'A telephone that rings but who's to answer-' she hummed. But the lyricist did not know about the 1980s' solution of the answerphone. The noise stopped as the machine began to click.
Around Jemima literature concerning Royal Weddings, past and present, still proliferated while Princess Amy's radiant face, veil flung back, gazed up at her - in full colour - from the heap of morning papers. Most of the papers had chosen for their front page the balcony shot in which Prince Ferdinand - crafty foreign bugger or romantic hero according to taste - held Amy's hand to his lips and implanted upon it a deep deep kiss while gazing romantically - or craftily - into her eyes. It was a specially popular picture since the lip-readers, not present at the Royal Gala, had been out in force on this occasion.
What Prince Ferdinand said, looking so soulfully at Amy, was: 'A dream come true.'
A minute later Princess Amy, who could do no wrong, won even more hearts by exclaiming in rather a different mode: 'Hey, Prince Charming, you're treading on my train!' And then she added, surely roguishly: 'This is your wife speaking.'
A good deal of pictorial attention was also paid to little Jamie Beauregard, who had revenged his defeat over the kilt, by concealing his dirk in the beribboned tie of his page's knee breeches. He brandished it aloft in triumph on the balcony where his furious mother could not reach him; but for once this was a weapon which caused no one (other than the aforesaid mother, who would make him pay later), any anxiety.
Prince Ferdel's own comment: 'I'd like to wring that boy's neck,' although dutifully translated by the lip-readers was ignored on grounds of taste by all papers except the Daily Clueless.
'Marriage!' thought Jemima. 'I wish them the joy of it.' She picked up the papers and the notes and the family trees - all Susanna Blanding's patient work - and began to stuff them into the wastepaper basket. (She had an awful feeling that some of the numerous calls on her machine must have come from a sobbing Susanna, Rick having departed that morning for the Middle East.)
Feeling herself in a reckless mood, Jemima added: 'And I wish Cass and Flora Hereford the joy of it too.' The moment she had framed the thought, she realized to her surprise that it was true. She was free of all that. Weddings, marriage, royal or otherwise, was simply not for her.
Pity under the circumstances about the career, the tus fiasco and the Megalith one which had preceded it. Oh well, there was always Midnight.... She would end her days as an unemployed spinster alone with her cat. That thought seemed to call either for tears or for celebration. Finding the latter preferable, especially since Midnight, an independent cat who liked to choose his own moment of embrace, had jumped out of her arms with an indignant mew, she routed out a bottle of champagne from the fridge. She realized wryly that it was the bottle given to her in tribute by a member of the Press on the day she had been sacked by Megalith and appointed by tus.
Jemima had just opened the bottle when the telephone rang yet again. This time she decided to answer it. Susanna or no Susanna, what could she lose?
'Where are you?' cried the instantly recognizable voice of Cy Fredericks without any preliminaries. It was not only the instantly recognizable voice of Cy Fredericks, it was also the instantly recognizable voice of Cy Fredericks in a state of great agitation. 'Didn't you get my messages? Where are you? Why aren't you here?’ Then, virtually without pause, 'Jem, my Jem, we have plans, wonderful new plans, most exciting plans, I can't wait to see you and tell you everything -'
'Cy darling, where are you?’ But Jemima should have known better than to ask. Such a question, even at the calmest of times, had been known to cast Cy into a fearful state of uncertainty and these were definitely not the calmest of times.
'Miss Lewis,' she heard him shout in the familiar manner. 'Where am I? Miss Lewis, where are you?'
'I'm here, Mr Fredericks,' Miss Lewis's voice cutting in on the line had a soothing timbre which was equally familiar. 'Mr Fredericks is back at Megalith, Miss Shore,' she continued. 'There have been a few, er ...' — discreet pause — 'changes recently and in short Mr Fredericks has been ...' - another discreet pause - 'reinstated.'
'Only I'm now President,' boomed Cy's voice, interrupting. 'Tell her I'm President, not Chairman, President-for-life. We've all the time in the world. And tell her to get here as soon as possible.' Evidently seeing no irony in his last statement, Cy Fredericks flung down the telephone, leaving Jemima alone on the line with the ever-helpful Miss Lewis.
'Can you possibly get him to wait till I finish this glass of champagne?' asked Jemima Shore Investigator.
Your Royal Hostage Page 22
