He is now directing a play in London called Otherwise Engaged, and that, said Actress Vivien Merchant, is just what her husband, Playwright Harold Pinter, 44, has been for the past several months. Last week Merchant, 46, announced that she was divorcing the author of The Homecoming and The Caretaker after 19 years of marriage. The reason: his alleged love affair with Lady Antonia Fraser, 42, bestselling historian (Mary Queen of Scots) and willful social lioness of London. "It seems he is possessed by Lady Antonia," said Merchant. "She has cast a spell over him. How she can do it with six children to look after, I don't know."

Lady Antonia, a lithe blonde, has been married since 1956 to Tory M.P. Hugh Fraser. Her father is the Earl of Longford, a sturdy Roman Catholic peer and tireless moralizer whose antismut campaigns have earned him the nickname "Lord Porn." She is an avid collector--of white dresses (she has 100), and of personages literary, theatrical and political. Her companions have included Author Norman Mailer, Actor Robert Stephens and Lord Lambton, the Tory M.P. who quit Parliament last year after being photographed in bed with a call girl.

Pinter, by contrast, is the only son of a Jewish tailor from London's rugged East End. Darkly handsome with thinning hair, he spent almost a decade as a stage actor, turned to writing in the 1950s, and soon developed into an acclaimed, though sometimes confounding chronicler of English subsociety. He once called cricket, the theater and his family his three main obsessions in life, and for the past 19 years his marriage has been completely free of scandal. Now, apparently, he has become Lady Antonia's most intellectually prestigious admirer, and the one most jealous of his own privacy.

That did not daunt the irate Vivien Merchant, however, who answered her husband's pleas for discretion by making the whole plot public. "I had no idea she would talk about the matter," grumbled Pinter. "She told me she wouldn't." Though he is no longer at their $250,000 house overlooking Regents Park, his wife says that he has not carried away his books or his clothes. "He didn't need to take a pair of shoes," snipped the woman scorned. "He can always wear some of Antonia's.* She has very big feet, you know."

"She has almost become a symbol of all that Britain wants to stand for --something safe, sane, stable and as everlasting as the Tower of London," praised the Sunday Mirror. The tribute was just one of many inspired by the 75th birthday this week of Britain's Queen Mother, who endures as her country's beloved matriarch. Though she declined to appear for any television interviews, she willingly posed for an official birthday photo, and her royal family planned a black-tie dinner at Buckingham Palace complete with Scottish pipers, a three-tiered birthday cake and, rumor had it, some spoof gifts from Grandson Prince Charles. As one admirer explained, the "Queen Mum" has always enjoyed a good "legpull."

The feet may be halt, but the sentences run on. Reminiscing on his 85th birthday, Casey Stengel, who managed the New York Yankees and later the Mets, allowed as how "baseball has advanced so far" during his 65-year involvement with the game. Said Stengel: "There are more men playing and the tough part now is that maybe three or four are playing with dead arms and dead legs because it's too long a season and you've got to stay in shape every day and maybe they get stale." A bit hobbled himself since a long bout with the flu this past year, the Old Professor still plans to appear at the Los Angeles Dodgers' Old Timers Game later this month. His one worry: meeting up with a woman umpire. "The trouble with women umpires is that I couldn't argue with one," smiled Casey. "I'd put my arms around her and give her a little kiss."

* Fraser's shoe size is 9 1/2. Pinter takes a 10 1/2.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.