Part 49 (2/2)

”Ellen lent me hers,” said Helen. She had been carrying them, not in her handbag, but all the time in her hand. They were on a little ring, with a bauble added. Helen's gloves were white for the hot weather, in lacelike net.

Helen and Laming were inside the flatlet. Helen sat on the huge divan, not pulling down her dress, as she usually did. Laming sat on one of the little white chairs, at once bedroom chairs and informal dinner-table chairs.

”What do you and Ellen usually do first?” asked Helen. She spoke as if she had kindly volunteered to help with the accounts.

”We talk for a bit,” said Laming, unconvincing though that was when everyone knew that Ellen seldom spoke at all.

”Well, let's do that,” said Helen. ”Surely it can do no harm if I take off my dress? I don't want to crumple it. You'd better take some things off too, in all this heat.”

And, indeed, perspiration was streaming down Laming's face and body, like runnels trickling over a wasteland.

Helen had taken off her white shoes too.

”Do you like my petticoat?” she inquired casually. ”It came from Peter Jones in Sloane Square. I don't think I've ever been in North London before.”

”I like it very much,” said Laming.

”It's serviceable, anyway. You could hardly tear it if you tried. Have you lived in North London all your life?”

”First in Hornsey Rise and then, after my father died, in Drayton Park.”

”I adored my father, though he was very strict with me.”

”So your father's dead too?”

”He allowed me no license at all. Will you be like that with your daughter, Laming, when the time comes?”

”I don't expect I'll ever have a daughter, Helen.” Because of his leg, he would have liked a softer, lower chair and, for that matter, a more stoutly constructed one. But the springy, jumpy divan would not be the answer either, unless he were completely to recline on it, which would be injudicious.

”Do take something off, Laming. You look so terribly hot.”. But he simply could not. Nor had he any knowledge of how men normally behaved, were called upon to behave, in situations such as this. Ellen had made all easy, but the present circ.u.mstances were very different, and of course Ellen herself was one of the reasons why they were different.

”I am looking forward to Careless Rapture,” said Helen. ”I adore Dorothy d.i.c.kson's clothes.”

Laming had never to his knowledge seen Dorothy d.i.c.kson. ”She's very fair, isn't she?” he asked.

”She's like a pretty flower bending before the breeze,” said Helen.

”Isn't she married to a man named Souchong?” ”Heisen,” said Helen. ”I thought it was some kind of tea.”

”After a week without leaving the department, it's so wonderful to talk freely and intimately.”

There it was! A week without leaving the department, and he had supposed himself to have seen her yesterday, and twice the day before, and all over London!

As well as feeling hot and tortured, Laming suddenly felt sick with uncertainty; it was like the very last stage of mal de mer, and almost on an instant. Probably he had been feeling a little sick for some time.

”Laming!” said Helen, in her matter-of-fact way, ”if I were to take off my petticoat, would you take off your coat and pullover?”

If he had spoken, he would have vomited, and perhaps at her, the flatlet being so minute. ”Laming! What's the matter?”

If he had made a dash for the bathroom, he would have been unable to stop her coming in after him, half-dressed, reasonable, with life weighed off-and more than ordinary people, it would seem, to judge by her excessively frequent appearances. So, instead, he made a dash for the staircase.

Holding in the sick, he flitted down the stairs. At least, he still had all the clothes in which he had entered. ”Laming! Darling! Sweetheart!”

She came out of the flatlet after him, and a terrible thing followed.

Helen, shoeless, caught her stockinged foot in the nailed-down landing runner and plunged the whole length of the flight, falling full upon her head on the hall floor, softened only by cracked, standard-colored linoleum. The peril of the fall had been greatly compounded by her agitation.

She lay there horribly tangled, horribly inert, perhaps with concussion, perhaps with a broken neck, though no blood was visible. Her petticoat was ripped, and badly, whatever the guarantee might have been.

Laming could well have been finally ill at that point, but the effect upon him was the opposite. He felt cold and awed, whatever the hall thermometer might show; and he forgot about feeling sick.

He stood trembling lest another tenant, lest the wife of a caretaker, intrude upon the scene of horror. There was a flatlet door at this ground-floor level, and a flight of stairs winding into the dark bas.e.m.e.nt. But there was no further sound of any kind; in fact, a quite notable silence. It was, of course, a Sat.u.r.day, the weekend.

Laming opened the front door of the house, as surrept.i.tiously as one can do such a thing in bright sunlight.

There was no one to be seen in the street, and about eyes behind lace curtains there was nothing to be done before nightfall. Laming could scarcely wait until nightfall.

When outside the house, he shut the door quietly, resenting the click of the Yale-type fitment. He felt very exposed as he stood at the top of the four or five North London steps, like Sidney Carton on the scaffold, or some man less worthy.

He dropped down the steps and thereby hurt his leg even more. Nonetheless, he began to run, or perhaps rather to jogtrot. It was hot as h.e.l.l.

He cantered unevenly around the first corner.

And there stood Ellen; startled and stationary at his apparition. She was in a little blue holiday singlet, and darker blue shorts, plain and sweet. Apart from Ellen, that thoroughfare seemed empty too.

”Laming!”

She opened wide her arms, as one does with a child.

Matted and haggard, he stared at her. Then he determinedly stared away from her.

”I waited and waited. In the American Garden. Then I thought I'd better come on.”

She was adorable in her playgirl rig, and so understanding, so truly loving.

But Laming was under bad influences. ”Who's Kelly?” he asked.

”A friend,” she replied. ”But you haven't seen him.”

He glared brazenly at the universe.

Then he pushed rudely past her, and all the way home his head sang a popular song to him, as heads do in times of trouble.

His mother spoke with urgency. ”Oh, Laming. I'm so glad to see you back.”

He stared at her like a murderer who had the police car in the next street.

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