who flattered and seduced, but this girl was different. There was beauty in her focus, a purity of purpose that reminded him of a child’s, though she was most certainly a woman. To find her in these natural surrounds, to observe the free flow of her body, the wild, romance of her face, enchanted him.
Humphrey stepped out of the shadows. The girl saw him but she didn’t start. She smiled as if she’d been expecting him and gestured towards the rippling lake, ‘There’s some-thing magical about swimming in the moonlight, don’t you think?’
It was the end of a chapter and the end of her cigarette, and Dolly disposed of both. The water was growing tepid and she wanted to wash herself before it turned any colder. She lathered her arms thoughtfully, wondering as she rinsed off the soap if that was the way Jimmy felt about her.
Dolly climbed out of the tub and slipped a towel from the rack. She caught sight of herself unexpectedly in the mirror and stopped very still trying to imagine what a stranger might see when he looked at her. Brown hair, brown eyes—not too close together thank goodness, a rather perky nose. She knew she was pretty, she’d known that since she was eleven years old and the postman began to behave strangely when he saw her in the street; but was her beauty of a different kind from Vivien’s? Would a man like Henry Jenkins have stopped, spell-bound, to watch her whisper in the moonlight?
Because, of course, Viola was Vivien. Aside from the bio-graphical similarities, there was the description of the girl standing in moonlight by the lake, her curled lips, feline eyes, the way she was staring so intently at something no one else could see. Why, it might have been written about Dolly’s view of Vivien from Lady Gwendolyn’s window.
She moved closer to the mirror. She could hear her own breathing in the still of the bathroom. What must it have been like, she wondered, for Vivien to know that she had made a man like Henry Jenkins, older, more experienced, and with an entree to literature and Society’s finest circles, so enchanted? How like a real princess must she have felt when he proposed marriage, when he swept her away from the humdrum of her normal existence and took her back to London, a life in which she blossomed from a wild young girl into a pearl-wearing, Chanel No 5-scented beauty, dashing about on her husband’s arm as the pair of them held court in the most glamorous clubs and restaurants. That was the Vivien Dolly knew; and, she suspected, the one she more resembled.
Knock, knock. ‘Anyone alive in there?’
Kitty’s voice on the other side of the bathroom door caught Dolly by surprise. ‘Just a minute,’ she called back.
‘Oh, good, you are there. I was beginning to think you might’ve drowned.’
‘No.’
‘Going to be much longer?’
‘No.’
‘Only it’s almost gone half nine, Doll, and I’m meeting a rather splendid airman at the Caribbean Club. Up from Biggin Hill for the night. I don’t suppose you fancy a dance? He said he’s going to bring some friends. One of them specially asked after you.’
‘Not tonight.’
‘Did you hear me say airmen, Doll? Brave and dashing he-roes?’
‘I already have one of those, remember? Besides, I’ve a shift at the WVS canteen.’
‘Surely the widows, virgins and spinsters can do without you for a night?’
Dolly didn’t answer and after a few moments, Kitty said, ‘Well, if you’re sure. Louisa’s keen as mustard to take your place.’
As if she ever could, thought Dolly. ‘Have fun,’ she called, and then she waited as Kitty’s footsteps retreated.
Only when she heard the other girl descending the stairs, did she untie the knot of her scarf and slip it from her head. She knew she’d have to re-do them later, but it didn’t matter. She began to unwind her curlers, dropping them into the empty sink. When they were all out, she combed her hair with her fingers, pulling it down in soft waves around her shoulders.
There now. She turned her head from side to side; she began to whisper beneath her breath (Dolly didn’t know any poems, but she figured the lyrics to ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ would do just as well); she lifted her hands and moved her fingers before her as if she were weaving invisible threads. Dolly smiled a little at what she saw. She looked just like Viola in the book.