Something Light (23 page)

When Louisa went round collecting laundry, she found they'd all made their beds.

She left Mr. Clark at table; he for once was being unusually slow. “Would you mind,” asked Louisa, “if I didn't stay to pour your second cup? I want to get on with the wash.”—She had a pretty shrewd idea that this wouldn't offend him, and it didn't; “‘Those who wash on Monday,'” quoted Mr. Clark humorously, “‘have all the week to dry—'” “On a day like this,” cried Louisa vigorously, “It'll by dry by lunchtime!”

She had the kitchen to herself, for Mrs. Temple, frustrated in clearing away breakfast, observed that all things being equal she might as well trot off to her own dhobi. (“In the washing machine,” observed Mrs. Temple; adding, “If you're still at that lark in a month's time, I'll eat my old man's hat.”) Louisa was perfectly agreeable; she had formed the daring project of attempting to iron a shirt, and greatly preferred to be free of the cynical and experienced Temple eye. She didn't overestimate her powers; the shirts she was used to were the drip-dry variety; Louisa meant to start with one of Toby's, and work up by degrees, through Paul's, before so much as setting iron to tail on one of Mr. Clark's.—It is almost impossible to credit; Louisa's happy fancy actually envisaged
starch;
for stiff or evening shirts. But she was well aware that starch must lie in the future; and for the moment just picked out Toby's worst. Even that she set aside until she'd done the woollens, she wanted to get them out as soon as possible in the good drying wind …

“A
month!”
thought Louisa, echoing Mrs. Temple—and plunging half a dozen socks into blood-temperature suds. Why, years could pass before she tired of such delightful employment! It still pleased her that Mrs. Temple had said a month; a month was the latter's general time-unit, the equivalent of indefinitely. Mrs. Temple no less than the children, it seemed, considered her as a fixture! And let but a week or two more lapse, thought Louisa happily, just going quietly on as they were now—
che va piano va sicuro
, softly-softly catchee monkey—and she was pretty confident herself that such would be her happy fate.

Without in the least meaning to go back on her word, she had an idea that it might be wise to postpone her good offices on behalf of the children as long as possible—until Mr. Clark, as they'd said themselves, felt really cozy and safe.

Happily Louisa soaked and squeezed and rinsed out socks. She had a dozen pairs out in the orchard before ten. Not one bird but a whole family were going tweet there. “Suet for Christmas!” Louisa promised them. “Pass the word!”

It hadn't occurred to her, all this time, to wonder what had become of Mr. Clark. Subconsciously, she presumed he'd taken himself off like the children. But just as she'd put in the third batch of woolens to soak, there at the kitchen door, coffee cup in hand, Mr. Clark appeared. In the other hand he held two more coffee cups, neatly piled on a plate.

As the children had made their beds for her, so now their father was clearing the breakfast table. Louisa's heart beat.

—Rapidly she checked over the times when it had so beaten, at least recently, before. When old Freddy, recalled Louisa, suddenly rose from a game of chess; when Jimmy Brown, by candlelight, sat down beside her opposite a bamboo coffee table; neither moment could compare, for true romance, with this; as Mr. Clark bore in the washing-up …

“I thought you were gone,” said Louisa inadequately.

“So I should be,” agreed Mr. Clark. “So I shall be, in a few moments. I just thought I'd bring out these.”

“Put them down, will you?” said Louisa. “I'll wash up afterwards.”

“What are you so busy at now?” inquired Mr. Clark.

Actually what Louisa had in the suds at that moment were his own longs. What a delightfully intimate circumstance! But instinct warned her to suppress it. She suspected in Mr. Clark a more than maiden modesty about his underwear. And while she hesitated—

“If you imagine I didn't hear, last night,” said Mr. Clark, smiling at her, “I did. All the children chattering in your room!”

2

For a moment Louisa was thoroughly disconcerted. Hadn't she just decided to wait, before taking up the children's battle?—but if the opportunity turned out as fair as it promised, it might have to be seized.—Just at the moment, however, she hastily threw Toby's shirt into the suds as well, in order to have something unembarrassing to pull out.

“I must say I liked to hear it,” continued Mr. Clark. “Not of course as a regular thing, bedtime is bedtime; but just for once I admit it pleased me very much. It seemed to confirm an opinion.”

Louisa's heart started thumping again.
If the opportunity turned out as fair as it promised
—! What if the opportunity was for
her?
—Mr. Clark overcome by sudden recklessness?

She found just enough breath to say she was very glad.

“I wonder if you can guess what I thought it sounded like?”

The suds rose in a sort of enormous meringue as Louisa, now unconsciously, added a pair of Paul's pajamas.

“It sounded like the hum of a happy hive.”

Lunatically, Louisa tipped in some half pound of soap flakes. Meringue thickened to porridge.

“About the queen bee.”

By this time there were thick, glutinous suds not only all over the draining board, but also all down the front of Louisa's apron. Probably there were suds in her hair. One at least Louisa wiped off her nose. But it was with as much confidence as though she'd just emerged from a beauty parlor that she at last turned to meet Mr. Clark's eyes.

“What were they talking to you about?” asked Mr. Clark.

3

Reaping the fruit of her forethought, Louisa pulled out Toby's shirt. It was so full of soap it felt like a chamois leather; however the mere attempt to wring it afforded her a moment's grace. She needed one: the sudden shift of focus, from her own future back to the children's, was peculiarly unwelcome. But the opportunity to speak for them—Mr. Clark stood waiting inquisitively—wasn't so much offered as absolutely thrust upon her.

“Well, about their ambitions,” said Louisa nervously.

“Ah! In the publishing business,” nodded Mr. Clark. “Naturally it will be some years before the boys join me; but I'm glad to know they have ambitions about it! I dare say,” he added whimsically, “they've some rather revolutionary ideas?”

“Well, yes,” said Louisa.

“I fully anticipate so. Paul will probably want me to put out Primers of Russian by the Direct Method—whatever that may be!”

What the hell was Louisa to say next? Her impulse, on purely selfish grounds, was to cozy Mr. Clark on every point; moreover she sincerely found his attitude not only reasonable, but sympathetic. Wasn't there an endearing parental pride implicit in his very jest at Paul the revolutionary? But Louisa had made a promise not to Mr. Clark but to the children; and she kept it.

“I'm afraid it's a bit more revolutionary than that,” confessed Louisa. “They want to go and make jets.”

4

The sun still shone outside. The big kitchen, warmed by both sun and Louisa's reckless use of hot water, was still warm as a greenhouse. Yet from some quarter blew a chilly wind. The big mound of soap suds slowly collapsed.

“So that was what they were talking to you about,” said Mr. Clark ominously. “I hope you gave them no encouragement?”

“I
tried
not to,” apologized Louisa, “only they seemed to have everything so worked out. And if they really
can
go to Rolls's—”

His glance cut her short. It wasn't definitely accusing, but it cut her short.

“That headmaster of theirs has much to answer for,” said Mr. Clark coldly. “I don't blame my sons; but I shall see their headmaster today.”

“Honestly, I don't believe anyone's been influencing them,” persisted Louisa. “They've both got very strong characters—like yours. I believe it's just that they both know exactly what they're interested in; and it's jets.”

“Machinery!” snapped Mr. Clark contemptuously. “Didn't I give them their Vespas?”

“And how wonderfully understanding of you!” agreed Louisa eagerly. (If this was her private opinion, unshared by Paul and Toby, she was still firm in it. She didn't speak to mollify. Louisa still refused to regard the boys' Vespas, any more than Catherine's horse, as a bribe.—The thought of Catherine's treachery, yet to be revealed, made her almost quake; she hurried on to get the boys over first.) “In fact, what really worries them,” said Louisa—skipping several intermediate stages—“is that they'd have to go and live in digs.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” said Mr. Clark bitterly. “That the idea of leaving the family roof arouses at least some little worry. To me it's simply unnatural.” He paused, and with an unexpected gesture dropped his hand—as he might have dropped it on Toby's head—on Toby's shirt. “Isn't their natural place here with their father?” asked Mr. Clark sadly.

Louisa hesitated. She found both plea and gesture deeply touching; yet by some trick of memory what struck her most was Mr. Clark's reference to himself in the third person. It was a locution she recalled of old—
If you'd only show your aunt a little gratitude
, or,
Your aunt is only doing her best for you
—and Louisa recalled also how extraordinarily irritating she'd found it. She did her best to put the memory aside.

“They'd be home quite often,” pleaded Louisa. “They're looking forward to that already. All of them!”

“All of them?” repeated Mr. Clark incredulously.
“All
of them? Do you mean to say that Cathy too has some such preposterous notion—of leaving home?”

Whether because she'd just remembered Aunt May, or whether from sheer nervous strain, Louisa suddenly lost her head.

“But she's told you about it herself!” cried Louisa impatiently. “Just as the boys have told you about Rolls's! For heaven's sake, you can't pretend you don't know
anything!”

The hand on Toby's shirt dropped.

“I am not aware of ‘pretending' in any sense,” said Mr. Clark coldly. “All three of my children have, I agree, from time to time talked a great deal of rubbish to me; naturally I paid no attention.”

“That wasn't very respectful,” said Louisa sadly.

Fortunately he misunderstood her. His look softened.

“I'm glad you agree with me there. I did, as I thought, end the whole foolish business—at least as concerned Cathy—so recently as on Saturday night; I'm only sorry she brought it up again to pester
you
with.” He smiled. “I see she
got round
you!” accused Mr. Clark. (Accused and forgave as it were in the same breath.) “My daughter Cathy is a very beguiling young miss. No doubt a nurses' hostel seems very glamorous to her; no doubt she sees herself as a modern Florence Nightingale. But if you were as accustomed to handling a family as I am,” said Mr. Clark, now quite mildly, “you'd realize that there are times when to seem harsh is to be most truly kind.”

Louisa, she couldn't help it, thought of birdlime.

“I dare say the boys
got round
you too,” added Mr. Clark forgivingly. “Young fools! Some day, naturally, they will leave the—”

“Nest?” supplied Louisa.

He looked pleased.

“I like to know that you think of it as that too.—When my sons are old enough to marry, and if they find nice suitable girls—
not
the sort who'd be content with mechanics!—I shall naturally expect them to leave. I shan't even suggest splitting up this house—though it could well be managed—into self-contained flats. But
until
that day arrives, the place of all three is obviously here at home with their father.”

He looked confidently at Louisa for agreement. He was reckoning, and rightly, on her natural desire to take his side. He knew just as well as Louisa, did Mr. Clark, what was in the wind! But he reckoned without Aunt May.

“I do wish,” exclaimed Louisa uncontrollably, “you wouldn't keep calling yourself their father!”

A last soap bubble rose and burst, as Mr. Clark's brow grew dark.

“Since I
am
their father—” he began, ominously again.

“Yes, of course, but haven't you ever noticed how irritating it is,” begged Louisa, “to the young? I mean, look at Hamlet; ‘Let not thy
mother
lose her prayers, Hamlet!'—one can't wonder that he almost throttled her. I'm only trying to help,” said Louisa.

“You make it hard for me to believe,” stated Mr. Clark. He paused, regarding her, all too obviously, with fresh eyes. “In fact, what I'm beginning to believe, though with what disappointment I can hardly express, is that you would positively abet my children in their foolishness.”

It was at this point that Louisa, ever a realist, recognized herself in the position of one who may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

“Yes, I do,” said Louisa brusquely, “because it isn't foolishness. I've never in my life met three such thoroughly sensible young people making such thoroughly sensible plans. I only wish you'd given birth to Hugo Pym—or any of the Pammies! Then you
would
have something to complain about!—But there's another thing as well,” said Louisa, pausing in turn; “something that as an outsider I dare say I've no right to talk about at all. Only I must, because it's so important …”

Mr. Clark waited—no more.

“They all
want
—Catherine and Toby and Paul—to be able to love you again.”

He didn't flinch; he froze.

“It's only your holding them back,” continued Louisa recklessly, “from everything they want to do—Paul and Toby from going to Rolls's, Catherine from taking her training as a nurse—that's made them
stop
loving you. They remember Guy Fawkes Night and—and everything. Can't you see what a serious thing it is,” pressed Louisa, “to stop the flow of love?”