Becoming Lola by Harriet Steel

Author:Harriet Steel [Steel, Harriet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2014-01-17T23:00:00+00:00

In the early hours of the morning, Lola sat alone in her hotel room. The ashtray beside her held a pile of stubs. She jabbed another half-smoked cigarillo into them. Her mouth felt dry and stale. How she wished she had someone to talk to. In the heat of the moment, it had been easy to stand up to the manager, but the bravado she had shown a few hours ago was hard to sustain now she was alone. Had she been right to abandon Eliza James? Lola was just a fiction: perhaps not a very good one at that. It might not be too late to go back.

She rubbed her hands over her face, massaging the tense muscles that made her head throb. If she did go back, who would be Eliza’s friends? Certainly not Thomas. She had heard too that when the news of the court case reached India, her mother had put on black and announced that her daughter was dead. Her stepfather was too loyal a man not to support his wife.

Her mind went back to Bath and dear Fanny. They had exchanged letters for a while, but Fanny was married with children of her own now. No place in her household for a woman of ill repute. That left Catherine Rae and she had already done enough.

She got up and stretched. She felt so weary and cold. What was the point in thinking about all this tonight? It was better to go to bed.

It was almost midday when she woke. She got up and threw the windows open wide to find that the day sparkled with sunshine. She took a deep breath of warm air and the problems of the night before seemed surmountable. It had been weariness speaking. Of course Lola had a future. She would be mad to go back when Eliza had nothing but a past.

She remembered the czar’s smiles and his flattering words. That was it: she would go to Russia, but first, she would attend the final grand parade in his honour. He might even notice her again. That would show Berlin what it had lost.

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