Miss LaFosse leaned forward, a smile parting her delightful mouth.
“Do you think so?” she asked eagerly. “I kept it on deliberately. You know, I think there’s something sort of, well, especially fetching about a négligé, don’t you think? And men are so difficult in the morning.”
From her one tremendous experience of living in a house where the eldest daughter was about to be married, Miss Pettigrew agreed sagely.
“A…a sort of wanton attraction.” Miss Pettigrew blushed for her adjective. “Very hard for the men to resist.”
“You understand perfectly,” said Miss LaFosse.
Miss Pettigrew suddenly remembered. She gasped in distress.
“But, Miss LaFosse,” said Miss Pettigrew in agitation, “you’re slipping already. You mustn’t do it. You shouldn’t want to be attractive. You should dress your plainest. You should try and repel him.”
“I know,” confessed Miss LaFosse guiltily, “but I just can’t help…”
They heard the faint sound of a key being gently inserted in the lock. They each gave a wild glance at the other. Then Miss Pettigrew was treated to a brilliant piece of acting. Miss LaFosse lay back quickly.
“I always consider,” said Miss LaFosse in a lazy, languid voice, “that blue suits me best. It brings out the colour of my eyes.”
The door opened and shut. Miss Pettigrew sat in dumb admiration while surprise, unbelief, joy in turns took deceitful possession of Miss LaFosse’s face. She jumped to her feet. There was a flutter of draperies, a rush across the room with outstretched arms.
“Nick,” cried Miss LaFosse.
Miss Pettigrew averted her eyes hastily.
“Oh dear!” thought Miss Pettigrew. “Not…not again…so publicly. And I always thought they exaggerated kisses on the films.”
CHAPTER THREE
11.35 AM—12.52 PM
Miss Lafosse disengaged herself from the newcomer’s arms and Miss Pettigrew saw him clearly for the first time. Graceful, lithe, beautifully poised body. Dark, vivid looks: a perfection of feature and colouring rare in a man. Brilliant, piercing eyes of a dark bluish-purple colour: a beautiful, cruel mouth, above which a small black moustache gave him a look of sophistication and a subtle air of degeneracy that had its own appeal. Something predatory in his expression: something fascinating and inescapable in his personality.
Miss Pettigrew rose slowly from her chair with a queer feeling of helplessness. She understood immediately Miss LaFosse’s subjection. It only needed one look. She had seen his counterpart a dozen times on the films, young, fascinating, irresistible to women, supremely assured of his power, utterly callous when the moment’s fancy passed. She had seen the heroine a dozen times nearly lose happiness because of his attentions. But there was no hero to save Miss LaFosse.
“Queer,” thought Miss Pettigrew helplessly, “one reads about these men. One sees them on the films. One never thinks to meet them in daily life, but they do exist after all.”
Miss LaFosse stood away from her visitor. Her cat’s look of contentment after cream became tinged with a nervous tension. Nick now noticed Miss Pettigrew. His face immediately darkened. He flung Miss LaFosse an angry, questioning glance.
“Oh!” said Miss LaFosse. “This is my friend…my friend…Alice.”
She gathered herself together and made a more polite introduction.
“Alice, meet Nick. Nick, this is my friend Alice.”
“How-do-you-do?” asked Miss Pettigrew politely.
“How do?” said Nick curtly.
His glance flicked over her and Miss Pettigrew became aware at once of her age, her dowdy clothes, her clumsy figure, her wispy hair, her sallow complexion. She flushed a painful red. Her mind disliked him at once: her emotions were enslaved.
It wasn’t only good looks. His looks were merely an extra, naturally helpful but not necessary. It was something in the man himself. The room was in an instant filled with his presence. All the women of any company would at once be rivals for his notice. Perhaps it was an aura that sent out waves of challenge to the female in every woman. Miss Pettigrew felt it. Miss Pettigrew responded to it. She couldn’t help it. Her feminine susceptibilities simply turned traitor on her and she would have given ten years of her life for him to kiss her as he had kissed Miss LaFosse. She almost did hate Miss LaFosse for her youth, her beauty, her charm. Not for long, though. She was not as stupid as all that.
He was not good. Miss Pettigrew knew that: from what Miss LaFosse had told her and from something about the man himself. That was why he was so fascinating. Miss Pettigrew’s intelligence was quite up to the subtle attraction of a spice of wickedness against the dullness of too much virtue.
“Oh dear!” she thought. “These men. They’re wicked, but it doesn’t matter. They simply leave the good men standing still. If only Michael had been a little less good and proper he might have had a chance, but as it is, against a man like this, what ordinary man has a look in? It’s no use, we women just can’t help ourselves. When it comes to love we’re born adventurers.”
She sighed. The problem was going to be a difficult one. She quite forgot in her excitement that any minute she might be ejected summarily. She had now completely identified herself with Miss LaFosse and felt she had known her all her life.
Miss LaFosse was standing eyeing them both a little nervously. Her smile had lost its lovely assurance and had that faintly placating nervousness about it of a woman who longs for, yet doubts, her complete power over a man.
“Come and sit down,” said Miss LaFosse to Nick propitiatingly.
“Oh, my dear,” thought Miss Pettigrew, “that other manner is much the best. A…a sort of regal indifference. This kind of creature respects that. The minute he thinks you’re all his, you’ll lose him.”
Her worldly wisdom almost dumbfounded her. She had to call him in her mind creature, upstart, mountebank, to save herself falling in love with him. If he had only once looked at her, kissed her, the way he had Miss LaFosse, she knew she would have been his slave.
“Who would ever have thought it,” worried Miss Pettigrew, “at my age? I am a very stupid woman. As if I didn’t know he thinks I’m an old back number and wants me away.”
In truth the very air round Nick was thick with anger at her presence. He had come jealously prepared to find Miss LaFosse not alone, but he had not expected a Miss Pettigrew. This old fool seemed set for the day. Miss Pettigrew felt these waves of thought. Suddenly all her old deprecating nervousness crowded back on her.
“Should I go?” she thought in terror. “After all, I am an intruder. I expect even Miss LaFosse is thinking I’m an interfering busybody and wishes I would have the sense to go and didn’t really mean she wanted me to stay.”
Hot with discomfort she began to tremble a little. All her lovely, new sense of assurance vanished. She was Miss Pettigrew, the inefficient nursery governess again, nervous, futile, helpless. She fumbled at the back of a chair. Then she looked at Miss LaFosse.
Miss LaFosse gave her a brilliant, friendly, reassuring smile.
And quite suddenly Miss Pettigrew was immune: safe from his dislike: safe from his charm. He could turn on his fascination act as much as he liked. She wouldn’t fall for it. He could be as rude as he liked, and she thought, if goaded, he could be very rude; she was impervious to insult. Here she was and here she would stay. Only Miss LaFosse could turn her out.
Miss Pettigrew sat down on her chair again, serene, composed, set for the day.
Nick glared at her, met the solid wall of her indifference, and turned slowly to Miss LaFosse.
“I thought you would be alone.”
Miss LaFosse jumped at his deadly tone.
“But you said tomorrow,” she pleaded nervously. “You distinctly said tomorrow.”
“I know, but I pushed the business through a day earlier and came straight back. I thought you would be glad to have me back sooner.”
“Oh, darling, I am glad.” Miss LaFos
se came to him with outstretched arms. “I’ve missed you like hell. I thought you’d never come back.”
“Very bad beginning,” worried Miss Pettigrew. “Not at all the kind of greeting to lead up to a parting.”
Nick looked placated. He gave her a quick kiss, merely as a taste of what was to come, finishing with an understanding glance. Obviously she didn’t like to be rude to the old fool, but he didn’t mind in the slightest. He put her to one side and came to rest in front of Miss Pettigrew.
“I didn’t catch the name,” said Nick in his most insulting voice.
Miss Pettigrew sat secure beneath the mantle of Mrs. Jackaman, four situations previous. How superbly she had countered the insults of an abominable husband by a bland unawareness, until blaspheming he had torn from the house and left her to a little peace.
“Pettigrew,” said Miss Pettigrew helpfully; “so uncommon, isn’t it? My dear father used to say…”
“Too uncommon not to let it travel around,” said Nick ominously.
“Ah!” said Miss Pettigrew sadly. “I’ve never been a good traveller. I remember once…”
“I’ve been away three weeks,” said Nick, beginning to get warm.
“Well now, I do hope you had a nice holiday,” said Miss Pettigrew kindly. “Do you intend to travel much further? The weather has been so unsettled.”
“I have something to say to Miss LaFosse,” said Nick, getting still more furious.
“Something you forgot to write? But there, the post these days is disgraceful. But the telephone is such a convenience I simply cannot think what we would do…”
“I thought she would be alone,” said Nick, holding back an explosion with difficulty.
“Great minds…” said Miss Pettigrew brightly. “Just what I hoped myself. I was so glad to find Miss LaFosse alone today. I’ve been looking forward to such a long chat, but it was nice of you to pop in as you passed.”
Nick was red in the face. Miss LaFosse painfully awaited the explosion.
“Most of her friends have tact,” said Nick pointedly, in a last raging effort towards peaceable ejection.
“There now,” said Miss Pettigrew cheerfully. “I knew you had. It makes it so much easier. So nice of you to understand. As soon as I saw you I thought…”
“To hell with what you thought. Will You Go?” exploded Nick.
“No,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“!!!…???…!!!…???…!!!”
“Oh!” gasped Miss Pettigrew.
Miss LaFosse started forward. She threw a wild look at Miss Pettigrew’s shocked countenance, and a distracted look at Nick’s raging one.
“Nick, darling, do sit down and let me have a look at you.”
Nick was too dumbfounded to resist. She helped him off with his coat. She pulled him on to the chesterfield and sat down beside him. Nick gave Miss Pettigrew one more glare, shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to forget her. As Miss LaFosse had thought, the négligé was very seductive.
By this time Miss Pettigrew was getting almost hardened.
“Well,” she thought weakly, “they don’t seem to mind. Why should I? I think before, perhaps, I’ve held too narrow views. This…this lovemaking seems a very pleasant business.”
She sat up and began to take quite an interest in the technique.
“Ah!” thought Miss Pettigrew sagely, “with Phil it was only a business, a pleasant business, but only part of the day’s routine. But with Nick, every gesture, every caress conveys the impression you are the one woman in the world. Who could resist him?”
After a while Miss LaFosse and Nick relaxed for air. He now took Miss Pettigrew quite philosophically. If the old lady—every one to Nick was old over thirty-three—didn’t mind a bit of petting, he wasn’t the one to deprive her of her enjoyment. She rather cramped his style, but it was still early. Night was, after all, the best time. Worth-while pleasures never lost their flavour for a little postponement.
He sat up.
“I could do with a drink.”
“So could I,” agreed Miss LaFosse. “You know where the stuff is.”
“O. K. What’ll it be?”
“Well,” pondered Miss LaFosse, “mix me one of your Specials, Nick. There’s a wallop in them that sets you up for the day.”
“Anything you say. What’s yours?”
“Me?” said Miss Pettigrew.
“You.”
“A drink?”
“It’s been mentioned.”
Miss Pettigrew nearly said, “Oh, no thank you,” in a flutter of genteel denial. But she didn’t. Not her. Not now. She stopped herself in time: just in time. She was going to accept now everything that came along.
From this one day, dropped out of the blue into her lap, she was going to savour everything it offered her.
“I will take,” said Miss Pettigrew, with calmness, with ease, with assurance, “a little dry sherry, if you please.”
She considered the ‘dry’ the perfect touch. Not Sherry. Any one could say that. “Dry sherry.” That showed poise, sophistication, the experienced palate. It raised her prestige. She had no idea what the dry meant, but she remembered distinctly the husband of her last situation but one, who had always terrified her by his booming irritation, cursing this ‘damned dry sherry’ and she was quite sure what he didn’t like, she would.
Nick looked unimpressed.
“Sure you won’t have a Horse’s Fillip, too?”
Miss Pettigrew’s resolution to experience everything wavered a little.
“Oh, I think not,” she said hurriedly, “not in a morning. Just a little dry sherry, please.”
Nick went into the kitchen. Miss LaFosse leaned forward. She felt responsible for Nick’s behaviour and his language was not suitable for ladies like her new friend.
“You mustn’t mind Nick’s language,” she whispered. “I mean, he doesn’t mean anything. It’s just like you or me saying ‘Oh bother’ or ‘drat it’.”
Miss Pettigrew raised her head. Her expression became very firm.
“My dear, I don’t like to be unpleasant, but I’m afraid I don’t believe that excuse. I am a lot older than you and during my lifetime I have heard a great many people say they don’t mean a thing, when they know perfectly well they do. It’s just a weak excuse for a bad habit. If I were you I would use your influence on that young man to, well, moderate his language. You know, my dear, in the end a young man thinks a lot more of a young lady who insists on decorum in her presence. I…I hope you don’t mind my telling you this, but I am, as I say, almost old enough to be your mother.”
There was the loveliest twinkle in Miss LaFosse’s eyes, kindly, affectionate, but she veiled it discreetly. She wouldn’t have hurt Miss Pettigrew for worlds.
“I’ll try,” said Miss LaFosse meekly. “I’ll do my best. I’m quite sure you’re quite right about it.”
They could hear the clink of glasses in the kitchen and Nick moving about. He was humming with a low, cheerful sound a popular tune. Suddenly the humming stopped, to be succeeded by a terrifying silence. Miss Pettigrew looked at Miss LaFosse. Miss LaFosse looked at Miss Pettigrew. Her face was suddenly strained with the expression of rigid apprehension worn on Miss Pettigrew’s first view of her.
The kitchen door opened and Nick stood on the threshold. Miss Pettigrew felt a sudden shiver run down her spine. All his pleasant amiability was gone. His face was menacing, frightening. Miss Pettigrew understood at once that it was no mere joke that some men were to be feared. Her vague, developing belief that all these amazing interludes were some kind of charming joke she had been privileged to share vanished abruptly and she realized she was now in the middle of a new situation that no longer held humour.
She saw Miss LaFosse’s lovely face go almost green with fright under Nick’s terrible stare.
“Since when,” asked Nick in a low, deadly voice, “have you started smoking cheroots?”
Miss Pettigrew’s first impulse was to explode into giggles and s
he saw that the same unbalanced mirth threatened Miss LaFosse behind her terror. She could hear, quite plainly, Miss LaFosse saying, “Then the detective snoops around and says, ‘Ha! So you smoke a cigar now, do you, miss?’”
Miss LaFosse was quite incapable of speaking. Miss Pettigrew saw that everything now depended on her.
Her mind whirled dizzily, then burst like a rocket into dazzling light. She remembered Mrs. Brummegan, her last employer: chest like a hill, nose like a horse, mouth like a clamp, chin like a hatchet, voice like a rasp, manner calculated to awe a brigadier. Her life with Mrs. Brummegan had been two years of sheer, undiluted hell. But she was thankful for it now. It all lay in the manner. Manner can put over anything, and who, better than she, knew just how Mrs. Brummegan did it? No one ever dared doubt Mrs. Brummegan. This was her moment.
Miss Pettigrew stood up. She stalked across the room, arrogance and contempt in her stride. She picked up her handbag lying on a chair. She turned: she glanced at Nick, chin up, eyes blazing, voice rasping.
“Young man,” said Miss Pettigrew, “if there’s one thing I completely abominate it’s the effeminate type of man that snoops round a house like an old, peeking busybody. I am Miss LaFosse’s guest. If she doesn’t mind, it’s no business of yours. If I want to smoke cheroots, I’ll smoke cheroots, instead of those damned, silly cigarettes. I’ve reached the age when I can please myself and I mean to please myself and to hell with your opinion. Have one. I can recommend them.”
Miss Pettigrew opened her bag. She took out a worn packet of cheroots. She held it out. It was a crisis. She snorted, she glared.
Nick was vanquished. He reached out, took the packet, compared the cheroots. He dropped the half-burned end on the rug and ground it with his heel. He walked over to Miss LaFosse and stood over her. He said in a soft voice that made Miss Pettigrew shiver, “You wouldn’t fool me, would you?”
Miss LaFosse made a lightning recovery. She was not an actress for nothing. She jumped to her feet with a petulant gesture.