The Jewel Box Read online

  “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!”

  Piccadilly Herald

  The West-Ender

  April 18, 1927

  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 selection, 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 previously 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!

  Diamond Sharp

  Four

  It was Sunday morning, presuma
bly. 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.”