The Death of the Heart (39 page)

“You disapprove of my ideas, don’t you?” she threw out to Major Brutt with a frantic summoning smile.

But he only crumbled his bread and quietly ate the crumbs. “Oh, I don’t think I’d venture to. Not wholesale. I don’t doubt for a moment there’s a great deal in what you say.” Looking kindly at her with his straight grey eyes, he added: “One reason I should like to settle down is that then I might begin to think things out for myself. Not knowing exactly what may turn up is inclined to make one a bit unsettled, and often when I’ve intended to have a think—for after all, I’ve got a bit of time on my hands—I find I am not in form, so I don’t get much thinking done. Meanwhile, it’s a treat to listen to a discussion, though I don’t feel qualified to shove my oar in.”

“My only quarrel with this charming lady,” said Mr. Peppingham (who was becoming odious), “is, that she 
will not tell us what her ideas
are.”

Anna (now throwing up the sponge completely) replied: “I could if I knew what we were talking
about.”

Mr. Peppingham, tolerant, turned to dig in the cheese. Anna wanted to reach along the table, grip Major Brutt’s hand and say: No good. I’ve drawn you another blank. I’ve failed to sell you and, to be perfectly honest, you really don’t do much to sell yourself. No good, no good, no good—we can’t do any more here. Back with you to
The Times
advertisement columns, and the off-chance of running into a man who has just run into a man who could put you on to a thing. You ran into us. Well, that hasn’t got you far. Better luck next time, old boy.
Je n’en peux plus.

In fact, he constituted—today, by so mildly accepting, with his coffee, that there would be nothing more doing about this Shropshire thing, and at all times by the trustfulness of his frequentation of the Quaynes as a family— the same standing, or, better still, undermining reproach as Portia. He was not near enough their hearth, or long enough at it, to take back to Kensington with him any suspicion that the warmth he had found could be illusory. His unfulfilled wishes continued to flock and settle where the Quaynes were, and no doubt he thought of them in the lounge of his hotel, or walking along the Cromwell Road. No doubt he stayed himself on the idea of them when one more thing fell through, when something else came to nothing, when one more of his hopeful letters was unanswered, when yet another iron went stone cold, when he faced that the money was running out. He gave signs that he constantly thought of them. Does it make one more nearly good and happy to be thought good and happy? The policy of pity might keep Anna from ever point-blank disappointing him. He was the appendix to the finished story of Robert. Useless, useless to wish they had never met—they had been bound to, apparently. In a sort of sense, Major Brutt had been legated to her by Robert. Or, was it that she felt she found in him the last of Robert’s hurting, hurting because never completely bitter, jokes—one of those hurting exposures of her limitations, to obtain which he seemed able to hire fate?

Major Brutt outstayed the Peppinghams—thus giving her no chance to sing his merits in private, to say that whoever got him would be lucky, or to repeat that he was a D.S.O. Ready to say goodbye after a few minutes, he stood up and looked round the drawingroom.

“Those were lovely carnations you sent me the other day. I got Portia to send you a line because I was tired, and because I hoped I should see you soon. You know how one feels when one gets back. But that makes it all the nicer to find flowers.”

He beamed. “Oh, good,” he said. “If they cheered you up—”

Some obscure wish to bestir herself, to be human, made her say:

“You did not, I suppose, hear any more of Pidgeon since we’ve been away?”

“Now it’s funny your asking that—”

“Funny?” said Anna.

“Not that I heard
from
him—that’s the devil, you know, about not having a fixed address. People soon give up buzzing letters along. Of course, I’ve got an address, at this hotel, but when I write from there it never looks permanent. People take it you’ll have moved on—at least, so I find. But if I’d had an address I might not have heard from Pidgeon. He never was one to write.”

“No, he never was—But what were you going to say?”

“Oh yes. Now that really was very funny. It’s the sort of thing that’s always happening to me. About a fortnight ago, I missed Pidgeon by about three minutes— literally, by just about that. A most extraordinary thing —I mean, only missing him by about an inch when I didn’t know he was in the country at all.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, I happened to go into a fellow’s club—with the fellow, I mean—and run into another fellow (I hadn’t seen him for years, either) who’d been talking to Pidgeon about three minutes ago. Talking to Pidgeon in that very club. ‘By Jove,’ I said, ‘that’s funny. Is he in the club still?’ But the other fellow said not. He said he’d gone. I said, which way did he go?—having some idea that I might make after him—but the other fellow of course had no idea. It seemed to me an amazing coincidence and I made up my mind I must tell you about it. If I had got there three minutes earlier … It’s simply chance, after all. You can’t foresee anything. Look, for instance, how I ran into you. In a book, that would sound quite improbable.”

“Well, it was improbable, really.
I
 
never run into people.”

Major Brutt drove his hands down slowly into his pocket, considering something rather uncertainly. He said: “And of course, that week you were abroad.”

“Which week?”

“The week I just missed Pidgeon.”

“Oh yes, I was abroad. You—you heard no more? He’s not in London still?”

“That I can’t tell; I wish I could. It’s the very devil. He might be anywhere. But this other fellow seemed to get the idea that Pidgeon was just off somewhere—’on the wing’, as we always used to say. He’s generally just off somewhere. He never liked London much.”

“No, he never liked London much.”

“And yet, do you know, though I cursed missing him, it seemed better than nothing. When he’s once turned up, he may turn up again.”

“Yes, I do hope he’ll turn up—But not where I ever am.”

Fatalistically, she faced having got this out at last. She looked at herself in the glass with enormous calm. Major Brutt, meanwhile, turning his shoulder against the mantelpiece, investigated a boat-shaped glass of roses, whose scent had disturbed him for some time. Reverently, with the tip of a finger, he jabbed at the softness of the crimson petals, then bent over to sniff exhaustively. This rather stagey, for him rather conscious, action showed he knew he stood where she might not wish him to stand—outside a shut door, a forgotten messenger for whom there might be an answer and might not. Perplexity, reverence, readiness to be sad or reliable showed in every line of his attitude. He would be glad to move, if she only gave him the word. It was not his habit to take notice of flowers, or of any small object in a room, and by giving the roses such undue attention, he placed himself in an uneasy relation to them. He jabbed once more and said: “Do these come from the country?”

“Yes. And your nice carnations have just died.”

Or was it likely he could be missing a cue, that Anna might have created this special moment in which it was his business to ask bluntly: Look here, just what
did
happen? Where’s the whole thing gone to? Why are you not Mrs. Pidgeon? You are still you, and he still sounds like himself. You both being you was once all right with you both. You are still you—what has gone wrong since?

He looked at her—and the delicate situation made his eye as nearly shifty as it could ever be. He looked, and found her not looking at him. Instead, she took a handkerchief from her bag and blew the tip of her nose in a rapid, businesslike way. If she ever did seem to deliberate, it was while she put away the handkerchief. She said: “I should not be such a monster if Pidgeon had not put the idea into my head.”

“My dear girl—”

“Yes, I must be; everyone thinks I am. That horrid little Eddie rang me up at lunch to tell me I was unkind to Portia.”

“Good heavens!”

“You don’t really like Eddie, do you?”

“Well, he’s not much my sort. But look here, I mean to say—”

“Robert thought nothing of me,” said Anna laughing. “Did you not know that? He thought nothing of me at all. Nothing really happened; I did not break his heart. Under the circumstances—you see now what they were, don’t you?—we could hardly marry, as you must surely see.”

He mumbled: “I expect it all turned out for the best.”

“Of course,” said Anna, smiling again.

He said quickly: “Of course,” looking round the handsome room.

“But how I do skip from one thing to another,” she went on, with the greatest ease in the world. “The past is never really the thing that matters—I just thought I’d clear that up about Robert and me. No, if I do seem a little rattled today, it is from being rung up in the middle of lunch and told by a stray young man that Portia is not happy. What am I to do? You know how quiet she is; things must have gone really rather a long way for her to complain to an outside person like that. Though, of course, Eddie is very inquisitive.”

“If I may be allowed to say so,” said Major Brutt, “it sounds to me the most unheard of, infernal cheek on his part. And that is to put it mildly. I must say I really never—”

“He always is cheeky, the little bastard,” she said, reflectively tapping the mantelpiece. “But it is Portia that I’m worried about. It all sounds so unlike her. Major Brutt, you know us fairly well as a family: do you think Portia’s happy?”

“Allowing, poor kid, for having just lost her mother, it never struck me she could be anything else. She seemed to fit in as though she’d been born here. As girls go, she has quite the ideal life.”

“Or is that the nice way you see things? We do give her more freedom than most girls of sixteen, but she seemed old enough for it: she took care of her mother. But I see now that a girl has to be older before she can choose her friends—especially young men.”

“You mean, there’s been a bit much of
that
little chap?”

“It looks rather like that now. Of course, I blame myself rather. He has always been a good deal at this house —he’s lonely, and we’ve tried to be nice to him. Except for that, I do think during the winter Portia got on very happily here. She seemed to be settling down. Then, as you know, she went away to the seaside, and I’m afraid some trouble may have begun there. My old governess is an angel, but I’m afraid her step-children are not up to much, and they may have upset Portia. She has not been quite the same since she came home. Even our old housemaid notices it. She isn’t nearly so shy, but at the same time she is less spontaneous. No, I suppose we were wrong in ever making that break—in going away, I mean—while she was settling down with us. That came too soon; it unsettled her; it was silly. But Thomas really needed a holiday; he’s had a fairly hard winter in the office.”

“She’s such a dear girl. She
is
a sweet little kid.”

“If you were me, then, you’d just tell Eddie to go to the devil?”

“Well, more or less—Yes, I certainly would.”

“And just have a word with Portia?”

“I’m sure
you
could manage that.”

“Do you know, Major Brutt, I’m most stupidly shy?”

“I feel certain,” he said with vigour, “she’d be most upset if she thought she’s upset you. I’d be ready to swear she hasn’t the least idea.”

“She hasn’t any idea how Eddie talks,” Anna said with a sharpness she simply couldn’t control. “Major Brutt, this has been a wretched afternoon for you: first those dreadful people at lunch, and now my family worries. But it cheers me up to feel you feel Portia’s happy. You must come back soon and we’ll have a much nicer time. You will come again soon?”

“There’s nothing I’d like better. Of course, as you know, my plans are rather unsettled still. I shall have to take up whatever may come along, and the Lord only knows where that might involve being sent.”

“Not right away, I do hope. I am so glad, at any rate, that you’re not going to Shropshire. Thomas and I were mad to consider that idea; I see now that it would not have done at all. Well, thank you for listening: you have been an angel. It’s fatal,” she concluded, holding her hand out, “to be such a good friend to a selfish woman like me.” With her hand in his, being wrung, she went on smiling, then not only smiled but laughed, looking out of the window as though she saw something funny in the park.

Upon which he took his leave. She, not giving herself a moment, sat down to dash off that little letter to Eddie.

Dear Eddie,

Of course I could not say so at lunch but I should, if I were you, be rather more careful about using the office telephone. It must be hard to know when is the once too often, but I’m afraid the once too often may have been passed. The fact is, I hear that Thomas and Mr. Merrett are going to have a drive about all these personal calls that get put through and taken. The girl at the switchboard must have ratted, or something. You must not think this unkind of Thomas and Mr. Merrett; they seem to feel it is a matter of principle. Even though you are getting on so well at the office, I should be a little careful, just for a week or two. I feel it is more considerate to tell you: you know I do want you to get on well.

However much your friends may have to say to you, I should ask them to wait till you get back to your room. And if I were you I should ring them up from there. I’m afraid this may send up your telephone bill, but that seems a thing that simply cannot be helped.

Yours,

Anna