Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [140]
Presumably Chuck is still away in Somerset, which must mean that he’s found more relatives, possibly even some aristocratic ones. But in that case, why hasn’t he called to tell her all about it? Because he’s angry at her, or tired of her, and/or because he’s met somebody he likes better. Well, she might have foreseen it. As the old rhyme puts it,
She that will not when she may,
When she would she shall have nay.
Vinnie feels an irritability rising to anger at Chuck and at herself. Until she took up with him, she had been content in London, almost happy, really. Like the Miller of Dee, as long as she didn’t really care for anyone, the fact that nobody cared for her could not trouble her. She’s just as well off now as she was before Chuck got into her life, but she feels miserable, hurt, rejected, and sorry for herself.
Vinnie imagines the long sitting room of a large expensive country house, far away in the southwest of England in a town she has never seen. There, at this very moment, Chuck Mumpson is having tea with newly discovered English cousins named De Mompesson, who have a rose garden and hunters. Charmed by his American naïveté and bluntness of speech, they are plying him with watercress sandwiches, walnut cake, raspberries, and heavy cream.
Beside the chintz-covered armchair in which Chuck sits, an invisible dirty-white dog yawns and lifts his head. He directs a discouraged look at Chuck; then, slowly, he rises to his feet, gives himself a shake, and pads across the peach-colored Aubusson carpet toward the door. Fido is abandoning Chuck, who no longer has any need of him; he is on his way home to Vinnie.
Well, there’s no point in brooding about it. When the rates go down at six she’ll phone again. Meanwhile she might as well get back to her own less fancy tea and to the piece she promised to the Sunday Times a month ago.
Vinnie is deep into this task, with the four collections of folktales she is reviewing spread open round her typewriter, when the telephone rings.
“Professor Miner?” The voice isn’t Chuck’s, but female, American, nervous, very young. Vinnie classifies it generically as that of a B-minus student, perhaps one of her own B-minus students.
“This is she.”
“You’re Professor Miner?”
“Yes,” Vinnie says impatiently, wondering if perhaps this call, like the one last week, relates to Fred Turner. But the flat, anxious tone of voice suggests not so much a lovelorn condition as some serious touristic crisis: stolen luggage, acute illness, or the like.
“My name is Barbie Mumpson. I’m in England, in a place called Frome.”
“Oh, yes?” Vinnie recognizes the names of Chuck’s daughter and of a large town not far from South Leigh.
“I’m calling you because of this picture—I mean because of my father”—Barbie’s voice wavers.
“Yes,” Vinnie prompts. An awful unfocused uneasiness has come over her. “You’re visiting your father in South Leigh?”
“Yeh—No—Oh gee, excuse me. I guess maybe—Oh, I’m so stupid—” To Vinnie, everything seems to be falling apart: Barbie Mumpson’s grasp of the English language has failed, and the room is full of darkness. “I thought maybe Professor Gilson told you. Dad, uh—Dad passed on last Friday.”
“Oh, my God.”
“See, that’s why I’m here.” Barbie goes on talking, but only a phrase here and there gets through to Vinnie. “So the next day . . . couldn’t get a seat on the plane till . . . Mom decided.”
“I’m so sorry,” she finally manages to say.
“Thanks. I’m sorry to have to tell you.” Barbie’s voice has become even more wavery; Vinnie can hear her clearing her throat at the other end of the line. “Anyhow, why I was calling,” she says finally. “There’s this old antique picture Dad had, and Professor Gilson says he wanted you to have it if anything happened to him—I mean Dad did. He was planning to give it to you anyhow, because you helped him so much with the research on his family, Professor Gilson says. So the thing is,