Starlight by Anne Douglas

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    â€˜Didn’t waste much time, apparently, making a play for your sister. Pam says he walks her to the station every night, soon as they close. Has done from the start.’ Sally’s gaze was bright on Jess’s averted face. ‘Did Marguerite never say?’
    â€˜Don’t suppose she thought it was important.’
    â€˜I’m no’ so sure. Pam thinks she likes him. Seemingly, she’s quick enough to give fellows the message, if she doesn’t.’
    â€˜That’s true,’ Jess agreed. ‘But fancy her – liking Ben.’
    â€˜Fancy,’ Sally murmured. She gave a little sigh. ‘Well, if you’re OK, Jess, that’s good. That’s a relief. I did wonder if you might be maybe worrying about the war.’
    â€˜The war? I thought there wasn’t going to be one.’
    â€˜Some folk are beginning to think that bit of paper Mr Chamberlain had doesn’t mean a thing.’
    â€˜How can they know that?’
    â€˜Arnold says nobody should trust Herr Hitler. He’s planning world domination. Everybody under the jackboot, Arnold says.’
    â€˜We’ll just have to hope he’s wrong, then.’
    â€˜He’s never wrong,’ Sally declared.
    Late that night, when Jess and Marguerite were preparing for bed, Jess resolved to speak. She had watched closely when her sister had arrived home from work. Had seen a delicate flush on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes, for which something more than the January cold might have been responsible. Had known the time had come to face the truth, whatever it was, for until it was known, she, Jess, couldn’t learn to live with it. Live with it? Oh, God, how easy that was to say!
    â€˜Marguerite, know what Sally told me today?’ she asked, after she’d seen her sister climb into bed, clinging with shudders to her hot water bottle.
    â€˜All I know is that it’s freezing in here,’ Marguerite returned. ‘Oh, these sheets are icy!’
    â€˜It is January, eh? We’ll probably have snow by morning.’ Jess was trying to hug her own hot water bottle that was stone and kept slipping from her grasp. ‘Well, listen – Sally said Pam had told her that Ben Daniel was taking you to the station every time you worked late. I never knew that.’
    â€˜What of it?’ Marguerite had now pulled the bed clothes to her chin.
    â€˜I’m just interested, that’s all. Seemingly, he’s keen.’
    â€˜Just says it’s on his way.’
    â€˜He’s going out of his way. He lives in Canonmills.’
    â€˜All right, so he wants to take me to the station. Can we go to sleep now? I’m tired, Jess. I’ve had a long day.’
    â€˜I just want to say, if you start going out with him, I hope you don’t . . . hurt him. It’d be a shame. He’s nice, we all like him.’
    â€˜Hurt him?’ Marguerite sat up, staring at Jess through the darkness. ‘Who says I’m going to hurt him? I like him, too. As a matter of fact, he’s asked me to go out on Sunday and I’ve said I will.’ She lay down again with a thump. ‘And I’ve no plans to break his heart, if that’s what you’re on about. Goodnight, Jess.’
    â€˜Goodnight, Marguerite.’
    While her sister soon began to breathe regularly in sleep, Jess lay wide awake, feeling as chilled inside as the air around her bed. It seemed to her that she would never be warm again. Never have the hope again for a future that had been her comfort. Ben had been a dream, she saw that now; no more real than his shadow on the silver screen. He would never be hers, never come alive for her. Only for Marguerite.
    How was she to accept that? As the long hours crawled by, it didn’t seem possible. Only slowly did it come to her that whatever she’d lost, she still had work. She still had the Princes. All right, she worked in the box office, but