The boy laid a long, white box on the kitchen table.
“You’ll be wanting to put these in water.”
She shut the door after him, untied the ribbon, and lifted the lid off the box.
A sheaf of long-stemmed red roses lay in a nest of maidenhair fern and green tissue paper. They were just beginning to open their petals, and their fruity scent filled the air around her.
She looked for a card, but there wasn’t any. So she knew who had sent them. Only one person had any reason to send her roses without a card.
She put the box down when the telephone rang again. She thought it might be Hilary or Bill or even Gordon, but it was a voice she had never heard before. A woman’s voice speaking in the slurred speech of the western counties, and trembling with righteous indignation.
“You dirty whore! You murdering devil! Everyone knows that fire was arson. You set it to kill the Governor’s wife so you could marry the Governor. For that you will burn in Hell forever. How do you think she felt when the smoke got into her lungs, and—”
Tash put the telephone back in its cradle, breaking the connection.
In the silence she could still hear that voice going on and on and on. It would not be the only one.
PART II
Fox Run
13
GORDON’S INVITATION to dinner came early in August. He had been extremely busy ever since April, and of course, in his position he had to be careful about being seen in public with anyone who was involved in . . . er . . .
“Scandal?”
“Oh, no, no! Politics. Those of us who have important positions in the civil service are supposed to be completely apolitical.”
“I’m completely apolitical now.”
That was the truth. She had not heard from Jeremy. There had been newspaper photographs of him with Vivian’s parents at her funeral in New York, where she had lived with them before her marriage. He had flown back to Sotavento the next day, according to the news stories. A few postcards from Carlos had told her from time to time that Jeremy was “getting better,” but there was nothing about his return. Tash was beginning to wonder if he would ever want to come back.
She accepted Gordon’s invitation in the selfish hope that other evenings with other men might lay Jeremy’s ghost eventually. She had forgotten how powerfully contrast can evoke opposites.
Gordon fussed over a choice of restaurant, sent his fish back to the kitchen because he claimed it was frozen, not fresh, and found something wrong with the wine as well. By the time he had thus paraded his connoisseurship twice, their table was the most conspicuous in the room. “Dessert?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, I want dessert. Gargon! Waiter!”
Two minutes later Gordon was haranguing the waiter for bringing him a soggy millefeuilles pastry.
Now he had taken out his temper three times on the hapless waiters, he became mellow over coffee and Benedictine.
“I’m glad you’re back on the newspaper.”
“Are you?”
Something in her voice made him look up. “Aren’t you glad?”
“Not particularly. I liked being at Leafy Way.”
“Oh, I suppose there were perquisites. Tennis courts and all that. You practically lived there, didn’t you?”
“That was part of the job.”
“A silly way to do things. I know that whenever I tried to get you on the telephone there I had an awful time. They kept saying you were out or busy or something.”
“I usually was.”
“Well, I quite missed our little evenings together. You’re so refreshing after the sophisticated, glamourous women I see in Washington all the time.”
“Thanks!”
“You know I never did like him.”
“Who?”
“Jeremy Playfair. Too young for his job. And too flashy. Nothing solid about him. He’d never get anywhere in the civil service.”
“You didn’t know him, did you?”
“Well, I never actually met him, but, of course, in my position I do hear a great deal of gossip in Washington, and the things I’ve heard about him—”
“Gordon!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Either you take me home now or I’m going alone. I am not going to sit here and listen to Washington tattle about the Governor. I got to know him well when I was on his staff, and I do like him.”
Gordon stared at her, mouth ajar. “I never thought you’d feel any loyalty to him.”
“Well, now you know. I do.”
Gordon signaled the waiter for the check. “This is rather awkward.”
“Why?”
“Because now I suppose I can’t say something I had planned to say to you.”
“Why not?”
“You won’t like it.”
“Then isn’t it better left unsaid?”
“No, I think it is my duty, Tash, to warn you against Jeremy Playfair. He is not a suitable companion for a girl of your type and—”
Tash rose. “I doubt if you have the slightest idea what type of girl I am, Gordon. Indeed, there are times when I like to think I am not a type at all, but an individual. Please just stop talking about Jerry.”
“Jerry? Is that what you call him?”
“Yes. Why not?”
Gordon said no more on the subject. When he took her home he looked at her forgivingly when she did not ask him in for a nightcap, and said: “Tash, no matter what happens, no matter how deeply you may become involved in a rather unseemly situation, I do want you to know that, if you need me, you may always count on my friendship.”
As she was unlocking the door to her apartment, she heard her telephone ringing. Leaving the key in the lock, she ran into a long slide like a baseball player to grab the telephone before it stopped ringing.
For one wild moment she had hoped she might hear an operator’s voice saying: Person-to-person call from Sotavento, but it was only Bill Brewer.
“I’ve been ringing you all evening.”
“I was out at dinner.”
“So I deduced. The insurance company has completed its investigation of Leafy Way. I am going out there tomorrow to get a final story on the causes of the fire. Want to come? You were a witness.
