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

stood in the rear of the shop after Betty had gone home. ‘We’ll be all right,’ he said quietly, but there was an empty ring to his voice that betrayed his growing unease. So much for all those ambitions!

Fourteen

Ginny was all excitement as she entered the flat. She had been to the West End with a couple of friends to see an early show at the pictures.

‘Julia, I’ve just seen a shop to rent! The sign wasn’t there when we went past in the afternoon but when we came back it was.’

She had been keeping a constant eye out for her sister since discovering that the ending of the lease on the shop was forcing Julia and Simon to look elsewhere. ‘It could only have been put up while we were at the cinema.’

Julia glanced up casually from her book. She’d not long been home herself. She and Simon had been to the pictures too, but locally, to see William S. Hart in the new Western, Travellin’ On. They had sat surrounded by shouts of encouragement from their fellow cinema goers, as well as hissing and booing of the villain and sighs of ‘aah!’ at a love scene. The audience’s participation always helped the film along with only the pianist’s accompaniment to add emotion to a scene.

She’d developed a bit of a headache staring at the black and white screen. Simon had brought her home, saying goodnight with one ardent kiss to wish her better. She had taken a headache pill and was savouring sitting alone. James and Stephanie wouldn’t be in until late and her mother had already gone to bed, so she felt faintly irked by her sister’s noisy entrance.

‘There are lots of shops to rent up West,’ she said absently, turning back to her book. ‘Every one of them is well beyond our means.’

‘But this one might be just what you’ve been looking for.’

‘Ssh!’ warned Julia as her sister’s eager voice filled the room. ‘You’ll wake Mother.’

Ginny lowered her voice but maintained her eagerness. ‘It does look quite run down but the sign said it’s a really low rent and it’s in the heart of things.’

Julia became attentive but sceptical. ‘That could mean anything.’

‘It was on the “To Let” sign,’ Ginny said, taking off her hat and jacket to hang them on a peg on the living room door. ‘It was dark but I’m sure I saw forty-four pounds a year. That’s just over eighteen shillings a week!’

Julia had been up since six this morning, dismayed to see it raining. All night, unable to sleep, she’d tossed and turned, annoying Stephanie. By seven thirty, having taken a taxi due to the foul weather, she had found the premises, well run down as Ginny described. If the rental had been on the board, as Ginny insisted, teeming rain had now partially obliterated it. Jotting down the few details left on the placard, she hurried the short distance to the agent’s with mounting excitement, careless now of the heavy rain.

By nine o’clock she’d been standing outside the agent’s door for over half an hour waiting for it to open. Sheltering in the porch, huddled under her umbrella against the wet and the chilly March breeze, she was relieved to see someone arriving to unlock. Finding her standing there the man gave her a mildly curious look.

‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, my dear,’ he said as he inserted a key in the lock. Julia didn’t acknowledge the apology.

‘You’ve a shop for rent!’ she burst out, making him flinch away from her a tiny fraction.

‘Er… yes,’ he replied hesitantly, ‘we do have a few. But, er, yes, do come in,’ he finished.

Recovering his wits he turned the key sharply and opened the door, ushering her inside to stand in the centre of the reception office while he busied himself switching on the lights against the overcast morning.

‘Take a seat, my dear.’ He indicated a chair in front of one of several desks as she stood uncertainly. ‘I shall be right with you.’

Hurriedly taking off his hat, coat and scarf, he hung the coat and scarf over one of the arms of an umbrella stand, his bowler over another, and dropped his dripping umbrella into the receptacle below. That done, he came and sat behind the desk to face her, reached into one of the drawers to bring out a thick, black-bound brochure and began flicking through the pages.

‘Shop premises for rent, you say. What area?’

‘My sister saw it last night on her way to the cinema. It’s in Mitchell Street, near to Leicester Square. The sign wasn’t there when she went past earlier so it couldn’t have been there long. I’ve been there this morning to take a look. My sister said it looked like eighteen shillings a week.’

‘Ah!’ Laying the brochure aside he began sifting through papers on his desk, pausing to glance significantly at the wall clock as a young woman entered. Quickly she dropped her umbrella in the stand before hanging up her hat and coat and, with a timid apology for her lateness, sitting at her desk, the typewriter almost obscuring her from sight.

He turned his attention back to Julia. ‘I apologize for the interruption, my dear, but I know the one you refer to. The vacancy was only made known to us yesterday morning. The tenant it seems has apparently skipped off, leaving his landlord in the lurch, and the tenancy has been put into our hands. The landlord was not surprisingly very upset and has asked us to find another tenant as soon as possible, hence the low rent.’

‘Then when may I view it?’ Julia asked, barely giving him time to draw his next breath.

He gave her a condescending smile. ‘It depends on what you intend doing with it, my dear,’ he said, in the tone of a father speaking to a child, or a man addressing a feather-brained little woman. His attitude reminded her of her father and the way he