Something Light (11 page)

4

There was still half an hour to go before whatever semblance of dinner Broydon Court still offered. (Louisa had been warned, however incautiously, by Mrs. Brent herself; Admiral Colley made silly remarks about the food.) To fill the interval Louisa nosed about her room; idly pulled open the drawer of a mahogany bureau, and within discovered, like a relic of better days, a few sheets of engraved note paper, a few envelopes to match …

They were of such good quality, it seemed a pity not to write to someone. Louisa recalled a neglected duty: she'd never sent a bread and butter letter to F. Pennon. Impulsively she sat down and filled a sheet with her big untidy scrawl.

Dear Freddy

Thank you for having me. I must have put on about three pounds. And thank you for being so sweet, that last evening. But I feel you'll be even happier, at any rate I hope you will, and if my very best wishes can help, they're all yours
.

Affectionately
,

Louisa

Both these episodes, however—her encounter with the dogs, her writing to old Freddy—were but parenthesis; to be mentioned simply because they occurred.

5

Louisa's mind was made up. She had been prudent, she had been thorough, she hadn't rushed things; she was in possession of every relevant fact—nothing left to fancy, or in memory's rosy shade. Enid Anstruther would have been proud of her. And the upshot was that she'd found in Jimmy Brown not only the precise husband she sought, but one practically in the bag already. After those fifteen minutes between five to six and ten past, Louisa naturally felt all time lost, merely a parenthesis, until she sighted the quarry again.

Once more, she cast an affectionate thought towards Colonel Hamlyn trailing his wildebeeste, towards C. P. Coe on the track of his moose …

Chapter Eleven

1

Given Louisa's basic disposition it was nonetheless impossible that she should hold entirely aloof from her fellow residents at Broydon Court.—Or from four of them; the great majority were away all day—how had the standards of the Court declined!—at business; only four of the
vieille roche
remained, to keep Louisa company between the hours of nine and six, but three were men. Besides Miss Wilbraham (the patience player), there were Admiral Colley, Mr. Wright and Mr. Wray; all in leaf so sere as to be scarcely yellow, but rather dun.

The Admiral was by far the liveliest. Evidently alerted by Mrs. Brent, he cocked upon Louisa, that first night after dinner, a definitely lively old eye. It reminded her a little of F. Pennon's.

“I don't remember ye,” stated Admiral Colley. “That means I've never seen ye. A head of hair like that, let alone those legs, I'd remember distinctly. What the hell did the woman mean?”

“It was my fault,” apologized Louisa. “I told her
I
remembered you.”

“Ye did? And how?” demanded the Admiral. “When to the best of my recollection—and my memory's pretty keen—I've never seen those ankles before?”

“I lived in Broydon when I was a little girl,” explained Louisa. “You don't realize what a famous character you are …”

“In Broydon,” grunted the Admiral. “Dear God, in Broydon!—But it'll be a pleasure to have ye about, just for the sake of those remarkable ankles.”

By contrast, the reactions of the other three, to Louisa's presence, were rather reserved. Mr. Wray, retired from managing a bank, and Mr. Wright, retired from an insurance company, each seemed to regard her with faint alarm. Miss Wilbraham offered but a few nervous
politesses
. (“How nice,” began Miss Wilbraham, “to have another lady here! Good Mrs. Brent being hardly—” There she broke off, evidently perceiving that Louisa was hardly too.) Yet upon one point all four equally stretched out a hand: it being a well-known fact that all elderly persons, resident in private hotels, cherish certain personal possessions, or treasures, upon which from time to time they need the reassurance of an outside opinion.

Before lunch next day Louisa had seen them all.

Admiral Colley's was a lacquer pagoda, about five feet high, scarlet picked out with gold, the very thing to terminate a vista in some stately country house. Even in a fairly spacious drawing room it wouldn't have been out of place; in the lobby of a super-cinema, could have competed successfully with the decorations. The Admiral had to keep it jammed between his bed and his wardrobe.

“Picked it up in Shanghai,” explained the Admiral. “Got it home, believe it or not, in a destroyer. Dare say today it's worth thousands. What d'
you
think?”

“Honestly, I can't tell lacquer from nail varnish,” confessed Louisa. (But she had a pretty good idea of what the pagoda would fetch in the Portobello Road: say four pound ten.) “Anyway, I'm sure it's
rare,”
said Louisa politely.

“And I mean to hold on to it,” said the Admiral. “It's my sheet anchor, d'you see. At a pinch I can always send it to Sotheby's—but till then I'm holding on to it.”

2

Miss Wilbraham had silhouettes.

She had a whole gallery of them—single profiles, full-length figures, an ambitious family group showing ladies in crinolines and little girls in pantalettes. Dotted about her bedroom walls they produced a curiously nursery effect: objects too long in a family to be thrown away, but not wanted any more downstairs …

“Done in
India,”
explained Miss Wilbraham, “by such a clever young man! Actually I believe he came out to Railways—but what a talent! That's my grandfather.”

“He looks as though he's in uniform,” said Louisa.

“My dear, he was in Harrowby's Horse.—The young man had to make six attempts, before he succeeded with those sabretaches; he was such an artist, he wouldn't use Indian ink.”

Louisa scrutinized the portrait more closely.

“Not even for the whiskers?”

“Not even for the whiskers,” said Miss Wilbraham firmly. “That's what makes it so valuable.—I suppose you've never seen any at Sotheby's?”

Louisa said she hadn't.

“I always watch the
Times
,” explained Miss Wilbraham, “to see if any other silhouettes ever come up there; but I might have missed the right day.
These
, if I ever send them, I dare say will cause quite a stir!”

3

It was quite a relief to Louisa that Mr. Wray treasured no more than a poster advertising bullfights. Actually it made a much better effect, pinned over the inevitable mahogany bureau, than either the Admiral's pagoda or Miss Wilbraham's silhouettes, and at least he had no illusions as to its worth.—Mr. Wray's illusion was that he had personally fought bulls. To Louisa this seemed extremely improbable, since his single visit to Spain was admittedly by way of a Cook's tour; it was so long ago, she thought his memory must have betrayed him. But she spent quite a cheerful half-hour, while he demonstrated veronicas with a counterpane, before proceeding to Mr. Wright's collection of shrapnel.

Modestly, Mr. Wright admitted to having had unusual opportunities: he had been an air raid warden in 1940. No fewer than two hundred and sixty specimens, nesting on cotton wool, filled his top bureau drawer, each with date, and, if room, place, neatly inscribed in white paint (“Downing Street, 14. x. '40”; “St. Paul's, 29. xii. '40”). “That alone's been quite a job,” said Mr. Wright, modestly. “Some I had to take a magnifying glass to. At the time, of course, I just used a bit of red pencil.” He pulled out the drawer below in demonstration: Louisa beheld what looked like hundreds of fragments more, each indeed faintly scrawled in red.

And on the washstand, Louisa noticed the little tin of white enamel, the fine brush, the magnifying glass …

“I think it's the most wonderful hobby I ever heard of,” said Louisa warmly; and tried to cheer herself up by reflecting that at least he didn't imagine he was insuring against penury. It wasn't cash Mr. Wright was after, but glory.

“I intend to leave 'em to the War Museum,” he confided. “To be kept together as the Arthur Wright Collection. I wrote a letter to the curator there only the other day; and I must say I got a very nice reply.”

4

It will be obvious that the morning had been wet. (Among the many contrasts between Louisa's week in Broydon and her week at Bournemouth—the most marked being in the quality of the food—was to be this, that whereas the weather at Bournemouth was consistently and remarkably fine, at Broydon it was consistently and remarkably bad.) The afternoon, however, cleared sufficiently for Louisa to exercise Ivor and Ivan on the Common. (“Are you taking your camera?” suggested Mrs. Brent hopefully. “Not in
this
light,” said Louisa. She wasn't by any means reluctant to start photographing, but to shoot away for a whole week would be damnably expensive in film. It wasn't till later that she hit on the idea of employing, under Mrs. Brent's eye, a camera without any film in it.) Once fairly on grass Louisa let the dogs off their leads and sent them to race in freedom; they bowled over an infant with a hoop, Louisa was rebuked by a keeper, but otherwise the walk passed without incident.

So the parenthesis wore away, until at five o'clock she began to get ready, and at six had her sights once more on Jimmy Brown.

5

“Where are you taking me?” asked Louisa.

“Not,” said Jimmy, “to the Bon-Bon.”

How it all came back! The Bon-Bon, in their salad days, had filled a place somewhere between a sandwich counter and an espresso bar: innocently muraled with sugar-plum cottages and gnomes in chef's hats, strictly dry, but nonetheless, in Broydon, possessing a certain aura of dash. Louisa went there quite a lot.

“D'you mean to say the Bon-Bon's still going?” cried Louisa nostalgically.

“Yes, but I'm not going to take you there,” repeated Jimmy. “I'm going to take you for a cocktail first, and then dinner at the Theater Club.”

He couldn't quite keep the pride out of his voice; Louisa looked suitably impressed.—Indeed, she was impressed; there'd been no Theater Club in the old days; there hadn't even been a theater.

“Broydon Rep,” explained Jimmy casually. “It's in the Old Assembly Rooms. I believe there's a rather interesting piece on. If you like, we might go one night. We might go tomorrow.”

Nothing could be more welcome to Louisa than to have a second date already in view; it made her able to relax. She had warned herself most carefully against rushing him—against ducking him, so to speak, too impetuously (so that he came up gasping) into the deeper waters of the sentimental past; now restraint would be almost easy.
Che va piano va sicuro!
As they walked past the Free Library, Louisa merely inquired how he'd got on with Higgins.

“The Ibsens seemed to like it,” said Jimmy carelessly. “I only wish
you
'd been there, Louisa, to give an honest opinion. I can't think now why I didn't ask you—though of course you'd have found us a terribly amateur bunch.”

“Who read Miss Eynsford Hill?”

“Oh, one of the girls. We don't only read Shaw either, you know,” added Jimmy. “Last week we read Dylan Thomas.
Under Milk Wood
. It was a struggle, but I made 'em.”

“Did they enjoy it?” asked Louisa interestedly.

“Not particularly. But someone's got to take the lead …”

With this same new assurance he propelled her before him into the Theater Club cocktail bar and ordered a couple of dry martinis.—Once again, as outside the Free Library, Louisa could have given sentiment rein: the bar was at one end of the old supper-room; in Louisa's youth devoted to charity bazaars, of which her Aunt May had been a great supporter; Louisa never got further than washing up teacups—was never given license to rove with lavender bags or buttonhole carnations—but did Jimmy too remember, she wondered, the time she dropped a whole crashing trayful just as the Mayoress began to speak? Single-handed he'd helped her clear the mess—being indeed the only one of her swains steady enough to be present.… “I come here quite a lot,” observed Jimmy (though obviously in a different context). “It's about the most civilized place in Broydon.”

Louisa had noticed that as the bar began to fill several people recognized him. They also took a good look at herself. She was wearing a rather striking black sheath, bought secondhand, via the
Times
personal column, from Model Disposing of Wardrobe, and her flaming hair fell naturally into the fashionable chrysanthemum mop. For a moment she felt uneasy, also glad she hadn't her toreador pants on; more than once had an escort complained of being made to look conspicuous. But Jimmy's aplomb was unshaken. It even verged on the complacent.

Hardily, Louisa quoted Mrs. Meare.

“I dare say tomorrow everyone will be asking who I am!”

“Oh, I don't think I'm all as important as that,” said Jimmy seriously. “Though I must say,” he added, “you make me feel as if I were.” He paused. “As you always did, Louisa! Remember?”

He'd taken the header of his own accord.

6

“All the same, from what
I
remember,” said Louisa honestly—a little later, over dinner, “it was
you
who were rather grand … I mean compared with the rest of us. Yours was much the grandest house. I still remember the piano, and all those bound volumes of the
National Geographic.”

“I had to get the scouts to cart 'em away,” said Jimmy wryly, “at a Bob a Job.—No, I was out of things; you don't know what it meant, having a popular girl like you take notice of me.”

“Well, we were friends,” said Louisa modestly. (
Che va piano va sicuro!
)

“Not that I saw much of you,” recalled Jimmy Brown. “You were always larking about with boys on bicycles.”