The Wedding Group by Elizabeth Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

hands to rake through her hair, and dandruff was falling, Midge thought that her mother had had a point.
    ‘Please!’ she implored, offering her palm.
    ‘What month were you born in?’
    ‘July. Cancer. That dreadful word.’
    ‘So you scuttle sideways?’
    ‘Not Mother,’ David said.
    ‘All right,’ said Nell. ‘Although it’s only nonsense. Let’s see how many bits of broken glass may have changed
your
fortunes.’ She spoke in a low, amused voice, and groped again for her shoes.
    Toby and Alexia swept their hair from their foreheads and leaned forward.
    She’s beautiful, David thought, looking at Alexia. She was something he had never dared; but he liked to have a little future daring in his mind.
    Midge sat like a little beggar-girl on the rug before Nell, with her hand held up beseechingly. It was a thin hand, wrinkled and shiny, with dark, raised veins.
    It would be more wicked, David thought, still watching Alexia’s intent face, really much more wicked than stealing another man’s wife.
    ‘The life-line,’ began Nell, with Midge listening like a child, ‘is long, but broken. However, there are parallel lines protectingthose breaks, reserves, I think, from strength of will.’ Midge blushed with pleasure. ‘From the head-line I see single-mindedness rather than deep intellectual powers. You see, you must forgive me; I speak as I find.’
    ‘And, as you explained, it’s all crap, anyway,’ David said.
    Midge only murmured encouragement.
    ‘You are home-loving. The heart-line is unswerving. There is a deep concern for those you love, amounting to possessiveness, really.’
    ‘Oh, come off it, Nell,’ David said. ‘You go too far with your silly game.’
    ‘No, no!’ said Midge, trying to silence him. ‘Let Nell say what she thinks. After all, you’re the only one now that I have to be possessive
about
, so you are the only one who can know. I’m not in a position to judge.
    ‘Three children,’ Nell said, folding Midge’s little finger. ‘You see – one, two, three.’ She pointed to some creases.
    ‘You knew that already,’ David said.
    I knew it all already, Nell thought. She looked away from the hand, at the fire. ‘Under the influence of the moon,’ she said, ‘so a woman of moods.’
    ‘David. Am I moody?’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘Who would like some brandy?’ He got up. Only his mother said ‘yes’.
    ‘Moody’s not necessarily derogatory,’ said Nell. ‘As I was saying the other day to a friend, it depends on the
predominant
mood. If that’s a dark one, it comes as a relief to have a change.’
    David thought, you didn’t say that the other day to a friend. You’re saying it now to my mother. Who is your hostess?
    ‘Home-loving, Nell?’ he asked, attempting to get off dangerous ground. ‘Well, that’s true, isn’t it?’ He looked inquiringly at Midge, setting down the glass of brandy on the table by her chair.
    ‘I suppose I love it,’ Midge said, looking round the room. ‘Though sometimes, I can’t wait to get out of it.’ The evening before, for instance, when they – David and Nell – had gone off after dinner, without asking her to go, too. It was so unlike him, she had thought, pacing about the room after they had gone. Nell had made him behave out of character. If they had been going simply for a drink, she could easily have been invited, and would probably have refused. They had obviously driven up to Quayne Woods or somewhere of the kind, and made love in the car. So uncomfortable but, she supposed, many young people’s first experience of sex these days.
    All this talk of ‘home-loving’ had annoyed her. They were trying to turn her into a
Hausfrau
, and the talk had gone back to praises of her cooking.
    ‘Well, you can hardly see
poulet à l’estragon
written deeply on my hand,’ she said, rather hastening over the French words.
    Now she was impatient, and drew her hand away. She sat down again, and began to sip her brandy, feeling that