‘Well, you just be careful that Russell doesn’t try giving you a Christmas present you don’t want. But your auntie isn’t going to be pleased if you don’t make it home for Christmas, is she?’
‘Oh, I expect she’ll be so busy with Emerald that she won’t even miss me, and anyway…’
‘Anyway what?’ Josh pressed. He always knew when something was bothering her or she was holding something back. Rose was so damned honest that she was incapable of dissembling about anything. Unlike him. He was a genius at it.
‘Well, in some ways I’m glad that I’m not going to be able to go home.’
Why on earth had she told him that? It was the last thing she had intended to do, but somehow the admission had slipped out and now it couldn’t be recalled.
‘Because of this bloke you’re always thinking about and then pretending to me you aren’t looking like a wet weekend over?’
Rose nearly jumped out of her seat, spluttering into her glass and then looking at him in dismay before protesting, ‘You can’t know about John. I’ve never—’
‘Ah, so his name’s John, is it? What is he? Some posh county type you’ve been in love w
ith since you and he rode your first ponies together?’ Josh was just teasing her, Rose knew, but his words sliced right into the heart of her pain.
‘Something like that,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m not in love with him. Not now.’
That was true, she recognised. She wasn’t ‘in love’ with John any more, but she did still love him and she ached, if anything, even more because that love, a sister’s love, must forever be unrecognised.
‘Come off it, Rose, you can’t fool me. I can tell by your voice that you love him. Maybe you should tell him that. You never know, he might secretly—’
‘No!’ Rose burst out fiercely. ‘He doesn’t love me. He can’t. He mustn’t.’
‘You’re not going to start all that nonsense of you not being good enough again, are you? You are every bit as good as anyone else, Rose. Repeat after me: I am—’
‘No, Josh, you don’t understand. It isn’t like that. Please don’t ask me any more. I can’t tell you. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone. It would destroy John’s life if he knew. I wish I didn’t know myself.’
New York. She was being sent to New York for, provisionally, six months in the new year to work for the features editor of American Vogue. Ella hugged the news to herself. She had known that it was on the cards, though she hadn’t allowed herself to hope too much, but today her boss had confirmed it. She’d miss London, and Janey and Rose, of course, but New York! A fierce thrill went through her. She’d been told that she’d be rooming with another girl from the office who happened to have a spare bedroom, and that Vogue would cover all her travel expenses.
She was excited but she was worried as well. Who would keep an eye on Janey when she wasn’t here? Ella didn’t trust her younger sister. For one thing, she was always getting involved with such dreadful young men, lame ducks for whom she felt sorry.
And what about her diet pills? She’d need to stock up with them before she left, or find a new diet doctor in New York.
But at least she’d be away whilst Emerald was having her baby. Ella could feel herself tensing just as she always did when she thought about babies and what had happened to her mother, what she was so afraid could happen to her if she ever ended up pregnant. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not ever. She wasn’t like Emerald. She would never get married and she would certainly never ever have sex with a man outside of marriage. Emerald’s runaway marriage and its subsequent annulment had been a cause célèbre for several weeks; there had been photographs of Emerald in the gossip columns and heavily veiled innuendo pieces about what had happened and her consequent ‘condition’, along with surely undeserved praise for Emerald’s ‘bravery’ in remaining staunchly C of E.
The whole thing was shocking and shameful, in Ella’s opinion, but somehow so very typical of Emerald, who had always loved being the centre of attention and getting away with things that no one else could.
She looked down at her desk. She’d been in the middle of writing some copy when she’d been sent for. She reached out for her notes, her wrist narrow and fine-boned. She was working so hard at the moment that she doubted she would have had time to stop and eat any lunch, even if she had wanted to do so.
Her family thought it was hard work that had melted away the schoolgirlish chubbiness she had been carrying to reveal the elegance of her bone structure, but of course Ella knew better. Oliver Charters had shocked and, yes, frightened her with what he had said about her diet pills and their dangers, but Ella had eventually convinced herself that he had exaggerated the dangers, and besides, she was still taking only one pill a day now–apart from when she was so tired and in need of an energy boost that she really felt she had to take a second tablet. It was amazing how well they worked in that regard, as well as helping to suppress her appetite. Ella didn’t want to be without them–ever.
The face that looked back at her from the bathroom mirror in the morning now had cheekbones and a new oval shape that seemed to make her eyes larger and her lips fuller. She didn’t dwell on these changes, though; she had far too much to do that was more interesting. And that hadn’t been the point of her wanting to lose weight. The point had been to prove that she could. Somewhere inside her a small voice pointed out that since she had achieved her goal she could now stop, but Ella refused to listen to it. She was afraid that if she stopped taking her precious pills she would get fat again and that would mean that she had failed. Doing what she had promised herself she would do had made her feel so happy, so good about herself, so confident and in control of her life.
With her new confidence she had started studying journalism at night school, mixing with students who, like her, felt passionately about the really important things in life, like poverty, war, unfairness and bigotry.
Ella knew that Vogue was not going to give her a platform to write about these things, but New York could. America surely was far more open to modern thought and would give people like her a voice. It could be the start of something very exciting.
Chapter Thirty-One
It was six o’clock on Christmas Eve and Rose had been working all day at the Russells’, helping to put up the new curtains and dress them properly. Now she was back at the shop, tired out. Ella and Janey would be at Denham by now. Their father would have met them at the station and driven them back to the house where Aunt Amber would have a huge fire burning in the drawing room with presents piled round the tree in the hall, which the twins would still be finishing decorating. The house would smell of mulled wine and mince pies and wood smoke from the fires, but it was the thought of the warmth of Amber’s arms around her as she hugged her in greeting that caused the catch in Rose’s throat and made her eyes sting. Things weren’t like that any more, she reminded herself fiercely. They never had been, not really, and it was time she stopped being so…so sentimental and faced up to the truth.
She reached for her coat. Everyone else had already left and she was only still here because Ivor’s secretary had called out to her as she had rushed past with her own coat on that Ivor Hammond wanted to see her before she left.
He was striding towards her from his office now, his forehead creased in a frown.
‘I’ve just had the Russells on the phone,’ he told her curtly. ‘There’s a problem with the curtains and you’re going to have to go back and apologise. Mrs Russell has insisted.’