The Death of the Heart (17 page)

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.

Wednesday.

Today we did Hygiene and French Elocution, and were taken to the National Gallery to look at pictures of Siennese Art. On the way to the National Gallery, Lilian said, what ever was on my mind? I said nothing, but she said that I was not attending. After the National Gallery she asked me to come to Peter Jones’s with her to help her choose a semi-evening dress. Lilian’s mother lets her choose her clothes so as to let her form her taste. But Lilian has got taste. I said I must telephone to Matchett, and Lilian said that the day might come when it would be awkward for me having to do that. Lilian chose a beautiful blue dress that just goes on her figure and cost four guineas.

When I got back I heard Anna in the study. I have not seen Thomas since yesterday.

Thursday.

I got a letter from Eddie to ask if anyone had asked about Sunday. He says he drew a picture for me, but he forgot to put that in. He says next week-end he has got to be away.

My white rug has come back, it is fluffier than it was, it is fluffy like the underneath of a cat. I hope I shall not upset something on it again.

Today we did Essays on Siennese Art, we were asked to say what characteristics it had got that Umbrian Art had not got. We had a Lecture on Events of the Week, and a lady to teach us to read out.

Lilian’s mother says her blue dress is too clinging, but Lilian does not agree that it is.

Tonight there is quite a fog.

Friday.

When I woke my window was like a brown stone, and I could hardly see the rest of the room. The whole house was just like that, it was not like night but like air being ill. While I was having breakfast, I could just see people holding our railings tight. Thomas has his breakfast after I have mine, but today he came and said, this must be your first fog. Then Anna sent down to say, would I rather not go to Miss Paullie’s, but I said, oh, no I would rather go. She sent down another message to say Matchett had better go with me, then. Thomas said, she’s quite right, you’ll never see the traffic, you’ll just have to push it back with your hand. And of course Matchett’s hand is stronger than mine.

The walk there was just like an adventure. Outside the park gate there were fires burning, Matchett said they were flares. She made me wrap my mouth up and not speak, or I should swallow the fog. Half way there we took a taxi, and Matchett sat straight up as if she was driving the taxi herself. She still made me not speak. When we got to Miss Paullie’s, half the girls had not got there at all. We had the lights on all day, and it felt more like a holiday. At the end of it there was not so much fog left, but all the same Matchett came to fetch me home.

We were to have had a lecture on the Appreciation of Mozart, but because of the fog we had a Debate on Consistency being the Hobgoblin of Small Minds. We also wrote essays on Metternich’s policy.

Tonight Anna and Thomas stayed at home for dinner. 
She said that whenever there was a fog she always felt it was something that she had done, but she did not seem to mean this seriously. Thomas said he supposed most people felt the same and Anna said she was certain they did not. Then we sat in the drawingroom, and they wished I was not there.

Tomorrow is Saturday, but nothing will happen.

Saturday.

I was quite right in saying nothing would happen, even the fog had gone, though it has left a brown stain. Thomas and Anna went away for the week-end, but this time by a train. I sat in the drawingroom and started “Great Expectations”. Matchett was busy with Anna’s clothes. I went down to her for tea, she said, well, you’re quite a ghost. But really it is this house that is like that. Phyllis invited me in to hear the kitchen gramophone. They can only play that when Anna is away.

Until I went out with Eddie I did not feel like this, unless I felt like this without knowing.

Sunday.

This time this day last week.

This morning I went for a walk in the park. It was rather empty. Dogs kept running round till they got lost and people whistled, and everything smelt of clay. I looked at the places we like best, but they were not the same. Some Sundays are very sad. In the afternoon Matchett took me on a bus to afternoon service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. They sang Abide With Me. On the way home Matchett said, did I know Thomas and Anna were going away in April? She said, they’re set on going abroad. This was a surprise. She said, the way I was always one to notice, she wondered I hadn’t picked anything up. She said, no doubt you’ll be told in their good time. I said, shall I stay here? and she said, you can’t do that, I’ll be spring cleaning the house. I said, well I do wonder, but she just shut her mouth. The streets outside the bus looked much darker, because of all the shops being shut I wish someone liked me so much that they would come to the door when I was out and leave surprises for me on the hall table, to find when I came in.

When we got back from St. Paul’s, Matchett went in at the basement, but she made me go in at the front door with my key.

After supper, I sat on our rug in front of Thomas’ fire. I thought some of the things that Eddie had told me on this rug.

His father is a builder.

When he was a child he knew pieces of the Bible straight off by heart.

He is quite afraid of the dark

His two favourite foods are cheese straws and jellied consommé.

He would not really like to be very rich.

He says that when you love someone all your saved-up wishes start coming out.

He does not like being laughed at, so he pretends he wants people to laugh at him.

He has thirty-six ties.

Written down these look like the characteristics of things we have to write down at lessons. I do wonder if it would ever strike Eddie to leave a surprise for me on the table when I was out.

Monday.

Eddie wrote to me while he was away. He says he is with people he does not like at all. He asks me to ring him up at the office and say what evening Anna will be out, but I do not know how to find out.

Today we did more about Siennese Art, Book Keeping and German Composition. Lilian was not waiting in the churchyard, in fact she got to lessons late. She has been upset by an actor, and asked me to tea with her tomorrow. When I got back Anna was quite pleased and told me about her week-end away as if I was St. Quentin. Perhaps she is pleased about going to go abroad. She cannot tell me this till she thinks what to do with me.

Tuesday.

Oh, it is just like an answer to a prayer, Major Brutt has sent me a jigsaw puzzle. I found it on the table when I came in. He says he would like to imagine me doing it.

Today we did English Essay and First Aid, and were taken to see “Le Cid” at a girls’ school. Then I went to tea with Lilian for her to tell me about the actor. She waa introduced to him somewhere, then wrote to him to say that she did admire his art, because she does admire it very much. The actor did not answer till she wrote the third time, then he invited Lilian to tea. She wore her blue dress with a coatee over it. There were other people at tea, but he asked her to stay on, and then he behaved in an awful way. She says he was passionate. Lilian was upset, and she says when she got home she wrote him two letters explaining the way she felt. But he did not answer either of the letters, and Lilian thinks now she must have hurt his feelings. This is making her quite bilious again.

No table in my room looks large enough to hold the whole of my jigsaw. I wonder if Matchett would mind if I did it on the floor.

Wednesday.

Matchett is sending Anna’s white velvet dress to the express cleaners, because Anna has to wear it tomorrow night. I said here, and Matchett said, no, out. So I ought to tell Eddie, I said I would.

Today we did Hygiene and French Elocution and were taken to look at historical dresses at the London Museum, which made a change. We also looked at a model of London burning, and Miss Paullie said we must all do all that we could to prevent a future war.

I have telephoned to Eddie.

Thursday.

Eddie says our lies are not our fault. So I am supposed to be going out with Lilian. They say that will be all right so long as I’m in by ten. I shall have to get to Lilian’s house on the way back, because they might send Matched to fetch me there. But where Eddie lives is quite somewhere else. What shall I do if I have not enough money?

Friday.

Yesterday was all quite all right.

Saturday.

This morning Anna took me out shopping. This afternoon, Thomas took me to the Zoo. She let me choose what we would have for lunch. Have they been saying things to each other, or have they got to tell me they are going away?

Sunday.

They took me with them to lunch with people who live in Kent. So most of the day I have sat in the car and thought, except when we got out to have lunch. Anna and Thomas sat in front of the car, every now and then he said, how is she getting on? so Anna would turn round and have a look.

Since we got back, I have been getting on with my puzzle.

Last Thursday evening, when I first got to Eddie’s it was not like where I imagined he lived. He does not like his room and I’m sure it knows. He showed me all his books and said he was so glad I was not fond of reading at all. We had very nice cold foods off cardboard dishes, Eddie had thought of macaroons for me, and we then made coffee on his gas ring. He asked if I could cook, and I said my mother did when she lived in Notting Hill Gate. There were forks but he could only find one knife, fortunately the ham was in ready-made slices. He said he had never had a person to supper before, when he is alone he goes to a restaurant, and with people he goes to restaurants too. I said that must be lovely, and he said no it wasn’t. I said, has no one been here before, then, and he said, oh yes, I have people, to tea. I said who, and he said Oh, ladies, you know. Then he did an imitation of a lady coming to tea with him. He pretended to throw his hat off on the divan and pat his hair up in front of the glass. Then he walked round the room, looking at things and sort of swaying himself. Then he did a lady curling up in his chair and smiling at him in a mysterious way. Then he showed me all sorts of things he does himself, like picking up the lady’s fox fur and making a cat of it. I said, what else do you do, and he said, as little as I can get away with, darling. I said, why ever did he ask them to tea, and he said it was cheaper than giving them lunch out, but more tiring in the long run.

Then he picked the imaginary hat off the divan and pretended to jump hard on it with both feet. He said that I was such a weight off his mind. Then he gave me the last macaroon to finish, and put his head on my lap and pretended to go to sleep, but he said, don’t drop crumbs in my eyes. When he woke up, he said that if he was a lady’s fox fur and I was him, I would certainly stroke his head. While I did, he made himself look as if he had glass eyes, like a fur.

He said, what a pity we are too young to marry. Then he laughed and said, didn’t that sound funny? I said, I don’t see why Eddie, and he said, no, it doesn’t sound funny, it sounds sweet. Then he shut his eyes again. At twenty minutes to ten I moved his head and said I must get a taxi.