Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [121]
Mrs. Harris stares at him through the gloom in a boozy, fixed way. “You tell me, Professor Know-All,” she says finally.
Fred flinches. “Professor Know-All” was one of Rosemary’s private nicknames for him, used half fondly, half mockingly when he brought forth some item of general information. Where has Mrs. Harris heard it? Either Rosemary has told her, or Mrs. Harris has listened in on their phone calls.
“Lady Rosemary’s still away, isn’t she?” Fred asks. A desperate hope has come to him that his love may have returned, or be about to return before he leaves London. Maybe Mrs. Harris has been told to come in and prepare the house for her. Some preparation! But he tries to speak pleasantly, or at least neutrally. “Is she coming back soon?”
For a long moment Mrs. Harris does not answer. Finally she shrugs. “Could be.” Either she doesn’t know, or—more likely—she has been told, or chooses, not to say.
“I wondered if you were expecting her today.” No answer. “Or tomorrow, maybe.” No answer. “Well, I guess I’ll go and get my things.”
“Right. Clear out all your bloody mess, and good riddance,” Mrs. Harris growls, reaching for the gin bottle.
Fred climbs back up to the hall, thinking that when Rosemary does get home she is in for a shock, unless Mrs. Harris manages to pull herself together first. Somebody, not him, should warn her—should tell her what her perfect charlady has been doing in her absence.
He returns the defensive umbrella to the urn and ascends the graceful white curve of the stairs to Rosemary’s bedroom. It is much brighter here: one tall shutter of the bay window has been folded back, and a broad band of gold-dusted sunlight fans across what he has always thought the most beautiful room in this beautiful house: high-ceilinged, elegantly proportioned, lavishly mirrored. The walls are painted a subtle shade of rosy cream, the woodwork and the flowery plasterwork and fireplace are white; the furniture is white-and-gilt French provincial. Right now, however, the place is one hell of a mess. Drawers hang open, spilling their contents; a lamp lies fallen; the pillows and bedclothes of the four-poster have been dragged to the floor, and the dressing table is a confusion of overturned bottles and broken glass from which a stale sticky-sweet odor rises.
Fred feels a sinking of despair and guilt and longing at this mute testimony to Rosemary’s state of mind when she left London; then fury at Mrs. Harris. It is really disgusting of her not to have cleaned up, not to have spared Rosemary—and all right, himself—such a sight. This is followed by a second spasm of guilt as it occurs to him that it was he who had persuaded Rosemary to hire Mrs. Harris. In a way he is responsible for the state the house is in, and for the drunken slut sitting in the darkened basement. Well, nothing can be done about that now.
He glances into the mirrored, peach-tiled bathroom, but it is so littered and foul—the toilet, for instance, is full of turds—that he decides to forget his razor and toothbrush. Has Mrs. Harris—disgusting idea—been treating the place as her own, pawing over Rosemary’s things, using her bathroom, maybe even sleeping off a drunken stupor in her white-and-gold four-poster bed?
That would explain the disorder, and more logically. When he last saw Rosemary—when he heard her voice in the radio station, rather—she wasn’t in an emotionally disturbed state, but very much in control. Perfectly happy, in fact. He hears her light, melodious voice again: “Thank you, Dennis, and I think it’s quite marvelous to be here.” She doesn’t care about him any more; maybe she never cared.
With a kind of shudder Fred picks his way across the debris-strewn pastel-flowered Chinese carpet and opens the walk-in closet. Yes; there is his sweater, sagging from a clothes hook at the back. He throws it over his arm and looks round