The Jealous One Read Online Free PDF

laughing. Everyone was laughing. It was only a joke, after all. Why should Rosamund fancy she saw cruelty in the clear golden liquid thus floodlit in front of them: cruelty flickering cold and sharp among the candle flames? Was it only a figment of a censorious imagination, or had the rejected drink been set up as a laughing-stock, deliberately to highlight Eileen’s lack of spirit, her wet-blanketing sobriety?
    I mustn’t think such things! Rosamund scolded herself, quite shocked at the headlong injustice of her imaginings, for which there was really no foundation whatever. Lindy was only acting as a good hostess—trying to make the party go. You had to say silly things when people really hardly knew each other—Rosamund should be helping her— backing her up, not sitting here criticising. Anyway, now here was Geoffrey telling one of his funny stories, telling it very well, too; even Rosamund, who had heard it a dozen times before, found herself convulsed with laughter. The meal continued happily enough, everyone spearing up food haphazard with their forks. Eileen, too, seemed to be warming a little to the situation, smiling more and more often, and allowing herself to be drawn out a little by Geoffrey’s friendly questioning. She was just beginning, a little tentatively , to describe her job in the book department of a large store, when Lindy scrambled to a kneeling position, reachedfor the much-publicised tumbler of wine, and raised it high above her head.
    ‘It is my great pleasure,’ she declaimed. ‘To announce the winner of our all-star wit and brilliance competition. Our panel of distinguished judges have been debating the matter most earnestly for the last twenty-five minutes, and have come to the unanimous decision that this year’s title of Miss Twenty-two Woodchurch Avenue shall be awarded to Mrs Eileen Forbes….’ Once again the glass was deposited with ceremony in front of the unfortunate girl, who seemed visibly to flinch. Rosamund caught her breath: once more Eileen was to be shown up as a spoil-sport; and ridiculous as well, for no one could have failed to notice that in wit and brilliance she had lagged far behind her sister.
    Rosamund glanced sideways at Geoffrey to see if he, too, saw unkindness in Lindy’s gesture. But no. He was beaming kindly, unsuspiciously on both sisters, and he joined in warmly and good-humouredly when Lindy burst into frenetic clapping at the end of her speech.
    Was it all meant kindly, just a bit of fun? Rosamund could not tell. For Eileen’s sake, she tried to lead the conversation back to the subject of the book department.
    ‘It must be very interesting, helping people to choose books,’ she began, addressing herself to the discomfited girl; but Lindy interrupted:
    ‘Yes, it suits Eileen down to the ground!’ she declared. ‘A good, steady, respectable job, with a pension at the end of it—she’s the Careers Mistress’ Dream, our Eileen! I’m not, I’m afraid, I’m more like her Nightmare! Security has never appealed to me, somehow, and as for the idea of a pension …!’
    Geoffrey laughed at the horror she put into the word.
    ‘So what do you do, then?’ he enquired. ‘Do you always extract an assurance from prospective employers that the job is not pensionable, and that they will sack you without warning almost at once?’
    ‘More or less! How well you understand me, Geoff!’ Lindy seemed delighted. ‘Actually, I’m doing somethingeven madder than that at the moment—I’m trying freelance fabric-printing. Terribly precarious, as you can imagine. It’s a good thing one of us is doing something sensible and steady, isn’t it?’
    She shot an approving glance at Eileen, and try as she would, Rosamund could not be sure that she saw traces of scorn or pity in it. Was she misjudging Lindy after all?
    She was filled by the same doubts all over again when, later on, Lindy unearthed a guitar from the clutter and sat by the open french window, gently