The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [45]
"Anna," Thomas said, with a show of indifference.
"Look here, I feel I probably ought—"
"Nonsense. She'll be delighted."
"But she's got people with her." There certainly were voices, low voices, in the hall.
Repeating "No, stay, do stay," with enormous concentration, Thomas heaved himself up and went to the study door. He opened the door sharply, as though to quell a riot. Then he exclaimed with extreme flatness: "Oh... Hullo, Portia... oh, hullo: good afternoon."
"Good afternoon," returned Eddie, with the matey deference he now kept for Thomas out of office hours. "I say, don't let us disturb you: we're just going out again." Expertly reaching round Portia, he closed Thomas's hall door behind Thomas's sister. His nonchalance showed the good state of his nerves—for since when had old Thomas taken to popping out? Portia said nothing: close beside Eddie she stood smiling inordinately. To Thomas, these two appeared to be dreadful twins—they held up their heads with the same rather fragile pride; they included him in the same confiding smile. Clearly, they had hoped to creep in unheard—their over-responsiveness to Thomas only showed what a blow Thomas had been. They both glowed from having walked very fast.
Thomas showed what a blow they were by looking heavily past them. He explained: "I thought you were Anna."
Eddie said nicely: "I'm so sorry we're not."
"Isn't she in?" said Portia mechanically.
"But I'll tell you who is here," said Thomas. "Major Brutt. Portia, you'd better show up, just for a minute."
"We—we were just going out."
"Well, a minute won't hurt you, will it?"
The most stubbornly or darkly drawn-in man has moments when he likes to impose himself, to emerge and be a bully. The diversion of a raindrop from its course down the pane, the frustration of a pet animal's will in some small way all at once becomes imperative, if the nature is to fulfil itself. Thomas took pleasure in thrusting Portia into the study, away from Eddie, to talk to Major Brutt. A hand on her shoulder-blade, he pushed her ahead of him with colourless, unadmitted cruelty. Eddie, dogged, determined to be as much de trop as he could be, followed along behind.
Major Brutt, during the colloquy in the hall, had sat with his knees parted, turning his wrists vaguely making his cuff-links wink. What he may have heard he shook off, like a dog shaking its ears. The little kid was propelled round at the door at him: Thomas then made a pause, then introduced Eddie. Portia and Eddie lined up shoulder to shoulder, smiling at Major Brutt with a captive deference. In their eyes he saw the complicity of a suspended joy.
"I've come crashing round here," Major Brutt said to Portia. "Disturbing your brother a good bit, I'm afraid. But your sister-in-law had very kindly said—"
"Oh, I'm sure she did really mean it," said Portia.
"At all events," he went on, going on smiling with agonized heartiness, "she's been well out of it. I gather she's out at lunch. But I've been keeping your brother from forty winks."
"Not at all," said Thomas. "It's been frightfully nice." He sat down again in his own chair so firmly that Portia and Eddie had either to sit down somewhere also, or else, by going on standing (as they continued to do), to make their semi-absence, their wish to be elsewhere, marked. They stood a foot apart but virtually hand in hand. Portia looked past Eddie liquidly, into nowhere, as though she did not exist because she might not look at him. Eddie began to smoke, but smoked very consciously. This announcement of their attachment—in a way that showed complete indifference to the company—struck on Thomas coldly: one more domestic fatigue. He also wondered how Eddie had the nerve.... To Major Brutt, kinder to love than Thomas, this seemed a holy anomaly.
"And where have you been?" said Thomas—who had, after all, every right to ask.
"Oh, we've been to the Zoo."
"Wasn't it very cold there?"
They looked at each other, not seeming to know. "It's all draughts and stinks," Eddie said. "But we did think it was pretty, didn't we, Portia?"