The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [123]
"I don't know. With my aunt."
"Oh, you won't hear of me there."
"I think I am to go and be with my aunt, when I'm not with Thomas and Anna any more."
"Well, with your aunt you may have time to be sorry. No, I am being unfair to you. I should never talk like this if you weren't such a little stone."
"It is what you've told me."
"Naturally, naturally. Do you like to walk through the graveyard? And why has it got a bandstand in the middle? As you're quite near home, do something about your face."
"I don't have any powder."
"I'm not really sorry that this has happened: it was bound to happen sooner or later—No, I don't mean powder: I just mean your expression. One thing one must learn is, how to confront people that at that particular moment one cannot bear to meet."
"Anna's out to tea."
"If we had not said all this, I'd get you to have tea with me in a shop. But anyhow, I'm due somewhere at a quarter to five. I think I ought to go back now. I suppose you're sorry we met?"
"I suppose it's better to know."
"No, truly it is not. In fact I've done something to you I could not bear to have done to myself. And the terrible thing is, I am feeling the better for it. Well, goodbye," said St. Quentin, stopping on the asphalt path in the graveyard, among the tombs and the willows, taking off his hat.
"Goodbye, Mr. Miller. Thank you."
"Oh, I shouldn't say that."
That had been on Wednesday. This Saturday, Portia soon moved out of Eddie's chair, which he slipped gladly back to, to take her accustomed place on the stool near the fire. A pallid flare and a rustling rose from the logs; the windows framed panoramas of wet trees; the room looked high and faint in rainy afternoon light. Between Portia and Anna extended the still life of the tea-tray. On her knees, pressed together, Portia kept balanced the plate on which a rock cake slid. Beginning to nibble at the rock cake, she sat watching Anna at tea with Eddie, as she had watched her at tea with other intimate guests.
By coming in, however, she had brought whatever there was to a nonplussed pause. The fact that they let her see such a pause happen made her the accessory she hardly wanted to be. Eddie propped an elbow on the wing of his chair, leaned a temple on a palm and looked into the fire. His eyes flickered up and down with the point of flickering flame. Desultorily, and for his private pleasure, he began to make mouths like a fish—curling his lower lip out, sucking it in again, Anna, using her thumb nail, slit open a new box of cigarettes, then packed her tortoise-shell case with them. Portia finished her cake, approached the tray and helped herself to another—taking his eyes from the fire for one moment, Eddie accorded her one irresponsible smile. "When do we go for another walk?" he said.
Anna said: "Are you ready for more tea?"
"A fortnight ago," said Portia, for no reason, going back for her cup, "I was having tea at Seale golf club with Dickie Heccomb and Clara—a girl there that he sometimes plays golf with."
Anna ducked in her chin and smiled vaguely and nodded. Absently, she said, "Was that fun?"
"Yes, the gorse was out."
"Yes, Seale must have been fun."
"There's a picture of you there, in my room."
"A photograph?"
"No, a picture holding a kitten."
Anna put her hand to her head. "Kitten?" she said. "What do you mean, Portia?"
"A black kitten."
Anna thought back. "Oh, that black kitten. Poor little thing, it died.... You mean, when I was a child?"
"Yes, you had long hair."
"A chalk drawing. Oh, is that in her spare room? But who is Clara? Tell me about her."
Portia did not know how to begin—she glanced at Eddie. He came to himself and said with the greatest ease: "Clara? Clara's position was uncertain. She was hardly in the set. All the same, she haunts me—perhaps because of that. She spends ever so much money hoping to marry Dickie—Dickie Heccomb, you