The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [121]
"But what's in them never happened. It might have, but never did. And though what is felt in them is just possible—in fact, it's much more possible, in an unnerving way, than most people will admit—it's fairly improbable. So, you see, it's my game from the start. But I should never write what had happened down. One's nature is to forget, and one ought to go by that. Memory is quite unbearable enough, but even so it leaves out quite a lot. It wouldn't let one down as gently, even, as that if it weren't more than half a fake—we remember to suit ourselves. No, really, er, Portia, believe me: if one didn't let oneself swallow some few lies, I don't know how one would ever carry the past. Thank God, except at its one moment there's never any such thing as a bare fact. Ten minutes later, half an hour later, one's begun to gloze the fact over with a deposit of some sort. The hours I spent with thee dear love are like a string of pearls to me. But a diary (if one did keep it up to date) would come much too near the mark. One ought to secrete for some time before one begins to look back at anything. Look how reconciled to everything reminiscences are.... Also, suppose somebody read it?"
This made Portia miss one step, shift her grip on her case. She glanced at St. Quentin's rather sharklike profile, glanced away and stayed silent—so tensely silent that he peered round for another look at her.
"I should lock it up," he said. "I should trust no one an inch."
"But I lost the key."
"Oh, you did? Look here, do let's get this straight: weren't we talking about a hypothetical diary?"
"Mine's just a diary," she said helplessly.
St. Quentin coughed, with just a touch of remorse. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I've been too smart again. But that does me no good, in the long run."
"I'd rather not have it known. It is simply a thing of mine."
"No, that's where you're wrong. Nothing like that stops with oneself. You do a most dangerous thing. All the time, you go making connections—and that can be "a vice."
"I don't know what you mean."
"You're working on us, making us into something. Which is not fair—we are not on our guard with you. For instance, now I know you keep this book, I shall always feel involved in some sort of plan. You precipitate things. I daresay," said St. Quentin kindly, "that what you write is quite silly, but all the same, you are taking a liberty. You set traps for us. You ruin our free will."
"I write what has happened. I don't invent."
"You put constructions on things. You are a most dangerous girl."
"No one knows what I do."
"Oh, but believe me, we feel it. You must see how rattled we are now."
"I don't know what you were like."
"Neither did we: we got on quite well then. What is unfair is, that you hide. God's spy, and so on. Another offence is, you have a loving nature; you are the loving nature in vacuo. You must not mind my saying all this. After all, you and I don't live in the same house; we seldom meet and you seldom affect me. All the same—"
"Are you teasing me now, or were you teasing me before? You must have been teasing one or the other time. First you said you felt sure I kept a diary, then you told me I mustn't, then you asked where it was, then you pretended to be surprised when you knew there was one, after that you called me an unkind spy, now you say I love everyone too much. I see now you knew about my diary.... I suppose Anna found it and told you? Did she?"
St. Quentin glanced at Portia from the tail of his eye. "I don't come out of this well," he said.
"But did she?"
"I am perfectly able to tell a lie, but my trouble is that I have no loyalty. Yes, Anna did, as a matter of fact. Now what a fuss this will make. Now, can I trust your discretion? You see that nobody can rely on mine."
Pushing her hat brim further back from her forehead, Portia turned and sized St. Quentin up boldly. She believed he had a malignant conscience; she did not feel he was really indiscreet. "You mean," she said, "not tell Anna you told me?"
"I would as soon you didn't," said St.