A Cup of Tea - Amy Ephron [16]
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “But I was compelled to follow her that night. She looked as if no one had ever taken care of her. I—sent her to Dora.”
“So, I have you to blame,” he said.
Jane raised an eyebrow, amused, unmindful of the consequences all of it might have.
It was late at night when Eleanor, certainly innocent that she’d been the object of any conversation, walked down the street with Josie Kennedy. The two of them had been at a late dinner after the theater and had a couple of drinks with a few friends of Josie’s, a fairly innocent night all in all. As they approached the dreaded Wetzel’s boarding house (as they sometimes called the dear woman behind her back), Philip was standing on the corner under a streetlight. He looked completely relaxed, as though he had nothing better to do than stand on the street corner enjoying the night air.
Eleanor was annoyed because it was starting to feel like an intrusion. She had come out of the shop that afternoon and found Philip’s carriage parked on the corner—as though she should be there at his whim! He was engaged and she was beginning to feel like something he was toying with.
Josie stood awkwardly a few feet away. Eleanor made no effort to introduce them.
“I’ll see you at home, then,” Josie said after an awkward moment.
Eleanor nodded at her and continued to look at Philip. She had some responsibility here. Yes, she had accepted a ride from him, stopped for a drink, and then, feeling the effects of the champagne, had kissed him goodbye but had meant it to be that, a kiss goodbye. It had been a mistake. Did he think she would be so flattered by the attentions of any man like him? That there was something more to this?
“I didn’t think this was your neighborhood,” she said finally.
“I don’t deserve that.”
Eleanor wondered what he thought he did deserve or what right he thought he had to be on her corner. “Are you following me?” she asked him.
“No, I was waiting for you.” He smiled at her again but there was something in the way he stood, a respectful distance from her, as though he were asking this time.
“I wish I could do this the right way,” he said. “I don’t have time. I wish I did. If I had time, it—could be different. If I could make an appointment and take you to dinner next week. I don’t feel I have control of this, Eleanor…” His voice trailed off. “Any day I could get my orders. And leave for Europe.”
“And I’d be here,” she said almost without inflection.
He stepped in closer and put his hand on her hair. Her inclination was to fall into him. She stopped herself.
He leaned in and kissed her and the only thing she could do was kiss him back. He led her by the hand to his carriage. But it was never clear with them who was doing the leading.
The dining room table was elaborately set for one with long ivory candles burning in the imposing silver candelabra. Rosemary’s father, Henry Fell, was sitting alone at the head of the long table reading one of his many reference books and occasionally, absentmindedly taking a sip of consommé from a silver soupspoon, unmindful of the fact that it had grown cold many minutes before. The mahogany doors to the dining room slid open and his daughter glided dramatically into the room. “You’ll have to put your book away, Papa, if you want to eat with me,” she said and kissed him on the forehead. She sat down next to him at the table.
“And what makes you think I prefer you to my present companion?” he asked teasing, then smiled at her and shut the book although he didn’t trust this sudden attention. “And why is my sweetheart home, tonight?”
“Oh, I didn’t think we’d been spending enough time together, did you?”
Henry Fell raised an eyebrow. “And where is Philip?”
“Playing cards—I think.”
Rosemary got up and helped herself to an empty soup bowl from the sideboard, a napkin, and a necessary selection of silver. She didn’t actually know where Philip was that night. Had they made plans? She couldn’t actually remember. She sat back down at the table and took the top off the soup tureen. “Is this all we