A Cup of Tea - Amy Ephron [3]
And then the creature spoke. “I’m sorry, I think I may—” She braced herself and tried to gain control again. “I’ve never fainted.”
Rosemary put the cigarette down. “Oh, how thoughtless of me.” She opened the door and called down the stairs. “Could you hurry those sandwiches, Gertrude?”
Rosemary raced about and took a decanter off the table. She poured a glass of brandy which she offered to the woman.
And then the creature spoke again. “I don’t—I don’t drink brandy.”
Rosemary smiled. “It will revive you. At least, I think it will revive you. Would you feel better if I had one…?” She poured herself a brandy and took a sip. “Here, now we’ve both gone off.”
She held the glass out again to the woman, and this time it was accepted and downed, rather quickly, although Rosemary didn’t notice as there was a knock on the door at exactly this moment.
“Oh, the tea. That will help. You just sit there.” Rosemary watched as the woman collapsed into the softness of the sofa.
She opened the door to a rather sour-faced Gertrude holding a tray. “I’ll take it, Gertrude, thanks.” She closed the door before Gertrude could quite get a look inside and set the tray down on the table. “There.”
The woman helped herself to a tea sandwich and ravenously took a bite.
“They’re good, aren’t they?” said Rosemary trying to be polite. Rosemary delicately bit into a cucumber sandwich as the woman finished hers. “Have as many as you want, please.” And then because she wanted to make conversation, make it seem as though it were an ordinary afternoon for this poor creature, she went on much as she would to anyone she was trying to make conversation with. “I should learn to cook but with Gertrude here…” She gestured with her hand sort of vaguely and then trailed off. “Do you cook?”
The woman nodded, her mouth full of sandwich. “A little,” she said.
Rosemary sat herself in the chair opposite the woman. “I’m sure you do. I don’t know how to do anything useful. I play the piano some. But I don’t know who that’s useful to.” She laughed a little at her own remark. She wanted to ask her (out of curiosity and because later, when she told her friends about the girl she had helped, she wanted to be able to relate her story) how she had come to be in this circumstance. Surely, something terrible had happened to her, maybe more than one thing terrible, but she had escaped, she was all right now, she was safe. And there would be time to ask, she reasoned, after the tea and sandwiches had done their work and she was feeling refreshed.
Rosemary noticed there was a hole, more than one, in the girl’s stockings and jumped up, not that she could ever sit for long, anyway. “I’ll find you some stockings,” she said and left the girl alone as she disappeared into the dressing room.
What she thought about while Rosemary was in the closet. The picture on the wall of the child sitting cross-legged in the woods with an angel overhead, an obvious holdover from when Rosemary was young, the satin coverlet on the bed, the ivory and silver hairbrushes on the vanity, the warmth from the fire that made everything else seem so faraway. She hadn’t realized how tired she’d been or how long it had been, not really that long, since she had sat down. Actually, a moment’s peace.
“Try these,” said Rosemary coming out of the closet with stockings and a skirt and a clean over-blouse. She didn’t even have the heart to protest but rather let Rosemary press the clothes on her and show her into the bathroom.
Rosemary lit a cigarette and leaned against the mantel. Rosemary considered how she could phrase her inquiry, what she could ask to bring the girl out. Her temporary musing was broken by the door opening and a woman’s voice.
“I hear you’re on some kind of a tear.” The woman who entered the room had a clipped way of speaking. Her clothes were plain and tailored but looked expensive. Her hair was cut unfashionably short. She seemed to take everything in in an instant. Her name was Jane Howard and she had been Rosemary’s best friend since childhood