‘Come on, Julia, hurry up!’ came Stephanie’s exasperated cry.
‘You go on,’ Julia said evenly. ‘I’ll follow in a moment or two.’
‘You’re still only half dressed. I know you want to look just right for tonight but Mummy will go into one of her sulks again if we aren’t at table in time for Chester’s parents to arrive. Virginia’s already downstairs.’
‘I shan’t be long!’ Feeling strangely rebellious, Julia held up the silky green to regard the length of the material. Mother would be rankled anyway by its modern calf-length hemline.
‘If this new fashion continues,’ she said almost every time she took note of the recent raising of skirts from ankle length to what she saw as a thoroughly risqué and unladylike style, ‘young ladies who should know better will be revealing their knees before long. It’s quite vulgar!’
To buy the dress Julia had taken a taxi on her own to Harrods in the West End two days ago. She’d fallen in love with the beautiful water-green silk dress, gold embroidered and sleeveless, with a scoop neck and low waist. The hemline, high enough to reveal the slope of her calf, would shock her mother. But she wanted to shock and continue to shock after all that friction caused by having cut her hair.
Stephanie was eyeing the garment enviously. ‘If I was older I’d choose to wear what I like too. I hate having Mummy still insisting on buying my clothes for me. You’ve got your own allowance and can do what you like.’
Julia laughed. ‘You’ll be eighteen in a few months’ time. Then you’ll have your own allowance do what you like with.’
Stephanie huffed petulantly, watching her sister slip on the evening gown over her lightweight underwear, prinking the material smooth about her waist. With her small breasts she had no need of the strong, unsightly brassieres Mummy insisted she wore.
Easing her shapely legs into white silk stockings, Julia stepped into green court shoes with pointed toes and decorated with a gold tab, then went to the dressing-table mirror to run a comb through her short, chestnut hair. Free of the weight of long tresses, its natural waves sprang back into place.
Stephanie watched with envy. ‘The moment I turn eighteen I’m going to have mine cut too.’ She pouted. ‘I can’t wait!’
‘You’ve several months to go yet. Even then Mummy won’t be too pleased.’ Julia smiled, recalling the furore at having cut her own hair short.
‘We’ll see about that!’ Stephanie retorted. Julia continued to smile.
‘Even at twenty-one whatever I do still causes trouble.’ The smile left her lips as she remembered telling her father she would do as she pleased after having so drastically taken the scissors to her hair. His reply had been harsh.
‘While under my roof, young lady, you will not do as you please! You live in this house by the grace of myself and can be shown the door any time if you decide not to abide by the rules I lay down.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she’d replied, not at all sorry. ‘It’s cut now and there’s little I can do about that.’
‘Nor is there much I can do now about the dreadful mutilation of your hair,’ he’d ranted. ‘But my displeasure remains. Until that deplorable mess you call attractive grows back to something nearer to a woman’s crowning glory, I find it painful to even look at you.’
As head of the family in the old tradition, his word was absolute, even to his choice of where they lived.
Her mother would dearly have preferred the more affluent West London but his business was situated near the docks and the Pool of London between Tower Bridge and London Bridge to which ships from all over the world steamed up the Thames to load and unload. ‘I do not intend wasting my time travelling there from the West End every day,’ he’d apparently said when many years ago her mother had pleaded to move. ‘Here is far more convenient.’
So here they lived. Even so, the houses bordering Victoria Park were like bright islands in a dreary sea where business people like her father, with their fine homes and well-tended gardens, lived in splendid isolation from the traditional poverty of London’s East End.
Julia’s smile was back by the time she and Stephanie made their way down to dinner. Tonight her engagement to Chester – the little ceremony of slipping the engagement ring on to her finger – would take precedence over everything else. Thinking of this, a twinge of excitement gripped her. Maybe tonight her father’s lips might soften to a smile as the ring, a band of five diamonds, was placed.
In the large dining room the table looked beautiful. Her mother, still overseeing the final touches, was agitated as usual, easily sent into a panic if even the smallest thing was not quite right.
Victoria had been twenty-two, desperately unsure of the world, and Charles Longfield thirty-three when they married. Now at forty-three she was as unsure of the world as ever while he, in his mid fifties, was only too well acquainted with its glorious ups and its harsh downs.
‘Haven’t they arrived yet?’ Julia asked, seeing everything ready.
Her mother put nervous hands to her lips. ‘No, and they mustn’t, not too soon. Everything is going wrong. Your father isn’t yet home. I cannot imagine what he must be thinking. He should have telephoned me if he was going to be delayed. It’s very remiss of him.’
Words poured from her lips in a torrent. ‘He has still to dress for dinner. After all my well-laid plans, this will prove an absolute disaster. I so wanted it to succeed on such an important occasion.’
‘Don’t worry, Mother,’ Julia consoled, keeping her distance. To go any nearer would mean having to give her mother a comforting embrace and risk her dissolving into tears. That must not happen just before
