The River of No Return

Very little stood between me and just such a life.”
    “But would you?” Bella’s voice thrilled with intrigue. “Would you really turn to prostitution, if the alternative were death?”
    “No.” Julia raised her chin. “Of course not. I never would.” She looked out over the square rather than meet Bella’s eyes.
    Bella hugged Julia’s arm close. “Liar liar, brimstone and fire. You would, you know. We all would.”
    “I do not care for this conversation, Bella.” Julia’s scowl deepened.
    “Oh, please.” Bella pulled Julia along briskly. “Stop pretending to be a prude, because I know for a fact that you are not. Who spied on the stable hands as they washed themselves, then broke her arm falling out of the hayloft because she leaned out to get a clear view of Martinson’s you-know-what?”
    “His cock,” Julia muttered. “You taught me that word, Arabella Falcott. Now who’s the prude?” She sniffed. “Martinson didn’t have anything worth looking at, let me tell you.”
    “Ha! Indeed. Welcome back to yourself, Julia Percy. This is exactly the sort of conversation we have had every day since we were thirteen years old.”
    “We are not thirteen now.”
    “No,” Bella said, “we certainly are not. That is why we must talk about these things without blushing.” She fixed Julia with a serious gaze. “It means ‘half the world,’ you know.”
    “What does?”
    “ Demimonde. ”
    Julia stopped, bringing her friend to a standstill. “But of course it does. I never thought of that before. How remarkable. Half the world.”
    They had now walked back around to the Gunter’s side of Berkeley Square. Carriages were lined up outside the shop, and gentlemen were procuring ices for ladies, then leaning against the park railings and chatting with one another while the ladies ate without alighting. “Look at them,” Bella said.
    Julia looked. She began to see that each woman ate her ice differently. Some scraped the ice onto their spoons, others scooped it. Some took big bites, some little. Some allowed the relish they had for the treat to show on their faces, others appeared bored or even disgusted. Quite a number of them, she realized with a start, must have ordered their ice to match their gowns. “People can’t help but look ridiculous while they are eating,” she said.
    Her friend looked at her blankly for a moment and then started laughing. “Oh, Julia.”
    “What?”
    “You are watching them eat.”
    “Well, of course I am. Look at all the flavors I have yet to try.”
    “Do you know what I see when I look?”
    “You are probably looking at the gentlemen.”
    “Not at all.” Bella gestured at the scene as if she were discussing a painting in a gallery. “Look at that lovely woman in pink, with the high-poke bonnet.”
    “I see her.”
    “Is any other woman looking at her? Now look at that beautiful creature in the dark blue spencer. Are any other women looking in her direction?”
    Julia began to follow the eyes of all the females eating ices. A woman’s eyes slid unseeingly over one lady, to alight happily upon another. Waves and greetings were exchanged between two ladies across the body of another woman who stared straight ahead, as if she were alone on a mountaintop. “Oh,” Julia said. Suddenly her vision cleared and she could see, as if a veil had been lifted. All the women were eating ices, but only some women were acknowledged to exist, while others were subtly . . . spurned. Made invisible. Except that Julia could see them. It was like magic.
    “Yes,” Bella said. “Half the world. Now you can see it.”
    Julia looked at her friend with awe and something like pride. “How did you work it out? Surely your mother didn’t . . .”
    Bella snorted. “My mother thinks a girl should reach her wedding night as ignorant as a fluffy duckling.”
    “I know. Remember when she had the brass to tell a pair of sixteen-year-old girls that she had found all three of her children in cabbages?”
    “How could I forget? And when you asked her to describe harvesting cabbage babies, she revealed that it is a dangerous matter, because apparently cabbages grow in trees.”
    “I love your mother,” Julia said, “but her innocence—of vegetable life—is truly amazing.” The smile faded from her lips. “I’ve missed you, Bella.”
    Bella pressed her hand. “I know. When we marry we most likely will not see one another from one end of the year to the next. We