Free Starlight by Stella Gibbons Page B

most afternoons, with my three old pals from down the road (you’ll meet them). Most evenings after dinner we watch television. Bed by half-past ten, usually.’
    ‘A thrilling programme,’ muttered Arnold, ‘so now you know the worst, Miss Pearson.’
    ‘I like a quiet life,’ Peggy answered in the same unruffled tone. ‘I’ve lived mostly in the country, you know.’
    ‘Bores me stiff, the country, I must say. Give me town every time.’ Arnold’s dull blue eyes were fixed on her face.
    ‘He’s a naughty boy, isn’t he, doggies? He likes the bright lights,’ said Mrs Corbett cheerfully, touching the nearest plump back with the toe of her black velvet shoe, ‘a naughty, naughty, naughty boy.’ Bee, disturbed, moved pettishly away. ‘Well now,’ Mrs Corbett went on to Peggy, ‘I’m sure you’d like to see your room, wouldn’t you.’ She began to struggle from her chair. ‘Oh dear – can you give me an arm, please. I get so stiff.’
    Peggy complied, with considerable inward dislike of the contact with soft old fat, black georgette, and gilt jewellery.
    ‘I had it done over for you,’ Mrs Corbett confided, as all three slowly mounted the stairs. ‘The last companion I had stuck religious pictures all over the walls (I’m funny in that way, I cannot bear churchy people) and it used to depress me so much … when she left, I thought, aha, new wallpaper! No, boys,’ to the dogs, who had followed them, ‘ not in Peggy’s room.’
    ‘I’ll say good-night, mother, if you’ll excuse me,’ said Arnold, pausing surrounded by dogs, on the threshold, ‘there’s something I want to watch on ITV – good-night, Miss Pearson,’ and, instructing the dogs to leave him alone, he went off down the corridor.
    ‘He has his own, in his den,’ Mrs Corbett said, opening a door on a perfect specimen of a hotel bedroom, characterless even to incredibility in brown and beige, ‘then if there’s something on BBC 2 or ITV he wants to watch, he can watch it while I have my little party with BBC 1 in the drawing-room. Are you a keen looker-in?’
    ‘I like the animal programmes,’ Peggy answered, this time without lying.
    ‘Oh – dear Michaela and Armand – so do I.’ Peggy did not think it necessary to add that this was not what she meant.
    ‘I hope you’ll like the pictures.’ Mrs Corbett moved with her waddling walk across the room. ‘I chose them myself when I had the room re-done. At Harrods. (They have a lovely picture gallery there, I expect you know it?) I’m afraid I’m not at all artistic. (My husband, bless him, used to say, “Cora’s a fool but she is good-tempered.”) But I flatter myself I do know what I like.’
    They had paused in front of a boat rushing along over a foaming summer sea. There was enough in the idealized scene to move Peggy’s heart with a sudden agony of desire: the overheated room’s walls seemed to fall apart, and all the splendour and smell of the ocean drove in.
    ‘I … that’s …’ She could not bring the words out, and stood in silence, trembling with longing, and with rage at herself.
    Mrs Corbett, as was usual with Mrs Corbett, had noticed nothing.
    ‘And this,’ she said, before some white Irish cottages under a violet mountain, ‘I love that, don’t you?’
    ‘I … don’t know which I like best. They’re both … I like this one, too.’ It was a path leading through autumn woods, hung with those leaves that suggest golden coins. Peggy would not let herself shut her eyes on a memory of Sussex downs.
    ‘There! they’ll remind you of the country.’ Mrs Corbett, after a last pleased glance round, retreated to the door. ‘It’s so nice to have you here, dear, and I’m sure we shall all get on well together … no, boys, you mustn’t stay here, come with Mother. Dee! Not on beddies, you know that’s not allowed.’
    ‘Let them stay, please, I don’t mind. If you like, I’ll come down when I’ve unpacked and take them for their run,