The Jewel Box by Anna Davis

Author:Anna Davis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: London (England) - History - 1800-1950, Women - England, England, London (England), General, Romance, Coming of Age, Historical, Women journalists, Fiction, Love stories, Women
ISBN: 9781416537366
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-06-02T01:43:49.518000+00:00

Nine

“Put out your tongues, boys.”

Out came the tongues of Topping and Humphries, two young whippersnappers from the Herald.

Grace blew a smoke ring and watched as Dodo Lawrence, the Herald’s main writer on subjects Dickie had been known to refer to as “female frippery,” inspected the two specimens. Topping’s tongue was long and pink and doglike, while Humphries’s was gray and unhealthy-looking.

“Definite win for Dum.” Dodo had been referring to the boys as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and then more succinctly as Dee and Dum, all evening. They were both too infatuated with Dodo, or perhaps too afraid of her, to object to this. “What’s the score, Grace?”

“Three–two to Dum. What next?”

Dodo simulated deep thought for a moment—then, apparently tiring of that, turned around on her chair and cast about for inspiration.

The Salamander Club was jolly tonight. Cocktails long past cocktail hour. Lots of giggling girls with floaty silk scarves (de rigueur, it appeared—both the scarves and the giggles). A good number of attractive men—many of that quiet, contemplative variety who met one’s gaze with a gentle smile through the cigarette smoke but didn’t press for any further attention. Even better, quite a few men who danced a good Charleston! She’d done the right thing in coming here with Dodo this evening. Dodo belonged to a category of women that Grace thought of as “professional blonde.” There were lots of them about on London’s newspapers and magazines, and not a few of them running art galleries, too. Platinum-haired, fine-sculpted flappers-grown-up, with loud voices and oodles of confidence and low-cut dresses in bold patterns. As with many of her ilk, you could rely on Dodo to be amusing and impersonal. There must be a serious side to her personality somewhere deep down—she was too clever for that not to be the case. But she didn’t expose that potential inner seriousness too readily. This suited Grace just fine in her present mood.

It had been almost forty-eight hours since O’Connell had told her about the trade-off. She’d stayed away from him since then, mulling it all over. She knew it was wrong to judge him for what he’d done. After all, he hadn’t judged her. But, having persuaded him to tell her his secret, she couldn’t ignore what it revealed about him. He’d remained silent over the last couple of days. No pleading phone calls, flowers or torrid letters. That wasn’t his style. He wasn’t the sort to beg. He might have realized, of course, that she wouldn’t want to hear from him yet. Though perhaps he simply didn’t care enough to come running after her…She found herself thinking about all those newspaper stories about O’Connell the Cad, O’Connell the Playboy. She thought too about Nancy’s warning to her. In a very fundamental way, he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. And she wasn’t at all sure what she wanted to do now.

In the meantime, it was good to distract herself with cocktails.

“Shoes,” Dodo announced. She and Grace ducked down to peer under their table.

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