The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [27]
Where he had got the Monkshoods nobody knew: they were said to have all been up Cader Idris together. They were a very nice couple, middle-aged, serious, childless, idealistic and full of belief in youth. They were well off, and seemed disposed to make Eddie their son—with Mrs. Monkshood, possibly, there was just a touch of something more than this. During the Monkshood period, Eddie helped his patrons with some research, went to useful parties, did a little reviewing and wrote some pamphlets, which were printed by a girl who had a press in a loft. Arts and crafts had succeeded Sturm und Drang. It was at this time, when he looked like being less of a trouble, that Eddie was first brought to Anna's house by Denis: he found his way there again with kittenlike trustfulness. All seemed to be going almost too well when a friend whose girl Eddie had taken—or had, rather, picked up and put down again—got the Monkshoods' ear and began to make bad blood. Eddie—unconscious, though perhaps a little affected by some threat of dissolution in the air—galloped towards his doom: he brought the girl back to his room in the Monkshoods' flat: the flat was too small for this, and the Monkshoods, already uneasy, heard more than they liked. Seeing no other way to get rid of Eddie, they gave up their flat and went to live abroad. This made a deep wound in Eddie—he had been good to the Monkshoods, filial, attentive, cheerful. Quite at a loss to understand their very cruel behaviour, he began to see in his patrons perverse cravings he must all the time have flouted unconsciously. There appeared, now, to be no one he might trust.
Anna declared to whoever was interested that the Monkshoods had treated Eddie badly: she had shared his impression that they proposed to adopt him. Up to now, he had been a pleasure at Windsor Terrace, not in any way a charge on the nerves. The morning Denis had told her, not without pleasure, the bad news, Anna sent Eddie an impulsive message. He came round and stood in her drawing room: she had been prepared to find him looking the toy of fate. His manner was, in fact, not much more than muted, and rather abstract—it showed, at the same time, a touch of savage reticence. She found he did not know, and did not apparently care, where he would eat next, or where he would sleep tonight. His young debauched face—with the high forehead, springy bronze hair, energetic eyebrows and rather too mobile mouth—looked strikingly innocent. While he and Anna talked he did not sit down but stood at a distance, as though he felt disaster set him apart. He said he expected that he would go away.
"But away where?"
"Oh, somewhere," said Eddie, dropping his eyes. He added, in a matter-of-fact voice: "I suppose there really is something against me, Anna."
"Nonsense," she said fondly. "What about your people? Why not go home for a bit?"
"No, I couldn't do that. You see, they're quite proud of me."
"Yes," she said (and thought of that simple home), "I should think they were ever so proud of you."
Eddie looked at her with just a touch of contempt.
She went on—making a little emphatic gesture. "But, I mean, you know, you will have to live. Don't you want to get some sort of work?"
"That's quite an idea," said Eddie, with a little start—of which the irony was quite lost on Anna. "But look here," he went on, "I do hate you to worry. I really shouldn't have come here."
"But I asked you to."
"Yes, I know. You were so sweet."
"I'm so worried about all this; I feel the Monkshoods are monsters. But perhaps it wouldn't have worked, in the long run. I mean, your position is so much freer, now. You can make your own way—after all, you are very clever."
"So they all say," said Eddie, grinning at her,
"Well, we'll just have to think. We've got to be realistic."
"You're so right," said Eddie, glancing into a mirror.
"And listen: do keep your head, do be more conciliating. Don't go off at the deep end and have one of your moods—you really haven't got time. I've heard all about those."
"My moods?" said Eddie, raising his eyebrows. He seemed not just taken aback, but truly surprised. Did he not know he had them? Perhaps they were really fits.