A New Dream - Maggie Ford (interesting novels to read TXT) 📗

back in it was to say that they were both returning home this afternoon. Stephanie was very quiet; Edward’s eyes were on his wife the whole time, full of love and forgiveness. It turned out that he had not said a word to his parents about the temporary break-up. As far as they were concerned, the little family were happy.

His tact and discretion raised him further in Julia’s eyes. Stephanie was a very lucky woman indeed and Julia found herself envying her in every way. She knew she was wrong to feel like this, but she couldn’t help it.

Something in her own union with Simon was beginning to go horribly wrong in her mind. Lately he seemed to be evading the question of marriage completely. Maybe it was pressure of work. Or maybe it was simply that their union was going stale. She felt she was being treated far too casually these days and even their lovemaking was much less frequent than it had once been.

She thought of those early days when life had been so easy, so full of promise and hope. Where had it all gone? And if they did marry now, would it be an anticlimax; would their marriage be stale before it had even begun?

Having seen the happy pair with their baby downstairs to the street, where Edward had left his small car, Julia returned upstairs. Sighing, she closed the door of her luxury apartment upon her world of fashion, frustration and hard work until tomorrow morning when she must face it again.

Twenty-Two

Fashion was changing, and changing fast. Julia had been caught out by it, knowing that she should have kept her eye on its eccentricities instead of worrying about Stephanie’s problems.

Without her realizing, summer was here and in a matter of weeks hemlines had begun to drop alarmingly to below the knee, waistlines slowly rising from hip to waist level again. Evening dresses were no problem, they were mostly full length and elegant. The rapid change in daywear was the problem. An even slimmer look was all the rage, with women going on murderous diets to attain ever more sticklike figures. Hair was cut even shorter, vanishing beneath head-hugging caps. And while the rich flew off to find the sun, or like the famous Dolly sisters to gamble away fortunes, the few decent days in this year’s dull and miserable British summer saw every young girl trying in vain to get a tan on a beach somewhere, wearing backless swimwear so that her backless evening dresses did not show a white line.

While top designers had kept abreast of things, Julia was suddenly aware that she had been left behind, her creations this spring already out of date.

‘I’m going to have to scrap the whole lot and start again,’ she told Simon miserably. ‘At least, all my day dresses. All that work, those lovely designs, useless. Who’d want them? It’s going to cost me a fortune.’

But already her mind was working on something that might help her keep up with the rest – day dresses, still hip-hugging and straight but falling to a wildly flared hem; another with a two-tiered one, both flared and fluted – she could use all sorts of computations. And although it wouldn’t be long before someone like Chanel or Worth got hold of the idea, she’d be first on the scene. Even so, it took money and ate into the profits from previous seasons.

‘Don’t worry,’ Simon pacified. ‘I can get a bank loan any time I like if we need it. I don’t want to touch my investments though if I can help it. At the moment it’s a bear market but a little bird has told me it could soon be looking up quite substantially.’

Once on the subject of investments he would go off on his own road and when Julia tried to interrupt, hardly heard her.

‘In a few months I shall be hoping to make a killing. So it’s a time to buy, not sell. Next year we’ll be laughing so don’t worry over a few dozen dresses.’

It wasn’t a few dozen dresses as he put it. It was almost her entire line; all her designs had to be thrown out, and starting on new styles cost money. The big fashion houses could weather sudden changes, but while she could certainly hold up her head in this trade she was still somewhat small fry compared to some. But Simon’s eager remarks distracted her from her own problems.

‘No, best not to dabble in anything at the moment,’ she cautioned.

His dealings frightened her at times. He treated the stock market as a professional gambler might treat horse racing, studying form, one eye to the best studs, keeping a constant ear to the ground; so he kept his eyes on the ever-changing stock market, shrugging complacently when something didn’t go so well, smiling with calm satisfaction when it did.

Now he was talking of buying more shares while they were low and waiting for a bull market to sell at a profit. He played the stock market just as her father had but he seemed far luckier. And where her father had kept his thoughts to himself, Simon talked incessantly of his investments, like a little boy looking for adventure.

‘Don’t worry the bank,’ she cautioned again. ‘I can always use some of my own money that I keep by in case I need it.’ He was looking at her, smiling as a man might at a foolish little woman.

‘I really find it amusing, darling, the way you hide odd shekels in that box of yours,’ he chuckled. ‘What is it now, a few hundred, if that? That’ll go a long way! You should make more use of the bank, darling. After all, that’s what banks are there for.’

She capitulated, trying to meet the slightly patronizing, if loving, smile. ‘I suppose I won’t be losing that much in scrapping my earlier designs. I can sell off the old stock to the high street