To the North by Elizabeth Bowen Read Free Book Online

all. As they came in, he had been in the act of picking up his bowler; apprehension had gained on him; meeting Peter’s stern eye in the doorway he looked decidedly trapped.
    “I’m afraid,” said the client, still with some faint idea of escape, “I am after hours?”
    “Not at all,” said Peter, shutting the door firmly.
    “We are so sorry,” Emmeline said, putting on her spectacles and sitting down at her desk, “to have kept you waiting. We’ve had a terribly busy day.” Mopping up the last of the green ink she said something about publicity.
    “We are directing our own publicity,” Peter took up fluendy. “And the exceptional rush on airways has kept us so busy we do not know where to turn.”
    Reassured by Emmeline’s mildness, Sir Robert’s friend put down his hat again, spinning his chair in her way. He spoke of Sir Robert; they chatted; he went on to enquire after Cecilia. Peter, after a glassy half-look that said “Yours” to Emmeline, unwound his scarf from the hat-rack, flicked down his hat and went off to wash, leaving them to it. Gently, with a series of feathery touches to right and left, Emmeline rounded the rambling old gentleman down the straight path to business. Though he had no wish to leave England so soon his wife, it appeared, was determined to do so; he did not care where they went so long as it was not again to Biarritz. Guessing that he spoke no languages and would want bridge, Emmeline reached down the appropriate files, marked: “Lakes.” Peter, running cold water over his wrists at the end of the corridor, heard them talking about mosquitoes. Listening critically, he thought Emmeline’s manner insufficiently feminine; he could have done it better himself.
    Emmeline got back late with the sherry; whoever it was had gone. The drawing-room, however, was still rich with strange cigarette-smoke; Cecilia, in black, wandered among the furniture with the air of not having yet readjusted herself to solitude. As Emmeline came in she said: “I suppose I do lack background… .”
    “Who has been telling you that?”
    “Julian.”
    “Oh?” Emmeline said, surprised. “Did he come to tea?”
    “Yes,” said Cecilia, gloomy. “I was to have seen Georgina, but I wired and told her life was too difficult: she will be furious.”
    “I’m sorry about the sherry.”
    “Oh, that didn’t matter.”
    “Why, did he annoy you?”
    “He depressed me,” said Cecilia, lighting a cigarette. She blew three rings of smoke and watched them dissolve critically: “It is all very well to talk to me about backgrounds,” she went on… .

Chapter Five

    JULIAN HAD DEPRESSED CECILIA BY TALKING ABOUT HIS NIECE, a girl of fourteen. Though his manner took light from her animation he had arrived preoccupied: she had assumed that this must be something to do with herself, but soon wished she had not asked him what was the matter.
    Pauline, an orphan, had been controlled for the last five years by a committee of relatives, of which Julian, as her guardian, was unwilling chairman. His brothers and sisters all felt he got through life too easily, forming too few ties and buying too many pictures; it was not without some sense of justice that they had inflicted this minor worry. He paid the child’s fees at boarding-school (no one had left any money for Pauline), visited her once a term and took her to plays in the holidays. Her confirmation, which seemed to him premature, the fixing-in of a plate to correct prominent teeth and treatments for flat feet and curvature had all been reported to him. Her complexion, his sisters told him, time would correct; he heard with relief that though highly nervous she was not astigmatic and had no digestive trouble. His eldest sister ordered her clothes, for which he paid, a sister-in-law took her in for the holidays or arranged for her circulation among relations.
    But for the last week of these Easter holidays there had been a break-down; no one could have Pauline.