Chapter 3 Unwelcome Details #3
“I must say,” said Honor, “I’m really surprised by your behavior lately. Is there something you want to tell me?” Her voice was quivering, whether with nerves or anger George couldn’t tell.
George sat down heavily. Her legs ached, as did her full bladder. “I’m sorry, have I done something to upset you? Because if so, I’m—”
“First you say you don’t think Jimmy is a suitable lodger. Then you start accompanying him to goodness knows where.”
“It was only a drink at the King’s Arms. We bumped into each other in the street. I assumed you wanted us to befriend him.”
“I’d like you to be friendly, yes. Nothing more.” Honor paused. “You wouldn’t, George darling, would you?”
Since when do you care whom I sleep with? thought George. “It hadn’t crossed my mind. I can’t imagine why you think it should. Unless you believe I set my cap at anything in trousers, in which case—”
“There’s no need to take umbrage. You’re just much too good for someone like Jimmy. That’s all I’m saying. I wouldn’t want you to—”
“He told me why he couldn’t serve, if that’s what you mean.”
Honor blanched. She went to pour them both a drink, then sat back down and looked at George. “What did he tell you exactly?”
“About being exempted from conscription. Because of his asthma. He seemed ashamed, poor fellow.”
Honor sipped her whisky, and some color returned to her cheeks. “Yes. Quite. I agree, it’s hardly his fault. But, George, I don’t mean to… I just don’t see him as…” She trailed off uncertainly.
“An eligible suitor for a gal like me?” George lowered her chin and raised her shoulder winsomely. “In all honesty, I think I’ve squandered my chances for anyone presentable. But that’s by the by. Please rest assured, I’ve no unwholesome designs on our Mr. Sullivan.”
“He may feel otherwise, though. The way he took your coat…”
“That was a bit odd, wasn’t it? Perhaps an attempt at good manners. He may’ve thought it was like standing when a lady enters the room or something. I’m not sure we ought to damn him for misapplied etiquette.”
Honor laughed. “You’re a kind girl, George. I’m glad we had this talk. You’ll stay out of his way, then? I do think it’s best. I mean, we wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea. Get his hopes up, as it were.”
George promised to give Jimmy a wide berth and said good night.
She went to the lavatory, then to her room.
There was a block of Cadbury’s in her bedside drawer, she realized with a drunken flutter of joy.
Ever since chocolate came off the ration a few weeks ago, it had been the main constituent of her diet.
Bliss. Curled up in bed, munching, she remembered leaving the Six Bells in an awful huff.
So much for Christopher. Rotten bastard.
Could it be true that his wife was pregnant, too? George was sorry for her, if so.
But she was more sorry for herself. She’d have to find some money.
That was all there was to it. What could she sell?
She looked around the room without much hope.
She had a gold bracelet, an heirloom from her grandmother.
But she doubted a pawn shop would offer more than a few quid for it.
None of her clothes were worth anything.
The only expensive thing was her fur. And that was ratty, with a torn lining.
Besides, she could hardly be without a winter coat.
She heard Mina on the landing before she stuck her head around the door and said, “Knock, knock.” Without waiting for George to respond, she came in and flopped onto the little settee with a sigh. The hem of her mauve wool skirt slid up, revealing tidily darned clocks on the sides of her stockings.
“Tiring shift at the cinema?” asked George, passing her the chocolate.
“My dear, I thought I’d fall asleep on my feet!” Yet she looked as alert and pretty as ever.
“Well, you’ll never guess where I’ve been. At the King’s Arms with our new friend Jimmy.”
“You weren’t! George. Don’t tell me you like him.”
“Not like that, no. Give me some credit.” Was this really what people thought of her? That she’d throw herself at any Tom, Dick, or Harry? “He seems harmless, though. He confessed to me that he couldn’t be a soldier because of weak health.”
Mina removed her gloves to break off a piece of chocolate (a lady never wears gloves while eating or drinking). “You mean he didn’t serve? Was he old enough?”
“Evidently so. He’s nearly twenty-nine. But he suffered from mild asthma, so was exempted.”
Mina frowned and rolled her gloves into a neat whorl.
“He said that, did he? Sounds like a pack of lies to me. My eldest brother’s got terrible lungs from catching TB when he was only little.
He said the army doctor barely listened to his chest before giving him the all clear.
He was sent to the front and all. His pal, who had a game leg from polio, was still sent to Kenya instead of combat duty.
They weren’t picky, you know. Couldn’t afford to be. ”
“Oh.” George felt foolish. “Gosh. I suppose you’re right. Why lie about such a thing, though?”
Mina shrugged. “Maybe he went AWOL. Maybe he’s still on the run now, and that’s why he’s here. He was too chicken to be a soldier. You’d hardly want to admit that.”
Surely Mina was being overly imaginative, thought George. The girl saw too many films and was prone to fanciful notions. “But I told Honor,” she said, “who already knew. She wouldn’t lie on his behalf, would she? Or harbor a fugitive from justice.”
“So says you. Me, I’d not put it past her. She’s a dark horse, isn’t she? You said so yourself the other night. More than a few skeletons in that closet, I reckon.”
“Did I say that? I can’t think why. Honor’s never given me any reason—”
“I mean, where are her people?” Mina raised her eyebrows. “Doesn’t she have parents? Or sisters, brothers, cousins? I don’t think she even has friends.”
“She’s never mentioned any family,” conceded George. “Only her late husband.”
“How old was he when he popped his clogs, then? I heard seventy-odd.” Mina made a face. “Can you imagine, marrying someone twice your age.”
Rather than respond to this, George ate another piece of chocolate. Then she said, “There was something a bit strange tonight.” She got up and closed the door.
Mina was examining her face in a compact. “Go on!”
George sat back down on the bed. “Honor saw us as we arrived home. Me and Jimmy. She seemed in a thorough tizzy about us fraternizing. Once he’d made himself scarce, she all but gave me a tongue-lashing.
Then made me promise to avoid him. As though I were her virgin daughter whose prospects might be wrecked by parish gossip. ”
“Golly. Honor being motherly. Will wonders never cease!”
“I know. But it was almost as if… as if it was Jimmy she was trying to protect. Thinks I’ll break his little heart, ha-ha. I suppose you ought to bear in mind, though, that these rules presumably apply double to you.”
“You mean what with me being an actual innocent young virgin?”
“Well, you are, aren’t you?” George was curious, never having established this basic fact. Suddenly, fervently, she wished a lifetime of peaceful chastity for Mina. Why she wished this, she could hardly have said. Perhaps she wished it retroactively for herself.
“Too right I am.” Mina shuddered, as though only too aware that the alternative was ruinous.
In truth, she’d only recently grasped what the whole business actually involved (George had helped enlighten her, albeit inadvertently).
Now Mina was feeling queasy about marriage, though her broader plans for the future hadn’t wavered.
She wanted glamour, and comfort, and money, and most of all she wanted everything money could buy.
A French-gray cashmere coatee with chinchilla trim.
A suede box handbag with an ivory handle.
Turquoise evening pumps by Roger Vivier for Christian Dior.
Every color of silk stockings on tap. A flat in Belgrave Square decorated in gold and eau de Nil, with new furniture from Harrods.
If these blessings must come via a man, well, so be it.
As a rule, Mina tried not to dwell on unwelcome details.
“Mina,” said George thoughtfully, “how much do you earn as an usherette?”
“It depends on how many shifts I work.” Mina snapped her compact shut and put it in her pocket. “About four pounds a week, usually.”
That was a pitiful amount. A waste of time.
George could get more from a few sessions of figure modeling at the art school.
Though she loathed doing it. Not that she cared about disrobing in front of strangers.
It was merely boring and uncomfortable, even more so than sitting in a painter’s squalid studio.
In any case, no matter how much paid work she undertook, it would take too long to save up.
Much too long. Time was very much of the essence.
But supposing she borrowed the money somehow—could she then work all the hours God sent to pay it back?
“Why?” said Mina. “Are you short? If you need me to lend you something, I—”
“No, no. Kind of you, but I wouldn’t dream of it. I am in a bit of a tight spot, but I’ll sort it out.”
“I can put in a good word at the cinema, if you like.”
“Thank you, I’ll think about it. You get off to bed, darling, if you’re tired.”
Left alone, George got back into bed herself and contemplated the last resort: asking her parents to lend her the money.
If only there were an acceptable reason for needing such a sum.
But even if she came up with the perfect excuse, merely asking would further lower her status in their eyes.
In her father’s, at least, and he held the purse strings.
Charles Mountford-Owen was baffled by his wayward youngest daughter, unable to understand why she refused to settle down.
And if she insisted on this odd existence of a modern bachelor girl, why must she be an artist’s model?
Her fellow debs, if they worked, did flower arranging or cooked business lunches.
Perhaps, mused George, she’d have made a better go of her romantic life if her father had been nicer.
He’d always disliked her, even when she was a small girl.
He never made much effort to hide the fact.
To be fair, he treated all girls—and women, come to think of it—with a scorn that bordered on sadistic.
Yet George had seemed to particularly test his patience.
When she was about five, she got a kitten from a neighbor’s cat’s litter.
Maisie, she was called. A fuzzy tortoiseshell with a squashed nose and white socks, Maisie sat on George’s shoulder indoors, and outside she liked to nestle behind the lapels of her coat.
One day they ate some blackberries in the garden, and Maisie, unused to such rich fare, greeted George’s father by quietly vomiting on his shoes.
Without speaking or exclaiming, he picked up the tiny creature by the tail and dangled her head in the pond until she stopped flailing.
The cold cruelty of that act, George realized now, had deformed her faith in human goodness.
He’d killed Maisie, she knew, not from an impulse to punish his daughter, or even because he’d simply blown his top, but because George loved her and was loved back.
In some perverse way, he found this insufferable.
So no, assistance could not be sought from parental quarters.
She thought about going to see Julian, the alternative paternal candidate, to use Chris’s fastidious word.
But she instinctively recoiled against another humiliating confrontation.
I’ll decide tomorrow, she resolved before closing her eyes and sinking into a delicious void.
Along with arranging her body in useful poses, sleeping was George’s great talent.