A New Dream, Maggie Ford [books to read romance txt] 📗

The news brought a wave of shock to Julia, followed by dismay; just the way it had been when long-standing neighbours in Sewardstone Road had moved away. She experienced the same vague sense of desertion; almost of betrayal. And yet she hardly knew this man, had spoken to him only in passing. She thought him pleasant enough but that was all. And there was also a sinking feeling of disappointment. She had taken it for granted that he’d be here for years.

‘May I ask why you are giving it up?’ Caught off guard she could think of nothing else to say.

His shoulders lifted briefly. ‘I tried to make a go of it, but it just didn’t come off. I gave it two years, but I suppose I’m in the wrong place for trying to entice theatre folk. Brick Lanes the area for this sort of trade, not here.’

‘Then you should move to Brick Lane.’ Why had she said that? He’d be even further away. She’d never see him again. Suddenly she wanted him to stay, and not only because her future could depend upon it.

He spoke rapidly. ‘I can’t afford to rent anywhere else. Every day I stay I’m losing money. On top of rent and overheads you have to buy in stock just to keep a turnaround but if you can’t afford to buy much, you’ve nothing halfway decent to sell. When people see the same old stuff in the shop time after time they don’t come back. All I’m doing is throwing good money after bad and it’s time to call a halt. It’s a shame. I had such high hopes.’

‘But you can’t just let it beat you!’ Julia cried, seeing the vague ideas she’d had going down the drain. Yet, to her surprise, she now wanted him to stay for his own sake. ‘What will you do?’ she asked lamely.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. Then, more briskly, he added, ‘But this isn’t about me. I’m sorry to have gone on so. I wanted to warn you that the lease here is due to expire next year and the owner could very well put up the rent, not only on this shop but on the whole building. He owns it, so he can ask what he likes. And, of course, if his tenants can’t afford to pay, they’re out! No two ways about it.’ He gave her a wan smile. ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of rotten news but I thought you ought to know. As for the shop, another tenant might be able to meet the higher rent but not me. In truth I’d like to stay but what can I do if the shop just isn’t paying?’

Julia was thinking fast. Suddenly this latest idea of hers didn’t seem quite so implausible. Before she could stop herself, she’d blurted out, ‘There might be a way for you to stay.’ She saw him frown but before he could say anything, she added quickly, ‘Let’s go inside your shop where I can better explain.’

Still frowning, he gestured for her to go in ahead of him. The interior was dim and dingy and there was the musty smell she had noticed before. No wonder customers stayed away, she thought. She sat on a stool beside the untidy counter. It was strewn with a hotchpotch of gaudy trimmings, pieces of lace, flamboyant buttons and costume jewellery: thick bracelets and heavy armlets, brooches made from cheap metal to resemble gold and silver and set with huge fake stones of all colours. From hooks hung a tangle of necklaces and dangling earrings made of coloured glass or clear glass cut to resemble diamonds.

He pushed some of it aside to make a space and, leaning his forearms on the surface, regarded her with interest. ‘What did you mean, there’s a way I could stay?’ he said slowly.

‘I’ll try and explain,’ she began, ‘if you’ll bear with me.’

Briefly she spoke of her father’s death, avoiding too much detail about the financial distress it had caused to her previously well-off family. ‘It was left to me to seek some way out of the sudden poverty into which we’d been plunged,’ she went on, hating the confession for it was still raw and deeply embarrassing. ‘We couldn’t keep our house and that’s how we ended up living here.’

His blue-grey eyes hadn’t wavered from her face while she’d been speaking, the expression in them full of sympathy.

Quickly Julia came to the point, explaining about the fine fabrics she had taken from her father’s warehouse. ‘I don’t know if that was illegal or not but it was just lying in a corner, not wanted. It’s heaped in our flat now, in everyone’s way. I’m not sure what to do with it and everyone’s complaining about it, especially my sister Stephanie, no matter how neatly I try to stack it.’

Now it was she who was talking nineteen to the dozen. ‘It’s quite valuable, fine silk mostly, from the Far East. I need to make it work for me and when you spoke about your shop I thought maybe, if you could keep this place going just a little longer, you could find room for it. I could pay you for storage and sell enough to buy in more stock of the same quality fine fabrics. I mean, real silk isn’t to be sneezed at.’

She paused as a faint smile spread over his face at the unintentional pun, and found herself smiling with him. Suddenly they seemed to have become kindred spirits. But she needed to stay businesslike if she hoped to achieve her purpose and quickly resumed a more serious tone.

‘What do you think?’

He paused for so long that her heart almost sank into her boots. Finally he spoke slowly. ‘I think it could work though it does depend on how much material there is.’ His face had become grave. ‘And there’s another thing – it takes money to start up a business, even if