The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [29]
Anna declared to whoever was interested that the Monkshoods had treated Eddie badly: she had shared his impression that they proposed to adopt him. Up to now, he had been a pleasure at Windsor Terrace, not in any way a charge on the nerves. The morning Denis had told her, not without pleasure, the bad news, Anna sent Eddie an impulsive message. He came round and stood in her drawing room: she had been prepared to find him looking the toy of fate. His manner was, in fact, not much more than muted, and rather abstract—it showed, at the same time, a touch of savage reticence. She found he did not know, and did not apparently care, where he would eat next, or where he would sleep tonight. His young debauched face—with the high forehead, springy bronze hair, energetic eyebrows and rather too mobile mouth—looked strikingly innocent. While he and Anna talked he did not sit down but stood at a distance, as though he felt disaster set him apart. He said he expected that he would go away.
"But away where?"
"Oh, somewhere," said Eddie, dropping his eyes. He added, in a matter-of-fact voice: "I suppose there really is something against me, Anna."
"Nonsense," she said fondly. "What about your people? Why not go home for a bit?"
"No, I couldn't do that. You see, they're quite proud of me."
"Yes," she said (and thought of that simple home), "I should think they were ever so proud of you."
Eddie looked at her with just a touch of contempt.
She went on—making a little emphatic gesture. "But, I mean, you know, you will have to live. Don't you want to get some sort of work?"
"That's quite an idea," said Eddie, with a little start—of which the irony was quite lost on Anna. "But look here," he went on, "I do hate you to worry. I really shouldn't have come here."
"But I asked you to."
"Yes, I know. You were so sweet."
"I'm so worried about all this; I feel the Monkshoods are monsters. But perhaps it wouldn't have worked, in the long run. I mean, your position is so much freer, now. You can make your own way—after all, you are very clever."
"So they all say," said Eddie, grinning at her,
"Well, we'll just have to think. We've got to be realistic."
"You're so right," said Eddie, glancing into a mirror.
"And listen: do keep your head, do be more conciliating. Don't go off at the deep end and have one of your moods—you really haven't got time. I've heard all about those."
"My moods?" said Eddie, raising his eyebrows. He seemed not just taken aback, but truly surprised. Did he not know he had them? Perhaps they were really fits.
For the rest of that day, Anna had felt deeply concerned: she could not get Eddie out of her mind. Then at about six o'clock, Denis rang up to report that Eddie had just moved into his, Denis's, flat, and was in excellent spirits. He had just had a series of articles commissioned; they were the sort of articles he could do on his head. On the strength of this, he had borrowed two pounds from Denis and gone off in a taxi to the Piccadilly tube station left luggage office to bail out his things; he had promised, also, to bring back with him several bottles of drink.
Anna, considerably put out, said: "But there's not room for two of you in that flat."
"Oh, that will be all right, because I'm going to Turkey."
"What on earth do you want to go to Turkey for?" said Anna, still more crossly.
"Oh, various reasons. Eddie can stay on here while I'm away. I think he'll be all right; he seems to have sloughed that girl off."
"What girl?"
"Oh, that girl, you know, that he had at the Monkshoods'. He didn't like her a bit; she was a dull little tart."
"I do think all you college boys are vulgar and dull."