“This is their home, more than yours,” Mrs. Spencer said. “Speaking of my home, why are you in it?”
“I thought Murray explained everything? Your family placed an advertisement for a personal assistant…”
“No. I mean, why are you here? With me? And not doing some grander thing? Child, I’m asking if all of your talents have been brought out of you.”
“Ha! Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It is the question. So I’m waiting for an answer. Do they not teach the particulars of holding a basic conversation over in America?”
“No, they do. It’s just … it’s not something I’ve been asked before. So yeah. Sure. My talents have been brought out of me. Not that I had many to start.”
“Well, what are they?” Mrs. Spencer asked. “These talents. I’m positively dying to know.”
“Er, well, I’m a voracious reader.”
“That’s truly more of a hobby. An honorable one, mind you! But a hobby all the same.”
“I’m fairly competent in writing essays.”
“Lord Almighty. You are in rough shape, aren’t you? Vastly insecure.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘vastly.’”
“I can smell it a mile away. But you’re smart. I can smell that, too. I myself am a certified genius, despite being raised by a mother who was beautiful but not so sharp. I was a miracle. Differential calculus was too low for me!”
“Well, class is in session,” Pru said, trying for a joke. “Maybe you can teach me a thing or two. I’m horrible with numbers. I guess I prefer things that are made up.”
“Why are you here?” Mrs. Spencer asked again. “Why? You should be attending university instead of living with an ancient dame in the countryside. Education is everything. It smooths a life.”
“I did attend college. In California. I was a literature major, for a while.”
“Yes, and then?”
“Then … I left.”
Pru was in no mood to recount her backstory, or to deflect the uncomfortable combination of pity and disgust she was bound to receive. Her fiancé was dead, which was a tragedy, but surely he’d obliterated more lives than one. It wasn’t even a fair trade.
“So your leaving was about a fellow,” Mrs. Spencer said with a cluck. “A little advice, Miss Valentine. Never let a man dictate your life.”
“That’s not exactly what happened.”
“I didn’t get married until I was forty years old—by choice. I had my own apartment, in Paris no less, when I was half that. An independent woman, at the turn of the century. You beatnik, hippie feminists think you’re sailing uncharted waters but I’ve done it all before. Even the drugs.”
“I’m hardly a beatnik or hippie.”
Pru thought of her friends back at Berkeley with their protests and marches and flowerized names. Debbie who was Petal and Linda who was Daisy and every last one of them who so quickly turned on Charlie, and on Pru, when he didn’t fight his draft.
“As a group, they’d be offended you thought I was one of them,” she added.
“So, what was it, then?” Mrs. Spencer asked. “Your face is as sad as a gala without guests. I’m sensing a broken engagement?”
“More or less.”
“For Christ’s sake. Don’t mope around because of a silly betrothal gone awry. If you haven’t racked up a few, you’re doing something wrong. The minimum ratio is five engagements for every one marriage. The bare minimum! Mine is much higher, as you’d expect.”
Mrs. Spencer looked toward the ceiling and chuckled through her nose.
“Ten to one?” she said. “Fifteen? No matter. You don’t get married for the first time at age forty without promising to marry a string of fellows along the way.”
“What’s the point, then? Of accepting proposals you don’t intend to follow through with?”
“Why, you’re dumb as a post!” Mrs. Spencer said in a tone that was hard to read.
“That settles that, then.”
“Oh, calm down. I say it with kindness. Silly girl, engagements are about the celebration and pomp. The good bits without the trouble that comes later. As soon as the wedding is over, so’s the party. Salt mines and skimpy meals the rest of your days.”
She lifted the covers and scooted in beside her. Pru inched to the far side of the bed.
“You mentioned you love to read,” Mrs. Spencer said.
“Yes,” Pru replied, eyes closed as she willed the woman back to her own quarters. “I was a literature major. It’s one of the reasons I came to work here. They told me you love books, particularly those by British authors, which was my concentration.”
At least it would’ve been, had she gotten that far.
“Edith Junior said that? About my passion for literature? Well, well, well. She got that bit right.”
“Mmm.” Pru’s thoughts blurred.
God, she was tired. So tired. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt truly awake.