Free Something Light by Margery Sharp

next morning, in fact called for a good deal of courage all round. The situation was complex: Mrs. Anstruther knew of Freddy’s treachery—or rather of the treachery he’d aimed at; Freddy didn’t know she knew, as neither was Mrs. Anstruther aware that Louisa knew she knew. Each one of them had thus to play a part—Freddy in the suit of unsmutched loyalty, Enid sugared with confident proprietorship, and Louisa disguised as a gay career woman. They all pulled it off.
    â€œGood-by, Louisa,” said F. Pennon—a trifle huskily, no more.
    â€œDear Louisa, good-by!” breathed Mrs. Anstruther affectionately. “You will, won’t you, let us hear from you soon?”
    She slipped one little hand through Freddy’s arm, and held out the other to her chum.—Louisa, accepting it, couldn’t forbear looking into Mrs. Anstruther’s face. Would there be any sign there of gratitude? It wouldn’t have been, all things considered, misplaced!
    But for once the soft gray glance wasn’t vague at all, and Louisa had no difficulty in reading it: Mrs. Anstruther thought her a damned fool.

Part Two

Chapter Eight
    1
    â€œHave a nice time?” asked the milkman.
    â€œNo,” said Louisa.
    â€œYou still look better for it,” said the milkman.
    â€œThe food was all right,” admitted Louisa.
    â€œSummer schools must’ve changed since my Auntie’s day,” observed the milkman. “According to her, they fed mostly on prunes. According to my Auntie—”
    â€œLook,” said Louisa, “I’ve got a busy day. I’m due at a kennels in Surrey—”
    â€œI can take a hint,” said the milkman.
    He glanced at his nest of cream jars, then back, speculatively, at Louisa; but something in her face told him this was no morning for cream.
    2
    All the same it was a piece of luck, and Louisa thoroughly felt it so, that she had been able to retrieve the dachshund job for the very morrow of her return. She not only needed the fee, and to have her mind occupied, she was also thankful to remove, however briefly, from her usual haunts. Only to Hugo and Mr. Ross had she actually spoken of her approaching marriage, but each, she was well aware, would have hastened to spread the glad news: Louisa was perhaps supersensitive, in feeling that she couldn’t cross a street without meeting either a Pammy (and being congratulated) or one of the boys (and being advised as to settlements); but so she uncontrollably did feel, and even one day’s grace was welcome to her.
    There was no doubt about it, Louisa had returned from Bournemouth considerably changed. Her reactions were far nearer what Enid’s would have been, to a broken engagement, than to what her own would have been even a week before.—With a hand on the receiver to telephone Hugo, why did Louisa refrain? Because she didn’t want to have to tell … and only as she dropped the receiver back remembered that she was in any case giving him the go-by.
    Upon this point her resolve was stiffened. No more sympathy did Louisa intend to waste upon the off-beat, bronchial and indigent. Henceforward, following Mrs. Anstruther’s advice, she intended to reserve it strictly for men at the top. She hoped she’d meet one soon; though probably it wouldn’t be at Kerseymere Kennels …
    3
    Indeed the bus proposed in Mrs. Meare’s letter of instructions bore Louisa some five miles from Dorking station to an establishment very unlike either Gladstone Mansions or the villa at Bournemouth. Fifty years earlier, when it was built, Kersey Cottage might have been trim; fifty years hence, might tumble down to picturesqueness; in the meantime, it was simply dilapidated. From the palings by the gate to the curlicues under the eaves, every inch of woodwork needed repainting; the brickwork needed repointing, and several tiles had dropped off from the roof over the porch. A sizable