The Paying Guests(33)

Mrs Barber’s pose loosened. She looked embarrassed, admiring, appalled. But she laughed. ‘Oh, Miss Wray! What a Tartar you are!’

‘Well,’ said Frances, still furious, ‘why should our nice day be spoiled simply because some fool of a man fancies himself a lady-killer?’

‘I usually just ignore them. They always go away in the end.’

‘But why should you have to waste your time ignoring them? Did you know he was following us? There he goes, look.’ She was watching the man as he sauntered away across the park. ‘Off to try his charms on some other poor woman, no doubt. I hope she hits him. “Suffragette”. As if the word’s an insult! Honestly, if I were younger I might have hit him myself.’

Mrs Barber was still laughing. ‘I think you’d have beaten him, too.’

Frances said, ‘I might have, at that. I was once taken in charge, you know, for throwing my shoes at an MP.’

Mrs Barber’s laughter died. She said, ‘You weren’t. I don’t believe you.’

‘I was. And spent the night in a police cell with three other women. We’d caused a fuss at a political meeting. I marvel, now, at our pluck. The entire crowd was against us. I oughtn’t to have thrown things, though. We were supposed to be pacifists.’

‘But what happened to you?’

‘Oh, the charges were dropped. The MP got wind of the fact that we were all gentlemen’s daughters; he didn’t want it getting into the papers. But I had to go home the next morning and explain the whole thing to my parents – they thought the white slavers had nabbed me. Still’ – she got to her feet, her spirits rising at the memory – ‘it was worth turning up at the house in the police matron’s shoes for the sake of the look on my father’s face! The neighbours enjoyed it too. Shall we move on?’

She offered her arm, meaning the gesture playfully, but Mrs Barber caught hold of it and let herself be pulled upright, laughing again as she found her balance; it seemed natural, after that, to remain with their arms linked. They went down the steps and into the sunlight, wondering where to make for next. The little encounter with the man had put the polish back on the day.

But they were conscious of the time. Somehow, an hour and a half had passed. They thought of returning to the tennis courts for a final look at the match – but at last, with reluctance, decided that they ought to head home. They climbed the slope of the park, paused again to admire the bluebells; then were back on the dusty pavement.

They stayed arm in arm all the way. Only in hurrying across the busy road did they separate. But on the opposite side, as they started up the hill, Mrs Barber paused, to move the parasol from one shoulder to another, and to step around to Frances’s left instead of her right. Frances was puzzled by the gesture – then realised what she was doing. She was ‘taking the wall’, putting Frances between herself and the traffic in just the same instinctive way that she might have done while walking with a man.

Two more minutes and they were back at the house. Frances unlatched the garden gate, led the way inside. They went up the stairs together, Mrs Barber yawning as they climbed.

‘All the sun has made me dozy. What have you to do now, Miss Wray?’

‘I’ve to start thinking about my mother’s dinner.’

‘And I’ve to start thinking about Len’s. Oh, if only dinners would cook themselves! If only floors and carpets and china – if it would all just see to itself. You’d think Mr Einstein might invent a machine to help with housework, wouldn’t you? Instead of saying things about time and all that, that no one can understand anyhow. I bet I know what Mrs Einstein thinks about it all.’

As she spoke, she hung the parasol on a peg of the coat-stand, then pulled off her lace gloves, finger by finger.

But when she had drawn both gloves free, she paused with them in her hand; and she and Frances looked at each other.

Frances said, ‘I enjoyed our picnic.’

‘So did I, Miss Wray.’

‘We might do it again, another day.’

‘I’d like that, yes.’

‘In which case – well, I wonder if you’d consider calling me Frances.’

She looked pleased. ‘I’d like that, too.’

‘What shall I call you, though? I’ll stick to Mrs Barber, if you prefer.’

‘Oh, I wish you wouldn’t! I hate the name; I always have. It’s like a card from Happy Families, isn’t it? You might call me Lil, I suppose, which is what my sisters call me, but – No, don’t call me that. Len says it makes me sound like a barmaid. He calls me Lily.’

‘Lily, Lil. Mayn’t I simply call you Lilian?’

‘Lilian?’ She blinked, surprised. ‘Hardly anybody calls me that.’

‘Well, I’d like to call you a name that hardly anyone else calls you.’

‘Would you? Why?’

‘I don’t quite know,’ said Frances. ‘But it’s a handsome name. It suits you.’

The comment was a piece of gallantry, really. How, in the circumstances, could it have been anything else? But they stood a yard apart, in the relative gloom of the landing, and in the silence that followed her words there came another of those shifts, those alchemic little quickenings… Once again, Mrs Barber looked uncertain for a second. Then, smiling, she dipped her head. It was just as if, Frances thought, she was unable to do anything with a compliment except receive it, absorb it; even when it came from a woman.