Something Light (2 page)

The table itself was gay with brightly striped oilcloth, china of several patterns, and paper napkins advertising cider. It was also, comparatively speaking, laden: marmalade and margarine elbowed a whole untouched loaf (the sustaining rye variety, with poppy seeds on top), and there was even a half slice of toast left over from the day before, which Louisa intended to tidy up first. The cream was merely an extra.

Louisa looked at it uneasily.

“What am I
doing
with cream, anyway?” thought Louisa. “I can't afford it, it was sheer greed …”

By a fortunate coincidence, however, she had promised to look in that afternoon on a producer of off-beat plays recovering from bronchitis. She took just one spoonful, neat, and set the jar on the window ledge outside to keep cool for Hugo.

The kettle boiling, she made her coffee and sat down.—How good the bread and marmalade—marmalade masking the flavor of margarine—how good the taste of coffee, enriched by an aftermath of cream!

“You know what?” Louisa addressed the absent milkman. “I'm actually on velvet.”

She chewed with conscious deliberation, making each mouthful last as long as possible; was careful not to lose any of the poppy seeds. There was no hurry; she had no professional engagement that morning—or indeed that day. A nation of dog-lovers obviously wouldn't let her starve, but the whole week was in fact a bit of a blank, in the dog line.…

“I'll take it easy,” Louisa consoled herself. “I'll have a good easy …”

On the thin party wall Number Ten rapped again.

“Miss Datchett?”

“Outside the door,” called Louisa impatiently.

“Thank you, I have found it,” called back Number Ten. “Thank you very much.—Just to say, Miss Datchett, I have the box quite ready!”

With sinking heart Louisa recalled one of her rasher promises: she was going to try and peddle some of his horrible beechnuts for him round the artier and craftier boutiques.

She recalled also Hugo down with bronchitis, and a Hungarian sculptor for whom she was finding a studio. Dogs might be lacking, but never men, to keep her occupied …

“I feel jaded,” thought Louisa.

At that moment the milkman yodeled again. (On top of everything else, she had a histrionic milkman.) She opened grudgingly, while her coffee cooled.

“Hope on, hope ever,” said the milkman. “There was a letter for you below; I've brought it up.”

Chapter Two

1

Louisa didn't often get letters. (She got telegrams, or picture post cards.) She examined the envelope with what she afterwards believed to be prophetic interest.

It was large and expensive, and the writing was unfamiliar, for F. Pennon had never written to her before.—Indeed, Louisa didn't even know, till she read the letter inside, that his initial was F.

Upon large expensive paper, headed Gladstone Mansions, W.I.—

My dear Louisa
(wrote F. Pennon)

I hope you may remember me from Cannes last spring
—
the lonely old bachelor you were so kind to? I remember you very well indeed, and would very much like to see you again. Will you come and have tea with me as soon as possible? I remember your saying you enjoyed a good tea, and scones and honey shall await you here daily. I telephoned you several times during the last week, but you were always out
—
though not, I sincerely trust, out of Town
.

May I say
, à bientôt?

F. Pennon

Prophetic interest or no, Louisa had at first some difficulty in placing F. Pennon at all. That week at Cannes had been hectic: it was the single burst of luxury her career had ever brought her, when an Italian film star whose poodles she'd photographed in London summoned her out to the film festival to photograph them again with additional publicity. In gratitude for the gesture Louisa cooperated wholeheartedly—even to the extent of faking a Rescue by Poodles in Rough Sea—but she'd also enjoyed herself.—
How
she'd enjoyed herself! Among so many breath-takingly beautiful women, each
soignée
to the last eyebrow, Louisa's harum-scarum looks seemed to bring many a cameraman relief. (The likenesses of Bobby and René and Kurt still hailed her from the mantelshelf, affectionately dedicated in three languages.) With Bobby and René and Kurt, Louisa, whenever off poodle-duty, had for a week made such carefree fiesta, the details were naturally blurred … Thus when after a little thought F. Pennon's image finally emerged (like a weak negative in the hypo bath), it was merely as that of the man Bobby hit with a roll.

And who'd been so nice about it—the image became more precise—they asked him over to their table—at the Poule d'Or, at the Moulin Vert?—and who'd afterwards rather strung along with them, picking up the bills.

Which he invariably paid by check …

Louisa found herself remembering this quite clearly—and indeed it was a circumstance to excite general admiration: absolutely anyone in Cannes took F. Pennon's checks. And not only took them, but if necessary cashed them …

Than which there is no more infallible sign, as René pointed out, of truly formidable riches.

At this stage in her recollections Louisa carried the letter back to her kitchenette, and there dissected it like a biologist dissecting a frog.

2

My dear Louisa …

He knew
her
Christian name. But then men always did.

I hope you may remember me
…

Louisa had. With an additional effort, however, she now recalled something of F. Pennon's appearance: he resembled a Sealyham. Whether it was because of this that she also recalled him as elderly—all Sealyhams looking elderly from puppyhood—or whether it was the other way round, she wasn't quite sure. “Let it pass!” thought Louisa, reading on.

…
would very much like to see you again
.

He'd liked seeing her at Cannes. A certain shy attentiveness had been unmistakable; it was upon Louisa, they all agreed, his benevolence was chiefly directed—the others just cashed in. She herself, having such a good time, merely scooped him up into her all-embracing bonhomie without learning so much as his initial. (His address was indeed peculiarly stiff: like a Sealyham's. “Come on over, this is Uncle Bobby apologizing!” shouted Bobby. “The name is Pennon,” said Mr. Pennon; and Mr. Pennon he'd remained to them throughout the week.) But attentive he'd certainly been, in a cagy way, and Louisa seemed to remember him more than once providing her with aspirins.

Her eye traveled on.

I remember your saying you enjoyed a good tea …

What meal didn't Louisa enjoy? It was a pity she hadn't said a good dinner, or even a good lunch; even so, F. Pennon plainly recalled her slightest word.—At this point Louisa opened the window, reached in the cream, and poured a good dollop into her coffee.

I telephoned you several times …

Yes, but why only
during the last few weeks?
A year had elapsed, since Cannes; it was now May again. Perhaps he'd been abroad again, thought Louisa; perhaps he'd been abroad the whole time? He was certainly staying on at Cannes, and she had a vague recollection of his mentioning South Africa.—In any case,
several times
—let alone
as soon as possible
—he was eager enough now!

May I say
, à bientôt?

“The more
bientôt
the better!” thought Louisa warmly.

Then she read the whole letter through again, and came to a swift decision.

Her first impulse was to telephone herself; on second thoughts she sent a telegram. She felt that a preliminary, disembodied conversation would somehow take the dew off their meeting—and wasn't the day hers to name?
WITH YOU FOUR
-
THIRTY LOUISA
, dictated Louisa confidently. She very nearly made it a Greetings Telegram, only none of the forms suggested by the operator seemed quite to meet the case.

As has been said, she had no professional engagements; and could easily take round Hugo's cream in the morning instead of the afternoon.

3

“You seem to have had a whack at it already,” said Hugo ungratefully.

He was sitting up in bed, his thin little neck protruding from a dirty turtle-neck sweater, under a counterpane littered with play-scripts. These however were so maculate already, with tea, cocoa and gin, that an additional drop of cream wouldn't make much difference.

“I had good news,” apologized Louisa. “I took it, quite honestly, for you—at least my subconscious did—then I had good news, and a spot somehow got into my coffee. Eat it up, it'll build you.”

Hugo fished a teaspoon from under his pillow, dipped and licked.—The lenient gulletful improved his manners.

“What sort of good news?”

“I'm going to get married,” said Louisa.

It is remarkable how swiftly, once seeded, the idea of matrimony burgeons in a woman's mind. Some women indeed think of practically nothing else until they stand gazing like startled fawns through a cloud of white tulle veiling; Louisa was so far from being one of these, if she passed a society wedding, two hundred housewives outside identifying themselves with the bride, Louisa identified herself with the photographers. When she opened F. Pennon's letter, only half an hour had elapsed since her conversation with the milkman, and her subsequent meditations on the lot of the independent modern woman, and her final conclusion as to the desirability of rich husbands all round; when she finished reading, her decision was as swift as if she'd been trained in a first-class finishing school. She was going to marry F. Pennon.

She was even slightly annoyed that Hugo should now regard her with evident astonishment.

“And why not?” inquired Louisa coldly. “I'm not a hag yet!”

“My dear! No reason in the world,” exclaimed Hugo, genuinely shocked. “You're
very
attractive. I mean, that's why I was surprised—you have such a good time knowing such dozens of men.”

Louisa looked at the stack of dirty plates on the floor beside his bed. In a few minutes, she supposed she'd be having a good time washing them. Quite possibly Number Ten imagined she'd have a good time peddling his beechnuts. “And whose fault is it?” thought Louisa honestly. “It's not men's, it's mine. I've asked for it, I've made a hobby of it, I've been the original Good Sort …” She was damned if she'd wash Hugo's dishes, but neither would she do him injustice.—As he suddenly coughed like a sick sheep, she hadn't the heart even to disillusion him.

“Of course you're right,” agreed Louisa. “I've had a marvelous time. Particularly with you, Hugo dear. I still think I'll get married.”

“I suppose it
is
the modern thing to do,” coughed Hugo, recovering aplomb. “I'm so old-fashioned, I just live in sin.”

Louisa cast an understanding but expert eye over the traditional attic. There wasn't room, between peeling wall and unwashed window, to swing a cat; but love (or sin), Louisa was aware, in the circles in which Hugo moved rather throve on squalor. Not a stocking, however, hung to dry …

“I know you'd
like
to—” began Louisa sympathetically.

“My dear good girl,” snapped Hugo, now annoyed in turn, “I assure you I slept with Pammy actually last night.”

“Then when you've still got bronchitis it was very silly,” said Louisa. She paused, and looked round again. Not a stocking, not a flower!—and not a thermometer. “What
I
mean is,” explained Louisa, “if you were really
living
in sin with Pammy, she'd be here now, looking after you in sin.”

“Actually she's got a rehearsal,” said Hugo sulkily.

“Which is precisely the point,” said Louisa.—She paused again, suddenly and surprisedly aware of what she really had in mind; which was, briefly, that she herself wouldn't be giving up work (as she fully intended to do, upon marrying F. Pennon) solely because F. Pennon could support her, but also because she recognized certain reciprocal claims. If F. Pennon had bronchitis, she, Louisa, wouldn't be out photographing poodles! Nor was the idea unwelcome; in fact she desired such claims—on her time, on her affection;
but from a husband
.

Louisa looked at Hugo thoughtfully. She was very fond of him. He was a brave little twirp. Not one of his off-beat plays had ever succeeded, he currently stage-managed at an Outer London rep.; and though it was there, in the drafty wings, he caught his bronchitis, so dedicated was he that he crawled from his bed and back into the drafts each night. Louisa was not only fond of Hugo, she admired him. His dogged, masculine single-mindedness, in the face of so much discouragement, struck her as little short of heroic. All the same she felt, suddenly, extremely tired of him.

“It's time I had some proper claims made on me,” thought Louisa, “before I turn into the original Mother Figure …”

She stood up.

“Darling, you aren't
going?
” protested Hugo incredulously.

“I've got to look in at the shop,” said Louisa.

“But you haven't told me about your Intended. I'm all agog, honestly I am! Who is he?”

“Someone I've known for quite a while,” said Louisa.

“Has he any money?”

“Quite a lot,” said Louisa, rather sharply. “But that's not only why I'm marrying him.”

By now, strangely enough, it was true.—Who more mercenary than Louisa, that very breakfast-time, as she contemplated her lot as an independent modern woman? Who more mercenary than Louisa as she dissected F. Pennon's letter and sent off her wire? During the intervening hours, she had grown fond of him. In a sense this was only to be expected, she was fond of most men; the fact remained that though his money was an essential factor, she now thought of F. Pennon with genuine affection, and thoroughly resented, on his behalf, Hugo's tone.