A Fire Sparkling

by MacLean, Julianne

  Vivian raised her chin. “It’s a good place to sing. But I’m tired. If you’ll excuse me . . .” Turning quickly, she went to her room and shut the door. She listened for a moment, in case her father intended to follow and berate her further, but he was laughing and clinking glasses with the other men.

  Vivian checked the time. It was past midnight. She would need to be up early to open the shop because heaven knew her father couldn’t be relied upon to rise at a respectable hour. She only hoped she’d be able to fall asleep with all the racket from the kitchen.

  Thankfully, after an hour or so, she heard the men leave, and the flat grew quiet. But she was on edge, as always, listening to the sound of her father’s heavy footsteps pounding across the floorboards, as if he were in a rage about something.

  Her belly churned with fear. Then her bedroom door burst open. Her father stormed in and grabbed her by the hair, pulled her from her bed, and dropped her onto the floor.

  “You’re a whore, just like your mother!” He struck Vivian across the cheek, then followed with a backhanded slap across the other cheek. “You make a fool out of me! Is that what she told you to do? To keep torturing me?”

  Vivian curled into a protective fetal position on the floor. “No, Papa! It isn’t! I love to sing, and I’m just trying to earn a few extra pounds!”

  She should have known that was the worst possible thing to say.

  “You think I can’t support you?” He pulled her upright and slapped her in the face again. “That I’m a failure? If I am, it’s only because your mother ruined me. Bled me dry with all her spending, and now look at us!” He began to stagger backward. “When I met her, I was a wealthy man. I had respect. Now I have nothing.”

  “You have me,” Vivian assured him, even while she cowered and held up her hands to block another strike, which she fully expected to come at any second. But her father fell backward against the wall, knocking a picture onto the floor.

  “No more singing!” he shouted as he pointed a finger. “I won’t watch you turn out like her.”

  “Fine! No more singing!”

  She agreed only to appease him, because she knew he wouldn’t remember any of this conversation in the morning. He would know he had hit her when he saw the bruises, but he wouldn’t be able to recall what his tirade had been about.

  He lumbered out of the room, and she scrambled to her feet to shut the door behind him.

  As she stood there with her back up against it, breathing heavily and praying he wouldn’t return, she tipped her head back and thought about the choices she had made.

  Maybe she should have gone to Bordeaux with her sister when she’d had the chance. But someone had to stay in London and take care of their hopeless father and his floundering wine shop.

  Vivian knew she had no one to blame but herself for her current circumstances, because she’d made her own choice to be self-sacrificing—but in that moment, she resented her sister for being the opposite and for leaving her behind like this.

  Theodore had a remarkably trying day at the Ministry of Supply with objections and arguments with colleagues over different tenders for tank production, but perhaps that was why he was so eager to meet Miss Hughes for dinner that evening. Perhaps it was something about her voice and her music that made him feel as if the future was something to be happy about.

  Which it wasn’t—because Chamberlain was reluctant to establish a military alliance with the Soviets. Meanwhile, Hitler was most assuredly making plans to invade Poland.

  Yet all the problems of the world seemed to fade away to nothing when Theodore remembered that voice from the night before, which reached his ears in his imagination and sank into his soul. He hadn’t been able to get Miss Hughes out of his head since they’d parted ways at the Underground station. He’d barely slept a wink after that, and it wasn’t because he was thinking about factory conversions.

  Now, at last, he was seated at the bar in the Savoy, nursing a Scotch, anticipating her arrival. But where was she?

  He checked his pocket watch. They were supposed to meet at 7:00 p.m. It was now 7:45 p.m. He knew the hotel would hold his table for him, but this was becoming embarrassing as he ordered his third drink and the bartender gave him a look of sympathy.

  Had he been stood up?

  He didn’t often invite women to dine with him—he wasn’t a womanizer like his brother—but this was surprising. He’d felt a connection to Miss Hughes, and he was quite certain she’d felt something too.

  He was disappointed, and eventually his mood plummeted to something beyond disappointment, and he couldn’t refrain from tormenting himself with questions.

  Why hadn’t she come? Perhaps she was already involved with someone else. Or was there some other reason? Had something terrible happened to her?

  The following morning, Theodore was unable to accept the possibility that Miss Hughes had changed her mind and did not wish to see him again. Subsequently, he asked his secretary, Mrs. Latham, to spare no effort to locate the address of an East End wine shop that belonged to a Mr. Hughes, who had a daughter named Vivian, who also worked in the shop. It took Mrs. Latham most of the morning, but by lunchtime, she had an address for him.

  At the end of the day, Theodore left the office and handed his driver a piece of paper with an address written upon it. “Let’s get a move on, Jackson. There’s bound to be traffic on the bridge.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jackson shifted into gear and started off down the Strand.

  Forty minutes later, they pulled up in front of a small shop on the first floor of a corner building, and Theodore got out of the car.

  Bells jangled as he entered, and he let out a breath of relief when he spotted Vivian behind the counter. Her eyes grew wide when she spotted him, and she seemed lost for words.

  “Hello.” He removed his hat and approached the counter. She turned her face away from him, and for a few excruciating seconds he felt rejected, until he saw the ghastly bruise on her cheekbone, just below her left eye.

  “Good heavens, Miss Hughes. What happened to you?”

  He remembered how he had wondered if some terrible accident had befallen her the previous night. He hadn’t actually believed it could be true, but now it appeared to have some basis in reality.

  She shook her head and turned her face away again, as if she were afraid to look him in the eye.

  “Did someone hurt you?” He knew immediately that it hadn’t been a fall off a bicycle or a tumble from a tree, or some other innocent explanation. He knew abuse when he saw it. “Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing, really. I’m sorry I didn’t keep our dinner engagement last night, but you shouldn’t have come here.”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  She reshelved a few bottles of wine behind the counter. “I appreciate that, but as you can see, I’m working.”

  Theodore frowned, because this was not the same glamorous and confident woman he had conversed with at the Savoy. He didn’t care about the glamour—she was still just as beautiful in his eyes, even in a shabby dress and no makeup—but he was sorry to see her looking so withdrawn and defeated.

  “I saw the sign on the door,” he said. “The shop closes in ten minutes. My driver is just outside. Will you let me take you to dinner tonight instead?”

  Vivian continued to busy herself by straightening bottles on shelves behind the counter. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because . . . I just can’t.”

  “You have important plans to attend to after you close?”

  Finally, she faced him and regarded him with a pained expression. “Mr. Gibbons. I really don’t see the point in us getting to know each other.”

  “Whyever not?”

  She gestured toward him with her hand. “Because you’re you—deputy minister of something very important, dressed in a tailored suit and coming to the East End with a uniformed driver.” She tossed her head toward the window where Jackson was standing outside
the Bentley, kicking the tires. “And I’m . . . I’m . . . just a girl who works in a wine shop.”

  “And has the voice of an angel,” he countered.

  Her eyes narrowed. “If you want to hear me sing, you can find me at the Savoy. Occasionally.”

  “And quite unpredictably,” he added. “But what if I don’t wish to wait? And what in the world happened to the woman I met last night, who suggested that I should be dancing? Making the most out of life? Wouldn’t that woman say yes to an evening of good food and interesting, intelligent conversation?”

  Something in her expression softened, and he felt a sense of relief, that he had broken through to that woman, somehow. Her smile was subtle, and it reached her eyes.

  At last, she grinned. “So, you think you’re interesting and intelligent, do you? Isn’t that a little . . . presumptuous?”

  He chuckled softly. “Indeed. Thank you for that.”

  The bells jangled over the door as a few customers walked in, but Theodore remained at the counter.

  “Say yes,” he whispered. “I’ll wait outside, however long it takes.”

  “You’re very persistent.”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled shyly. “All right. But nowhere fancy. Not when I’m dressed like this.”

  “You look lovely.”

  Her eyes lifted. “And you are a shameless flatterer.”

  He heard the customers approach behind him and knew it was time to leave her to her work. Replacing his hat on his head, he said, “Excuse me” to the other men and walked out of the shop to wait in the car. He didn’t care how long it took. He would wait all night if he had to.

  Theodore looked up from the production contracts on his lap when Vivian rapped on the car window. He opened the door for her, and she quickly got in beside him. “I’m done. Let’s go.”

  “In a hurry, are we?” he asked as he closed the file and slid it into his leather portfolio.

  “Yes.” She peered out the window, seeming uneasy as they pulled away from the curb.

  “It feels like we are sneaking away,” Theodore said. “You’re not married, are you? Is that the problem? Should I be worried about a jealous husband?”

  Vivian sat back and clutched her purse on her lap. “No, of course not.”

  “Then who did that to you?” He pointed at her left eye.

  Thankfully, she faced him directly and didn’t try to deny anything. “My father. He doesn’t like it when I sing in public.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s what my mother used to do. It’s how they met—in a cabaret in Bordeaux. He was there purchasing wine for all the shops he used to own, and he fell head over heels in love with her, because he was bewitched by the sound of her voice. Does that sound familiar to you?”

  Theodore shrugged, as if it were nothing of consequence, even while he recognized the accusation in her voice and understood suddenly why she had stood him up the night before—because she didn’t want to live her mother’s life.

  “Then what happened?”

  “They got married,” she replied matter-of-factly. “And lived happily ever after.”

  Theodore leaned forward, urging her to look at him instead of out the window. “I’m sensing that’s not the real story.”

  Finally, she faced him. “They were happy for a while, until my mother had a scandalous affair with a nobleman and died in a car crash with him.”

  Theodore sat back. “I see,” he said softly. “I’m very sorry. When did that happen?”

  “When I was sixteen.”

  “That’s a difficult age to lose a mother.”

  “Yes.” The setting sun through the front windscreen illuminated her hair like a splash of gold. “But I’m sure you didn’t ask me to dinner to hear a tragic and depressing story. You enjoyed my singing and you want to escape all the ugliness in the world. You want to feel swept away by something outside your own grim obligations as one of the architects of an oncoming war.”

  He sensed a bitterness in her and couldn’t deny that he felt it himself, deep in his gut. “Perhaps. But I’m also fascinated by how something so tragic can result in so much beauty.”

  She laughed at him. “Please. That sounds like you are trying to seduce me. I won’t fall for it. I’m far too practical.”

  He found himself laughing right along with her. “I have no doubt. And maybe that is exactly why I’m so intrigued by you. I know you’re not just a pretty face with a magical voice. You also have a brain.”

  “And you like that, do you?” she asked. “Most men wouldn’t, I don’t think. They’d only want the magic.”

  He wanted her to understand that he wasn’t here to seduce her or to toy with her, and at the same time, he found himself pondering the state of his own life and the reason why he had not yet proposed to Lady Clara.

  “I’ve never become swept away by magic,” he said.

  “Maybe that’s for the best,” she replied. “It seems safer than simply giving yourself over to your passions. I know people who have done that. I’m not sure it turns out well in the end.”

  She was referring to her mother, of course.

  They turned away from each other and looked out opposite windows.

  As they motored across the Tower Bridge, Theodore thought about his past and his future and how he had never given himself over to passion. The only thing he surrendered to consistently was duty.

  “Does your father beat you often?” he asked Vivian.

  “It depends on how you define often,” she replied, almost as if she were making light of her situation. “If only he would stop drinking, but it’s difficult when we own a wine shop. Sadly, that’s where all the profits go—to his late-night card parties, where he supplies the bottles.”

  “In the span of a month, how often does he hit you?”

  Vivian took a deep breath and let it out. “Oh, I don’t know. Once or twice, I suppose, usually when I come home from a singing engagement.”

  Theodore squeezed both his hands into fists. “He should be proud of you. Has he ever heard you sing?”

  Vivian scoffed. “Good gracious, no—at least not with an orchestra. That would only remind him of my mother, and he would probably beat me twice as hard for a week straight.”

  It was too much to take. Theodore couldn’t imagine how any man could raise a hand to his own daughter and strike her, or any woman for that matter. It went against everything Theodore was made of.

  “Why do you stay with him?” he asked bluntly.

  “Because he’s my father, and there is no one else to look after him.”

  “But you don’t owe him that. Not if he treats you so appallingly. He doesn’t deserve you, and you deserve better.”

  She sighed. “I know that, I suppose. But I can’t just walk out and desert him. Besides, where would I go?”

  “You must have options.”

  His driver pulled to a stop in front of the restaurant. Car horns honked on the busy street behind them.

  “Thank you, Jackson,” Theodore said. “You can return in two hours.”

  Vivian grasped Theodore’s arm. “Please, make it one. I’ll need to be back home to cook for my father.”

  With a pang of displeasure at the power that man held over her, Theodore amended his instructions. “One hour, Jackson. Don’t be late.”

  “You can rely on me, sir.”

  They got out of the car. Theodore escorted Vivian to the door and held it open for her as she entered.

  “My word,” Theodore said with surprise after Vivian ordered elegantly from the French menu. “You speak French? Fluently?”

  She handed the menu to the waiter and sipped her wine. “Yes. My first language as a child was French because that’s what my mother spoke at home.”

  “I see.” Theodore sat back and regarded her with fascination. “And can you type?”

  “Yes. I take care of the shop, and that includes office work. I’m not very fast, though.”
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br />   The wheels were already beginning to turn in Theodore’s mind. He leaned forward over the table. “What would you say if I offered you a job at the ministry? The fact that you speak French is an asset, and we’re hiring new people every day. We could use someone like you in the government.”

  “In case we go to war in Europe, you mean?” She regarded him curiously over the rim of her wineglass.

  “Yes, exactly. If that happens, all sorts of other opportunities might open up. You could do very well, Vivian.”

  She seemed to be imagining what a position in the government might entail. “Would I be your secretary?”

  “No. I already have one. You would work elsewhere in the department. We might have to start you out in the stenographers’ pool, but we’d likely move you to another position before too long. We don’t have many girls who speak French. And who knows? If we do go to war, you might get plucked out for something else entirely. As I said, you could do very well in the government.”

  The waiter arrived with their first courses, and they picked up their spoons.

  “What do you think?” Theodore asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t imagine leaving the shop. How would my father ever manage on his own?”

  “Maybe it would be good for him,” Theodore suggested. “If you left, it might force him to drink less.”

  She ate quietly, without looking up from her plate.

  “I hope you will at least consider it,” he said.

  Theodore finished his soup and sat back. The waiter appeared to collect his bowl and went away again, leaving Theodore to watch Vivian eat in silence. He had the distinct feeling that she was not going to accept his offer, that she couldn’t imagine making such a drastic change in her life. At least not right away. It might take some persistence on his part. He might have to take her out to dinner a few more times before she said yes. It was not an entirely unpleasant thought.

  It was nearly eight o’clock by the time they returned to the shop. Feeling stressed and rushed, Vivian opened the car door and got out.