"Archer, Jeffrey - twelve red herrings)txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Archer Jeffrey)

I met Rosemary about four years later at a ball given to launch
the Leeds Music Festival. Not a natural habitat for me, but as
Cooper's had taken a full-page advertisement in the programme, and
Brigadier Kershaw, the High Sheriff of the county and Chair man of the
Ball Committee, had invited us to join him as his guests, I had no
choice but to dress up in my seldom-worn dinner jacket and accompany my
parents to the ball.

I was placed on Table 7, next to a Miss Kershaw, who turned out to
be the High Sheriff's daughter. She was elegantly dressed in a
strapless blue gown that emphasised her comely figure, and had a mop of
red hair and a smile that made me feel we had been friends for years.
She told me over something described on the menu as 'avocado with dill'
that she had just finished reading English at Durham University, and
wasn't quite sure what she was going to do with her life.

"I don't want to be a teacher," she said. "And I'm certainly not
cut out to be a secretary." We chatted through the second and third
courses, ignoring the people seated on either side of us.

After coffee she dragged me onto the dance floor, where she
continued to explain the problems of contemplating any form of work
while her diary was so packed with social engagements.

I felt rather flattered that the High Sheriff's daughter should
show the slightest interest in me, and to be honest I didn't take it
seriously when at the end of the evening, she whispered in my ear,
"Let's keep in touch." But a couple of days later she rang and invited
me to join her and her parents for lunch that Sunday at their house in
the country, "And then perhaps we could play a little tennis
afterwards. You do play tennis, I suppose?" I drove over to Church
Fenton on Sunday, and found that the Kershaws' residence was exactly
what I would have expected large and decaying, which, come to think of
it, wasn't a bad description of Rosemary's father as well. But he
seemed a nice enough chap. Her mother, however, wasn't quite so easy
to please. She originated from somewhere in Hampshire, and was unable
to mask her feeling that, although I might be good for the occasional
charitable donation, I was not quite the sort of person with whom she
expected to be sharing her Sunday lunch.

Rosemary ignored the odd barbed comment from her, and continued to
chat to me about my work.

As it rained all afternoon we never got round to playing tennis,
so Rosemary used the time to seduce me in the
little pavilion behind the court. At first I was nervous about making
love to the High Sheriff's daughter, but I soon got used to the idea.

However, as the weeks passed, I began to wonder if I was anything
more to her than a 'lorry driver fantasy'. Until, that is, she started