Chapter 32. High Tea
While feeding Nicholas in the “ladies’ retiring room” Scarlet read in the available pamphlet all about the antique pub. “Lady Catherine’s Garden” was named after a character in Pride & Prejudice and was originally built by a fan of Jane Austen’s work. Chawton, the author’s last home, was situated nearby. Today the weather was too cold to sit in the garden but the glass tearoom built almost to the river’s edge offered a suitable summer illusion of swans and willows. From his collapsible stroller, an alert and cleaned up Nicholas seemed riveted by the sunlight playing on the tile floor.
“It’s just good pub food,” Pom apologized in advance, “Though of course some people say that’s the best English cooking. But look at this view!”
Scarlet looked. A snow-free water meadow spread out endlessly before them.
“Seems like it’s always spring around here,” she agreed.
They ordered tea and ham salad sandwiches. The waitress was very young and did not recognize Pom. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, there’s one fear that didn’t come true,” he said.
“Tell me about the last time you visited,” Scarlet prompted.
“Three years ago. There are charming rooms upstairs. We made use of every one of them but not – I hasten to add – on the same day.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Pomeroy Bronfen?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Pomeroy Bronfen.” He did not blub.
“So, you thought she was a wolf and she turned out to be a dog.”
“That’s not it. Because she was cheating on her husband I knew she was a dog. I just tried not to care.”
“But you did care.”
“I wanted what I wanted and I ignored every warning until finally I got a warning I couldn’t ignore.”
“Was it a “shop closed” sign?”
“Oh no. She was willing to continue after her wedding – which, by the way, she invited me to. I don’t know what I would have said during the, “Speak now or forever hold your peace” part, because I didn’t go.”
‘Did you try talking her out of it?”
“Oh, yes. She tried completely humorlessly to clue me in on the deadly importance of cash and titles.”
“Sounds like she’s some kind of third animal in your bestiary. The sharing kind? Or the devious kind? Maybe a cuckoo?”
“She certainly took me for a cuckoo. She offered possibilities like the plot of a Henry James novel. “He can’t last forever! We could enjoy his money together.”
“Those novels always end badly,” she agreed, feeling illiterate in Pom’s presence. Which James novel could he be referring to? The Golden Bowl?
“I can’t rid myself of the idea that I should have warned the poor old thing,” Pom said seriously.
“The Catholic peer? Surely not.”
“But what if he ends up dead? What if she gets her next teddy boy to kill him?”
“Oh, Pom! I’m starting to appreciate your interest in Hitchcock. But do people really do those things?”
“Yes, Scarlet,” he said seriously. “They do. I actually don’t know of a single aristocratic family without a murder in its history.”
“Good God!” Why was she surprised? Miss Clew wouldn’t have been! She brought herself into the conversation. “Very Turn of the Screw. Reminiscent of my situation, that temptation. Why couldn’t having a castle and a flat in town compensate me for losing my husband’s fidelity?”
“Oh, Scarlet, you American girl,” he said it admiringly. She felt a gush of gratitude. Was this the first time in England that “being American” hadn’t seemed a social liability?
“How much were you actually tempted?” she asked him.
“I’ll never know. I might have considered it if she hadn’t started going on about how much she “loved’ me. It was the first time she’d ever used that word.”
“Traitor!”
“Exactly how I felt. Stomped away in a wounded huff. That sort of thing.”
“Haven’t contacted her since?”
“I have not.”
“And she?”
“Total silence. I’m sure she replaced me. I did read about Her Ladyship’s wedding in Country Life. Couldn’t resist that.”
“I can see it would be difficult.”
Their food arrived.
“In the spring they have watercress,” sighed Pom nostalgically.
“This looks nice.”
Nicholas’ eyes had drifted shut.
“They’re very easy at this age.” said Pom.
“He’s being particularly good today. I’ve heard they like traveling in cars. It’s the motion.”
“So,” said Pom, “Now you owe me a story. You’re really going to have to tell me about how you and Ian met.”
How long ago it seemed! Four whole years. How different she felt now from that long-ago girl.
“I too ignored all the warnings. Ian was considered the prize at Oxford, a real heartbreaker.”
“But you thought you’d be different.”
“He told me I’d be different. And then he married me so I thought I must be. I was so proud of having bagged him.”
“One does tend to think in these big-game metaphors.”
“It would be good to get over that,” she reflected. “And stop trying to “capture” people. It turned out he assumed I came from a rich family!”
“Brits think all Americans are rich.”
“It must be because we try to pretend we are. Everything new. We call it, Keeping up With the Joneses.”
“There’s another thing we all have to get over,” agreed Pom. “This competitive furor.”
“We call it the capitalist fervor.”
“Obviously that has to go!” agreed Pom. They both laughed. Pom went on, “This is exactly why friendship is so important. Why I’m willing – I hope this won’t embarrass you – to wait for you.”
It did embarrass her. She blushed the color of her name.
Pom went on smoothly, “You know, I never had any female friends at college. Coming out of an all boys’ school of course it’s different. Girls seem so exotic. Did you and Ian share a tutor? Or did he see you from afar and think – rare species? I’m sure the big game metaphor operates here as well.”
“I doubt it. He made me work for it. We shared editorship of a student literary publication – lasted a mere three issues – the St. Euphrosyne Review.”
“Good Lord! There was a Saint Euphrosyne?”
“It’s a bad joke. I think the joke was on us female students – apparently St Euphrosyne disguised herself as a man to become a monk. That’s the legend.”
“Irksome.”
“I’ll say. We Americans don’t put up with that sort of thing. We’re coeducational all the way. I was always wrestling with Ian to get him to respect my poetry – we just didn’t have the same taste. He really felt “female poet” was a contradiction in terms.”
“But suddenly he stopped wrestling?”
“Suddenly he let me win. I should have known.”
“I’m sure he was in love.”
“As much as he could be, I think, which isn’t enough, I’m afraid.”
“They do say people can only respond to another’s depth to the extent of their own.”
“Meaning there’s a lot of shallow people in the world.”
They smiled at each other.
The sandwiches were delicious. Scarlet produced the advertising brochure she’d been reading.
“Know what it says here?”
“Remind me.”
“Jane Austen’s house is nearby and I’ve never been.”
“Must you arrive in London at any specific time?”
“No. How about you?”
“Never anyone to please but myself.”
“What a fortunate state of affairs!”
“It has its highs and its lows. Shall we go then?”
“Do let’s.”
Alysse Aallyn 
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