“Is that all? What a relief.”
“Are you horrified by the idea? Please say. I won’t be offended.”
“A rabbit?” he mused. “What a thoughtful . . . thought. No, I can’t say I feel any horror sweeping over me. Quite the opposite.”
“What about Gretchen? Will she disapprove?”
“Do you know, I’m embarrassed to say I have no idea of my wife’s views on rabbits. In nearly ten years of marriage it’s not something we’ve ever discussed.”
Jean felt herself beginning to relax.
“Perhaps I should write her a note.”
“Why don’t I ask her tonight and if she throws up her hands in horror I’ll telephone you tomorrow. If you don’t hear, you can assume she’s in favor.”
“The last thing I want is to cause any trouble.”
In the months ahead she would remember this remark—so sincerely felt—and marvel at her own innocence.
13
Jean stood once more in Gretchen’s workroom, hardly breathing, as the skeleton of a dress, inside out and bristling with pins, was lowered over her head and tweaked and tugged and tightened around her with still more pins until Gretchen was satisfied with the fit. The slightest movement on Jean’s part and she was pierced by a dozen sharp points.
“You are losing weight since I last measured you?” Gretchen said with her curious foreign intonation that made questions of statements, pinching the fabric between finger and thumb.
“Not intentionally,” said Jean, flinching. “I eat less when I’m busy, I suppose. And more when I’m miserable.”
“And at the moment you are overworked but happy?” said Gretchen, lifting the dress carefully, inch by inch, over Jean’s head and laying it on the cutting table.
“Yes, that would be about right.”
She was busy because Gretchen’s case took up so much of her time that every other moment at work was spent catching up with her regular duties. The reason for her happiness was something she chose not to examine.
The ordeal by piercing over, the two women made their way downstairs to the kitchen, where Margaret was sitting on the floor playing with the rabbit. Her outstretched legs formed the fourth side of an enclosure made up of the wall, the wooden dresser and a vegetable rack. She was in a state as close to ecstasy as could be imagined.
“I’m going to call her Jemimah,” she said.
No follow-up call had come from Howard to discourage the gift of the rabbit, which had left Jean with the problem of how to transport the hutch to Sidcup. She had half hoped that Howard would foresee her difficulty and offer to come and fetch it, but this had not happened, and so she had been forced to order a taxi—almost doubling the cost of the gift. The driver had helped her to carry it to and from the car, earning every penny of his shilling tip. Between them they had threaded it down the narrow passage at the side of the Tilburys’ row house and into the back garden, Jean skinning her knuckles on the brickwork as she stumbled.
All the expense and inconvenience proved worthwhile, however, when Margaret was summoned downstairs for the unveiling of the surprise. The expression on her face, as suspicion and curiosity gave way to rapture, made tears spring to Jean’s eyes. The little girl was almost quivering with excitement as she flung herself at Jean and hugged her.
As Jean patted her heaving shoulders, she realized too late that this might well be the greatest, happiest moment of Margaret’s childhood, the one that she would always remember. By rights it belonged to her parents, but she, Jean, an interloper, had appropriated it for herself.
She understood, now, her mother’s misgivings and could hardly bring herself to look at Gretchen, expecting to see in her face some signs of resentment. Gretchen, however, seemed oblivious to these nuances, showing only a generous pleasure in her daughter’s happiness and needing no credit for it.
“Wasn’t that kind of Jean,” was all she said.
There had been no sign of Howard in the house or garden, though the Wolseley had been there in the driveway. It was only when Margaret said something about Daddy building a run for Jemimah when he got back from work that Jean remembered that of course for jewelers and other shopkeepers Saturday was a working day like any other. She felt a jab of disappointment, which quite unsettled her.
It had not just been for the pleasure of seeing Margaret, then, that she had set off that morning with such a light heart. Ever since that conversation in the car, when she had poured out her disappointments and frustrations to Howard as though she had known him for years rather than weeks, she had found herself thinking about him in idle moments, more than was allowable or wise. She would have to watch herself.