We Two Together

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Juliet was nearly eighteen. Almost a woman. She was very rich. Her mother and half-sister were slim and attractive, but Juliet was rather plump. Her mother's attempts to find her a husband had failed, and Juliet was miserable. Juliet lived in her own private world of music, art, and dreams... a world she was unable to share with anyone. Then one night at a concert, she caught the intense, probing gaze of the dark-eyed young stranger seated next to her. No man had ever looked at her like that. The woman inside Juliet stirred for the first time. She smiled back. And so it began. Romero, the young Italian shared her love of music. But she did not know then the shocking and violent drama that lay in wait for her. Or that from the moment of their first embrace she had moved into a world from which there was no return.

Release date: April 24, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

SHE was always hungry.

She had begun to feel that she had never been anything else. Ever since she came back from the finishing school in Lausanne, she had been trying to fight what seemed to be a losing battle against her increasing weight.

She was very hungry this morning as she stood at the foot of her mother’s bed, listening to that rather high-pitched voice with its curiously childish, flute-like quality which was supposed to be one of her mother’s attractions. Juliet never quite understood why people found it attractive, but men did; or at least Daddy must have done; and Karin, Juliet’s half-sister, who was three years her senior, liked to boast that Mummy still had lots of men falling in love with her. That childish voice was in keeping with the small slim figure and youthful face which made Anthea Halfrey look as though she was still in the twenties instead of what she was; a twice married woman aged forty-five.

Juliet did not really like her mother’s voice. Perhaps because she had grown to dread it; because it never seemed to say anything pleasant to Juliet. Of course the things that Mummy said were interspersed with ‘darlings’ and ‘sweeties’ and ‘poppets’, as though such names were sops to the reproaches and criticisms, none of which could be anything but hurtful to Juliet.

She wanted so much to love her mother and to be loved by her. Every morning she came into the big beautiful bedroom of the house in Eaton Place full of pathetic anxiety to please, with the rigid intention of doing what Mummy wanted. Every morning something seemed to happen or to be said that ended in Juliet witnessing the destruction of her hopes. Her ‘little talks’ with Mummy always had to end in the same way; Juliet making a faux pas — saying the wrong thing — then growing resentful and sulky; and Mummy telling her that she was ungrateful and impossible.

“You are most ungrateful,” Mummy would say, looking at Juliet through her fabulous lashes and squeezing a tear which would hang like a diamond drop upon them just to make Juliet feel worse. “You don’t seem to realise the sacrifices that your father and I have made for you — sending you to an expensive school and then an even more expensive college in Switzerland … and buying you all those clothes — trying to make something of you. Really, my sweet, try to be more like Karin.”

Ah, that was the heart of the matter; the fact that Juliet should have been like Karin. But how could she ever be? Juliet would ask herself miserably. Karin was different. Mummy never seemed able to understand that people were different; that if you are born one person — it is not easy to become another.

Of course all the trouble was this frightful business about Juliet being too fat. Karin was so lucky. God seemed to have given her everything. Health, beauty — and her mother’s slenderness, coupled with an added height. Karin had a model-girl’s figure. Everyone in the house was always talking about her ‘vital statistics’. Not only was she beautiful, with Mummy’s huge blue eyes and silver blonde hair (Mummy had had a Scandinavian mother) but Karin’s father had been very handsome and Karin had inherited his straight fine features. Also, so Mummy said, his charm. Karin could charm man, woman or child when she wanted. Everyone adored her and had given in to her since she was a small enchantress dancing her way through nursery days. Infatuated relations and friends used to be confident that she would become a ballet dancer or a film star and, certainly, a breaker of hearts.

But, if anything, Juliet had more talent as an actress than Karin. That was because Juliet — she knew it — possessed dramatic sense; a deeper emotional nature. They used to let her play the good parts in the school plays and when, at seventeen, she went to Lausanne, the mistress there who taught drama, had complimented her on her fine performance in a play by Molière.

“Truly you have a soul, ma chère Juliet,” she had said. But when Juliet blushed with pleasure and answered that there was nothing she wanted to do more than act, Mademoiselle had given her a look of pity and sighed:

“Quand même you must try to get down your weight, ma pauvre enfant!”

All Juliet’s pleasure had evaporated. The flush of triumph faded. It was the old cry! Her weight. Who should know better than she what a struggle it was to get into that costume which had been hired for her performance. What a nightmare, trying to squeeze in her waist, and those breasts which were too full and heavy for her age. It was a forty-inch bust — but, thought Juliet, only a Marilyn Monroe or her prototypes could get away with that measurement; one must have at the same time a tiny waist and slim hips. For Juliet there was also her plump ‘tummy’ to camouflage, and every girdle that Mummy had bought her was horribly uncomfortable — almost more than she could bear. If the strong elastic and boning flattened her abdomen, the fat was pushed up into her waist and enlarged that. She was thoroughly sick of it all.

What use to possess a ‘soul’ or any talent if your figure was so bad that you could never go on the stage — or wear the pretty dresses from the Juvenile Departments, like Karin used to do when she was younger? As for Mummy — even she boasted that she could still buy size fourteen, ready-made cotton frocks and look delicious in them. But either Juliet had to find an outsize model or have her dresses made, which Mummy found expensive. If there was one thing that Juliet hated, it was being an additonal expense to her parents. She had a strong sense of pride — an independence of spirit which her mother constantly tried to break. Her father was a kindly man and sorry for her. He said so. And he was sympathetic about her measurements.

“I am afraid you have inherited my tendency to put on superfluous tissue,” once, sadly, he observed.

Juliet had inherited other of his physical drawbacks. His too-fine straight brown hair that would never curl; his slightly re-troussé nose that made him look like an over-grown schoolboy. Mummy despaired of Juliet ever looking anything but an overweight schoolgirl. Her one redeeming feature were her eyes which were quite large and long-lashed, green like her father’s. Karin, when she wasn’t immersed in her own life — wrapped round with a silver coating of egotism and vanity — sometimes flung Juliet a morsel of flattery which was rich food to the younger girl who was so starved of admiration.

“You’ve got lovely teeth and a good skin — just as good as mine — and a nice smile — when you smile!” she told Juliet on more than one occasion.

But Juliet wondered what had she got to smile at up against a world which seemed to have no use for her. She was just a disappointment to everybody except Daddy, who said that he loved her dearly and didn’t mind how much she weighed. Daddy, as Juliet knew well, had no great say in this household. He was Mummy’s slave, and Karin twisted him round her finger. They both did, when they wanted an extra cheque. Poor Daddy! So busy earning money as Managing Director of his big firm of Consulting Engineers, he had little time to attend to the psychological needs of his problem child.

This morning had begun badly. Juliet woke during the night with that gnawing sensation that so often troubled her when she should, like a healthy girl, be sleeping. Her parents had dined out. Karin was spending a week in the country with her fiancé’s people and was not yet home. Juliet had been served with the evening meal as ordered by Mummy and Cécile, a beauty specialist — the fourth to work on Juliet since she came back from Lausanne. This meal consisted of thin consommé, steamed fish, spinach and stewed fruit. All right for an elderly invalid but scarcely enough for a strong young woman of eighteen. Especially awful for Juliet with the appetising odour of fried sausages and onions coming from the kitchen. Miss Appleby, the lady-cook, sympathised with Juliet but it was more than her well-paid job was worth to supplement the young girl’s diet.

“She has got to lose at least two stone — the doctor says so,” Mrs. Halfrey had told Miss Appleby. “It’s hard for the poor angel but she’ll be so glad when she can walk into a shop and buy a pretty dress off the peg.”

Juliet’s breakfast this morning had consisted of half a grapefruit and a boiled egg, with a piece of Ryvita. No butter or marmalade. She had lingered over the egg enjoying every morsel and secretly craved for fried bacon, and cups of creamy coffee. Oh, why should she have been born with her predisposition to fat? Her metabolism was all wrong! Yet Mummy and Karin could eat what they like and never put on weight.

“It isn’t fair!”

The old childish cry was uttered dumbly by Juliet this morning as she looked sideways at Mummy’s tray on which had been left two slices of toast and three creamy pats of butter. So miserable did she look, that Mrs. Halfrey pouted at the girl.

“What an expression! Really, sweetie, it doesn’t aid your beauty.”

Juliet turned away, her face reddening.

“I haven’t any beauty,” she muttered.

Mrs. Halfrey tried to be patient.

“Darling, you’ve got lots of good points and since you’ve been on your diet and stopped eating all those awful pastries, and drinking that Swiss chocolate with whipped cream on it, your skin has looked clear and lovely.”

Juliet made no answer. This sort of flattery from Mummy was generally the forerunner of new schemes to beautify her. Juliet had lost faith in diets and cures for obesity.

It was so disheartening to be the frequent butt of jokes — to feel that she must appear to the world like the pictures of outsize women in magazines. Illustrations for slimming cures. Of course she wasn’t as bad as all that. Kind Miss Appleby had tried to cheer her up last night when, disconsolate and hungry, Juliet had burst into tears. “You’ll get used to eating less,” Miss Appleby said. “You’ll find your tummy will shrink, and soon you won’t want so much food. You are only just plump, and I think a lot of plump women look jolly and good-tempered. Personally, I do not like the scraggy ones.”

But with all her soul Juliet longed to be scraggy. Now she stood staring bleakly at her pretty, petite mother. The flute-like voice said:

“I haven’t told you yet, darling, but I’m going to take you this morning to see a gland specialist. Arabella Merkell told me that cases of fat are so often due more to glandular trouble and not over-eating. She knows about Dr. Friedmann. He’s an Austrian and is supposed to be marvellous at reducing. I have cancelled my fitting at Hardies because it was the only time Dr. Friedmann could see you. Now, aren’t I a nice Mummy?”

And Anthea gave Juliet that arch smile which always screamed for the flattering reply which usually she received from everybody but her youngest daughter. Juliet’s love for her mother was profound and rather desperate. She knew that she was incapable of pleasing the older woman. This turned her love sour in her very soul. But she had a blunt honesty of nature which prevented her from lying just in order to please her mother. And she did not think her ‘nice’ to have made such an appointment. It meant just a fresh form of torture. Another hopeless quest. Juliet had been dragged to specialists both in the medical and beauty-culture worlds ever since she left school. They all weighed her, asked the same questions, made her blush because some of the questions were so embarrassing; and when two of the doctors had examined her heavy naked breasts, she had felt ready to die of shame and misery. The result was always the same:

“A lot of it is puppy fat, Miss Halfrey. Some attention to régime would help, perhaps. I’ll give you a diet sheet. Keep off the sweets and starches, Miss Halfrey. Cut down the liquids.”

The worst thing was the diet that cut down liquids. Juliet had always been a thirsty child. It was still anguish to her not to be able to swallow pints of fruit juice and water, or cups of tea when she wanted them. As for sweets, she hadn’t eaten a chocolate for months, and there were generally tempting boxes of them lying about the place — given to Karin by Neal, her fiancé.

Neal Folliott was on the Stock Exchange — a partner in his father’s flourishing firm. He and Karin were going to be married this summer. Juliet was to be one of the bridesmaids.

“If you can get that couple of stone off first, sweetie,” Karin had said when the subject was broached. “I want a delicate shell-pink lace for my dress, and my bridesmaids to be in pink chiffon with very full skirts. Really you’d look enormous.”

Juliet always looked enormous in pretty full frocks. That was the hellish part of it, because, as a teenager, she was supposed to wear that sort of dress. She was at her best in dark tailor-mades or straight-cut dresses. But Mummy thought them dull, and too old for her, so there was always this frightful battle and trying to fit on the frillies.

“Darling!” came Mummy’s voice, plaintive now. “I’ve been telling you about our plans for this morning.”

Juliet swung round to her.

“I don’t want to go.”

“Why ever not? This man is a famous Austrian specialist on glandular troubles.”

“There’s no proof that I’ve got glandular trouble,” said Juliet.

“We are going to let him decide, dear.”

“It won’t be any good, and I loathe being mucked about.”

Anthea’s big blue eyes narrowed. A less agreeable expression crossed her pointed face.

“That isn’t very pretty, darling.”

“I’m not pretty,” said Juliet, with a loud laugh.

Anthea began to fold the morning paper which she had been reading when Juliet came in to see her. Heavens! The way that this child sometimes looked at her, she thought. She spoke as though she felt a deep resentment against her, personally; as though it were her fault Juliet had been born with a poor figure! And of course it was Robert’s fault really. Anthea often wished she had never had a second child. She should have been content with her lovely Karin. But Robert had wanted a son so passionately.

When Anthea married Robert she had been a widow for over a year. She hated being alone. She preferred being pampered and petted. Robert was not her ideal man; nothing like as handsome and attractive as Karin’s father, who had been killed in a flying accident. But he had left Anthea without much money and Robert Halfrey was wealthy. He was also madly in love with Anthea and stupid about women generally. The stupidity appealed to Anthea. It made it easy for her to manage Robert. So far, over the years, she had got her own way But physically, these days, she found Robert repulsive. He was just ‘the bank’ upon whom she and Karin could draw cheques when they wanted.

Eighteen years ago, Juliet arrived instead of the hoped-for son and heir. Bad enough not to have had a boy, but for it to be Juliet, who certainly had not lived up to her name — Anthea felt that hers was the grievance and that it was she, not Juliet, who should throw resentful glances. It was such a disappointment having a daughter one could never dress up or do anything with. As a baby, Juliet had been quite a sweet dimpled little thing, but unfortunately she had never shed that fat which in a teenage girl was appalling.

Her mother eyed Juliet with an irritation which she genuinely tried not to show. She did not wish to hurt her feelings. If only the girl were sweet and gay like Karin, one would have felt sorrier for her, but she was so morose. Anthea was no psychologist. She couldn’t be bothered about the feelings of others. She could never have understood the torrent of deep feeling that Juliet had to stem. The agonies of shyness and embarrassment that her ample curves caused her. The bitterness of envy that she suffered every time she was compared with Karin.

It never entered Anthea’s head to find the girl pathetic when she was publicly teased about her contours; and really she was very sweet natured, because she still loved and admired her mother and half-sister sincerely, despite all the rebuffs.

Through her lashes, the mother examined Juliet’s figure under a floral cotton frock which seemed to be bursting at every seam. She supposed Juliet had put on this dress because it was a warm May morning, but Anthea wasn’t going to take the girl out in that.

Anthea had made her daughter have her hair permanently waved. It hadn’t been a success. Juliet as a schoolgirl, used to have a long satiny-brown plait which had given her some dignity. Cut short and curled — frizzed, Anthea thought, making a note of the fact that she must give hell to that girl who did the perm — it made Juliet look more commonplace.

With a gesture of irritation, Mrs. Halfrey flung aside the bedclothes, got up and slipped into her silk dressing-gown. Drawing it tightly around her, she glanced at herself in the mirror, admired her own neat little figure and yawned.

“Run and change, darling,” she said, without looking at Juliet.

The corners of Juliet’s mouth turned down. The frustrations of her short life turned down the corners of that wide mouth far too often these days. It gave her a sulky expression. It belied her character which was intrinsically warm and gay. But it wasn’t easy to be warm or gay when you were always doing the wrong thing, or not being the person your family expected you to be.

“Oh, why must I —?” she began.

Now Mrs. Halfrey looked over her shoulder and scowled.

“Juliet, don’t argue! All day long you will argue with me. It’s so tiresome.”

A hot answer rose to the girl’s lips. She controlled it, which was remarkable for Juliet who had lately begun to lose her self-control during these skirmishes with her mother. Her cheeks flamed. Her teeth gnawed at her lower lip. At last she said:

“I’m eighteen now and old enough to choose my own clothes and not be treated like a child.”

Mrs. Halfrey got up. She looked almost with distaste at this young daughter whom she had never really wanted.

“You don’t behave like an adult, my dear, so you must expect to be treated like a child.”

“I don’t see what I’ve done except put on a dress you don’t like.”

“You chose it. It was not right for you. Look at yourself in the glass. That print makes you look enormous. If you’ll remember, you insisted on buying it. It was one of these adult purchases of yours. You thought you knew so much more than I did about clothes.”

Again, Juliet tried to control herself. Mummy was being unfair. She always was. True, Juliet admitted to herself, she had chosen this wretched cotton frock. But she had wanted to feel adult and important. When she left her finishing school she had been so thrilled to think that she was no longer a schoolgirl; that she could be more on an equal with Karin. But since coming home she had met with nothing but disappointment.

Her greatest friend, Belinda Lyle, who had been at Switzerland with her and was the same age, led a very different life. To Juliet’s mind, it was a happier one. The Lyles had no money — nothing like such a grand house or car as the Halfreys. Dr. Lyle was only a country practitioner. But Belinda had gone home to take charge of the household and run it for her father, because Mrs. Lyle wasn’t at all strong. Belinda was learning to drive, too. She had already become her parents’ right-hand. And she did all the work with trerhendous enthusiasm.

On the journey home, Belinda had said to Juliet:

“I shan’t have much in the way of parties — the sort of fun and coming-out I expect you’ll have; or the South of France for holidays and all that. You’ll think I’m going to lead a terrible life.”

But Juliet had protested. She envied Belinda. She would have given anything to be going home to look after Daddy and be regarded as everyone’s mainstay. What a wonderful thing to be needed. Anything rather than considered a ‘refractory child’ needed by nobody.

Juliet could not open her heart to Mummy and explain these things. Mummy wasn’t the sort of woman you could talk to. You had to keep things to yourself. Juliet often longed to breach the gulf between he. . .