged to George. And now, finally, this dark thing had upped and left, and Grace felt lighter than air.

When
they finally got on with lunch, Grace sat back with the almost inedible jugged hare that was brought from the kitchen, and let the whirlwind romance take center stage.

Nancy kept shaking her head and saying, “Grace, I thought you’d guessed about Dickie and me, I really did.”

“I suppose I have Dexter O’Connell and John Cramer to thank.” Dickie was ebullient. “You might say it was their little spat at the
Herald
party that finally brought us together. We took the inebriated Cramer home and put him to bed. And then we sat in his kitchen with cups of tea and some damn fine chocolate cake that we’d stumbled on, and we just talked and talked for the rest of the night. It was quite magical.”

“I know it all seems rather rushed,” said Nancy. “But it’s so right. And we’ve known each other for years, after all. There’s simply no point in wasting any more time.”

With dessert came Dickie’s farewell speech to Grace. The story of Diamond Sharp.

Just over a year ago, he told his audience, he’d telephoned Grace one morning to cancel a lunch. One of his writers had gone AWOL without delivering his copy, and Dickie explained to Grace that he would have to sit down and write the article himself, in addition to everything else he had to do that day, or there’d be an empty page in the
Herald
when they went to press.

“Don’t you
dare
cancel our lunch!” Grace had replied. “Get on with your piffling bit of editing, and
I’ll
write you something.”

He’d laughed. “Just what would you write about then, Gracie?”

“The first damn thing that comes into my head, that’s what. And I promise you’ll like it.”

Dickie smiled at the faces around the table. “If I’d had an ounce of common sense, I’d have told her not to be ridiculous. She’d never written anything for a newspaper before. Well, nothing but advertising copy. It was foolhardy, at best.”

“But you took a risk,” said Margaret. “Why did you take the risk?”

“Because I’m absolutely terrified of her!”

Amid the laughter that followed, Grace flapped a hand at him. “Dickie, for God’s sake, call a halt to this obituary and get the bill.”

Afterward, Grace and Nancy caught the bus up to Hampstead.

“The children will be so happy to see you,” said Nancy.

“And I them. I was so sad not to catch them when I came by the other day. But there’s someone else I have to see first.”

“Of course. What chumps we’ve been. If only you’d listened to me when I said there was nothing between us.”

Grace shook her head. “It’s strange. I was so convinced. I thought I knew you well enough to be able to see past what you were saying.”

“Well…” A shrug. “You weren’t entirely wrong. I suppose I was attracted to him in the beginning, just a little. But that wore off pretty quickly. Whether he felt the same or not, I don’t know. He certainly never said so, and nothing ever happened between us. We shared our grief and that was a good thing for both of us. It bound us together as friends. That’s the whole story.”

They were quiet for a moment, watching people getting on and off the bus. Then Nancy piped up again. “You know, John told me he’d met someone. He mentioned it in Paris—said he thought he was falling for a girl for the first time in years but that she was in love with someone else. If
only
he’d told me it was you! Believe it or not, I’d actually been hoping there was a chance the two of you would get together. That O’Connell was such a nuisance—I’m so glad that’s all over. John is perfect for you.”

“It’s just as you and Dickie were saying,” said Grace. “There’s no point in wasting any more time.”

Cramer’s house was locked and lifeless. Grace, pounding the knocker, stamped a foot in frustration. Nancy had told her he was always in at this time, working. So why not today?

“Here.” Nancy was coming across the road from the Rutherfords’, a set of keys dangling from her hand. “He has me keep a spare set in case of being locked out. Shall we have a peep inside?”

The house was much like their own. Tall and thin; a little dark in the back rooms. Creakingly old. But it was different from theirs. Tidier, more formal. The furniture looked somehow too small for the rooms.

“It’s not really a
home
, is it?” It was Nancy who spoke, but Grace had just been thinking the same.

“It’s strange to imagine him rattling around this place,” said Grace. “It’s all wrong for him. Much too big for someone on their own.”

They had wandered into the living room. The chairs were a grim, grayish green. The couch looked hard and unwelcoming. On the mantelpiece was a photograph of a girl with big, dark eyes and curly, bobbed hair. She was sitting cross-legged in a field of wildflowers, and wore a daisy chain on her head. She was laughing.

“This has to be Eva.” Grace took the picture down to examine it more closely. To Eva’s left, at the very edge of the photo, lay something that might have been a picnic basket. Could this photograph have been taken on that very first day when Eva, O’Connell and John went for that picnic, the three of them together? Grace wondered which of them had taken it.

“Such a shame, what happened to that girl.” Nancy was close behind her, peering over her shoulder at the picture. “When I last saw John, a few days ago, he told me he thought he’d finally let the past go.” Then, with emphasis: “We should all do that, Grace.”

Grace turned and gazed into the fireplace, worried about what her eyes might reveal. Something had suddenly crystallized in her mind. Nancy knew about her affair with George. Perhaps she had always known.

She said, quietly: “I do love you, Nancy.”

“I know.”

A loud knock on the front door that startled them both.

“Can’t be him,” whispered Nancy. “He’d have his key. Shall we ignore it?”

Grace was still staring into the grate, at the mess of ash and charred paper that was heaped up there. Great wads of the stuff.

“What’s he doing, having fires in this weather?” said Nancy.

“I think he had something he wanted to burn.”

Another knock on the door.

“What do you think it was?” asked Nancy.

Picking up the poker, Grace prodded at the ash. Fragments of soot-blackened paper broke into even smaller pieces. Typewritten words were visible here and there.

A third knock.

“The past,” said Grace. And Nancy headed out to answer the door.

As they came into the room, all noise and color, they seemed to bring the sunlight in with them. Tilly had one of her grandmother’s hats on her head and her mother’s seed pearls wrapped several times around her neck. She was brandishing a feather duster and muttering, in a teacherly tone: “What are the consequences? The consequences of the consequences. Hello, Auntie Grace.”

Catherine was carrying Felix, his face covered in jam, and complaining about her back. Once she’d set him down, he was straightaway across the room, crawling at speed to his aunt. Pulling himself up against her legs and bleating to be cuddled.

“You’re bizarre, Felix,” said Tilly, in her grandest manner. “You’re so bizarre.” And then ran for a cuddle herself.

“Spotted the two of you through the window,” said Catherine. “Thought I’d wait for you to come across to the house but you were taking
such
an age.” She held out an envelope to Nancy. “This came through the letter box earlier.”

Nancy frowned as she took it. “Mummy! You’ve already opened it!”

Felix was wiping jam on Grace’s shoulder. Tilly was announcing: “Felix is a bad boy and I’m cross of the consequences.”

Catherine was saying, “I forgot to mention to you yesterday, dear, that final column of yours was not at all bad. Not at
all
bad.”

“Grace.” Nancy held out the letter she’d been reading. “Look at this.”

Dear Nancy,

I’m sorry not to be saying good-bye in person, but I saw you going out earlier and I’m afraid I can’t wait for your return. This has all come about rather suddenly. The fact is, I’m going back to New York.

You’ll understand, from this, that it hasn’t worked out between me and that girl I was telling you about. But no matter. Good things are happening to me all the same. I’m not running away. Not this time. This girl, she’s been good for me even if it never really got off the ground. There’s been a kind of sparkle inside me lately, a quickening of the pulse. Something I haven’t felt in years and thought I might never feel again. It’s helped me to exorcise certain ghosts. Funny
how things turn out. Help can come from the most unexpected places and people.

I’ve been running around the globe for far too long, and Betsy needs her father. She’s always needed me but I’ve been too preoccupied to see that. I’ve told myself she’s better off living with my parents, but it just isn’t true. We belong to each other.

This is all rather sudden, of course, but it’s the right decision. What’s the point in hanging around once you’ve made your mind up? I’ve got a berth on a boat that sails from Southampton tonight. It’s time to go home to my little girl.

You’ve been a wonderful friend to me, Nancy. You’ve taught me a lot—you and your lovely family. I hope I haven’t inadvertently misled you. I’ve always felt that we understood each other pretty well. I will continue to think fondly of you and I wish you every happiness in the future. I hope we’ll meet again.

I’ve written to my landlord and Mrs. Collins and have paid them up to the end of next month. Would you mind looking in at the house every so often until then, just to check that everything’s all right? I’d be most grateful. I’ll wire you when I arrive.

Love to Tilly and Felix,

As
the taxi drove past the register office, Grace blew out a perfect smoke ring. The cigarette between her fingers was marked with the red imprint of her lips.

“Waterloo, eh?” said the cabbie. “You catching a train or meeting someone?”

“Both, I hope.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “Catching a train,
then
meeting someone.”

It had all happened so quickly. She’d been standing there, holding the note limply in her outstretched hand, when they’d started bustling about her, practically shoving her out of the door and across the road to the Rutherford house.

“Get a move on, Grace.” Nancy went darting about, chucking things in a bag. “You’ve no time to waste.”

“What are you talking about? He’s gone.”

“Not till tonight,” Nancy said. “You can catch him at Southampton. You can stop him from getting on that boat.”

“Or else get on it with him,” added Catherine.

“You’re mad, the pair of you. It’s too late.” Her heart was thudding at the very thought of it.

“For goodness’ sake,” said Catherine. “What do you have to lose by trying?”

“It’s not
losing
that frightens her,” said Nancy. “My chump of a sister is scared that she might actually get what she’s always wanted.”

“Please!” Grace dropped the letter and put her head in her hands.

“You’re not
meant
to be a spinster,” said Nancy. “That’s not who you are. Oh, Mummy,
tell
her.”

Catherine put her hands on her hips. “Grace Rutherford, I did not bring you up to be lily-livered. Cowardice is something we do not tolerate in this house. Now, pull yourself together and get a wriggle on.”

Tilly wagged a finger. “The consequences of the consequences are the consequences.”

“Is it your fella? Is that who you’re meeting?”

“Perhaps.” Another smoke ring.

“Hope he’s a good’un,” said the driver. “Hope he treats you like he should. There’s a lot of bad’uns about.”

“I know.” Down into Bloomsbury they went, passing smart, leafy squares.