Something Light

by Margery Sharp

  Chapter Seventeen

  1

  It rang again. Louisa hadn’t moved. A ready and vivid imagination carries its penalties.

  At the third ring she tiptoed into the lobby and listened. There was no sound of voices outside, no pleasant visitorish chatter. (Weren’t the Peels known to be out?) Also there was no chain on the door. Belatedly telling herself not to be a fool, however, Louisa cautiously opened up.

  On the mat stood a solitary man with his hat pulled over his eyes.

  Obviously it was nothing in his favor, quite the contrary, that the sight of Louisa seemed to surprise him as much as he surprised Louisa.

  “I thought there was no one in,” said the man.

  “Oh, you did, did you?” said Louisa menacingly.

  “When there wasn’t an answer. My name is Clark.”

  He gave it with some confidence, as though expecting it to be recognized; but this might have been just cunning, and Louisa stood her ground—not opening the door another inch.

  “Mr. Peel’s publisher,” elaborated the man. “I’ve come for some corrected proofs. Ten days ago he assured me they were ready, my secretary has telephoned him constantly and fruitlessly since, now I have come to pick them up myself. Is he in?”

  “No,” admitted Louisa.

  “Are you his secretary? Can you give them me?”

  Louisa shook her head.

  “They are probably lying somewhere ready to hand. If I might come in and see—”

  By this time he had taken off his hat. The countenance revealed was middle-aged, kindly and conscientious. Certainly he didn’t look like a burglar—but then what really dangerous burglar would? Louisa had no intention of reviving an hour later to find herself gagged and bound. Yet suppose he were speaking the truth? What if by offending him she did the Peels irreparable harm? In Louisa’s world, publishers were practically father figures …

  “Look,” said Louisa, making up her mind, “actually I’m baby-sitting. Will you wait outside while I phone?”

  To her surprise, his expression became positively approving. He stepped back of his own accord. Louisa shut the door and flew to the telephone already half-suspicious that she’d made a fool of herself indeed—but even so she would still need to get in touch with her employer, to ask where he’d put the proofs.—“If there are any!” thought Louisa, wavering again; for during the three or four minutes it took to locate him, look about as she might, at desk and table and the tops of bookshelves, certainly no bundle of galleys lay ready to hand.

  “Miss Datchett? Is anything wrong?” called Henry Peel.—Evidently his wife had come to the phone with him. “Nothing’s wrong with the children?” called Henry Peel.

  “No, sound asleep,” reassured Louisa swiftly. (“No, sound asleep,” she heard him reassure in turn.) “Only there’s a man here who says he’s a Mr. Clark.”

  On an entirely different note—

  “Oh, Lord!” groaned Henry Peel.

  “Who says he ought to have had some proofs back from you ten days ago and now where are they because he’s come to pick them up,” finished Louisa, now quite confidently.

  “Oh, Lord!” groaned Henry Peel again.

  “It’s no use groaning,” said Louisa practically. “Tell me what I’m to do.”

  “Give him a drink.”

  “Can’t I give him the proofs too?”

  “No, because they aren’t done,” returned Henry Peel. “Just give him a drink and calm him down. I leave the matter entirely,” said Mr. Peel blithely, “in your hands …”

  For a moment, beside the silent telephone, Louisa paused to ask herself how they knew. How did men know, the moment they set eyes on her, that they could dump their problems in her lap? Couldn’t she even baby-sit without having to calm publishers? Bitter indeed were the thoughts Louisa directed upon Henry Peel—now doubtless waltzing carefree round the River Room! From old habit, however, she did her best for him.

  “Mr. Peel couldn’t apoligize more,” said Louisa, opening up again. “He’s actually had a terribly punishing week, what with his mother-in-law’s operation and the children’s teeth. Now he asks me to apologize most sincerely, and says the proofs will be with you tomorrow, and he hopes you’ll come in all the same for a drink.”

  Mr. Clark—indubitably Mr. Clark!—entered. Louisa took a better look at him. Why he pulled his hat over his eyes was explained by a slight baldness he was probably a trifle self-conscious about; the hair brushed back from either temple was still quite dark however, and very neatly barbered. His exceptionally well-shaven jaw was exceptionally firm, but his eyes, though shrewd, were also benevolent. Under his light spring overcoat he wore a dinner jacket. In short, Louisa at once recognized such worth and respectability, she felt impelled to apologize on her own account as well.

  “I’d two children in my charge,” explained Louisa, “and I’m all alone here.—Would you like a whiskey?”

  “Thank you, a weak one,” said Mr. Clark. “To my mind,” he added kindly, “your reaction was altogether praiseworthy.”

  2

  They got on like—a house afire.

  The unusualness of the situation, the lateness of the hour, put Mr. Clark into such a pleasantly communicative mood, Louisa had little to do but listen.—She early formed the opinion that such an act as his descent on the Peels’ flat was for him unusual indeed. “I shan’t have been home so late in years,” confided Mr. Clark. “Generally, after a typographers’ dinner, I go straight back. But finding myself so near-by, and being I must say rather annoyed—”

  “I don’t wonder!” said Louisa warmly.

  “—I took the step. But of course I’ve telephoned. My family won’t worry,” said Mr. Clark.

  Everything he told Louisa, in fact, pointed to a life of beautiful regularity. Even his publishing business, it seemed, knew no ups and downs, being devoted to textbooks for schools. (Demands as accurately foreseen as punctually supplied, from Algebra through Zoology: the series being held up by Henry Peel covered Aeschylus to Zeno—which made the matter of proofreading all the more ticklish.) Half an hour passed before Louisa grew the least restive, and then only because she herself wanted to show off as a baby-sitter.

  Admirable young Peels!—hitherto no sound had come from the nursery at all. But that didn’t stymie Louisa. As Mr. Clark paused between the second and third editions of a Latin grammar—

  “Hark!” said Louisa. “I believe I should take a peep at the little ones …”

  It was remarkable how readily the phrase came to her; as though together with dormant family instincts she was discovering a dormant family vocabulary. And just as she’d intended—

  “May I come too?” asked Mr. Clark. “I know, of course, the Peels have children, but I’ve never seen them. With three of my own,” he added pleasantly, “I count myself a bit of an expert!”

  Thus put on her mettle, Louisa stole noiselessly through the nursery door; efficiently, like an old hand, checked the night lights. (She’d have pricked down the wicks if she’d known how—dormant vocabulary again!—but in any case they looked okay.) Both young Peels appeared to be sleeping soundly; Louisa rapidly decided which was sleeping sounder, and bent over its cot in what she hoped was a becoming yet efficient attitude. The unconscious infant cooperated by remaining so; Louisa risked a maternal smoothing of the pillow.

  “One can see you’re fond of children,” observed Mr. Clark.

  “Hush!” said Louisa.—“Indeed I am,” she added, stealing out again. She mightn’t have been until a couple of hours ago, but she was now. She wasn’t foxing.

  “I don’t wonder Mrs. Peel feels she can trust you,” said Mr. Clark, stealing out behind.

  “Actually it was the milkman—” began Louisa; and for once in her own interests held her tongue. What did it matter, that Mrs. Peel had never before that evening set eyes on her? Louisa would still have rushed through flame with the Peel infants; would still have attempted to crown Mr. Clark with a paperweight
, had he been indeed the criminal of her imagination. Why not, for once, take the credit and let the explanations go? For once, Louisa did. As they stole back to the sitting room, and settled themselves comfortably again over Mr. Clark’s half-finished whiskey—Louisa hoped he noticed she wasn’t drinking anything herself—she simply basked in his approval without a word about the milkman. Instead she merely remarked, in a modest sort of way, that perhaps she was rather good with children …

  “Mine are somewhat older,” observed Mr. Clark.

  “Have you their photographs?” asked Louisa eagerly.

  With the pleasantly conscious smile of a fond parent who knows his weakness, Mr. Clark nodded.

  “May I see?” begged Louisa.

  He produced his wallet and extracted a sizable snapshot. Louisa received it with reverence.

  “Catherine, Toby and Paul,” said Mr. Clark. He paused; his expression grew melancholy. “Toby doesn’t remember his mother at all, and the others scarcely more. They’re all I have left,” stated Mr. Clark sadly: “the children.”

  Louisa looked, she gazed. For there upon those few square inches was pictured the family of her new dream—ready-made.

  3

  They were rather older than from their father’s tone she would have expected: two boys and a girl apparently in their later teens. (Just the ages she’d have chosen!) The girl stood tall and slim between her stockier brothers; otherwise little could be discovered of their looks—save by reflection from their father’s face. Mr. Clark evidently thought them the world’s wonders.

  “And no mother!” sighed Louisa.

  Sadly he nodded.

  “I do my best to make them a home. But it isn’t easy.”

  “Especially with a daughter.”

  “As to that, Cathy’s a real father’s girl,” said Mr. Clark, whimsically. “They’re all three very good children indeed.”

  “One can tell they are.”

  “But as I say, it isn’t easy. Though Catherine is at home, the full burden of a household is too much for young shoulders.”

  “Indeed it is!” agreed Louisa warmly.

  “And besides she has her own amusements. When the boys come in—they attend an excellent local grammar school—I’m afraid they all too often find an empty house.”

  “But that’s terrible!” cried Louisa.

  “Not that we haven’t very competent daily help. When I say empty, I mean empty of any affectionate welcome, such as children have a right to expect. Even the most competent daily cannot make a house a home.”

  “That’s one of the truest things I’ve ever heard,” said Louisa.

  “Friends have advised me to engage a resident housekeeper,” mused Mr. Clark, “but there again difficulties present themselves. The truth is, Miss—”

  He broke off to fix Louisa in surprise.

  “Here I am telling you all my troubles,” marveled Mr. Clark, “without even knowing your name!”

  The circumstance was less extraordinary than he imagined it; its only unusualness lay in the fact that Mr. Clark’s were troubles Louisa wanted to hear much more of. Hastily, not to break the thread, she said Louisa Datchett.

  “The truth is, Miss Datchett, we need someone rather exceptional,” continued Mr. Clark—and broke off again. Again he fixed Louisa; not this time in surprise, but with the expression of one upon whom an idea suddenly dawns. Possibly it was a surprising idea at that—at least to him.

  “Someone to make a house a home?” prompted Louisa.

  “Exactly. Someone with both a genuine love of children—or young people—and a genuine sense of responsibility. (Such as you showed yourself,” added Mr. Clark, with a pleasant touch of humor, “when you made me wait outside!—Joking apart, that struck me very much; it did indeed.) But our essential want is for a person who could become so to speak one of the family—which without wishing to sound snobbish implies certain standards of education, and interests. How do I put all that to an employment agency, or into an advertisement? I admit it,” confessed Mr. Clark, “I admit that I am baffled!”

  A slight silence fell, and no wonder. Mr. Clark had probably never confessed himself baffled before. But from the mantelshelf the Peel clock ticked peaceably, and from either side of it a Peel grandparent gazed benevolently down.—How glad Louisa was that she hadn’t met Mr. Clark in an espresso bar! Here every object breathed of that cordial family life he so pathetically yearned after.

  The benevolent influences did their work.

  “This is going to surprise you,” said Mr. Clark abruptly, “but could I possibly persuade you, yourself, to come and give us a try? Just for a week, say?”

  Louisa, while her heart leaped, looked as surprised as she could. She only wished he hadn’t suggested a week. It was a period that had lately been unlucky to her. Her hesitation did her no harm, however, since Mr. Clark misinterpreted it.

  “Naturally you’ll want references—”

  “Indeed I don’t!” protested Louisa.

  “You do—and rightly,” corrected Mr. Clark. “I wouldn’t wish it otherwise. However your friends the Peels will I dare say vouch for me. As to remuneration—”

  “Wait,” said Louisa.

  For it was a moment to reflect. Louisa reflected. The photographed images of Catherine and Toby and Paul still lay in her lap—the ready-made family of her new dream. Louisa dropped a loving glance on them.—Loving already! Already Louisa’s heart opened, to Catherine and Toby and Paul. She had no doubts on their account, she was prepared to do her damnedest to make them happy. But that she was also prepared to marry their father by this time went without saying, and in the circumstances she wanted to keep remuneration out of it.

  “D’you know what I’d like best?” said Louisa at last. “I’d like to come just as—well, just as a friend of the family. For. a week or perhaps more or less, just as it turns out. Then if we find we all get on together, can’t everything else be settled afterwards?”

  “That’s very generous of you,” said Mr. Clark appreciatively. “Perhaps you might have a word with your friends the Peels this evening?”

  It seemed that his eagerness to begin the experiment almost matched Louisa’s. Before he left, it was agreed that if the Peels’ account of him proved satisfactory he should drive Louisa home with him to Wendover after office hours next day.

  4

  “Darling Miss Datchett, are we terribly, terribly late?” cried Mrs. Peel, at about two in the morning. “But we’ve kept the taxi for you—Henry, do look after Miss Datchett!—and were the children good?”

  “Absolute angels,” said Louisa warmly.

  “How did you get on with old Clark?” asked Henry Peel, pressing paper into Louisa’s palm. “Did you calm him down?”

  “Well, I had to tell him he’d have those proofs tomorrow—”

  “Oh, Lord!”

  “—but I think he left,” said Louisa, “quite happy.”

  And that was all she did say. She didn’t want to rouse any scruples, in Mrs. Peel’s maternal breast; Mrs. Peel might feel bound to telephone Mr. Clark and explain how very slightly her baby-sitter was in fact known to her. As for Mr. Clark himself, Louisa felt she could safely take him on trust.

  Like a gambler who sees rouge turn up after noir, like an Arab watching rain fall after drought, she felt that a run had broken at last.

  Chapter Eighteen

  1

  Louisa was no more superstitious than the next woman, but a benevolent star having at last directed its rays upon her, she was particularly careful, next morning, not to walk under any ladders. Indeed, her first impulse on waking had been to stay safely in bed until it was time to go and meet Mr. Clark; however she needed several articles of toilet, and there was a chemist’s on the same side of the street (which reduced the risk of getting run over). It was manifestly impossible to refrain from any physical action at all; mentally and emotionally, though, Louisa determined to exclude every distraction, and just direct grateful thoughts u
pon her star, also encouraging telepathy towards Mr. Clark.

  Thus only ineradicable habit led her to pick up a free lunch from—of all people—Mr. McAndrew.

  She was just returning with her purchases, shortly after midday, when she observed him standing on the pavement immediately opposite her front door.—Or rather she didn’t observe him, she bumped into him. She was rehearsing conversation with Mr. Clark. Fortunately the architect’s substantial form made a good buffer; Louisa in full stride merely bounced off. (Number Ten she might have bowled clean over. Or Freddy.) “I’m so sorry, I beg your pardon—” began Louisa; and only then saw who it was.

  “If you don’t watch out, you’ll be falling over your own feet,” said Mr. McAndrew severely, “let alone losing all your wee parcels. It’s to be hoped none’s fragile.”

  “Not at all,” said Louisa—saving a bottle of skin lotion just in time. Naturally she wondered what he was doing there, no stately home within miles; more pressingly, what did he think she was? Recalling the build-up she’d given herself at Broydon Court, Louisa would greatly have preferred to be encountered in Bond Street, or Park Lane; the peeling paint of her too adjacent door, let alone six dustbins in the area, struck a wrong note. “This is my favorite shopping district—away from the crowds,” explained Louisa lightly. “I imagined you lived here,” said Mr. McAndrew, checking the house number, “that is, according to the phone book.” “My pied-à-terre,” Louisa told him.—She could have wrung Number Ten’s neck for creeping out just at that moment, in a tattered dressing gown, to empty tea leaves into one of the bins. He peered up through the area railings and tactlessly coo-ooed the first notes of a Brandenburg Concerto; Louisa felt almost a liking for Mr. McAndrew, as the latter took no notice.