A Splash of Red by Antonia Fraser Read Free Book Online Page A

necessary to round off the conversation in her warmer manner. 'I should just love to take this opportunity to tell you how I adored your last programme, Miss Shore,' she murmured. 'That twilight home. The old lady and the old gentleman, both knitting, it was his knitting which just reached out to me. Like a Dutch picture sprung to life.' Jemima remembered that particular phrase since it had occurred in the Guardian review, and the paper had also referred to the programme in the third leader. 'A Dutch picture sprung horribly to life, showing the despair masked by an outwardly harmonious composition.' That was how it had actually read.
    Still, it might just be worth making some use of Miss Barrymore's enthusiasm.
    'You've been so kind . . . hardly worth bothering Isabelle with all this ... quite, quite, so busy at this time of year.' She took a breath. 'Just one thing ... I was contemplating, y ou know, an in-depth profile of Isabelle, allied to the development of Taffeta, in my autumn series. You know, the serious side of fashion ... people never quite realize ... the part played in the British economy, why exports alone ... social significance.' Jemima murmured on, and ended quite quickly: 'The only thing is that I was proposing to invite Chloe Fontaine to write the programme, so much her style in a way, and she brings her own elegance to these things. But if by any chance that would be unacceptable to Isabelle - this conversation is quite between ourselves, naturally.'
    'Believe me,' said Laura Barrymore, 'Miss Fontaine would be quite unacceptable to Miss Mancini. There are some trusts which if betrayed—' She stopped, aware that she had abandoned the swanlike supremacy of the perfect friend and assistant. My God, thought Jemima, so Chloe had quarrelled with Isabelle - the fool, and then to suppose that Taffeta would give her a commission - no, wait a minute, had Chloe ever indeed really tackled Taffeta for work?
    'Particularly from a writer who had been such a very close friend. Isabelle had been so good to her.' Laura Barrymore was continuing as if her indignation would not quite let her stop, despite her better judgement. 'And a writer of Chloe Fontaine's stature. Her previous stature, perhaps I should say. Why did she need to draw on her friends' private lives? Surely her own provides quite enough ... It was so terribly disloyal. And then the letters - Isabelle felt she had been nurturing a viper.'
    My God, thought Jemima again, the novel; the libel which Chloe had dismissed as petty but which worried Valentine Brighton. Chloe's new book must in some way have impinged upon - if that was the right word - the Mancini sensibilities. Disloyalty. No wonder the ultra-loyal Laura Barrymore, the faithful assistant, had frozen at the very notion of Isabelle commissioning Chloe.
    'I am of course Chloe Fontaine's house guest,' Jemima put in as diplomatically as possible at the end of this tirade. The reminder had the desired effect. Laura hesitated.
    'You're actually in her flat? Her new flat? I hadn't quite appreciated—'
    'Exactly.'
    For a moment the honey returned. 'In that case, Miss Shore, it occurrs to me that it might be helpful if I came by, maybe I could talk with you on the subject of Isabelle and Miss Fontaine, put you in the picture—'
    'No, no!' cried Jemima hastily. 'Really, it's of no consequence.' She had absolutely no wish to be further embroiled in Isabelle Mancini's row with Chloe. The solution to what she was rapidly beginning to rate as the Chloe Mystery, certainly did not lie in the files of Taffeta magazine.
    Jemima must now put that mystery away from her thoughts. Easy now to sign off her brief relationship with the Stovers. Clearly Chloe was in some enigmatic way in control of her own destiny. She had lied to Jemima about the Camargue, or at any rate misled her. Undoubtedly for the same strange reason she had also misled her parents. In fact, Jemima reflected wryly at the end of her long-drawn-out