The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [62]
Daphne groaned, but got up and restarted the wireless. Then she kicked off her court shoes and lighted a cigarette. "You know," she said, "I feel spring in my bones today."
"I know, dear; isn't it nice?"
"Not in my bones." Daphne looked with a certain interest at Portia. "Well," she said, "so they didn't take you abroad."
"They couldn't, you see, dear," said Mrs. Heccomb quickly. "They are going to stay with people who havea villa. And also, Portia comes from abroad."
"Oh! And what do you think of our English policemen, then?"
"I don't think I—"
"Daphne, don't always joke, dear. Be a good girl and tell Doris to clear tea."
Daphne put her head back and bellowed "Doris!" and Doris gave her a look as she nimbled in with the tray. Portia realised later that the tomblike hush of Smoot's library, where she had to sit all day, dealing out hated books, was not only antipathetic but even dangerous to Daphne. So, once home, she kept fit by making a loud noise. Daphne never simply touched objects, she slapped down her hand on them; she made up her mouth with the gesture of someone cutting their throat. Even when the wireless was not on full blast, Daphne often shouted as though it were. So, when Daphne's homecoming step was heard on the esplanade, Mrs. Heccomb had learned to draw a shutter over her nerves. So much of her own working life had been spent in intercepting noise that might annoy others, in saying "Quietly, please, dear," to young people, that she may even have got a sort of holiday pleasure from letting Daphne rip. The degree of blare and glare she permitted Daphne may even have been Mrs. Heccomb's own tribute to the life force it had for so long been her business to check. So much did she identify noise with Daphne's presence that if the wireless stopped or there were a pause in the shouting, Mrs. Heccomb would get up from her painting and either close a window or poke the fire—any lack felt by any one of her senses always made her imagine she felt Cold. She had given up hoping Daphne might grow like Anna. But it was firmly fixed in her mind now that she would not wish Portia to return to London and Anna having picked up any of Daphne's ways.
When tea had been cleared, and the lace cloth folded by Doris and put away in the bookcase drawer, Mrs. Heccomb uncorked a bottle of varnish and with a tense air applied the first coat. This done, she returned to the world and said: "Doris seems to be coming on quite well."
"She ought to," said Daphne. "She's got a boy."
"Already? Oh dear! Has she?"
"Yes, they were on the top of the bus I was on. He's got a spot on his neck. First I looked at the spot, then I looked at the boy, then who should I see but Doris grinning away beside him."
"I do hope he's a nice boy..."
"Well, I tell you, he's got a spot on his neck.... No, but I say, really, Mumsie, I do wish you'd fly out at Dickie about that bell. It looks awful, hanging out at the root like that, besides not ringing. Why don't we have an electric, anyway?"
"Your father always thought they went out of order, dear."
"Well, you ought to fly out at Dickie, you ought really. What did he say he'd mend that bell for if he wasn't going to mend it? No one asked him to say he would mend that bell."
"It was very good of him, dear. I might remind him at supper,"
"He won't be in for supper. He's got a date. He said."
"Oh yes, so he did. What am I thinking about?"
"Don't ask me," said Daphne kindly. "However, don't you worry: I'll eat the odd sausage. What is it, by the way?"
"Egg pie. I thought that would be light."
"Light?" said Daphne appalled.
"For Portia after the journey. If you want more, dear, we can open the galantine."
"Oh well," said Daphne resignedly.
Portia sat at one end of the sofa, looking through a copy of Woman and Beauty. Mrs. Heccomb was so much occupied with the lamp shade, Daphne by simply sitting and glooming there, that she wished she could have brought Major Brutt's puzzle—she could have been getting on with that. But you cannot pack a jigsaw that is three-quarters done. As it was, sitting under an alabaster pendant that poured a choked orange light on her head, she felt stupefied by this entirely new world. The thump of the broadcast band with the sea's vibration below it, the smell of varnish, hyacinths, Turkey carpet drawn out by the heat of the roaring fire came at her overpoweringly. She was not yet adjusted to all this. How far she had travelled