At ten to two, Jean went to the ladies’ room to check her appearance in the small mirror tile above the sinks. She combed her hair and re-powdered her pink cheeks and nose. She wore no other makeup—previous experiments with cosmetics had always made her look painted and clownish, and they were now consigned to her drawer of treasures, to be admired as artifacts but never deployed. In her general appearance, however, she felt more confident than usual, as she was wearing Gretchen’s dress, which always prompted compliments.
She was drying her hands on the broken roller towel when the door opened and one of the secretaries came in, red-eyed and wretched-looking, and plunged into a stall, slamming the door. Jean recognized her as the pretty one who was often tangled up with the lad from the print room.
In the weeks and months after Frank’s desertion Jean herself had cried in that very room and would have been grateful for a kind word from a motherly female colleague. Even so, she could not bring herself to be that woman and ask the weeping girl what was wrong, but slipped out of the washroom, leaving her to her private misery.
In the forecourt, a reason for the girl’s distress became apparent. The lad from the print room was in huddled conference with the newest recruit among the secretaries. She had her back to the wall and he was standing over her, whispering in her ear and brushing strands of hair away from her face in a gesture of ownership.
Jean glared at them as she passed and then felt ashamed. We are all fools, she thought.
Howard was waiting just outside the gates, standing by his parked car. Jean was aware that any self-consciousness on her part could very well set the tone for all future encounters. It was vital to behave normally, whatever that meant. Howard himself showed no signs of awkwardness.
“Sorry to have dragged you away from your desk,” he said, producing a green velvet pouch from his inside pocket and handing it to her. “It just seemed easier to come here.”
Jean loosened the cords and tipped the slender gold pin into her palm.
“You’ll notice I’ve done something a bit devious,” he said, turning it over so that she could see the design. He had a craftsman’s pride and interest in the details of his creation, which she found touching. “It used to have two emeralds either side of an opal, but one of the emeralds was missing, so I switched it around, so you’ve now got two opals around a single emerald. It’s easier to replace an opal.”
“It’s lovely, Howard. You would never know it had been repaired. You must let me pay for the stone—and your time.”
“Out of the question. I’m only making good an otherwise quite useless gift from my aunt.”
“I’ll always think of her when I wear it,” Jean said.
She pinned it to her dress, meeting some resistance from her bra and petticoat before the job was done.
“Is that the frock Gretchen made?” Howard asked.
“Yes. It’s by far my favorite—she made it so beautifully.”
“It suits you very well.”
“People always admire it.”
Jean noticed the way he had managed to praise her appearance while at the same time acknowledging Gretchen, to demonstrate that there was nothing furtive in his compliment.
They were still standing, somewhat provisionally, on the pavement, now and then having to stand aside for other pedestrians and in full view of the large upper windows of the editorial offices. Out of the corner of her eye Jean could see Muriel from Accounts gazing down at her with undisguised curiosity.
“I’m keeping you from your lunch,” said Howard, following the direction of her upward glances.
“Not really,” said Jean.
She had now missed the trolley, which delivered sandwiches and cake and tea to the offices, and would have to go to the bakery in the high street instead. Their conversation, so natural and open at Aunt Edie’s, now felt stilted and evasive. It was no mystery: by confiding in each other they had set up a false intimacy, which excluded Gretchen and placed them in a perilous position of near conspiracy, from which she could sense Howard retreating. His reference to Gretchen was his way of signaling his rededicated loyalty.
“Howard,” said Jean quietly. “All those things I told you about myself. I didn’t expect you to keep anything secret from Gretchen. You mustn’t think . . .”
He put his hand on her arm and shook his head so urgently that she stopped.
“Don’t,” he said. “We don’t need to say anything. We understand each other perfectly as it is. There’s nothing to be said. Or done.”