Summer's Awakening (27 page)

'Oh, yes. Once to the Circus Museum, once to the Ringlings' mansion, and several times to the Art Museum.'

'John Ringling was an interesting man. Not the brash vulgarian you might expect of the boss of "The Greatest Show on Earth". At the peak of his career he was one of the twenty richest men in the United States. In the 1920s, before the stock market crash which contributed to his downfall, he used to go to Europe every year, looking for new circus acts and also going round the art galleries. I don't share his passion for huge Baroque paintings like the four Rubens, and one can't applaud Mabel Ringling's taste in designing and furnishing their house, but nevertheless they were a remarkable pair who did a great deal to enrich the lives of people living here now.'

'Their mansion is rather hideous compared with Cranmere,' said Summer. 'The paintings I like best in the Art Museum are the Boucher of a girl reading a letter, and the Duplessis portraits of French kings given by Mrs Caples. What has happened to Cranmere? Has it been sold yet?'

'Not yet. Have you had any news of the cottage?'

'Yes, Mr Watts wrote to me recently. The property market has been very slow this winter, but it seems to be picking up now. He thinks it will sell in the spring. Living here, one tends to forget the weather is still cold in England.'

Only later did she realise how skilfully he had deflected her curiosity about Cranmere.

Mrs Hardy, when consulted about what to wear for their outing that evening, said, 'Burdines have a sale this week. After lunch, why don't we go see if they've any good bargains. I love your new emerald outfit, but maybe it's a little casual for tonight.

At lunchtime, Summer said to James, 'We usually go to the beach for a couple of hours in the afternoon. But perhaps you have other plans.'

'Yes, I'm going to introduce Emily to the secret of the inner sanctum,' he said, with a teasing smile at his niece.

'Really? Where's the inner sanctum?' she asked, agog.

'Upstairs. It's time you and Oz got together.'

'On, you mean the computer?'

Because Skip had mentioned it in her hearing, Summer had been unable to prevent Emily reading the
Newsweek
piece about her uncle; but even if she had not learnt the name of his computer and his company from the article, the computer was widely advertised in all the media.

'Presumably you named it after the Wizard of Oz?' she said to him.

'Yes, it seemed an appropriate name for a machine with the powers of a wizard. Originally I intended to call it Merlin, after Merlin the Enchanter.'

'That would have been a nicer name,' said Emily.

Among her favourite books in the library at Cranmere had been Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History of the Kings of Britain
and the stories which it had inspired, Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur
and Tennyson's
The Idylls of the King.

'I agree,' said James. 'But I was advised that Oz would have greater impact here in America, and since then Merlin has been used by British Telecom.' He turned to Summer. 'Would you care to meet Oz?'

'Very much—some other time. This afternoon I'd like to go out with Mrs Hardy, if that's all right?'

'By all means. Curtain time at the Asolo is eight-fifteen so we have to dine early, at a quarter to seven. I'd like to leave here not later than six-fifteen. As long as you're ready by then, do whatever you like this afternoon. You should have some regular time off, anyway. You can't be expected to spend every hour of your life in this child's company... a fearful fate,' he added, making Emily giggle.

'I can think of worse,' Summer said lightly. 'I do leave Emily with Mrs Hardy from time to time.'

'Only for your Weight Watchers meetings,' said Emily.

'So that's the secret of your transformation,' said James. 'What or who made you decide to join Weight Watchers?'

She hesitated, wishing Emily hadn't raised the subject. It was not a topic she wanted to discuss with him.

To her vexation, his niece answered for her. 'A woman in a bathing-suit shop in Miami advised her to join.'

'With impressive results,' was his comment. 'I've heard of Weight Watchers, but I don't know what their methods are. What's the secret of their success?'

To her relief, at that moment the telephone rang. After a brief conversation he asked whoever was calling to hold the line while he went upstairs to take the rest of the call on the extension in his bedroom.

Burdines store, which she and Mrs Hardy entered about an hour later, was part of a shopping complex on the southern outskirts of Sarasota. The most striking feature of the store was a glass elevator which, as it glided upwards to the second floor, gave an interesting view of the lay-out of the first floor. The style of Burdines reminded Summer of Harvey Nichols, a store near Harrods in London—smaller but in many ways more elegant—which she and Emily had looked round.

One of the books which she had borrowed from Selby Library was
Working Wardrobe
by Janet Wallach, Fashion Director of Garfinckel's store in Washington, DC. The book explained Mrs Wallach's Capsule Concept, a way of avoiding expensive mistakes and always looking well-dressed.

Impressed by the author's theories, Summer wandered through Burdines' women's departments, not looking for one special dress, but with an eye for separates adaptable to many occasions.

A spectacular drop-dead dress was in her mind for the future when—if!—she achieved her target weight. Meanwhile, she was content to buy inexpensive, quiet clothes which she could discard without a qualm when she dropped to a smaller size.

So when Mrs Hardy, who had good taste, plucked from the rails dresses which Summer liked but which were too distinctive to be worn again and again, she shook her head and continued searching.

What she chose, in the end, was a black skirt of fine wool crêpe and a Liz Claiborne blouse which looked like ivory crêpe de Chine but was in fact polyester.

'Now I need some black pumps, and earrings and perhaps some beads,' she said, her major purchases completed.

A pair of black Chanel sling-backs were easy to find in the store's shoe department. Looking for earrings, she discovered that the ones she liked best were all made for pierced ears. She bought a pair of small pearls with clip fastenings, and resolved to have her ears pierced at the first opportunity.

It was while she was looking for a necklace that, for the first time in her life, she fell in love with an object far beyond her means.

It was a dramatic necklace made of sprigs of coral, river pearls, little chunks of gold and,
as a
pendant, the strangest and most beautiful shell.

'What is this lovely shell?' she asked the girl behind the counter.

'It's a lion's paw. Isn't it beautiful? Would you like to try it on?' the salesgirl asked.

'Oh, no—thank you. I couldn't afford it, but it is lovely,' Summer said longingly.

The shape was that of a half-open fan, with striations which reminded her of the bark-like pleats of the Mary McFadden dresses she had seen in
Vogue
magazine.

It was the perfect accessory for her ivory blouse, and she had enough in her bank account to pay for it. Yet the idea of spending so much money on herself was completely at variance with her upbringing.

She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything. But it was a shell; fragile, breakable, as insubstantial as a bubble. The kind of amusing novelty bought by millionairesses, not ordinary people like herself.

She turned away from the show-case and found
a
strand of imitation ivory beads. But all the way back to
Baile del Sol
she was haunted by the lion's paw necklace.

The Café l'Europe on St Armand's Key, where James took them for dinner, was a more formal restaurant than the one he had chosen in London.

Round tables spread with pink cloths and surrounded by dark bentwood chairs were arranged in a series of rooms separated by archways.

When they entered the restaurant, they seemed to attract a good deal of attention from the diners already present. In Florida, quarter to seven was not an unduly early hour to dine. Summer and Emily had been puzzled to see long lines of elderly people waiting outside some of the restaurants on the Tamiami Trail—another name for US41 which ran all the way from Tampa to Miami—as early as five o'clock. Mrs Hardy had explained that these were retired people living on pensions and attracted by the reduced prices at early sittings.

However, the Café l'Europe's clientele were not elderly people on tight budgets. They were younger and richer looking, and Summer noticed the women's eyes resting with interest on James's tall figure. She wondered what conclusions they were drawing about his entourage of females.

Mrs Hardy was old enough to be his mother and Emily could, at a pinch, be his daughter by a youthful marriage. But nobody was likely to mistake her for his second wife. Even though her figure could now be described as plump rather than obese, she didn't have the eye-catching presence which any woman of his—wife or mistress—would be sure to have.

Would she ever?

Yes... yes, I will, she thought fiercely. I've managed to reach the point where I can walk into a restaurant without feeling self-conscious or being stared at for unflattering reasons. I can progress further. I can make myself anything I want to be—and I want to be strikingly elegant with gorgeous clothes and unusual accessories, like that lion's paw necklace.

Nobody glancing at her would have guessed from her expression that her mind was full of plans and ambitions for a much greater transformation than the one she had achieved to date.

In fact no one was looking at her; or even at Emily, in her new dress, or Mrs Hardy in her stylish dark shirt-dress with a coral scarf tied in a bow at the neck.

Those people who hadn't by now had the good manners to stop eyeing the new arrivals were still watching the man of the party. Their continued attention made Summer realise that it wasn't only because he was tall and personable, with an air of distinction which had nothing to do with the cut of his clothes.

They recognised him.

Forgetting that thousands of people besides herself would have read the piece in
Newsweek,
and that he had probably been the subject of articles in other periodicals and newspapers, she hadn't realised until now that, although not famous in England, in this country he must be a nationally-known celebrity.

If he were aware of being the cynosure of some of the restaurant's other patrons, he gave no sign of it. He was scanning the menu with the speed of a connoisseur who will listen to the maître d's suggestions but make his own decisions.

He had mentioned on the way there that the restaurant had won various awards for the excellence of its Continental and American cuisine, but Summer studied the
carte
with a view to staying on her programme.

She would be able to drink one glass of wine—she was allowed three a week, to be drunk on different days—and by omitting bread at lunchtime and ignoring the rolls and breadsticks this evening, she could eat a potato or some rice or a little pasta. At home, Mrs Hardy was punctilious about weighing portions for her. By now she had become a good judge, by eye, of a three-ounce serving of meat, fish or poultry or a six-ounce serving of
legumes.