The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [115]
"Yes, yesterday."
"And you enjoyed yourself frightfully?"
"Oh, yes, I did, Anna."
"You said so, but we did hope you did. Have you seen Matchett?"
"Oh, yes."
"Yes, you naturally would have: I was forgetting you got back yesterday.... Well, I must look round," said Anna picking up the letters. "How odd I do feel. Will you open those flowers and tell me who they're from?"
"The box looks nice. I expect the flowers are lovely."
"Yes, I'm sure they are. But I wonder who they are from."
Anna took her letters up, and went up to have a bath. Five minutes later, Portia came to tap on the bathroom door. Anna was not yet quite into the bath; she opened the door, showing a strip of herself and letting out a cloud of scented steam. "Oh hullo?" she said. "Well?"
"They are carnations."
"What colour?"
"Sort of quite bright pink."
"Oh God—Who are they from?"
"Major Brutt. He says on the card that they are to welcome you home."
"This would happen," Anna said. "They must have cost him the earth; he probably didn't have lunch and this makes me hysterical. I do wish we had never run into him: we've done nothing but put ideas into his head. You had better take them down and show them to Thomas. Or else give them to Matchett; they might do for her room. I know this is dreadful, but I feel so unreal... Then you might write Major Brutt a note.
Say I have gone to bed. I am sure he would much rather have a note from you. Oh, how was Eddie? I see he rang up."
"Matchett answered."
"Oh! I thought you probably would. Well, Portia, let's have a talk later." Anna shut the door and got into her bath.
Portia took the carnations down to Thomas. "Anna says these are the wrong colour," she said. Thomas was back again in his armchair, as though he had not left it, one foot on a knee. Though only a dimmed-down reflection of afternoon came into the study, he had one hand near his eyes, as though there were a strong glare. He looked without interest at the carnations. "Oh, are they the wrong colour?" he said.
"Anna says they are."
"Who did you say they were from?"
"Major Brutt."
"Oh yes, oh yes. Do you think he's found a job?" He looked more closely at the carnations, which Portia held like an unhappy bride. "There are hundreds of them," he said. "I suppose he has found something. I hope he has: we cannot do anything.... Well, Portia, how are you? Did you really have a good time?—Forgive me sitting like this, but I seem to have got a headache—How did you like Seale?"
"Very much indeed."
"That's excellent: I'm really awfully glad."
"I wrote and said I did, Thomas."
"Anna wondered whether you did really. I should think it was nice. I've never been there, of course."
"No, they said you hadn't."
"No. It's a pity, really. Well, it's nice to see you again. Is everything going well?"
"Yes, thank you. I'm enjoying the spring."
"Yes, it is nice," said Thomas. "It feels to me cold, of course.... Would you care to go for a turn in the park, later?"
"That would be lovely. When?"
"Well, I think later, don't you?... Where did you say Anna was?"
"She's just having her bath. She asked me to write something to Major Brutt. I wonder, Thomas, if I might write at your desk?"
"Oh yes, by all means do."
Having discharged himself of this good feeling, Thomas unostentatiously left the study while Portia opened the blotter to write to Major Brutt. He got himself a drink, carried the drink upstairs, and took a look round the drawingroom on his way. Not a thing had been tweaked from its flat, unfeeling position—palpably Anna had not been in here yet. So then he carried his drink into Anna's room, and sat on the big bed till she should come from her bath. His heavy vague reflections weighted him into a stone figure—Anna jumped when she came round the door at him, her wrapper open, the bunch of steam-blotched opened letters in her hand. Superfluously, she said: "How you made me jump!"