42
Mardell dressed carefully. She put on her gold sweater, which she had worn the first time she had lunch with Charley, and made sure that her Cleopatra hair was precisely in place. The outfit had moved Charley to expressions of admiration and she did want to make a good first impression on Miss Prizzi, if only because she wanted Miss Prizzi to be proud of Charley’s choice of her as a rival for Miss Prizzi’s affections.
Miss Prizzi had telephoned the evening before. She had been very correct, not one bit rude or vulgar. She said she wanted to come by for a chat. A chat? Well! Miss Prizzi had been so correct that Mardell had felt constrained to invite her for tea. Promptly at five the doorbell rang, and it was Miss Prizzi.
Mardell’s English speech was entirely in place. “How do you do, Miss Prizzi,” she said, extending her hand. She felt that it was impossible to overdo the accent. Maerose took her hand and shook it, silently. They went into the living room, where the tea things had been laid out.
“I didn’t know whether you preferred high tea,” Mardell said, “so I settled at a medium-high level. Please do sit down here.”
Maerose sat contemplating the medium tea, staring hungrily at the small pile of tiny, paper-thin smoked salmon and cucumber and watercress sandwiches. “That looks delicious.”
“The tea is vintage Darjeeling, from the highest Himalayan tea gardens. One hopes you like Darjeeling. One was leaning toward Lapsang souchong even though it is smoky and pungent.”
Maerose glared at her. “I have looked forward to meeting you.”
“I, you, as well.” Mardell tried to pattern her performance on her distinct memory of Dame Edith Evans.
“I understand you work at the Casino Latino?”
“Yes.”
“My grandfather owns it.”
“Well! Your grandfather. There is a really famous man.”
“Yeah.”
“I have a friend—a Miss Harriet Blacker—who is working for graduate degrees in the behavioral sciences. She would give her toes to meet your grandfather.”
“He’s quite old, my grandfather. And retired. He doesn’t see people anymore.”
“Pity. How nice of you to come by.”
“I am here to talk to you about Charley.” Maerose’s speech was taking on the slightest of British accents, Mardell noted, feeling that scored points for the La Tour side.
“It would all have been so much more effective if Charley had been here,” Mardell said. “While we were both here, that is.”
“Charley’s in New Orleans.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Miss La Tour—I do not want you to think I am interfering in your life, but there are things which I had to be sure that you understood completely.”
“Tea?”
“Thank you.”
Mardell poured the tea. “This tea is better by itself or with a slice of lemon. It is a totally distinctive tea. Lemon?”
“Yeah.”
“Salmon?”
“Why not?”
Mardell served her a plate with five half tea sandwiches. “It is just that I don’t think the decision is ours to make,” she said.
“Decision?”
“About Charley. If one or the other of us left him, he might decide it was the wrong one. You see, I feel he must decide this thing.”
“It is out of the question. Our engagement—our intention to marry—is very much a family thing, Miss La Tour. My family have made involved plans over the years, since we were kids, actually, so—well, even if he were to choose you over me—temporarily—it couldn’t last.” Maerose’s voice hardened. “Do you understand what I am telling you?”
“But if he chooses me over you, I would feel there was no need for me to—ah—sacrifice myself. I would feel, in fact, that you did not—ah—deserve Charley. No, Miss Prizzi. Not at all. I am not going to withdraw without hearing a decidedly firm expression. There is no other way. Charley must decide this.”
Maerose sipped her tea delicately. She opened her purse after biting into the second paper-thin smoked salmon sandwich. She removed a checkbook from the purse.
“Since I am going to have you fired from the Latino,” she said, discarding stilted speech. “You are gonna need money. How much you think you’re gonna need?”
“Money?”
“A straight payoff, baby. I’m gonna give you twenty-five hundred of the easiest dollars you ever made, and you are gonna change the locks on your doors here.”
“Suppose I take the money but Charley won’t let me go?”
“Look, Mardell—I’ll make it an even thirty-five hundred dollars. Also, I’ll pay your expenses for like a week in Nassau or someplace like that. Why not go back to England? You stay away for ten days, two weeks. By that time it will all be over.”
Mardell smiled a pussycat smile. “I’m so sorry, Miss Prizzi. Can’t be done. I’ll wait right here and put the question to Charley a few moments after he walks through that door.”