Something Light (24 page)

She made no more impression than the bird of legend brushing its wing across a granite pillar.

“A disappointment all the more bitter,” said Mr. Clark, going on from where he'd left off, “in that I had built, I admit, certain hopes. I had hoped that this week you've spent amongst us might have been but the first of many. I will be frank: I had hoped to see a united and happy family benefiting by your affection for many a year to come.”

“So had I,” said Louisa sadly.

“Instead of which it seems that your presence has been positively disruptive.”

“I suppose it
was
because I was here they felt they could get cracking,” admitted Louisa. “Because they felt you wouldn't be left all alone …”

Cool as a hardened villain—in the circumstances—Mr. Clark lifted his eyebrows.

“They could hardly imagine your remaining after they were gone? That would scarcely I think be suitable. However, after all you have told me—and, more importantly, after all they have seen fit to tell
you
—the inmost secrets of our family life bandied with a complete stranger!—I begin to feel their absence almost preferable.
Let
my children leave me!” exclaimed Mr. Clark, with sudden vigor. “It is possible I may be less lonely than they expect! With no childish likes and dislikes to consider—”

For some reason the image of a Saxon head and ruddy cheeks flashed into Louisa's mind. Could it be a
reflected
image?

“—I may even find the permanent companionship of a wife,” said Mr. Clark cruelly.

Then he did something Louisa was never to forgive. He sat down at the kitchen table, and took out his pen and checkbook, and wrote her out a check.

“I imagine five guineas will be sufficient?” said Mr. Clark. “For a week?”

“As I've had my keep as well, yes,” said Louisa.

He held his pen poised; as though he'd expected more gratitude for his liberality.

“You have also done a certain amount of laundry work?”

“Five guineas covers that too,” said Louisa. “Just sign on the dotted line, will you? Because when you get back tonight, I shan't be here.”

5

She felt without seeing the children again either. She couldn't bear to. She just wrote a note for Catherine.
“Darling, I'm sorry I can't help, tell the boys,”
scrawled Louisa.
“Try Lindy. And anyway try to love all the same
…” She paused, and with mingled wryness and yearning signed
“Your affectionate failed step-mamma, or Louisa.”

There was no love in her own heart, however, as she propped the note on Cathy's dressing table, in that flowery bedroom of a young girl's dreams; rather Louisa herself now saw its roses spoiled by birdlime …

In fact, lacerated as she was, Louisa bore away from Glenarvon far more substantial profit than five guineas. At last, she'd met a man she positively disliked. She was no longer
indiscriminately
fond of men. Moreover it may have been remarked that both her attention and her emotions, during that past week, had centered far more on the children than on their father. The male no longer, exclusively, filled her horizon.

In fact, it seemed as though she had come to a point where she could just take men or leave them.

Not without a pang, recalling each event of the two or three weeks preceding, she resolved to leave them.

—Not without a pang, but at least, after Mr. Clark, with the calm of final disillusion.

Part Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

1

“I must say you get around,” observed the milkman. “How was the grub this trip?”

With some surprise, Louisa realized that at Glenarvon she'd hardly noticed the food at all. Only one meal stayed in her memory: a picnic Sunday lunch …

“I suppose I ate,” said Louisa.

“But nothing tasty?” sympathized the milkman.

“Just plain family fare,” said Louisa.

“Well, why not treat yourself to a spot of cream?” suggested the milkman.

“Look,” said Louisa, “I may be what suffragettes chained themselves to railings for, I may be the
femme sole
with all her rights—”

“I remember you telling me,” said the milkman.

“—but all I've got out of it is that I can't afford cream. So lay off the high-pressure salesmanship.”

“I'm not on commission,” said the milkman, hurt. “That go for yoghurt too?”

She hesitated.

“Keep it on till the dairy cuts up rough,” said Louisa. “At any rate I've got a profession.”

2

She still had a profession. It was a defeat, in a way, to subside upon it; Louisa was still intellectually convinced, on behalf of all
femmes soles
, as to the desirability of either rich or steady husbands—now with a family if possible thrown in. But each of her own three attempts in this field having failed, at least she had a profession to fall back on.

“Let's face it,” thought Louisa. “I'm where I started. From now on, it's the dogs …”

Which made it all the more a pity that she'd forgotten, that last morning at Broydon, to load her camera. The shot Louisa now visualized was an absolute world-beater. She saw Ivor and Ivan on the cover of
Life
. She saw herself getting a gold medal for it. She saw everything, in fact, but the actual print, which didn't exist.

“Yes, and why doesn't it exist?” thought Louisa grimly. “Because my mind, that's why, wasn't on the job.”

It had been on Jimmy Brown; or, in other words, upon matrimony: just as at Glenarvon she hadn't thought to take a shot of Tomboy—the very subject for Pony Club Christmas cards!—because her mind had been on Mr. Clark. Louisa perceived that if she was to make anything of her profession at all, she'd better stick to it.

Mentally she burned her matrimonial boats; and being never one to do things by halves, immediately after a thin breakfast telephoned Hugo Pym.

3

“My dear Louisa!” cried Hugo warmly. “I've been trying to get hold of you for days!—How did he like it?”

It took Louisa a moment to think back—past Mr. Clark, past Jimmy Brown, to F. Pennon.

“It's all off,” said Louisa baldly.

There was an incredulous pause.

“If you're talking about the
show
, darling—” began Hugo Pym.

“No,” said Louisa. “I'm talking—”

“Because if you are, naturally it is. We're a rep. company.”

Louisa took a deep breath.

“Listen,” she said. “I'm talking, believe it or not, about myself. I'm not going to get married after all. So if you've spread the news around, you might just unspread it.”

Again there was a pause. Louisa had known explanations would be difficult, and they were.

“My dear girl,” returned Hugo firmly, “I simply don't believe you. It's too ridiculous.”

“Not ridiculous. Sad.”

“I meant, fantastic,” Hugo corrected himself. “Good heavens, Louisa, only a couple of weeks ago there I saw you with my own eyes absolutely
wallowing
in devotion! Absolutely biting my head off at the least
breath
—! Are you sure,” suggested Hugo hopefully, “it isn't just a lovers' tiff?”

“Quite sure,” said Louisa.

“I mean, it would be a pity if I couldn't put on my Aristophanes just because you've had a slight run-in with your intended.”

“Dear Hugo, I feel for you,” said Louisa. “I'm still not going to marry—”

She hesitated. It was an added distress that she had to hesitate between more than one name. Had she ever told Hugo F. Pennon's? She couldn't remember …

“—anyone at all,” finished Louisa.

4

Deliberately she burnt her boats. Her visit to Soho was at an hour deliberately chosen to encounter Mr. Ross.

“Keeping up on the job till the last?” joked Rossy.

“It's all off,” said Louisa.

In the very tones of Hugo Pym—

“What d'you mean, it's all off?” demanded Mr. Ross.

“I'm not going to get married. I've changed my mind.”

At least Rossy had no ax to grind. His concern was disinterested. It was nonetheless extremely irritating to Louisa's current mood.

“I remember you phoning me,” said Mr. Ross anxiously. “But if it's just a matter of settlements—”

At least, after her conversation with Hugo, Louisa knew at once whom they were talking about; and without a break skated over Jimmy Brown and Mr. Clark to do F. Pennon justice.

“The settlements would have been all right. They'd have been fine. I just couldn't stand,” explained Louisa, “the life.”

Rossy's concern simply deepened.

“If there's a door still open, I'd like you to talk to my sister. She had doubts herself—though I must say not many. Why don't I get you together?”

“I wouldn't waste her time,” said Louisa, “though thank you all the same, Rossy dear. I'm back on the old stand: Datchett Photographer of Dogs.”

5

Datchett Photographer of Dogs still had her profession; but it was at low ebb.

A peculiar mood of cheese-paring seemed to have settled over the entire dog world. No client old or new, during the days that followed, wrote or telephoned to ask Louisa's services. Already grudging each penny, Louisa wrote or telephoned herself—without results. Even Supreme Champions were making do with last year's photographs; even the famous York establishment let her down. (“Dear Miss Datchett, fine as the last lot were, we don't seem to need anything fresh just now. Salaams and all the best.”) The Bow-wows to Baby check was the last to come in.

What did come in were last month's bills. The dairy's was the worst, but even the lesser ones added up alarmingly. Louisa began to wake at four in the morning, adding them.

It was a new thing for her to wake at all. All her life, hitherto, she'd put her head on her pillow and passed out for the next eight hours. She'd even thought it an inconvenience, that if she didn't get to bed till three, she didn't wake up till eleven. Now she woke regularly.

Her chief liquid assets were the two bottles of brandy pressed on her by F. Pennon when she left Bournemouth. Carried round to a famous wine merchant in St. James's Street, so astonishing, and authentic, their labels, they almost doubled Louisa's capital; even so, it was under thirty pounds.

When the thought of hocking her camera entered her mind, Louisa realized that the time was past for any false pride.

After all, hadn't she always photographed
en plein air?

6

“Look, Rossy,” said Louisa, “outside Burlington House, do they ever have dogs with them?”

Mr. Ross considered her with what had become a habitual expression of affectionate disapproval. (“Dammit, if
I
can get over three husbands, why can't he get over one?” thought Louisa impatiently.)

“Not that I recall,” said Mr. Ross. “It's the quarantine.”

“But just now and again?” pressed Louisa. “They can't
all
be foreign visitors! Don't tell me you've never seen a peke in Piccadilly! What I mean is, would the boys mind if I strung along?”

“I'm not sure I quite see what you're getting at,” said Mr. Ross uneasily.

“Well,
you
say, ‘Take your picture, lady—'”

“‘Madam,'” corrected Rossy. “Sometimes adding,” he admitted, “‘in that lovely hat.'”

“Well,
I'd
say, ‘Take your dog?'”

Mr. Ross hesitated. He had a genuine affection for Louisa; also strong business instincts. As the two emotions—the sentimental and the professional—struggled in his breast, he looked less and less happy.

“It wouldn't do,” he stated at last.

“Why not?”

“You've told me yourself about getting 'em to stand on tables—sometimes with a bone nailed to it. You couldn't set up a table with a bone nailed to it in Piccadilly. The police wouldn't let you.”

“I don't
have
to have a table. I could squat down.”

“I don't believe the cops would care for that either. You'd hold up the traffic,” said Mr. Ross firmly, “and get us all a bad name.”

Louisa paused in turn. Rossy's cooperation was vital to her. She made a final effort.

“Look, Rossy,” said Louisa again, “this may be something really big for me. It may be a whole new career. I swear not to poach! Unless there
is
a dog, I'll just be admiring the view. Just tell the boys to give me a chance—and you can remind 'em there'll be no whip-round, now, for a wedding present.”

It wasn't her words that swayed him. The boys enjoyed giving wedding presents. They liked to feel the generous sentimental glow. What swayed Rossy was the expression on Louisa's face.

“Okay,” sighed Rossy. “I'll tell 'em. Though you'd still do better, in my opinion, to have a word with Sis.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

1

High-hearted nonetheless stood Louisa next morning outside Burlington House. Rossy's word, however reluctantly given, had gone round. Josh and Manny grinned at her companionably, from the opposite side of the street Benny sketched a double-handed boxer's salute. And if it took a certain courage, on Louisa's part, so to decline to the pavement, she'd always been, if nothing else, courageous …

She was there in readiness soon after ten. (Coffee-colored linen suit, beechnut boutonnière brushed free from mites, an appearance altogether as un-dashing as she could make it. She felt the beechnuts a particularly reassuring touch—for country cousins.) Until eleven, however, not so much as a schipperke crossed her field of vision. Mr. Ross bagged a brace of Texans, Josh, an Australian; Benny opposite, a turbaned Sikh. Loyally Louisa hung back, fingering the camera about her neck only as might any tourist; and as at last a dog appeared, loyally the boys hung back in turn; leaving her a clear field.