“You mustn't say things like that about real people,” said nanny. “Whatever would Lady Cockpurse do if she heard about it.”
“She'd gibber and chatter and lash round with her tail, and then I expect she'd catch some nice, big, juicy fleas and forget all about it.”
Brenda was staying at Marjorie's for the night. She was dressed first and came into her sister's room. “Lovely, darling, new?”
“Fairly.”
Marjorie was rung up by the woman at whose house she was dining. (“Look here are you absolutely sure you can't make Alan come tonight?” “Absolutely. He's got a meeting in Camberwell. He may not even come to Polly's.” “Is there any man you can bring?” “Can't think of anybody.” “Well we shall have to be one short, that's all. I can't think what's happened tonight. I rang up John Beaver but even he won't come.”)
“You know,” said Marjorie, putting down the telephone, “you're causing a great deal of trouble. You've taken London's only spare man.”
“Oh dear, I didn't realize …”
Beaver arrived at quarter to nine in a state of high self-approval; he had refused two invitations to dinner while dressing that evening; he had cashed a cheque for ten pounds at his club; he had booked a divan table at Espinosa's. It was almost the first time in his life that he had taken anyone out to dinner, but he knew perfectly how it was done.
“I must see your Mr. Beaver properly,” said Marjorie. “Let's make him take off his coat and drink something.”
The two sisters were a little shy as they came downstairs, but Beaver was perfectly at his ease. He looked very elegant and rather more than his age.
`Oh; he's not so bad, your Mr. Beaver,' Marjorie's look seemed to say, `not by any means,' and he, seeing the two women together, who were both beautiful, though in a manner so different that, although it was apparent that they were sisters, they might have belonged each to a separate race, began to understand what had perplexed him all the week; why, contrary to all habit and principle, he had telegraphed to Brenda asking her to dine.
“Mrs. Jimmy Deane's very upset that she couldn't get you for tonight. I didn't give away what you were doing.”
“Give her my love,” said Beaver. “Anyway we'll all meet at Polly's.”
“I must go, we're dining at nine.”
“Stay a bit,” said Brenda. “She's sure to be late.” Now that it was inevitable, she did not want to be left alone with Beaver.
“No, I must go. Enjoy yourselves, bless you both.” She felt as though she were the elder sister, seeing Brenda timid and expectant at the beginning of an adventure.
They were awkward when Marjorie left, for in the week that they had been apart, each had, in thought, grown more intimate with the other than any actual occurrence warranted. Had Beaver been more experienced, he might have crossed to where Brenda was sitting on the arm of a chair, and made love to her at once; and probably he would have got away with it. Instead he remarked in an easy manner, “I suppose we ought to be going too.”
“Yes, where?”
“I thought Espinosa's.”
“Yes, lovely. Only listen: I want you to understand right away that it's my dinner.”
“Of course not … nothing of the sort.”
“Yes, it is. I'm a year older than you and an old married woman and quite rich, so, please, I'm going to pay.” Beaver continued protesting to the taxi door.
But there was still a constraint between them and Beaver began to wonder, `Does she expect me to pounce?' So as they waited in a traffic block by the Marble Arch, he leaned forward to kiss her; when he was quite near, she drew back. He said, “Please, Brenda,” but she turned away and looked out of the window shaking her head several times quickly. Then still fixed on the window she put out her hand to his and they sat in silence till they reached the restaurant. Beaver was thoroughly puzzled.
Once they were in public again, his confidence returned. Espinosa led them to their table; it was the one by itself on the right side of the door, the only table in the restaurant at which one's conversation was not overheard. Brenda handed him the card. “You choose. Very little for me, but it must only have starch, no protein.”
The bill at Espinosa's was, as a rule, roughly the same whatever one ate, but Brenda would not know this so, since it was now understood that she was paying, Beaver felt constrained from ordering anything that looked obviously expensive. However she insisted on champagne, and later a ballon of liqueur brandy for him. “You can't think how exciting it is for me to take a young man out. I've never done it before.”
They stayed at Espinosa's until it was time to go to the party, dancing once or twice, but most of the time sitting at the table talking. Their interest in each other had so far outdistanced their knowledge that there was a great deal to say.
Presently Beaver said, “I'm sorry I was an ass in the taxi just now.”
“Eh?”
He changed it and said, “Did you mind when I tried to kiss you just now?”
“Me? No, not particularly.”
“Then why wouldn't you let me?”
“Oh dear, you've got a lot to learn.”
“How d'you mean?”
“You mustn't ever ask questions like that. Will you try and remember?”
Then he was sulky. “You talk to me as if I was an undergraduate having his first walk out.”
“Oh, is this a walk out?”
“Not as far I am concerned.”
There was a pause in which Brenda said, “I am not sure it hasn't been a mistake, taking you out to dinner. Let's ask for the bill and go to Polly's.”
But they took ten minutes to bring the bill, and in that time Beaver and Brenda had to say something, so he said he was sorry.
“You've got to learn to be nicer,” she said soberly. “I don't believe you'd find it impossible.” When the bill eventually came, she said, “How much do I tip him?” and Beaver showed her. “Are you sure that's enough? I should have given twice as much.”
“It's exactly right,” said Beaver, feeling older again, exactly as Brenda had meant him to.
When they sat in the taxi Beaver knew at once that Brenda wished him to make love to her. But he decided it was time he took the lead. So he sat at a distance from her and commented on an old house that was being demolished to make way for a block of flats.
“Shut up,” said Brenda. “Come here.”
When he had kissed her, she rubbed against his cheek in the way she had.
Polly's party was exactly what she wished it to be, an accurate replica of all the best parties she had been to in the last year; the same band, the same supper, and, above all, the same guests. Hers was not the ambition to create a sensation, to have the party talked about in months to come for any unusual feature, to hunt out shy celebrities or introduce exotic strangers. She wanted a perfectly straight, smart party and she had got it. Practically everyone she asked had come. If there were other, more remote worlds upon which she did not impinge, Polly did not know about them. These were the people she was after, and here they were. And looking round on her guests, with Lord Cockpurse who was for the evening loyally putting in one of his rare appearances at her side, she was able to congratulate herself that there were very few people present whom she did not want. In other years people had taken her hospitality more casually and brought on with them anyone with whom they happened to have been dining. This year, without any conscious effort on her part, there had been more formality. Those who wanted to bring friends had rung up in the morning and asked whether they might do so, and on the whole they had been cautious of even so much presumption. People, who only eighteen months before would have pretended to be ignorant of her existence, were now crowding up her stairs. She had got herself in line with the other married women of her world.