To the North by Elizabeth Bowen Read Free Book Online Page B

way, her expressive hands—that, unlike other hands, seemed to exist to touch, to communicate their vitality—he relaxed under the enchantment of a delectable strangeness, this foreignness to himself that passed for her mystery. To be with her, so nearly to love her was to lend oneself wholly to an illusion, to hang in a drop of light in the lustres along her mantelpiece, to be reflected for less than a moment, like a bird’s shadow flashing across a mirror, in her dazzling ignorance of oneself.
    Julian knew too well that in grumbling about his niece to her he was presenting himself in a most unattractive light: one should discuss one’s difficulties only when they are over. Intoxicated by his utter failure to please, he went on to complain that Pauline’s age was difficult, that he did not care for responsive women, that she annoyed the servants and blew in her glass when she drank; all this, he said, need never have mattered if it were not so clear she would never be one of those people whom, in spite of all their failings, it is impossible not to like.
    “But, my dear,” said Cecilia briskly, after what seemed some hours of this, “she’s only a girl, after all: she can’t eat you.”
    “I know.”
    “What do you mean by responsive?”
    “Like a bear you have to keep on throwing buns at.”
    “Oh dear: I wonder if I am responsive? She doesn’t read yellow novels or smoke in her room?”
    “Oh, no, she is most respectable; she chaperones herself the while time.”
    “Isn’t she pretty at all?”
    “I’m afraid not.”
    “Spotty?”
    “I’m afraid she is, rather.”
    “Oh dear, poor little thing.”
    “It’s horrible,” said Julian, lighting her cigarette for her, “to be talking like this about a child. But she rattles me terribly. I can never just look at her; I always feel as though I were catching her eye.”
    Cecilia, realising that what he really wanted was to talk to her about himself, not Pauline, was a little mollified. “Don’t be neurotic, Julian,” she said more kindly.
    “I don’t feel she can be enjoying herself. I’ve got a woman to take her to museums and things, and she’s been to a film with a friend, but I think that shocked her.”
    “Poor little thing. Would you like me to ask her to tea, or something like that?”
    “Oh, well,” said Julian. This, as a matter of fact, had been in his mind, but the way Cecilia put it it did not sound possible.
    “I would, only what should we talk about all the time? She’d be so bored… . Why didn’t you bring her this afternoon?”
    “Don’t be silly, Cecilia,” said Julian sharply.
    Cecilia, startled, knocked ash very carefully off her cigarette. “Well, you know,” she said, “you do get things on your mind.”
    “What a bore I must be.”
    “Oh, no.”
    Cecilia was, as a matter of fact, rather fond of children; she felt sorry for poor little Pauline shut up in that cold flat and would have liked to do something for her, though not to please Julian. Naturally she was irritated with Julian, who should have known better than to sit beside her, after three weeks of absence, looking at once haggard and dumpy like a widower with five children. She had amused herself for a short time by her impersonation of a dissipated and heartless woman. Her Aunt Georgina’s example gave her a horror of searching talk; all the same she liked to receive confidences if these were conferred prettily, with some suggestion of her own specialness, not dropped on her toes all anyhow, like a bulky valise someone is anxious to put down. Looking thoughtfully past Julian while he maundered on about Pauline, she remembered the one occasion when he had kissed her passionately, and looked again at her rather beautiful mouth. She was aware of her power to overbear in him something speculative and recessive, to be not for one instant his sister. After that dreary letter to her in Italy, after pretending to Emmeline he did not know where she was when she