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Authors: Elizabeth Bowen
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knelt on the rug, and from up there he kept bellowing down. When Anna looked at her watch, Portia’s heart sank—she referred to the clock, but found this was too true. “Half-past twelve,” she said. “Golly!”
When she had said good-night and gone, dropping a glove, Major Brutt said: “That little kid must be great fun for you.”
IV
MOST mornings, Lilian waited for Portia in the old cemetery off Paddington Street: they liked to take this short cut on the way to lessons. The cemetery, overlooked by windows, has been out of touch with death for some time: it is at once a retreat and a thoroughfare not yet too well known. One or two weeping willows and tombs like stone pavilions give it a prettily solemn character, but the gravestones are all ranged round the walls like chairs before a dance, and half way across the lawn a circular shelter looks like a bandstand. Paths run from gate to gate, and shrubs inside the paling seclude the place from the street—it is not sad, just cosily melancholic. Lilian enjoyed the melancholy; Portia felt that what was here was her secret every time she turned in at the gate. So they often went this way on their way to lessons.
They had to go to Cavendish Square. Miss Paullie, at her imposing address, organised classes for girls—delicate girls, girls who did not do well at school, girls putting in time before they went abroad, girls who were not to go abroad at all. She had room for about a dozen pupils like this. In the mornings, professors visited her house; in the afternoon there were expeditions to galleries, exhibitions, museums, concerts or classical matinées . A girl, by special arrangement, could even take lunch at Miss Paullie’s house—this was the least of many special arrangements: her secretary lived on the telephone. All her arrangements, which were enterprising, worked out very well—accordingly Miss Paullie’s fees were high. Though Thomas had rather jibbed at the expense, Anna convinced him of Miss Paullie’s excellent value—she solved the problem of Portia during the day; what Portia learned might give her something to talk about, and there was always a chance she might make friends. So far, she had made only this one friend, Lilian, who lived not far away, in Nottingham Place.
Anna did not think Lilian very desirable, but this could not be helped. Lilian wore her hair forward over her shoulders in two long loose braids, like the Lily Maid. She wore a removed and mysterious expression; her rather big pretty developed figure already caught the eye of men in the street. She had had to be taken away from her boarding school because of falling in love with the ‘cello mistress, which had made her quite unable to eat. Portia thought the world of the things Lilian could do— she was said, for instance, to dance and skate very well, and had one time fenced. Otherwise, Lilian claimed to have few pleasures: she was at home as seldom as possible, and when at home was always washing her hair. She walked about with the rather fated expression you see in photographs of girls who have subsequently been murdered, but nothing had so far happened to her… . This morning, when she saw Portia coming, she signalled dreamily with a scarlet glove.
Portia came up with a rush. “Oh dear, I’m afraid I have made us late. Come on, Lilian, we shall have to fly.”
“I don’t want to run: I am not very well today.”
“Then we’d better take a 153.”
“If there is one,” said Lilian. (These buses are very rare.) “Have I got blue rings under my eyes?”
“No. What did you do yesterday evening?”
“Oh, I had an awful evening. Did you?”
“No,” said Portia, rather apologetic. “Because we went to the Empire. And imagine, quite by chance we met a man who knew someone Anna used once to know. Major Brutt, his name was—not the person she knew, the man.”
“Was your sister-in-law upset?”
“She was surprised, because he did not even know she was
When she had said good-night and gone, dropping a glove, Major Brutt said: “That little kid must be great fun for you.”
IV
MOST mornings, Lilian waited for Portia in the old cemetery off Paddington Street: they liked to take this short cut on the way to lessons. The cemetery, overlooked by windows, has been out of touch with death for some time: it is at once a retreat and a thoroughfare not yet too well known. One or two weeping willows and tombs like stone pavilions give it a prettily solemn character, but the gravestones are all ranged round the walls like chairs before a dance, and half way across the lawn a circular shelter looks like a bandstand. Paths run from gate to gate, and shrubs inside the paling seclude the place from the street—it is not sad, just cosily melancholic. Lilian enjoyed the melancholy; Portia felt that what was here was her secret every time she turned in at the gate. So they often went this way on their way to lessons.
They had to go to Cavendish Square. Miss Paullie, at her imposing address, organised classes for girls—delicate girls, girls who did not do well at school, girls putting in time before they went abroad, girls who were not to go abroad at all. She had room for about a dozen pupils like this. In the mornings, professors visited her house; in the afternoon there were expeditions to galleries, exhibitions, museums, concerts or classical matinées . A girl, by special arrangement, could even take lunch at Miss Paullie’s house—this was the least of many special arrangements: her secretary lived on the telephone. All her arrangements, which were enterprising, worked out very well—accordingly Miss Paullie’s fees were high. Though Thomas had rather jibbed at the expense, Anna convinced him of Miss Paullie’s excellent value—she solved the problem of Portia during the day; what Portia learned might give her something to talk about, and there was always a chance she might make friends. So far, she had made only this one friend, Lilian, who lived not far away, in Nottingham Place.
Anna did not think Lilian very desirable, but this could not be helped. Lilian wore her hair forward over her shoulders in two long loose braids, like the Lily Maid. She wore a removed and mysterious expression; her rather big pretty developed figure already caught the eye of men in the street. She had had to be taken away from her boarding school because of falling in love with the ‘cello mistress, which had made her quite unable to eat. Portia thought the world of the things Lilian could do— she was said, for instance, to dance and skate very well, and had one time fenced. Otherwise, Lilian claimed to have few pleasures: she was at home as seldom as possible, and when at home was always washing her hair. She walked about with the rather fated expression you see in photographs of girls who have subsequently been murdered, but nothing had so far happened to her… . This morning, when she saw Portia coming, she signalled dreamily with a scarlet glove.
Portia came up with a rush. “Oh dear, I’m afraid I have made us late. Come on, Lilian, we shall have to fly.”
“I don’t want to run: I am not very well today.”
“Then we’d better take a 153.”
“If there is one,” said Lilian. (These buses are very rare.) “Have I got blue rings under my eyes?”
“No. What did you do yesterday evening?”
“Oh, I had an awful evening. Did you?”
“No,” said Portia, rather apologetic. “Because we went to the Empire. And imagine, quite by chance we met a man who knew someone Anna used once to know. Major Brutt, his name was—not the person she knew, the man.”
“Was your sister-in-law upset?”
“She was surprised, because he did not even know she was
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