“Nice view,” said Tash. “What do we do now?”
“Ring a doorbell.” Sam was climbing out of the car.
“Butler and footmen?”
“You forget this is 1975. They have a chief usher and ushers now, all under civil service and racially integrated.”
Tash gave their names to the man who opened the door and they stepped into a hallway, where a wide-flung curve of stair rose like a jet of water from a fountain to the floor above.
On the wall facing the door was a picture painted on silk. Tash recognized a favorite subject of classic Chinese art: Dragon Playing with a Pearl. Who but the Chinese would think of a dragon as playful? Who but the Chinese would give a dragon a plaything as tiny and precious as a pearl?
“Must be part of the Governor’s private collection,” said Sam. “The state couldn’t afford anything like that.”
“You mean the state has to spend its money on more essential things,” retorted Tash.
They followed another usher from hall to corridor to still other corridors until they lost all sense of direction.
“How big is this place?” asked Tash.
“Small compared to the White House,” said Sam. “Just forty-two rooms. The indoor staff is only twenty-eight.”
The usher threw open a door and announced them:
“Miss Tatiana Perkins, Mr. Samuel Bates.”
They walked out of the dim corridor into a blaze of sunshine.
It had once been a terrace. It still had a stone floor, but now it had a slate roof and glass walls like a conservatory. Beyond the glass was a view of lawn and trees and faraway hills. There were potted plants everywhere: on shelves, on stands, even dangling on chains from the ceiling. Chairs were rattan; cushions, flowered chintz; tables, iron frames topped with glass.
A hearth in the house wall looked as if it had once been an outdoor fireplace, but now it had a mantel of tawny marble. Ferns, growing in earthenware pots, hid the hearthstone.
A canary was singing. His cage was a fantasy of fine wicker twisted into baroque shapes that suggested a Chinese pagoda.
A woman rose.
“I’m Hilary Truance, Mrs. Playfair’s social secretary. She will receive you in a moment. Do sit down.”
She was a formidable woman, no longer young. Hair in smooth coils the color of polished steel. Eyebrows like the Empress Eugenie in her Winterhalter portraits: thin, arched, permanently raised. Drooping eyelids so she looked out at life through a thicket of sandy lashes. When she was not smiling, her mouth was petulant. Her voice had authority and her clean-cut vowels suggested good schools.
She spoke to Sam. “Will this light do for photos?”
“Perfect.” He eased the camera strap off his shoulder and set his camera down on one of the glass-topped tables.
A door opened and an usher’s voice said: “Mrs. Playfair.”
“I’m so sorry to be late, Hilary.” It was a small, breathless voice.
Hilary Truance ignored the apology. “May I present Miss Perkins and Mr. Bates?”
“How do you do? And please sit down. Hilary, I think we would all like some tea.”
“Thank you, I’d love it,” said Tash.
“Me, too. Please,” said Sam.
Nothing in Vivian Playfair’s photographs had prepared Tash for the dull skin, lifeless hair, and empty eyes. The ghost of a lost beauty lingered only in her felicitous bone structure. She was exquisite but lifeless, like a delicate sea shell when the sea creature has died and dried to mere dust blown along the beach.
Hilary Truance poured the tea, kept the conversation brisk, helped Sam vary the light by raising and lowering Venetian blinds, suggested various poses for Vivian.
When Sam had got all the shots he wanted and they settled down to the interview, Hilary tried to run that, too.
“Are you going to take notes, Miss Perkins?”
“I’d rather tape the interview, if I may.”
“You may if you’ll send us a transcript to okay before publication.”
Tash relished that royal “us.”
“Will you give me the okay in writing? That will protect me.”
“I suppose so.” Hilary’s voice was grudging as if she disliked the idea of giving anybody anything.
Tash switched on her tape recorder. It was no bigger than a handbag and ran on batteries.
“Have you any particular topic in mind, Miss Perkins?” demanded Hilary.
“No.” Tash deliberately by-passed Hilary. “May I ask if you have any topic in mind, Mrs. Playfair?”
Dutifully, Vivian brought her gaze around to Tash, but the eyes were still empty. “Not really. After all, this interview wasn’t my idea.”
Tash ventured her first probing question, trying to soften the directness with a gentle voice. “Whose idea was it?”
Hilary intervened at once. “Anyone’s. No one’s. What could be more obvious than interviewing the Governor’s wife? Isn’t that what you newspaper people call a ‘natural’?”
“This interview is not what this newspaper person would call a natural,” returned Tash. “Mrs. Playfair has always refused to be interviewed before, but this time, the suggestion came from the Governor’s aide, Mr. de Miranda.”
“Oh, no!” Hilary’s voice was as steely as her hair. “It was all your editor’s idea, not ours.”
“Does it really matter?” Vivian Playfair sounded as if she were bored with the whole thing. “What questions would you like to ask me, Miss Perkins?”
“There’s one question all newspaper people would like to ask you, if they dared.”
“Please dare. What is it?”
Tash took a deep breath. “Is the Governor going to run for a second term this fall?”
Vivian’s glance darted to Hilary. Almost imperceptibly, Hilary shook her head.
“I’m sorry.” The small voice was colorless. “I can’t talk about that.”
Poor Bill Brewer! This interview was going to be the usual guff after all.
“Nothing political, if you please, Miss Perkins.” Hilary’s hard smile was more hostile than any scowl.
Tash was still looking at Vivian. What’s the matter with her? Is she sick? Or afraid? She looks at this Hilary Truance the way a retarded child might look at a harsh, psychiatric nurse . . .
For some time Tash had been aware of a sound like the ticking of a loud clock:
