1938 - Miss Pettigrew lives for a day

  “Agreed to the courage,” said Miss Pettigrew firmly. “Now you’ve got to use it.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s gone,” said Miss Pettigrew.

  “Yes.”

  “And when he went through the door you thought the world went with him.”

  “You do understand things.”

  “Do you feel exactly the same now?” demanded Miss Pettigrew.

  “Well. No. Not now. Not so badly. Come to think of it. No.”

  “I mean he’s away, but you can bear him away.”

  “Well. Yes.”

  “And tomorrow isn’t ten years away?”

  “Why, no. I suppose it isn’t. I’ll survive.”

  “Well, you see how it is,” said Miss Pettigrew earnestly. “It’s only when he’s there. When he’s gone you know you can live without him. Will you always remember that, so that however hard it is at the moment, will you promise me that every time in future he asks you to do anything you’ll only agree to give him an answer later and wait until he’s been gone fifteen minutes before deciding, when the glamour has ceased to function?”

  “It’s a difficult promise,” said Miss LaFosse, “but I give it. I know it’s for my own good. I can never thank you for what you’ve done for me today. You’ve saved me twice. You know, I’ve never turned Nick away before. I didn’t think I ever really could, however much I hoped. Now I’ve done it, and do you know? I feel quite all right now. I feel kind of fine. I feel, I’ve done it once, why can’t I do it again? I feel, why, I can do it again…I feel,” said Miss LaFosse, warming up, “just grand. Free. Maybe I can resist him.”

  “That,” said Miss Pettigrew, “is the spirit.”

  She leaned back in her chair. Miss LaFosse leaned back in hers and sank into a contemplative dream. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked. Slowly its ticking penetrated Miss Pettigrew’s brain. She turned her head and looked at the clock. The pointers were racing round and Miss Pettigrew remembered where she was. There was nothing to keep her there now. Good manners demanded her departure. She must state her errand and go. She must give up her position of equality as Miss LaFosse’s ally and take her correct one of humble applicant for a job, which she felt in her bones she would never get.

  She knew too much about the private affairs of Miss LaFosse. Miss Pettigrew had endured many hard knocks from human nature and understood how intolerable to a mistress such a situation would be. She felt a hopeless, bitter unhappiness invade her. But there was nothing she could do. She must at last get her presence explained and end this wonderful adventure.

  She couldn’t bear to do it. She had never in her life before wanted more to stay in any place. She felt she couldn’t endure to leave this happy, careless atmosphere, despite momentary upheavals, where some one was kind to her and thought her wonderful. How could she possibly live out her life never knowing what happened to Phil, whether Nick’s charms bore down Miss LaFosse’s susceptible defences, who Michael was and what he was like? She felt the tears of loneliness and exclusion sting her eyes.

  “I’ll wait,” thought Miss Pettigrew dully, “three more minutes. I’ll wait ‘til the pointers move three minutes before speaking. Surely I can have three more minutes of being happy.”

  She prayed desperately for a knock on the door. A knock on Miss LaFosse’s door heralded adventure. It was not like an ordinary house, when the knocker would be the butcher, or baker or candlestick-maker. A knock on Miss LaFosse’s door would mean excitement, drama, a new crisis to be dealt with. Oh, if only for once the Lord would be good and cause some miracle to happen to keep her here, to see for one day how life could be lived, so that for all the rest of her dull, uneventful days, when things grew bad, she could look back in her mind and dwell on the time when for one perfect day she, Miss Pettigrew, lived.

  But miracles don’t happen. No knock came. The clock ticked on. Three minutes were over. Miss Pettigrew, always honest, even with herself, sat up. She clasped her hands very tightly. Her face shadowed with a determined, pathetic, hopeless look.

  “There’s a little matter,” began Miss Pettigrew bravely, “I think we ought to get settled. About my…”

  Miss LaFosse came out of her dream with a sigh and smiled at Miss Pettigrew.

  “I was thinking of Michael,” she confessed.

  “Michael!” exclaimed Miss Pettigrew.

  Miss LaFosse nodded with a half-shamefaced look.

  “I don’t care who it is,” she said earnestly, “a woman always has a kind of sentimental feeling for the man who wants to marry her, even if she has no intention of marrying him and thinks he’s terrible. It doesn’t matter who he is or what he’s like, he at once becomes a man apart. I suppose,” Miss LaFosse looked profound, “it is the greatest compliment there is and it flatters your vanity.”

  Miss Pettigrew didn’t like Michael. She wanted Miss LaFosse to get married. Marriage was her best safeguard. But somehow or other it hadn’t to be an ordinary marriage. She didn’t want an ordinary marriage for Miss LaFosse. She wanted something happy and romantic and brilliant. It somehow hurt her to think of Miss LaFosse settling into obscurity with a dull, provincial nonentity, even if he did offer her security. And she had the impression that Michael was all these things.

  “I suppose,” questioned Miss Pettigrew hopefully, “he isn’t in the line for a baronetcy, or a title, or anything like that?”

  “Oh no,” said Miss LaFosse; “not Michael. Nothing like that.”

  “I thought not,” said Miss Pettigrew sadly.

  “His father owned a fish shop in Birmingham,” explained Miss LaFosse, “and his mother was a dressmaker. But he came south when he was sixteen. He’s what you might call a selfmade man.”

  “I see,” said Miss Pettigrew in complete disappointment.

  She detested Michael. She knew just how conventional and narrow-minded these self-made men could be. There was that Mr. Sapfish in her Fulbury post. A contemptible man. No ancestry. No background behind them. Clinging to their new status with nervous respectability. Fearful of straying from the strait path because of their insecurity. Frightened to experience life themselves so fascinated beyond control by some one who had. Miss Pettigrew had read her psychology and knew of inhibitions. The prize in their hands, what then? Terror of whispers and people talking. “His wife, you know…Watchful, nervous eyes for ever following a wife’s movements. Poor Mrs. Sapfish! It would break Miss LaFosse’s spirit. He would clip her wings.”

  “Oh, not Michael!” prayed Miss Pettigrew. “There must be some one else.”

  “Isn’t there any one else who wants to marry you?” asked Miss Pettigrew hopefully.

  Miss LaFosse brightened. The conversation was getting interesting.

  “Well, there’s Dick,” she said helpfully, “but he’s got no money and squints. He’s a reporter, and reporters never do have any money.”

  “No use,” said Miss Pettigrew firmly.

  “And there’s Wilfred, but he’s had two children already by Daisy LaRue, and I think he ought to marry her.”

  “Undoubtedly,” agreed Miss Pettigrew, shocked, but with a wicked interest.

  “I think he will, once he’s got over me. He’s very fond of Joan and George.”

  “The poor darlings!” said Miss Pettigrew, all agog.

  “So we’ll wash out Wilfred,” said Miss LaFosse with superb magnanimity.

  “And there’s no one else?” asked Miss Pettigrew, disappointed.

  “Well, no, I don’t think so. Not at the moment. I mean, well, I haven’t been working on anything very seriously just lately.”

  “Well,” said Miss Pettigrew with grudging fairness, “I haven’t seen Michael yet…”

  The clock caught Miss LaFosse’s eye.

  “Good heavens!” she gasped. “Look at the time. Quarter-past one. You must be starved.”

  She turned impetuously to Miss Pettigrew.

  “Oh, please! Do say you can stay. You haven’t got another appointment, have yo
u? I don’t feel a bit like lunching alone.”

  Miss Pettigrew leaned back. Bliss made her quite dizzy.

  “Oh no,” said Miss Pettigrew in a voice which, if visible, would have shone, “I haven’t got another appointment. I’d love to have lunch with you. I’m free all day.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1.17 PM—3.13 PM

  They lunched at home, and Miss Pettigrew prepared it. She discovered the remains of a cold chicken in the pantry. Cold chicken, to her, was the height of luxury. Miss LaFosse opened a bottle of Liebfraumilch and made her drink some. Miss Pettigrew sipped it slowly with stern caution, and beyond making her feel, if possible, a little more reckless, it had no ill effects.

  They were sipping their coffee in comfortable intimacy when the bell rang. Miss Pettigrew looked up with alert expectancy. Things were starting again. Her body jerked in response, but Miss LaFosse was before her. She answered the door and brought in a box containing a huge sheaf of scarlet roses.

  “Oh, how lovely!” gasped Miss Pettigrew.

  Miss LaFosse hunted for the card.

  “Until tomorrow,” read Miss LaFosse, “Nick.”

  “Nick!” said Miss Pettigrew in a flat voice.

  “Nick!” repeated Miss LaFosse in a thrilled voice. “Oh! The darling!”

  She picked up the roses and buried her nose in their fragrance. Over her face, very slowly, dawned a look of sentimental tenderness.

  “Oh!” she breathed again, “how sweet of him!”

  She looked apologetically at Miss Pettigrew.

  “He doesn’t often send them. I mean, he’s not like that. I mean, it means more from him than some one else.”

  Miss Pettigrew saw Miss LaFosse was slipping. She sat up for action.

  “Humph!”

  “What?”

  “A very nice gesture.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Miss LaFosse in a hurt voice.

  Miss Pettigrew gave a negligent glance at the flowers.

  “Any one can send flowers,” said Miss Pettigrew. “It’s the easiest thing in the world for a man with money to walk into a shop and say send a bunch of flowers to Miss So-and-so. No trouble to him: no worry: no care, and he knows that every silly, sentimental woman is touched by the act. Odd!” said Miss Pettigrew conversationally, “the undermining effect of flowers on a woman’s common sense.”

  “Well! It was very nice of him,” said Miss LaFosse defensively.

  “Oh…very,” said Miss Pettigrew sarcastically.

  “Well. What else should he do?” asked Miss LaFosse, getting a little heated.

  “Are they your favourite flowers?” demanded Miss Pettigrew.

  Miss LaFosse looked at the roses.

  “Well, no,” she confessed. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never been too partial to scarlet roses. One gets such a lot. Like orchids. All the men send you orchids because they’re expensive and they know that you know they are. But I always kind of think they’re cheap, don’t you, just because they’re expensive. Like telling some one how much you paid for something to show off. I’ve always loved those great bronze chrysanthemum blooms.”

  Miss Pettigrew made a careless gesture with her hand.

  “There you ate. He’s never even taken the trouble to find out your favourite flowers. Now, if he’d done that…! Well! There’s something to it. But just to walk in a shop and order some flowers sent round like a pound of butter…no!” said Miss Pettigrew. “I’m sorry. But I can’t get excited over that.”

  “You’re quite right,” said Miss LaFosse. “I never thought of that before. It’s just as you say. It’s the little things that show a man’s true feelings.”

  She dropped the roses on the couch.

  “Oh!” said Miss Pettigrew hastily, “I don’t think it’s the flowers’ fault. A little water, don’t you think…?”

  “Of course. I’ll get some.”

  Miss LaFosse found an empty vase and went into the kitchen for water. Miss Pettigrew stood up. She in turn picked up the roses and let their lovely fragrance envelop her senses.

  “Oh!” thought Miss Pettigrew. “If a man had ever sent me a bunch of scarlet roses, I’d have lain on the ground and let him walk all over me.”

  Miss LaFosse came back and Miss Pettigrew carelessly pushed the roses in the vase. Their vivid hue added one more touch of brilliance to the room.

  “Quarter-to three,” meditated Miss LaFosse. “It’s early, but we’re due at the Ogilveys’ at five and it’s surprising how long it takes to change and get your face made up. We’d better start now. You must come and decide my frock for me.”

  Miss Pettigrew followed her into the bedroom. That ‘we’ rang in her head. But she couldn’t believe it meant herself. Some one else must be calling for Miss LaFosse. Until he came though (it would certainly be a’ he”) she would savour every precious minute left with her hostess.

  “A bath first,” said Miss LaFosse. “I haven’t had one yet. There’s one blessing about this place. The water’s always hot. In my last flat you could never depend on the hot water and I do like a nice hot bath whenever I want. I’ll go first, then you can have one and we can choose a frock for you. Now will you turn on the water while I find some clothes.”

  Dazed, Miss Pettigrew went into the bathroom. Dazed, she turned on the water. Dazed, she laid out soap and towels. She hadn’t heard aright. Her ears were playing her tricks. Even if she had heard aright she was putting the wrong construction on it. She stood gazing at the water pouring in. She was quite drunk now. She was drunk with excitement and expectancy and joy. She was drunk with an exhilaration she had never known in her life before. Miss LaFosse was a wicked woman. She didn’t care. To her own knowledge Miss LaFosse possessed two lovers, and who knew how many more she had had? She didn’t care. Somewhere Miss LaFosse had a child tucked away and needed a governess. She didn’t care.

  “I don’t care,” thought Miss Pettigrew wildly, “if it’s two children.”

  She went back into the bedroom.

  “Your bath’s ready.”

  Miss LaFosse disappeared into the bathroom. Miss Pettigrew surveyed the room. It was in great disorder. Cobwebby stockings of various shades strewed the floor. Underwear, masses of silk and lace, hung out of drawers and draped chair-backs. Frocks were tossed on the bed.

  Miss Pettigrew shook her head.

  “Tut…tut,” thought yesterday’s Miss Pettigrew. “A very untidy child. Very slovenly. No order. No care. Bad upbringing. A lady’s bedroom should never be in this state.”

  Yesterday’s Miss Pettigrew subsided.

  “Oh charming disorder!” thought Miss Pettigrew luxuriantly. “Oh lovely sense of ease! Oh glorious relaxation! No example to set. No standard to keep up. No ladylike neatness.”

  Even if one did work as governess for Miss LaFosse, Miss Pettigrew was quite sure Miss LaFosse would never come round with prying eyes to invade the privacy of your bedroom and judge how you kept it. She felt a soaring sense of joy just to know there were people in the world as kind as Miss LaFosse. She stood in the centre of the room and beamed round happily until Miss LaFosse returned from the bathroom.

  Miss LaFosse wore nothing but a peach-coloured silk dressing-gown. As she moved carelessly her gown swished apart and Miss Pettigrew had a glimpse of beautifully modelled limbs, of flawless, pale-coloured flesh. Her face was flushed a delicate pink by the heat. The steam had fluffed her hair into tiny, curling tendrils round her face. Miss Pettigrew regarded her with shy admiration.

  “You are very lovely.”

  “Well, now,” smiled Miss LaFosse, “that is very nice of you to say so.”

  She supped off her dressing-gown unconcernedly and began hunting round for another garment. Miss Pettigrew gasped, blinked, shut her eyes, opened them again. Miss LaFosse wandered round with unselfconscious case, unaware of offending any delicate sensibilities.

  Miss Pettigrew, feeling hot and flustered, chided herself.

  “It is I,” thought Miss
Pettigrew sternly, “who have an evil mind. What’s wrong with the human body? Nothing. Didn’t the Lord make it, the same as our faces? Certainly. Would He create anything He thought wrong? No. Isn’t it only the exigencies of our climate which have demanded clothes? Of course. It’s all in the way of thinking. I’ve a silly, narrow mind. I’ve never seen anything lovelier than Miss LaFosse standing there.”

  Miss LaFosse was now regarding herself in the mirror with detached appreciation.

  “Though I says it as shouldn’t,” said Miss LaFosse, “I do think I’ve got a nice figure. I mean, do you? You see, it’s so very important in my profession. Lose your figure: lose your following. One’s got to keep fit.”

  “You’ve got the loveliest figure I’ve ever seen,” said Miss Pettigrew.

  Miss LaFosse beamed.

  “You say the nicest things. You’d make any one feel good with themselves.”

  She slipped into a bit of silk and lace. Miss Pettigrew gave a gentle sigh of relief. She was quite willing to have her outlook widened, but she was a bit old to move too precipitately.

  “What a mess!” exclaimed Miss LaFosse. “I’ve lost my maid, you know, and I never can keep things tidy when I hunt clothes myself. Now. Which frock shall it be?”

  She held up two frocks. Miss Pettigrew drew a deep breath. Each was ravishing. Each the kind of frock fit to feature a film star. One had a background of midnight blue, patterned in a wild design of colours. The other was black, with a silver dog-collar and wide, transparent sleeves, fastened tight around the wrist with silver bands, and a silver girdle round the waist. Miss Pettigrew liked them both. She didn’t mind which Miss LaFosse wore, but she looked solemn, wise and knowing and pointed decisively to the black. Black was always safe.

  “The black,” said Miss Pettigrew. “With your fair hair and complexion and blue eyes…perfect.”

  Miss LaFosse struggled into the black. Miss Pettigrew fastened her up.

  “They’re both new,” said Miss LaFosse. “I was going to give the bill to Nick, but if I’m going to try and break with him, I think it’s only decent to send the bill to Phil, don’t you agree?”