Something Light (25 page)

Surprisingly, it was a Sealyham.

The dogs proper to Piccadilly are poodles and Pekingese. Sighting a Sealyham, Louisa for one wild moment (she was a little over-strung) felt as though F. Pennon in person had come to her aid. The resemblance was indeed uncommon: thick, springy, brindled hair, bushy eyebrows, even F. Pennon's keen and skeptical old eye, were so accurately reproduced in canine miniature, the collar and lead looked to Louisa like a collar and tie.—How thoughtful of old Freddy to wear them! There had been a slight, entirely amicable discussion on the point; any pooch actually
carried
—any peke, or poodle, tucked under arm—was to count along with its owner as out of Louisa's field. (“They hold 'em up against their faces,” explained Josh. “And often a good thing too.”) But with the Sealyham, or F. Pennon, trotting on a lead, Louisa hardily advanced.

“Take your dog, madam?” invited Louisa.

Her prospects, anthropoid and quadruped, at least halted. Surprisingly again, the anthropoid wasn't the regulation tweed-clad, county-type Sealyham owner, but a fluttering blonde. (“Dammit, it
is
F. Pennon!” thought Louisa wildly.) In Mrs. Anstruther's exact voice—

“Ducky, someone wants to take your picture!” fluted the anthropoid to her quadruped. “Shall us say yes?”

Louisa was already down on one knee. Behind her she felt Rossy and Josh emanating waves of encouragement—all disapproving thoughts forgotten, urging her on to make good. The pavement was comparatively unencumbered, the sun was in the right place, and the moment practically historic as Louisa—the first canine photographer in Piccadilly—dropped to one knee and set her shutter at 1/300th.

Unfortunately, the quadruped said
no
.

With an absolute reflection of Freddy's most ill-tempered glance—called to the telephone, so to speak, in the middle of a cigar—Ducky jerked free his lead and attacked a Western Union messenger. “Stop him!” shouted Mr. Ross. “Catch the b—r!” shouted Josh. “My poor frightened lamb!” wailed the blonde. Ducky raced on, snapped at two more Sikhs in passing, and nipped a South African delegate to an economic conference.—The latter came out best; as Ducky plunged into the traffic, with all the élan of his ancestral impis he plunged after; and at least brought back news of where the culprit had gone to ground—down the Ladies beside Green Park.

Meanwhile the pavement round Louisa had become quite crowded. If opinions diverged—all the foreigners agreeing with each other that all dogs were dangerous, all the British agreeing that it was a shame to frighten them—Louisa was equally censured all round. As a policeman approached, she felt the eyes of even Josh and Rossy fixed on her in justified rebuke …

“Now then, what's all this?” inquired the policeman.

(“See what I mean?” sighed Mr. Ross.)

“He was frightened by the horrid camera!” wailed Ducky's owner.

“Now he's probably biting Ladies right and left,” said the delegate, rather jovially. “You'll have to send for a policewoman …”

Fortunately Ducky chose this moment to reappear. No one could have guessed from his demeanor that he'd just been whacked on the behind by a cleaner's broom; he ambled back through the traffic with all the dreamy, dignified assurance of an absent-minded professor. The sight of the policeman, however, appeared to give him pause; with what Louisa couldn't help feeling an absolutely cynical switch to pathos, he began to shake all over. “What a shame!” cried one and all—with the exception of a few foreigners—as Ducky crept back to his mistress's protection. “He was
frightened!”

At least the policeman moved off. He wasn't looking for trouble. His eye just registered the presence, at the scene of the riot, of Louisa and Josh and Manny and Mr. Ross.

“See what I mean?” repeated Mr. Ross. “Dogs won't cooperate. We're on tricky enough ground as it is, and if one of the public got
bit
—”

“Okay,” said Louisa sadly. “You needn't go on.”

“It's not we don't want you, it's just that we can't afford the risk.”

“Okay,” sighed Louisa; and made the best amends she could by going straight home.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

1

If at this point Louisa plumbed her professional nadir, there is always this about a nadir, that any subsequent motion must inevitably be upwards.

Unless, of course, the pendulum has stopped.

Louisa's view was that it had. Perhaps this was because she wasn't eating enough. The debacle in Piccadilly had thoroughly dismayed her; during the succeeding week, in a panic attempt to conserve her capital, she not only didn't pay any bills, she ate less and less. Remorse kept her from sharing even a cuppa with Mr. Ross; if Hugo Pym had a spare sausage (which was unlikely), she wouldn't have shared that either, at the price of being urged to make up a nonexistent quarrel with a nonexistent intended. Louisa was down to a steady diet of bread and margarine, she was very nearly pinching Number Ten's yoghurt, before the pendulum swung up again.

It hadn't stopped after all. It had but paused to gather momentum.

2

“There was a letter for you,” said the milkman. “I brought it up.”

“Does it look like a bill?” asked Louisa nervously.

“No, stuck down,” said the milkman. “Very nice quality envelope.”

“What's the postmark?” asked Louisa—still wary.

“Chesham Oaks,” said the milkman. “Best part of Bucks.”

It was as a sort of propitiary libation that Louisa took, along with the envelope, a spot of cream.

3

She looked at the signature first: Sybil Fox. The name meant nothing to her, but below was typed the encouraging word
Secretary
. Also the paper itself was crested.

Dear Miss Datchett
(read Louisa)

Lady Mary Tablet asks me to inquire whether you would be free to come down next Thursday the 11th, at three-thirty, to photograph her corgis? There is a good train from Baker Street at 2:36, and a bus from the station yard will drop you at Chesham Hall. (There is no need to bring any lighting apparatus, as the photographs will be taken out of doors.) I may add that Lady Mary was very much struck by some pictures of poodles you had in the
Tatler—
she thinks they belonged to some film actress, but cannot remember the name
—
and would rather like the same sort of thing. Will you kindly let me know if this date suits you, also your fee? Lady Mary suggests three guineas, to include the finished prints
.

Yours truly
,

Sybil Fox

Secretary

4

Datchett Photographer of Dogs kept her head.

The fee suggested, for half a working day, including prints, was outrageously low; and something told her it was all she could shake down. On the other hand, there is no world more snobbish than the dog world; the corgis of a Lady Mary Tablet would have their own built-in publicity.

A more disturbing point was what Lady Mary intended by the same sort of thing. The film actress was undoubtedly that Italian star to whom Louisa owed her trip to Cannes; could Lady Mary possibly be contemplating a Rescue by Corgis from Ornamental Water? If so, it would probably take not half a day but half a week, with a few movie technicians thrown in.—Louisa made a hasty check, and gratefully recalled the famous Rescue by Poodles fake as appearing only in the local French press. What then had Lady Mary seen in the
Tatler?
Louisa searched about, but couldn't find the issue; she must have left it at Broydon Court. After some thought, however, she remembered a previous shot taken in Green Park, of Coco and Cocotte affectionate to their mistress's celebrated underpinnings. Louisa had suspected at the time that it was those ankles, rather than those pooches, the
Tatler
paid for; and was not discouraged. If Lady Mary herself had any ankles at all, if she wasn't on absolute hockey sticks, something could be managed …

Fortunately corgis are very low-slung.

Louisa kept her head, but with increasing difficulty. It was her chance at last. A really good job done on Lady Mary's corgis, and ankles, could put Datchett Photographer of Dogs into the very top class.

—And how had it come to her, that chance? Through keeping her mind on her work. Inconceivable, in Green Park—before she'd heard from F. Pennon, before remembering Jimmy Brown, before encountering Mr. Clark—that she should have forgotten to load her camera! (“If I'd kept my mind on my work at Broydon,” thought Louisa, “I'd have syndicates bidding now, for that shot of Ivor and Ivan.”) It was astonishing, now, to remember how easily she'd let the rot set in: she'd just felt jaded one morning, had a talk with the milkman about Ibsen—was that really all, had no more than that been sufficient to arouse her so disastrous impulse towards matrimony? It seemed so; not otherwise, now, could Louisa account for her subsequent aberrations …

“I was a fool, but I've learnt my lesson,” thought Louisa. “I'm not the marrying sort. But what I am is a damned good photographer of dogs, and here's my chance, it's all I ask, and I'm going to take it.”

She answered Miss Fox, Secretary, by return of post. (To telephone, or telegraph, might look over-eager.) The three days that intervened before the eleventh she spent mostly in bed, conserving energy; also she dipped so far into her capital as to add to her diet of bread and margarine sardines and kippers.

5

Taking every possible pain with her appearance, on the crucial day, Louisa oddly enough found herself dressing for Chesham Hall as for the pavement outside Burlington House. (Discreet coffee-colored linen, spray of beechnuts on shoulder.) This time however, she added a hat, a practically county hat, a green felt porkpie once worn by Bobby at Cannes. Louisa stuffed as much of her hair under it as she could; her rowdy locks were always a weak point, when it came to inspiring professional confidence, and she was taking no chances.

She was taking no chances. She was resolved to keep her mind strictly on the job, also not to waste an ounce of energy until she reached Chesham Hall.

Before boarding her train she looked for a compartment without a man in it—men in trains constituted a particular hazard. (All too often, getting out at their destinations, they told Louisa how much better they felt for talking to her; leaving Louisa flat as a pancake. Sometimes she even had to get out herself; once, and three stations early, to accompany a nervous juvenile to his audition at a local rep.; which was how she'd first met Hugo Pym.) At that hour, half past two in the afternoon, and headed out of London, the train was by no means full: on the other hand, this allowed the native passion for privacy full play; to each smoker its solitary occupant—the worst possible hazard—and past each Louisa's experienced eye hurried her on. As she reached the last, doors were being slammed all down the train; Louisa nonetheless, perceiving again a solitary male within, hesitated. The young man looked cheerful enough, indeed uncommonly so; but appearances could deceive, and Louisa was taking no chances. Sticking her head through the door—

“Are you in any sort of trouble?” asked Louisa forthrightly.

As well he might, the young man looked surprised. But only for a moment. He was evidently a true child of his age.

“Is it for the telly?” he countered interestedly.

“No, just a private poll,” said Louisa.

“Then put me in the opposite column,” said the young man—disappointed but still cheerful.

Louisa entered and relaxed. The train drew out. With a whole side of the carriage to herself, she had plenty of room for her long legs. She stretched them comfortably out, and deliberately slackened every muscle; allowing herself to be swung with the train's motion limp as a rag doll. If now and then there was a jolt, it didn't worry Louisa; it merely kept her from dozing completely off. “An hour of this is just what I need,” thought Louisa. “It must be as good as Zen …”

She didn't exactly kick off her shoes, but she loosened her heels; the train did the rest. At eye level opposite an impression of Burnham Beeches pleased without exciting; rather soothed …

“Aren't you going to take it down?” inquired the young man.

“Take what down?” asked Louisa thoughtlessly.

“Why I'm in the other column.”

Louisa continued to contemplate Burnham Beeches. Once again, she'd bought it; but this time she didn't mean to pay. As the young man waited expectantly—

“I don't need to take it down, I've a trained memory. But fire away,” said Louisa—deliberately closing her ears.

6

It was still impossible that something shouldn't percolate. The train had decided to run with uncommon smoothness, the young man leaned enthusiastically towards her. However unwillingly, Louisa picked up certain vital statistics: name something like Hally How, age twenty-something, National Service somewhere overseas, present occupation some sort of clerk. Dim, decent Hally How! Behind dropped eyelids Louisa's thoughts wandered to the Meares' dachshunds: so easy to photograph, decent little clerks of the dog world …

“After
which,”
said Hally How earnestly, “we were finally able to get married.”

… whereas borzois, in their skiing trousers, had always the air of being off to winter sports …

“I don't know if you're married yourself?” pressed Hally How.

Louisa shook her head. It would be nice for him if he thought she was memorizing, but really she didn't care.

“You ought to try it,” said Hally How earnestly. “I can't tell you how—how smashing it is. Not just, if you'll pardon the expression, how jolly in bed, but what self-confidence it gives a chap. Fr'instance, you must have wondered why at this time of day, when I work in London, I'm headed out of London.”