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

Filled with anger, Julia vowed in that moment that she would make a go of this venture if it killed her.

Already it was late autumn, with many a frosty, all-enveloping pea-souper making any movement about London difficult. Yet to Julia’s delight business was going well, money was coming in, the theatre folk beginning to realize that despite being slightly off the beaten track, here was a shop worth visiting.

Julia had found a flair for window dressing and a way of using Simon’s old, scrubbed up stock to decorate and add even more charm to her tasteful arrangements. Another added bonus was finding a skilled dressmaker.

Betty Lewis was about thirty, a widow whose husband had been killed in 1917. She, like thousands of other women who’d lost their men to the war, had been desperately searching for work for months. A meagre pension, supplemented by what she could earn from bits of sewing for neighbours as poor as herself, hardly kept her in food, much less paid the rent. She’d leaped at this chance of work even though Simon could offer only a small wage.

‘I only hope she can do all she says she can,’ Julia had said when he had announced he had taken her on as a help to Julia.

Her heart had been in her mouth as she watched Betty cut a couple of yards of her precious beige Chinese silk – today’s fashions being narrow and skimpy – before she could order her to use something less expensive for the trial garment. But she needn’t have panicked. The high-class finish had her gasping in delight.

Betty was now proving a real treasure. Without her Julia wouldn’t have known where to start, for she herself had no skill as a dressmaker. What she did have was a different, recently discovered skill – how to sell.

‘I feel terribly embarrassed,’ she said to Simon. ‘We’re paying her far too little for such quality work.’

‘We can’t afford more at this moment,’ he told her. ‘It’s early days, and we need to keep our costs down until we’re more certain of ourselves.’

He had done some advertising and people were starting to trickle in to have a look at the few beautiful garments that had begun to grace the two small windows alongside the tastefully draped luscious silks from the far side of the world. By the end of October there were even one or two people making purchases.

Most of the customers though were still theatrical people. ‘Well, they would be,’ Simon reminded her when, vaguely dissatisfied, she’d remarked that she thought they should by now be attracting a wider class of clientele from the outset. ‘Most still come for the sort of stuff I’ve always sold.’

And then, noticing her ill-disguised anxiety, he’d continued encouragingly, ‘But you notice they’re buying for themselves personally, not just for the stage. And that’s good,’ he’d added on such a whimsical note that she’d laughed. He had a way of making her laugh at the oddest times with some quite simple remark.

On that occasion, and for no sure reason, she had suddenly thought of Chester, the man she’d been so in love with yet who had never in his life said anything amusing, or not to her. It had set her wondering how life with him would have turned out. As Chester’s wife she would no doubt have been very much a lady of studied poise and cool composure, whereas these days she was rapidly becoming a girl who could laugh loudly and spontaneously without fear of attracting haughty stares.

‘Of course it’s good!’ she’d quipped lightly and received a conspiratorial wink.

But news of his shop was beginning to spread more by word of mouth than any advertising. By late November Julia realized that it would only be a matter of months before her initial stock was exhausted.

‘I must buy in more material, the same good quality as that first lot, of course,’ she stated, unwittingly taking charge. Sometimes she almost felt that this was her own business. However, he had a knack of reminding her that it was more of a partnership, and each needed to consult the other before rushing ahead, without needing to say it in so many words.

‘Remember, your first lot didn’t cost anything, Julia,’ he pointed out.

‘I know, but…’ she began, pulled up sharp by his caution.

‘We still have to keep an eye on the pennies for a while yet.’

‘I know, but we don’t want to let the standard we’ve set slip now.’

‘We also need some more decent-quality accessories,’ he persisted. ‘But there’s still rent and lighting and heating and so on to find.’

His words were a gentle reminder that they were now working together, sharing everything evenly, outgoings as well as profits. And at the moment the latter were still a long way from being a fortune.

‘So let’s have a bit of a committee meeting, eh?’

There was no laughter in his tone, no gentle banter, and his expression brought her up with a small shock.

‘Simon, I didn’t mean to…’

‘Of course you didn’t.’

This time it was said lightly, accompanied by a quiet, relaxed chuckle, but it left her aware of another side to him. It also left her with a new respect for him; and something else, a feeling that for a second she was unable to name.

And then suddenly she recognized the feeling; the sudden flutter in the stomach, the rush of breath, taking her completely by surprise. She was falling in love with him.

Simon slowly refolded the letter he’d picked up from among the morning post of bills, invoices and circulars and made for the back room they now used as a cutting and sewing room for Betty Lewis.

At the table Julia was selecting the paper patterns ready to be cut from the new roll of green crêpe de Chine she’d bought in. He held out the letter to her and she looked enquiringly at him as she took it. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s from the landlord