Probably. Edie had an aunt in Boston who worked as a receptionist for a doctor in the Eastern Seaboard Bank building and most probably lunched with the vice-president of the bank’s secretary, and the vice-president was Barbara Fraser’s father. She picked up the phone again.
“Darling, my house is in an absolute turmoil . I’m breaking in a new cook, my Agnes has to take a month’s leave—somebody in her family is sick. Anyway I’m canceling the luncheon for Thursday—I don’t think I would be happy serving patties and peas, which is all most of these part-time girls know about. . . .”
Patties and peas, secretaries and girls named Barbara—it ran all jumbled in her mind. If only Walter would talk to her, help her. Just answer her one simple question—“What is going to happen now?” But he couldn’t of course. He was preoccupied these days. His face was grim and set. He stayed at the office for longer hours and when he came home he made long, violent phone calls, spent hours at the typewriter—giving her a vague, unseeing look if she looked in on him. At night he simply held her close in his arms, saying, “Go to sleep, go to sleep, don’t you worry about a thing, Bea.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe she shouldn’t worry. She had successfully disposed of all social commitments, and others in the future would be equally easy to dispose of—now, what had become of those napkins she was initialing for Virginia’s trousseau? Of course, in the bottom drawer, all lovely and smelling of the potpourri bags she had put in with them. Carefully she got together her work materials, pulled the curtains a little against the too brilliant sunshine. She picked up the ivory house phone on the tabouret beside her.
“Agnes, will you please fix me a tray for dinner, I’m not feeling too well, and ask Mr. Walter to come up when he returns. . . . That’ll be fine. . . . No. No biscuits . . . a little salad, maybe.”
She pulled a robe from the closet, slipped out of her shoes, girdle, and stockings, and wriggled her toes into some soft slippers.
With a contented sigh she sat back in the big chair, examining the fine details of the initials on the napkin. The gleaming needle caught the sun as it began to dip in and out of the linen. Humming softly, Beatrice smiled to herself. “It will be nice to have Charlie bring in my breakfast again, like he used to.” Nothing, nothing was going to change any more.
Christmas would have to be a quiet one this year. Walter grabbed onto the circumstances of Beatrice’s poor health as an excuse to avoid the fraud of gaiety. Occasionally he felt guilty at the seriousness he made of it, but he simply could not have the usual celebrations with friends and friends of friends dropping in, the usual dinner parties. The strain would be too much, especially with Charlie around, maddeningly indifferent to the whole nasty business.
Gregg Nicholson had slipped by gradual steps into being an acceptable member of the family. He had been engaged as a private tutor for Charlie to complete his final year of college. He had won Walter’s confidence almost immediately in an early interview, by a happy choice of words, saying that Charlie had “undeveloped brilliance,” when Walter was very much in need of reassurance. Walter had refrained from any explanations when he had engaged Gregg, but it was not long before Charlie had startled the young man with some lurid details of his escapades, from which he sorted out some of the truth.
There had been an arrangement in which Gregg was to come over in the afternoons from the Inn, for a work period of three hours, four days a week, assigning Charlie study material to complete in his own time. It was excellent pay, and the kind of work that left Gregg happily free to do his own reading and studying, which to him was life itself. However, after three weeks with Charlie he was almost desperate. No work had been completed, and the hours with
“Darling, my house is in an absolute turmoil . I’m breaking in a new cook, my Agnes has to take a month’s leave—somebody in her family is sick. Anyway I’m canceling the luncheon for Thursday—I don’t think I would be happy serving patties and peas, which is all most of these part-time girls know about. . . .”
Patties and peas, secretaries and girls named Barbara—it ran all jumbled in her mind. If only Walter would talk to her, help her. Just answer her one simple question—“What is going to happen now?” But he couldn’t of course. He was preoccupied these days. His face was grim and set. He stayed at the office for longer hours and when he came home he made long, violent phone calls, spent hours at the typewriter—giving her a vague, unseeing look if she looked in on him. At night he simply held her close in his arms, saying, “Go to sleep, go to sleep, don’t you worry about a thing, Bea.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe she shouldn’t worry. She had successfully disposed of all social commitments, and others in the future would be equally easy to dispose of—now, what had become of those napkins she was initialing for Virginia’s trousseau? Of course, in the bottom drawer, all lovely and smelling of the potpourri bags she had put in with them. Carefully she got together her work materials, pulled the curtains a little against the too brilliant sunshine. She picked up the ivory house phone on the tabouret beside her.
“Agnes, will you please fix me a tray for dinner, I’m not feeling too well, and ask Mr. Walter to come up when he returns. . . . That’ll be fine. . . . No. No biscuits . . . a little salad, maybe.”
She pulled a robe from the closet, slipped out of her shoes, girdle, and stockings, and wriggled her toes into some soft slippers.
With a contented sigh she sat back in the big chair, examining the fine details of the initials on the napkin. The gleaming needle caught the sun as it began to dip in and out of the linen. Humming softly, Beatrice smiled to herself. “It will be nice to have Charlie bring in my breakfast again, like he used to.” Nothing, nothing was going to change any more.
Christmas would have to be a quiet one this year. Walter grabbed onto the circumstances of Beatrice’s poor health as an excuse to avoid the fraud of gaiety. Occasionally he felt guilty at the seriousness he made of it, but he simply could not have the usual celebrations with friends and friends of friends dropping in, the usual dinner parties. The strain would be too much, especially with Charlie around, maddeningly indifferent to the whole nasty business.
Gregg Nicholson had slipped by gradual steps into being an acceptable member of the family. He had been engaged as a private tutor for Charlie to complete his final year of college. He had won Walter’s confidence almost immediately in an early interview, by a happy choice of words, saying that Charlie had “undeveloped brilliance,” when Walter was very much in need of reassurance. Walter had refrained from any explanations when he had engaged Gregg, but it was not long before Charlie had startled the young man with some lurid details of his escapades, from which he sorted out some of the truth.
There had been an arrangement in which Gregg was to come over in the afternoons from the Inn, for a work period of three hours, four days a week, assigning Charlie study material to complete in his own time. It was excellent pay, and the kind of work that left Gregg happily free to do his own reading and studying, which to him was life itself. However, after three weeks with Charlie he was almost desperate. No work had been completed, and the hours with
Similar Books
