Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (18 page)

“Young man,” said Miss Pettigrew, “I think you’re teasing me.”

Tony’s eyes slid round. They held a twinkle.

“Tit for tat,” said Tony slyly.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Miss Pettigrew, “but I expect it has something to do with this afternoon. I suppose I’ll have to apologize for it as well.”

“An!” said Tony. “Now you’re at it again. What’s all this apologizing about?”

“My rudeness this afternoon.”

“What rudeness?”

“Not again,” begged Miss Pettigrew, “please, not again.”

“All right,” agreed Tony, “but you’d better phrase it differently.”

“My conversation this afternoon.”

“I enjoyed it,” said Tony. “I was out of my depth, but I enjoyed it. I like originality in women. One meets it so seldom. No apologies are necessary.”

“Are you sure?” pleaded Miss Pettigrew. “You’re not just being polite?”

“Would I,” asked Tony, “be conversing with you now with such amiability and joy if you, as a complete stranger, had grossly insulted me in the afternoon? Do I look the type to forget insults? I warn you now, an answer in the affirmative will definitely be counted as the first insult.”

“That’s right,” agreed Miss Pettigrew more happily. “It’s such a load off my mind.”

“Friends?” said Tony.

“Friends,” said Miss Pettigrew, completely happy.

“There is now no need,” pleaded Tony, “to keep the conversation on such a high intellectual plane.”

“None at all,” chuckled Miss Pettigrew.

“Thank God!” sighed Tony. “My historical anecdotes are strictly limited to Henry I never smiling, William the First landing in 1066 and the Crown being lost in the Wash. Connected in some manner by joke once heard.”

“Well,” came Miss LaFosse’s cheerful voice, “if you two can stop flirting for a minute, Guinevere might like to meet the rest. Apologies for putting the dangerous woman beside your man, Edythe.”

“Oh dear!”

Miss Pettigrew turned in a fluster and blushed for her rudeness, soon to forget her momentary upset in a lively interest in the other occupants of the table. There was a stocky young man, with a bullet head, fair, short hair, brilliant, light blue, wary eyes and an expressionless face. He looked like an explorer. Beside him, very close beside him, was a gorgeous woman. She had masses of deep auburn hair and great violet eyes. She was not plump, yet she gave the impression of soft, rounded curves and comfortable hollows. She had an air of Mona Lisa, the Lady of Shalott. All her movements were slow with a lazy, languid indolence. She was dressed in brilliant purple. A great, glowing emerald shone on her finger. Beside the other women, so slim, modern and English, she seemed like some luxurious blossom from another clime. Miss Pettigrew thought romantically the young man must have brought her back from some rich, tropical land.

“Guinevere,” said Miss LaFosse, “meet Julian. If you want to make your rival tear her hair with envy, go to Julian. He’ll dress you. But he makes you pay. He has to stay friendly with me because I owe him a lot of money and he knows if he doesn’t stay friendly I won’t pay.”

Julian’s mouth parted and Miss Pettigrew had a quick flash of white teeth.

“How-d’ye-do?” said Julian briefly.

“He never says much,” explained Miss LaFosse. “He simply sits and undresses every new-comer in his mind and then re-dresses her as she should be, and when she comes to him eventually, which she always does, he just gives one glance and says at once what she must wear, so she thinks he’s marvellous and always goes back.”

“Oh dear!” thought Miss Pettigrew. “How embarrassing if he looks at me. I shall blush all over.”

“Well, you can’t complain of my methods,” said Julian mildly, “if the results are so satisfactory.”

“Rosie,” said Miss LaFosse, “meet Guinevere. A friend of mine.”

“Welcome,” said Rosie.

“You mustn’t order steak and onions,” said Miss LaFosse earnestly to Miss Pettigrew. “Rosie’s on a diet. She daren’t eat them and she adores them. The tantalizing smell would ruin her night. Or worse: she might succumb and fall to temptation.”

“I won’t,” promised Miss Pettigrew hastily.

“I went to a doctor,” said Rosie gloomily. “Damn his eyes. White meat. Chicken! I ask you? I loathe chicken. No body to it. Nothing to fill a girl’s stomach. No rich foods. No fatty foods. No fried foods. No potatoes. Hardly any butter. No cakes. What’s left? I ask you? Is it worth it?”

“Oh yes,” chorused the other girls, shocked.

“Figures might change,” said Miss Dubarry consolingly, “then you’ll reach the correct standard quite naturally, while we’ll all have to sit around all day and cut out dancing and drink pints of cream, ‘til we’re sick of the sight of it.”

“When I’m fifty,” said Rosie pessimistically, “when I won’t care whether I’m fat or thin.”

The music started.

“Shall we dance?” asked Julian.

He and Rosie took the floor. Rosie melted into his arms with a clinging surrender that imbued the formal hold with a close, personal intimacy. They danced off, cheek to cheek.

Miss Pettigrew watched them with fascinated eyes.

“What a lovely woman!” admired Miss Pettigrew. “I’ve never seen any one like her before. Is she a foreigner?”

“She’ll grow fat,” said Miss LaFosse darkly. “You mark my words. You can’t say ‘no’ always.”

“She’s a harem woman,” said Miss Dubarry. “I don’t like harem women. They let down their sisters.”

“I do,” said Tony. “They know where they belong and don’t get ideas into their heads. One man, he’s master. The others don’t exist. Their place is the Seraglio. They seek no other. Their duty is to provide the full quiver and attend to their lord’s needs. What more can they ask? What more can he ask? Very satisfactory I call it.”

“Bah!” said Miss Dubarry scornfully. “I like independence in a woman. So do men that are men. He’ll tire six weeks after they’re married. Dash it all! Strawberry’s and cream are all very well for a change. But for a permanency…! Fancy living with a woman who never said no.”

“I agree with Tony,” began Michael. “The women of today…”

“Be quiet,” ordered Miss LaFosse. “No arguments. We all know your ideas. Out of date. Guinevere, meet the Lindsays, Peggy and Martin. Married a year and not separated yet.”

Miss Pettigrew turned to the remaining couple. Both had smooth, young, lively faces. Both had straight brown hair, blue eyes and cheerful grins. They might have been twins. Martin’s hair was brushed smoothly back: Peggy’s was cut in a fringe across her forehead and brushed smoothly down over her ears.

“Professionally,” explained Miss LaFosse, “the Lind-say Twins. Better publicity than husband and wife. Comedy turn. Revue, Variety or anything offered.”

Miss Pettigrew met all these people with delighted interest. Her wide, shining eyes surveyed the room. The drums boomed: the cymbals clashed: the saxophones wailed: the violins wept: the piano cascaded. The music dragged one to one’s feet. Made one want to dance. Miss Dubarry and Tony moved away. The Lindsays joined them. Miss LaFosse shook her head unseen by Miss Pettigrew. A young man sang through a microphone. The lights dimmed. Shuffling feet made a rhythm of their own.

“So this,” said Miss Pettigrew blissfully, “is a
Night Club
! And I was told they were wicked places.”

Miss LaFosse thought of discreetly shut doors upstairs.

“Well,” said Miss LaFosse cautiously, “there are night clubs and night clubs. You’re not likely to meet Royalty here.”

“I have no desire,” said Miss Pettigrew, “to meet Royalty. It would fill me with too much awe. I am quite happy as I am.”

The music stopped. The lights went up. Their table filled again. The conductor made signs to Miss LaFosse. Miss LaFosse nodded. Miss Pettigrew heard her friend’s name announced. A storm of clapping greeted the news. The lights went down and there was Miss LaFosse, flooded by a spotlight, crossing the floor alone, completely at ease, with a careless swing of her shoulders, a masterly sway of her hips. She reached the grand piano and stood leaning against it, one hand on hip, the other laid idly across the polished piano-top. She wore daringly a gown of sheer white. Over a sheath-like slip of white satin, which outlined with cunning design every curve of her fascinating figure, flares of transparent tulle, billowing to the ground, yet managed to convey an impression of artless innocence. There was no contrasting colour except her bright gold hair. The spotlight turned it into a nimbus.

There was a crash of chords and Miss LaFosse began to sing. Miss Pettigrew sat up slowly with breathless attention. Her experience of professional entertainers was small. Her experience of night-club entertainers confined solely to her view of them at the talkies, her lone secret vice. Seeing and hearing one in the flesh was altogether another matter. The white figure, posing against the piano, caught her attention, with that of every one else in the place, and held it breathless.

The professional Miss LaFosse was quite a different woman. Without any definable change of pose or expression she was suddenly surrounded with that compelling aura of the Star. Lounging against the piano with indolent grace, Miss LaFosse gazed round the room with a slow, indifferent glance. Lazy lids drooped over drowsy eyes, which would suddenly open wide with a wicked, mocking humour. She had a deep, husky voice. It was hardly singing. Miss Pettigrew was not quite sure what to call it. Sometimes it was more like talking, but it sent delightful shivers of enjoyment down her spine. Miss LaFosse sang a naughty, delicious song, called “When Father left for the Weekend, what did Mother do?” Miss Pettigrew enjoyed every tantalizing minute of it, even though she went quite pink at what she thought some of it might mean. When it came to an end the room rang with applause. Miss LaFosse sang a popular song hit, then another. After that she refused the encore. She returned to their table.

“O.K., honey,” said Miss Dubarry. “You were great. No wonder Nick doesn’t want to lose you. Glad I’m not a rival, or I’d hate to say whether the friendship would stand it.”

“When do you sing again?” asked Michael.

“About half-past two,” said Miss LaFosse.

“Oh Lord!” Michael groaned. “Must I wait until then?”

“No one’s asking you to,” said Miss LaFosse mildly.

“Let’s have a drink,” said Tony.

Miss LaFosse leaned discreetly over to Miss Pettigrew and whispered urgently, “Now remember, don’t mix them. Nothing more fatal when you’re not used to ‘em.”

“What’s yours?” asked Tony.

“I will have,” said Miss Pettigrew, “a small glass of sherry, thank you.”

Tony’s eyes popped.

“I heard aright?” he said anxiously. “The old ears aren’t going back on me?”

“When you reach my age…” began Miss Pettigrew.

Tony looked round wildly.

“Not again,” he implored. “You’re not starting again. Wasn’t this afternoon enough? Sherry it shall be.”

Miss Pettigrew looked bewildered.

“Trifle,” said Rosie suddenly. “Spongecake and raspberry jam and being giddy with a tablespoonful of sherry in…I’ll have a whiskey.”

“You and me,” said Michael. “Waiter…”

They all drank. Various people stopped at their table. Miss Pettigrew ceased troubling with these birds of passage. One’s capacity for remembering names and faces was limited.

“Here’s Joe and Angela,” exclaimed Miss Dubarry.

Miss Pettigrew’s fascinated eyes were on a man at the next table who was slowly sinking lower and lower in his chair. Soon he would disappear out of sight altogether underneath the table. Would, or would not, his companions rescue him in time? She took no notice until Miss LaFosse said, “Guinevere, meet Mr. Blomfield. Joe, meet my friend, Miss Pettigrew.”

She was so surprised at the formality of the introduction she turned her head.

Joe was looking down at her: a big man, not a young man, possibly the early fifties. No sign of middle-aged spread. What might be called a well-preserved figure. A man looked better with a well-covered body in the fifties. He was immaculate in evening clothes: shirt-front gleaming, flower in buttonhole. Massive head, powerful jaw, humorous eyes, no-fooling-me mouth, hair greying a little, bluff manner, genial, red face.

His gaze lighted on Miss Pettigrew’s face with surprise. Then his lips parted, his eyes lit, his face expanded, with a surprised, warm, friendly smile. One contemporary acknowledged another. Miss Pettigrew stared in equal surprise at him, then suddenly her own lips parted in a shy, diffident, hesitantly intimate smile. They gave each other greeting. He and she belonged to a different generation. They reached common ground for a moment.

“Guinevere, meet Angela. Angela, my friend Guinevere.”

Miss Pettigrew looked at the young woman.

“How-do-you-do?” said Miss Pettigrew shyly.

“How-d’do?” said Angela in an indifferent, drawling, faintly complaining voice.

She was the first friend of Miss LaFosse to intimidate Miss Pettigrew and bring back all her old nervousness. She was so very young, so very hard, so very brittle, so very assured. She seemed to see straight through Miss Pettigrew’s borrowed finery down to what Miss Pettigrew really was and despise her. Miss Pettigrew flushed a little for no reason and sat farther back in her chair.

Angela was dressed in a vivid scarlet gown that fitted her like a sheath, outlining high, tiny breasts, slim diaphragm, narrow hips, tapering thighs. She had pale silver hair. Miss Pettigrew stared at it with fascinated eyes; a platinum blonde in the flesh.

“Dye,” thought Miss Pettigrew with stern satisfaction. “Dear Miss LaFosse’s is natural.”

Angela’s face was a lovely expressionless mask, perfect as to detail, but with no life in it to give it appeal. She had great blue eyes, surrounded by long, curling lashes, a straight nose, a lovely pink and white complexion, a perfect, scarlet, rosebud mouth, a coiffure without a curl out of place. She was a finished production of feminine art, but Miss Pettigrew, not having seen her come from her bath, reserved judgment.

Miss Pettigrew sighed inwardly and drew away her eyes. What a pity that such a nice man should be caught by a young chit! Every sensible woman knew that young creatures never really went with older men except for what they could get, but men were notoriously stupid and susceptible in their middle age.