The Blue Rose Read Free Page A

it into a bun.
    “Oh, do leave your hair down like that,” Derek said.
    “I can’t.”
    “Why don’t you just tie it behind with a ribbon?” Francie suggested.
    “It will make me look like a child,” Rose said indignantly, and she screwed it up quickly into its usual knot.
    II
    The Frentons had a flat in Eaton Square which had been converted horizontally from two houses. Their flat consisted of the two drawing-room floors, so that the rooms were particularly spacious and high-ceilinged. A manservant in a white jacket let the visitors in, and Francie and Rose were shown to Mrs. Frenton’s bedroom to leave their coats. There were only a couple of other coats lying on the bed. It was just the kind of room that Clare Frenton would have, Rose thought. The large windows, framed in copper - coloured satin, looked on to the Square gardens. There was a thick white pile carpet and a white satin bedspread fringed with copper, while the buttoned bedhead and the chaise-longue were covered in the same material as the curtains. The built-in furniture was all of white sycamore wood.
    “You must just look at the bathroom while you’re here,” Francie said, opening a communicating door. Rose peeped in. The bathroom might almost have been another sitting - room. There was the same thick white carpet; another chaise-longue and super-luxurious mirrored fittings. Both bedroom and bathroom were impeccably tidy and showed little sign of human occupancy. It might have been an empty guest suite.
    “Clive—that’s her husband—has his own bedroom and bathroom,” Francie informed her.
    “I don’t think I’d like that,” Rose said. “I’d feel so separated.”
    “I agree, I’d hate it,” Francie replied. “One of the nicest things about married life is dressing together.”
    Derek was waiting for them in the hall—a perfect little hall with a beautiful gilt “gesso” table and gilt mirror above it—and the white-coated butler opened a door on the right and showed them into the drawing-room. It was a huge room, but Rose didn’t have a chance to get more than an impression of cool tones of green as Clare Frenton came towards them with outstretched hand. She was wearing black, which showed up the contrast of her glorious white hair even more than the grey dress of the previous day.
    There was a little knot of people congregated round the fire (people always converge round the fire in England from force of habit even in the height of summer) and Clare introduced them—first to her husband, a tall suave man who appeared to be a good deal older than herself; then to a couple and then to another single woman. Clive Frenton was dispensing drinks, and as he handed Rose a glass she had a chance to look around her. She had noticed at once a lovely scent in the room, and now she realized that it came from a huge bowl of lilies standing on a table behind the sofa. The sofa itself was covered in olive green satin, and the curtains to the tall windows were of the same soft green material with beautiful swagged pelmets.
    Rose couldn’t resist going up to the lilies and smelling them, and when she turned back to the main group she saw that they had been joined by another man who must have come in while her back was turned. He was a young man, probably in his early thirties—dark, slight of build, and extraordinarily good-looking.
    “Rose,” Clare Frenton said, “I want you to meet Stephen Hume—this is Rose Woodhouse who is staying with the Earles.”
    Rose held out her hand and as the young man took it he looked at her with a long appraising glance from dark eyes that were obviously keenly intelligent. He smiled slightly with his finely chiselled mouth, but his eyes remained steady and unsmiling. Rose noticed that like Clive Frenton he was dressed in a City suit—striped trousers and a black jacket.
    “Help us, Stephen,” Clare said. “We want to find a name for a new coffee bar.” She drew him and Francie and Derek and Rose