Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (23 page)

“Your coat,” gasped Miss Pettigrew. “The bedroom. I will put it away.”

She seized Miss LaFosse’s fur coat and beat a hasty retreat into the bedroom. There was an interval of silence. The door banged.

“All clear,” called Miss LaFosse. “You can come out of hiding. Nothing to shock your modesty now.”

3.47
AM
—?

M
iss Pettigrew came out looking embarrassed.

“I understand,” said Miss Pettigrew, “that young people always prefer their farewells to be in private.”

“You make an ideal chaperone,” said Miss LaFosse. “I’ll do as much for you.”

“Now,” said Miss Pettigrew, “it is very late. I think you had better get straight to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”

“Oh no,” pleaded Miss LaFosse. “I’m not a bit tired. Do let’s sit and have a little chat. Men are all right in their place, but I do like a nice feminine gossip.”

“Strange to say,” said Miss Pettigrew happily, “I’m not at all tired myself.”

They sat in front of the fire.

“So you’re really going to marry Michael,” said Miss Pettigrew contentedly.

“Yes,” said Miss LaFosse.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am,” said Miss Pettigrew earnestly. “It sets my mind at rest.”

“Were you as worried as all that?” asked Miss LaFosse.

“I was,” said Miss Pettigrew. “I knew that in the end Nick would leave you unhappy. I know that it is very easy for an outsider to advise and very different when it is yourself suffering the pangs of love, but there are times in this life when all is not worth losing for love.”

“You’re quite right,” said Miss LaFosse soberly. “But without you I would never have been free. It was no use. The minute Nick said ‘Come’ I had to go.”

Both women were silent a moment. Each was seeing in her mind’s eye Nick slowly disappearing from the room, with his dark head, his brilliant black eyes, his bitter tongue, his compelling glances, his wicked little black moustache, his lithe, feline body. Nick had lost this once, but he would still carry on his conquering ways, still bring joy and sorrow to other women. Miss LaFosse would always hate her successors. Miss Pettigrew gave him a last regretful tribute. Wicked he might be, but fascinating he undoubtedly was.

“Some men are like that,” agreed Miss Pettigrew.

“Yes,” said Miss LaFosse in a low voice. “Nick was.”

Miss Pettigrew leaned forward and caught Miss LaFosse’s hand.

“But not now,” pleaded Miss Pettigrew urgently. “Promise me not now. It doesn’t matter whether he comes and goes down on his knees, promise me you won’t go back to him.”

The door closed firmly on the wraith of Nick.

“Never again,” promised Miss LaFosse earnestly. “It was just as you said. When Michael stood towering over him, I felt a surge of pride in Michael. When Nick sprang to his feet in a fury, I felt a surge of pride in Nick. And then…when he hesitated…I don’t know. Something just went ‘click’ inside me, and I saw that he was all just…just ice-cream. And he melted away. Just like that. He couldn’t get me back now if he tried.”

“The relief!” sighed Miss Pettigrew. “I can’t describe it.”

“Such a day!” said Miss LaFosse. “Everything went wrong and everything went right. But I daren’t think what would have happened if you hadn’t come.”

“Oh dear!” said Miss Pettigrew. “Oh dear!”

She remembered suddenly. She had not yet told Miss LaFosse why she had come. She had been wickedly remiss about it up to now, but she could not sleep in comfort unless her confession was made. The time had come. She could evade it no longer.

“There is something I must tell you,” said Miss Pettigrew in a strained voice.

“Yes,” said Miss LaFosse expectantly.

“It’s why I did come here,” said Miss Pettigrew bravely. “I have tried to tell you once or twice, but you always interrupted.”

“I didn’t want to hear,” said Miss LaFosse. “It takes away the fun, knowing about people. Suppose you had come selling vacuum cleaners, what an anticlimax! Who could be thrilled over a vacuum salesman? You aren’t, are you?”

“No,” said Miss Pettigrew. “But you must listen now.”

“I’m quite willing now,” said Miss LaFosse. “I’m really very interested. There I was, in the most desperate of straits, and bang, out of the blue a miracle-worker appeared and pulled me out of the fire.”

“I am a governess,” said Miss Pettigrew. “I came in answer to your inquiry at Miss Holt’s Registry Office for a governess.”

It was out at last. She looked away. She sat in her true colours, a supplicant for Miss LaFosse’s patronage.

“My inquiry?” asked Miss LaFosse.

Miss Pettigrew nodded.

“Miss Holt gave me your address.”

“Oh!” said Miss LaFosse with an expressionless face. There was a pause.

“Would you like it to be a boy or a girl?” asked Miss LaFosse.

“Oh dear!” said Miss Pettigrew nervously. “I might name the wrong sex. But there! I suppose we all have preferences. I must confess I find little girls rather more easy to deal with.”

“Would you mind if there were two?” asked Miss LaFosse. “One of each.”

Miss Pettigrew’s head sprang round. She stared at Miss LaFosse in dismay, then looked away hastily.

“Not at all, not at all,” said Miss Pettigrew hurriedly. “I have had two before quite frequently.”

Miss LaFosse exploded into a peal of laughter.

“You solemn darling! Don’t get alarmed. I was only teasing. I haven’t any.”

“No children?”

“No children. Not even a very little one.”

“Oh dear, I’m so glad!” gasped Miss Pettigrew in relief.

“But you thought I might have,” said Miss LaFosse with a sly dig.

Miss Pettigrew looked here, looked there, blushed scarlet.

“I humbly apologize,” said Miss Pettigrew in a fluster. “Please forgive me. How could I think of such a thing!”

“Oh, quite easily,” said Miss LaFosse with a grin.

Miss Pettigrew looked reproving.

“Whose are the children then?” asked Miss Pettigrew with dignity.

“Which children?”

“Your children…I mean…the children…the governess…the registry office,” said Miss Pettigrew, getting confused.

“There aren’t any.”

“No…no children?”

“None at all.”

“But…but your inquiry?”

“For a maid. My maid has just left. Miss Holt must have muddled the addresses.”

“Oh dear!” said Miss Pettigrew in a flat voice. “Of course. There was an inquiry for a maid at the same time. I remember her mentioning it. Then I will be too late now. My post will be taken.”

“Well,” said Miss LaFosse cautiously, “I hope, for my sake, it is.”

“Your sake?”

“I have a proposition to make,” said Miss LaFosse. “I hesitate to make it. I know you are a lady. You will not be offended?”

“With you, never,” said Miss Pettigrew, secretly in a flutter.

“You see,” explained Miss LaFosse, “Michael and I are getting married. Quite soon. But Michael has a kink. He will live in a big house with big rooms. He says he spent all his youth with a family of nine all cooped in a little flat with the walls closing in on him and never a room to himself, and He Will Have Space. He has his eye on a beautiful house now, but it is immense. We are both to live there. I can’t look after houses. I know nothing about looking after houses. I shall be away at rehearsals too. I am distracted. Do you…could you possibly give up your present career and come to live with us and look after my house for me?”

“Me?” whispered Miss Pettigrew ungrammatically. “Me…come to live with you and Michael?”

“I wouldn’t interfere,” promised Miss LaFosse. “I assure you. You could run it just as you thought right. There will be maids, of course. I hesitate to ask you to take on such work, but it would be so marvellous for me. I admit I’m selfish. But I can see it perfectly. My house run smoothly. Michael’s meals always on time. You a perfect hostess at my parties, so that for once I could enjoy myself as a guest at my own parties without a frenzy of agitation, and knowing that everything will be absolutely right. Do please consider it. You need not decide at once.”

Miss Pettigrew began to tremble. It was like a great light bursting with a radiance that spread and spread. It was fear gone for ever. It was peace at last. A house to run almost her own. How she had longed for that! Marketing, ordering, like any other housewife. No more frightening, horrible children and their terrifying mothers. Flowers to put in rooms exactly as she wanted them. She could try her hand at cooking again. To reach forty, and never, since she had left home as a girl, really to have cooked anything properly! Loneliness banished. Oh blessed, blessed thought! It was unbelievable. It was heaven come to earth. It was rest. It was rest at last.

Suddenly she began to cry. She bent her head and wept. Miss LaFosse hastily put her arm around her.

“Oh, Guinevere!” said Miss LaFosse.

After a while Miss Pettigrew dried her eyes. Her nose was a little pink and her lids a little red, but her eyes were shining, her face alight.

Miss Pettigrew looked at Miss LaFosse.

“You know perfectly well,” said Miss Pettigrew, “that you are doing me a favour, not yourself. I am a very poor governess. I am a very bad governess. I hate it. I loathe it. It’s been a deadly weight all my life. I can’t manage children. I grow more afraid of them every year. Each post was worse than the last. Every one was cheaper. I was really only a nursemaid in my last. I am getting older. Soon not even the cheap ones will employ me. There was nothing for me but the workhouse, and now you offer me a home. I can’t thank you. I don’t know how. I’m not very good with words. But I’ll look after your house from basement to attics and you’ll never regret it.”

“Now, Guinevere, you mustn’t work too hard,” admonished Miss LaFosse.

“I insist,” said Miss Pettigrew radiantly.

“I can’t have you knocking yourself up.”

“Work you like is a pleasure.”

“Then I won’t have you pleasing yourself too much.”

“I must have things done properly or not at all.”

“You can tell the maids to do them.”

“And have them put blue flowers in a green room and break the best vases and put damp sheets on the beds! Certainly not.”

“You can tell them if they don’t do things properly they must leave.”

“I shall be there to see that they do do things properly.”

“You can’t make yourself ill trying to be everywhere at the same time. I won’t have it.”

“Are you,” asked Miss Pettigrew indignantly, “or am I running this house?”

“You,” said Miss LaFosse meekly.

“Thank you.”

“Not at all.”

The question was settled.

Miss Pettigrew’s face suddenly clouded. She looked apprehensive.

“What about Michael?” asked Miss Pettigrew nervously.

“It was Michael’s idea,” reassured Miss LaFosse earnestly. “He says you are his mascot and he doesn’t want to lose you now. He says even if he does marry me, he still wants a comfortable home and I’m a rotten housekeeper.”

“How good you both are!” said Miss Pettigrew with radiant happiness. “He flatters me. I will be a novice at first, but I will put my heart and soul into it. I will learn. You need not fear. I have cast out fear. I am a new woman.”

Abruptly she leaned towards Miss LaFosse and said breathlessly, intensely, “Do you like me?”

“Like you?” repeated Miss LaFosse in surprise. “Of course I like you.”

“I mean really and truly. Not just politely because; ou think I helped you a little. Do you really and truly like me?”

“I think,” said Miss LaFosse gently, “I like you more than I have ever liked a woman in my life before.”

“Do you think a man could like me?”

“If I were his age,” said Miss LaFosse demurely, “and you were yours, I’d fall like a ton of bricks. It was Joe on the ‘phone just now. He’s coming round tomorrow.”

Miss Pettigrew stood up. Her figure expanded. Her eyes shone.

“I think,” said Miss Pettigrew, “I have a beau at last.”