Sunday was a fine, sunny day. They had walked in the park, she holding his arm. She’d made herself as pretty for him as she could, wearing a calf-length summer dress in a pale blue, patterned voile with Magyar sleeves and a slightly lowered waistline that was the new season’s fashion, a parasol to match and a cream, broad-brimmed hat pulled low over her eyes until her short hair could hardly be seen. Pointed court shoes made the whole ensemble perfect. He hadn’t even remarked on how nice she looked. He had kissed her on meeting, but the kiss had been cold, his lips hard.
‘I’m sorry about Saturday,’ he said. ‘I know you were looking forward to the theatre, but it couldn’t be helped.’ It sounded as if he hardly cared whether it could have been helped or not.
‘How did your business meeting go?’ she asked.
The non-committal shrug prompted instant concern. What if his father’s business was going the way of her father’s?
The country still hadn’t truly recovered since the Armistice. Of course, some businesses had done well out of it, making the most of their chances, but others were struggling. Perhaps it was worry that was making him so vague.
She’d seen the long dole queues of ex-servicemen patiently waiting for jobs that weren’t there, women widowed by war trying to exist on a pittance, with little help from the Government, their fatherless children thin and grubby and clothed in rags. They hung around street corners in the poorer parts of the East End while the well off swept by in their fine cars, just as her father might have done and Chester’s father no doubt still did. She knew she was probably equally guilty by walking past with her face averted, not knowing quite why except that she didn’t want to be drawn into their misery. But if Chester couldn’t come to her aid, she could become one of them, searching vainly for a job. The thought brought a shudder.
‘Is anything wrong? In your father’s business, I mean?’ she asked anxiously. If it had fallen into trouble, how could she expect to rely on him to help her family?
‘Not exactly,’ he replied evasively, not meeting her eyes but staring into the distance as they walked. He began to chew at his lip as if unsure of what next to say. ‘Well, to be honest,’ he continued at last in a low, uncertain tone, ‘things do seem to have temporarily run into a few difficulties lately. Nothing very much to worry about, mind you, but it needs to be thought about.’
He fell silent for a while but as she squeezed the arm she was clinging to, he abruptly stopped walking, pulling her up sharply beside him. This time he looked at her closely.
‘The thing is,’ he’d said slowly, ‘both our fathers’ affairs seemed to be doing very well and they thought that once you and I were married, between them they could surmount these difficult times by amalgamating. We could have become one large company.’
‘Your father wasn’t exactly going broke,’ she said miserably. ‘Mine was. And we didn’t know. We had no idea.’
‘And nor did my father. Your father said nothing to him about that and he was shocked and upset to say the least when he discovered how things were. He feels he has been duped.’ Chester’s tone sounded as if he was accusing her as well as her father of underhandedness.
‘Duped!’ she had echoed, pulling away from him in shock. ‘Is that what you think too?’
‘It’s what my father thinks.’
She stood glaring up at him. ‘But what do you think?’
When he hadn’t replied, she’d rushed on, ‘And our marriage – did that come into your father’s scheme of things, our families being nicely united in this business arrangement?’
‘Of course not,’ he began, but she wasn’t listening.
‘And you’ve never actually loved me.’
‘Julia, I do love you!’
‘And you still want us to get married.’
It was a statement but in that second she’d detected the tiniest of hesitations. She had stepped away from him, turned and run, leaving him standing there. He hadn’t come after her, and that had told her all she needed to know. He should have raced after her, caught her in his arms, covered her face with kisses and sworn undying love, but he had done none of those things.
Now, several days later, she sat on the edge of her bed. It wasn’t yet daylight. She’d hardly slept last night, knowing what was to happen today. In her hand she held a short letter from him. It had arrived yesterday with the last post of the day. She had no need to read the words again; they were seared on her brain:
I love you. I want to marry you, but my family are against it, and I can’t upset them at this time. We’ve a few business problems and I have to help my father get ourselves out of it. It’s just a small hiccup but I can’t think of us at the moment. Just be patient, darling. When the business is back on its feet, which it will be in a few weeks’ time, I’ll come and see you and we can pick up where we left off. In the meantime I still love you. Chester.
Sitting there with her eyes closed, she slowly crumpled the letter into a tight ball for the sixth or seventh time and let it drop on to the carpet.
A few weeks’ time would be too late. Yesterday, her mother had clutched a different letter, from their solicitor, telling them that today they would be moving out of this house, never to live here again.
She opened her eyes and saw that it was dawn, daylight showing through the half-drawn damask curtains.
She got up from the bed, went to the window and pulled them fully back. The sun was just beginning to peep above the trees and lawns of Victoria Park. She suddenly realized this would be the very last
