The Bazaar and Other Stories by Elizabeth Bowen Read Free Book Online Page B

attention to detail gratifying
to his elderly parents. Her aunt and uncle had given Nancy a home;
she had been asked over to be a companion to Noel and they played
and did lessons together and later on were sent to a little dayschool. Nancy was lazy and not clever at all; she cribbed whenever
possible and kept what brains she had for the service of Noel. She
was tactless, yet deeply responsive; she interrupted Noel perpetually
when he was reading and bored him so much by her tenderness
and her habit of drinking him in that he could hardly be blamed
for beginning to frighten her. Having begun he continued, and the
more her terror reflected back on himself and was split into rays
against the facets of his personality, the sharper his pleasure became.
He was a fair, gentle, rather “unmanly” boy and was not ever
tempted to twist her wrist round, kick her shins or tweak the
heavy plait that walloped so teasingly between her shoulders.
The absorbed companionship of Noel and Nancy, never romping
together, never quarrelling, flitting round the garden and the
comfortable sedate house, was a matter of self-congratulation and
delight to the parents of Noel. When little Nancy cried at night,
they would recount, as she sometimes did unreasonably and loudly,
Noel would be the first to creep in to her and whisper into her ear
something that made her curl up without a sound, draw up the
sheets round her ears, and lie thus for the rest of the night, scarcely
seeming to breathe, she was so still.
    When she was sixteen Nancy did go back to South America, but
long before this she and Noel had lost sight of one another. Noel
was sent to a preparatory and Nancy to a school abroad; she spent
her holidays with other relations because Noel was growing into
quite a man now and could not be expected to play with girls any
longer. When they did meet their interests were apart and they had
little to say to each other; Nancy had left Wimbledon behind for
ever. Yet for years Noel did not feel comfortable about the top
landing and would make a detour after dark to avoid the shrubbery;
the fears sloughed by Nancy’s freer spirit still lay in wait for him.
    News came from time to time of Nancy in the Argentine. While
Noel was at Oxford his father died; later his mother sold the
London house and moved to Kent. Noel, who had made up his
mind to be an architect and was already articled, beautifully
decorated and furnished a small flat and established himself in
Bloomsbury. About this time he heard from his mother of Nancy’s
engagement. “An Englishman after all, I am relieved to hear, and
so well off. It sounds ideal; dear little Nancy. Yet it seems like
yesterday, doesn’t it, one can hardly believe . . . Do remember to
write, Noel. And do try to think of some wedding present.”
    Noel put the letter down with a sense of distinct surprise that
anybody should think of marrying his cousin Nancy. The child of
nine had elongated in his imagination but not matured. He was in
love himself in a pictorial, rather unprogressive way with a beautiful
fair girl called Daphne. Noel had grown up into a whimsical vague
young man, kindly disposed to the world in a general way but with
a charming touch of the feline. He was noted for doing strange
things by himself, such as going alone to the Zoo,
1 walking all
night, or exploring the bus-routes of London. He was considered
rare, and admired and loved as such by his friends in Bloomsbury.
He was affectionate, naïve and a little lonely, and though most of
the things he did were done for effect he often speculated as to the
nature of true happiness. He did not think that he would ever be
much of an architect.
    A dutiful cousin, he spent some bewildered afternoons among
prints and lacquer, and finally selected for Nancy the sort of present
his Daphne would have appreciated, and had it sent off. “Funny,
skinny, little pop-eyed thing!” he said thoughtfully, sitting down to
indite his congratulatory letter. He glanced