by Maggie Ford
And then suddenly she recognized the feeling; the sudden flutter in the stomach, the rush of breath, taking her completely by surprise. She was falling in love with him.
* * *
Simon slowly refolded the letter he’d picked up from among the morning post of bills, invoices and circulars and made for the back room they now used as a cutting and sewing room for Betty Lewis.
At the table Julia was selecting the paper patterns ready to be cut from the new roll of green crêpe de Chine she’d bought in. He held out the letter to her and she looked enquiringly at him as she took it. ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s from the landlord telling me the lease on this place is due to expire six months from now. He says he doesn’t wish to renew.’
‘Six months!’ Julia gave him her whole attention now. ‘How long was the lease?’
‘Ninety-nine years. I bought the place just over two years ago, thinking that when the lease expired it would naturally be extended, as many are.’
He fell silent, toying with the letter. He suddenly looked so very vulnerable that her heart went out to him. Her heart seemed to react to him in so many different ways these days. She often found herself watching him, noting the way he moved, listening with a different ear to the things he said, taking in all the small gestures that made him what he was.
He seemed for the most part unaware of her attention though every now and again she would see him looking at her, and then looking quickly away on catching her eye.
‘What will you do?’ she asked. It was all she could think of to say, making him smile at her naivety – a smile that again touched her heart.
‘Just have to find somewhere else.’
‘Can we afford to?’ Julia realized she had automatically taken it for granted that she was being included in his plans. What if this turned out to be the end of a wonderful episode after all? She waited anxiously for his response.
‘We’re going to have to,’ he said slowly. ‘It all depends on how the profits go in the next six months. One thing’s certain, we mustn’t say too much to anyone. If they realize the place is up for sale or changing hands, they’ll stay away. People always do. So we must watch what we say.’
The word ‘we’! She almost threw her arms around him but refrained. There were more important things to deal with now than her feelings.
‘Then we’ll have to concentrate on even better profits,’ she declared forcefully to allay the silly impulse she’d had. ‘We should start by doing a lot more direct advertising.’
‘We do that now,’ he reminded her.
‘I mean physical advertising, modelling, showing what the garments look like on real people. We need to actually demonstrate them to customers and have a proper showroom.’
‘That will cost…’ he began, but Julia already had the bit between her teeth.
‘It needn’t be anything too elaborate or expensive. We’ll need a model. I can’t do it because I’d have to run the show – and besides I’d be too embarrassed. But my sister Ginny might like to try. She’s so slim and beautiful. She’d make a perfect model. She’d love something like that, I’m sure. I’ll ask her.’
‘Steady, love!’ Simon put his hand on her arm to stop the headlong rush of words.
For a long moment their eyes met and held. Slowly his other hand reached out to rest on her other arm. Then, before she could take a breath, he had drawn her to him to kiss her full on the mouth.
There the two of them stood, in full view of a surprised Betty Lewis who was busily working on an exclusive-looking silk day dress. Her discreet cough made them step hastily away from each other. But she had already returned to her interrupted task of pinning sections of a paper pattern to the double layer of crêpe de Chine for all the world as if she were the only one in the room.
Twelve
Five weeks elapsed and Simon made no further move towards her, leaving Julia unsure where she stood with him. It wasn’t that he was brusque or stand-offish or even taciturn with her. If anything he seemed vaguely embarrassed, taking care to confine all discussion between them strictly to mundane matters. And all the while her whole being cried out to be held close, to be kissed by him again.
Sometimes it seemed to Julia almost as if that lovely moment of closeness between them had never happened; that she had dreamed it. But soon she had too much else on her mind to spend time fretting about Simon. As the expiry date of the lease drew closer the task of developing their business plans grew more urgent.
It had taken nearly a month to approach Ginny with her new plans. She was afraid she might turn down the idea, seeing it as another of her sister’s wild schemes. In fact it seemed to her that the whole family had taken her business venture for granted. If they suspected there was more to her relationship with Simon than mere business, nevertheless they said no more. James and Stephanie were caught up in their own lives and work and Ginny too was now pretty well established in her job, making friends and socializing. Why would she want to change direction now?
Julia’s approach was to emphasize how well Simon’s business was going and their intention to expand. She thought it better not to mention the problem of the lease not being renewed at the end of April. There was no point in alarming anyone.
‘I’ve been so lucky going in with him,’ she said to Ginny late one night as they sat in the living room together. Ginny had just come in from an evening with friends, the other two were still out and their mother had gone to bed at ten as she usually did.
‘The business is going really well,’ she continued, ‘and I’m so fortunate that I had to put so little into it other than the material. I still can’t believe my luck. I’d never have found the money to go into business in the usual way and I’m so grateful to Mr Layzell for his generosity.’
Ginny was responding only half-heartedly to this enthusiasm, obviously anxious to return to reading her magazine.
‘The thing is, Ginny, we’re thinking about finding ourselves better premises where we can have a showroom. Of course, we will need to get someone to model my dresses and I was thinking, how would you like to be that model? I could pay you well because we’re not doing too badly at all.’
Magazine forgotten, Virginia regarded her with shocked surprise. ‘You want me to model for you? But I’ve got a job, and I don’t really want to give that up.’
‘You wouldn’t need to. This would only be every now and again and it would put a little extra money in your purse.’
‘I get decent money now. I’ve had that two-shilling rise this autumn and Mr Green says that as I’m doing so well, he’ll try to give me another in the New Year. I can’t see that I need another job as well. And it wouldn’t leave me with all that much time to go out with my friends.’
Julia couldn’t help being struck by how quickly her brother and sisters had accepted working for a living as normal. It wasn’t so long ago that the mere idea of such a thing had been unthinkable. How different life was now for them. They had brought themselves up from the awful poverty that had all but overwhelmed them to this moderately comfortable life they now led. They were like new people; only their mother still left: to lament her lot and pine for the husband who in life had hardly noticed her.
‘Ginny,’ she pleaded as her sister continued to look doubtful, ‘it won’t be every day, or even every week, just on the rare occasion. We won’t be starting up for a few months yet and even then it would only be a few times a year. Later we’ll have professional models. This business could go such a long way, so please say you’ll step in and help.’
She wanted to add, ‘Please help me as I helped all of you’ for where would they have been without her guidance, her energy, her plans? She had taken up the reins when her mother had not dared to do so. She had kept them all going. But she said none of this.
Virginia was beginning to look thoughtful, an encouraging sign. Julia let the minutes tick by in silence, watching her sister, allowing her to consider the offer. But eventually she
couldn’t keep silent any longer.
‘Think how lovely you’d feel dressed in silks and satins, parading up and down in day dresses and evening dresses, all the height of fashion.’
Virginias face changed. ‘Parading?’ she echoed. ‘You mean walking up and down in front of people, strangers?’ She gave an emphatic shake of her head. ‘No, Julia, let Stephanie do it – she enjoys showing off. I don’t.’
‘Oh, Ginny…’ Julia felt suddenly close to tears. All the months of worrying and striving and scrimping to keep the family going began to overwhelm her. ‘I’d never ask her! It can only be you. You’re the only one who can do it. Without you…’
She choked on her words as the tears overflowed. The next thing she knew, Virginia was hugging her, the magazine fallen to the floor.
‘Julia, don’t cry. I’ll do it – for you. I know how you feel. I’ll do it.’
Slowly Julia recovered herself and apologized for her foolishness.
Virginia sat back in her seat and grinned at her sister. ‘Stephanie’s going to be so jealous!’ she said.
* * *
Stephanie was almost beside herself with indignation. ‘Why? Why couldn’t you have asked me first?’ Giving her sister hardly time to reply, she plunged on, ‘I know more about these things than she ever will. What is she? A little junior in some office! I deal all the time with clothes and cosmetics in a huge department store. I am often consulted by some really important customers and well thought of by the management.’ She held up an angry hand as Julia opened her mouth to speak. ‘I’m rubbing shoulders all the time with the wealthy and know how to behave with them, yet you chose her over me! What’s so special about her?’
‘I’m sorry, Stephanie,’ Julia began but Stephanie was in no mood to hear apologies.
‘You two have always been as thick as thieves,’ she railed on. ‘Don’t think I don’t know. You’re always rowing with me, never with her. And what does an office junior, not even sixteen yet, know about how to display dresses before a discerning public? Well, all I can say is, don’t come crying to me when she makes a mess of it!’
Running out of steam, Stephanie gave her sister a long, hard look and made for the bedroom, banging the door behind her. As she did so she heard their mother’s gasp. Too angry even to burst into tears, she flung herself on the bed. If her mother should come in now to try to pacify her, she knew she’d yell at her, unable to stop herself. But no one came.
She lay on the bed straining her ears to the silence on the other side of the door. Were they whispering about her? What were they saying? Her mother should have taken her side but instead had sat looking from one to the other with that usual pained expression whenever any of them didn’t see eye to eye. At one time she’d been her favourite daughter. Her mother had bought her clothes, sometimes quietly supplementing her allowance, always there to listen to her when things hadn’t gone quite right. But since they’d lived here it seemed to Stephanie that everything had changed. Julia was now her favourite, creeping around her, looking after her and the flat, taking charge, forcing everyone else out to work while she took it easy, earning nothing.
And all this talk about setting up a business, where had the money for that come from? Had their mother helped her secretly? Now this: Julia choosing Virginia over herself, and Mummy practically agreeing with it. It wasn’t fair!
Stephanie’s pretty features crumpled, her eyes filled with tears as she stared blindly up at the ceiling.
* * *
‘I hate them!’ she said next day to Rosie Gower, a work colleague. They had become friends. She and Rosie and a few other single girls went most Saturday nights to one of the many popular dance halls in the West End.
During the week they’d go to the pictures to collapse with laughter at Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, or to squirm with longing at the dark and flashing eyes of Rudolph Valentino; lured back again and again to blush and giggle at the Latin Lover in The Sheik, or shrink in fear for him in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Standing near to each other behind the cosmetics counter, one eye on their supervisor in case they appeared not to be paying enough attention to any early-morning customer who approached, they conversed in whispers, managing not to exchange glances while maintaining the fixed, beckoning smile demanded of the counter staff by the management.
Stephie, as she’d become known to her friends, spent most of this quieter time talking about her sisters while Rosie listened with rapt attention.
‘You said modelling?’ she hissed surreptitiously from the corner of her mouth. ‘How can you expect a young girl of fifteen to model? I do agree with you, Stephie, you should have been asked first. I don’t know what your sister must be thinking of.’
As more customers approached the counter throughout the morning, conversation was brought to an end, but Stephanie felt better for having got it all off her chest though it still rankled. Perhaps she might still turn things her way once Virginia showed herself up modelling dresses far too old for her.
By Saturday night some of her chagrin had faded and her thoughts turned to dancing. The dancehall was already loud with the chatter and laughter of young people as Stephanie, Rosie and two other friends entered. The band was blaring out a recent jazzy number, ‘Margie’, and the floor was a gyrating mass of couples doing the one-step.
Rosie led the way towards a line of girls who stood hopefully waiting to be asked to dance. Within minutes two quite passable lads, apparently chums, appeared. The taller of the two approached Stephanie for a dance and his friend asked Rosie, to the disappointment of other hopefuls. Neither girl knew how to one-step properly but that hardly marred their triumph at being chosen. Stephanie’s delight faded somewhat though when she discovered that her partner could talk of nothing but football. As the number ended she made her excuses and escaped to the cloakroom.
Leaning towards the mirror to apply another coat of rouge to her cheeks, Stephanie glanced sideways at Rosie’s reflection. Like herself Rosie was rake thin, her sleeveless dress revealing slender arms as she smoothed the fine line of an eyebrow. With brassieres made to flatten rather than flatter, their short dance dresses fell straight down over their slim hips, with the skirt finishing just below the knees. Like her own, Rosie’s hair was cut short at the back, graduating slightly longer towards the front and combed forward to a point over each carefully rouged cheekbone.
‘What do you think of them?’ Stephanie asked, referring to the boys.
Rosie grimaced. ‘A bit juvenile, I thought.’
‘I did too.’ Stephanie laughed. ‘We’ll ditch them and find some a little more mature, shall we?’
‘If we can.’ Rosie laughed too.
‘We can only try!’ Stephanie observed, replacing her rouge in the beaded, green silk handbag that matched her taffeta dress. And, with heads held high, the two friends strode purposefully from the cloakroom.
* * *
It had been a wonderful evening. They had found a couple of mature young men who had suggested going on to a nightclub, an invitation which the girls had readily accepted. The only bug in the salad was that both needed to be home by an acceptable hour, a request with which the young men, Robert and Algernon – Algy to his friends he’d said – had complied with amused smiles. To the girls’ delight, the men had arranged to see them again the following Saturday at the dancehall.
‘I don’t see why we can’t be out a little later next week,’ Stephanie had said boldly as Robert and Algernon accompanied them to the number twenty-five bus that would drop her right outside her home.
Rosie had only yards to go to her home and as the bus drew away, Stephanie saw enviously that she was hanging on to Robert’s arm as if for dear life. She vowed that she would do the same with Algy when she met him next Saturday. She would also tell her mother that she wouldn’t be home until the early hours and that she was not to worry. She had no idea what her mother would say to that and nor did she care. If Julia could take the reins then
so could she!
She would never have dreamed last year that a working life could turn out to be so good. She’d been a year younger then and under her parents’ keen eyes, but since their move she’d torn herself away from those Victorian restrictions. And, she thought proudly, she’d done it by her own endeavours. She preened herself a little, thinking of the wonderful position she’d obtained at Selfridges, when all around her were long queues of the unemployed, practically begging for work.
There were jobs to be had but not for the ordinary and the unskilled. There was money to be had too if you knew where to look. Businesses were thriving yet the dole queues continued to lengthen, which was strange. If you ran a business you were laughing. Like Julia, she thought, fancying herself with her big ideas.
And all from that material she’d calmly helped herself to from her own father’s warehouse. There’d been no guilty conscience, no grief at having lost him; she’d just grabbed what she could!
Yes, that’s where the money was, with those who helped themselves – like Julia.
Thirteen
It was two weeks to Christmas. The time had flown by, taking Julia by surprise. She still hadn’t got her modelling idea off the ground and now not much could be done until the festive season was over.
It was going to be a strange Christmas, she thought. In their previous life Christmas had been a formal, restrained occasion. The family would attend midnight mass, arising the next day to an exchange of Christmas presents prior to sitting down to an excellent traditional dinner prepared by Mrs Granby and served by Mary, the maid. Finally they would settle down to a quiet evening.
Julia recalled how as children they would be sent upstairs to play with their presents while their mother and father sat before a roaring fire. As they grew older they would join their parents for a while before going off to bed early. Knowing no better, they had taken it for granted that this was how Christmas was spent in most homes. It was only when Julia had begun courting Chester that life had taken on a new aspect of enjoyment.