Read Online A Wreath Of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor - Free Book Online Page B

I thought.’
    (Frances was excused.)
    ‘You are glad to see me,’ he said.
    ‘Glad … why, yes. A little put out … to wake and …’
    ‘But you
are
glad?’ he insisted.
    She picked a squashed mulberry from her leg. When she looked up, she saw that he held a piece of paper behind his back. Her letter, which he had found lying across his path, he had read. Seeing it addressed to him, he considered it already his property, forgetting that we must not be held to account for letters we have not posted – a thing he, of all men, should have remembered.
    He held it up and read out in his very low and melodious voice … ‘a peaceful holiday, just like the old days. I wish you were here.’ He folded it and slipped it into his pocket. ‘You look rather dishevelled, Elizabeth. Your wish has come true, so show your pleasure.’
    ‘How do you do,’ said Frances coming up the path from the shed in a hideous flowered apron. ‘How kind of you to call!’ She put out her hand and then glancing apologetically at Liz, said: ‘This is a friend of mine, who is staying with me …
    ‘Dear Miss Rutherford, she is also my wife.’
    ‘Don’t you recall that wedding, Frances?’ asked Liz,brushing her skirt busily. Did you never see those unruly curls before, nor hear that boyish chuckle? That wedding … the bride had half a glass of champagne (Frances frowned at her pronunciation) ‘to her head – yet was it the champagne, after all?’
    ‘Champagne,’ Frances cut in.
    ‘Champagne,’ Liz said mechanically, a poor imitation.
    ‘I remember now and I apologise. I simply was not expecting you,’ Frances reproved him.
    His life was made up of dealing with old ladies. ‘You bore the shock better than my wife,’ he said lightly.
    ‘But where can you
sleep?’
Liz cried. ‘There is hardly room for Harry and even Mr Beddoes we must put up at the pub.’
    ‘And who is Mr Beddoes?’ he inquired, with a benevolence with which he hoped to cover his curiosity, a jocularity grownups often use when they ask impertinent questions of young children.
    ‘Mr Beddoes is a film director,’ Frances said. ‘Where are you off to, Elizabeth?’
    Liz had scarcely moved her feet, but her body had seemed about to fly away.
    ‘Harry,’ she said hastily, thinking there are advantages in motherhood. She was wanting to run to Camilla with this astonishing piece of news, and now walked fretfully across the lawn with her husband to Harry’s pram. Arthur stood with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, watching the baby, determined to use no baby-language, to be impartial and detached. Nothing resulted. His son rolled away from him stretching and kicking, until his eyes grew calm watching the movement of leaves. It is not possible to act as man-to-man with an infant.
    Frances left them and they stood on either side of the pram looking down at their child.
    ‘Liz, darling, I came to ask a favour of you, not to stay. I have to get back some time tonight.’
    ‘What is the favour?’ she asked, not looking up.
    ‘I want you to come home tomorrow … just for tomorrow.’
    She looked up quickly. ‘Why?’
    ‘I want you to give the prizes at the social tomorrow night. They asked for you to do that. You can return later. Come back with me now, go to the hairdresser’s in the morning and we’ll think out a little speech between us … a very short one … something simple and amusing and informal.’ (She had better not try to stand on her dignity, he thought.)
    ‘A speech?’
    ‘I will help you.’
    ‘But I couldn’t make a speech. Women don’t make speeches.’
    ‘Oh, don’t start all those generalisations about men and women,’ he said wearily, thinking her holidays did her no good, reinforced her obstinacy.
    ‘Well, there must be plenty of other women who could give the prizes. Lady Davidson, for instance.’
    ‘Well, naturally, they approached Lady Davidson first, but it is her psychology night.’
    ‘Psychology night?’