The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [146]
VI
ST. QUENTIN, drawn to the scene of his crime—or, more properly, to its moral source—was drinking sherry at Anna's when the alarm broke. St. Quentin had been, up to then, in good spirits, relieved to find how little guilty he felt. Nothing was said on the subject of diaries.
The trouble began on the ground floor of 2 Windsor Terrace and moved up. While St. Quentin and Anna were at their sherry, Thomas came home, happened to ask for Portia, was told she was not back. He thought no more of this until Matchett, in person, came to the study door to say Portia was still not in yet, and to ask Thomas what he meant to do. She stood in the doorway, looking steadily at him: these days they did not often confront each other.
"What I mean," she said, "twenty to eight is late."
"She must have made some plan, and then forgotten to tell us. Have you told Mrs. Quayne?"
"Mrs. Quayne has company, sir."
"I know," said Thomas. He almost added: Why else do you think I am down here? He said: "That's no reason not to ask Mrs. Quayne. She may quite likely know where Miss Portia is."
Matchett gave Thomas a look without any quiver; Thomas frowned down at his fountain pen. "Well," he said, "better ask her, at any rate."
"Unless you would wish to, sir...."
Under this compulsion, Thomas heaved himself up from his writing desk. Evidently, Matchett was thinking something—but was Matchett not always thinking something? If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm, Thomas went upstairs, to gain the drawingroom landing enough infected by whatever Matchett did think to open the door sharply, then stand on the threshold with a tenseness that unnerved the other two. "Portia isn't back," he said. "I suppose we know where she is?"
St. Quentin at once got up, took Anna's glass to the tray and gave her some more sherry. The business with this enabled him to stay for some time with his back to the Quaynes: he gave himself more sherry, then filled a glass for Thomas. Then he strolled away and, looking out of the window, watched people calmly rowing on the lake. He told himself that if this had been going to happen it would have happened before: the argument therefore was that it could not be happening now. Five days had elapsed since he had lifted his hat to Portia in the graveyard, having just said to her what he had just said. At the same time—he had to face it—you cannot be sure how long a person may not take to react. Shocks are inclined to be cumulative. His heart sank; he loathed his renewed complicity with the child's relations and wanted to leave their house. He heard Thomas agree with the quite disconcerted Anna that it might be well to telephone to Lilian's home.
But Lilian's mother said that Lilian was out with her father: quite certainly, Portia was not with them. "Oh, dear," Lilian's mother said, with a touch of smugness, "I'm so sorry. What a worry for you!" Anna at once hung up.
Then Thomas started, on a sustained note that soon became rather bullying: "You know, Anna, no one but us would let a girl of that age run round London alone." "Oh, shut up, darling," said Anna, "don't be so upper class. At her age, girls are typists." "Well, she is not a typist; she's not likely to learn to be anything, here. Why don't we send Matchett to fetch her, in the afternoons?" "We don't live quite on that scale: Matchett's rather too busy. One thing Portia can learn here is to look after herself." "Yes, in theory all that is excellent. But in the course of learning she might, perhaps, get run over." "Portia takes no chances: she's