Mr. Waddington had gone up to London the day before, and had returned with a pearl pendant for Fanny, and a green jade necklace for Barbara (not yet presented) and a canary yellow waistcoat for himself.
And not only the waistcoat—
On the birthday morning Fanny had called out to Barbara as she passed her bedroom door:
"Barbara, come here."
Fanny was staring, fascinated, at four pairs of silk pyjamas spread out before her on the bed. Remarkable pyjamas, of a fierce magenta with forked lightning in orange running about all over them.
"Good God, Fanny!"
"You may well say 'Good God.' What would you say if you'd got to…?
I'm not a nervous woman, but—"
"It's a mercy he didn't get them eighteen years ago," said Barbara, "or
Horry might have been born an idiot."
"Yellow waistcoats are all very well," said Fanny. "But what can he have been thinking of?"
"I don't know," said Barbara. Somehow the pattern called up, irresistibly, the image of Mrs. Levitt.