The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [113]
Matchett's half nod was remote, extremely unwilling. No one knew that she slept, that she went to bed: at nights she just disappeared. Portia knew she had trespassed; she said quickly: "Daphne knitted. She used to knit at the library. Mrs. Heccomb could knit, but she used to paint lamp shades more."
"And what did you do?"
"Oh, I went on with my puzzle."
"That wasn't much of a treat."
"But it was a new puzzle, and I only did that when I wasn't doing anything. You know how it is—"
"No, I don't, and I'm not asking, and I don't want mysteries made."
"There's no mystery, except what I've forgotten."
"You don't have to say; I'm not asking you. What you do's all one on a holiday. Now it's all over, get it out of your head—I see you've worn the elbows out of that blazer. I told Mrs. Thomas that wouldn't be wearing stuff. Did you use your velvet, or was I wrong to pack it?"
"No, I wore my velvet. I—"
"Oh, they dress for their dinner, then?"
"No, I wore it for their party. It was a dance."
"I did ought to have packed your organdie, then. But I didn't want it to crush, and sea air limpens the pleats out. I daresay your velvet did."
"Yes, Matchett: it was admired."
"Well, it's better than they'd see: it's got a nice cut."
"You know, Matchett, I did enjoy myself."
Matchett gave another sideways look at the clock, as though admonishing time to hurry for its own sake. Her air became more non-committal than ever; she appeared to be hypnotised by the speed of her knitting, and, at the same time, for her own private pleasure, to be humming an inaudible tune. After about a minute, she receipted Portia's remark with an upward jerk of the chin. But the remark had, by that time, already wilted in the below stairs dusk of this room—like, on the mantelpiece, the bunch of wild daffodils, some friend's present, thrust so sternly into a glass jar. These, too, must have been a gift that Matchett no more than suffered.
"You're glad, aren't you?" Portia more faintly said.
"The things you do ask...."
"I suppose it may have been just the sea air."
"And I daresay the sea air suited Mr. Eddie?"
Unarmoured against this darting remark, Portia shifted on the table. "Oh, Eddie?" she said. "He was only there for two days."
"Still, two days are two days, at the seaside. Yes, I understood him to say he felt fine there. At least, those were his words."
"When were they his words? What do you mean?"
"Now don't you jump down my throat in such a hurry as that." Running the strand of pink wool over a rasped finger, Matchett reflectingly hummed a few more unheard bars. "Five-thirty yesterday, that would have been, I suppose. When I was coming downstairs in my hat and coat, just off to meet your train with no time to spare, my lord starts ringing away on the telephone—oh, fit to bring the whole house down, it was. Thinking it might be important, I went and answered. Then I thought I should never get him away—chattering on and on like that. However, no doubt that's what Mr. Thomas's office telephone's for. No wonder they've got to have three lines. 'Excuse me, sir,' I said, 'but I am just on my way to meet a train.'"
"Did he know it was my train?"
"He didn't ask, and I didn't specify. 'I am just off to meet a train,' I said. But did that stop him? Trains can wait while some people have to talk. 'Oh, I won't keep you,' he said—then ran on to something else."
"But what did he run on to?"
"He seemed quite put out to hear Mrs. Thomas was not back yet, and that neither were you. 'Oh dear, oh dear,' he said, 'I must have muddled the days.' Then he said,