Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [14]
I also bought a robe and nightgown. They were Italian-made, sheer white batiste dripping with lace and embroidery. After I got back to work that day, I spread the robe out across the desk and stared at it. I cannot honestly say I do not know what possessed me to buy such a useless, extravagant item. I knew exactly what had possessed me. It wasn’t even my style; as my mother keeps insisting, I look better in tailored clothes.
When the telephone rang I lunged for it, hoping the caller would be someone interesting enough to take my mind off my increasing insanity.
At first I didn’t recognize his voice. Even after he had identified himself, I remained doubtful. “Are you sick or something? You sound funny.”
“Humor is not my aim,” said Tony. “This is a business call.”
“The word was ill-chosen,” I admitted. “Seriously—are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Illinois, of course. Are you going to the meetings this year?”
“Which meetings? Oh—Turin. No, I don’t think so.”
“You went last year.”
I had not taken him seriously when he said the call was business; one never knows when the IRS may be bugging one’s telephone. But the formal, almost accusatory tone was not like the Tony I knew.
“Last year the meetings were only sixty miles from Munich,” I explained patiently. “And there were several sessions on art history. Are you going?”
“Yes. I—uh—I had hoped to see you.”
“Well, you won’t unless you stop over in Munich.”
“May I? I wouldn’t want to interfere with your plans—”
“Tony, you sound like Miss Manners’ older brother. I’d love to see you. I can’t think of anything I’d like better. I have no plans—I’ll be all alone—”
“What about that weird little boss of yours?”
“Schmidt,” I said in exasperation. “His name is Schmidt, as you know perfectly well. I usually do spend Christmas with him unless I go home, but this year he’s going to his sister’s. He can’t stand the woman—she’s one of those tightlipped disapproving types—and he hates her husband, too; but she trapped him and he couldn’t think of an excuse—”
“Oh,” Tony said, in a sepulchral bass rumble, like Boris Karloff. “All right. How does the twenty-first suit you?”
I assured him nothing in this world or the next would give me greater pleasure than to pick him up at the airport on December 21.
“Okay,” Tony mumbled. “See you then.”
The click of the far-off receiver caught me with my mouth open and my rapturous enthusiasm half-expressed. He sounded as if he was even more depressed than I was. Instead of cheering one another, we might end up in a joint suicide pact. Then something else hit me. Tony had not asked me to marry him.
Tony always asked me to marry him. He had been asking me for years. One of the reasons why he disliked Schmidt was that he blamed the old boy for luring me from the primrose path that led to the cottage door and the little frilly aprons and the houseful of babies. This was completely unjust, since I wouldn’t have married Tony even if Schmidt had not offered me a job.
Not that I wasn’t fond of Tony, who is tall (really tall, I mean, six inches taller than I am), dark, and handsome, if you like the lean aesthetic type, which I definitely do. I met him at the midwestern college where we were both starving instructors, and we had spent one wild summer in Germany on the trail of a lost masterpiece of medieval sculpture. The successful climax of the hunt had won me a job offer from Schmidt, and it hadn’t hurt Tony’s career either; he was now an assistant professor at the University of Chicago with a consultative post at the Art Institute.
I loved Tony, but I wasn’t in love with him—nor was I in love with the idea of marriage as such. I’m not knocking the institution; it seems to work fine for a lot of people. But not for me. Not for a while, at any rate.
Anyway, he had probably decided to propose in person. That must be the explanation. I had only imagined he sounded odd. Maybe he was recovering from flu. Maybe my own evil mood had affected my hearing. He was always good company—dear old Tony—a face from home, someone with whom to