The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [50]
Today we got our Essays on Racine back, and some of the girls discussed what they had put. We did Metternich and were taken out to a Lecture on the Appreciation of Bach.
Tomorrow will be another Saturday.
Saturday.
I got a letter from Eddie, saying about Sunday. He said to ring him up if I could not go, but as I can I need not ring up. Before lunch Thomas and Anna drove away in the car, they are going off for the week-end. Anna said I could ask Lilian to tea, and Thomas gave me five shillings to go to the pictures with, he said he did hope I should be all right. Lilian cannot, so I am by the study fire. I like a day when there is some sort of tomorrow.
Sunday.
I shall just put "Sunday", Eddie prefers that.
Monday.
Today we began Siennese Art, and did Book Keeping, and read a German play. Anna is having quite a big dinner party, she says I should not really enjoy myself.
Anyhow I should not mind, after yesterday.
Tuesday.
Today I have had a sort of conversation with Thomas. When he came in he rang to ask if Anna was there, so I said no and said should I come down and he was not sure but said yes. He was leaning on his desk reading the evening paper, and when I came in he said it was warmer, wasn't it? He said in fact he felt stuffy. As he had not seen me last night, because of the dinner party, he asked had I had a nice week-end? He said he hoped I had not been at all lonely, so I said oh no. He asked if I thought Eddie was nice. I said oh yes, and he said, he was round here yesterday, wasn't he? I said oh yes and said we had sat down here in the study, and that I did hope Thomas did not mind people sitting down here in his study. He said oh no, oh no in a sort of far-off voice. He said he supposed I and Eddie were rather friends, and I said yes we were. Then he went back to reading the evening paper as if there was something new in it.
He did half want me to go, and I did half want to go too, but I did not. This was the first time Thomas had asked me something he did seem to want to know. I was pleased to hear the name of Eddie and sat on the arm of the armchair. When he wanted a cigarette himself he started to offer me one by mistake. I could not help laughing. He said, I forgot, then said, no, don't start being grown up. He said, you know mistakes run in our family.
He said when my Father started getting to know my Mother, while my Father still lived in Dorset with Mrs. Quayne, my Father started to smoke a lot more. He said my Father got so ashamed of smoking so much that he started to save his cigarette stumps up in an envelope, then bury them in the garden. Because it was summer with no fires to burn them in, and he didn't want Matchett to count the stumps. I said, how did Thomas know, and he gave a sort of laugh and said, I once caught him at it. He said, my Father did not like being caught, but to Thomas it only seemed a joke.
Thomas said he did not know what had put this into his head and after that he gave me a sort of look when he did not think I was looking. All Thomas's looks, except ones at Anna, are at people not looking. But he did not mind when he found I was looking. After all he and I have our Father. Though he and Anna have got that thing together, there is not the same thing inside him and Anna, like that same thing inside him and me. He said in a sort of quick way that was near me, I hope Eddie is polite? I said, what did he mean, and he said, well, I don't know Eddie, does he try it on? He said, no you probably don't know what I mean, I said No, and he said in that case it was all right, he supposed. I said, we talked, and Thomas looked at the rug, as though he knew where we had sat, and said, oh do you, I see.
Then Thomas sort of rumpled the rug up with his heel, as if he did not like people to have sat there. That lamp makes Thomas's face all bags and lines, as if he was alone in his room. He said oh well, we shall see how you make out. He took a book up and said it was a mistake to love any person, I said it is all right if you are married, isn't it, and he said quickly, oh of course, that is all right. I heard a taxi stopping like one of Anna's, so 1 said I must go and I went up. I felt so like Thomas I had been quite glad to hear the taxi stop.