LITMIR.BIZ

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Edith peeped round the door. Her head was tied up in a duster and she wore the exalted rapt look of a priestess performing a ritual orgy.

      ‘You wouldn’t be out to lunch, I suppose? I was wrong about the fog. It’s going to be a proper nice day. I don’t mean as I’ve forgotten that bit of plaice. I haven’t. But if it’s kept till now, it’ll keep till this evening. No denying, these fridges do keep things—but it takes the goodness out of them all the same. That’s what I say.’

      Ann looked at Edith and laughed.

      ‘All right, all right, I’ll go out to lunch.’

      ‘Please yourself, of course, I don’t mind.’

      ‘Yes, Edith, but don’t kill yourself. Why not get Mrs Hopper in to help you, if you must clean the place from top to toe.’

      ‘Mrs Hopper, Mrs Hopper! I’ll Hopper her! I let her clean that nice brass fender of your ma’s last time she came. Left it all smeary. Wash down the linoleum, that’s all these women are good for, and anybody can do that. Remember that cut-steel fender and grate we had at Applestream? That took a bit of keeping. I took a pride in that, I can tell you. Ah, well, you’ve some nice pieces of furniture here and they polish up something beautiful. Pity there’s so much built-in stuff.’

      ‘It makes less work.’

      ‘Too much like a hotel for my liking. So you’ll be going out? Good. I can get all the rugs up.’

      ‘Can I come here tonight? Or would you like me to go to a hotel?’

      ‘Now then, Miss Ann, none of your jokes. By the way, that double saucepan you brought home from the Stores isn’t a mite of good. It’s too big for one thing and it’s a bad shape for stirring inside. I want one like my old one.’

      ‘I’m afraid they don’t make them any more, Edith.’

      ‘This government,’ said Edith in disgust. ‘What about those china soufflé dishes I asked about? Miss Sarah likes a soufflé served that way.’

      ‘I forgot you’d asked me to get them. I daresay I could find some of them all right.’

      ‘There you are, then. That’s something for you to do.’

      ‘Really, Edith,’ cried Ann, exasperated. ‘I might be a little girl you’re telling to go out and have a nice bowl of her hoop.’

      ‘Miss Sarah being away makes you seem younger, I must admit. But I was only suggesting, ma’am—’ Edith drew herself up to her full height and spoke with sour primness—‘if you should happen to be in the neighbourhood of the Army and Navy Stores, or maybe John Barker’s—’

      ‘All right, Edith. Go and bowl your own hoop in the sitting-room.’

      ‘Well, really,’ said Edith, outraged, and withdrew.

      The bangs and bumps recommenced and presently another sound was added to them, the thin tuneless sound of Edith’s voice upraised in a particularly gloomy hymn tune:

      ‘This is a land of pain and woe

      No joy, no sun, no light.

       Oh lave, Oh lave us in Thy blood

      That we may mourn aright.’

      Ann enjoyed herself in the china department of the Army and Navy Stores. She thought that nowadays when so many things were shoddily and badly made, it was a relief to see what good china and glass and pottery this country could turn out still.

      The forbidding notices ‘For Export Only’ did not spoil her appreciation of the wares displayed in their shining rows. She passed on to the tables displaying the export rejects where there were always women shoppers hovering with keen glances to pounce on some attractive piece.

      Today, Ann herself was fortunate. There was actually a nearly complete breakfast set, with nice wide round cups in an agreeable brown glazed and patterned pottery. The price was not unreasonable and she purchased it just in time. Another woman came along just as the address was being taken and said excitedly: ‘I’ll have that.’

      ‘Sorry, madam, I’m afraid it’s sold.’

      Ann said insincerely: ‘I’m so sorry,’ and walked away buoyed up with the delight of successful achievement. She had also found some very pleasant soufflé dishes of the right size, but in glass, not china, which she hoped Edith would accept without grumbling too much.

      From the china department she went across the street into the gardening department. The window-box outside the flat window was crumbling into disintegration and she wanted to order another.

      She was talking to the salesman about it when a voice behind her said:

      ‘Why, good morning, Mrs Prentice.’

      She turned to find Richard Cauldfield. His pleasure at their meeting was so evident that Ann could not help feeling flattered.

      ‘Fancy meeting you here like this. It really is a wonderful coincidence. I was just thinking about you as a matter of fact. You know, last night, I wanted to ask you where you lived and if I might, perhaps, come and see you? But then I thought that perhaps you would think it was rather an impertinence on my part. You must have so many friends, and—’

      Ann interrupted him.

      ‘Of course you must come and see me. Actually I was thinking of asking Colonel Grant to dinner and suggesting that he might bring you with him.’

      ‘Were you? Were you really?’

      His eagerness and pleasure were so evident that Ann felt a pang of sympathy. Poor man, he must be lonely. That happy smile of his was really quite boyish.

      She said: ‘I’ve been ordering myself a new window-box. That’s the nearest we can get in a flat to having a garden.’

      ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

      ‘What are you doing here?’

      ‘I’ve been looking at incubators—’

      ‘Still hankering after chickens.’

      ‘In a way. I’ve been looking at all the latest poultry equipment. I understand this electrical stunt is the latest thing.’

      They moved together towards the exit. Richard Cauldfield said in a sudden rush:

      ‘I wonder—of course perhaps you’re engaged—whether you’d care to lunch with me—that is if you’re not doing anything else.’

      ‘Thank you. I’d like to very much. As a matter of fact Edith, my maid, is indulging in an orgy of spring cleaning and has told me very firmly not to come home to lunch.’

      Richard Cauldfield looked rather shocked and not at all amused.

      ‘That’s very arbitrary, isn’t it?’

      ‘Edith is privileged.’

      ‘All the same, you know, it doesn’t do to spoil servants.’

      He’s reproving me, thought Ann with amusement. She said gently:

      ‘There aren’t many servants about to spoil. And anyway Edith is more a friend than a servant. She has been with me a great many years.’

      ‘Oh, I see.’ He felt he had been gently rebuked, yet his impression remained. This gentle pretty woman was being bullied by some tyrannical domestic. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could stand up for herself. Too sweet and yielding a nature.

      He said vaguely: ‘Spring cleaning? Is this the time of year one does it?’

      ‘Not really. It should be done in March. But my daughter is away for some weeks in Switzerland, so it makes an opportunity. When she’s at home there is too much going on.’

      ‘You miss her, I expect?’

      ‘Yes,

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