Free Sunflower by Rebecca West Page A

‘Oh, it’s you!’
    He answered in a kind voice, very deep for such a little man, ‘Yes, it’s me.’ His hand was tiny, but very broad and strong.
    She forgot her moment’s misgiving at Essington’s silence in happy wonder that after all these years she should meet this man again, this day of all days. It was odd that she had been thinking of him this very afternoon. It did seem as if life was suddenly revealing its own pattern. She would have liked to say, ‘Well, this is a small world, isn’t it!’ but Essington had impressed on her that, for some reason which she could not fully understand, the use of this and some other equally harmless phrases was far less permissible than the use of really bad language.
    But Essington said: ‘You don’t know this gentleman. This is Mr Francis Pitt.’
    Laughingly she protested, ‘But I do know Mr Pitt. We—sort of met years ago.’
    A tremor ran through Essington. He seemed about to be angry in a different way. ‘What’s this?’ he spoke to Francis Pitt. ‘I thought you said you had never met?’
    The little man gave a low chuckle. ‘Hardly met. We passed each other on the stairs when I was going down and Miss Fassendyll was coming up to the office of a War Charity, of which I was a Grand Panjandrum, a God knows what, and for which she did some real work.’ The chuckle ran right through his gruff speech, making it seem the very voice of kindly strength. She thought of the policeman who had found her crying in Hammersmith Broadway when silly old Grandaunt Annie had taken her out and lost her; he had bought her some pear drops and carried her all the way home. ‘I remember my eyes nearly fell out of my head, and evidently Miss Fassendyll remembers that too.’
    She began to say, ‘Oh, no, it wasn’t that!’ but Essington had gone back to being angry in his first manner. ‘Dear Sunflower is as vague about the nature of an introduction as she is about everything else,’ he said; and then, suddenly remembering the sallow woman, waved his hand at her, ‘Miss Pitt, this is Miss Fassendyll.’ The sallow woman smiled and held out a hand so big and broad that it seemed odd that it should be smooth and white, in a manner at once genial and perfunctory, as if she wanted to be nice but was holding herself in readiness to climb a tree if hostilities became more acute. And then Essington went on: ‘I’ve been here since five. I told you I would be back here at tea-time on Monday. It’s half past eight now.’ His voice cracked. ‘I wrote a note from Evescote to say that I’d asked Miss Pitt and her brother to dine tonight. Of course you haven’t got it. We’re eating a scratch dinner that isn’t fit for a pig.’
    His words failed him. His hand danced over the comminated table like something stung.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed.
    ‘Well, what does it mean? Where have you been? Who have you been with?’
    She wet her lips. ‘I’ve been … at Packbury. Harrowby had to do something to the car. I went and listened to some cases. The time passed.’
    ‘It did,’ said Essington, ‘It did.’
    ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. But really you didn’t say you were coming today. You said you were staying down at Evescote till Tuesday.’
    ‘I did not.’
    ‘But you wrote it.’ She tried to laugh. ‘Truly you did.’ She knew the way of dignity was to be silent; she knew that to defend herself was to crawl in the dust in the way of these strangers. But she was afraid that if she did not speak he would strike her. For she knew, as certainly as she knew that she would eventually die, that he would some day strike her. ‘Look, the letter’s up there on the mantelshelf, slipped into the mirror.’ Recollection of how gay she had been when she put it there, of how she had been moved to do so by her pride in one of his dear minor gifts, made her choke with a sense of trampled happiness. ‘I put it up there because your writing was so pretty.’
    His eyes found the