The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [73]
Oh, darling Portia, it's awful not to see you. Please do feel awful too. I saw a pair of Indian silver baby's bangles in Holborn, I think I'll send them to you for your silly wrists.
Do you remember Saturday?
I think it is just like them, packing you off like that to the seaside when everything could be so nice now. Anna locks you up like jam. I hope it will sleet and freeze all the time she is in that vulgar Italian villa. I really should laugh if I went to Seale. Do you hear the sea when you are in bed?
I must stop. I do feel homeless and sad. I have got to go out now for drinks with some people, but that isn't at all the same thing. Wouldn't it be nice if you were poking our fire and expecting me home at any minute?
Goodbye, Good-night, you darling. Think of me last thing.
Eddie.
THE KARACHI HOTEL,
CROMWELL ROAD,
S.W.
Dear Miss Portia,
I was sorry to miss you all when I called at 2 Windsor Terrace. I had hoped to wish your brother and sister-in-law luck on their trip, and hoped to reply personally to that very sweet little message you sent me through Mrs. Quayne, reporting your progress made with a certain puzzle. I also meant to have asked if you would care to have another puzzle, as that must be nearly done. To do the same puzzle twice would be pretty poor fun. If you would allow me to send you another puzzle, you could always send on the first to a sick friend. I am told they are popular in nursing homes, but as I enjoy excellent health I have never checked up on this. That kind of puzzle was not much in vogue during the War.
The weather has turned quite nasty, you are "well out of London" as the saying goes. Your brother's hospitable house was, when I called, dismantled for spring cleaning. What a dire business that is! I hope you have struck some pleasant part of the coast? I expect you may find it pretty blowy down there. I have been kept pretty busy these last days with interviews in connection with an appointment. From what I hear, things look quite like shaping up.
Some good friends of mine in this hotel, whose acquaintance I made here, have just moved on, and I find they leave quite a gap. One is often lucky in striking congenial people in these hotels. But of course people rather come and go.
Well, if you feel like trying your skill with yet another puzzle, will you be so good as to send me a little line? Just possibly you might care to have the puzzle to do at the seaside, where the elements do not always treat one as they should. If I were to know your address, I could have the puzzle posted direct to you. Meanwhile, your excellent parlourmaid will no doubt forward this.
Very sincerely yours,
Eric E. J. Brutt.
Portia had never had such a morning's post as this: it seemed to be one advantage of having left London. These three letters came on Saturday morning; she reread them at a green-tiled table at the Corona Café, waiting for Mrs. Heccomb. By this, her second morning, she was already into the Waikiki routine. Mrs. Heccomb always shopped from ten-thirty to midday, with a break for coffee at the Corona Café. If she was not "in town" by ten-thirty, she fretted. With her hive-shaped basket under her elbow, Portia in her wake, she punted happily, slowly up and down the High Street, crossing at random, quite often going back on her tracks. Women who shop by telephone do not know what the pleasures of buying are. Rich women live at such a distance from life that very often they never see their money—the Queen, they say, for instance, never carries a purse. But Mrs. Heccomb's unstitched morocco purse, with the tarnished silver corners, was always in evidence. She paid cash almost everywhere, partly because she had found that something happens to bills, making them always larger than you think, partly because her roving disposition made her hate to be tied to one set of shops. She liked to be known in as many shops as possible, to receive a personal smile when she