| Details for Frid Never Takes Fabia Anywhere |
| Summary: | He endeavours to explain why. |
| Date: | November 28th, 1938 |
| Location: | Upstairs at the Three Broomsticks |
| Related: | The morning after Fish In Water. Small reference to Swinging and Swaying. |
| Characters |
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Fabia's Rooms
When Cooper's missing sock has been located, and she has been seen off with a very thorough snog which almost but doesn't quite result in all the work required to get her dressed again having been for naught — Fabia, in her favourite peacock dressing-gown, with suspiciously smooth and shiny hair for this early lunchtime hour, drifts back into her boudoir to examine the two small pasteboard rectangles which she dimly recollects sighting next to her tea-cup and her aspirin when first she unglued her eyelashes an hour or so ago.
"Oh," she gasps, holding them at arm's length. "The new Ashton! Bless you, Frid!" And then the poor man is attacked by an enormous hug.
Frid stiffens immediately as he's enveloped, not entirely sure where to look or what to do, so he just stands there like a great big besuited mannequin as Fabia enthusiastically shows her approval. "I thought perhaps you might like to take a friend, madam," he insists with a pained smile. "I had a friend of a friend who told me, and I thought you might appreciate it."
Fabia releases him at length, the tickets still clutched between her eager fingertips; and she reads aloud the title and the date as she bounces across to her dressing-table and props them on top of a jewellery-box, leaning against the glass. "Oh, don't be ridiculous, Frid," she chirrups, her reflection beaming at his, "of course I'll take you!" The very soul of generosity…
"I had thought perhaps Miss Silver?" Frid queries, straightening his jacket once more and raising a brow. "Perhaps she might not think quite so ill of me."
Sweeping her hair upwards, parting it here, then there, sectioning it this way, then that, not quite able to decide how she'd like to wear it today, Fabia laughs and says, "Oh, sweetie, she's so often busy in the evenings! And it has been so long since you and I had a treat together. Really, since last time we were in Paris. I've been so busy… I hadn't thought to be so busy. It's all quite exhausting, isn't it? May I have another cup of tea?"
The fact that a night at the ballet might not entirely be Frid's idea of a treat is masked well behind a polite dip of his head, and an intoned, "You are very kind, madam, thank you." He moves away to check the teapot, and on establishing it's not yet too cool to drink, tops up her cup. "You might have enjoyed Sunday's dance band. They were Canadian, but very good despite that."
Now her reflection is pouting at his. Pathetically. While skewering her hair with pearl-topped pins. "I'm sure I'd have loved it," she sighs, "but you never take me. You never take me anywhere. So I shall have to take you, to the ballet!" Is that an implied suggestion that if they went dancing, he wouldn't have to sit through dancing? She can be quite crafty sometimes with these little interpersonal negotiations. She's certainly eyeing him.
"The last time you met any of my friends, I had to suffer through the Spanish Inquisition," Frid notes with a glimmer of amusement as he offers her the tea. "And that was a young lady I'd barely met. I can't imagine how you'd be if you met some of my very oldest friends. I think I'd never see you for the rest of the evening, and by the time we got home, you would have started at least six different nefarious schemes to see me hooked up with six different women."
Alas, Frid is a master of tactics; Fabia is so diverted from her own plot that she twirls on her dressing-table stool (incidentally showing an alarming amount of leg) to confront him face-to-face. "Frid! You're friendly with six eligible ladies?" she exclaims, wide-eyed with fanatical fascination.
Frid closes his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't believe, madam, that I specified any of them were eligible. Besides, it was merely an example! And two of them are married, and one a widow."
"Well, there's married and then there's married," Fabia says happily, "and widows, sweetie… what I could tell you about widows. Or perhaps you've noticed."
Frid eyes her reproachfully. "The widow of another good, old friend, madam. It would hardly be appropriate."
"You're quite mad, sweetie," Fabia informs him, reaching behind herself for her tea (more leg) and sipping it daintily. "Consider it. Don't you think, if he were looking down from Heaven and saw her, quite alone, he'd rather it were a man like you, someone he could trust absolutely to be good to her, than some foolish stranger? Really," she sighs, shaking her head at him over the tea-cup. "If he loved her unselfishly, of course that would be his wish."
Frid folds his hands behind his back, looking up to the ceiling in case he has allies there to back him up. "And this, madam, is why you don't get to meet my friends. Much as I appreciate your concern, and I do, I am a contented old bachelor, and happy to remain that way."
So amusing. Fabia giggles tremendously. "Old!" she scoffs, and turns back to her looking-glass (all the leg in the world, though Frid, by the blessing of his allies, misses it this time). "But you know I'd never suggest you be other than a bachelor, sweetie, it would be so inconvenient for me to have to send you home to a wife every evening…" She shakes her head dismayingly, whilst removing the lids from assorted cut-crystal jars. "I just like people to have a good time, you know that. Mind you I suppose that's what your lady friend with the meter is for." She winks at him. He probably misses that too.
While he might miss the wink, he certainly catches the comment if his sudden light pinkness is any reflection. "I have always considered myself to be a gentleman, madam. A lady should be treated with the utmost respect and care."
"What if that's not quite what she wants? Shouldn't her wishes matter more than your idea of what her wishes ought to be?" his employer teases, massaging scented cream into her long neck, pushing her dressing-gown farther open so as not to get it sticky.
Frid just quietly clears his throat, changing the subject. "More tea, madam? Bread and butter?"
"… Have we any celery?"
"A Bloody Mary, madam?" Frid immediately queries, moving over to the drinks trolley.
"Make it a Bloody Enormous Mary, sweetie, if I'm to get through the day." Fabia sighs, and slathers her face with another sort of expensive French cream. Though she can't keep her eyes shut; she peeks and peeks again at Frid through white-edged lashes, admiring the hue of his cheeks, knowing she's scored. Perhaps later in the day she'll return to the subject of dancing…