“Do you like being a Governor’s wife, Mrs. Playfair?” The idiot question got the idiot answer it deserved. “Who wouldn’t? Such a restful life. Nothing to do. Nothing.”
Was there a chemical trace of irony there?
Hilary threw herself into the breach once more. “I am sure Miss Perkins’ readers would enjoy hearing about your conservation program, Mrs. Playfair.”
Vivian looked blank. “What conservation program?”
“Those apple trees.” Hilary turned back to Tash. “I’ll give you all the documentation before you leave.”
Sam looked at Tash quizzically. Had they wasted a whole afternoon getting press releases that would have been mailed to the office anyway?
“Where are these apple trees?” he asked Hilary. “Could I get a shot of them?”
“Come over here and I’ll show you.”
Sam followed Hilary to a glass door and peered over her shoulder. “Those little things?”
“There are five hundred of them!”
Something plucked at Tash’s sleeve. She turned her head. Vivian Playfair was at her elbow, speaking rapidly in a voice just above a whisper.
“Will you do me a great kindness and mail this letter for me when you leave?”
“Why, of course.” Tash took the envelope, small, square, white, and dropped it in her handbag.
“Thank you. I really did plant some apple trees here, but I don’t think of it as conservation. It was sentiment, really. When I was a little girl I lived in the country and I used to climb an old apple tree in our orchard that I called ‘Aunt Apple,’ and . . .”
Tash lost the rest.
Two men were coming through the trees side by side, tennis rackets in their hands. Both were tall and lithe and immaculate in tennis white. Sun-light, filtered through leaves above, made the fair head gilt and the dark head black. They moved with the unconscious grace of the young, athletic male, and Tash thought she had never seen a more pleasing sight.
The fair one was the first to see people in the glass-enclosed room. He swerved toward one of the glass doors.
“Governor!” Hilary Truance was taken aback. “I didn’t—I thought—”
“Am I intruding?” Jeremy Playfair bent his head below the lintel and stepped into the room.
He was too masculine to be handsome, but there was something engaging about him, an irresistible air of courage and decision.
“This is Tash Perkins,” said Vivian. “She’s interviewing me. You must have read her column.”
Jeremy nodded at Tash as if he scarcely saw her. She was sure he had never heard of her column or of her. His eyes were for his wife only.
“Viv, are you sure you’re not overdoing things?”
“Quite sure. I never felt better.” She made an effort to match the words with her voice and smile. She almost succeeded. “Miss Perkins, do you know Carlos de Miranda?”
The dark young man bowed to Tash with that shadow of ceremonial flourish inherent in Latin genes. Tash remembered Darwin’s account of a French infant, who had never seen French people, but who began to shrug her shoulders before she was a year old. Character might not be inherited, but gesture was.
Vivian finished her story about the apple trees, and Sam went outside to photograph them. Tash tried hard to think of some question that would give a little spice to this blandest of interviews.
“Do you think women voters are going to be important in the next election?”
Vivian looked at her husband. “Why don’t you answer that one?”
“Of course they’re going to be important,” said Jeremy. “Women are never going back to a world where their only economic value is their sex.”
“Oh!” Tash’s eyes were shining. “May I quote you on that?”
“No.” Hilary Truance was on her feet.
“Wait a minute, Hilary,” protested Jeremy.
But Hilary stood her ground. “Governor, you must not talk as if you liked women.”
“Why not? After all, I do.”
“But it suggests that women like you. Why else would you like them?”
“And that’s bad?”
“Bad? It’s political suicide.”
“You mean men will see me as a traitor to my sex?”
“I mean men will be jealous. You should make a point of saying something nasty about women every now and then.”
“Thank you. I shall make a note of that.”
Jeremy and Carlos were both laughing, but Hilary Truance was serious. “Please remember: Being liked by women does not help a male candidate with male voters. It hurts him.”
“Don’t worry, Hilary,” said Carlos. “I’ll put a check- rein on his libido until the election is over.”
“So you are going to run again?” said Tash.
There was a roar of silence.
“Nothing is decided yet,” said the Governor. “And neither I nor Mrs. Playfair have anything to say on that subject for publication.”
“I understand.” Tash sighed. It would have put her story on the front page if she could have announced the Governor’s candidacy. Now she had not got any story and she had annoyed the Governor.
When Sam came back from the apple orchard, Tash rose to take her leave.
“It was an unexpected bonus meeting you,” she said to Jeremy Playfair. “I hope some day you’ll let me publish your views on women voters.”
She smiled at Hilary Truance and Carlos de Miranda, but the smile she gave Vivian Playfair was warmer.
“You’ve been patient,” said Tash. “And generous with your time. Don’t worry about your letter. I’ll mail it as soon as I get back to town.”
“Letter?” The Governor looked quickly at Tash. “What letter?”
“Letter?” repeated Vivian in a cool, steady voice. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
3
TASH WAS LATE for dinner.
The headwaiter gave her his smile for steady customers and led her to a table by a window with a view of the river.
Gordon Freese struggled to his feet slowly as if he were older than he actually was.
“You’re late.”
“Sorry.” She smiled her thanks to the headwaiter as he pulled out her chair. Like magic, a Campari soda appeared before her.
