A Charmed Life by Mary McCarthy

Author:Mary McCarthy [McCarthy, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780451024169
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2013-07-09T22:51:00+00:00

EIGHT

TITUS REGINAM BERONICEN, CUI etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur … statim ab Urbe dimisit invitus invitam.” Miles cleared his throat and looked around the Coes’ living room. The dinner dishes were cleared, and the play-reading was about to begin. Warren and Jane Coe sat by the fireplace, sharing a book and a hassock. They had elected not to take parts; it would be more fun, they said, just to listen. The rest of the company was paired: Martha was looking on with the vicomte; Dolly with Harold Huber, a thin white-haired man in a red flannel shirt who used to be a lawyer and now ran a duck farm; Miles with Harriet Huber, a big pink woman with a gray pompadour. Helen Murphy had not come. The child was sick, and Helen had been calling all day, to try to change the date to next week, but somebody on the line had left the receiver off the hook, so in the end Miles had driven over alone, not to let the Coes down. Martha was alone too, and for a while, at dinner, it had looked as if she and Miles were going to play opposite each other, as the Emperor and the Jewish queen, but Martha had insisted that Bérénice be given to Dolly. Martha was quite high; the gin-and-french, without ice, before dinner, had evidently gone to her head, and she had gulped a lot of claret. Warren had not seen her that way for years, not since she had been married to Miles, and he had felt troubled as he repeatedly filled her empty wine glass. Her dark eyes glittered in her pale oval face, and she spoke very positively, interrupting Miles in the middle of his harangues. At the same time, she looked very pretty, with her tapering neck and gold knot of hair, like a girl in a locket; she had not reached the usual New Leeds state, where the eyes would narrow and the features slip out of drawing, like a loose mask—a thing Warren hated, no matter how many times he saw it happen. He was apprehensive for Martha, knowing her as he did and sharing her nervousness about Miles. An outsider might not have realized that she was tight, but Dolly Lamb, Warren noticed, when she came in after dinner with the vicomte, had given her a quick, quizzical look, the minute she heard her laughing, in clear, sharp peals, at something that was not awfully funny. Martha had noticed the look too and hastily set aside her glass of B and B. She asked for more coffee, but unfortunately it had run out, and Warren did not want to bother Jane, who seemed tired and preoccupied, with making a fresh pot. Instead, he hopped out to the kitchen and brought everybody a glass of water.

“Titus reginam Beronicen,” Miles began again. “Reginam,” murmured Martha to the vicomte, with a grimace, making the g hard. “I hate that soft, squelchy church Latin; after all, it’s Tacitus he’s quoting.

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