Something Light (13 page)

Mr. McAndrew, divided between wanting to say that he'd often seen staff-photographer photographs of meets in the
Times
, and that he hadn't been referring to meets at all, muttered something about not that kind of hound in particular, not the foxhunting sort, just country sorts of dogs in general, the kind you found around country houses. “I'm so sorry, I thought you said
hounds,”
apologized Louisa sweetly. The two typists—this particular exchange took place at breakfast—began to giggle. Though all Scots are naturally argumentative, Mr. McAndrew looked at the girls, looked at Louisa, and held his peace—slammed down again.

Another point on which Louisa preferred Broydon Court to the Pines was that she got more exercise: wet or fine, Ivor and Ivan Cracarovitch were like herself always ready for a walk.—Sometimes the Admiral came too, and once had a really exhilarating row with the Common-keeper. (“The lady's to exercise her beasts as she damn well pleases!” roared Admiral Colley. Ivor had bowled over a tricycle.) Each day until six o'clock, though still a parenthesis, passed really agreeably; and at six Louisa called for Jimmy at the shop.

She had no fears now, of too impetuously reviving old memories. It was Jimmy himself who suggested a pilgrimage to the Free Library.

2

Slightly to Louisa's disappointment it had been rather smartened up—gay wrappers off new books pinned to a board in the lobby, a positively enticing Children's Corner arranged in the Reading Room; a couple of cases of Stone Age bric-a-brac had vanished altogether. (“Where's the mammoth's tooth?” complained Louisa—it used to have a third, a special case to itself: vanished too.) But back in the stacks, between B for Biography and C for Ceramics, something of the old gloom lingered; and something of the old sentiment as well.

“D'you remember, Louisa?”

“Do I not!” sighed Louisa nostalgically. “You'd be surprised how much biography I picked up … waiting about.”

“
I
picked up a good deal about ceramics—waiting about.”

“You practically taught me to open a book,” said Louisa.—“I had to do
something,”
she added honestly, “waiting about.”

“I can't see why you waited for me at all. It wasn't always,” said Jimmy, rather perceptively, “raining …”

“I suppose I liked you,” said Louisa.

“Even with my pebble lenses and my spots?”

“I didn't notice them.”

“That I don't believe,” stated Jimmy. “Everyone in Broydon noticed 'em. You were just kind, Louisa—as you are still …”

It was the most on-coming conversation they had yet had; but
che va piano va sicuro!
—Entering the Library, Louisa had had some idea of being kissed by Jimmy, in the stacks between B for Biography and C for Ceramics. If she'd at that moment offered her cheek, he quite probably would have kissed her. But
che va piano va sicuro!
Mrs. Anstruther might have been at her elbow, as Louisa laughed and led the way out.

3

On another occasion, before dining as usual at the Theater Club—(As usual! How precious a phrase!)—Jimmy took Louisa to see what he'd made of his own semi-detached heritage.

“Of course it's freehold,” explained Jimmy seriously, “so I didn't mind spending a bit. But what d'you think of it, Louisa?”

Louisa beheld changes no less startling than those at Telscombe Road. But they were of a different sort—not from austere to easy-going, but from dowdy comfort to absolute elegance. She gazed about in unfeigned admiration. Where was now the over-furnished, slightly stuffy parlor? One wall at least must have been knocked down: between back and front windows stretched a relatively spacious apartment, made to appear all the more spacious by a glass door that separated it from, without concealing, a kitchen papered with cabbage roses. Where was now the upright piano, where now were all those bound volumes of the
National Geographic?
Louisa remembered: the scouts had carted them off. Had the scouts carted off the piano too? In any case, in its room now stood a handsome radio-gramophone; as the emptied bookshelves now housed long-playing records …

There was almost no furniture at all, save for one long, low divan covered in Picasso-influence linen, and a bamboo coffee table. This was in the front part of the room. In the dining alcove to the rear, Jimmy had gone Regency.

“I didn't care for it much either,” said Jimmy, watching her, “as it was. You weren't the only one, Louisa, to have ideas!”

If he was surprising her more and more, each surprise was a pleasant one.—Louisa would have liked to see the bedroom, but really felt she could take it on trust.

4

This was on the Sunday; Louisa had already been five days at Broydon Court, and was thoroughly aware that the Wednesday must put a period to her stay. (Dining out each night hadn't exactly saved her bacon, with Mrs. Brent, but it was just as well that she did.) The ill luck of losing one last evening out of two with Jimmy, however, so far from depressed her, she returned alone to the Court, on the Monday, in excellent spirits.

To discover a common taste for bamboo and theater-clubs had been truly delightful. What Louisa still desired most from a husband was stability; and nothing could have better confirmed her belief in Jimmy's basic steadiness, than his reason for letting her down.

“I clean forgot,” apologized Jimmy—Louisa calling for him as usual—“but I've an appointment with the dentist. Until I looked at my diary just now, I'd clean forgotten. And as he's taking me after hours, as a bit of a favor, I don't like to cry off.”

“I wouldn't want you to,” said Louisa warmly.—She was naturally disappointed, but even more struck by such a proof of sterling character. Having toothache, Jimmy made an appointment with the dentist; having an excuse for postponing it, he refrained. In Louisa's experience, getting a man to the dentist's was like getting a cat to the vet's.

“I suppose you don't want me to come with you?” suggested Louisa tentatively.

“Good heavens, why?” exclaimed Jimmy.

In happy contrast Louisa recalled practically doping Number Ten with gin, before inducing him to benefit by the National Health Service. If it had been not a dentist's but an electric chair she was haling him to, he could hardly have shown more reluctance; and that after six sleepless nights in a row …

“Are you having anything out?” asked Louisa hopefully.

“Just one at the back.”

“Wisdom?” pressed Louisa.

“Actually it's impacted,” said Jimmy casually.

Louisa sighed with pleasure. She wasn't unfeeling, she simply rejoiced in his solid worth. And as if this wasn't enough happiness—

“But tomorrow night,” said Jimmy earnestly, “I want you to do something you haven't done yet. I want you to have dinner with me at home.”

5

So on this penultimate evening Louisa returned to the Court alone, but by no means low-spirited. On the contrary; the evening in prospect, domestically tête-à-tête, offered exactly the circumstances she would have chosen for springing a matrimonial trap. (Louisa had ceased to identify herself with Colonel Hamlyn, or C. P. Coe. She didn't want Jimmy bagged like moose or wilde-beeste. It was rather with that skilled trapper Enid Anstruther that she now identified herself. In either case, quite honestly, she didn't see Jimmy standing a chance.)

Loping back across the Common, Louisa recapitulated in sober contentment his many admirable qualities. Of all the men she'd ever met, he was the best able to look after himself. (This mightn't have been an attraction to some women, but it was to Louisa.) He might have clean forgotten an appointment—but only until he looked at his diary. (Most of the men Louisa knew didn't even possess diaries.) Fondly her thoughts returned to their first re-encounter, when even in the excitement of her presence he hadn't forgotten Ibsen night … steadily attended over how many years? If ever there was a steady man breathing—a man able to look after himself—it was Jimmy Brown.

Passing the tangled thicket where once honeysuckle bloomed, Louisa noticed that the path alongside had been asphalted. But she'd never picked honeysuckle with Jimmy, and wasn't asphalt far more practical?

Soberly content, gratefully optimistic, Louisa regained Broydon Court; and there stationed before the door beheld F. Pennon's Rolls.

Chapter Fourteen

1

She backed into the rhododendrons.—The movement was purely instinctive, an instinctive recoil before all the complications of the past. Fond of men as she was, and particularly fond as she was of F. Pennon, Louisa backed so abruptly into the rhododendrons she scratched her nape on a protrusive twig. But she had to come out again. Mrs. Brent, who had evidently been lying in wait, hurried breathless down the drive.

“You've a visitor!” panted Mrs. Brent, in urgent but congratulatory tones. “He's in the lounge. He wouldn't have tea. In fact—I'm afraid I counted him as a
resident!
—he's ordered a bottle of champagne.”

At least Freddy was in his usual form, thought Louisa; and the idea of a glass of champagne wasn't unwelcome to herself. Mrs. Brent hurried her on, pausing only to cast an admiring glance at the Rolls. (“He hasn't
said
anything,” panted Mrs. Brent, “but if he
should
want to stay, I could have a bedroom ready in an hour.”) At the lounge door, however, with a movement of irritating discretion, she drew back. Louisa rubbed the scratch on her nape, hardened her heart, and entered, warily …

There was Freddy with his bottle all right, neighboring Miss Wilbraham's patience table. A slight circumstance to touch her: a glass foamed among the patience cards too. Freddy had never liked to drink alone, but for Miss Wilbraham, what a treat! Still warily, however—

“Hi,” said Louisa.

“You've
been a hell of a time,” complained Freddy at once.

“Did I know you were coming?” retorted Louisa.

She advanced, and sat. (Miss Wilbraham hiccoughed gently.) There was a third glass set ready, but a glance at the bottle was discouraging. Freddy and Miss Wilbraham between them had almost polished it off.

“There's another on ice,” Freddy reassured her. “Probably among the corpses,” he added. “What extraordinary places you do find, Louisa!”

“Actually I'm here on a job,” said Louisa repressively. “I know you've never realized I'm a professional—”

“Probably run in and out on slabs,” elaborated Freddy. “Ever seen the Paris morgue?”

“At any rate you seem to have revived Miss Wilbraham,” snapped Louisa.

“Coming along nicely,” agreed Freddy complacently. “Now we'll see how the old allez-oop works …”

Incredibly, at Broydon Court, he clapped his hands. (Echoing the
trois coups
of Hugo's stage management!) Louisa still wasn't deceived; Freddy was being too larkish altogether. That old Albert the waiter immediately appeared with a fresh bottle of champagne gave him a temporary build-up; but he definitely wasn't his usual self …

Old Albert, with a flourish of dirty napkin, poured. Miss Wilbraham gently hiccoughed again. An absent, almost unconscious movement of her hand (which had just laid a red nine on a red ten) slid her glass across the ace of spades in Albert's general direction. (“Fill her up!” said Freddy.) In the short silence that followed Louisa took a welcome mouthful, and waited.

“Well, don't you want to know why I'm here?” asked Freddy at last.

“No,” said Louisa.

“That's a hell of a welcome, when I've driven all the way from Town.”

“Why aren't you at Bournemouth?” demanded Louisa.—For one alarming moment it crossed her mind that he had simply run away, that he was going to demand to be
hidden …
But at least it wasn't as bad as that.

“I shall probably drive back to Bournemouth tonight. I've come up to see my lawyers.”

“Ah!” said Louisa. “Settlements?”

“That's it. I don't know how you guessed, but you're right. Enid's going to marry me next month,” stated Freddy—with a sort of heroic detachment.

“And why not?” said Louisa. “I think you're both being very sensible, not to wait. And if you've driven all the way from Town just to tell me, I think it's very sweet.”

He hesitated.

“As a matter of fact, that isn't the
only
reason,” said F. Pennon.

This time Louisa refilled her glass herself.—Indeed, she had refilled it twice, before Freddy came to the end of his remarkable proposition.

2

It was such as only a very rich man, and a very uninhibited rich man, could have even contemplated. F. Pennon was preeminently both; but perhaps the most surprising point of all was that he didn't appear to see anything unusual in it.

“It simply occurred to me,” explained Freddy, “and the deuce knows why I didn't think of it before—while I'm
making
settlements, why don't I make one on you too?”

Louisa gaped. At this point, she could say nothing at all.

“Say three or four hundred a year,” proceeded old Freddy reasonably. “Just pin money, y'know; because of course you wouldn't have any expenses.—I suppose you haven't changed your mind about the other thing?” he hazarded, almost in parenthesis. “I mean, marrying me?”

Louisa shook her head.

“I thought not. And you're quite right; I'm too old. I respected you, Louisa, for turning me down, even though I took a knock. So I've thought of this,” continued Freddy, more cheerfully, “because we did, didn't we, get on uncommonly well?—all three of us?—and at the same time you wouldn't care to take a salary. A settlement would look after everything.”

Although by this time Louisa realized that what he had in mind was nothing short of a permanent
ménage à trois
, at least she had the sense not to feel insulted. He was old, was old Freddy, and beginning to know it; he wasn't seeking a mistress, he was seeking, rather pathetically, a friend. Of course he wanted a buffer too; but as he sat gazing at her across the card table Louisa read in his wistful glance chiefly a desire for her friendship. Nor did she accuse him of trying to buy it: his standards were such that he quite probably imagined her earning far more than three or four hundred a year (pin money) already. He simply didn't want her to lose on the deal.