The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [64]
Mrs. Heccomb must have stayed up to keep Dickie quiet. His no-nonsense step had grown loud on the esplanade. Through the floor, Mrs. Heccomb was to be heard hush-hushing as Dickie crashed open the glass door. Then he rolled an armchair round and kicked the fire: it sounded like a giant loose in the lounge. There was then the muted clatter of a tray being brought: perhaps they were opening the galantine. Mrs. Heccomb may have said something about the bell, for Dickie was to be heard replying: "What is the good of telling me that now?..." Portia knew she must meet him in the morning. She had heard he was twenty-three: the same age as Eddie.
When she came down next morning, at eight o'clock, Dickie was in the act of polishing off his breakfast. There was one particular bus to Southstone he must catch. When she came in he half got up, wiping egg from his chin: when they had shaken hands and both muttered something he bumped back again and went on drinking his coffee, not saying anything more. Dickie was not so enormous as he had sounded, though he was fine and stocky: he had a high colour, a tight-fitting skin, stag-like eyes with a look striking frankness, a large chin, and hair that though sternly larded would never stay down. Dickie, indeed, looked uncompromisingly vigorous. This working morning, he wore a dark suit and hard collar in a manner that made it clear these things were not really his type. The plunging manner in which he bathed and dressed had been, before this, heard all over the house: he had left behind in the bathroom the clean, rather babyish smell of shaving soap. At Windsor Terrace, with its many floors and extended plumbing, the intimate life of Thomas was not noticeable. But here Dickie made himself felt as a powerful organism. With a look past Portia that said that nothing should alter his habits, he now rose, withdrew from the breakfast table and locked himself in somewhere behind the chenille curtain. About five minutes later he emerged with his hat and a satisfied, civic air, nodded the same goodbye to Portia and Mrs. Heccomb (who passed in and out of the lounge with fresh instalments of breakfast as more people came down) and plunged out through the glass door to dispose of the day's work. Mrs. Heccomb, looking out through the sun porch to watch Dickie off down the esplanade, said: "He is like clockwork," with a contented sigh.
Daphne's library was in Seale High Street, only about ten minutes from Waikiki down the tree-planted walk that links the esplanade to the town. She did not have to be on duty till a quarter-past nine, and therefore seldom came down to breakfast before her brother had gone, for she slept voraciously. When Daphne was to be heard coming out of the bathroom, Mrs. Heccomb used to signal to Doris: the egg or kipper for Daphne would then be dropped in the pan. Breakfast here was a sort of a running service, which did credit to Mrs. Heccomb's organisation—possibly her forces rather spent themselves on it, for she looked fatalistic for the rest of the day. Daphne always brought down her comb with her and, while waiting for the egg or kipper, would straddle before the overmantel mirror, doing what was right by her many curls. She did not put on lipstick till after breakfast because of the egg, not to speak of the marmalade. Mrs. Heccomb, while Daphne saw to her hair, would anxiously keep the coffee and milk hot under the paisley cosy that embraced both jugs. Her own breakfast consisted of rusks in hot milk, which was, as she said to Portia, rather more Continental. Portia sat on through Dickie's exit and Daphne's entrance, eating the breakfast that had come her way, elbows in as closely as possible, hoping not to catch anyone's eye.