wedge when Ann said from the rear, “Ellie, I think that room is reserved for private parties.”
Too late I saw the little brass plate that said Reserved. The scent of cut flowers wafted toward me and inside I saw rows of women seated at white-clothed tables, sipping from sherry glasses. Chairs scuffed back; all persons were now standing. A voice commandeered the floor, but the speaker was out of my sight.
Ann tugged at my arm, but somehow (it was becoming a habit) I had lost a shoe. I fumbled around for it with my foot, keeping my mutterings low and my ear to the door. Terrible, isn’t it, but remember I am the sort who reads other people’s shopping lists while making myself at home in their cars.
“Ladies, dear friends, our monthly meeting having been called to order, I wish to address a subject of concern. Yes, Mrs. Beatrix Woolpack has suffered a major nervous breakdown. She collapsed last evening while attending the Amateur Symphony. She has been admitted to The Peerless Nursing Home, where I understand she has placed herself unreservedly in the good Dr. Bordeaux’s hands. In view of Mrs. Woolpack’s current standing in the club, Correspondence will confine itself to sending a card with printed good wishes. No visitors are permitted.”
A buzzing from the assemblage.
Ann handed me my shoe and I followed her downstairs, not wanting to linger any longer. Poor Mrs. Woolpack. I felt I knew her through her car. Stumbling down the last step, I took a couple of seconds to realise that the voice hailing me above the babble was Mrs. Lionel Wiseman’s.
Sidney had whipped Bunty’s hair into a blond cloud, the kind which must present doorway difficulties. “Sorry we’re late! Ellie, you remember Teddy?” Bunty tapped her tweedy middle-aged companion on the head. “And I see you’ve brought Ann.”
Perhaps she didn’t mean to sound the way she did. Her eyes slid over Ann, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “Let’s bag a table over by the window, as far as possible from that creep in the raincoat. Yes, over there- doesn’t he give you the willies?”
The man was standing in front of the Gents. He had a beer glass tilted up to his face. My heart skipped some beats, then put them back in the wrong place. Could he be the man I had seen before? No, Ellie, don’t be paranoid. England is a country of raincoats.
“Is this hunky-dory?” Bunty patted the floral cushion in the window nook overlooking The Square.
“Very nice,” said Ann. There was a slight draft, but not from the window.
The Raincoat Man opened a box of matches, tumbled the contents into his palm and began snapping them in half, a stick at a time, dropping them on the floor.
Teddy removed her gloves and adjusted one of the combs poked at random through her bundled-up hair. She looked a safe sort of secretary for a married man. When she spoke, her voice was as beige as the rest of her. But to be fair, Bunty’s vivacity probably did that to all of us. Certainly Ann looked more wan than usual.
“This is nice, Mrs. Haskell,” Teddy’s projecting teeth gave a slight catch to her speech. “I enjoyed your wedding. Please tell your husband I liked the little chicken tarts.”
“He’ll be delighted.” This sort of chitchat was the real world. I stopped eyeing the Raincoat Man.
“Teddy,” I said. “Is that short for Theodora?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you Lady Theodora Peerless?” The mysterious Theodora who had grown up in the mansion that was now a nursing home? The Theodora on whom Miss Gladys Thorn was to bestow the music found in an old trunk?
She was easing out of the tweedy coat, revealing a hand-knitted oatmeal cardigan and twin strands of pearls. Pink plastic ones.
“Mrs. Haskell-”
“Ellie, please.”
“All right, Ellie, I’m Teddy to my friends. I gave up the title years ago, along with other unimportant things.”
“To make it short and sweet,” Bunty interrupted cheerfully, “Teddy said balls to the ancestral home when Daddy, the earl, left all the lolly to unlovely brother Walter, who offered in turn to give her two quid a week pocket money.”
“You exaggerate, Bunty,” scolded Teddy gently.
“Okay. So it was twelve pounds a week. Walter is as miserly a worm as my first hubby, but things turn out for the best.” Bunty grinned at me. “Teddy is devoted to Li. Although I have to admit (don’t I, Teddy?), the reason I first decided to be chums with the other woman in my sugar’s life was to make damn sure that when they worked late at the office, they kept the lights on. I may not look too smart but, believe me, I learned my sums from hubby number one.”
Ann clearly didn’t like this baring of the soul. She touched her dark hair and said, “Mr. Wiseman’s professional reputation has always been above reproach.”
The Raincoat Man was going into the Gents.
Bunty crossed shapely legs. “Listen, pals, when the likes of me has angled long and hard to reel in a rich and able-bodied husband, he has to be kept safe from those who might also want to stick a hook in his neck. And Teddy here is a very fascinating woman.”
“I do have a way with writs.” Teddy smiled. It gave her face an elusive charm.
Reaching across the table, Bunty flipped at a strand of my hair. “You look the romantic sort, Ellie, a bit like Lady Godiva with clothes. Don’t you think Teddy has
Ann looked at me, I looked at Teddy, who was her monochromatic self again. But Bunty was off and running.
“So what does brother Walter do after he gets to be earl? He sells the estate to Dr. Bordeaux (who rents it out for a while, then turns it into a rest home) and whips off to the south of France with his ugly wife, Wanda-the woman who asked Teddy if it wasn’t nifty never again having to worry about being married for money.”
A leaden pause. The three of them might not be deliberately avoiding my eyes, they might not be wondering if Ben had married me for my money, they might… simply be looking around, thinking what a pleasant room this was.
“Are we ladies ready?” Mrs. Hanover spoke from beside us.
I ordered a Gorgonzola sandwich.
“Ughh!” said Bunty.
Exactly. I wouldn’t be tempted to eat it. While the others decided, I studied the horse brasses on the walls.
“And so,” Bunty continued, “Teddy was thrust out in the world with her suitcase and typing diploma and if that isn’t ’orrible enough”-she stopped and drummed her fingers on the table-“she was the victim of blighted love.”
“It wasn’t as exciting as that.” Teddy’s voice was flatter than usual. “Let’s hear about a romance with a happy ending. Ellie, how did you and your husband meet?”
They were all looking at me expectantly. “We were introduced by a friend.”
“Oh,” Bunty shrugged. “I thought it was something more dramatic than that. Teddy, you knew your bloke from the cradle, didn’t you?”
Silence. Again, that touch of a smile on Teddy’s face.
“A son of friends of the family, that’s who he was,” Bunty said, answering her own question. “Interestingly older…” Mrs. Hanover returned and began sliding plates onto the table. “All those long summer days ogling young Galahad in his cricket pads and romping through the buttercups, and what does he do but grow up and marry another.”
Bunty slipped an arm around Teddy’s shoulders. “Final scene is a real tearjerker. They met again-in another city-years later, shortly before she came to work for Li. Love flared anew, but in the way of this wicked world he was still married, and they were forced to crush their passion underfoot, knowing they were doomed never to be together on this earth.”
A hush. Ann’s lips parted and I had this terrible fear that she would start singing again. “How terribly sad.”
“Isn’t it,” enthused Bunty. “Just like something out of one of Edwin Digby’s books.”
This time the hush went pit deep. I couldn’t look at Teddy. What woman wants her grand passion likened to the works of anyone less than Shakespeare? Surprisingly, the atmosphere at our table seemed to be affecting the rest of the room. People stopped talking and stared toward the window.
Bunty giggled. “Don’t all be surprised that I’m literary minded. Ex-chorus girls do read, you know. I even like
