Something Light (6 page)

“I shouldn't think so,” said Louisa. “It was new.”

—If Freddy could improvise, so could she; evidently this was a lucky hit.

“One of those they were building on the Ridge?” asked Mrs. Anstruther eagerly.

“That's right,” said Louisa.

“And was it nice?—I remember what an interest we all took,” said Mrs. Anstruther, “because some were going to be quite hideously modern—all glass and concrete roofs.—Oh, dear, I hope
yours
wasn't one of the modern ones?”

“I'm afraid it was,” said Louisa—happy to see a way of quitting Keithley as soon as possible. “I simply hated it. In fact, it was that horrible modern house that drove me from home.”

“How you do put things!” cried Mrs. Anstruther, laughing. “You mean you were impatient, just like all the other girls. But if you'd
stayed
, who knows that an Archy mightn't have turned up for you too?”

On the side, as it were, during these conversations, Louisa learned something more about F. Pennon. His money derived originally from coal; when Enid Anstruther first knew him he still lived at Keithley, outside Sheffield, in an enormous Victorian-Gothic mansion known locally as Pennon's Pile. (Freddy himself enjoyed the joke as much as anyone, recalled Mrs. Anstruther; he always had a splendid sense of humor.) Why he sloughed off both Keithley and coal together she didn't quite know—perhaps because the place seemed so empty without her, or perhaps it was something to do with nationalization? In any case, the year the Labor Government got in found Freddy shifted to London and with a seat on the Stock Exchange. Mrs. Anstruther personally rejoiced, Freddy seemed to be doing very nicely on the Stock Exchange, and a house outside Bournemouth appealed to her far more than Pennon's Pile. Sheffield, even in her time, had been reaching out its tentacles—as witness those new houses on the Ridge!—and Keithley today, feared Mrs. Anstruther, was little better than a dormitory suburb …

“What became of Pennon's Pile?” asked Louisa curiously.

“I believe Freddy sold it rather well,” said Mrs. Anstruther, “to some sort of agricultural college. One still can't help feeling a little sad, remembering all those lovely tennis and garden parties …”

Louisa saw the picture easily: the tennis and garden parties at Pennon's Pile, Freddy the industrial squire of the community hospitable to, amongst others, an Enid in white linen and her first bloom. What age must
he
have been, then? About forty? “—No wonder!” thought Louisa, telescopically.

She was still much more interested in picking, as far as possible, Mrs. Anstruther's brains. The trouble was that they each started out with such different preconceptions.

“Did you always
expect
to get married?” asked Louisa—under the pines, in the grateful shade.

“Why, just as all girls do!” smiled Mrs. Anstruther.

But in Louisa's experience, all girls didn't. Pammies, for instance (to employ a convenient group-term), she honestly believed thought of nothing beyond their artistic careers—on the stage, or as painters, or as novelists—and took any love affair primarily as an enrichment of artistic experience, or as an insurance against sexual repression. Of course Pammies as a genus were very young—but didn't that put them all the more in Mrs. Anstruther's category of girls?

“What about the ones you knew yourself?” objected Louisa. “The ones you told me about, who left Keithley and went off to London for careers?”

“
They
were impatient,” explained Mrs. Anstruther calmly, “just as you were. They couldn't wait quietly at home. Of course no one took their careers seriously! Though I must admit that for a
plain
girl, training to be an architect, for instance, was a very sensible idea. The men students outnumbered them by I believe about twenty to one. Of course I couldn't help knowing
I
was pretty—”

(“You still are,” said Louisa automatically.)

“And besides,” added Mrs. Anstruther, with a touch of roguishness, “I was always very fond of men!”

Louisa absolutely started. How extraordinarily different, again, their angle of vision! To Louisa, being fond of men implied unpaid nursing and the peddling of beechnuts; to Mrs. Anstruther, apparently, marriage and being supported for life.

“I'm fond of men too,” said Louisa, “but it hasn't got me anywhere.”

Mrs. Anstruther considered the point, and Louisa, with ready interest. (She enjoyed, Louisa realized,
talking shop.)

“Now I wonder why that is?” meditated Mrs. Anstruther. “You've certainly an appearance, though rather
dashing …
Probably an older man—”

“Would be less likely to be scared off?” prompted Louisa.

“—would be more suitable,” corrected Mrs. Anstruther. “A
young
man, with his way to make, doesn't want a
dashing
wife, he wants a wife who'll just make herself agreeable and let herself be taught the ropes. I learnt that at once,” said Mrs. Anstruther, “when I first went out to the Argentine. Luckily it came very naturally to me—
I
'd never been anything but a daughter at home! Whereas you, my dear, have such a strong personality—”

“You mean it's the boss or nothing?” said Louisa uneasily.

“Perhaps,” admitted Mrs. Anstruther. “To anyone
at the top
, I believe you'd make a very good wife indeed. You'd keep all the other wives in order! And of course, marrying an older man, you could get a better settlement.”

The very word was novel to Louisa—as her look betrayed.

“Pin money,” glossed Mrs. Anstruther. “Say ten or twenty thousand—”

“What,
pounds?”
demanded Louisa, startled.

“My dear, I hope we're not on the dollar standard
yet!
” cried Mrs. Anstruther patriotically. “I admit I got nothing from poor Archy, but then I was so young, and so much in love! Some women get a great deal
more.”

It was all news to Louisa. In Louisa's experience (though admittedly she knew very few married couples) husband and wife contributed equally to the common stock; both painted, or both acted, or both taught; sometimes it was the wife who contributed most. In fact, the notion that a woman should get a lump sum down, for marrying a man due to keep her for the rest of her life, struck Louisa as really almost immoral. Possibly her look betrayed her again.

“A man rich enough to
make
a settlement,” instructed Mrs. Anstruther patiently, “doesn't want his wife to be continually asking him for money. You surely see that!”

“Couldn't he give her an allowance?” suggested Louisa.

“Yes, and suppose something goes wrong?” retorted Mrs. Anstruther sharply. “Suppose he
loses
his money? Then what would she do?”

“Well, I suppose she'd give it him back,” said Louisa—a trifle behind, her mind still occupied with the idea of settlements.

There was a slight pause. Then—

“Exactly,” said Mrs. Anstruther. “Which makes it a kind of insurance as well!”

Louisa went off and did a bit of weeding with much to digest.

2

“I told you you'd get on together,” said Freddy complacently. “Enid was always full of chat.”

Chat didn't seem to Louisa quite the right word, for Mrs. Anstruther's purposeful theorizing; perhaps her converse with Freddy was on slighter topics. For the moment, indeed, he seemed rather noticeably ready to forego it, at least for any stretch of time.

“After eighteen years, I should have thought you'd want to be chatting to her yourself,” observed Louisa.

“Don't worry about that,” said Freddy self-sacrificingly. “There'll be plenty of opportunities. You go ahead and enjoy yourself.”

3

About mid-week Louisa telephoned Mr. Ross. She had left unposted, in the hurry of departure, a set of proofs of My Handsome of York—sired by My Lucky out of My Winsome, possibly apt to follow in My Lucky's victorious tracks, and therefore by no means (now that Louisa's prospects had changed again) to be treated with any casualness.

“Listen, Rossy,” called Louisa, “those proofs of My Hansome—”

“Now, that's what I like,” said Mr. Ross warmly. “Not giving a client the go-by just because you're in the money. I've sent 'em.—All going well?”

“Fine,” said Louisa, “and thanks a lot. What was the postage?”

“Sevenpence ha'penny,” said Mr. Ross. “It can wait. I just thought there was no sense your leaving an unintended poor impression.”

Even over a telephone, the kindness and knowledgeableness of his personality were wonderfully marked.

“Listen, Rossy,” said Louisa again, “when your sister married—”

“Which one?” asked Mr. Ross. “I've got three.”

“The one who married into a chain store.—Did she get a settlement?”

“You bet your sweet life she did,” said Mr. Ross. “Has that come up on the
tapis?”

“In a way,” said Louisa.

“Have your own solicitor,” advised Mr. Ross, “and congratulations again …”

Too late, Louisa once more recognized a lack of discretion.

4

Naturally Louisa's conversations with Mrs. Anstruther didn't deal solely with her, Louisa's, matrimonial prospects; Enid Anstruther had her own matrimonial prospects—which indeed formed a far more cheerful topic.

“Poor Archy would be so happy too!” mused Mrs. Anstruther, emerging from a pleasant daydream. “He and Freddy thought the world of each other. I feel that makes it so nice!”

“I can see it must,” said Louisa. “Has he any idea when it's to be?”

Mrs. Anstruther looked candid.

“One
should
, I know, wait a year; or if one's superstitious, a year and a day; and I'm sure I'm the last woman in the world to flout convention! But in such rather special circumstances—”

Louisa took this to indicate that Freddy's hours as a bachelor were numbered. She wondered whether Freddy knew. But whether he did or he didn't, she now hadn't the slightest doubt of Enid's ability to get him to the church on time.

“And it's not as though I needed to collect a trousseau—all
that,”
said Mrs. Anstruther simply, “can wait till later. Poor Archy left us in April … do you think
July?”

“As he and Freddy thought so much of each other,” agreed Louisa.

“And of course very, very quietly.”

“In church?”

“My dear, naturally,” said Mrs. Anstruther.
“Always
get married in church—if you
can,”
she added delicately. (Louisa took this to indicate that men at the top were sometimes also divorcés.) “I believe some of the registrars, in London, do it really very nicely!—But of course I shan't wear white; probably a very pale hyacinth blue.”

Trousseauless though she would be (until later), Enid was already giving her wedding garments serious thought. The very pale hyacinth blue (possibly wild silk?) was to be topped by a very small toque of hyacinths. With some surprise Louisa found herself taking quite a keen interest in these details, and of her own accord suggested a very small eye veil.

“With perhaps a sequin or two?” reflected Mrs. Anstruther. “Just to give a tiny sparkle?”

More than surprised, absolutely dismayed, Louisa discovered that she was envisaging herself as a bridesmaid in pale green.—So
en rapport
were they at this moment, Mrs. Anstruther almost apologized.

“If I were having any bridesmaids at all, naturally I should think of you at once,” said Mrs. Anstruther. “Though your coloring would set quite a problem! You couldn't wear green; green, even a very pale green, would be out of the question, with my blue.”

“What about coffee?” suggested Louisa—surrendering herself to fantasy. “I've a coffee-colored linen—”

“No. I'm sorry,” said Mrs. Anstruther firmly. “Not coffee. It would be a flat note. Perhaps a very pale
amber
—My dear, we're as bad as a couple of girls,” cried Mrs. Anstruther, laughing, “sitting up in bed after a dance planning our weddings!
How
Freddy would laugh, to hear us!”

Maybe Archie'd laugh too, thought Louisa; but was chiefly appalled, as she came to her senses, by her vulnerability to the appeal of bridal millinery. It was something quite new; hitherto, as has been said, Louisa's reaction to a church wedding was purely professional, she just wondered who'd get the job of photographing it. In any bridal party, only a Pekingese in a white bow really caught her eye. Now, she felt that if Mrs. Anstruther came across with an amber shantung, she, Louisa, would jump straight into it. (Possibly a very small toque of tea roses …?) Promoting herself to lead, she envisaged the full glory of white from top to toe. Of if (as Mrs. Anstruther tactfully warned) she had to pick up her settlement at a registrar's, why not, thought Louisa, that very pale green after all?—Even while appalled by them, such thoughts ran uncontrollably through Louisa's mind; as though some essence of femininity had been rubbed off, from Enid's mothlike wings, upon her own hard-wearing lurcher's coat …

“I'll tell you another thing,” said Mrs. Anstruther abruptly. “Marry the life, not the man.
I
did, with poor Archy—though heaven knows where I found the sense! Even at our very poorest, in Argentina I never had to wash a cup.”

“It's lucky Freddy can give you the same sort of life over here,” said Louisa absently.

“Yes, isn't it?” smiled Enid—gay and heedless again as a bird, or a moth, or a butterfly. “Isn't it
lucky
, that I answered his letters?”

5

Undoubtedly Louisa learned a lot, from intimacy with Mrs. Anstruther. Sometimes she felt like a tenderfoot sitting over a campfire with an experienced trapper. And Mrs. Anstruther enjoyed instructing her; it might almost be said that they enjoyed—as Freddy had prophesied they would!—each other's company. By the sixth day, the Sunday, however, the fact that Louisa was leaving on Tuesday by no means damaged their relations.