The Jewel Box (5 page)

“She’s married, but not to her companion in the tall hat,” he continued. “He doesn’t know she’s married and she doesn’t want him to know.”

“How did you divine all that?”

“She had rings when she first sat down. When he went
to the bar, she slipped them off and put them in her purse. She looks a little nervous, don’t you think? Just as one should when there’s a lot at stake.”

“So do you think she’s in love with the man in the hat?”

“She’d like to be. But actually she hardly knows him.”

She looked up, wanting to study his face while he was still focused on the married woman and her companion—but now his pale eyes were turned on hers.

“Have you ever been in love?” he asked, without blinking.

In her head she saw a young man in uniform with red hair. She blinked the image away. “No,” she said. “Not really. How about you?”

“I loved a woman who died.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked away, gulped from her cocktail.

“Don’t be. She wasn’t.”

It was such an odd thing to say that it made her wonder if he’d made it up to shock her.

“It was a long time ago.”

“And has there been anyone since?” He seemed to invite this kind of talk—flirtatious in its frankness.

“Of course. I’m perpetually in love. It’s a grand way to be. You should try it some time. You might like it.”

Grace shook her head. “You talk about love the way other people talk about ice cream.”

He shrugged. “One is hot, the other cold. Both taste good.”

“Love isn’t something you can just choose to try.”

“Tell that to her.” Again he indicated the woman in gray. Her face wore an expression that was exquisitely sad. The man in the hat had hold of her hand.

“She doesn’t look like she’s having a ‘grand’ time of it,” said Grace. “I’m not sure that people do when they’re in love.”

“Maybe not. But it’s love that splits you open, lays bare all that soft, raw stuff that’s inside. And that’s something you just have to do if you don’t want to dry up. Love reminds you that you’re alive, Miss Sharp.”

“That is, if it doesn’t kill you.”

“Indeed.”

“Excuse me, sir…” It was their waiter, with someone clerical-looking in a suit, perhaps from the hotel reception.

“What is it?” He looked them up and down.

“There’s a gentleman, sir—out at reception.” This from the clerk.

“What of it?” His tone was curt, irritable. “I have company, as you can see.”

The clerk nodded at Grace. “Begging your pardon, madam. Sir, he says he’s here to speak to you.”

“What’s his name, this
gentleman
? Did he give you his card?”

“No, sir.” The clerk looked embarrassed. “I did ask for his name, of course, but he declined to tell me.”

“For God’s sake.” The American rolled his eyes. “Go tell him I’m otherwise engaged. Or that I’m not here—you couldn’t find me. Tell him what the hell you like. Just get rid of him.” His volume had risen. People at neighboring tables were looking round at them. Grace dipped her head a little and swallowed some White Lady.

“Very good, sir.” The clerk looked as though he was about to say something further but seemingly changed his mind, bit his lower lip. Then he turned and walked away, followed by the waiter.

The American took out another cigarette.

“What was all that about?” asked Grace.

“I’m not sure, though I have my suspicions.” He lit up. “I just hope that’s the end of it. Now, where shall we dine? I can
get us a table in the restaurant here. Or is there someplace else you’d like to take me?”

“I don’t know.” Grace had noticed the woman in gray was still looking at them. She had bent her head to whisper to the man in the top hat. “I’m not so very hungry. Don’t you think that was a bit strange?”

The pale eyes had turned cold. “Nothing surprises me, Miss Sharp. Not anymore. I think we should finish our drinks and get out of here.”

“Yes, perhaps so. But…”

“I’m sorry, sir.” He was back—the clerk—and looking distinctly uncomfortable. “The gentleman is refusing to leave. He says he needs to speak to you urgently. He says you know who he is.”

He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He was a good six inches taller than the clerk. “I’ve told you, I’m otherwise engaged and I don’t wish to speak to this man. Don’t you have security in this place?”

“Well, sir—”

“Have your doormen throw him out!”

The clerk took a step back and seemed to gather his confidence before speaking again. “We would prefer to avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness, sir, if at all possible. The management would greatly appreciate it if you would step out to reception and speak to the gentleman. It appears to us that this is a personal matter that has nothing whatever to do with this establishment.”

The American sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “Oh, it’s that all right. Have him wait out front, will you?” He tipped the retreating clerk and forced his face into an expression that was almost a smile but not quite.

“So?” Grace drained her glass.

“I’m sorry.” He rubbed again at his forehead and whispered, “Damn it,” under his breath. “This could take some time, I’m afraid.”

“Well, that’s it, then.” Her disappointment was out of proportion to what was happening. This was more than merely the curtailing of a pleasant evening. It was as though someone had just sucked all the color out of her world.

“No, that’s not
it
.” He took her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. “Not by a very long way. How shall I reach you again?”

“At the
Herald
.” She felt shaky. “You can send me another note.”

“All right. If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll do. So long, Diamond. Until we meet again.”

“Until then, Devil.”

Walking out into the foyer, Grace felt flimsy, sketchy—as though she was hardly there. Perhaps the real Grace—the substance—was still sitting there in the bar with him. Or perhaps she hadn’t been here at all this evening. The carpet swallowed the sounds of her feet. The reflections in the glass and the brass were fragments only—glimpses of a thin person with an anxious face.

Reception was buzzing. Men in unseasonably heavy overcoats tipping porters to carry enormous cases. Large women with pearls and feathers. Shriveled old ladies with small dogs. Laughing children. And one man, standing with his back to her at the reception desk—very still—obviously waiting for someone. For the Devil. A man she instantly recognized—even just in passing quickly by.

The
Rutherford sisters, at seventeen and almost sixteen, respectively, were famous and infamous in their Hampstead neighborhood. Having been brought up by a radical suffragette mother and Darwinist father to think freely and speak their thoughts openly, they rarely saw the necessity to hold anything back. They came and went when they liked, with whom they liked.

“The girls are undeniably bright,” said Miss Stennet, the headmistress of the North London Collegiate School, smiling tensely across her desk at Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford. “They are popular, vivacious and rather charming. So bright and charming, in fact, that this school has tolerated too much from them. It’s time, now, for us to join forces in reining them in a little.”

“And what, exactly, is the nature of their misdemeanors?” asked Harold Rutherford.

Miss Stennet sighed. “Therein lies the difficulty. It’s more about an overall attitude, but I will try to say something further about it. Take their hair, for instance. The school rule is that hair should at all times be tied back.”

“Both girls wear their hair too short for tying back.” Catherine Rutherford folded her arms.

“Quite so. But why did they cut their hair in the first place? They both had such beautiful hair. And once your girls had started snipping away at each other, the whole school was suddenly at it. Some of them look quite dreadful—and it’s all happened while the girls are here in my care. You wouldn’t believe the number of complaints I’ve had from parents.”

“Are you telling me that it’s my daughters’ fault if some of your pupils can’t cut hair straight?” asked Catherine. “Are we to take them to task for having strong personalities? For finding their own way rather than following like sheep?”

“The bobbed hair…” Miss Stennet was struggling now, “it’s symbolic. There’s a particular way of being…a state of mind that goes with it. Has either of you, by any chance, read
The Vision,
by Dexter O’Connell?”

Confused faces from across the desk.

“Well, I can assure you that your daughters have.”

“So are we to limit their reading now?” Harold Rutherford glanced at his watch. “That book’s had rather good reviews, hasn’t it? I believe O’Connell has won a big prize?”

“‘That book’ has caused no end of trouble in America for its portrait of a girl of a certain tender age. A girl with bobbed hair and short dresses who lies and drinks and breaks the hearts of vulnerable young men, as have many of the girls who have taken her as their inspiration. That book has been banned in three of America’s Southern states. And there are campaigns afoot to ban it in five more.”

“Well, Miss Stennet.” Catherine got to her feet. “This family does not believe in censorship, and I’m rather shocked to discover that you do. I understood this school to be a modern-thinking establishment. I’m certain that my girls are not liars or drinkers. I’m not so sure about the heartbreaking, but it seems to me one isn’t responsible for the intactness or otherwise of another person’s internal organs. What right-thinking boy wouldn’t fall for Grace or Nancy, after all?”

“I suggest you work out your argument more thoroughly before complaining about our girls again.” Harold took his wife’s arm. “Is it your contention that they’re the headstrong sort who lead others astray? Or are you saying they’re the weak, simple-minded sort who ape a lot of silly behavior that they’ve read in the latest novel? You need to get your story straight, it seems to me.”

“I’m saying…” The headmistress felt suddenly tired. “I wanted to tell you that I’m a little worried about them. I thought perhaps you might be, too.”

On the evening this interview was taking place, the Rutherford sisters were sitting at the dining table at home. Grace was shuffling a pack of playing cards:

“Supposing I spread the cards facedown”—which she did, in the shape of a fan. “What say we both take a card, and then whoever’s card is the highest chooses first?”

“All right.” Nancy reached out and took a card. It was the jack of diamonds.

“Good card. Pretty boy, too.” Now Grace took hers. “Jack of spades. Ha! Which suit is worth more? I can’t remember how it works.”

“Neither can I. Perhaps we should both take another card. Mind if I shuffle?”

“Be my guest.”

Nancy scooped up the cards and began shuffling adeptly. Grace traced the knots in the wood of the table with a long fingernail. “My trouble is,” she said, “I’m not sure which of them I prefer. I mean, if you’d asked me half an hour ago I’d have said Steven, without question. But now we come to it, I find I’m rather attached to George, too. So perhaps you’d better just choose and I’ll have whichever you don’t want.”

“Actually”—Nancy set the cards down—“I find I’m in something of the same predicament. I’d definitely have said George if you’d asked me yesterday. But Steven…well, he’s Steven, isn’t he?”

“Dash it all!” Grace bit the fingernail. “There has to be a way to resolve this.”

“We could let
them
choose…” Nancy shrugged—and for a moment, both girls seemed deep in thought. Then—

“No!” came their voices, in unison, before both collapsed in giggles.

“Seriously, though.” Grace struggled to regain composure. “We have to settle this properly. If we let it carry on, they’ll get themselves so tangled up they’ll go off us altogether!”

“Surely not,” said Nancy. “Although…I see what you mean.”

“George is the cleverer,” said Grace. “He’s probably going to end up earning the most money. I’d say he’s stronger too—physically, I mean. And probably morally. But Steven…”

“Steven’s the unpredictable one,” said Nancy. “The lovable rogue.”

“That makes George the better husband,” concluded Grace. “But Steven the most fun.”

“Oh dear.” Nancy shook her head. “We both want Steven for now and George for later.”

“Just so,” said Grace. “I’m tired of this now. Fancy a game of rummy?”

In the end it was the war that settled it. The war whipped up the emotions, exerting peculiar pressure on relationships. Even the most unromantic of men found themselves declaring their love with poignant eloquence on the eve of separation. The swooning majority fervently believed in the Glorious Return but also sensed tragedy just around the corner. They danced closer, kissed harder, made promises aplenty, and in some cases shed clothes that might not otherwise have been shed.

In the summer of 1915, almost a year after the night the Rutherford sisters spread out their cards, they were still deliberating between the Wilkins brothers—George and Steven. Usually the four went about together. Strolls on the Heath, trips to the pictures and the dance hall. They knew there was speculation, from acquaintances and onlookers, as to which brother was courting which sister, and they relished being talked about. Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford were fond of both boys, and perhaps realized that while all four stuck together, neither girl could easily do something she might later regret. But the foursome couldn’t stick together forever.

Grace had been walking alone on the Heath one midmorning, and was sitting on a favored bench on top of Parliament Hill, thinking. She’d been offered a place to read English literature at University College, London, and until recently had been keen. But now it didn’t seem right that she should be about to enter into such an essentially selfish pursuit during wartime, while most of the men and boys she knew headed off to Do Their Bit. She thought about the Wilkins brothers, who’d landed commissions in the Royal Welch
Fusiliers, thanks to an uncle in Chester and a bit of time spent as cadets at school. Their impending departure made her feel differently about them, intensified her feelings for them both. She couldn’t conceive of her life, and Nancy’s, going on without George and Steven being here. They’d
always
been here. It was as she sat, thinking of this, that she heard a “halloo” from down the path, and spotted George making his way up toward her, the sun catching the blond strands in that auburn hair of his, so that it seemed shot through with gold.