The Jewel Box Page 9

  It was good to be an automaton, working hard and with no time for moping about. But the other women, all of whom came from less-privileged backgrounds, looked on her with an odd mixture of awe and contempt. Unable to comprehend why someone of Grace’s means should have chosen to work alongside them, handling the TNT that caused jaundice and led to them being nicknamed “Canary Girls” rather than taking an easier, loftier sort of job, they treated her with suspicion, and kept away from her. The only other well-to-do type was the Welfare Supervisor, whom Grace quickly realized had landed her senior role purely as an accident of birth. This woman’s personal style was to attempt to conceal her incompetence and inarticulacy beneath a façade of refined delicacy—rather as one might disguise an ugly mess in the corner of a room by throwing a lace cloth over it. The supervisor, Emily, made friendly but condescending overtures to Grace—her particular brand of friendliness being far more objectionable than the mild hostility of the other women. More intolerable still were Emily’s whispers of a plan to elevate Grace “off the production line” to work alongside her.

  “It was always a silly idea,” said Harold. “Such a waste of a good brain. You should give it up and go back to university. If you’re bothered about doing your bit, you could do something voluntary like your mother and sister.” Nancy, who had taken an office job by day, was fund-raising for war-widowed families in dire financial straits. Catherine, along with many others in the WSPU, had joined the Women’s Police Service, and spent her evenings patrolling the Heath in a uniform, giving wayward girls a jolly good talking-to, and routing out the couples with a big stick.

  In the end, it was a second family tragedy that made Grace give up her factory work, though not to go back to university. In February 1917, Harold died of influenza, plunging the family into a profound state of shock that lasted way beyond the funeral. Through the period of acute loss, each of them tried and failed to stifle a private realization that persistently nagged: that bronchial Harold had been quietly ill for ages, and none of them had so much as acknowledged it, he least of all. With so much war bereavement going on around them, they’d lost track of the fact that they were vulnerable at home, too. For a while the household was the proverbial chicken that continues to run about after its head has been cut off. Grace and Nancy went out to work as before, and Catherine continued to tread her beat. But the fires were not lit in the evening because Harold had always been the one to light them. Nobody considered what tasks might be left undone because Daddy wasn’t there to do them, nor what further tasks might need to be tackled as a result of his death. Nobody so much as entered his study.

  Chance dictated that it was Grace who happened to be at home on the day when the maid awkwardly announced that while she understood the family were having a hard time, so was she without her weekly wages. It was Grace who answered the door when the milkman stopped by to say he would have to stop delivering if they didn’t settle on the spot. It was Grace who took the telephone call from the family solicitor who wanted to know what the devil was happening about Harold’s affairs. And so Grace was the one to finally sit down in the dusty study and start searching through files.

  The factory work had been a sort of game, she realized. She’d been motivated primarily by a sense of duty and patriotism, but she now saw that her first duty was to her family. Catherine might be presenting a cheerful coping exterior but Grace could see beyond that. Mummy was in a kind of frozen state—unable to step into Daddy’s shoes in any meaningful way, unable to comprehend even her own emotions. And Nancy dragged listlessly about the house with red eyes and a short temper—still the youngest, the child.

  Grace would deal with the paperwork and settle the unpaid bills. She would make the difficult discovery that her father had far less money than any of them might have expected. She would look for a job that paid much more than the factory. She would find one at Pearson & Pearson.

  Two

  Nancy and George were married at 11:30 a.m. on December 22, 1917. They’d had to postpone twice because of canceled leave, and this opportunity had arisen because George had been sent home wounded. He’d been back at his parents’ house for a good few weeks, recovering from an operation on his right leg at Queen Alexandra’s Hospital in Highgate. A number of small scraps and shards of what appeared to be granite were removed from the leg, and George kept them as souvenirs, saying they were pieces of someone’s grave. He’d been holed up in a churchyard during a heavy shelling bombardment at Ypres, and a tombstone very near him had taken a direct hit.

  It wasn’t the fairy-tale wedding Nancy had dreamed of—taking place, as it did, at the local Register Office, with just a smattering of friends in attendance. But there was nonetheless a romance to the occasion. Nancy was dashing in her squirrel-edged winter coat on that clear, frosty morning, her eyes sparkling. George, now a captain, cut a romantic figure in his uniform, propped up on crutches. He had about him a new remoteness and seriousness, but this was romantic in itself. He had been at the Loos Battle, where his brother was killed (now more than two years ago). He’d survived the Somme and the third battle of Ypres, and had come home to give his fiancée the nicest possible Christmas present: himself.

  The day was a difficult one for Grace. Throughout the ceremony the brave-faced Catherine gripped her hand so hard that she could all but hear the cracking of bones. Although neither was clad in black, Grace felt they were a heavy, tragic presence, the pair of them. Widows in the corner. Certainly it was clear that the sympathy in the faces of their guests was directed not just at her mother, but also at her. The wedding had reminded them all of something they’d long forgotten—perhaps something that many of them had not even realized until today: If Nancy and George were one half of an equation, then she and Steven were the other. If Nancy was marrying George, then Grace must have lost Steven. But much as she didn’t like herself for it, it wasn’t Steven who was uppermost in Grace’s mind today. Beneath her cheerful exterior she was struggling to quench something that kept surging up: the growing conviction that George should be marrying her, not her sister. His changed persona merely intensified her certainty that she understood him far better than Nancy ever would. What a mess she and George had made of their lives on that one, stupidly passionate and impulsive day in the summer of 1915. And how arbitrary everything had been since then. Really, you couldn’t allow yourself to think about it all for too long—it was all so unbearably, horribly, and in Steven’s case tragically, arbitrary.

  After the ceremony there was a drab lunch at the nearby Woolton Hotel. Gray chicken soup followed by foul-tasting beef in aspic served with carrots and floury potatoes, and then spotted dick with congealed custard. You had to go heavy on the drink just to be able to get it all down. As the afternoon wore on, Grace began to benefit from the numbing effects of the alcohol, and her fixed smile grew brighter and glossier.

  I shall get through this, she told herself, as she narrowly but deliberately evaded Nancy’s hurled bouquet. Tomorrow morning will be dreadful but I don’t have to think about that now. And, after today, it can only get easier.

  But it didn’t. The newlyweds stayed on with the Rutherfords over Christmas. It was George who stood carving the goose, and who took Mr. Rutherford’s old seat at the table. George was the new, resonant tenor when it came to carol singing around the piano. He fixed the wireless. He set the fires every evening. He fought his way, on those crutches, through the neglected, bramble-infested garden with clippers and shears, restoring all to rights. Nancy watched him with adoration in her eyes, then turned those eyes on her sister and mother. See? they clearly said. See what a prize he is? See how lucky we are to have him?

  Grace searched for signs of resentment in her mother, as, little by little, George moved further into her father’s old territory. But Mrs. Rutherford was relentlessly cheerful, and Grace was unable to catch her eye. Increasingly, her unexpressed anger was directed at the stoic widow. She wanted to grab her mother by the shoulders and shout: They have turned
us into guests in our own home! She’s flaunting her happiness like a new dress! Doesn’t it bother you that they’ve made your firstborn into an untouchable spinster at twenty?

  Worst of all were the nights. Mrs. Rutherford had surrendered the master bedroom, herself taking her younger daughter’s tiny room. This meant there was only a thin, interior wall between Grace and the frisky newlyweds.

  By Boxing Day, Grace’s nerves were in tatters, and when George and Nancy had left the breakfast table to go for a walk, she felt compelled to say something.

  “I’ve been thinking, Mummy. You must be terribly cramped in Nancy’s room.”

  “I’m absolutely fine. The youngsters need the space much more than I do. More tea, dear?” Mrs. Rutherford was busying herself with the pot, and, as usual, Grace couldn’t catch her eye.

  “Why don’t you swap with me?” she tried. “You’d be so much more comfortable in my room.”

  “As I said, I’m fine. Please don’t trouble yourself about this, Grace.”

  “But it isn’t right that you should be so inconvenienced. Not with Daddy…Not after the difficult time you’ve had. Nancy ought to be ashamed of herself, putting you out of your own bedroom.”

  A steely glare. “She has done no such thing. It was my idea entirely. And as I’ve already said, I’m fine. Now do let it alone.”

  “Of course. Whatever you say.” Grace sat gripping the edge of the table, trying to calm herself. Focusing all her energy on not saying what she wanted to say.

  Late in the evening, on George’s last night, Grace found herself alone with him before the fire. Mother had turned in at her usual ten o’clock. Nancy had then become overwrought about his imminent departure and had gone up for a calming bath. The two were left in an uneasy silence, staring into the still-lively flames, drinking brandy.

  “There’s something I wanted to ask you, Grace.” George swirled the golden liquid around his glass.

  “Yes, of course I’ll look after Nancy while you’re away.” Grace had finished her drink and was fighting the urge for another. “She’s my sister.”

  “Thanks…but that wasn’t it.” His voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. Grace darted a look at him.

  “What, then?”

  “I just…” He raked a hand through the auburn hair. “Are you angry?”

  “Why on earth should I be angry with you?” This was spoken in a kind of snarl.

  “Yes, I thought as much.” He looked up at her and smiled nervously. “You’re not much good at hiding it.”

  “Light me a cigarette, would you?” She tried to calm herself. An opportunity had arisen unexpectedly, and she had to work out how to grasp it. If they were ever to talk openly with each other about what had happened between them—about what it all meant—then it had to be now. This might be the last time they would ever be alone together, after all. Oh, God. She mustn’t allow herself to believe this could be the last time!

  He had gotten up—no need for those crutches now—and was reaching for the packet that was tucked behind the clock on the mantelpiece. He was saying something about the difficulty of their all being here under one roof. He was mumbling halfheartedly, and she found she wasn’t listening. Instead, she was working out what she wanted to say to him. She was looking at his long back. His neck.

  “You’ve changed,” she said, cutting across his vagaries.

  “Of course I have.” He handed the lit cigarette over and she set it in her holder. He’d lit one for himself, too. “How could it be otherwise?”

  “You’re not the old George anymore. All polite and proper and nice. Funnily enough, there’s more of Steven in you now. It’s as if the two of you have become one person—all rolled up in your body.”

  “What rot.” It was spoken lightly but there was a visible tensing around his mouth and in his neck. He was sitting on the very edge of the chair.

  Grace realized something. “You’re angry with me.”

  “No, I’m not. But would you blame me if I was? That was a pretty offensive thing you just said.” He dragged hard on his cigarette.

  “You saw us, didn’t you? Steven and me.”

  “What?” But he was clearly playing for time.

  The heat from the fire was oppressive and the room airless. She was dizzy with it all.

  “You saw me with your brother that night. And it made you so angry that you went back into the house and proposed to my sister. You did it just to spite me! Of all the stupid things…”

  A forced-sounding chuckle. “You have incredible vanity, Grace.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “I love Nancy.”

  She blew out a smoke ring. “I hope that’s true.” This was turning into a battle of sorts, albeit a subtle kind. “You’ve certainly been very honorable. To her, I mean. You’ve done the right thing.”

  The fire made a strange, slow, squeaking noise. It was as if there was something alive in there—something that was having the life squeezed out of it.

  “Nancy wants Mother to have one of those smart little gas fires installed in here,” said Grace absently. “The new sort, like the one in her bedroom. Sorry—your bedroom. She says it’ll be nice and clean and easy.”

  “I married your sister because that was what we both wanted. Both of us.”

  A loud pop from the fire. A fizz. She tried not to notice the way George flinched at the noise.

  “Over my dead body, I told Mother. A real fire is something alive. I love all the smuts and the dirt. I don’t like things to be too nice and clean and easy.”

  “Things never are, are they?” He got to his feet and threw his cigarette into the fire.

  “Poor Nancy.”

  “Save your sympathy. We’re perfectly happy.”

  “You’re finding this as difficult as I am. Aren’t you?” Her voice was softer now.

  He took up the poker and prodded the logs to encourage the flames to die down. Carefully put the fire guard in place. “It was a world ago, Grace. That day on the Heath. Everything has changed since then. Everything. You have no idea what difficult is.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was embarrassed. Humbled in the face of his grandly unknowable experiences. “You’re right, of course. What could I possibly know?”

  He closed his eyes.

  “I wish I did know, George. I wish you’d talk to me about it all.”

  George sighed and opened his eyes. “When Steven and I first arrived in France, we were sent to Harfleur for technical instruction before going up the line. It was something they did with the new fellows. We were supposed to be there for a couple of weeks or so. It was all drilling, musketry, lectures about gas and bombs…One day, when we were waiting for an instructor to come and talk to us about bombs, a sergeant decided to give a little unofficial talk, sort of a preliminary session. Well, this sergeant was giving us a caution on what not to do with a percussion grenade, and he went and knocked the thing against the table to demonstrate his point. Damn thing went off, killing him and two others and wounding a further ten.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Grace…”

  She knew what he was about to say even before he said it.

  “Steven was one of the two. He never even made it to the trenches.”

  She heard herself protesting. “I saw the letter from the colonel. It said Steven died a gallant death—that he was hit by a shell during an offensive and died on the way back to base. Died of wounds, that’s what it said.”

  “That was a form letter. The colonel sent out hundreds of those things.”

  She looked at his eyes—they had a dullness to them, a dead quality. And she knew it was true. “That’s monstrous.”

  “It’s all monstrous. Keep it to yourself, will you? I don’t want my parents knowing just how pointless and arbitrary my brother’s death was. Or Nancy—she’d worry about me even more than she already does.” He got up and headed for the door. “Good night.”

  “I still want to know more. I still wa
nt you to talk to me about it all. If you should ever want to.” The offer sounded pathetic, even to her.

  “Good night, Grace.” And then, a seeming afterthought, his hand on the doorknob: “You might send me a letter now and again. If you’d like to, that is. I don’t suppose Nancy would mind.”

  His feet on the stairs. The creak of the floorboards. The sound of their voices somewhere above—his and Nancy’s.

  Piccadilly Herald

  The West-Ender

  May 2, 1927

  I am not a Good Girl. This is patently clear to all regular readers of this column. I stay out late. I like the company of men. I’m vain. I wear too much makeup. I’m economical with the truth when it suits me. I never refuse a cocktail. I’m not demure…Well, until recently, that is.

  Standing in the rain at the end of a long night, I was asked a question by a splendidly handsome man of my acquaintance, and I said no when I wanted to say yes. I did it because I believed it to be the correct tactic. You say no and it drives the gentleman mad and he comes running after you like a boy chasing a kite when the wind has yanked the string from his hand. At least, that’s what he’s supposed to do. Not this time, readers. This gentleman appears not to understand the rules of the game. Perhaps he’s mistaken me for a Good Girl, the sort of girl who says no because she really means no. Perhaps he’s playing a different game entirely. This has not been a good week.

  You’ll perhaps want to know about some restaurants and dance clubs. Well, what can I tell you in my present mood? If you’re forced by circumstances beyond your control to go to Morelli on Brewer Street, do not, I beg you, order the fish. Or the pork. Or the spaghetti. Or any of the puddings. Or the starters. If your pigheaded companion of the evening strong-arms you to drop in at Little Venice on Lower Regent Street, take a table as far away from the dance floor as you possibly can, as the place is more crowded than a football match and anyone within half a mile of the capering couples will be trodden on, kicked about the shins or worse. (If your week is as bad as mine, a large bald gentleman might actually fall right across your table as you sit with your drink and your pommes frites, and then have the audacity to complain that you had got yourself in his way.) Finally, if extraordinary circumstances beyond your control contrive that you should arrive, one night, at Marchesa’s nightclub on Charing Cross Road…But no—surely nothing would drag any sane person into that earsplittingly awful shoe box of sweat, watered-down cocktails and the Badly Dressed.