The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [69]
She did not (rightly) consider Anna properly upper class. All the same, she felt Anna's power in operation; she considered Anna got more than she ought. She thought Anna gave herself airs. She also resented dimly (for she could never word it) Anna's having made Mumsie her parasite. Had Anna had a title this might have been less bitter. She overlooked, rightly and rather grandly, the fact that had it not been for Anna's father, the Heccombs could not have opened so much galantine.
Some people are moulded by their admirations, others by their hostilities. In so far as anything had influenced Daphne's evolution, it had been the wish to behave and speak on all occasions as Anna would not. At this moment, the very idea of Anna made her snap at her toast with a most peculiar expression, catching dribbles of marmalade on her lower lip.
The Waikiki marmalade was highly jellied, sweet and brilliantly orange; the table was brightly set with cobalt-and-white breakfast china, whose pattern derived from the Chinese. Rush mats as thick as muffins made hot plates wobble on the synthetic oak. Sunlight of a pure seaside quality flooded the breakfast table, and Portia, looking out through the sun porch, thought how pleasant this was. The Heccombs ate as well as lived in the lounge, for they mistrusted, rightly, the anthracite stove in the should-be diningroom. So they only used the diningroom in summer, or for parties at which they had enough people to generate a sterling natural heat.... Gulls dipped over the lawn in a series of white flashes; Mrs. Heccomb watched Daphne having a mood about Anna with an eye of regret. "But one does not put lilies in baths," she said at last.
"You might do, if you wanted to keep them fresh."
"Then I should have thought you'd put them in a wash basin, dear."
"How should I know?" said Daphne. "I don't get lilies, do I?" She thrust her cup forward for more coffee, and, with an air of turning to happier subjects, said: "Did you fly out at Dickie about that bell?"
"He didn't seem to think—"
"Oh, he didn't, did he?" said Daphne. "That's just Dickie all over, if you know what I mean. Why not let you get the man from Spalding's in the first place? Well, you had better get the man from Spalding's. I want that bell done by tomorrow night."
"Why specially, dear?"
"Some people are coming in."
"But don't they almost always give a rap on the glass?"
Daphne looked hangdog (her variation of coyness). Her eyes seemed to run together like the eyes of a shark. She said: "Mr. Bursely talked about dropping in."
"Mr. Who?" Mrs. Heccomb said timidly.
"Bursely, Mumsie. B, U, R, S, E, L, Y."
"I don't think I have ever—"
"No," Daphne yelled patiently. "That is just the point. He hasn't been here before. You don't want him to see that bell. He's from the School of Musketry."
"Oh, in the Army?" said Mrs. Heccomb, brightening. (Portia knew so little about the Army, she immediately heard spurs, even a sabre, clank down the esplanade.) "Where did you meet him, dear?"
"At a hop," said Daphne briefly.
"Then some of you might like to dance tomorrow night, I expect?"
"Well, we might put the carpet back. We can't all just stick around.—Do you dance?" she said, eyeing Portia.
"Well, I have danced with some other girls in hotels..."
"Well, men won't bite you." Turning to Mrs. Heccomb, Daphne said: "Get Dickie to get Cecil... Goodness, I must rush!"
She rushed, and soon was gone down the esplanade. Daphne used nothing stronger than "goodness" or "dash": all the vigour one wanted was supplied by her manner. In this she was unlike Anna, who at moments of tension let out oaths and obscenities with a helpless, delicate air. Where Anna, for instance, would call a person a bitch, Daphne would call the person an old cat. Daphne's person was sexy, her conversation irreproachably chaste. She would downface any