Something Light

by Margery Sharp

  “Don’t be silly, Toby,” said Catherine sharply. “Of course it isn’t quite as bad as that, Miss Datchett, but we do honestly need you like mad. Perhaps I should do more myself—”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Clark. “You have Tomboy to look after. Enjoy yourself while you can! Miss Datchett will see to things.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” agreed Louisa brightly.

  The three children looked at her again. Their eyes were really quite disconcertingly intelligent. Yes; but is that ALL? Louisa fancied each thinking, and to cover her nervousness plunged into chatter of pony clubs and praise of Tomboy.

  “I’m told they’re spreading all over the country,” babbled Louisa. “What a lovely soft nose he has!”

  “Yes, they are, and hasn’t he?” agreed Catherine politely.

  “I half expected to find you out on him this evening,” observed Mr. Clark.

  Catherine at once looked martyred.

  “Tuesday’s my first aid class, Daddy.”

  Mr. Clark glanced proudly at Louisa. Mad on horses as she was, his daughter Catherine attended first aid classes. What conscientiousness, what self-sacrifice, his look implied, with Tomboy waiting in his stall! Indeed, Louisa thoroughly agreed.

  “I don’t suppose you boys were exactly kept in either?” said Mr. Clark—as it were bringing forward Paul and Toby for their meed of praise. (Though Cathy was her father’s girl, obviously he tried hard to make no favorites.) “What was it tonight—the scouts?”

  “No, sir; overhauling our Vespas at the shop,” said Paul.

  “I’m glad to know you take such care of them,” approved Mr. Clark. “Those infernal machines, Miss Datchett, are overhauled at least once a week! However, it doesn’t affect their schoolwork; they both get very good marks indeed, and I expect great things from them at the University.—Now, children: shall we ask Miss Datchett to give us our pudding?”

  Louisa flushed with pleasure as Mrs. Temple deposited before her an enormous Spotted Dick.—She still glanced warily at Catherine and Toby and Paul, alert for any sign of resentment. It was practically taking a mother’s place already! But all three returned her look with perfect cheerfulness, Toby volunteering that he liked the middle; and Louisa sank a knife happily into the warm, rich, yielding, domestic duff.

  Chapter Twenty

  1

  Next day was one of the happiest of Louisa’s life. Mr. Clark went off to work just as a breadwinner should, the boys were to lunch at school and Catherine took out Tomboy and a packet of sandwiches. Louisa, as soon as she had the house to herself, plunged into domesticity with all the joyous abandon of a dolphin released in the waves.

  She had more qualifications for domesticity than might be imagined. Long years of being fond of men had made her an expert darner of socks, washer of woolen underwear, sewer-on of buttons. Even at Cannes, a good proportion of her time had been spent on René’s and Kurt’s and Bobby’s drip-dry shirts. Now with happy anticipation she went methodically through the linen basket and extracted all smalls.

  (“Laundry goes tomorrow,” offered Mrs. Temple, pinning on her hat. They had come to terms over washing up breakfast. Louisa knew better than to attempt Mrs. Anstruther’s method with Karen upon any true-born Briton coming in to oblige; instead, she let Mrs. Temple talk. Mrs. Temple dwelt in a Council house which some might look down upon but for labor-saving no more to desire, also being a bare ten minutes off was why she could nip in to do breakfast and dinner without inconvenience, apart from fighting her way through wind, rain and fog. Mrs. Temple also achieved the necessary shopping through wind, rain and fog; she was quite a byword for it. “What the trades people’ll think to see someone fresh come in, I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Temple. “They won’t see me come in,” said Louisa cheerfully. “Mrs. Temple, you’re a wonder!”)

  It was delightful, after the narrowness of Paddington, to have a whole separate kitchen to splash in.—Louisa’s mood was such that she’d have rejoiced to find a copper; the kitchen at Glenarvon was too modern for that, but it wasn’t modern enough for a washing machine: Louisa plunged to the elbows in authentic suds. She soaked, she squeezed; rinsed in two waters, rolled in towels; and at last staggered out with the clothes basket to peg in the open air of the orchard.

  Only those who have perpetually dried smalls on radiators (or, at a pinch, above a gas ring) can appreciate the pleasure of pegging on an open-air clothesline. To Louisa, as she strung up the last sock—in the warmth of a summer morning, on green grass, under old apple trees—the moment was almost poetic in its beauty. Drops of moisture from Mr. Clark’s long underwear sparkled on a dandelion like drops of dew; a gentle aroma of clean wool enhanced the scent of trodden grass. Somewhere up in the apple boughs a bird went tweet …

  And every week it would be the same, thought Louisa happily.—She pulled herself up, with housewifely forethought: winter washdays would obviously be more rugged. But even on winter washdays she’d have a whole kitchen to dry in; would but exchange the scent of trodden grass for the warm smell of winter cooking. “‘Where are the songs of spring? ay, where are they?’” thought Louisa—an echo from K for Keats in B for Biography. “‘Think not of them, thou hast thy music too!’” Autumn was in fact quite far enough for her to look ahead; but she couldn’t help seeing drops from Mr. Clark’s long underwear sparkling upon—sugaring, so to speak—her first batch of mince pies.

  “I’ll put suet out for you!” Louisa promised the bird. She didn’t know what sort it was, it might be the sort that wintered in Africa—but in any case there’d be robins. “Just pass the word round!” Louisa adjured the bird. “Suet on the house!”

  So soft and warm blew the drying wind from the west, Mr. Clark came home to find her seated before a big basket of clean mending.

  “My dear girl—!” began Mr. Clark; and checked himself. “My dear Miss Datchett,” he began again, “have you set to work already?”

  “I’m enjoying myself,” beamed Louisa.

  Mr. Clark stood quite still, contemplating her.

  “It’s something I never thought to come home to again,” he said solemnly. “I believe I’m going to be a very lucky man.”

  2

  Lousia still wasn’t going to hurry him. On this point her mind was made up quite firmly. If she’d at the last felt scruples about hurrying Jimmy Brown (as it turned out unnecessarily, but that wasn’t Louisa’s fault), how much more scrupulous should she feel towards a man so in every respect more deserving? Louisa had never been at close quarters with a breadwinner before, so perhaps her reactions were exaggerated; but as Mr. Clark set out each morning to win bread for three children and four adults—besides Mrs. Temple there was a part-time gardener—Louisa’s respect for him was something quite uncommon.—His actual setting out no doubt a factor: F. Pennon, for example, supported both a villa at Bournemouth and a flat in Gladstone Mansions, also Karen and Hallam, and Hallam’s understrapper and all the help Karen could get hold of, and would soon have Enid on hand as well: but he didn’t set out, he sat back. Mr. Clark worked at breadwinning six hours a day.

  (“You should have a glass of sherry as soon as you come in,” Louisa told him, firmly.

  “You really think so?” said Mr. Clark.

  “It’s there ready for you,” said Louisa, firmly.)

  Actually it wasn’t difficult, not to hurry. Every word and look of Mr. Clark’s tacitly implied that the period of a week had become a dead letter.

  All still depended, and Louisa knew it, on the children.

  It was surprising how little they were at home. (Or not surprising, reflected Louisa uneasily? If they in fact couldn’t stand the sight of her?) They seemed to keep roughly their father’s hours; even Catherine departed daily with a packet lunch. Louisa was too wise to probe, but she was disappointed; with Cathy in particular she longed for nice cozy chats. As it was, as the days passed, she felt she knew her three potential stepchildren hardly better at all.

  Only in the
most general terms could she have summed their characters. Briefly, they were the opposite of juvenile delinquents.

  Let it not be supposed for a moment that Louisa was disappointed. She would have been horrified and alarmed to find Paul and Toby carrying flick-knives, or Catherine smoking marijuana. But she did feel it would have helped her position had she been called on to smooth over some slight misunderstanding with their father, for instance, or to hear and soothe some tale of youthful frustration.—If Catherine hadn’t owned a pony already, how eagerly would Louisa have pleaded with Mr. Clark to buy her one! The same went for the boys’ Vespas: Louisa would have fought for the boys’ Vespas tooth and nail—but there they were too, like Tomboy in his stall. In fact it was Louisa who was frustrated, no call made on her special expertise; and though this in a way was precisely what she wanted, after years of being a good sort she felt slightly lost.

  So might the coxswain of a lifeboat feel, retired from service; or a fireman drawing his pension. It was wonderfully restful, but took getting used to.

  Whenever the children appeared, their manners towards Louisa continued perfect. They expressed warm appreciation of everything she did for them. Paul and Toby came separately to thank her for darning their socks. Catherine exclaimed more than once how lovely it was not to find any chores waiting, when she came in from grooming and feeding Tomboy. Louisa, recalling how difficult this sort of thing is to adolescents, was both touched and heartened; but she recalled also the remarkable aptitude of adolescence for concealing its true sentiments.

  Distasteful as it was to put herself in the position of her Aunt May, Louisa made the effort; and came to the conclusion that she really hadn’t the slightest idea what the children truly thought of her.

  —It didn’t stop her looking ahead. Louisa devoted a considerable portion of her solitary hours to wondering what Catherine and Toby and Paul were going to call her after she was married to their father. “Mother” was out of the question—Louisa humbly, regretfully, set “mother” aside at once. The Victorian “mamma,” which she believed currently fashionable among such sophisticated son-in-law types as Henry Peel, was unsuited to their age group. The appellation “mummy,” on the lips of Catherine, would have made Louisa happy indeed—but hardly suited the lips of Paul and Toby. (The shorter version “mum” Louisa set aside as too common. She had traveled a long way already, from Paddington.) In the end, she mentally settled for the plain-spokenness of “stepmother.”

  3

  Fortunately for a peace of mind thus sufficiently precarious already, Louisa’s apprehensions as to Miss Lindrum were scotched almost before they took shape.

  Miss Lindrum was Catherine’s riding mistress, from whose pony club stables had been purchased Tomboy; so at least a business relationship existed, with Mr. Clark, and Louisa couldn’t help asking herself, nervously, whether there existed any other. (To have no rival at all, for such a potential husband, struck her as too good to believe.) True, Mr. Clark did no more than once or twice pronounce Miss Lindrum’s name, and then always in connection with Cathy’s riding; but since he pronounced no other female name whatever, apart from that of a history don engaged on his Mediaeval Europe series, Louisa was very glad to have her mind relieved.

  “There’s Cathy back from her ride,” said Mr. Clark, one evening just as he came in. “Shall we go and meet her?”

  Of course Louisa accompanied him down the short gravel drive, to see Cathy pass the gate on her way round to Tomboy’s stable; and Cathy wasn’t alone. Beside her trotted Miss Lindrum on a stocky bay. It was a rather handsome animal, well up to weight; it had need to be—Miss Lindrum herself was well up to weight, as a pair of ill-advised white breeches emphasized. Nonetheless her bare, flaxen, Saxon head, and weather-ruddied cheeks, had a certain earthy attraction, and Louisa knew that some men liked big behinds.—She glanced swiftly at Mr. Clark. But obviously he had eyes only for his daughter. His greeting to Miss Lindrum was briefly courteous, no more. And Miss Lindrum merely waved her whip and trotted on …

  Louisa still flew a slight kite, so to speak, watching Catherine rub down Tomboy in the stable. (Mr. Clark stayed only to see her unsaddle.)

  “I dare say Miss Lindrum usually comes in for a drink?” suggested Louisa.

  “What, our Lindy? Not on your life,” returned Catherine absently. “She’s never been inside the house.”

  Louisa hung about a bit, very willing to lend a hand if she could. But Catherine rubbed away with such fierce concentration, it was plain that any offer of assistance would only be resented.

  Louisa didn’t mind. She felt Catherine’s fixation on horses entirely acceptable, so long as Catherine’s father hadn’t an eye for Catherine’s riding mistress.

  Louisa’s nerves steadied. They were still daily over-stretched between enjoyment of the present and hopes for the future; but after this particular incident, they definitely steadied.

  Which was just as well, considering what the very next evening held in store.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  1

  Another instance of Mr. Clark’s sympathy with youth was that Glenarvon possessed a television set. He himself disapproved the invention; as the telephone had killed the art of letter-writing, so television, according to Mr. Clark, would kill the art of conversation. (Louisa thoroughly enjoyed such pronouncements. She felt it was just the way a family man ought to talk.) But with a household of young people, acknowledged Mr. Clark—Louisa hanging on every word—to deny them the universal pablum would be like denying them bread and butter. Sometimes the family watched even commercial television, if there was a worthwhile program on some serious subject; thus on the Friday they all went down a coal mine, and though Paul for one came up again with a convinced prejudice in favor of oil, all agreed that it was a wonderfully interesting experience.

  “But as for this rubbish—!” groaned Mr. Clark, as a first singing commercial replaced the fading pit-head. “Paul, or Toby, turn the thing off!”

  “Can’t we just see if it’s the soap-bubbly one?” begged Catherine. “Miss Datchett, don’t you like the soap-bubbly one?”

  Louisa, her eye on Mr. Clark, hesitated. He gave back a whimsical, understanding smile. “Though neither of us care for this sort of thing,” that smile seemed to say, “I see you mean to side with Cathy!” He nodded; Louisa felt it a minor triumph …

  Only what came next wasn’t the soap-bubbly one, what came next was F. Pennon.

  2

  Old Freddy had evidently got himself up for the occasion. Though only his head and shoulders were on view, he was in dinner jacket. From its left lapel sprouted an outsize white carnation; his handkerchief was equally overdone—arranged to display two white peaks like the sails of a miniature schooner. Were his eyebrows powdered? In any case they added enormously to the general effect—as of Sealyham crossed with club man.

  “And here,” announced a disembodied voice, “on forty seconds’ private time, a speaker who prefers to remain anonymous. Let’s just call him, shall we, a Man with a Message?”

  “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen that,” commented Paul interestedly. “I believe it costs the earth …”

  Even Mr. Clark’s attention was held. Louisa froze. What Freddy was doing with a Message she couldn’t imagine—unless he was going to make an appeal on behalf of Distressed British Admirals? She could think of nothing else; but still, presciently, froze.

  F. Pennon cleared his throat with easy deliberation. He might have been appearing on television every night of his life.

  “There are times,” he opened largely, “when what a chap wants above all is to hear a voice from the past. What I mean ter say is, the sound of a voice that is silent, the touch of a hand that is still.”

  “That’s very true,” observed Mr. Clark, showing unexpected emotion.

  “It’s just going to be another Appeal,” sighed Catherine.

  “And in a Welfare State—!” murmured Louisa censoriously.

  But as his
next words showed, Freddy’s message was uncapitaled. It was simply and strictly a message—like a telegram.

  “Not necessarily from the far past,” continued Freddy, “say just a couple of weeks ago. Still an’ all it may mean much, let alone the Admiral mislaying his full-dress uniform. For though a chap may be right as rain—no doubts as to the future, no intention of skating out of his obligations—there are times when that voice from the past would fall like refreshin’ Highland dew. All telephone charges to be reversed,” finished Freddy, “because I’m not here really, I’m back at Bournemouth. Good night!”

  He faded like the Cheshire Cat. It was absurd to fancy that his eyebrows faded last; but that was the impression.

  “What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Mr. Clark.

  It wasn’t in the least extraordinary to Louisa. As soon as she’d had a moment to think she saw commercial television absolutely made for old Freddy. She saw him employing it, over the years to come, quite recklessly: to advertise for a cook, to relieve his mind on the subject of super-tax, or just to complain about the weather. It was probably the most rewarding use of money he’d yet encountered. He was probably rarin’ to go again already—especially if that voice from the past didn’t immediately respond …

  Louisa’s nerves had been steady enough to carry her through his first effort; but if his next, as it well might, began with a Dammit Louisa, where are you? she felt disinclined to trust them. She would almost certainly give herself away; and had a strong impression that Mr. Clark might consider the whole thing out of place.

  As soon as she was alone next day Louisa telephoned Bournemouth (reversing charges).

  3

  “Hi,” called Louisa. “This is the voice from the past.”

  “Did you see me on television? I thought you might,” said F. Pennon complacently. “How are you, Louisa?”