Read Online The Darts of Cupid: Stories by Edith Templeton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edith Templeton
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married to their lovers. Betty was unhappy and would not admit it, and she was spared from admitting it forever after when she became a widow suddenly, during her first year of marriage. June and her husband opened a private clinic near Chicago, and they ran it successfully.
I met Claudia three years after the end of the war, one day as I came out of the reading room of the British Museum at lunchtime. I saw her walking across the street. "I’m back for good, Prescott-Clark," she said. "I am going back to Bathdale. I’m here because of my lawyer—I’m getting a divorce."
We went to a pub on the corner. She had on a coat and skirt of soft thick camel’s hair and carried a long coat of the same stuff over her arm. I was impressed to see that her shoes and handbag were of brown crocodile.
"You look rich in a nice way, Carter," I said. "Are you rich?"
"He is, Prescott-Clark," she said. "He turned out to be even richer than I thought he was. When I got to New York, he met the boat with a mink coat and an emerald ring. Then we went to Mexico. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with Mexico, Prescott-Clark."
"You tell me, Carter."
"It’s got low air pressure," she said, "because it’s so high up in the mountains. Too utterly awkward, because you take a drink and you fall flat on your face. You can’t devote yourself to the booze there, Prescott-Clark."
I had on my old gray glen-plaid suit and a red-and-white cotton blouse, and I wore scarlet kid pumps and carried a scarlet handbag. "Rich or poor," I said, "we are still nice girls. A nice girl presses her skirt every night, and when she is a very nice girl she has matching shoes and purse. I thought you’d like to know, ma’am. You women are so stupid. Is that what’s been bothering you? I used to know a little girl named Claudia—strange, isn’t it? Claudia, just like you."
"Stop it, Prescott-Clark," she said, "or I’ll weep and ruin my makeup."
"So be it, Carter," I said, "but tell me why you’re back."
"He bored me, Prescott-Clark," she said. "I admit he was good in bed, but you can’t be in bed all the time."
"It’s a pity one can’t be, though," I said. "But anyway, you had your fill. So what the hell are you talking about?"
Irresistibly
It must have been bewildering for the guests entering the main hall that evening to be faced by an innkeeper leaning against the lintel of the wide-open glazed double doors leading into the brilliantly lighted reception rooms. Tall, portly, florid, heavyjowled, in shirtsleeves, and wearing a green baize waistcoat with tarnished metal buttons, and black trousers glistening with grease stains, he might have been the owner of a tavern in the main square of a small market town. The sight of him seemed to conjure up homely smells of stale beer, stale gravy, sweat, and drains. With one hand resting on the bronze rosette of the doorknob while he waved a red checked napkin with the other as if intent on chasing off flies, he greeted the arriving couples one by one and offered remarks like "Lucky you turned up today. This is our day for apple strudel. And there’s dumplings, too, with white cabbage stewed in wine—red wine, not vinegar, never fear." Ignoring the shrieks and howls of laughter from the latest guests, he pointed his thumb in a coarse gesture behind him and turned to the next group, now growling, "There’s some sausages left over from yesterday. You’d better look sharp, they won’t last forever. Speak to the missus, in the kitchen— that’s where she belongs."
He was Mr. Haussman, the governor of the Union Bank of Prague, having a lark while hosting the last of the Haussman receptions in that winter of 1932. The Haussmans were Viennese. They had arrived in Prague about ten years before, and the magnitude of his banking post could be guessed, even by a little girl (as I had been then), by the fact that the substantial "villa" on the spacious, sloping grounds of the Weinberge, in our city’s prime residential
I met Claudia three years after the end of the war, one day as I came out of the reading room of the British Museum at lunchtime. I saw her walking across the street. "I’m back for good, Prescott-Clark," she said. "I am going back to Bathdale. I’m here because of my lawyer—I’m getting a divorce."
We went to a pub on the corner. She had on a coat and skirt of soft thick camel’s hair and carried a long coat of the same stuff over her arm. I was impressed to see that her shoes and handbag were of brown crocodile.
"You look rich in a nice way, Carter," I said. "Are you rich?"
"He is, Prescott-Clark," she said. "He turned out to be even richer than I thought he was. When I got to New York, he met the boat with a mink coat and an emerald ring. Then we went to Mexico. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with Mexico, Prescott-Clark."
"You tell me, Carter."
"It’s got low air pressure," she said, "because it’s so high up in the mountains. Too utterly awkward, because you take a drink and you fall flat on your face. You can’t devote yourself to the booze there, Prescott-Clark."
I had on my old gray glen-plaid suit and a red-and-white cotton blouse, and I wore scarlet kid pumps and carried a scarlet handbag. "Rich or poor," I said, "we are still nice girls. A nice girl presses her skirt every night, and when she is a very nice girl she has matching shoes and purse. I thought you’d like to know, ma’am. You women are so stupid. Is that what’s been bothering you? I used to know a little girl named Claudia—strange, isn’t it? Claudia, just like you."
"Stop it, Prescott-Clark," she said, "or I’ll weep and ruin my makeup."
"So be it, Carter," I said, "but tell me why you’re back."
"He bored me, Prescott-Clark," she said. "I admit he was good in bed, but you can’t be in bed all the time."
"It’s a pity one can’t be, though," I said. "But anyway, you had your fill. So what the hell are you talking about?"
Irresistibly
It must have been bewildering for the guests entering the main hall that evening to be faced by an innkeeper leaning against the lintel of the wide-open glazed double doors leading into the brilliantly lighted reception rooms. Tall, portly, florid, heavyjowled, in shirtsleeves, and wearing a green baize waistcoat with tarnished metal buttons, and black trousers glistening with grease stains, he might have been the owner of a tavern in the main square of a small market town. The sight of him seemed to conjure up homely smells of stale beer, stale gravy, sweat, and drains. With one hand resting on the bronze rosette of the doorknob while he waved a red checked napkin with the other as if intent on chasing off flies, he greeted the arriving couples one by one and offered remarks like "Lucky you turned up today. This is our day for apple strudel. And there’s dumplings, too, with white cabbage stewed in wine—red wine, not vinegar, never fear." Ignoring the shrieks and howls of laughter from the latest guests, he pointed his thumb in a coarse gesture behind him and turned to the next group, now growling, "There’s some sausages left over from yesterday. You’d better look sharp, they won’t last forever. Speak to the missus, in the kitchen— that’s where she belongs."
He was Mr. Haussman, the governor of the Union Bank of Prague, having a lark while hosting the last of the Haussman receptions in that winter of 1932. The Haussmans were Viennese. They had arrived in Prague about ten years before, and the magnitude of his banking post could be guessed, even by a little girl (as I had been then), by the fact that the substantial "villa" on the spacious, sloping grounds of the Weinberge, in our city’s prime residential
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