The Lotus House Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t you think? And he looks like Shelley,” Letty said to Mr Donovan. “At least,” she added honestly, “he has a brow like Shelley’s.” His receding chin beneath a straggling beard were less impressive, but he was an old Westminster boy with a poetic forehead and had a barrister for a brother.
    “I don’t consider that Shelley would have been a very desirable tenant,” said Mr Donovan. Really, there was no satisfying him! “Still,” he admitted, “he is certainly respectably connected. I think I have heard of that brother of his and he has a secure job.”
    Letty discovered another point in Mr Stacey’s favour — he seemed to take especially to the old night nursery. No one had happened to tell the workmen to remove the bars from the windows and Letty apologized for this.
    “I remember peering through such bars with my brother,” he said smiling. “We used to play that we were monkeys in the zoo. I think I should like them left, so don’t trouble about them. I shall make this my bedroom, Mrs Sanderson, if I am lucky enough to be allowed to take your attractive flat. It is on the quiet side of the house and I am a poor sleeper.”
    “Do you know,” said Letty, “I often used to sleep here myself as a child and I remember the shadow of those very same bars falling across the whole room in a pattern. You’ll think me fanciful, I expect, but I still feel this room is the safest place in all the world.”
    The basement flat took the longest to be settled for there were several applicants before a really satisfactory one materialized. There was the young couple, unmarried, uninhibited and very untidy. Old Mrs Sanderson was not yet acclimatized to the permissive society and although she found the couple interesting, she was bewildered by them. The girl announced that she was an artist, “entirely committed”. What the young man did she neverdiscovered — he remained speechless throughout the interview. “We want to find somewhere to leave our things while we tramp around Europe for the next month or so,” explained the girl. “You see, I am not sure yet whether Jason is quite sound on the baroque and it makes a difference to our future. I may not wish to remain with him, but in any case if we take the flat, it will be in my name and I shall be responsible.” But to Letty this did not appear a promising enough proposition for the Lotus House, whatever Jason might think of the baroque.
    Then there was the anxious lady with the cats. Not that she was physically accompanied by them but they were very much with her in spirit.
    “I am having to give up my home, alas, since my friend with whom I have shared it hitherto has moved away. There was a little difference between us about the pussies. It is quite a large house and what with the rates and the repairs and the heating, I cannot keep it on alone and must find somewhere smaller. But the pussies — I had ten of them and I’ve managed to find homes for Don and Titus and Sammy and Bogey. It’s the girls who are the problem, though they are not really so, the dears, they are so good and I should hate to lose any of them. Susie is a wonderful mother and Di, she’s the huntress, why she even caught a swallow once, and Plush is so affectionate, and of course it’s out of the question to part with Clytemnestra, the largest black Persian that ever was seen I assure you, Mrs Sanderson, and Yum Yum and Peep Bo are Siamese and were given me by a dear, dear friend. So you see I must have a flat with an access to a nice garden and this would suit me perfectly. You’ve no idea how hard it has been to find just the right place for my little family.”
    Letty felt she did indeed know just how hard it had been and was still going to be, for she wondered how long the nice garden would remain nice with six cats dividing it between them — and would they even stay at six withSusie being such a good mother? Besides, she loved birds as well as flowers, so she