The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [99]
"Do you mean about him holding your hand? He does that because he feels matey, he says."
Daphne's reaction time was not quick: it took her about two seconds to go rigid all over on the chaise longue. Then her eyes ran together, her features thickened: there was a pause in which slowly diluted Portia's appalling remark. In that pause, the civilisation of Waikiki seemed to rock on its base. When Daphne spoke again her voice had a rasping note, as though the moral sound box had cracked.
"Now look here," she said. "I simply dropped you a word because I felt in a sort of way sorry for you. But there's no reason for you to be vulgar. I must say, I was really surprised when you said you had got a boy friend. What I thought was, he must be rather a sap. But as you were so keen to have him, I was all for his coming, and, as you know, I fixed Mumsie about that. I don't wish to blow my own trumpet, I never have, but one thing I will say is that I'm not a cat, and I'd never put in my oar with a girl friend's boy friend. But the moment you brought that boy here, I could see in a moment anybody could have him. It's written all over him. He can't even pass the salt without using his eyes. Even so, I must say I thought it was a bit funny when—"
"When he held your hand? Yes, I did just at first.
But I thought perhaps you didn't."
"Now Portia, you look here—if you can't talk like a lady, you just take that puzzle away and finish it somewhere else. Blocking up the whole place with the thing! I had no idea at all you were so common, and nor had Mumsie the least idea, I'm sure, or she wouldn't have ever obliged your sister-in-law by having you to stop here, Convenient or not. This all simply goes to show the way you're brought up at home, and I am really surprised at them, I must say. You just take that awful puzzle up to your room and finish it there, if you're really so anxious to. You get on my nerves, always picking about with it. And this is our sun porch, if I may say so."
"I will if you like. But I'm not doing my puzzle."
"Well, don't just fidget about: it drives anyone crazy." Daphne's voice and her colour had kept steadily rising: now she cleared her throat. There was a further pause, with that remarkable tension that precedes the hum when a kettle comes to the boil. "The matter with you is," she went on, gathering energy, "you've had your head thoroughly turned here. Being taken notice of. Cecil sorry because you are an orphan, and Dickie fussing you up to get a rise out of Clara. I've been letting you go about with our set because I thought it would be a bit of experience for you, when you're always so mousy and shy. I took poor Mumsie's word that you were a nice little thing. But as I say, this does only go to show. I'm sure I have no idea how your sister-in-law and all her set behave, but I'm afraid down here we are rather particular."
"But if it seemed so very funny to you, why were you patting Eddie's hand with your thumb?"
"People creeping and spying," said Daphne, utterly tense, "and then talking vulgarly are two things that I simply cannot stick. It may be funny of me, no doubt it is, but I just never could and I never can. Angry with you. I should never lower myself. It's not my fault that you've got the mind of a baby—and an awful baby, if you'll excuse my saying so. If you don't know how to behave—"
"I don't know why to behave.... Then Eddie told me this morning that people have to get off when they can't get on."
"Oh! So you've had quite a talk!"
"Well, I asked him, you see."
"The fact is you are a jealous little cat."
"I'm not any more now, Daphne, really."
"Still, you felt you could do with a bit of that—Oh yes, I saw you, shoving up against him."
"That was the only side I had any