The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [62]
"I'm sure I shall enjoy myself very much."
"At the same time," said Mrs. Heccomb, flushing under her hair, "I don't want you to feel a visitor here. I want you to feel completely at home, just as you do with Anna. You must come to me about any little trouble, just as you would to her. Of course, I hope there may be no little troubles. But you must ask me for anything that you want."
Portia chiefly wanted her tea: lime drops do leave you thirsty, and she still tasted the tunnels in her mouth. She feared they must still be far from the coast—then the train ran clear of the woods along a high curved ridge. Salt air blew in at the carriage window: down there, across flat land, she saw the sea. Seale station ran at them with no warning; the engine crawled up to buffers: this was a terminus. The door through from the booking hall framed sky, for this was an uphill station, built high on a ramp. While Mrs. Heccomb had her chat with the porter, Portia stood at the head of the flight of steps. She felt elated here, thinking: "I shall be happy." The view of sea, town and plain, all glassy-grey March light, seemed to be tilted up to meet her eyes like a mirror. "That is my house," said Mrs. Heccomb, pointing to the horizon. "We're still rather far away, but this is the taxi. He always comes."
Mrs. Heccomb smiled at the taxi and she and Portia got in.
The taxi drove down a long curve into Seale, past white gates of villas with mysterious gardens in which an occasional thrush sang. "That would be our way really," said Mrs. Heccomb, nodding left when they reached the foot of the hill. "But today we must go the other, because I have to shop. I do not often have a taxi to shop from, and it is quite a temptation, I must say. Dear Anna begged me to have the taxi up to the station, but I said no, that the walk would be good for me. But I said I might take the taxi the rather longer way home, in order to do my shopping."
The taxi, which felt narrow, closed everything in on them, and Portia now saw only shop windows—the High Street shop windows. But what shops!—though all were very small they all looked lively, expectant, tempting, crowded, gay. She saw numbers of cake shops, antique shops, gift shops, flower shops, fancy chemists and fancy stationers. Mrs. Heccomb, holding her basket ready, wore a keyed-up but entirely happy air.
The shopping basket was soon full, so one began to pile parcels on the taxi seats. Every time she came back to the taxi, Mrs. Heccomb said to Portia: "I do hope you are not wanting your tea?" By the Town Hall clock it was now twenty past five. A man carried out to them a roll of matting, which he propped upright opposite Portia's feet. "I am so glad to have this," said Mrs. Heccomb.
"I ordered it last week, but it was not in till today.... Now I must just go to the end"—by the end she meant the post office, which was at the end of the High Street—"and send Anna that telegram."
"Oh?"
"To say you've arrived safely."
"I'm sure she won't be worried."
Mrs. Heccomb looked distressed. "But you have never been away from her before. One would not like her to go abroad with anything on her mind." Her back view vanished through the post office door. When she came out, she found that she had forgotten something right down the other end of the town. "After all," she said, "that will bring us back where we started. So we can go back the shorter way, after all."
Portia saw that all this must be in her honour. It made her sad to think how Matchett would despise Mrs. Heccomb's diving and ducking ways, like a nesting waterfowl's. Matchett would ask why all this had not been seen to before. But Irene would have been happy with Mrs. Heccomb, and would have entered into her hopes and fears. The taxi crossed a canal bridge, heading towards the sea across perfectly flat fields that cut off the sea-front from the town. The sea-line appeared between high battered rows of houses, with red bungalows dotted in the gaps. These were all raised above the inland level, along a dyke that kept the sea in its place.
The taxi