The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen Read Free Book Online

she missing her mother now?”
    “You say I have no idea what people feel—how can I know when they are going to?”
    “In some way, you must have unsettled her.”
    Thomas, who had been looking hard at Anna, said: “If it comes to that, you unsettle me.”
    “No, but listen,” said Anna, catching hold of his hand but holding it at a distance away from her, “is she really missing Irene? Because, if so, how awful! It’s like having someone very ill in the house. Oh yes, I can easily pity her. I wish I could manage to like her better.”
    “Or love her, even.”
    “My dear Thomas, that’s not a thing one can mean to do. Besides, would you really like me to love her? To get wrapped up in her, to wait for her to come in? No, you’d only like me to seem to love her. But I’m not good at seeming—I was horrid to her at tea. But I had my reasons, I must say.”
    “You don’t have to remind me that you don’t like this.”
    “After all, she’s in some way yours, and I married you, didn’t I? Most people have something in their family. For God’s sake don’t get worked up.”
    “Did I hear you say we’d got to go to a movie?”
    “Yes, you did.”
    “Why—now, Anna, why? We haven’t stayed still for weeks.”
    Anna, touching her pearls with an undecided hand, said: “We can’t all just sit around.”
    “I don’t see why not.”
    “We can’t all three sit around. It gets me down. You don’t seem to know what it’s like.”
    “But she goes to bed at ten.”
    “Well, it never is ten, as you know. I cannot stand being watched. She watches us.”
    “I cannot see why she should.”
    “I partly see. Anyhow, she makes us not alone.”
    “We could be tonight,” said Thomas. “I mean after ten.” With an attempt at calmness, he once more put his hand out—but she, one mass of nervosity, stepped clear. She posted herself at the far side of the fire, in her close-fitting black dress, with her folded arms locked, wrapped up in tense thoughts. For those minutes of silence, Thomas fixed on her his considering eyes. Then he got up, took her by one elbow and angrily kissed her. “I’m never with you,” he said.
    “Well, look how we live.”
    “The way we live is hopeless.”
    Anna said, much more kindly: “Darling, don’t be neurotic. I have had such a day.”
    He left her and looked round for his glass again. Meanwhile, he said to himself in a quoting voice: “We are minor in everything but our passions.”
    “Wherever did you read that?”
    “Nowhere: I woke up and heard myself saying it, one night.”
    “How pompous you were in the night. I’m so glad I was asleep.”

III

    THOMAS QUAYNE had married Anna eight years ago. She used to visit friends near his mother’s house in Dorset, so they had met down there. She was then an accomplished, on the whole idle girl, with various gifts, who tried a little of everything and had even made money. She posed as being more indolent than she felt, for fear of finding herself less able than she could wish. For a short time, she had practised as an interior decorator, but this only in a very small way—she had feared to commit herself, in case she could not succeed. She had been wise, for she had not really succeeded, even in that small way. She did not get many clients, and almost at once drew in, chagrined by the rebuff. She drew satirical drawings, played the piano sometimes, had read, though she no longer did, and talked a good deal. She did not play outdoor games, for she did nothing she did not happen to do casually and well. When she and Thomas first met, she was reticent and unhappy: she had not only failed in a half chosen profession but failed in a love affair. The love affair, which had been of several years’ duration, had, when Thomas and she met, just come to a silent and—one might guess from her manner—an ignominious end. She was twenty-six when she married Thomas, and had been living with her father at Richmond, in an uphill house