The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [21]
"Did he do that often?" said Portia.
"Very often indeed."
Major Brutt, who had been given another drink, looked straight at Anna. "You haven't seen him lately?"
"No, not very lately. No."
Major Brutt quickly said: "He was always a rare bird. You seldom hear of him twice in the same place. And I've been rolling round myself a good bit, since I left the Army, trying one thing and another."
"That must have been interesting."
"Yes, it is and it's not. It's a bit uncertain. I commuted my pension, then didn't do too well out in Malay. I'm back here for a bit, now, having a look round. I don't know, of course, that a great deal will come of it."
"Oh, I don't see why not."
Major Brutt, a good deal encouraged, said: "Well, I've got two or three irons in the fire. Which means I shall have to stick around for a bit."
Anna failed to reply, so it was Thomas who said: "Yes, I'm sure you're right to do that."
"I'll be seeing Pidgeon sometime, I dare say. One never knows where he may or may not turn up. And I often run into people—well, look at tonight."
"Well, do give him my love."
"He'll be glad to hear how you are."
"Tell him I'm very well."
"Yes, tell him that," Thomas said. "That is, when you do see him again."
"If you always live in hotels," said Portia to Major Brutt, "you get used to people always coming and going. They look as though they'd be always there, and then the next moment you've no idea where they've gone, and they've gone for ever. It's funny, all the same."
Anna looked at her watch. "Portia," she said, "I don't want to spoil the party, but it's half-past twelve."
Portia, when Anna looked straight at her, immediately looked away. This was, as a matter of fact, the first moment since they came in that there had been any question of looking straight at each other. But during the conversation about Pidgeon, Anna had felt those dark eyes with a determined innocence steal back again and again to her face. Anna, on the sofa in a Recamier attitude, had acted, among all she had had to act, a hardy imperviousness to this. Had the agitation she felt throughout her body sent out an aura with a quivering edge, Portia's eyes might be said to explore this line of quiver, round and along Anna's reclining form. Anna felt bound up with her fear, with her secret, by that enwrapping look of Portia's: she felt mummified. So she raised her voice when she said what time it was.
Portia had learnt one dare never look for long. She had those eyes that seem to be welcome nowhere, that learn shyness from the alarm they precipitate. Such eyes are always turning away or being humbly lowered—they dare come to rest nowhere but on a point in space; their homeless intentness makes them appear fanatical. They may move, they may affront, but they cannot communicate. You most often meet or, rather, avoid meeting such eyes in a child's face—what becomes of the child later you do not know.
At the same time, Portia had been enjoying what could be called a high time with Major Brutt. It is heady—when you are so young that there is no talk yet of the convention of love—to be singled out: you feel you enjoy human status. Major Brutt had met her eyes kindly, without a qualm. He remained standing: his two great feet were planted like rocks by her as she knelt on the rug, and from up there he kept bellowing down. When Anna looked at her watch, Portia's heart sank—she referred to the clock, but found this was too true. "Half-past twelve,” she said. "Golly!"
When she had said good-night and gone, dropping a glove, Major Brutt said: "That little kid must be great fun for you."
IV
MOST mornings, Lilian waited for Portia in the old cemetery off Paddington Street: they liked to take this short cut on the way to lessons. The cemetery, overlooked by windows, has been out of touch with death for some time: it is at once a retreat and a thoroughfare not yet too well known. One or two weeping willows and tombs like stone pavilions give it a prettily solemn character, but the gravestones are all ranged round the walls like chairs before a dance,