The Summer Wives: Epic page-turning romance perfect for the beach

“I’ve taken my old room, of course, which doesn’t seem to be occupied. Where has all the staff gone, darling? We used to have three times as many housemaids running around. I had to shout for help, and I dislike shouting. It’s barbaric.”

“Housemaids don’t grow on trees anymore, Abigail,” Isobel said, walking past her mother to burst through the doors to the terrace, where a table and chairs had been arranged under the shelter of the porch while the rain poured beyond. A newspaper and a jeweled cigarette case lay next to the tea tray, and Isobel snatched up the case and flipped it open. “You can’t imagine how much servants cost. Especially on the Island.”

“In France, they’re dirt cheap. Everything’s dirt cheap. You ought to move there with me, as I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Isobel lit her cigarette and turned. “My French is terrible, Abigail.”

The Countess snorted and turned to me. “Tell me about yourself, dear. You’re Francine’s daughter, of course. Lovely Francine, I couldn’t ask for a better wife for Hugh.”

“She’s a dear,” Isobel said.

The Countess waved her hand at Isobel. “No. I want to hear from Miranda. You and me, we have a way of drowning out other women who aren’t as self-absorbed. And Miranda’s not self-absorbed, are you, darling?”

“She is,” Isobel said, “just in a different way. But everybody’s self-absorbed in his own way. Being charitable is just its own form of self-absorption.”

“Quiet!” thundered her mother, and Isobel plopped onto a wicker chair and gave me a droll look.

“I don’t know what to say, actually,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

“What do you like to do, child? What do you like to read?”

“Shakespeare,” supplied Isobel.

The Countess whipped around. “Go inside. Just go inside. Or else remain absolutely, positively silent.”

Isobel lifted her hand, zipped her lips, and stuck a cigarette between them.

The Countess turned back to me. “I apologize. I’m afraid I had very little to do with her upbringing, which was not my choice. Now it’s too late. And you’re laughing at us, how despicable. Not that I blame you.”

I collapsed on another of the wicker chairs. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. You must never apologize unless absolutely necessary, although if you must apologize, do it properly. You like Shakespeare, do you?”

“Among other things.”

“What other things? Speak up, I can’t hear you above all that deluge.”

I raised my voice. “Books. Art.”

“Yes, but which books? Which art? This is terribly important. Do you prefer the Greeks or the Romans?”

“The Greeks.”

“Middle Ages or Renaissance?”

“Renaissance, but I like some bits of the Middle Ages. The Plantagenets.”

“Yes! Brutal but decisive, most of them. Chock full of sex appeal. I approve. Trollope or Dickens?”

“Trollope.”

“Chinese art or Japanese?”

“Japanese.”

“Verdi or Wagner?”

“Verdi. I can’t bear Wagner’s women. He doesn’t understand them.”

“What about Isolde?”

“She’s only there to exalt Tristan.”

“Brünnhilde?”

“That’s the exception. The only woman he actually makes wiser than the men. Except she ends up dead like the others. At least the music is revolutionary.”

The Countess turned to Isobel. “There, you see? I’ll bet I’ve found out more about her in two minutes than you’ve discovered in all those years at school.”

Isobel gestured to her lips.

“You may speak.”

“I was just going to say that I don’t give a damn about any of those things.”

The Countess frowned. “Why are you wearing that awful suit?”

“This? Because we went to church this morning, Peaches and I.”

“Peaches?”

“That’s her nickname. I gave it to her.”

“But why ever?”

“Because she’s sweet and round and delicious, of course. Just look at her.”

The Countess spun back to study me. She gave the business her whole attention, crossing her left arm under her breasts and propping her right elbow on the knuckles while she sucked thoughtfully on her cigarette. I tried to decide whether she was beautiful or not—certainly her face had the symmetry of beauty, the shapely eyes—but really she was something else. Not handsome or pretty or attractive, something beyond description, so that she held your attention, your dumbstruck admiration, without the slightest effort. Striking, that’s the closest word. You could say she was striking.

As she studied me studying her, she didn’t give any sign of what she was thinking, or what conclusions she drew from whatever figure I presented to her, in my ragged hair and ill-tailored suit and sunburnt face. The cigarette languished and died. She plucked the stub from the holder and tossed it into the ashtray and said to her daughter, “Whatever she is, she’s certainly not Peaches. Are we absolutely certain you’re mine, darling? It’s impossible to believe I’ve borne a daughter with so little penetration.”

Isobel sprang from her chair and stalked to the French doors. “I’m going to take a shower and change clothes. Are you coming, Peaches?”

“She’s not answering to Peaches anymore,” called back the Countess. “I forbid it.”

Isobel didn’t pause, and I rose and followed her, because I did need to bathe and change before dinner, there was no question of that. As I passed the Countess, she took me gently by the elbow.

“Before dinner,” she whispered, “we’ve got to talk.”

17.

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