and the schoolroom would soon be dark enough to be lit for tea. This October was doing and being all the right things: warm as a June night, and full of subdued colour.
When I got home, mother leaned over the banisters and said, ‘Mr Binton’s been ringing you up. He wants you to telephone him.’
It probably meant nine hundred words on ‘Should Widows Re-Marry?’ (‘Have you seen the Express this morning, Miss Carne? There’s a paragraph on page 7, column 5. I’ll read it to you.’) A journalist is always supposed to be able to give the casting vote on these questions, and the fact that she is neither wife, widow, nor what-not, is worried about by nobody.
‘Hullo?’
‘That you, Miss Carne? Didn’t you tell me a while ago that you’d like to meet Toddington . . . ? Well, there’s a bazaar next week at the Albert Hall for a Legal charity, and Lady Toddington is taking a stall. That any good to you?’
I stammered, ‘You’re an angel,’ and heard Binton giggling. The moment I had rung off the whole thing flew to my knees, but I got it told to the family, somehow. ‘And Binton said “Lady Toddington,” mother, so Toddy must be a knight.’
‘Bless him!’ said mother.
We didn’t know that judges automatically became knights. It’s a perquisite of office, like the bowls of dripping the cook sells to the rag-and-bone man. And to think my own familiar Binton had known it all these years . . .
‘Oh Toddy,’ I exclaimed, ‘you will be pleased to see me, won’t you?’
‘I shall be delighted, my dear,’ answered Sir Herbert. ‘I cannot hope to be with you and Mildred before five, but I trust you will let me give you tea.’
‘Are you going to have to spend an awful lot, my darling?’ asked Sheil.
‘Well . . . you know . . . these affairs . . . I think a fivepound note should cause me to emerge without a stain on my character.’
‘Well, I think that’s handsome,’ I said.
‘It is expected,’ answered Toddy, with that note of finality he always uses when we have overstepped the mark. ‘It’s in aid of the Browbeaten Barristers!’ Sheil gasped. Sheil, that week, was my safety-valve. At lunch she would shrill, ‘It’s only three days now before Deir’ meets Toddy!’
Miss Martin, of course, didn’t seem in the least excited . . . her sotto voce comments seemed to convey an attitude of well-what-about-it? that had the usual sedative effect.
‘But – she’s going to meet him!’ glared Sheil.
‘Yes, dear. There’s nothing so very unusual in that, is there?’
At the eleventh second, mother managed, ‘It’s rather an occasion, you know,’ to which, Miss Martin, patently at a loss, responded, ‘Oh, of course,’ then more happily, ‘these huge bazaars are very fashionable affairs sometimes, aren’t they?’
‘He mayn’t be there at all,’ I cut in, robustly facing the situation. But this was treachery, and Sheil cried out, ‘He told you he would. He gave Mildred a cheque for some Lalique to give her stall kick. You said so, mother!’
‘Do you know Lalique, Miss Martin?’ Mother smiled with her eyes at Sheil. ‘It’s a rather wonderful sort of glass . . . no two designs alike . . . Frenchman . . . factory pieces . . . less costly . . . Sloane Street . . . ’
(Miss Martin thought it sounded very quaint.)
And, as if life wasn’t doing enough for one, it shot a letter on to the mat at tea-time that made all four of us do our special dance – the famous ‘Pas de Quatre,’ to the hummed music of Meyer Lutz. We only know one of the original steps from theatrical memoirs, but for the time we are all old Gaiety stars, and mother sometimes joins in too, very lightly and neatly.
I knew the letter was going to be an interesting one because the envelope was square and thin, and the writing unfamiliar. Probably one of my readers, who got me out of the telephone book. We are always howling over their poems, and I picture the writers in their shirt sleeves, sitting on
When I got home, mother leaned over the banisters and said, ‘Mr Binton’s been ringing you up. He wants you to telephone him.’
It probably meant nine hundred words on ‘Should Widows Re-Marry?’ (‘Have you seen the Express this morning, Miss Carne? There’s a paragraph on page 7, column 5. I’ll read it to you.’) A journalist is always supposed to be able to give the casting vote on these questions, and the fact that she is neither wife, widow, nor what-not, is worried about by nobody.
‘Hullo?’
‘That you, Miss Carne? Didn’t you tell me a while ago that you’d like to meet Toddington . . . ? Well, there’s a bazaar next week at the Albert Hall for a Legal charity, and Lady Toddington is taking a stall. That any good to you?’
I stammered, ‘You’re an angel,’ and heard Binton giggling. The moment I had rung off the whole thing flew to my knees, but I got it told to the family, somehow. ‘And Binton said “Lady Toddington,” mother, so Toddy must be a knight.’
‘Bless him!’ said mother.
We didn’t know that judges automatically became knights. It’s a perquisite of office, like the bowls of dripping the cook sells to the rag-and-bone man. And to think my own familiar Binton had known it all these years . . .
‘Oh Toddy,’ I exclaimed, ‘you will be pleased to see me, won’t you?’
‘I shall be delighted, my dear,’ answered Sir Herbert. ‘I cannot hope to be with you and Mildred before five, but I trust you will let me give you tea.’
‘Are you going to have to spend an awful lot, my darling?’ asked Sheil.
‘Well . . . you know . . . these affairs . . . I think a fivepound note should cause me to emerge without a stain on my character.’
‘Well, I think that’s handsome,’ I said.
‘It is expected,’ answered Toddy, with that note of finality he always uses when we have overstepped the mark. ‘It’s in aid of the Browbeaten Barristers!’ Sheil gasped. Sheil, that week, was my safety-valve. At lunch she would shrill, ‘It’s only three days now before Deir’ meets Toddy!’
Miss Martin, of course, didn’t seem in the least excited . . . her sotto voce comments seemed to convey an attitude of well-what-about-it? that had the usual sedative effect.
‘But – she’s going to meet him!’ glared Sheil.
‘Yes, dear. There’s nothing so very unusual in that, is there?’
At the eleventh second, mother managed, ‘It’s rather an occasion, you know,’ to which, Miss Martin, patently at a loss, responded, ‘Oh, of course,’ then more happily, ‘these huge bazaars are very fashionable affairs sometimes, aren’t they?’
‘He mayn’t be there at all,’ I cut in, robustly facing the situation. But this was treachery, and Sheil cried out, ‘He told you he would. He gave Mildred a cheque for some Lalique to give her stall kick. You said so, mother!’
‘Do you know Lalique, Miss Martin?’ Mother smiled with her eyes at Sheil. ‘It’s a rather wonderful sort of glass . . . no two designs alike . . . Frenchman . . . factory pieces . . . less costly . . . Sloane Street . . . ’
(Miss Martin thought it sounded very quaint.)
And, as if life wasn’t doing enough for one, it shot a letter on to the mat at tea-time that made all four of us do our special dance – the famous ‘Pas de Quatre,’ to the hummed music of Meyer Lutz. We only know one of the original steps from theatrical memoirs, but for the time we are all old Gaiety stars, and mother sometimes joins in too, very lightly and neatly.
I knew the letter was going to be an interesting one because the envelope was square and thin, and the writing unfamiliar. Probably one of my readers, who got me out of the telephone book. We are always howling over their poems, and I picture the writers in their shirt sleeves, sitting on
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