SIDE BENEFITS
515
frank, and the two of them considered her day clothes, since both
felt strongly that she
~ h ou ld
be properl y dressed for the occasion.
But as at the time she was wearing very short skirts, if she wore
skirts at all, and she was not prepared completely to lose her charac–
ter, a trouser suit was concocted that was chiefly mink, which, worn
with mink boots, made her look like a moon eskimo.
Mary discovered that for the weekend there would be three
people in the house: herself, gentleman John, and the manservant.
She found the house charming. It fitted her like a glove, she insisted
to disbelieving friends. In the afternoon she was taken for a drive,
the manservant driving, drank sherry in the library before dinner,
the manservant acting as butler, and ate a long and formal dinner,
the manservant handing the dishes he had previously chosen. Then,
intrigued to the point of hysteria, as she afterwards said, Mary waited
for what surely must be a dishonourable proposal.
At cleven fifty-five J ohn leaned his handsome person towards
her and said:
My
dear, you must understand what my feelings
towards
YOll
arc, hut hefore I could ask any woman to share my
life, there is something 1 must do.
If
you like, you can cal! it a test.
r.'lary was willing for the test.
John then nodded at the servant who went out of the room and
came back a moment later wheeling a tall black coffin , upright.
It
had wheels at the feet-end , for maneuverability. This coffin was
steered, upri ght, in front of a tall mirror. The servant, in his im–
peccable black clothes stood as it were to attention, at one side of it.
John, with
it
smiling nod of encouragement at Mary, went to the
coffin, and stood inside it, his hands crossed on his breast, gazing into
the mirror. Inside the black coffin, black-clothed John; heside it, the
hlack-clothed servant.
:Mary said afterwa rds that she was bothered
becall~e
no gesture
or
po~e
that occurred to her seemed to be appropriate. So she rubbed
out her cigarette, folded her hands in her lap, and remained silent,
smiling. At the end of a long five minutes, her John stepped down
from the coffin and nodded at the servant, who wheeled it away.
H e leaned intimately towards her.
"Brandy?" he enquired.
"Just a little, please."
Nothing more was said ahout thr coffin . Soon <1ftcr, he escorted
