The One In My Heart

“Huh,” said Bennett. “You used to listen in on my calls.”


Mrs. Asquith grinned, entirely unrepentant. “They were my telephone and my telephone line.” She turned to me. “He was a very naughty boy.”

“I’ve reformed,” Bennett protested. “I’m respectable now.”

Mrs. Asquith scoffed. “You are still a scamp. All your respectability is in this young lady here.”

Bennett glanced at me. “Are you really that respectable, Evangeline?”

I put down my sandwich. “Please. At Buckingham Palace they ask themselves, ‘What would Dr. Canterbury do?’”

Mrs. Asquith cackled. “When Bennett said you two were seeing each other, I dug up old snaps Zelda had sent of you and said to myself, ‘Lovely girl, but maybe too sweet and gentle for him.’ I see now I needn’t have worried.”

“I keep him on a short leash,” I said. “He’s gone the moment he shows his true colors.”

“Didn’t I tell you I’m afraid of her?” said Bennett to Mrs. Asquith. “Always looking to kick me to the curb, this one.”

“What can I say?” I dipped my fork into the minted pea puree on my plate. “Zelda raised no fool.”

Mr. de Villiers, who had been quietly listening to our exchange, reached for his water glass. “When Zelda was younger, she was convinced she could never handle children.”

I looked at him full on. “She did very well when the time came. She was the best part of my childhood.”

He shook his head slightly. “I couldn’t have imagined. Or perhaps I should say, I didn’t quite trust my imagination.”

“No one can predict the future,” Mrs. Asquith told him. “You made rational choices, Larry. No need to second-guess them after almost thirty years.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said.

But he didn’t sound convinced. We fell silent, and ate for a minute or so without talking. Mrs. Asquith restarted the conversation by making Mr. de Villiers tell us about his work in television: He had produced several iconic shows and been involved in a score more in one capacity or another.

“I was a junior second assistant producer, on my third show ever, when I was assigned to find a composer for the theme music. And that was when dear Maggie here”—he nodded toward Mrs. Asquith—”introduced me to Zelda, in the hope that her connections in the music industry might help me.

“She actually composed the music herself. But the show was never broadcast, so she put some lyrics to the song, gave it to Polygram, and they made a moderate hit out of it.”

“I believe she paid for new insulation on our house a few years ago with royalties from that song,” I said.

“Did she? That’s lovely to hear.”

There was a yearning in his voice, a hunger for such small, mundane news. Did Zelda feel likewise? When she thought of him, did she wonder whether he still liked his morning toast the way she remembered, and whether he had kept using the same soap and shampoo?

“Now, now, Larry,” said Mrs. Asquith. “I agreed you could come on condition that you reveal all about the next season of Bowyer Grange. I’m old and I’m impatient, so you’d best start right now.”


FOR THE REST OF LUNCH, Mr. de Villiers answered Mrs. Asquith’s questions about upcoming plot twists of the hugely popular show. When we rose from the table, Mrs. Asquith asked if I’d like a tour of the grounds. I said yes, and Mr. de Villiers was volunteered to be my guide.

We bundled up and went outside. My companion dutifully pointed out features of interest. When he mentioned that the house was built in the 1880s, I expressed my surprise at its relatively recent origin.

“What’s the term one uses for those big new houses in America?” asked Mr. de Villiers.

“McMansions, you mean?”

“Yes, that. This is an example of its Victorian counterpart—a prosperous man of business building a country retreat for himself and his family. Thousands of these were torn down in the postwar years—too costly to maintain and too new for the state to consider them of historical value. Fortunately for Maggie, hers is small enough that the upkeep falls within her means.

“Or almost, that is. Out of respect, we tend to look the other way when faced with signs of a house’s dilapidation. But Dr. Somerset was just American enough to make the necessary arrangements for workers to show up, so Maggie could harangue them with her demands.”

This unlikely yet enduring friendship between Bennett and Mrs. Asquith was making me like him all too much. I sighed inwardly.

We were inspecting a large, bare plane tree, planted in memory of a son of the house who had died in the Battle of the Somme, when Mr. de Villiers said, “I don’t suppose Zelda has ever mentioned me.”