The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [114]
"So then you rang off?"
"No, he did. It was his tea-time, no doubt."
"Did he say he'd ring up again?"
"No, he left what he had to say."
"Did you say I was on my way back?"
"No, why should I? He didn't ask."
"When did he think I'd be back?"
"Oh, I couldn't tell you, I'm sure."
"What made him be going away on a Friday morning?"
"I couldn't tell you that, either. Office business, no doubt."
"It seems to me very odd."
"A good deal in that office seems to me very odd.
However, it's not for me to say."
"But, Matchett,—just one thing more: did he realise I'd be back that very night?"
"What he realised or didn't realise I couldn't tell you. All I know is, he kept chattering on."
"He does chatter, I know. But you don't think—"
"Listen: I don't think: I haven't the time to, really. What I don't think I don't think—you ought to know that. I don't make mysteries, either. I suppose, if he hadn't thought to say, you'd never have thought to tell me he'd been there at Mrs. Heccomb's? Now, you get off my table, there's a good girl, while I plug in the iron: I've got some pressing to do."
Portia said, in a hardly alive voice: "I thought you said you had finished everything."
"Finished? You show me one thing that is ever finished, let alone everything. No, I'll stop when they've got me screwed into my coffin, but that won't be because I've got anything finished.... I'll tell you one thing you might do for me: run up, like a good girl, and shut Mrs. Thomas's bedroom window. That room should be aired now, and I won't have any more smuts in. Then you leave me quiet while I get on with my pressing. Why don't you go in the park? It must be pretty out there."
Portia shut Anna's windows, and gave one blank look at herself in Anna's cheval glass. Before shutting the windows she heard the wooing pigeons, and heard cars slip down the glossy road. Through the fresh net curtains, she saw trees in the sun. She could not make up her mind to go out of doors, for she felt alone. If one is to walk alone, it should be with pleasant thoughts. About this time, Mrs. Heccomb, alone today, would be getting back to Waikiki after the morning shopping.... She lagged downstairs to the hall: here, on the marble-topped table, two stacks of letters awaited Thomas and Anna. For the third time, Portia went carefully through these—it was still possible that something for Miss P. Quayne could have got slipped in among them. This proved not to be so—it had been not so before.... She went through the letters again, this time for interest purely. Some of Anna's friends' writings were cautious, some were dashing. How many of these letters were impulses, how many were steps in some careful plan? She could guess at some of the writings; she had seen these people already, stalking each other. For instance, here was St. Quentin's well-cut grey envelope. Now what had he got to add to what was already said?
Personal letters for Thomas were not many, but to balance Anna's pile back was quite an affair of art. Portia tried to imagine getting out of a taxi to find one's own name written so many times. This should make one's name mean—oh, most decidedly—more.
With a stage groan, Anna said: "Now will you look at those letters!"
She did not, at first, attempt to pick them up: she read one or two messages on the telephone pad, and looked at a florist's gilt box on the chair—there was no room on the laden table for it. She said to Thomas: "Someone has sent me flowers," but he had already gone into the study. So Anna, smiling at Portia, said nicely to her: "One can't attempt to open everything,