Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [47]
Fred has been raised in an academic environment; he assumes that even difficult questions must be answered. Rosemary, after years in the theater and long experience of prying and hostile interviewers, assumes the reverse. Instead of replying, she yawns, covering the pink flower of her mouth with one fluttering hand. “Heavens, I’m exhausted! Classical drama does that to me sometimes. Is it dreadfully late?”
“No; half past eleven.” One possible cause of, or excuse for Rosemary’s constant tardiness is her refusal to wear a watch (“I can’t bear the idea that Time has me by the wrist, like some awful cross old governess”).
“Oh horrors, darling. I think I’d better go straight to bed.”
“Don’t do that,” Fred says, grasping her more firmly. “At least, not alone.”
“I’m afraid I must.” She sighs deeply, as if under some heavy invisible compulsion.
“But I was hoping—” Fred puts a hand on that part of the angel-wing cape that covers Rosemary’s breast.
“Now, love, don’t be tiresome. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”
So, quite casually, Rosemary canceled what was to have been the climax of their evening together. For the next eighteen hours Fred was in a bad state of mind. He called—or, in the British phrase, “rang”—several times, starting at ten A.M., but couldn’t get through her answering service. Either she was out, or she was angry with him. He tried to work, but—as often lately—not with any success; he needed a book that was in the BM, but didn’t want to leave the phone.
Finally, about six, Rosemary rang back. She was as affectionate as ever, “simply longing” to see him. She denied she’d been cross; wouldn’t even discuss it; welcomed him passionately at her front door an hour later.
Shadowy spring twilight in the library of an English country house often featured in magazines and color supplements, famous both for its architectural and decorative beauty and for the architectural and decorative beauty of its mistress, Penelope (Posy) Billings, and the financial acumen of her husband Sir James (Jimbo). The crimson velvet brocaded walls, buttery buttoned leather and mahogany sofas, gilt bindings, glass cases of curios, and antique varnished globes of the earth and heavens create a slightly campy late-Victorian effect. This is relieved by an orderly profusion of fresh spring flowers, and a table on which are arranged the latest papers and magazines, prominence being given to those of conservative views and to last month’s Harper’s/Queen, which includes a photograph of Lady Billings in her kitchen and her original recipe for cream-of-watercress-and-avocado soup, as part of a series on “Country-House Cuisine.”
On the walls are Victorian paintings in thickly flounced gold frames: two portraits of Posy’s distinguished military ancestors and one of a mournful prize sheep who strongly resembles George Eliot. All three pictures have been in her family for over a century. The Leighton above the marble chimneypiece, on the other hand, was bought for Posy by Jimbo as a wedding present just before prices skyrocketed, on a tip from one of her best friends—the fashionable decorator, Nadia Phillips. It shows a smooth-limbed statuesque Victorian blonde, much resembling Posy Billings and with the same tumbling masses of brassy hair. This figure is somewhat anachronistically half clad in pink and lavender draperies and is making eyes at a caged bird on a sun-drenched, petal-strewn marble terrace.
Now, six years later, Posy is beginning to be tired of the Leighton, the sheep, the curios, and the ancestors. She’d rather like to send them to the attics and put up something more contemporary. Indeed, she has been wondering lately if it wouldn’t be rather amusing to have the library redone, with Nadia Phillips’ help, in the style of the 1930s, with lots of deep sexy white sofas, stainless steel and lacquer tables, engraved mirrors, and funny art-deco cushions and lamps and vases.
At the moment Posy is not in the library, but having tea in the nursery with