The Jewel Box (3 page)

Tonight the rain was so heavy that the spectacle appeared smeary and dreamlike. Raindrops, lit in bright colors, ran ceaselessly across the window, so that it appeared to Grace as if the Circus was crying. Through the tears she glimpsed the dry interiors of other taxis carrying girls with laughing mouths, tired ladies in hats, young men with a look of hunter or hunted. The insides of other motorcars like tiny, complete worlds. And she, with Dickie, in their own little world, drifting through it all in a kind of trance…

Until a taxi pulled momentarily alongside theirs, and she saw someone in profile. A clean jaw, a Roman nose…

“It’s that man!”

“What man? What are you talking about?”

“Oh.” The other taxi had turned right. It had been the most fleeting of glimpses. Had it really been the American?
Or was it just that she was still thinking about him, somewhere behind it all?

“Grace?”

“It’s nothing. Look, we’re here. Let me help you with that tie.”

Double doors opened to reveal Ciro’s famous glass dance floor like a sheet of ice, over which the dancers appeared to skate. Jean Lensen and his Ciro’s Club Dance Orchestra were in full swing. White suits, slicked-down hair, gleaming brass. The air was smoky and heady with the mingled perfume of a great many women, undercut by a bitter edge of perspiration.

“No wonder the streets were empty,” Grace muttered. “Everyone’s in here.” And indeed it did feel as though every fashionable man and woman in London was collected here under one roof. Vivacious flappers rattling with beads and rhinestones, gazellelike women in silks and feather plumes, immaculate men in dress shirts.

“Well, you were right about the champagne,” said Dickie. Waiters threaded back and forth, bearing trays laden with glasses. He lifted one for Grace and one for himself. “Look over there.”

By the long bar stood a precarious pyramid of glasses. A barman mounted a stepladder and proceeded to pour from the largest champagne bottle Grace had ever seen. Glittering liquid flowed and frothed its way down the pyramid, filling the glasses in a Möet et Chandon fountain, while nearby onlookers applauded.

Dickie, who was clearly still feeling underdressed and underconfident, brightened when someone called out to him. Grace recognized Ronnie Hazelton from the
Times,
along with
a group of tiresome cronies. Still getting her measure of the room, and wanting to explore further, she made as if to follow Dickie but then slipped off through the crowd.

Farther away from the dance floor, seated at tables and, for the most part, talking intently, was a less shiny bunch of people: balding gray men with spectacles, squat little men with beards. Book people, thought Grace, spotting Samuel Woolton, the well-known publisher who’d just set up his own company. Editors, novelists, poets, hiding behind all the pretty boys and girls with titles and private incomes who liked to play at having a job. This must be a literary party—well, notionally anyway.

“Dried off now, I see.” He was standing right behind her. Too close.

“Have you been following me?” She spoke without turning around, directing her gaze out at the dance floor. A spotlight was on one of the trumpeters, as he launched into a flashy solo.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

She turned to face him, and as she looked at him something flickered in her stomach and made her want to giggle. An excited girlish giggle—the sort of giggle which she absolutely mustn’t give in to.

He was such a broad person—those shoulders, that neck. There was an overwhelming maleness to him. She wanted to know how it would feel to dance with him—to feel the large hands resting heavy on her shoulders, her back.

“Come, now.” She wagged a finger at him. “Confess.”

He smiled. “I saw you come in with your friend fifteen minutes ago. I’ve been here two hours.”

“Rubbish! Your taxi pulled alongside ours on Regent Street.”

A raised eyebrow. “How flattering. I’ve obviously made quite an impression on you.”

“Well, I think you left a bruise on my foot earlier, if that’s what you mean by an
impression
.”

He took the empty champagne glass from her hand, replacing it with a filled one. “What I mean,” he said, “is that when you’re thinking about someone—when you can’t get them out of your mind—you see them everywhere.”

Grace allowed herself a chuckle. He was the sort who used verbal combat as a seduction technique. “Thirty-eight,” she said, looking him up and down.

“Pardon me?”

“Years old. Or maybe forty. And divorced. It’s the done thing in America, isn’t it? You might even be divorced
twice
.”

Now he was the one to laugh. “I suppose I deserved that, Miss…”

“You can call me Sapphire.”

“Can I now?” He reached out to clink glasses with her.

“And you? Who are you?”

“Me?” He shrugged. “I’m a typical Irishman. Full of blarney.”

She rolled her eyes. “That accent is about the least Irish I’ve ever heard. I suppose you have a great-grandfather from Skibbereen or Ballydehob or something. Isn’t it enough to be American?”

She didn’t know quite how it came about—it was hot and she was a little dizzy—but his right hand was against her cheek now. Just resting there, holding her face so that she couldn’t but look into his pale, humorous eyes. “I guess I enjoy a little romance,” he said. “Don’t you?”

It was almost 4:00 a.m. when the taxi pulled up at the end of Tofts Walk, Hampstead. As Grace got out, her right heel stuck in a manhole cover. Muttering words which would have caused consternation at Pearson’s, she righted herself, paid the driver and half limped her way up the steep slope to number 9—a Victorian terraced house of the thin, tapering sort. She was still fussing with her keys, trying to open the stiff door without making too much noise, when it was opened from the inside by a man she’d never seen before. A tall man in tweed with glossy brown hair and a mustache. Disconcertingly good-looking. Good-looking enough so that the important question of why a complete stranger should be answering her door in the middle of the night was overtaken by Grace’s anxieties over whether her makeup was a fright and whether she was drunk to an extent that was ugly or merely garrulous.

“Miss Rutherford?” He was American.
Another
one. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up, showing tanned, sinewy forearms. He stood back to let her by. The tight space in the hallway forced her to brush against him.

“I’m sorry, but…”

“John Cramer.” He put his hand out to shake hers. Strong grip. Soft voice. “I live just across the road. I came over to help out.”

Sobriety returned in a rush—and panic. “Where’s Nancy? And my mother? Where’s she?” She threw her jacket over the coat stand and opened the door to the lounge. The lights were all on. At
4:00 A.M.

“Your mother’s gone to bed. Your sister’s sitting with the baby.”

Grace wheeled around. “What’s going on?”

“Felix is unwell,” said the man. “He’s sleeping now, but the
doctor said he shouldn’t be left alone.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Can I get you a hot drink?”

“No, thanks. Excuse me.”
Felix.
As she made for the stairs, her head was filled with awful thoughts. Her beautiful little nephew—her golden boy…

“Wait a second,” called the man, from the bottom of the stairs.

As Grace reached the landing, Felix’s door opened and Nancy slipped out, a finger to her lips. Her eyes were red and puffy, her thick blond hair hanging in rat’s tails.

“I’m so glad you’re home.” Her voice was tired and strained. “I’ve missed you so.”

“Come here.” Grace opened her arms and folded her little sister in. Nancy was smaller than Grace. She allowed herself to be held tight, her head inclined so that it tucked under Grace’s chin. They had always held each other in this way, for as long as either could remember. Grace stroked Nancy’s hair, smoothing it behind her ear. “Now, tell me what’s happened.”

“He had a fever. I thought it was just the teething—you know how he gets. I let Edna go home at the usual time after the children’s dinner.” She pulled herself free of Grace, so she could face her. “But after she’d left, he was very sick. His forehead was
burning
and he was pouring sweat. I gave him a cool bath, but that didn’t seem to help. I was
so
worried, Grace. Poor little Tilly—she had to put herself to bed, pretty much. No stories, no cuddles. Mummy was out, too, you see—at her bridge night. Tilly was such a lamb…And then Felix started going all limp.”

“Why didn’t you ring me at the office?” Grace wanted to shake Nancy—had to work hard not to. “You should have
called me as soon as the fever started. I’d have come straight home, you know I would.”

“I did try to ring you but there was something wrong with the telephone. Then—this was so dreadful—Felix had a sort of fit. I’d left him on the couch for a moment, and there was a bang. I rushed in, of course, and he’d fallen to the floor and was thrashing about and shaking and I couldn’t rouse him. It was so frightening, Grace.”

“I’m sure it was. How long did it go on for?”

“I suppose it was only a minute or two but it felt like an age.” Nancy’s pupils had dilated, and she was trembling. “When it was over, I picked him up in my arms and ran across the road to bang on John’s door. He was
wonderful
. He telephoned for the doctor, and then he came over and helped me put Felix to bed. And he’s stayed all evening—all
night
, I suppose. Even after Mummy got home, he insisted on staying on to wait for you.”

“So what did the doctor say?” A nerve was twitching in Grace’s face. The thought of little Felix fitting on the floor was just too awful. “How’s Felix now?”

“He said the fit was probably caused by the fever. The temperature had already dropped a bit by the time he got here, and he thought Felix was over the worst of it. But he said we should keep him cool and give him water if he wakes and watch him till the morning just to be sure. He’s going to come back tomorrow.”

“Right.” Grace realized her hands were clenched into fists. She had to make an effort to loosen them.

There was a creak below. Cramer, the neighbor, was climbing the stairs, bearing two cups of cocoa. “Here. I wasn’t sure whether to sugar them, but still…”

“Thank you.” Grace took her cup. Nancy appeared oddly bashful as she took hers. Coquettish, even. She’d referred to him as “John.”…

“Would you like me to stay on and sit with Felix?” he asked. “I probably won’t manage to sleep now anyway. Insomnia has its uses, so feel free to take advantage.”

Grace felt the heat in her face even as she glanced at Nancy and saw her cheeks flush pink. “Thank you, Mr. Cramer,” she said, with an effort. “You’re very kind. But I’m quite happy to sit with Felix.”

A shrug and a smile. “Well, if you’re sure.” His eyes were brown but very dark. Deliciously murky.

The rising sun forced its way through Felix’s flimsy curtains, casting a pale glow over his sleeping face. At eleven months old, he was turning from baby to little boy—not quite one or the other. This moment of transition had rendered him especially vulnerable, and especially beautiful. Fluffy golden-duckling hair haloed around his head. His eyes—deep blue when open—were closed now, and fringed with long, thick lashes. The breath came softly from his pink lips, slightly open. His face was cool, the fever gone, and Grace could safely have left him alone—but still she sat on, watching over him, so relieved he was all right that she couldn’t quite tear herself away from him. Not yet.

People often said Felix looked the image of Nancy. But they hadn’t seen the photographs of Grace as a child, before her hair turned dark. On closer examination Felix’s features were much more like his aunt’s than his mother’s. He had Grace’s eyes, Grace’s mischievous smile, Grace’s pale, almost-transparent skin. It was Felix’s four-year-old sister Tilly who
resembled Nancy more—with her doll-like face, cute turned-up nose and dimpled cheeks.

Felix lay on his side, with one hand up by his face, the fingers gently curled. Deliciously pudgy little fingers. The other arm was down by his side. Watching him, listening to his breathing and to the dawn chorus outside, Grace thought there was nowhere in the world she would rather be than here. Sitting by her boy. She allowed herself to think of him in that way—as her boy—without feeling it was disloyal to her sister. It was Grace who had looked after Nancy while she was pregnant with Felix—Grace who helped her to go on after the death of her husband, George. Grace had been there at the protracted, almost-disastrous birth, rubbing the small of Nancy’s back, holding her up. Holding her together. More often than not, these days, it was Grace who got up when Felix cried at night. With Daddy and George both dead there were no men left at 9 Tofts Walk. Nancy was fragile, struggling to cope with the demands of motherhood. And Catherine, their mother, was eccentric and impractical—full of theories about how the world should function without the least idea of how even her own household did. So it was Grace, inevitably, who had to step up and become the head of the family. Grace was Felix’s substitute father.

It wasn’t wrong, she told herself, as she sat in the rocking chair looking at her boy—to think of him as her own. It was becoming less and less likely, after all, that she’d ever have children. Not now, at thirty, with no husband and none in prospect. Why should she want a husband, anyway? She was used to being in charge of things—there was no good reason for her to need to surrender that control to a man. And when you’re on your own, there’s nobody to let you down and disappoint you.

The dawn chorus was over. Felix gave a sweet little sigh
in his sleep. The rocking chair creaked gently. Grace’s eyes were closing, her head nodding. Her mind was filled with last night—memories slipping into half-crazy dreams. She was dancing with the fair-haired American or Irishman or whatever he was. It was what she’d wanted, last night—to dance with him—and it hadn’t happened. They had still been talking when both had been spotted by people they knew—people who’d dragged them apart. She’d looked for him later, but couldn’t find him anywhere.