The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [133]
Govent Garden just after six o'clock, with its shuttered arcades, was not gay. Across the facades, like a theatre set shabby in daylight, and across the barren glaring spaces, films of shade were steadily coldly drawn, as though there were some nervous tide in the sky. Here and there, bits of paper did not blow about but sluggishly twitched. The place gave out a look of hollow desuetude, as though its desertion would last for ever. London is full of such deserts, of such moments, at which the mirage of one's own keyed-up existence suddenly fails. Covent Garden acted as a dissolvent on Eddie: he walked round like a cat.
Then he saw Portia, waiting at the one corner he did not think they had said. Her patient grip on her small case, her head turning, the thin, chilly stretch of her arms between short sleeves and short gloves struck straight where his heart should be—but the shaft bent inside him: to see her only made him breezily cross.
"Well, you have come a way," he said. "I do feel so flattered, darling."
"I came in a taxi."
"Did you? Listen, what ever happened? You seemed to have some sort of fit on the line, just when I was thinking about some much better place to meet."
"I don't mind here; it's all right!"
"But you did rattle me, ringing off like that."
"I was using the telephone in Miss Paullie's study, and she came in and caught me. We're not allowed to telephone from that place; we may only ask to send messages."
"So then you got hell, I suppose. Who would be young!"
"I'm not so young as all that."
"Well, in statu pupillari. Where now?"
"Can't we simply walk about?"
"Oh, all right, if you like. But that isn't much fun, is it?"
"How can this be fun?"
"No it's not very promising," said Eddie, starting to walk rather faster than she could. "But now, look here, darling, I'm ever so sorry for you but really you must not work yourself up like this. I think it's dingy of Anna to read your diary, but I always told you not to leave it about. And what a good thing, now, that I made you promise not to write about us. You didn't, of course?" he added, flicking a look at her.
She said, all in a gasp: "I see now why you asked me not."
A perceptible twitch passed over Eddie's features. "What on earth are you getting at now?" he said.
"Please don't be angry, please don't be angry with me—Eddie, you told Anna about my diary?"
"Why in God's name should I?"
"For some sort of a joke. Some part of the joke that you always have with her."
"Well, my poor dear excellent lamb, as a matter of interest—no, I didn't.... As a matter of fact..."
She looked dumbly at him.
"As a matter of fact," he went on, "she told me."
"But I told you, Eddie."
"Well, she had told me first. She's been at that book for some time. She really is an awful bounder, you know."
"So when I told you, you knew."
"Yes. I did. But really, darling, you make too much of things, like keeping this diary. It's ever so honest and it's beautifully clever, and it's sweet, just like you, but is it extraordinary? Diaries are things almost all girls keep."
"Then, why did you pretend it meant something to you?"
"I loved to have you tell me about it. I am always so moved when you tell me things."
"And all this time, you've let me go on with it. I did write down some things about you, of course."
"Oh God," said Eddie, stopping. "I did think I could trust you."
"Why are you ashamed of having been nice to me?"
"After all, that's all between you and me. I can't have Anna messing about with it."
"You don't mind, then, about all the rest of my life? As a matter of fact, there's not much rest of my life. But my diary's me. How could I leave you out?"
"All right, go on: make me hate myself.... By the way, how did you find this out?"
"St. Quentin told me."
"There's a crook, if you like."
"I don't see why. He was kind."
"More likely, he was feeling bored with Anna, She goes