The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [75]
"Well, dear, I'm glad you have not been lonely. Mr. Bunstable kept me. Now I shall order coffee. Look, eat a chocolate biscuit while we wait."
Still slightly flustered by her own arrival, Mrs. Heccomb balanced her basket on an empty chair and signalled to a waitress. She looked pink. On top of this she wore, like an extra hat, a distinct air of caution and indecision. "It is so nice to get letters," she said.
"Oh yes. This morning I had three."
"I expect, travelling so much, you and your mother made many nice friends?"
"No, you see we travelled rather too much."
"And now you have made friends with Anna's friends, I expect?"
"Some of them. Not all."
Mrs. Heccomb looked less anxious by several degrees. "Anna," she said, "is a wonderful judge of people. Even as a young girl she was always particular, and now such distinguished people come to her house, don't they? One would always be right in liking anyone Anna liked. She has a wonderful way of gathering people round her: it's so nice for you, dear, to have come to a happy house like that. I am sure it must be a great pleasure to her to see you get on so nicely with the people she knows. She would be so wonderfully sympathetic. I expect you love to show her the letters you get, don't you?"
"I only get many letters when I am at the sea."
Momentarily, Mrs. Heccomb looked nonplussed. Then her shoulder was given a sharp tap by a lady leaning across from one of the other tables. A playful, reproachful conversation ensued between them. Portia, herself considerably puzzled, poured cream on to her coffee out of a doll's jug. Soon she was made known to Mrs. Heccomb's lady, and stood up politely to shake hands. She stuck the letters back in the pocket of her tweed coat.
When they had left the cafés and were in the High Street, Mrs. Heccomb, pausing outside Smoots', showed with a rather rueful upward gesture where Daphne worked. Portia pictured Daphne behind that window like a furious Lady of Shalott. "Is she fond of reading?" she said.
"Well, no, but that's not so much what they want. They want a girl who is someone, if you know what I mean. A girl who—well, I don't quite know how to express it—a girl who did not come from a nice home would not do at all, here. You know, choosing books is such a personal thing; Seale is a small place and the people are so nice. Personality counts for so much here. The Corona Café is run by ladies, you know."
"Oh."
"And of course everyone knows Daphne. It is wonderful how she has settled down to the work. I'm afraid her father would not have thought it ideal. But one cannot always foresee the future, can one?"
"No."
"Almost everyone changes their books there. You must go and see her one morning: she would be delighted. Oh, dear, look; it's twelve! We shall have to hurry home."
They dashed back to the sea down the asphalt walk, then waited about an hour in the lounge at Waikiki while Doris dealt with lunch. Mrs. Heccomb turned her lamp shade round and round and said the varnish on it was drying. After lunch she said she'd be quiet just for a minute, then took a nap on the sofa with her back to the sea.
Portia looked several times at Mrs. Heccomb napping, then took her shoes off and crept up to explore the bedroom floor of Waikiki, to see which Eddie's room could be. Mrs. Heccomb's room, in which she dared not linger, contained a large double bed with a hollow in the middle, and a number of young girls' photographs. Daphne's room smelled of Coty powder (Chypre), an army of evening shoes was drawn up under the bureau and a Dismal Desmond dog sat on the bed. Snapshots of