Free The Bazaar and Other Stories by Elizabeth Bowen

everyone would be charming to
her and say they feared it must be dull; ask her whether she liked
her school, when she went back there, and whether she often
danced. A colonel once said he would teach her to play bridge; an
even older colonel promised to take her on the pier; but she never
saw either of them again. The disappearance of the colonels was a
relief to Sibella who, much as she disliked women, disliked men
more.
     
She went for longer walks alone with Boniface, though her aunt
complained that there were funny people about, and that Boniface,
though so brave, had a small bite. A girl of Sibella’s appearance . . .
Once she went to Hythe in a charabanc with Elizabeth Eldon, the
middle-aged maid who saw to the maisonette, Aunt Marjory’s
clothes and the household shopping. Elizabeth, decent and
invincibly unsmiling, went most reluctantly into Hythe Crypt with
Sibella to be grinned upon by the skulls. She cried, “Good Lord,
have mercy!” as the verger clanked the door shut; and declared,
throughout tea at the Oriental Café, that she could not eat
anything, she felt that queer. She did relent to the extent of one
plain cake. Sibella decided in future to go less far but alone. Alone
she was very happy.
     
She was always happy alone; her thoughts were like an orchestra.
She peeped at life this way and that way, down all the queer
perspectives. She was glad she had fifty-five more years of it to live.
She had read several novels since she came to Folkestone and didn’t
think they were so bad. She supposed they must be calculated to
make one take an interest in men, and were perhaps necessary.
Though she and Nancy were not anxious to marry, their lives were
to be romantic. They would have two or three tragedies each.
Husbands, they thought, were so permanent. As for keeping house
     
– but too soon was Sibella to suffer the cares of a house, for
Elizabeth Eldon fell ill.
     
Elizabeth lay in bed, her head wrapped up in a wan pink shawl,
moaning; Aunt Marjory, tapping her penholder on her teeth,
frowned at the sea. She said that it was most annoying. Nobody
could be sorrier for Elizabeth, but really this did make things
difficult. “If one were only not such a busy woman oneself . . . First,
you see, there are all my letters to answer, generally cheques to sign;
then I have to exercise my little Bonnie. No, it’s so sweet of you,
Sibella, but nothing is quite the same as going out with his Mummy;
I couldn’t look him in his little face. Then one must keep up one’s
reading; that means the library almost every day. That’s the morning
gone. Then lunch and one’s lie-down, then before you know where
you are it’s time for bridge. Don’t you notice, it is always the busy
people who are still further put upon? I’ve got that dreadful
‘temporary’ woman to come in, though I feel sure she’s a Socialist.
But it’s the shopping , Sibella. You see, Markham doesn’t send for
orders every day for my small custom, and even the butcher only
three days a week. Elizabeth goes down town and brings up the
things herself. Now I do wonder . . . ”
     
Sibella, who had drawn a large breath for this purpose, brought
out with a burst: “But, Aunt Marjory, I could shop!”
     
Mrs. Willyard-Lester had thought of this, but the suggestion
distracted her. She twisted her rings round and sighed; it was too
bad, it was really. If Sibella would . . . She should take Aunt Marjory’s
stamped suede satchel, used for the library books, so as not to be
seen with that nasty basket; also she must be sure to make them send
anything at all heavy. And she must really have coffee and a biscuit
before going out – here Mrs. Willyard-Lester boldly rang for the
temporary who had obliged her. The temporary glared at them from
the doorway, very unofficial and large in a flowered blouse; Boniface
fled shivering to his mistress.
     
One blessing was, Aunt Marjory said, they did nearly all the
shopping at one good grocer’s, Markham. It was