The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [108]
"You're glad, aren't you?" Portia more faintly said.
"The things you do ask...."
"I suppose it may have been just the sea air."
"And I daresay the sea air suited Mr. Eddie?"
Unarmoured against this darting remark, Portia shifted on the table. "Oh, Eddie?" she said. "He was only there for two days."
"Still, two days are two days, at the seaside. Yes, I understood him to say he felt fine there. At least, those were his words."
"When were they his words? What do you mean?"
"Now don't you jump down my throat in such a hurry as that." Running the strand of pink wool over a rasped finger, Matchett reflectingly hummed a few more unheard bars. "Five-thirty yesterday, that would have been, I suppose. When I was coming downstairs in my hat and coat, just off to meet your train with no time to spare, my lord starts ringing away on the telephone—oh, fit to bring the whole house down, it was. Thinking it might be important, I went and answered. Then I thought I should never get him away—chattering on and on like that. However, no doubt that's what Mr. Thomas's office telephone's for. No wonder they've got to have three lines. 'Excuse me, sir,' I said, 'but I am just on my way to meet a train.'"
"Did he know it was my train?"
"He didn't ask, and I didn't specify. 'I am just off to meet a train,' I said. But did that stop him? Trains can wait while some people have to talk. 'Oh, I won't keep you,' he said—then ran on to something else."
"But what did he run on to?"
"He seemed quite put out to hear Mrs. Thomas was not back yet, and that neither were you. 'Oh dear, oh dear,' he said, 'I must have muddled the days.' Then he said, to be sure to tell Mrs. Thomas, and to tell you, that he would be out of London from the following morning (today morning, that was) but would hope to ring up after the week-end. Then he said he thought I'd be glad to hear that you had looked well at the seaside. 'You'd be so pleased, Matchett,' he said, 'she's really got quite a colour.' I thanked him and asked if there would be anything more. He said just to give his love to Mrs. Thomas and you. He said he thought that would be all."
"So then you rang off?"
"No, he did. It was his tea-time, no doubt."
"Did he say he'd ring up again?"
"No, he left what he had to say."
"Did you say I was on my way back?"
"No, why should I? He didn't ask."
"When did he think I'd be back?"
"Oh, I couldn't tell you, I'm sure."
"What made him be going away on a Friday morning?"
"I couldn't tell you that, either. Office business, no doubt."
"It seems to me very odd."
"A good deal in that office seems to me very odd.
However, it's not for me to say."
"But, Matchett,—just one thing more: did he realise I'd be back that very night?"
"What he realised or didn't realise I couldn't tell you. All I know is, he kept chattering on."
"He does chatter, I know. But you don't think—"
"Listen: I don't think: I haven't the time to, really. What I don't think I don't think—you ought to know that. I don't make mysteries, either. I suppose, if he hadn't thought to say, you'd never have thought to tell me he'd been there at Mrs. Heccomb's? Now, you get off my table, there's a good girl, while I plug in the iron: I've got some pressing to do."
Portia said, in a hardly alive voice: "I thought you said you had finished everything."
"Finished? You show me one thing that is ever finished, let alone everything. No, I'll stop when they've got me screwed into my coffin, but that won't be because I've got anything finished.... I'll tell you one thing you might do for me: run up, like a good girl, and shut Mrs. Thomas's bedroom window. That room should be aired now, and I won't have any more smuts in. Then you leave me quiet while I get on with my pressing. Why don't you go in the park? It must be pretty out there."
Portia shut Anna's windows, and gave one blank look at herself in Anna's cheval glass. Before shutting the windows she heard the wooing pigeons, and heard cars slip down the glossy road. Through the fresh net curtains, she saw trees in the sun. She could not make up her mind to go out of doors, for she felt alone. If one is to walk alone, it should be with pleasant thoughts. About this time, Mrs. Heccomb, alone today, would be getting back to Waikiki after the morning shopping.... She lagged downstairs to the hall: here, on the marble-topped table, two stacks of letters awaited Thomas and Anna. For the third time, Portia went carefully through these