Something Light (15 page)

It was a measure of Louisa's altruism that she foresaw this development too with pleasure. She could have had the Admiral in her pocket herself, and she was fond of him; her opinion of Mrs. Anstruther was low; but her recognition of how easily Enid would get her birdlike claws into him was coupled with the recognition that nothing would make Freddy more comfortable. “They'll be snug as bugs in a rug,” thought Louisa—a bit vulgarly, but nonetheless altruistically …

“I shouldn't wonder if he gives her away,” thought Louisa. “I wonder what's become of his full-dress uniform?—Anyway he can hire one,” thought Louisa cheerfully; and finished up with a banana off Mr. Wray's empty table.

2

Quiet and still lay Broydon Court, nursing its hangover. Louisa had a fine time with Ivor and Ivan Cracarovitch.

For the first time in her career, after a morning of cautious stalking, she believed she'd got it—the shot she'd promised Mrs. Brent, the one shot every photographer of dogs dreams of: of two animals romping together.—Louisa at the crucial moment, almost flat in the grass; at the very best angle of all. If they'd been ballerinas, Ivan and Ivor, they'd have appeared to be leaping into the flies; through the lens of Louisa's camera, they leaped to the firmament … Louisa was so excited, she almost nipped back to Soho to develop at once; but instead—what a day it was to be!—spent the afternoon washing and setting her hair.

—The thought had been there, at the back of her mind, all day: behind her happy musings on old Freddy and the Admiral, behind her professional concentration on Ivor and Ivan; only for a split second, as she caught the dogs' leap to the skies, had Louisa, at the back of her mind, stopped thinking about Jimmy Brown.

Waiting for her hair to dry, she now thought of him deliberately.

It was time to plan the evening's campaign. Or safari.

With special reference to trap and bait: the enticing morsel in the pit, the treacherous, yielding branches spread above …

Pushing a hairpin back under the net, Louisa tried to recall all she'd learned from Mrs. Anstruther. How would Enid Anstruther set about it?

“Well, of course she'd flutter down like a moth,” thought Louisa.

The image was slightly surrealistic; moths didn't dig pits, they flew into candles. To Louisa, however, it was clear enough—but also unhelpful. She doubted whether she could pull off a butterfly-on-buddleia either; even at bird-weight would be unconvincing. Mrs. Anstruther's entrenching tool was fragile helplessness; but if there was one thing Jimmy knew about herself, it was that she wasn't helpless. Also he'd seen her eat like a horse.

Louisa sighed, for she hated waste. She hated, now, having to jettison all those useful tips picked up under the Bournemouth pines. But as far as she could see, they were about as useful to her present aim as so much old rope.

She was relieved.

Sitting with her head bent towards the electric fire, seventeen hairpins under the net, Louisa recognized with relief that Mrs. Anstruther's tuition wasn't going to be the slightest damn use. She was justified in jettisoning them, all those useful, slightly distasteful tips …

Her honesty hadn't been entirely corrupted—in the shade, under the pines; it had only been nibbled at. Eager as she was to get married, and fully confident that Jimmy was the ideal husband for her, when it came to the point Louisa didn't want him trapped.

The electric fire abruptly died. Searching for another shilling—

“He can take as long as he likes,” thought Louisa. “We'll still see each other, after I go back!” It would be running a risk; on her native Paddingtonian heath she would undoubtedly lose glamour; but wasn't that only fair to Jimmy too, to let him see her as she really was?

Mentally Louisa dismantled the trap altogether. She wasn't a natural trapper …

As things turned out, it seemed that she had no need to be. Lucky Louisa, to find honesty so undetrimental to her prospects! From the very first moment of that evening, it was apparent that the occasion meant as much to Jimmy as it did to herself.

3

The flowers in the vases were tiger lilies. Arranged in saucers on the bamboo coffee table were, besides olives, three kinds of nuts. (Almond, pecan and plain monkey.) There were cocktails ready in a shaker—thus a trifle watery, but properly cold. The table was already laid, with two candles on it. And all these preparations were evidence of something more striking still: that Jimmy for once in his life had come home early.

This wasn't a guess; he told her.

“Miss Lamb got the shock of her life,” he added. “However, she's perfectly capable of making an appointment. Perhaps I should do it more often, Louisa?”

“Perhaps you should,” said Louisa.

Despite every resolve, it was impossible to help feeling anticipatory. The candles alone—!

Actually the candles were a bit of a failure; they simply didn't give half enough light to eat by, and Jimmy had to switch a lamp on after the soup. (Cold vichyssoise, from a tin; but with chives chopped into it.) The main course was cold salmon, with mayonnaise not out of a bottle; Camembert cheese preceded the sweet:
glace pralinée
. (“Because he had the nuts,” thought Louisa affectionately; the little touch of economy-combinded-with-chichi went straight to a heart already, despite every resolve, wifely.)—As though to pull her up, a moth chose that same moment to fly into one of the candles: Louisa somersaulted several images together—Enid not moth but flame, F. Pennon not buddleia but moth—and felt that not for worlds would she see Jimmy fall so singed …

“How's the tooth?” asked Louisa.

“Not bad at all,” said Jimmy. He'd been eating on one side of his mouth—without complaint.

“Did you have penicillin?”

“I believe so,” said Jimmy, vaguely.

It was by his motion, not hers, that for coffee they returned to the sofa by the low bamboo table. As he put out the lamp again, and produced a bottle of brandy, Louisa had even a moment of delightful nervousness, as of one in danger of seduction. “Just a spot,” begged Louisa nervously—who with F. Pennon had knocked back glass for glass. However, a spot was all Jimmy poured.

He sat down beside her. Louisa didn't even let her hand lie where his would fall into it. She actually moved a little away.

“What a week it's been!” sighed Jimmy. “I can't tell you, Louisa, how I've enjoyed it!”

“So have I,” breathed Louisa. It would have been sheer bad manners not to say so.

“I believe you have,” said Jimmy affectionately. “That's because you've such a sweet nature. It must still have seemed a bit like slumming. Whereas for
me
—”

He broke off, searching for words; also regarding her with so exactly the old mixture of diffidence and earnestness, Louisa felt her heart beat.—It had never been used to beat, before that look, in the Free Library, or on the Common; but now she was ten years older.

“I don't know how to put it,” continued Jimmy, “but somehow you've … pepped everything up for me. I mean, a chap may know he's doing pretty well, isn't exactly an oaf, but he'd like an outside opinion, so to speak; from someone with broader experience. Take the shop, for instance: I suppose if
you
needed glasses you'd go to Wimpole Street—”

“No, I wouldn't,” said Louisa. “I'd come to you like a shot—and have bamboo frames.”

“There you are: they've been in the window a month, and you're the first person to notice them. You've liked this place too; the Ibsens—for all they read Dylan Thomas!” said Jimmy wryly—“think it's a bit lunatic.
You
come along and back my judgment. Could you live in it yourself, Louisa?”

“Easily,” breathed Louisa.

He hesitated.

“You're not just being kind? You mustn't be
too
kind,” said Jimmy anxiously. “You wouldn't let me make a fool of myself?”

Louisa paused, but only for a moment.—It was still no trap she sprung! On the contrary, from sheer impulsive generosity she threw away a woman's most precious privilege: that of making the man declare himself first.

“If you asked me, perhaps I
would
live here …” breathed Louisa.

4

They were words to raise him, in one instant, from the depths of faithful yearning to the topmost peak of fulfillment. Louisa's heart beat faster still, as she watched the changing emotions reflected in his face. Incredulity was, naturally, the first; after which came sudden illumination, followed by—plain terror.

Just as F. Pennon had done, the love of a lifetime at last zooming into his lap, Jimmy Brown looked, plainly, terrified.

And just as swiftly as in Gladstone Mansions, Louisa understood. How settled and well-organized the life of each, of F. Pennon the tycoon and Jimmy Brown the Broydon optician! For each certain sentimental memories (of a profile, of long legs and red hair) had sweetened the daily round; before the embodiment of which each, equally, flinched. It was no use F. Pennon's flinching, Enid Anstruther knew her feminine business too well; indeed her last remembered look urged Louisa not to be a damned fool. But Louisa, unlike Mrs. Anstruther, was fond of men.

She understood everything. In a flash, casting her mind back over the past week, she realized that it hadn't been even a last beautiful memory Jimmy wanted. What he wanted was an outside opinion—just like Miss Wilbraham with her silhouettes, and Mr. Wright with his collection of bomb fragments. Jimmy Brown had something more interesting to offer—his struggle towards sophistication; but the principle was the same. He didn't want Louisa to marry him, he just wanted her to give him full marks.

“… if I hadn't to go back tomorrow!” finished Louisa.

So fast can thought travel (even while the expression changes on a face), the interval was scarcely noticeable. Jimmy's processes were a little slower, the peril he'd glimpsed had been unnerving; another moment passed before he could breathe quite freely; but what a happy breath he drew at last!

“That's the nicest thing you could possibly have said, Louisa. You really like
everything?”

Now all she had to do was give him his marks.

“I honestly think,” pronounced Louisa, “you've made something quite special here. (Why not have another brandy?” she suggested kindly.) “I mean, I've seen all sorts of bachelor quarters—not only in London, in places like Cannes as well—but this is really something special. Like the shop,” added Louisa. (Here she had to pause and think; she could hardly make him believe she had a wide experience of opticians'. Fortunately the echo of an earlier remark helped her out.) “Those bamboo frames!” exclaimed Louisa. “I only wish I'd had
them
, at Cannes! D'you know you've grown very sophisticated, Jimmy?”

He glowed.

“It's made me a bit of a rare bird, in Broydon.”

“That you must put up with,” said Louisa firmly. “D'you know what you should do next? Make the Ibsens read Aristophanes in modern dress.—I mean in modern English,” amended Louisa. (Naturally they'd be in modern dress; she was getting a little tired.) She paused; really she couldn't think of anything else. “And now as I
have
to go back tomorrow, it's time I went and packed,” said Louisa, rising. “And so as this is good-by, Jimmy, you can give me a kiss.”

It was their first, it was their last. Jimmy Brown put everything he knew into it; but what Louisa chiefly recognized was gratitude.

5

Awaiting her at Broydon Court she unexpectedly found a telegram. Louisa was almost too tired, and too downhearted, to open it; but an orange envelope demands to be slit.

ARRIVED SAFELY ALL WELL ALL THANK YOU STOP CONSIDER YOURSELF GOOD ANGEL ENID PERFECTLY COOPERATIVE LOVE FROM ALL AT BOURNEMOUTH FREDDY
.

Louisa screwed it up and tossed it into the paper-basket.

She unloaded her camera. In the preoccupations of the day, she had omitted to do this earlier; now she discovered another omission. She had forgotten to put any film in. Accustomed to making play, under the eye of Mrs. Brent, with blank shot, then preoccupied with thoughts of Jimmy Brown, Louisa had labored all morning with her camera empty. Ivor and Ivan might indeed have leaped to the firmament—but unrecorded.

Part Three

Chapter Sixteen

1

“So you've bin away again,” said the milkman. “What was it like this time?”

“Disappointing,” said Louisa; and shut the door.

She turned on a tap, filled the kettle, lit the gas, laid the table and reached down the coffee tin, all without moving her feet. Never before had she felt cramped, in her kitchenette-dinette; but after the gay, light spaciousness of Freddy's villa, after the gloomy but spacious dining room at Broydon Court, she felt cramped.

In the distraction, a week before, of peddling Number Ten's beechnuts, she'd evidently forgotten to empty the sink basket. It smelt. She looked about for a paper bag. After a week—two weeks—without shopping, there wasn't one. Louisa found an old newspaper instead. Tea leaves and a stalk of spring onion leaked from the untidy parcel; it would still have to do, until she dressed and went down to the dustbins.

The kettle boiling, she made coffee and sat down. The striped oilcloth covering the table was still fairly clean, there was still an adequate supply of paper napkins advertising cider. No china had been broken in her absence—no one, during her absence, had come in to clean. Which was probably why the whole divan-bedroom-bathroom-et-cetera set-up looked so tatty …

She might have been a good angel to old Freddy, and a good angel to the Admiral, but if what she now sat down to was a good angel's normal breakfast, Louisa felt she'd been gypped.

In any case, she hadn't wanted a halo, what she'd wanted was a wedding ring.—The image of Admiral Colley sporting at Bournemouth was irritating enough, but before the image of Enid Anstruther in very pale blue Louisa could have wept with disappointment. For hadn't everything started so hopefully? Hadn't Jimmy been truly rejoiced to see her?—“And wasn't I made a fool of?” thought Louisa bitterly.