• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Thomas, marvelling, thought: He really has got a nerve. What happens when Anna comes in?

VIII

"WHO was that old bird?"

"Major Brutt. He was a friend of someone Anna knew."

"Who that she knew?"

"His name was Pidgeon."

Eddie tittered at this, then said: "Is he dead?"

"Oh no. Major Brutt says he thinks he is very well."

"I've never heard of Pidgeon," said Eddie, frowning.

Without guile, she said: "But do you know all her friends?"

"I said we'd run into someone, you little silly. I told you we would, if we went back."

"But you did ask me to fetch it—"

"I suppose I did—I must say I think Brutt's a rather nasty old thing. He leers."

"Oh no, Eddie—he doesn't."

"No, I suppose he doesn't," said Eddie, looking depressed. "I suppose he's really much nicer than I am."

Turning and anxiously eyeing Eddie's forehead, Portia said: "Today he looked rather sad."

"You bet he did," said Eddie. "He wanted an innings. He may be a great deal nicer than I am, darling, but I do feel I ought to tell you that that sort of person makes me perfectly sick. And look how he'd rattled Thomas—poor old Thomas was all over the place. No, Brutt is a brute. Do you realise, Portia darling, that it is because of there being people like him that there are people like me? How on earth did he get into the house?"

"He said Anna'd asked him to come again."

"What a cynic Anna is!"

"I do think, Eddie, you are exaggerating."

"I've got no sense of proportion, thank God. That man palpably loathed me." Eddie stopped and blew out his lower lip. "Oh dear," said Portia, "I quite wish we hadn't met him."

"Well, I told you we would if we went back. You know that house is a perfect web."

"But you said you wanted my diary."

They were having tea, or rather their tea was ordered, at Madame Tussaud's. Portia, who had not been here before, had been disappointed to find all the waitresses real: there were no deceptions of any kind—all the waxworks were in some other part. He and she sat side by side at a long table intended for a party of four or six. Her diary, fetched from Windsor Terrace, lay still untouched between their elbows, with a strong indiarubber band round it. She said: "How do you mean that Anna is a cynic?"

"She has depraved reasons for doing the nicest things. However, that doesn't matter to me."

"If it really doesn't, why does it upset you?"

"After all, darling, she is a human soul. And her character did upset me, at one time. I'm several degrees worse since I started to know her. I wish I had met you sooner."

"Worse how? Do you think you are wicked?"

Eddie, leaning a little back from the table, looked all round the restaurant, at the lights, at the other tables, at the mirrors, considering the question seriously, as though she had asked him whether he felt ill. Then he returned his eyes closely to Portia's face, and said with an almost radiant smile: "Yes."

"In what way?"

But a waitress came with a tray and put down the teapot, the hot-water jug, a dish of crumpets, a plate of fancy cakes. By the time she had done, the moment had gone by. Eddie raised a lid and stared at the crumpets. "Why on earth," he said, "didn't she bring salt?"

"Wave to her and ask her—Shall I really pour out?... But, Eddie, I can't see you are wicked. Wicked in what way?"

"Well, what do you hate about me?"

"I don't think I—"

"Try the other way round—what do you like least?"

She thought for a moment, then said: "The way you keep making faces for no particular reason."

"I do that when I wish I had no face. I can't bear people getting a line on me."

"But it attracts attention. Naturally people notice."

"All the same, it throws them on the wrong track. My goodness, they think, he's going to have a nerve-storm; he may be really going to have a fit. That excites them, and they start to play up themselves. So then that gives me time to collect myself, till quite soon I feel like ice."

"I see—but—"

"No, you see the fact is, darling, people do rattle me—You do see?"

"Yes, I do."

"It's vitally important that you should. In a way, I believe I behave worse