Encounters: stories by Elizabeth Bowen, Robarts - University of Toronto Read Free Book Online Page A

half-smiling, at him while he 70

    counselled. He had never achieved the fraternal so completely.
    "It's not that I don't think,"she said."I think a great deal. And as for wisdom— there is not much more to learn once one has grown up. I am as wise as I need be— 'for myself.'"
    "When are you going back to England?"
    "If you would do one or two things for me I needn't go back until the autumn."
    "You can't stay here all the summer."
    "No,"she said, looking round at the cypresses—how pitiful she was, in Howard's garden."They say I couldn't, it would be too hot; I must go somewhere else. But if you could help me a little this autumn I could finish up the business then."
    "I may have to be in Ireland then."He tore himself away from something brutally, and the brutality sounded in his voice.
    She retreated.
    "Of course,"she said,"I know you ought to be there now—I was forgetting."
    Because he was a person who barely existed for her (probably) she had always been gentle with him, almost propitiatory.

    One must be gentle with the nice old dog. It was not in her nature to be always gentle, perhaps she had said bitter things to Howard who mattered to her; there was a hint of bitterness about her mouth. At himself she was always looking in that vague, half-startled way, as though she had forgotten who he was. Sometimes when he made a third he had found her very silent, still with boredom; once or twice he had felt with gratification that she almost disliked him. He wondered what she thought he thought of her.
    Now it was the time of the Angelus, and bells answered one another from the campaniles of the clustered villages across the lake. A steamer, still gold in the sun, cleft a long bright furrow in the shadowy water. The scene had all the passionless clarity of a Victorian water-colour.
    "It is very peaceful,"Stuart said appropriately.
    "Peaceful?"she echoed with a start."Yes, it's very peaceful... David"(she had caUed him this),"will you forgive me?"
    "Forgive you?"

    "I think you could understand me if you wished to. Forgive me the harm I've done you. Don't, don't hate me."
    How weak she was now, how she had come down!"What harm have you done to me?"he asked, unmoved.
    "You should know better than I do. I suppose I must have hurt you, and through you, Howard. An—an intrusion isn't a happy thing. You didn't give me a chance to make it happy. You came at first, but there was always a cloud. I didn't want to interfere, I tried to play the game. Now that we've both lost him, couldn't you forgive?"
    "I'm sorry I should have given you the impression that I resented anything—that there was anything to resent. I didn't know that you were thinking that. Perhaps you rather ran away with a preconceived idea that because you married Howard I was bound to be unfriendly to you. If you did, you never showed it. I never imagined that I had disappointed you by anything I did or didn't do."
    "It was not what you didn't do, it was what you weren't that made me feel I was a

    failure."(So that was the matter, he had hurt her vanity!)
    "A failure,"he said, laughing a little;"I thought you were making a success. If I didn't come oftener it was not because I did not think you wanted me."
    "But you said just now"
    "A third is never really wanted. I had set my heart on seeing Howard happy, and when I had, I went away to think about it."
    "Oh,"she said hopelessly. She had guessed that he was putting her off."Shall we walk a little down the terrace? There is a pergola above, too, that I should like you to see."She was taking for granted that he would not come to the villa again.
    They rose; she stood for a moment looking irresolutely up and down the terrace, then took a steeper path that mounted through the trees towards the pergola. Stuart followed her in silence, wondering. The world in her brain was a mystery to him, but evidently he had passed across it and cast some shadows. For a moment he almost dared to speak, and trouble the peace of the