Free A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen Page A

caused her to pluck Guy’s letter like an asp from her breast: blindly she scrambled uphill with it to entomb it under the flat stone under the stifling elder. There its fellows were. The naivety, as she saw it for now, of the hiding-place made a farce of the letters, the love, herself. Who cared if anyone were to find them? Having stamped the stone down, she turned away, that caricatured hour beside the river remorselessly ever before her eyes. Not having been seen by Maud, but what Maud saw: that was what so appalled her! She was made a fool of. And shown up: yes, as the thing was, without norm or nature—she, who having humanity waiting round her everywhere in this pathetic house, would have none of it: it was not good enough for her. Oh, how the vice of uncaringness had been hers; she had neither heart nor wish for a living creature—smiling, she humoured, temporized, so got by. Scalded by unredeeming tears, she fought through the undergrowth round the elder, twigs scornfully whipping at her face. What was this that grew like a danger in her? What had she been tempted up to the very brink of? Was she lost for ever? Was there a path back?
    To and fro she wandered, body and mind: outraged. Thrusting feelings rose to a panic in her—in extremity she was her mother’s daughter, baffled, unable to word thoughts. Her sunny outward ‘finish’, work of Antonia, had been but a certain giving of grace—behind all lay a misgiving, an ineptitude. Now she tried to think, as a form of moral endeavour, but had to perceive that she never could, or that, if she desired to be herself, never must. Everybody (this was enough to realize) was fathomlessly angry with her, and no wonder. What she felt was, she had better get back to London—at once, tomorrow if not today. She pictured streets, and herself anonymous. Why not bolt now, before Antonia could be there to stop her? All but decisively turning towards Montefort, where the one or two things she needed were, she recollected she had no money: hesitating halfway out of the woods she beheld the Daimler—an improbable glitter far away under the shadow of the house. Maud came breathlessly up and said: ‘There’s an answer!’ (The child signalled with something blue.)
    ‘What answer?’
    Maud said: ‘You’ll have to make up your mind.’
    Jane in a dream received the Latterly note; Maud, though she ostentatiously walked away, brushing off from her fingers the whole matter, more than once looked over her shoulder—Jane, it seemed, did not know how to read, or even what she should do instead. The girl did at last address herself to the bold blue page—she was wanted for dinner, dinner tonight. She thought: ‘Yes, but what shall I wear?’

5

    ‘This has been wonderful of you,’ said Lady Latterly. Turning on her stool at the dressing table, she clawed the air in the direction of Jane’s hand. ‘Sit anywhere, then we can soon talk.’
    ‘How quickly you’ve cleared up after the Fête,’ observed Jane, gazing out at the castle lawns.
    ‘I pay all these men; why should they not work?’
    ‘Still, it was kind of you sending the car twice.’
    ‘You were not on the telephone; you had no car,’ pointed out Lady Latterly in an unresigned tone.
    ‘We have a car, but it had gone to the sea.’
    ‘Oh, you have a house at the sea?’ ‘No.’
    ‘What a bother for you,’ remarked her new friend, busy unlocking a jewel case.
    Jane went on: ‘Yesterday feels like years ago.’
    ‘Don’t speak of it!’ With a dart like a jackdaw Lady Latterly found an emerald ring, forced it on, made it flash undecidedly, tore it off. She shuddered: ‘Never again!’
    ‘Oh? Everybody enjoyed it.’
    ‘Who are all these people? What do they think I am?’
    ‘You don’t hunt yourself?’
    ‘Not only should I be terrified, but I’ve a thing for foxes.’
    ‘I wonder what you do in the winter, then?’
    ‘I don’t; it couldn’t be simpler. I go away.’
    Jane introspectively said: