Authors: Unknown
Kate gave a delicate shudder. ‘No, thank you. I seem to have been careering around like a person with no fixed abode ever since we were married. We were in Italy for ten days, London for four, and we’ve been here less than a week. I’m only just beginning to know where my things are instead of having to hunt through every drawer for a fresh pair of tights. Besides, there’s Philip, he’s only just settling down as well. You said we’d be here for a month, it wouldn’t be fair to uproot him again for a couple of days.’
‘Nanny will look after him while we’re away, it’s what she’s paid for.’
Kate folded her lips firmly and glared. ‘Nanny seems to have him most of the time now, I hardly get a look in.’ Trying to avoid further argument on what was to her a very sore subject, she nodded in the direction of the filing cabinets. ‘You said these were your private things. Am I in there?’
‘Not in those, Kate. In here.’ Jerome pulled out a deep drawer in the desk to display a small suspended system containing labelled files. His long fingers riffled through the labels idly and stopped at one. ‘Here it is— “KATE”.’ He extracted the slim folder, empty except for a brown manilla envelope sealed with a blob of red wax.
‘Huh!’ she snorted. ‘That’s not much. Is that all your nasty little men could dig up?’
‘Only the most important things.’ Negligently he slipped the file back into place and slid the drawer closed, locking it and putting his key ring back in his pocket. He slanted an odd smile at her. ‘You could say they’re my guarantees.’
‘Guarantees?’
‘That I have and will continue to have a loving, faithful and obedient wife.’
Kate picked up the coffee tray and resisting the desire to throw it at him, went to the door. ‘Your best girlfriend’s coming to dinner tonight, why don’t you take
her
to New York?’
‘Kate!’ he exclaimed in a scandalised tone which was a mockery. ‘How can you suggest such a thing? I’m a married man!’
‘Oh, don’t let that worry you,’ she gave him a sickly sweet smile. ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t worry Estelle!’ And she whisked herself out through the door and back to the kitchen, where she stood breathless for a few seconds before she went off to the sitting room to collect Mrs Manfred’s empty cup.
At six o’clock, grubby and sticky from playing with Philip and then helping him with his supper, Kate went off to get ready for dinner. She took her time over her bath and then wandered back into the bedroom, huddled in an old towelling bathrobe over her underwear, to decide what she was going to wear. Her fingers skipped along the hangers and stopped at one of the dresses which she had bought on the shopping spree in London. No, not this evening, she decided. This evening she wanted to be her own woman and wear clothes of her own providing. Estelle was going to be here and Kate wanted to feel free and not under an obligation to anybody.
Her fingers slid farther along and sorted out a green caftan. It was a favourite dress, although far from new. For all its simplicity, it had, been ruinously expensive, but it was, she thought, one of those dresses that went anywhere and would come out of a case looking as though it had been freshly pressed—a dark green drifting silk, loose and comfortable, and the whole relieved only by a narrow edging of tiny gilt bead embroidery around the neck and the wide sleeves. Carefully she detached the hanger from the rod and then stood looking at the dress, deep in thought.
She had worn this dress for work once, been photographed in it for an advertisement for a dishwasher, the sort of thing where an elegant, beautifully groomed woman was pictured in a gigantic and immaculate kitchen, with one redly lacquered fingernail pressing the START button and leading everybody to suppose that the mere possession of such a piece of equipment would ensure that household drudgery was a thing of the past and that any kitchen graced with its presence would immediately assume the proportions of the mock-up around her. The advertisement had appeared in several glossy magazines, she remembered—and if she remembered, so might others.
Sadly she restored the green caftan to its hanger and brought out in its stead a long, black skirt in heavy, thick silk. It would cling to her hips and flare around her ankles, and somewhere there was a blouse to go with it; her fingers flicked again until she came to it. Very straight-laced, she thought, examining the high neck decorated with a frill of lace and the long full sleeves, gathered into tight cuffs. There was nothing of Noelle Lowe about this outfit and she forced an enthusiastic smile as she sat down at the dressing table and started on her face and hair.
Jerome came wandering in just before seven. He was in shirt sleeves, but even so he looked very impressive. His thin black trousers made his long legs look even longer, and Kate sighed with disgust. Even wearing her highest heels, she still wouldn’t be able to look him straight in the eye, she would still be looking up at him.
‘Can you?’ he gestured with the black tie he was holding in his fingers. ‘Mother’s very traditional, we have to be properly dressed for one of her dinner parties, no matter how small.’
‘Mmm.’ She rose and came to stand behind him. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, sit down,’ she scolded. ‘I can’t reach up there.’
Obligingly, he subsided on to the dressing stool and while she was making a neat bow he looked at her in the mirror. ‘Did you do this often?’ His grey eyes held hers in the reflection and her fingers hesitated. ‘Your father?’ he suggested.
‘No,’ she smiled reminiscently. ‘Daddy was a heathen. He didn’t like dressing up, and when he had to, he wore one of those made-up things which clipped at the back. I had to learn to do this once for a television commercial. It took me nearly a week to learn the trick of it. You have to pretend you’re tying a bow on your own neck....’ Her voice faded to a husky whisper as he reached up and caught her arms, pulling her round until she lost her balance and stumbled on to his knee, where he held her chin and kissed her thoroughly, forcing her response. When he raised his head, he examined her face closely.
‘That’s better.’ He sounded satisfied. ‘Now you look like a bride of a few weeks!’
‘And I’ll have to do my face and hair all over again!’ she was almost crying. ‘You’ve messed them up!’
‘A sweet disorder,’ he quoted, and then with raised eyebrows, ‘Shakespeare?’
‘Herrick,’ Kate contradicted savagely as she pushed away from him and from the mirror and scrubbed at her slightly swollen lips with a tissue.
‘And what’s this?’ Jerome’s fingers flicked at the black skirt and white blouse where they lay ready on the bed. ‘We’re going to a small dinner party, not a fancy dress ball.’
‘it’s what I’m wearing,’ she was defiant, ‘and it’s not fancy dress.’
He made a disgusted sound and swung around to the wardrobe, swinging the door wide and rattling the hangers on the rod. Finally he turned with the green caftan in his hands.
‘Wear that!’
‘No.’ There was an obstinate line about her mouth. ‘You don’t understand. I’ve worn that dress for an advert. I was photographed in it. Somebody might remember. Your best girl-friend, for instance. She’d love that!’
‘And?’ He raised one black eyebrow.
‘And then it’ll be all over Derbyshire in no time flat. The great Jerome Manfred married a model. Neither you nor your mother will appreciate that.’
‘We shan’t be disturbed about it.’ He smiled quite a nice smile and Kate caught her breath at the sight of it. ‘Don’t be a fool, Kate. There are some things you can’t hide, and dressing up to look like a superior Edwardian nursery governess isn’t going to hide them either. Gossip doesn’t worry me, and I can assure you it doesn’t bother my mother. Wear the green thing. It’ll suit you.’
Although she had wanted to wear the green dress, the very fact that she had been practically ordered to do so filled her with rage. Jerome dictated where they should go, how and where they should live, how she should spend her spare time, and now he was telling her how to dress, what to wear, so that she slid the caftan over her head with a very bad grace, and though she knew it suited her and she both looked and felt good in it, she was still raging when she went down the stairs with him.
Four pairs of eyes turned in her direction as she entered the drawing room, and she was vaguely comforted by the pressure of Jerome’s hand at her waist. His mother smiled at her benignly; his mother’s old friend, the military man who had given her away, now gave her an appreciative twinkle; the young up-and- coming barrister chosen as a partner for Estelle gave her an assessing glance, and Estelle herself didn’t bother to conceal her dislike or disinterest. Kate turned to her husband with a sugary smile.
‘Introduce me, darling,’ she said huskily. ‘I know everybody was at the wedding, but I’m hopeless at names, you know that. There are times when I hardly remember my own.’ Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were full of a passionate rage and glowed very green between her dark lashes while she fulminated inwardly. Throughout the rest of the evening, she continued to fulminate, although nothing of it showed on her face.
Three years of teaching had taught her a variety of expressions, and she used them all—polite pleasure, polite enquiry, polite attention and polite disbelief. She accepted her small glass of sweet sherry with polite pleasure, although she disliked alcohol in most forms; she treated the military gentleman’s reminiscences of desert warfare with polite attention and some of his more outrageous tales brought on polite enquiry; while Estelle’s continued remarks on the closeness of the bond between herself and Jerome, how they had grown up together and had shared everything, made Kate assume the appearance of polite disbelief. Estelle, she judged, couldn’t be more than twenty at the most, so Jerome had been verging on the young man stage when the girl was kicking and blowing bubbles in her pram. She looked at Estelle with something akin to pity. It was hard for her to see such a lovely young thing making such a fool of herself and not be able to do a thing about it. Kate shook her head and returned her attention to her dinner, which was very good indeed.
She worked her way through iced grapefruit, a delicate cheese souffle duck a l’orange, and a pineapple sorbet in Kirsch with the dedication of a true gourmet and enjoyed every mouthful because she had a normal, healthy appetite. She didn’t see why she should allow Estelle’s little poisonous darts and barbs to ruin good food.
After dinner, Mrs Manfred decided to play whist, and her military friend backed her up. There was nothing like a pleasant game of cards after a good dinner and his eyes had twinkled bright blue at Kate, but Kate had to decline. If they wanted another couple, they would have to look farther than herself. She could not play cards, not properly, she could offer Ludo and Snakes and Ladders, but that was all. At cards she was stupid, she explained, and had on several occasions when she had been forced into playing been responsible for unseemly quarrels and disgraceful shows of temper on the part of her partners. So Mrs Manfred commandeered her son and the up-and-coming young barrister because Estelle had suddenly developed an unaccountable headache and was no longer able to concentrate.
The four players adjourned to a table in the window embrasure and settled down to a cut-throat game in an earnest silence broken only by Jerome’s mother, who held post-mortems on every hand and pointed out everybody’s mistakes with a complete disregard for their feelings which put Kate strongly in mind of her husband in one of his most arrogant moods. Kate sat in a corner of the couch, her toes toasting because she was too near the lire, and after a while Estelle joined her.
‘Isn’t he tired of you yet?’ Kate gave an inward gasp at the sheer effrontery of the question while she schooled her lips to a sweet smile.
‘No, not yet,’ she murmured softly, although she knew that the four at the card table could not hear. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer.’
‘Oh, it won’t be long now.’ Estelle preened herself, her hands patting her hair into a smooth black cap about her ears. ‘I said you wouldn’t last long, and I’m always right about Jerome’s fancy women. But you must be noticing the difference already, surely.’
Kate shook her head, dumb with shock. She closed her eyes and tried hard to pretend that this wasn’t happening.
‘There’s one consolation for you,’ Estelle continued with venom. ‘Jerome’s quite generous. He’ll make it worth your while.’
Kate sat quite still, hardly believing her ears. Nobody, but nobody could possibly talk like this, think like this! The girl must be mad. She stole a sideways look at Estelle and shook her head slightly. No, the girl wasn’t mad, not in the accepted sense. Perhaps she’d been watching too much bad television or reading ridiculous novels; she sounded like the worst kind of soap opera. Since there seemed to be no way of stopping her, Kate decided to enter into the spirit of the thing. After all, she consoled herself, she ought to be able to win this stupid exchange, she had read many more books than Estelle!
‘I’m very expensive,’ she answered, keeping her sweet smile going. ‘I don’t think I could afford to settle for less than a million.’
‘You won’t get that much.’ Estelle took the discussion very seriously. ‘A few thousand perhaps, I could possibly talk Jerome into that.’
Kate sighed. ‘Why are millionaires so mean? I give him the best years of my life and he expects to buy me off with a few thousands. It’s chicken feed! No, Estelle, I’m afraid it’ll have to be a million. I have to look at things in a very practical way. I’ve grown to like luxurious living and I don’t fancy going back to the rat-race of being a photographic model. I’m not getting any younger and the competition is fierce, believe me. There are always at least half a dozen lovely young things eager and willing to do almost anything to take my place.’
‘Mmm,’ Estelle nodded sagely. ‘But that cuts both ways, doesn’t it? I mean, in two or three years’ time you’ll begin to look your age. It’s different for me, two years will only make me twenty-one, there won’t be any lines on my face, in fact I shan’t have aged at all. Perhaps it would be better for you to go now; later on, Jerome mightn’t give you so much.’