“Meaning?”
“Are you married, Rosemary?”
“Didn’t you notice my rings?” She extended a large hand. “But perhaps you’re not into jewelry. Gerald had them designed in Paris. He grew up spending oodles of time there. His parents saw the importance of travel as part of a child’s education. We do the same for our Nichola and Sheridan. Last summer we spent two glorious months on the French Riviera. We had a little trouble persuading Nanny that she wouldn’t have to eat snails at every meal, but luckily she came round. Traveling without her would have been a nightmare. Do your children have a nanny, Ellie?”
Staving off the desire to say that actually we had two—an inside one and an outside one—I added a good slosh of gin and a mere trickle of tonic to the ice cube in my glass and went and sat in the chair across from her. “Somehow we’ve managed without. By the way, Rosemary, what is your married name?”
“Still Martin.”
“A lot of women are keeping their maiden names these days.”
“You and your quaint way of talking. Maiden name, my foot! That term went out with the milk cart, thank God!”
I noticed a platter of assorted cheeses, pâté, and grapes on the sideboard, along with some canapé-sized plates, and helped myself enthusiastically. “We live in a village; we’re a bit out of touch.” Had my children been present, one of them would have asked why she kept taking the Lord’s name in vain. My mother-in-law, a strict Roman Catholic, has preached sermons to them on the subject, and our unworldly vicar at St. Anselm would also have taken a dim view.
“Gerald’s last name is also Martin.”
“A relative?” It was an explanation. Having grown up with her, he might be inured to her nasty nature.
“Pure coincidence. We were introduced at a friend’s coming-out.”
“How nice. That must still take some courage.”
Her face turned a most unbecoming purple. “Millie Bellingham isn’t gay. Her parents had a wonderful bash for her at their hunting lodge when she turned eighteen.”
“Sorry! I misunderstood.”
“No, you didn’t!” She banged down her glass. “You took the chance to needle me because of those letters I wrote to Ms. Chips, and everyone gabbed about after some beastly snitch spread the word that she’d torn them up and told me to stop.”
“It wasn’t me; I know nothing about any letters, thus no dig intended. Ms. Chips may have thought you could be better occupied writing to your parents.”
“I’ll never forget the way she talked to me.”
“Was she nasty?”
“Kind … compassionate!” Rosemary gave an empty laugh. “She said it was all part of growing up—hormones—a stage lots of girls went through and nothing to be ashamed about, but I needed to focus my energies on enjoying being a schoolgirl. I have never been so humiliated in my life.”
“Teachers can’t risk encouraging a crush.”
“These jolly hockey-sticks women! The new one—your friend, whatever her name is !—no life outside of the school. Small wonder if they’re inclined to be dotty.”
“What are you getting at?”
Rosemary shrugged. “Rumor has it there was insanity in Ms. Chips’s family.”
My face flushed with anger. “Even if true, that’s a hateful thing to repeat.”
She had the grace to look embarrassed. “I wasn’t serious. A large number of my acquaintances see a psychiatrist on a regular basis. Gerald and I move in very sophisticated circles.”
“How nice.”
“We’re fortunate in being extremely well placed. He’s an architect with a top-notch firm; an absolutely marvelous job that enables us to travel a lot. Fortunately, the nanny is wonderful. Our friends say”—leaning back in her chair—“that Gerald and I have the perfect marriage. In addition to common interests, our love life is perfect.”
“Congratulations!” Taking a deep sip of gin, I felt the room reel.
“We make love three times a week—four, if Gerald isn’t playing golf on Sunday afternoon. What does your husband do?” Again, to give her some credit, she made an attempt to sound mildly interested.
“Do?”
“As in job?”
“Oh! He’s a chef.”
“Fast food?”
I tightened the grip on my smile.
“Just kidding. I wasn’t making a dig about the way you loved to eat at school. What’s his name?” She picked up her glass, waving it at me.
“Ben. Short for Bentley. He has a bistro in Chitterton Fells.”
“Didn’t aim for London or one of the big cities?”
“He’s quaint that way! In his copious free time he also writes cookery books.”
“Under his own name?”
“He thought of Julia Child, but that was already taken.”
“God, aren’t we witty?” Rosemary got to her feet, poured herself another drink, but ignored the canapés. “However successful he may be—and I don’t doubt from the glow in your eyes that he is—I wouldn’t have heard of him. I haven’t opened a cookery book in years. We have a super housekeeper-cook who never serves the same thing twice.”
“That bad.” My voice was steeped in sympathy. “Speaking of food, you mentioned pizza?”
Rosemary had turned to glower at me when footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Here comes Tosca. I decided to wait for her before opening the box and putting it in the oven. It’s one of the supposedly gourmet ones with artichokes and portobello mushrooms, so perhaps it won’t feel so primitive not having someone to serve dinner.”
“Hello.” A sleepy voice from the hall preceded an attractive woman with spiky black hair and equally dark eyes who stood in the doorway. Getting to my feet, I decided she would always make something of an entrance. Not necessarily by design, but because the immediate impression was of a vivid personality in tandem with exotic good looks. She crossed into the room, stretching her arms above her head, her figure—voluptuous in the right places—displayed to great advantage by a red velour pantsuit.
“That was some sleep. I half woke up around one o’clock, Rosemary, when I heard you come back.” She settled cross-legged on the sofa, dangling wrists loaded with thin gold bracelets.
“Your imagination at work; I didn’t get back until gone three.”
“If you say so, darling!” There was the suggestion of a foreign accent. “I am Tosca Flitmouse,” continued the bird of paradise from her perch; amused eyes met mine.
“Ellie Haskell. She was in my class.” Rosemary got in ahead of me as she sat back down with her drink. Rather than continuing to stand like a lone soldier, I followed suit.
“So now we are three! One more the merrier!”
“Be a pet and stop gushing.” Rosemary closed her eyes. “I was beginning to hope I could get to like you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Tosca.” I refused to rein in my enthusiasm; she might prove an ally during the long days ahead. Also, she added vibrancy to the fading afternoon.
“Flitmouse is the same as when I was at school. I am not married; too busy looking for myself and not finding. It is a silly name, yes? My great-grandfather chose it when fleeing the Russians—or perhaps it was the Turks. They were confusing times and the family chose not to talk too much of the old days. Too many of them … .” She drew a finger across her throat.
“How dreadful!” I could hear the thunder of Cossack horses, see the silver slash of sabers.
“Since then we have been nomads, the scared little mice that flit. As I say, a silly name but no worse perhaps than Chips.”
“Tosca has nasty memories of Ms. Chips,” interposed Rosemary, “most unjustly in my opinion, seeing the woman came to her rescue in the nick”—emphasizing the word—“of time.”
I looked from one face to the other, and suddenly the name Tosca Flitmouse seemed familiar. Ah, it came to me! She was the foreign student who had gone up to London on a Saturday shopping trip with Ms. Chips and had been stopped by the store detecti
ve when going out the door of a shop called the Liberty Bodice. Brought back inside and taken to the general manager’s office, she was found to have stolen items in her coat pockets. Small personal items, sometimes referred to as unmentionables. She wasn’t charged because Ms. Chips said the mistake sprang from a misunderstanding. She claimed to have told Tosca that anything she bought would be charged to St. Roberta’s account, and the girl had assumed that she, Ms. Chips, had taken care of the purchases. A child in a new country, struggling with a foreign language and so on. However thin this may have sounded, the matter was dropped, but unfortunately word leaked out and several London newspapers printed the story, under banners such as SCHOOLGIRL NICKS KNICKERS and THE CASE OF THE PURLOINED PANTIES. Needless to say, Mrs. Battle was not nearly as amused as the rest of the school.
“You were two classes behind Rosemary and me,” I said.
“I did not want Ms. Chips to speak up to save me.” Tosca tied her legs into even more complicated yoga knots. “I wished to be hauled off to prison by a policeman in a helmet. My parents would have flown in from Geneva to get me out. And if I did not get expelled, as was my hope, they would be furious anyway and take me away from this oh, so stupid school with the boring rules and the bad food. I would have been back with my Dutch governess, Mevrouw Van Winkler, who closes her eyes and lets me do just as I like.”
“So that’s why you took the knickers?” I wished Ariel were present to hear this; it was a tale equal to the adventures of The Naughtiest Girl at Northwood. Hard on the heels of this thought came another. Had the Loverly Cup been stolen by someone hoping to be expelled from St. Roberta’s?
“Let’s not make light of your behavior, Tosca,” said Rosemary righteously. “Nichola and Sheridan knew better as tiny tots than to take so much as a sweet without asking.”
“How nice for you and the husband who is so good in bed. You are glad you married him instead of pining away for Ms. Chips?” said Tosca cheerfully as Rosemary, turning purple, choked on her drink. “That is good, because I can never—if I live to be an old woman—forgive her for ruining my life. And if you were with her still in love, I should blame you too. To be stuck here at St. Roberta’s until I am eighteen; it was unbearable.”
“I was not in—”
“You say so in your letters. The grape seeds do not lie.”
“A schoolgirl crush.” Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Rosemary, I had to feel sorry for her now.
“Gerald is not only the perfect lover, husband, and father, he is a collector of Flemish wines and has an expert’s knowledge of goat cheese!”
“Speaking of cheese,” I said hastily, “I’ve enjoyed the Camembert and Brie enormously, but how about that pizza?”
‘Is it tofu?” Tosca inquired hopefully.
“No, but perhaps it will taste like it,” Rosemary said nastily. “Frozen pizza, however gourmet it claims to be, almost always does. Gerald won’t have it in the house. Of course, there’s no need, given our housekeeper-cook is Cordon Bleu trained—”
“At least”—I got to my feet—“it’s quick and easy. Shall I pop it in the oven?”
“If I could have a small salad.” Tosca lay back on the sofa, folded her hands on her middle, and raised her legs, toes pointed before bringing them back over her head, to hold the position for the count of ten.
“What does she think this is, the Ritz?” Rosemary followed me, heavy-footed, into the kitchen behind the sitting room. It was minuscule, to say the least. Barely enough room, as the old saying goes, to swing a cat without knocking down everything breakable in sight. The yellow tiled floor was about the same size as the window above the sink and the crisp white walls did little to enlarge the space, jutting out as they did with a hodgepodge of cupboards that looked as though they’d been made by girls in Home Skills class. I pitied the maids of bygone days cooking for the chaplains—who, it had to be hoped, were all bachelors and never entertained.
Rosemary pointed laconically to the tiny refrigerator, which could easily have been mistaken for a bread bin. While I removed the pizza from the freezer compartment, she stood in the way, glowering down her Roman nose.
“I suppose I should view you as a breath of fresh air,” she said begrudgingly. “You can see how impossible Tosca is.”
“The three of us must make an effort to get along.” I turned on the oven before opening up a couple of cupboard doors in search of a metal tray. This found, I removed cardboard and plastic wrap and eyed the anemic circle of pastry. It needed something—several somethings.
“I wish I had your kindly disposition.” She sounded as though she might mean it.
“Just trying to be practical.”
“I don’t know why she can’t sound English after living in the country as long as she has.” Rosemary backed away from me to lean up against the old-fashioned draining board next to the sink. “Talk about affected! All that yoga and meditating! Want to know why she’s here?”
“Perhaps she’ll tell me.” I opened a tin of pineapple chunks that had turned up in another cupboard, drained and added them, along with some slivers of ham from the fridge, to make the pizza a little more appetizing and filling.
“You won’t need to hold your breath!” Rosemary assigned herself more square footage by spreading her arms out along the counter. “There’s nothing she likes better than yapping on about herself and her antecedent, the Grand Duke of whoever it was. The trouble is, she does still have connections: a cousin who’s married to a lord and another one going places in the Swiss government.”
“Why is that a problem?” The pizza in the oven, I searched the fridge for the makings of the salad Tosca had requested.
Rosemary evinced increasing irritation. “It makes it impossible to snub her as effectively as I would wish. There could come a time when knowing her, and being on reasonably good terms, might prove useful.”
“If you or Gerald got arrested in Switzerland or wanted to arrange an aristocratic marriage for one of your children?” I couldn’t resist.
“Living in a tiny village, charming as it may be, you wouldn’t understand. It’s different in our social sphere. Knowing the right people is frightfully important if one does not wish to be left holding the cheese straws while the rest of the world parties.”
Cheese! There was that word again. I abandoned the lettuce and cucumbers to their glass bowl and checked on the pizza. Whether or not it would taste like tofu, it smelled appetizing and was browning nicely.
“That’s what Tosca is escaping from.” Rosemary inched sideways to allow me to hunt for plates and cutlery. “She can’t deal with cocktail parties and black-tie suppers after the opera right now.”
“Yes, I imagine they get harrowing.” I discovered a bottle of salad dressing lurking behind some tinned peas.
“She’s trying to give up smoking. I suppose she has to be given points for that.”
“It wouldn’t seem to go with yoga.”
“You’d think that would have sunk in before she got up to a couple of packets a day. Apparently, most of her friends smoke. Why these people can’t be shipped off to a leper colony, I don’t know. But I suppose we have to hope Tosca succeeds by isolating herself here.”
“I don’t suppose it’s easy to stop.”
“You don’t smoke?” She sounded as though she wouldn’t have put it past me, along with going around without a bra or eating with my mouth open.
“No.”
“You still haven’t given your reason for seeking asylum.”
“It’s not easy to put into words.” This was true, seeing I still hadn’t come up with any ideas. “You first, while I get the pizza out of the oven.”
“Nothing terribly dramatic.” Rosemary provided some assistance by adding paper serviettes to the stack of plates and cutlery. “Gerald thought I was showing signs of exhaustion and had a word with our doctor, who suggested I get away for a few weeks’ rest.” Her back still to me, she got out salt and pepper shakers. “I’ve always
had a tendency to push myself too hard, on the go from morning till night, organizing the household help, bringing in flowers from the greenhouse, arranging them in vases, making sure … .” Her voice wound on, to be interrupted by Mrs. Malloy, saying inside my head, Making sure Hubby’s toilet paper is hung just as he likes it.
“Would you please shut up?” I’d almost dropped the pizza.
“What did you say?” Rosemary rounded on me.
“Would you please close the oven door?”
“Oh, I suppose so!” She banged it to, rattling the racks and causing the kettle to give a little hop on its burner. “Now, where was I?”—elbowing me out of her way—“Oh, yes! I was explaining how I came to be on the brink of collapse ferrying Nichola and Sheridan back and forth from after-school classes. She takes ballet and tap on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays before going on to her flute and cello lessons, and he has soccer practice every day except Tuesday and Thursdays, when he has harp and violin. After dinner each night, it’s riding for both of them. Nichola is shaping up well at dressage—her teacher thinks there’s a possibility of the Olympics—and Sheridan takes jumps well in advance of his age.”
“Which is?”
“Just turned nine, and Nichola won’t be seven until next April.”
Precious little prodigies! Mrs. Malloy chipped in.
“On Saturdays they both have chess club, drama, and gymnastics.”
“Goodness! No wonder you were ready for a rest, Rosemary. How about my bringing you breakfast in bed?” I regretted this offer the moment it popped out of my mouth; having a lie-in might make this visit slightly more pleasant.
Before Rosemary could answer, Tosca stuck her head around the doorway. “No room for me, I think. Is there maybe some fruit … an apple or an orange perhaps?” She provided a much-needed brightness to the cramped kitchen and her smile was engaging, or so I thought.
“Sorry, the pantry and fridge are closed.” Rosemary picked up the bowl of salad and returned to the sitting room, leaving me to follow with everything else. Having seated ourselves on chairs at the oval walnut table in the corner across from the fireplace, we surveyed the meager feast. A vase of flowers got shifted sideways. Plates were passed and the salt and pepper requested without any false festivity. Tosca soon gave up toying with her knife and fork. She hadn’t helped herself to so much as a slice of cucumber from the salad she had requested, a fact that Rosemary did not allow to pass unobserved.
Goodbye, Ms. Chips Page 12