Free Choose the One You'll Marry by Mary Burchell Page A

car, she laughed and talked quite easily with him, and told him how eager she was to hear about Ruth’s proposed part in his program.
    “Like last time, she has only to be her delightful self,” Angus explained.
    “Yes, but in what circumstances?” Aunt Henrietta wanted to know. “ I want all the details. Though I suppose you have told Ruth all about it while I was getting ready.”
    “No. We talked about something else.”
    “Something else? My dear Ruth—” Aunt Henrietta gave her that bright, amused look “—you have more self - control than is natural in a girl of your age. Didn’t you want to know all about it right away?”
    “I thought I’d wait until we were all having dinner. Then Angus need only tell us once,” Ruth said.
    “Quite extraordinary!” declared Aunt Henrietta. Then she got into the car, but this time she went in front with Michael, so that Ruth could be with Angus in the back.
    They drove to what Aunt Henrietta described as their favorite restaurant, which turned out to be an excellent Italian one on the border of Soho. And as soon as they had been established at a corner table, with their excellent meal ordered, Ruth said with a smile, “Now perhaps you’ll gratify Aunt Henrietta’s curiosity. And mine.”
    “It’s on much the same lines as before,” Angus explained, “only on a more ambitious scale. We’ve had a vote among our viewers for the most noteworthy book written in the last six months. The writers of the three top-ranking books are being invited to the studio, to be interviewed by a small panel of more or less distinguished people. Among those, I want one ordinary—forgive the word, my charming and anything-but-ordinary Ruth — member of the reading public. That’s you, my sweet.”
    “You mean—I have to interview famous writers!”
    “Not famous, dear child. Merely successful in our vote. And you will have others on the panel, don’t forget. In fact, with one of them there—not of my choice, I might say—you’ll probably have to fight to get a word in edgeways.”
    “And what if I don’t know the books?”
    “This time,” he told her with a smile, “we have time to remedy that. I’ve brought you copies of all three. You can read them over the weekend, if you haven’t done so already.”
    “Rather a tame London visit for Ruth, if she has to spend all her time reading,” observed Michael.
    “It’s all right,” said Ruth quickly. “I did come for this specific purpose. And anyway—” she had by now opened the parcel that Angus had handed to her “—I’ve read two of them. Though I’ll be glad to refresh my memory of them.”
    “Who else is on the panel?” Aunt Henrietta wanted to know.
    “Gustave Marwell, the critic. Peter Wren, of the big booksellers. And Graham Felling, whose provocative book came last in the voting.”
    “Then is Ruth the only woman on the panel?” inquired Michael, with an air of not quite approving, for some reason or other.
    “No. There’s one other. A friend of yours, as a matter of fact. Charmian Deal, the actress.”
    “How do you know she’s a friend of mine?”
    Ruth could sense the antagonism between the two men, even though their actual words were unexceptional.
    “I saw you hang—going around with her in Castlemore.”
    “I see. And talking of angels,” said Michael—not entirely appropriately, Ruth thought—“here is Charmian.” And he got to his feet as Charmian Deal, exquisite in a black dress that made Ruth feel that her own was very ordinary, came slowly down the room.
    She was followed by a faintly petulant-looking young man, who seemed vaguely familiar to Ruth, though only from photographs, she felt sure.
    “Hello, Michael. Hello, Angus,” said Charmian impartially. “What a re you doing together?”
    Simultaneously they hastened, it seemed to Ruth, to make it plain that they were not, so to speak, together. Michael introduced Aunt Henrietta, and made some play with the fact that he