The Jewel Box Read online

  A flicker of irritation. “It’s not all about the newspaper, you know, Grace.”

  “I know.” An awkward moment. It was best not to draw him out further. Grace chanced another little gaze across the room. Stulik was explaining the menu to the American in the greatest detail, then pointing out a few paintings by the better known of his art clientele. The man appeared interested, but as Stulik looked away he shot a glance directly at Grace.

  “Pig of a day.” Grace made herself look at Dickie, and only Dickie. “I handed in my notice.” She took a sip from her glass. “I say, you’re right about the wine. Very crisp.”

  “Did you?”

  “Well, I tried to. Pearson didn’t take me seriously, though. Aubrey Pearson, that is. And I suppose I didn’t take myself seriously either. I can’t afford to lose my job, not really. But they’re such dinosaurs, they drive one to distraction.”

  “So you’re always saying. Shall we both have the fish? They’ve lemon sole today. With new potatoes.”

  “Dickie, you have no idea what it’s like for a girl, working in a place like that. The men can do just whatever they like, so long as they get their copy written on time. But me—one hint of a laugh, one whiff of ciggie smoke and I’m for it. I’m supposed to be grateful to them, don’t you see? For letting me work there. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I was wondering…”

  Sedgwick chuckled. “You were wondering what it would be like to work at the Herald. D’you honestly think it’s any better on a newspaper? Do you think you’d be treated just like any other fellow? It’s the world we live in, my darling. But it’s getting better—slowly.” He nodded to the waiter. “Joe, two fish, please.”

  “Too slow for me.” Grace looked across the room without meaning to. The American was staring at his wristwatch, frowning…She dragged her attention back to Dickie’s freckled face—back to the matter in hand. “I’ve been thinking. What if Diamond were to start writing more than just her column? She could do book reviews, political comment, horoscopes even!”

  He shook his head. “It wouldn’t work.”

  “But why? Diamond is a huge success, you’re always saying so. Who else on your silly paper gets sacks of letters? Who else gets gossiped about by other newspapers? Do you know what Harold Grimes came up with yesterday in the Mail? He thinks Rebecca West is Diamond Sharp. Rebecca West!”

  “Man’s an idiot.” Dickie spoke under his breath, then cleared his throat. “Look. I couldn’t be more pleased with the way it’s all going. I can hardly believe it, to be truthful. But reading Diamond is like eating liquorice. You only want the tiniest bit.”

  A huff. “Well, I needn’t be Diamond all the time.”

  His hand came across the table to take hold of hers. Gently. “Grace, you are Diamond. All the time. You couldn’t be anyone else if you wanted to. I wouldn’t want you to be anyone else.”

  The American was looking over again. At her hand, held in Dickie’s.

  “Though sometimes I feel like Victor Frankenstein,” Dickie muttered.

  “Well, then.” She freed her hand. “I shall have to do what any right-thinking monster would, and demand that you double my fee.”

  “Now, now, Miss Sulky. You’d better watch out—that frown of yours is carving permanent lines in your forehead. Ages you by a good ten years, I’d say.”

  “Oh, Dickie, you’re so beastly! There’s simply no use in talking to you about anything serious.” She cast about in vain for their waiter. “Where’s Joe? We need some more wine.”

  The American was gone from his table.

  A bottle and a half later, Dickie and Grace hailed a taxi to Ciro’s on Orange Street. The rain had set in. Coupled with the darkness, it blurred the city. Grace gazed out of the window at bright shop fronts and the streaks of light reflected on the wet pavements. Figures scuttled beneath umbrellas or huddled together at bus stops, but for the most part London had gone home to bed.

  “Who the devil goes to a party on a Tuesday?” Dickie said. “It simply isn’t civilized. Whose party is it, anyway?”

  “I can’t remember.” Grace was vague as the wet night. “I’ve lost the invitation.”

  “Splendid. Now she tells me. And you could have mentioned it’s at Ciro’s. I’d assumed it was a little jazz party at someone’s house. I’d have changed my suit if I’d known. Put on a bow tie.”

  Grace opened her bag, drew out a black silk tie and passed it across. “Don’t fret. Diamond is always prepared for emergencies. And do cheer up—the invitation said champagne. It’s bound to be jolly.”

  Toying with the tie, Dickie started on a story about Ciro’s—another night, another party—but Grace had stopped listening; awed, as always, by Piccadilly Circus at night. Here was the Big New World that left the likes of Pearson & Pearson lagging far behind in the gentle past. The Circus, most famous convergence point of London’s great thoroughfares, was illuminated now by huge bold brand names picked out in colored lights. London County Council’s strenuous efforts to legislate against these advertisements had succeeded only in strengthening the determination of retailers to cash in on their location. Down at ground level, however, all was shabby, temporary and makeshift during the construction of an enormous new Underground station. The seminal statue of Eros had been removed while the works were in progress, and at first it had seemed that the Circus’s soul had gone with it. By now, though, Eros had been gone for so long that Grace could barely remember what it looked like. The soul of Piccadilly seemed instead to inhabit the new adverts. While ostensibly they yelled “Schweppes,” “Bovril,” “Gordon’s Gin,” they might really have been shouting, “I Am London. I Am the Future.”

  Tonight the rain was so heavy that the spectacle appeared smeary and dreamlike. Raindrops, lit in bright colors, ran ceaselessly across the window, so that it appeared to Grace as if the Circus was crying. Through the tears she glimpsed the dry interiors of other taxis carrying girls with laughing mouths, tired ladies in hats, young men with a look of hunter or hunted. The insides of other motorcars like tiny, complete worlds. And she, with Dickie, in their own little world, drifting through it all in a kind of trance…

  Until a taxi pulled momentarily alongside theirs, and she saw someone in profile. A clean jaw, a Roman nose…

  “It’s that man!”

  “What man? What are you talking about?”

  “Oh.” The other taxi had turned right. It had been the most fleeting of glimpses. Had it really been the American? Or was it just that she was still thinking about him, somewhere behind it all?

  “Grace?”

  “It’s nothing. Look, we’re here. Let me help you with that tie.”

  Double doors opened to reveal Ciro’s famous glass dance floor like a sheet of ice, over which the dancers appeared to skate. Jean Lensen and his Ciro’s Club Dance Orchestra were in full swing. White suits, slicked-down hair, gleaming brass. The air was smoky and heady with the mingled perfume of a great many women, undercut by a bitter edge of perspiration.

  “No wonder the streets were empty,” Grace muttered. “Everyone’s in here.” And indeed it did feel as though every fashionable man and woman in London was collected here under one roof. Vivacious flappers rattling with beads and rhinestones, gazellelike women in silks and feather plumes, immaculate men in dress shirts.

  “Well, you were right about the champagne,” said Dickie. Waiters threaded back and forth, bearing trays laden with glasses. He lifted one for Grace and one for himself. “Look over there.”

  By the long bar stood a precarious pyramid of glasses. A barman mounted a stepladder and proceeded to pour from the largest champagne bottle Grace had ever seen. Glittering liquid flowed and frothed its way down the pyramid, filling the glasses in a Möet et Chandon fountain, while nearby onlookers applauded.

  Dickie, who was clearly still feeling underdressed and underconfident, brightened when someone called out to him. Grace recognized Ronnie Hazelton from the Times, along with a group of tiresome cronie
s. Still getting her measure of the room, and wanting to explore further, she made as if to follow Dickie but then slipped off through the crowd.

  Farther away from the dance floor, seated at tables and, for the most part, talking intently, was a less shiny bunch of people: balding gray men with spectacles, squat little men with beards. Book people, thought Grace, spotting Samuel Woolton, the well-known publisher who’d just set up his own company. Editors, novelists, poets, hiding behind all the pretty boys and girls with titles and private incomes who liked to play at having a job. This must be a literary party—well, notionally anyway.

  “Dried off now, I see.” He was standing right behind her. Too close.

  “Have you been following me?” She spoke without turning around, directing her gaze out at the dance floor. A spotlight was on one of the trumpeters, as he launched into a flashy solo.

  “I was going to ask you the same question.”

  She turned to face him, and as she looked at him something flickered in her stomach and made her want to giggle. An excited girlish giggle—the sort of giggle which she absolutely mustn’t give in to.

  He was such a broad person—those shoulders, that neck. There was an overwhelming maleness to him. She wanted to know how it would feel to dance with him—to feel the large hands resting heavy on her shoulders, her back.

  “Come, now.” She wagged a finger at him. “Confess.”

  He smiled. “I saw you come in with your friend fifteen minutes ago. I’ve been here two hours.”

  “Rubbish! Your taxi pulled alongside ours on Regent Street.”

  A raised eyebrow. “How flattering. I’ve obviously made quite an impression on you.”

  “Well, I think you left a bruise on my foot earlier, if that’s what you mean by an impression.”

  He took the empty champagne glass from her hand, replacing it with a filled one. “What I mean,” he said, “is that when you’re thinking about someone—when you can’t get them out of your mind—you see them everywhere.”

  Grace allowed herself a chuckle. He was the sort who used verbal combat as a seduction technique. “Thirty-eight,” she said, looking him up and down.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Years old. Or maybe forty. And divorced. It’s the done thing in America, isn’t it? You might even be divorced twice.”

  Now he was the one to laugh. “I suppose I deserved that, Miss…”

  “You can call me Sapphire.”

  “Can I now?” He reached out to clink glasses with her.

  “And you? Who are you?”

  “Me?” He shrugged. “I’m a typical Irishman. Full of blarney.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That accent is about the least Irish I’ve ever heard. I suppose you have a great-grandfather from Skibbereen or Ballydehob or something. Isn’t it enough to be American?”

  She didn’t know quite how it came about—it was hot and she was a little dizzy—but his right hand was against her cheek now. Just resting there, holding her face so that she couldn’t but look into his pale, humorous eyes. “I guess I enjoy a little romance,” he said. “Don’t you?”

  It was almost 4:00 a.m. when the taxi pulled up at the end of Tofts Walk, Hampstead. As Grace got out, her right heel stuck in a manhole cover. Muttering words which would have caused consternation at Pearson’s, she righted herself, paid the driver and half limped her way up the steep slope to number 9—a Victorian terraced house of the thin, tapering sort. She was still fussing with her keys, trying to open the stiff door without making too much noise, when it was opened from the inside by a man she’d never seen before. A tall man in tweed with glossy brown hair and a mustache. Disconcertingly good-looking. Good-looking enough so that the important question of why a complete stranger should be answering her door in the middle of the night was overtaken by Grace’s anxieties over whether her makeup was a fright and whether she was drunk to an extent that was ugly or merely garrulous.

  “Miss Rutherford?” He was American. Another one. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up, showing tanned, sinewy forearms. He stood back to let her by. The tight space in the hallway forced her to brush against him.

  “I’m sorry, but…”

  “John Cramer.” He put his hand out to shake hers. Strong grip. Soft voice. “I live just across the road. I came over to help out.”

  Sobriety returned in a rush—and panic. “Where’s Nancy? And my mother? Where’s she?” She threw her jacket over the coat stand and opened the door to the lounge. The lights were all on. At 4:00 A.M.

  “Your mother’s gone to bed. Your sister’s sitting with the baby.”

  Grace wheeled around. “What’s going on?”

  “Felix is unwell,” said the man. “He’s sleeping now, but the doctor said he shouldn’t be left alone.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Can I get you a hot drink?”

  “No, thanks. Excuse me.” Felix. As she made for the stairs, her head was filled with awful thoughts. Her beautiful little nephew—her golden boy…

  “Wait a second,” called the man, from the bottom of the stairs.

  As Grace reached the landing, Felix’s door opened and Nancy slipped out, a finger to her lips. Her eyes were red and puffy, her thick blond hair hanging in rat’s tails.

  “I’m so glad you’re home.” Her voice was tired and strained. “I’ve missed you so.”

  “Come here.” Grace opened her arms and folded her little sister in. Nancy was smaller than Grace. She allowed herself to be held tight, her head inclined so that it tucked under Grace’s chin. They had always held each other in this way, for as long as either could remember. Grace stroked Nancy’s hair, smoothing it behind her ear. “Now, tell me what’s happened.”

  “He had a fever. I thought it was just the teething—you know how he gets. I let Edna go home at the usual time after the children’s dinner.” She pulled herself free of Grace, so she could face her. “But after she’d left, he was very sick. His forehead was burning and he was pouring sweat. I gave him a cool bath, but that didn’t seem to help. I was so worried, Grace. Poor little Tilly—she had to put herself to bed, pretty much. No stories, no cuddles. Mummy was out, too, you see—at her bridge night. Tilly was such a lamb…And then Felix started going all limp.”

  “Why didn’t you ring me at the office?” Grace wanted to shake Nancy—had to work hard not to. “You should have called me as soon as the fever started. I’d have come straight home, you know I would.”

  “I did try to ring you but there was something wrong with the telephone. Then—this was so dreadful—Felix had a sort of fit. I’d left him on the couch for a moment, and there was a bang. I rushed in, of course, and he’d fallen to the floor and was thrashing about and shaking and I couldn’t rouse him. It was so frightening, Grace.”

  “I’m sure it was. How long did it go on for?”

  “I suppose it was only a minute or two but it felt like an age.” Nancy’s pupils had dilated, and she was trembling. “When it was over, I picked him up in my arms and ran across the road to bang on John’s door. He was wonderful. He telephoned for the doctor, and then he came over and helped me put Felix to bed. And he’s stayed all evening—all night, I suppose. Even after Mummy got home, he insisted on staying on to wait for you.”

  “So what did the doctor say?” A nerve was twitching in Grace’s face. The thought of little Felix fitting on the floor was just too awful. “How’s Felix now?”

  “He said the fit was probably caused by the fever. The temperature had already dropped a bit by the time he got here, and he thought Felix was over the worst of it. But he said we should keep him cool and give him water if he wakes and watch him till the morning just to be sure. He’s going to come back tomorrow.”

  “Right.” Grace realized her hands were clenched into fists. She had to make an effort to loosen them.

  There was a creak below. Cramer, the neighbor, was climbing the stairs, bearing two cups of cocoa. “Here. I wasn’t sure whether to sugar them, but still…”


  “Thank you.” Grace took her cup. Nancy appeared oddly bashful as she took hers. Coquettish, even. She’d referred to him as “John.”…

  “Would you like me to stay on and sit with Felix?” he asked. “I probably won’t manage to sleep now anyway. Insomnia has its uses, so feel free to take advantage.”

  Grace felt the heat in her face even as she glanced at Nancy and saw her cheeks flush pink. “Thank you, Mr. Cramer,” she said, with an effort. “You’re very kind. But I’m quite happy to sit with Felix.”

  A shrug and a smile. “Well, if you’re sure.” His eyes were brown but very dark. Deliciously murky.

  The rising sun forced its way through Felix’s flimsy curtains, casting a pale glow over his sleeping face. At eleven months old, he was turning from baby to little boy—not quite one or the other. This moment of transition had rendered him especially vulnerable, and especially beautiful. Fluffy golden-duckling hair haloed around his head. His eyes—deep blue when open—were closed now, and fringed with long, thick lashes. The breath came softly from his pink lips, slightly open. His face was cool, the fever gone, and Grace could safely have left him alone—but still she sat on, watching over him, so relieved he was all right that she couldn’t quite tear herself away from him. Not yet.

  People often said Felix looked the image of Nancy. But they hadn’t seen the photographs of Grace as a child, before her hair turned dark. On closer examination Felix’s features were much more like his aunt’s than his mother’s. He had Grace’s eyes, Grace’s mischievous smile, Grace’s pale, almost-transparent skin. It was Felix’s four-year-old sister Tilly who resembled Nancy more—with her doll-like face, cute turned-up nose and dimpled cheeks.

  Felix lay on his side, with one hand up by his face, the fingers gently curled. Deliciously pudgy little fingers. The other arm was down by his side. Watching him, listening to his breathing and to the dawn chorus outside, Grace thought there was nowhere in the world she would rather be than here. Sitting by her boy. She allowed herself to think of him in that way—as her boy—without feeling it was disloyal to her sister. It was Grace who had looked after Nancy while she was pregnant with Felix—Grace who helped her to go on after the death of her husband, George. Grace had been there at the protracted, almost-disastrous birth, rubbing the small of Nancy’s back, holding her up. Holding her together. More often than not, these days, it was Grace who got up when Felix cried at night. With Daddy and George both dead there were no men left at 9 Tofts Walk. Nancy was fragile, struggling to cope with the demands of motherhood. And Catherine, their mother, was eccentric and impractical—full of theories about how the world should function without the least idea of how even her own household did. So it was Grace, inevitably, who had to step up and become the head of the family. Grace was Felix’s substitute father.