THIRTY-EIGHT

1920

Arlette!” Gideon leaped up from his seat at the back of the Cygnet Club, where he’d been talking to a man wearing a pink cravat. “I had no idea you were coming tonight. What a wonderful surprise!”

Arlette smiled at him uncertainly. “Gideon, I wasn’t expecting to see you here either.” She accepted a kiss on her cheek and saw Gideon’s face drop slightly at the sight of the entourage coming in behind her.

“Oh,” he said. “Mr. Pickle. I didn’t realize—”

“We’ve been to see Godfrey playing with his orchestra. At the Kingsway Hall.” She said it quickly, breathily, as though she were lying. “It was absolutely marvelous,” she finished. She moved aside so that Minu and Lilian could be greeted by Gideon and then watched awkwardly as Godfrey and Horace moved in to say hello, to shake hands and exchange pleasantries.

Arlette felt her spirits deflate. Although she and Gideon were probably widely held to be courting, they had gone no further in their private moments than holding hands. Gideon had made it plain that he would like to kiss her on many occasions, and on every occasion Arlette had told him fondly that she did not think she wished to kiss anyone. She saw Gideon as a handsome older brother, someone whose company she enjoyed, someone she looked forward to seeing, and someone she felt she could trust. But she did not feel sufficiently passionate to want to kiss him on the lips. She was also aware that in spending time alone with him, in encouraging his friendship and allowing moments of handholding and gentle affection, she was unwittingly pulling him along on a lead, like a small dog. It was perfectly reasonable of him to assume that theirs was a special friendship within which there should be no room for anyone else.

Now here she was, torn between the man who kept her safe and the man who made her feel mad with wanting.

“So,” Gideon was saying, his voice slightly betraying his disappointment in finding himself forced to share Arlette’s attentions, “I hear the performance was incredible. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“Ah, Gideon, I will send you some tickets tomorrow, don’t you worry.”

“And all these lovely ladies,” Gideon continued, sounding slightly melancholy, “coming to see you. You must feel so flattered.”

“Oh, indeed I do.” Godfrey smiled. “And now Mam’zelle Arlette has to rush home to get her beauty sleep, and she promised me a dance before she turns into a pumpkin, so if you don’t mind, I will whisk her away.” He smiled heartily at Gideon.

Gideon smiled bravely back. “Of course,” he said magnanimously. He threw Arlette a slightly injured smile and then brought Lilian, Minu, and Horace into his banquette and loudly ordered drinks for everyone.

“I think our friend Gideon is worried that I am trying to steal you away from him,” said Godfrey, his hand pressed gently against the small of Arlette’s back as they made their way towards the dance floor.

“Oh,” said Arlette. “No. I’m sure he isn’t. Because I do not belong to him.”

Godfrey stopped and looked at her. His face was a picture of charmed delight. “Of course you don’t. A fine woman like you belongs to nobody.”

“Absolutely, Mr. Pickle.”

“Godfrey.”

“Yes. Godfrey.” She smiled a smile she’d never known she was capable of producing. It was both innocent and worldly-wise. The smile of a woman who had experienced little but felt a lot.

“I have much respect for your friend Gideon,” he continued.

“As do I.”

“He is a good man with a good soul. I wish him nothing but the best of everything.”

“Me too.”

“And I must say that I thought from our last meeting that he had laid a claim to your heart.”

“Not in that way, Godfrey.”

They faced each other on the dance floor. The band was playing a torch song. The light was faded red and marbled with cigarette smoke. Godfrey smiled at Arlette and said, “Shall we?” He offered her a hand, which sent a jolt of electricity through her body. The other hand he brought down upon her hip, where it burned a hole through her flesh. On the stage a middle-aged woman in a tight velvet dress sang about loneliness and heartbreak. Arlette smiled at Godfrey, and he smiled back at her. Then he brought his face down to hers, and for one extraordinary moment Arlette thought he was going to kiss her, here, on the dance floor, in front of her friends, in front of Gideon, and she held her breath and thought, Yes, let it be, let it be now. But he didn’t. Instead, he put his mouth to her ear and said, “I would like to take you home, Miss De La Mare.”

She did not speak. She simply nodded, just once, and then quickly, before anyone could stop them, before she could stop herself, she took Godfrey’s hand and led him through the club, past the inquiring gaze of Gideon and her friends, out onto the pavement, and into a hackney carriage.

“Bloomsbury, please,” she instructed the driver breathlessly. “And quickly.”

• • •

They removed their shoes at the bottom of the stairs of the Bloomsbury town house and ascended on tiptoes. They heard the murmur of Arlette’s landlady through the door of her upstairs sitting room and paused before continuing towards the attic rooms.

Inside her apartment, Arlette drew the bolt across the door and stood, flushed with desire, her back against the door, her arms clasped behind her, her chest rising and falling, while Godfrey stood before her, a slight smile on his face.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, and then put a hand to her cheek. She fell against his hand greedily and brought it to her mouth, where she kissed it and tasted it and knew without any doubt that tonight she would lose her virginity.

His hand moved from her face, down her neck, and then stopped upon her breastbone. She grasped it and pulled it down so that his hand cupped her entirely. They stared at each other, and then all the things that Arlette had suspected but never known for sure made themselves plain to her. She felt his mouth against hers, soft and urgent, his hands on her, all over her, the smell of him in her nose, the smell of sandalwood and vanilla, the same scent that had faded to nothing on a square of muslin in her bedstand drawer over the past ten weeks.

As though possessed by a secondary soul, one that had resided in her for twenty-one years without her knowledge, she found herself removing Godfrey’s trousers, then allowing him to remove her own clothes, and within a few small, almost unthinking movements, they were on her bed and he was on top of her, looking into her eyes and saying, “Miss De La Mare, have you ever done this before?”

She shook her head.

He looked at her sweetly, pushed some hair from her face, and said, “Then I shall be gentle.”

It was all she could do not to say, “No! Don’t be gentle!” She brought his mouth back down upon hers and allowed him to take her away from her state of purity.

It took all of five minutes. What came after took all night. For hours, until the sun shone through the small dormer windows, they talked and held each other. Godfrey told Arlette about his family: his father, the chief of police; his mother, a former beauty queen; his house at the foot of the Pitons; his childhood spent practicing music, studying, singing in the choir at his local church. He told her about his experiences of the war and his adventures traveling with the orchestra, the friends he’d made and lost, and his plans for the future.

At around two in the morning, Minu returned. “Arlette,” they heard her whisper into the darkness, “are you here?”

Arlette and Godfrey giggled into each other’s necks, and Godfrey called out, “Indeed she is, Miss McAteer.”

Minu made a strange noise and said, “Oh. Oh. I see. Good night then, Arlette, Godfrey. Sleep tight.”

“Night-night, Minu,” they replied in unison.

They did not sleep. They talked more. Arlette told Godfrey about her own childhood, the windswept house on the top of a cliff, her stoic mother, the death of her father, her childhood spent staring out of windows and wondering what it would be like to be an adult. She told him about the Miller family, about poor Leticia and her teacups of gin, about the absent father and the naughty boys, and about Lilian torn between wanting to grow her wings and needing to stay grounded for the sake of her little brother. She told him about the job at Liberty, the eccentric ladies with their impossible requests, and that she was the youngest department manager in the history of the store.

It was nearly the hour to get up for work when they finally fell asleep, and when Arlette opened her eyes and saw him there, long lashes resting against high cheekbones, one long, sinewy arm draped across her stomach, her heart lurched and she instinctively brought her lips down against his forehead, and when he opened his eyes and smiled sleepily at her, then pulled her closer to him and nestled his head into the crook of her shoulder, Arlette thought again of that funny, serious girl staring dreamily through the leaded windows of the house on the cliff, across the Channel, into a distance that held nothing but secrets and mysteries. She knew that girl was gone. She was now where she was meant to be, a modern woman, strong and certain, held safe in the embrace of a man called Godfrey Pickle.