The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [45]
"Nor to any other meal? You do make me feel happy!" He watched her slowly filling his cup with a gingerly, wobbling stream of tea. "For one thing, I feel I can stay still. You're the only person I know I need do nothing about. All the other people I know make me feel I have got to sing for my supper. And I feel that you and I are the same: we are both rather wicked or rather innocent. You looked pleased when I said Anna was depraved."
"Oh, you didn't; you said she was a cynic."
"When I think of the money I've wasted sending Anna flowers!"
"Were they very expensive?"
"Well, they were for me. It just shows what a fool I've learnt to be. I haven't been out of debt now for three years, and I've got not a soul to back me—No, it's all right, darling, I can pay for this tea—To lose my head is a thing I literally can't afford. You must hear of the way I keep on living on people? But what it has come to is: I've been bought up. They all think I want what they've got and I haven't, so they think if they get me that is a fair deal."
"I suppose it is, in a way."
"Oh, you don't understand, darling—Would you think I was vain if I said I was good-looking?"
"No. I think you are very good-looking, too."
"Well, I am, you see, and I've got all this charm, and 1 can excite people. They don't really notice my brain—they are always insulting me. Everyone hates my brain, because I don't sell that. That's the underground reason why everyone hates me. I sometimes hate it myself. I wouldn't be with these pigs if I hadn't first been so clever. Last time I went home, do you know, Portia, my younger brother laughed at my soft hands."
Portia had not for some time looked straight at Eddie, for fear her too close attention might make him stop. She had cut her crumpet up into little pieces; she nibbled abstractedly, dipping each piece in salt. When the first crumpet was eaten she paused, wiped her fingers on the paper napkin, then took a long drink of tea. Drinking, she looked at Eddie over her cup. She put down her cup and said: "Life is always so complicated."
"It's not merely life—It's me."
"I expect it is you and people."
"I expect you are right, you sweet beautiful angel. I have only had to do with people who liked me, and no one nice ever does."
She looked at him with big eyes.
"Except you, of course—Look, if you ever stop you never will let me see you have stopped, will you?"
Portia glanced to see if Eddie's cup were empty. Then she cast her look down at her diary—keeping her eyes fixed on the black cover, she said: "You said I was beautiful."
"Did I? Turn round and let me look."
She turned an at once proud and shrinking face. But he giggled: "Darling, you've got salt stuck all over the butter on your chin, like real snow on one of those Christmas cards. Let me wipe it off—stay still."
"But I had been going to eat another crumpet."
"Oh, in that case it would be rather waste—No, it's no good; I'd hate you to give me serious thoughts."
"How often do you have them?"
"Often—I swear I do."
"How old are you, Eddie?"
"Twenty-three."
"Goodness," she said gravely, taking another crumpet.
While she ate, Eddie studied her gleamingly. He said: "You've got a goofy but an inspired face. Understanding just washes over it. Why am I ever with anybody but you? Whenever I talk to other people, they jeer in their minds and think I am being dramatic. Well, I am dramatic—why not? I am dramatic. The whole of Shakespeare is about me. All the others, of course, feel that too, which is why they are all dead nuts on Shakespeare. But because I show it when they haven't got the nerve to, they all jump on me. Blast their silly faces—"
While she ate, she kept her eyes on his forehead, at present tense with high feeling, but ventured to say nothing. Her meticulous observation of him made her like somebody at a play in a foreign language of which they know not one word—the action has to be followed as closely as one can. Just a shade unnerved by her look he broke off and said: "Do I ever bore you, darling?"
"No—I was just thinking that, except for Lilian, this is the first conversation with anybody I've had. Since I came to London, I mean. It's much more the sort of conversation I have in my head."