Something Light

by Margery Sharp

  Yet she couldn’t endure to wait. She had only a week—and was besides naturally anxious to see what Jimmy looked like.

  After a little thought, Louisa hit on a bright idea. It involved her slipping away at once, without even renewing her make-up; it involved her reencountering a long-lost love while carrying a parcel of liver: but strategically speaking, it was pretty bright.

  Chapter Ten

  1

  From an island in the middle of the High Street, parcel of liver in hand, prudent Louisa first took a good look at the shop.

  There could be no doubt of its prosperity. Fresh green paint framed the large window, and on the fascia threw into bold relief the name of James Brown painted in white. Behind immaculate glass the range of spectacle frames, limited in Louisa’s day to gold, silver and tortoise shell—or hadn’t even steel its humble place?—now displayed the laminated in every color, the diamanté and even the bamboo. The sign that jutted from above was still the traditional pair of spectacles; but here too, what advance! The lenses weren’t merely, in broad daylight, illuminated; the light went on and off …

  Two customers came out while Louisa watched.

  She waited however a moment longer. It was almost six. A head-scarved, plumpish figure—“Honestly, she could do with a foundation garment!” thought Louisa—emerged and made off towards a bus stop. Behind the glass door a taller, a masculine silhouette reached up to pull the blind.

  Louisa’s hands felt slightly damp—but it might have been the liver. She completed the crossing at a run, and found the door—could it be symbolically?—still unlocked.

  2

  The years had improved him. He still wore glasses, but no longer so pebble-lensed, and framed with appropriate dignity. His long gangling figure had filled out, giving his height importance. (“Taller than I am!” thought Louisa gladly; she wouldn’t have to wear flat heels.) In sober but well-cut suit—shirt fresh and tie positively fashionable—there stood Jimmy Brown, all, and far, far more, than Louisa had hoped.

  The blind rattled up.

  “Louisa! For heavens’ sake, Louisa!”

  “Hi,” said Louisa.

  It had been an anxious moment for her; but there was no mistaking his pleasure. It equaled, it overtopped his astonishment, as he stood beaming down. Louisa was so rarely beamed down on, this alone, if he’d been a perfect stranger, would have attracted her to him at once.

  “This is amazing,” declared Jimmy Brown earnestly. “I was thinking of you only this lunchtime, passing the Library.—And now, dammit, it’s Thursday!”

  Louisa thought fast. Actually for the last twenty-four hours she’d been so living in the past, she picked up both reference and implication almost instantaneously.

  “Ibsen night?”

  “What a memory you’ve got!” exclaimed Jimmy admiringly. “Actually we’re reading Pygmalion; I’m Higgins. But never mind that now! What are you doing here, Louisa?”

  Even before she answered—and never was answer readier—her thoughts had raced again. Reading circles, naturally, go round in circles: ten years earlier, Jimmy’d been no more than a Bystander. Now he was Professor Higgins! Yet with this increased stature went no diminution of steadiness; steadily he’d stuck to the Circle, steadily, now, in the midst of whatever emotional excitement, he recalled the evening’s commitment …

  “It’s a job,” explained Louisa (how truthfully!). “I’m photographing Mrs. Brent’s borzois. She’s putting me up at the Court.”

  “I say!” marveled Jimmy. “I always knew you’d do well, Louisa, but I’d no idea you were such a swell as all that!—How long for?”

  “Perhaps a week …”

  “Then that’s all right, I shan’t have to chuck Higgins. Can you give me tomorrow night instead?”

  “I’d love to,” said Louisa.

  “Then we can talk. Now, I’ll just have a look at you!” said Jimmy Brown.

  Feeling positively nervous, Louisa advanced into the shop and turned to face him.—It was so lined with mirrors, his little shop, from every angle a Louisa was reflected back; as were also a couple of gleaming counters (on one of which she hastily deposited the packet of liver) and three or four smart little chairs with yellow seats and chromium legs. The days of H. Brown’s fumed oak and steel rims seemed dead indeed …

  Which reminded her.—Louisa had been if anything rather fond of old Mr. Brown, but how infinitely preferable that Jimmy should be his own master!

  “Your father—?” she suggested delicately.

  “Passed on. Both,” said Jimmy. His tone was exactly right; he sounded sad, but not heartbroken. His eyes were still on her fiery head. “And your own people here, Louisa?”

  “Passed on too.”

  His glance dropped to her bare, ungloved left hand.

  “No, I’m not married yet!” smiled Louisa.

  “That’s rum,” said Jimmy seriously. “I’ve always thought of you as married. In fact, I shouldn’t have been surprised if you’d been married two or three times.”

  Louisa felt a momentary dismay.

  “Do I look as dashing as all that?”

  “To be frank, yes,” said Jimmy. “As you always did, Louisa! I suppose you just haven’t been able to make up your mind.”

  Well, there were advantages in looking dashing after all, thought Louisa. (She’d have liked to point this out to Mrs. Anstruther. Or did Jimmy count as a man at the top? In Broydon, probably yes; a circumstance to please her too.) But there was now a question she urgently needed to put herself; though she knew Jimmy wasn’t married either, it suddenly struck her, considering his altogether improved appearance and personality, that he might well be engaged. Even after a week’s tuition from Enid, Louisa had still a few scruples; she couldn’t see herself cutting out some dewy-eyed fiancée …

  She chose her words with care; not to betray what information she already possessed.

  “If it comes to that, what about you?”

  He paused so long before replying, she had time to envisage the dewy-eyed in detail—petite, brunette, with slightly prominent front teeth; probably due (being both ladylike and a bit silly) to read Miss Eynsford Hill to his Professor Higgins. But how groundless her fears! He was actually fabricating a witty compliment.

  “I’ve been waiting for a girl with red hair and long legs,” said Jimmy. “They don’t seem to grow here any more.—Will you call for me again tomorrow, Louisa?”

  “You bet,” breathed Louisa.

  He hesitated.

  “If I don’t walk back with you now, it’s because I do rather want to run through my part,” said steady Jimmy Brown.

  3

  In the drive of Broydon Court, as Louisa had half anticipated, stood Mrs. Brent flanked by Ivor and Ivan Cracarovitch.—At this, her first view of the latter, Louisa was immediately and favorably struck by a resemblance: not between dogs and owner (Mrs. Brent, unlike Mrs. Meare, was obviously in the wrong class), but between Ivor and Ivan and Kurt and René at Cannes. The soft cravats of hair about their throats, their long, elegantly loose trousers, recalled so distinctly the appearance of René and Kurt under wraps after bathing, Louisa felt on terms with them at once.

  “My dear Miss Datchett—” began Mrs. Brent ominously.

  “Liver!” said Louisa.

  Was it René she addressed, or Kurt? Louisa couldn’t at this point distinguish. In any case, both nosed appreciatively at her hand.

  “Say you want it!” instructed Louisa.

  Two plumy tails quivered avidly.

  “Then you shall have it!” said Louisa.—“My dear Mrs. Brent,” she added smoothly, “never be introduced to a strange dog empty-handed! I’ve been all the way to the High Street, I’ve been to two shops, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it was time well spent!”

  She pulled it off again.

  Louisa was in fact to get on very well with Ivor and Ivan Cracarovitch; even though she never bought them any more liver.

  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 repl
y.”

  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.