“I haven’t got much longer this leave. Can’t you make it to-morrow evening to come out with me? What about dancing? I’m sure you like dancing?”
Julia’s eyes glowed. It seemed as though an earlier and a brighter world was swinging into her orbit once again.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t,” she said in a low voice.
“Not if we made a party of it? Let’s all go to the Hammersmith Palais de Danse—your husband, your cousin and all of us.”
“That might be possible,” said Julia, with a little sinking feeling of disappointment.
“Of course it’s possible. And then the next night you shall come to the pictures with me to make up for my having been a good boy.”
He jumped up and walked over to the table, where Herbert and Uncle George and Bertha and Mrs. Almond were playing cards.
How sure he looked of himself, thought Julia, narrowing her short-sighted eyes to gaze at him as he stood hands in his jacket pockets, his feet slightly apart, as he broke in a little upon the older folks’ game. Fantastic, but true, such was his vitality that the complaining Herbert and the delighted Elsa had promised to make up a party of four with himself and Julia.
“You can hire young men out for sixpence there,” Julia told him, laughing, her spirits rising in the old familiar fashion which she thought to have left behind. “I shall take one of them if I don’t like your dancing.”
“You can hire young ladies, too,” he retorted, “and if you and Elsa don’t behave, Mr. Starling and I will do just that; we will hire ourselves two beautiful blondes.”
Herbert murmured something about dancing being a stupid business—never could do with it, even in the war, and hadn’t danced since. But Julia laughed gaily, and tweaked his ear with more affection than she had shown him for a long time past.
“You’re getting stuffy, Herbert,” she said. “That’ll never do, will it, Mr. Carr?”
“Oh, what do we wear?” cried Elsa. “What about my pale blue glacé?”
Elsa would want to wear pale blue, she always did, thought Julia viciously.
“I shall go in a little black turban hat. It’s much smarter,” she said, “and a black frock. You always look well dressed if you’re in black. That’s one of the things you learn in Paris.”
“Oh, Paris,” said Elsa viciously, with a sudden sharp little snap of her pointed teeth. “You think of nothing but your precious Paris.”
“You see, I know it very well,” replied Julia tranquilly.
And for the moment this appeared to her to be true. She forgot that all her time there was taken up in rushing from wholesale house to wholesale house, in seeing model after model. It seemed to her she really knew Paris well, and she thought sentimentally of the past when she had lunched and dined with René Imbert. What a fool she had been about him. What a fool she had been about everything. But she wasn’t going to be again. She was going to enjoy herself for a bit now.
The dance next night was a great success, at least, Julia thought so, and Leonard thought so; but whether Herbert and Elsa thought so was quite another matter.
The following evening was a Friday, so she could tell Herbert she had to stay late and see to the accounts, and might even go back with Mrs. Danvers to her flat to “do the books” with her. This last was a stroke of genius. She knew Herbert would not dare to ring her up and follow her to Gipsy’s. After the other girls had all gone, after Gipsy herself had wished her a pleasant good night, and taken her departure, Julia stood for a moment in the fitting-room of l’Etrangère’s looking about her.
She had helped to decorate that room during the slack season of 1922, when the first slump had lain heavy upon the land. She had painted the frieze of dancing figures, harlequins and columbines and clowns that ran round the top of the room above the glittering silver wallpaper. That “amusing” doll, with the bright red hair and the scarlet mouth and white face, which lolled back in the corner of the divan amongst the coloured cushions, was one she had brought back from Paris on her last trip. Everywhere she looked there was some trace of her handiwork. This is mine, she thought passionately. This could not go on without me. Couldn’t ever be the same. This is much more mine than Saint Clement’s Square can ever be.
She stood for a moment while the evening light brimmed the room like the last of a high tide; and it seemed to her that she had at least achieved something. It wasn’t everybody who could work hard and get a good business together, especially when they had started as an apprentice as she had done. Yes, she had made all this, and she had made the new Julia that stood looking at her from the full-length mirror. This Julia in the smart little black suit, with the little black lace hat—a “Russian hat” that came down to her blind, but lovely, eyes—she had made this elegant thing called Miss Almond. She could always create her again at any moment with the right clothes and the right stimulus, however tired and shabby Mrs. Starling might look back in Saint Clement’s Square.
Julia swept the little soft black satin coat about her, and went from the narrow winding stairs. She knew that she looked her best, as she hadn’t looked for several years, when she stepped out of the house door and found Leonard Carr waiting for her.
They had a delightful little dinner at Frascati’s, a place which Julia knew Marian and Gipsy despised, but which seemed to her wonderful, when she was with someone like Leonard, to whom it was also wonderful.
“Posh place this,” said Leonard contentedly, and Julia at once accepted his standards, and found herself furiously resenting the thought that Marian and Gipsy might have laughed at him.
“You know I can’t believe it,” he said, at the end of the dinner, during which they drank Asti Spumante. “I can’t believe that we haven’t met all these years.”
“Nor can I,” said Julia. “It seems as though we had met somehow, or as though they weren’t there. I don’t quite know how to put it.”
“I’m no good at words,” he said. “They’re not my strong suit, but you’re pretty clever with them. You’re pretty clever in everything you do, dresses and everything. I can see that all right.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Julia, laughing. “I spend most of my time thinking what an awful fool I’ve been.”
Leonard’s eyes met hers very quickly, and then looked away again.
“We all make bad breaks sometimes, I suppose,” he said.
“You don’t seem to have,” said Julia. “You’ve chosen the sort of life you like.”
“Oh, that. Yes, that’s a great life.”
He suddenly seemed withdrawn, living in his own past, and Julia found herself invaded by a swift, sudden aching, like jealousy, of that strange and many-coloured life he had lived without her. Strange ports. Strange women. Everything one always thought of connected with the life of a migrant such as a sailor or a flying man. Why, nowadays, she had heard that women—even real ladies with money—were not above having a bit of fun with a good-looking man, even if he was not quite an officer. And although she, of course, could refer to Leonard as an officer, she knew he wasn’t that, and never would be unless another war came along.
“Anyway, you’re not married,” she said suddenly, “not made a fool of yourself that way?”
“No, not yet,” he agreed; and at once Julia thought of Elsa, smug little Elsa.
“Well, don’t hurry,” she urged him. “It’s a frightful mistake to marry very young, as I did.”
“I expect you’re right,” he said. “But, after all, it’s very much a case of whom you marry, isn’t it? Lots of fellows I know are much happier married. I suppose everyone comes to it!”
“Not you,” said Julia, flattering him with her attentive eyes. “You seem so free, somehow. It would be like. …” She paused for a moment, and went on: “rather like putting a lion in a cage. Do you know, I can’t think of you as Leonard. It seems too soft a name for you, somehow. Since yo
u first came to Saint Clement’s Square, I’ve thought you looked much more like a Leo. Has nobody ever called you Leo?”
“Nobody ever has, but you will, won’t you? I like it.”
“Leo …” She paused for a moment. “Yes, I will if you like, at least sometimes. I don’t think Elsa would like it if she heard me call you Leo.”
A shadow passed over his handsome face. He thrust his full under-lip out with a little air of sullenness that already she had noticed to be frequent with him.
“What has Elsa got to do with it?” he said. “She’s only a kid.”
“She’s your age. Much better suited to you than I am.”
“Well, I don’t think so, and that’s that. Age is experience. I’m years older than Elsa. She doesn’t know she’s born yet. I bet I’m older than you, if it comes to that. Do you know, you seem awfully like a kid yourself sometimes. I was a bit afraid of you when I met you the other day, but now you seem like a girl. You seemed so important, and talked of such a lot of grand people I know nothing about.”
“Oh, well,” said Julia lightly, “that’s my job. I mix with a lot of them. But you must see what you call grand people, too, when you go to sea—the Riviera, for instance. Lots of rich people go there.”
She watched him as he spoke, screwing up her eyes to see him better.
“Oh, I suppose so,” he said, “but I don’t have anything much to do with them. Of course, there are silly women everywhere, if that’s what you mean,” and for a moment a little self-conscious smile touched his full lips. “But that’s nothing.”
“I expect you think we’re all silly,” said Julia, with a sudden despair that struck even herself as out of all proportion. Why should she care so much what this young man thought, or said, or did?
“Oh no,” he said softly, “not you, for instance. I knew you were different directly I saw you.”
The eternal theme had begun. Julia leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her face in her hands.
“How do you mean—‘different’?” she asked.
Herbert was up and waiting for her when she got home that night, his heavy face set in lines of anger.
“Where have you been, Julia? Don’t pretend you’ve been at Mrs. Danvers’s all the time, doing accounts.”
“No, I haven’t,” said Julia calmly. “I ran into Leonard Carr and we went to the movies. Now don’t make a fuss, Herbert, because I can’t be bothered to listen to it. I have been to the movies alone with a man. Think of that. Isn’t it dreadful?” And she went into her bedroom and banged and locked the door.
Herbert was furious and gave her such an unpleasant week-end that she decided her candour had been, perhaps, a trifle foolish. He accused her of “carrying on”; of trying to take Elsa’s young man from her—both of which accusations were true, which did not improve matters. And yet if she were to go on meeting Leo, it seemed safer to make as little mystery of it as possible. Elsa would hear of it and be wild, of course, but she didn’t give twopence for Elsa.
On Monday night she was alarmed to see Herbert waiting for her outside the shop when she came out, and she spoke to him shortly.
“Herbert, you know this is the one thing I can’t have. You mustn’t call at the shop for me. How often have I told you that!”
“I used to come, before we were married,” he said.
“Oh, then. Besides, it was the war, and everything was different.”
“Well, didn’t young Carr call for you on Friday?”
“No, he didn’t,” said Julia.
Herbert glared at her, but she knew that he had no knowledge to go upon, and refused to let herself be flustered into any admission.
There were only two more evenings that she could see Leo before his leave was up. One of these was taken up by a family party at Two Beresford, to which Leo had brought his father and mother. His father was a thin, harsh, dyspeptic-looking man, but Julia felt her heart go out towards his mother. She was an old countrywoman, out of place in London, withered like a russet apple, with hands whose knotty joints were enlarged by rheumatism and hard work; but she had the same bright eyes as Leo, only they seemed less on guard than his. They had more of the twinkling brightness of a robin’s.
At the party he gave out that he had to be down at Portsmouth next evening ready to go on board. He had warned Julia what he would say, and although she at once felt Herbert turn and stare at her, she went on calmly sorting her cards for a game of rummy they were playing, without the smallest sign of interest flickering across her face.
In the evening of the following day, when she was left alone at the shop, she rang up Herbert at Saint Clement’s Square. He had just come in, tired and hungry, as she had guessed.
“Ruby has given me two seats for her show to-night,” she told him. “Can you come?”
“But we’ve seen the show,” complained Herbert.
“I know, but this is business. We’ve done her new dresses, and she wants someone from the shop to go and see what they look like.”
“Well, I don’t care a damn what they look like. I can’t come all that way back.”
“Oh, do come, Herbert. I shall have to get one of the girls to go with me if you don’t.”
She had bluffed him, and bluffed him successfully. Herbert was quite satisfied. He didn’t really mind being left alone in the evening so long as she was not out with some other man. He announced sulkily that he would stay at home, and Emily would give him his supper.
“I shan’t be late,” Julia told him. “It wouldn’t be worth going on anywhere after the show if you’re not there.”
She hung up the receiver, extremely pleased with herself. It was true that l’Etrangère had made Ruby’s new dresses, but Julia knew them by heart and wouldn’t have to pretend anything she didn’t know.
So, when work was over, she stayed and changed in the wash-room of the shop, pulled on a little hat, and slipped out into the darkening streets. She took a taxi to the Pall Mall entrance of the Carlton, paid it off, walked quickly through the foyer and out by the Grill Room door, and then up the street to Piccadilly Circus, where she entered the maze of the Criterion Restaurant and went upstairs. Leo was waiting for her, looking so handsome, though his dress-clothes were hired. He had a figure that set off any clothes. He had already, with that decisiveness which Julia felt was so masculine and so thrilling, engaged a table, not on the edge of the dancing-floor, but back in one corner where the lights were soft, and where they were as far away from the orchestra as possible. Julia remembered for a moment René Imbert’s remarks about music and food. Perhaps Leo was not very grand, perhaps he would not have passed in the world of l’Etrangère, but he was a man all right—a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. He had, she noticed, the air of authority that comes from discipline, and she felt, as she sat down at the table, a sudden little pang that life should be so badly arranged. Why couldn’t he have been the same age as Alfie? Why couldn’t she have met him in the war when she had met Alfie, and married him? Of course, unlike Alfie, he wouldn’t have been killed. He would have stayed in the Air Service and become a fully-fledged officer, and she would have had a decent place in the world, instead of having her life cut up into three distinct fields as it was: her life at the shop; her mere existence at Saint Clement’s Square, and her life of the imagination which, for the first time, seemed to be taking on flesh and actuality in front of her. If only it hadn’t just one or two things wrong with it; if only she had been free. … Oh, well, what was the use of “onlys”?
It was their very last evening. He hadn’t yet even kissed her, hadn’t made love to her except by the tacit assumption that she was prepared to join him in a little lying and scheming so that they could be together. He really didn’t care twopence about Elsa, or he would have wanted to have his last evening with her. Julia’s spirits rose. She put repining behind her and set herself to enjoy
the evening.
They danced and they talked. Talked of life, Julia would have said, because they talked about themselves—and they were young and alive, and felt the rest of the world as a mere background to themselves.
“Do you believe a man and a woman can be friends?” he asked her, and Julia gave the correct answer.
“Of course I do. Why shouldn’t they?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Leo. “Only two reasons, I suppose—that the man is a man, and the woman is a woman.”
“There needn’t be anything like that,” said Julia primly, at once establishing her defences as much against herself as against him. Even with this delightful new note in her life, she must remember to keep herself respected, and being respected meant not being found out, not even by the other person.
“I shall miss you,” he said as they danced. “I’ll think of you when I’m up in the cold and rainy North.”
“Oh, you’ll be thinking of a girl in some port.”
“I shan’t. I shall be thinking of you, and you know it. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met, but I told you that the first day, didn’t I? You’re different.”
“You’re different, too, if it comes to that,” she told him.
Here they were, back at it again—this essential difference that set them apart from the rest of the world, which somehow made it right that they should have their chance of happiness.
Julia looked at the little silver wrist-watch that had been Gipsy’s Christmas present to her—“a reward for a good girl,” Gipsy called it.
“I must get back,” she said. “I mustn’t be a minute late to-night. Herbert knows to a sec. how long it would take me to get back from the theatre.” They were sitting at their little table again. He leaned forward and put both his hands on her knees under the table.
“We can’t say good-bye like this,” he said. “It’s absurd. Can’t I see you alone? We’ve never really been alone.”
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