The Little Girls by Elizabeth Bowen Read Free Book Online Page A

…”
    “Since you can’t wait to see her, Clare, which stands out a mile, exactly why did you wait, I should like to know? Her instructions were clear, surely? Why didn’t you dash off a line to her straightaway? Why waste time, I mean, getting in touch with me?”
    “Thought, no harm in you and me getting together first.”
    “Oh. Oh, then you did smell a rat?”
    “Not exactly, but—”
    “Did you, or didn’t you? Yes or no?”
    “Smart of me, didn’t you think, the way I traced you? A typical brain-wave. Occurred to me, c/o Beaker & Artworth, Southstone, could hardly fail to catch up with you —if still living.”
    “I can’t see why I should not be,” said Sheila huffily. She reflected, however. “Now that I come to think, she could have done the same. First thing anybody might think of, one might have thought—sorry, Clare, but really it does seem obvious! With Beaker & Artworth boards, not to speak of notices, all over Southstone and through the area. There they have always been, and doubtless will be. There they used to be then, just as much as now. If she’d been bona fide, her way lay open. But not her, oh no! No, she had to rouse the world. No, apart from anything, that itself shows …”
    “She took little notice of notice boards: too self-centred. And never had any memory.”
    “Exactly what,” Sheila wanted to know, “is she having now, then?”
    “Some sort of attack, with regard to us—call it a seizure.”
    Sheila brightened slightly. “Imagine she’s breaking up? . … It certainly was a relief when I heard from you, Clare. Where you’d disappeared to, of course I had not a clue.”
    ” ‘Alive but in hiding’—eh?”
    “Don’t! —Trevor pointed out, the best hope was your contacting us. He thought, in view of how rattled we knew you must be, it was probable that you would—and of course you did. Trevor was all in favour of sitting tight until you did show up. ‘Give her time,’ he advised me. He’s attached great importance to our getting together. As he said, once I saw you—”
    “Then, what?”
    “Then we could talk this over.”
    “Exactly,” Clare vaunted, “what we’re doing!”
    “Yes and no,” Mrs. Artworth said, less contentedly. “We don’t get far.”
    “How far were we meant to get?”
    “Somewhere, surely?” The victim, side-glancing at her watch, complained: “It’s already twenty to five. We can’t sit here all night, you know: this place closes.”
    Clare did not seem sorry. “There’s the bar at my club.”
    “I dare say there is; but there’s my train. What Trevor hopes, and really I cannot blame him, is that you and I will decide on what we’re to do. Once he’s been told what that is, he can think it over. Oh yes, and he also asked me to tell you, he by now has of course already taken legal advice, though he’s not as clear as he’d like to be what that came to. Our lawyer apparently hummed and hawed. Trevor expects you’re in touch with your lawyer, too? The idea is, you and I should take action jointly.”
    “Oh. yes?”
    “Well?” asked Sheila, extremely guardedly.
    “Against whom, about what, and—quite frankly— why?”
    Thus querying, Clare extracted a cigarette from a monogrammed case (which Sheila weighed with her eye), lit it, after some to-do with her lighter, and went on to take two or three tense, inexpert puffs. Clearly (nor was this ignored by Sheila) she put herself through the bother of this performance only when it was needed to mark a crisis, build up a role, or convey an effect, as now. Heaving up her thorax, she supposed herself in the act of inhaling deeply: the brooch on her lapel knowingly winked and twinkled. Then—”Sorry!” she penitently exclaimed, jabbing the case towards Sheila. “You?”
    “Thanks, I seldom bother to.—Did I hear you ask ‘why’ take action, and ‘what about’?”
    “You did. Exactly what is complained of?”
    “Innuendo,” said Sheila promptly, colouring