The Death of the Heart (47 page)

“Their being so knit up. They sometimes look like each other. What other subject—except of course, love —gives people that sort of obsessed look? Talk like that is one climax the whole time. It’s a trance; it’s a vice; it’s a sort of complete world. Portia may have defaulted lately because of Eddie. But Matchett will never let that drop; it’s her
raison d’être
, apart from the furniture. And she is least likely of all to let it drop with Portia about the house. Portia’s coming here was a consummation, you see.”

“Consummation my aunt. Has this really been going on? If I’d had any idea, I’d have fired Matchett at once.”

“You know quite well Matchett stays with the furniture. No, you inherited the whole bag of tricks. Matchett thinks the world of your father. Why shouldn’t Portia hear about her father from someone who sees him as
someone
, not just as a poor ignominious old man?”

“I don’t think you need say that.”

“I’ve never said it before… . Yes, St. Quentin: it’s Matchett she talks to chiefly.”

“Matchett—is that the woman with the big stony apron, who backs to the wall when I pass like a caryatid? She’s generally on the stairs.”

“Yes, she’s generally up and down… . Why not Matchett, after all?”

“It’s ‘why not’ now, then, not ‘why’? Well, how would you feel, Anna?”

“If I were Portia? Contempt for the pack of us, who muddled our own lives, then stopped me from living mine. Boredom, oh such boredom, with a sort of secret society about nothing, keeping on making little signs to each other. Utter lack of desire to know what it was about. Wish that someone outside would blow a whistle and make the whole thing stop. Wish to have my own innings. Contempt for married people, keeping on playing up. Contempt for unmarried people, looking cautious and touchy. Frantic, frantic desire to be handled with feeling, and, at the same time, to be let alone. Wish to be asked how I felt, great wish to be taken for granted—”

“This is all quite new, Anna. How much is the diary, 
how much is you?”

Anna quieted down. She said: “You said, if I were Portia. Naturally, that’s impossible: she and I are hardly the same sex. Though she and I may wish to make a new start, we hardly shall, I’m afraid. I shall always insult her; she will always persecute me… . Well then, it’s decided, Thomas—we are to send Matchett? Really, we might have thought of that before, without dragging all this up.”

“Decidedly we send Matchett. Don’t you agree, St. Quentin?”

“Oh, by all means—

‘We’ll send Matchett to fetch her away,

Fetch her away, fetch her away,

We’ll send Matchett to fetch her away,

On a cold and frosty—’ “

“St. Quentin, for
heaven’s sake—
!”

“Sorry, Anna. I felt quite outside myself. So glad this is all arranged.”

“We’ve still got to think. What are we to tell Matchett? Which of us is to ring up Major Brutt?”

“No one,” said Thomas quickly. “This is a
coup
or nothing. We don’t talk; we do the obvious thing.”

Anna looked at Thomas: her forehead smoothed out slowly. “Oh, all right,” she said. “Then I’ll tell her to get her hat.”

Matchett said “Yes, madam.” She stood waiting till Anna turned back into the diningroom. Then she started heavily up the silent staircase: by the time she came to the second landing she was undoing her apron at the back. She stopped to open the door of Portia’s room and, in the dusk, take a quick look round. Though the bed was turned down, the nightdress lying across it, the room seemed to expect nobody back. An empty room gets this look towards the end of an evening—as though the day had died alone in here. Matchett, holding the unfastened straps of her apron together in the small of her back with one hand, switched on the electric fire. Standing up again, she took one look out of the window: steel-green under the sky the tree tops were in their order, the park was not shut yet. Matchett then went on up, to her own room that no one saw but herself.

When she came down in her hat, her dark overcoat, still holding her black suéde-finish gloves, with her morocco handbag pressed to her ribs, Thomas was in the hall, holding the door open. He was looking anxiously for her, up the stairs. A taxi ticked outside, so near the step that it seemed to be something in the hall.

“Here’s your taxi,” Thomas said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’d better give you some money.”

“I carry all I shall need.”

“Then all right. Better get in.”

Matchett got into the taxi; she shut the door after herself. She sat upright, took one impassive look out of each window, then unfolded her gloves and started putting them on. Through the glass, she watched Thomas give some direction to the driver—then the taxi croaked into gear and lumbered off down the terrace.

Matchett not only buttoned her gloves but stroked the last wrinkle out of them. This occupied her to half way up Baker Street.
Then,
she electrically started, paused, one thumb over the other, and said, aloud: “Well, to think …” She looked anxiously through the glass at the driver’s back. Then she put down her bag beside her, heaved herself forward and began to try to slide open the glass panel—but her gloved fingers only scrabbled on it. The driver twitched his head once or twice. Then the lights went against him; he pulled up, slid open the panel and looked obligingly in. “Ma’am?” he said.

“Here, do you know where you’re to go to?”

“Where he just said, don’t I?”

“Well, so long as you do know. But don’t you come asking me. It’s not my business. You’ve got to know your own way.”

“Ho, come,” said the driver, nettled. “I didn’t start this, did I?”

“None of that, young man. You mind your own business, which is to know what address the gentleman said.”

“Ho, so that’s what you want to know? Why not ask me out straight?”

“Oh,
I
don’t want to know. I just wanted to know you did.”

“Rightie-o, auntie,” said the driver. “Then you chance it. Isn’t life an adventure?”

Matchett sat back, not saying another word. She did not even attempt to shut the panel: the lights changed and they shot forward again. She picked up her bag from the seat, crossed her hands on it and thereafter sat like an image. She did not even look at a clock, for she could do nothing about time. Crossing the great wasteful glare of Oxford Street, they took a cut through Mayfair. At corners, or when the taxi swerved, she put one hand out and stiffly balanced herself.

Inside her, her spirit balanced in her body, with a succession of harsh efforts, as her body balanced inside the taxi. When at moments she thought, she thought in words.

I don’t know, I’m sure.

Mrs. Thomas certainly never thought to mention, and I never thought to ask. Whatever came over me? All Mr. Thomas said, when he put me in the taxi, was, did I need money outside of what I had. No, Mr. Thomas didn’t mention, either, taking it Mrs. Thomas would be sure to have said. And there, you see, if I’d just left that door open I’d have heard what he said to the man. But I shut the door. Whatever came over me? No, I never thought to notice what he said to the man. And I wouldn’t ask
him
right out, not after all that sauce. You don’t know what drivers are. Not a nice class.

Oh well, it does seem queer. I ought to say to myself, well, things will get overlooked. What with all that hurry and that. The hotel was all she said, the hotel. But one of those might be anywhere. I can’t but worry —oh, I am vexed with myself, not thinking to ask like that. How am I to know the place is the right place? He might stop and put me down anywhere, well knowing that not knowing I wouldn’t know. I had no call to let on I didn’t know. That did make me look wrong… . Not one of the drivers off our stand.

And what do I say if they say, Oh no, Major Brutt’s not
here,
or Oh no, we know no one of that name. How am I to say, none of that, now: this is the place I was told, this is where I’ve orders to wait. Oh, they could put me right out, now I don’t know the address. Any little buttons could put me wrong. Oh, he might say to me, and as saucy as anything, but you’ve come to the wrong place.

Let alone they ought to have said, I should have had it in writing.

It was Mrs. Thomas being all in a rush. She quite put me about. If she was to be in a hurry, why did she not send down and give the order before? When Phyllis came down and said, Well, they’ve heard all right, but she’s to be in late, I was only waiting to go and put on my hat. Phyllis said, they
are
talking away in there. They beat all, tonight, she said, it must be that Mr. Miller.

If they was to talk less and make up their minds more. I’ve never seen Mrs. Thomas in such a rush. She couldn’t hardly wait till she’s got it said. It was as if she didn’t half like to ask. Well, I’m used to taking her orders, I’m sure. Take a taxi both ways, she said, we’ve just sent for the taxi. She kept looking at me, for all she didn’t quite look. At the same time, she spoke as if she was there to tell me to do some sort of a conjuring trick. Then how she did run back into that diningroom, yes, and shut the door. They were all in there.

Oh, Hyde Park, is it? … Well, I don’t know, I’m sure.

I know I said to myself, as I went up for my hat, well now, there’s
something
she hasn’t said. It was in my mind while I got my hat. Then when I came down and there was Mr. Thomas, I looked at him and I said to myself, now, there’s something I ought to ask. If I’d just have taken notice of what he said to the driver. But I was put about with my gloves to put on and all that hurry and that. It didn’t come to mind not till we were in Baker Street. Then I said to myself, well, we’re off to— and I stopped. Oh, I did feel queer. It all came over me.

Just fancy me just going off like that. Fancy me going off to where I’ve got no idea. Fancy going off just like an image. Fancy going off when you don’t know the address.

Well, he does know, I suppose. I’ve no reason to think he doesn’t. But fancy me depending on a fellow like him. Oh, they should have thought to have told me, one of them or the other. They did ought to have thought. Forgetfulness is one thing. But this isn’t natural, Teally.

It puts me wrong. Why, there’s not a thing I can say.

That’s them all over. That’s where they’re different, really. That’s where they’re not like Mr. Quayne.

Not like Mr. Quayne. He would always think of a thing. He’d tell you, but he would say why. He wouldn’t never put you in that sort of position, not with a taxi man. He wouldn’t leave you to be put in the wrong. Oh, he was fair, he was fair in all that he did. For all there were many worse that would point him down.

Yes, and what would he think of
you
, out all over London at this time? No, it wasn’t right of you, not to give me a turn like that. What would your father say, I should like to know? To start with, you never said you would not be back for your tea. I’d got a nice tea for you, I was keeping it. It wasn’t till half-past five that I thought to myself, oh welll She’s with that Lilian, I thought, but she did ought to have said. So then I expected you round six. No, you did give me a turn. I couldn’t hardly believe the clock. When I did hear the front door, it was nothing but Mr. Thomas.

I couldn’t believe the clock. It didn’t seem like you, really. Not like what you was. Whatever’s come over you? Oh, you have got a silly fit, these days. First one thing, then it’s another. Stuffing nonsense under your pillow—I could have told you then. You’ll do yourself no good. You’re not like what you were. And when it’s not that Eddie, it’s those Heccombs, and this, that and the other off at the seaside. You didn’t ought to have gone to the seaside; it was there you came back from with that silly fit. You did ought to know better, after all what I told you. No good ever came of secrets—you look at your father. And you didn’t ought to have gone to a gentleman’s hotel.

South Kensington Station … Well, I don’t know, I’m sure.

Well, and did you get a good supper? Wholesome, was it? You never know at those places; they’re out to make what they can. And that Major Brutt’s just an innocent: he would never know. Him and his puzzles. However … No, what I’m on about is, you staying out like this, you coming right off here, you giving me such a turn. No, it’s high time you came out of this silly fit. You stay quiet, now, and remember what I said. I’ve got your fire on; it looks nice in your room now; and I’ve got those biscuits you like. You’d be all right if you’d only be like you were.

No, I’m not going on at you. No, I’m done now. I’ve said what I’ve said. Don’t you be upset and silly. You come back with Matchett and be a good girl.

My,
the hotels in this street! They’re like needles in hay.

Now,
what does he think he’s up to? Oh, so we’re stopping, are we? Well, I don’t know, I’m sure.

The driver, slowing into the kerb, looked boldly at her through the panel. He pulled up, then pottered round to open the door—but Matchett was out already standing and looking up. The sad gimcrack cliff of the hotel towered above her, with colourless daylight showing over the top. “Well, ma’am,” said the driver, “here’s our little surprise.” With a movement of implacable dignity she drew herself up and read
The Karachi Hotel
.
Her eyes travelled stonily down the portico to the glass door, the dull yellow brass knob, then down the steep steps blowsy from many feet. Not looking round, she said: “Well, if you’ve brought me wrong, don’t think you’ll get your money. You can just drive right back and I’ll speak to the gentleman.”