The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen Read Free Book Online Page A

where could she be?
    Livvy Thompson looked after him anxiously. Had not Mr. Armstrong come also? During this temporary absence of her attention two fours arranged themselves and walked hurriedly out to take possession of the courts.
    The hall, very dark after sunshine, was full of wraps and racquet presses; shoes had wandered away from each other under the chairs. The rest of Gerald’s party—they had all driven out from Clonmore in a hired motor—were still there, waiting for Mrs. Vermont. Captain Vermont and David Armstrong stood holding her things while she powdered her nose with difficulty before an antique mirror.
    “Aren’t women awful?” she cried gaily, as Gerald rejoined them. She knew the subalterns hated going about without her. “My dears, I do wish I knew if we really were asked. Lois is so—I mean, well, you know—vague, isn’t she?”
    “Well, they wouldn’t mind, anyhow,” said David, and tried not to sound proprietory.
    “Aren’t they hospitable!” Betty Vermont was not disappointed in Ireland. She had never before been to so many large houses with so small sense of her small-ness. Of course they were all very shabby and not artistic at all. Mrs. Vermont used to say, she longed to be turned loose in any one of them with a paint-pot—white—and a few hundred yards of really nice cretonne from Barkers.
    “Half Ireland is here,” said David, looking out at the crowd of cars on the gravel-sweep. “I doubt if we get any tennis.”
    “Ah well, David, there’s plenty of that at the club. Now, Gerald, don’t stand there glaring! You do disapprove of powder, you unkind wretch!”
    “Rather not,” said Gerald, beaming. But all the same he did like girls to have natural complexions—he was perfectly certain Lois’s was. He was carrying all the rugs he could find slung over his shoulder and looked, she informed him, just like a Bedouin. This was not a thing she could have said to every man, because really the East had become so very suggestive. But he was the dearest boy, so absolutely nice-minded. They all went out.
    “There seem to be many more people here than I thought we’d asked,” Lady Naylor was saying to Mrs. Carey of Mount Isabel. “Lois asks people she meets at the Clonmore club, and then forgets. I have been rather wondering about the raspberries; I’ve sent her out to the garden to see about getting in some more. Colonel and Mrs. Boatley are coming—she was a Vere Scott, a Fermanagh Vere Scott—Why is it that the Hartigans never will talk to men? I never think they give themselves a chance, do you? Oh, Mr. Lesworth, how kind to think of bringing the rugs out! And now there doesn’t seem anyone left to sit on them—- Look, would you break up that party of girls on the bank; I don’t think they seem to be sitting on anything, and anyhow they look dull and would like to talk. And I am sure they’d be glad if you’d smoke—the midges are terrible. Who is that girl in pale blue who’s just coming out?”
    “Mrs. Vermont. She—er—I think Miss Farquar—”
    “Oh well, never mind; it’s a pleasant surprise.” She went over to Mrs. Vermont with enthusiasm. “I’m so glad you could come, it’s delightful.”
    Gerald looked round everybody again, carefully. Then he respectfully displaced the Miss Hartigans, spread out a rug on the bank and sat down between them. He was at a disadvantage, he could not remember if he had ever been introduced to them, whereas they were perfectly certain he had. They were pleased at his coming, though on the other hand they were suffering so terribly from the midges that what they wanted most at the moment was to scratch their legs peacefully.
    “I call this a frightfully good party,” said Gerald breezily.
    “Yes, it’s most enjoyable,” agreed Norah Hartigan.
    “I don’t think there’s anything like these tennis parties you have in Ireland.”
    “We have never been to tennis parties in England,” replied Doreen.
    “Oh, you