The Death of the Heart Read Free

I suppose, that Irene would be too incompetent to go on living for long, and of course he turned out to be right.  After Irene’s death, in Switzerland, her sister found the letter and posted it on to us.”
    “What a number of deaths in Thomas’s familyl”
    “Irene’s, of course, was a frank relief—till we got the letter and realised what it would mean. My heavens, what an awful woman she was!”
    “It embarrassed Thomas, having a stepmother?”
    “Irene, you know, was not what anybody would want at all. We tried to overlook that for Thomas’s father’s sake. He felt so much in the wrong, poor old man, that one had to be more than naturally nice to him. Not that we saw him much: I don’t think he felt it right to see very much of Thomas—because he so wanted to. He said something one day when we all had lunch at Folkestone about not casting a shadow over our lives. If we had made him feel that it didn’t matter, we should have sunk in his estimation, I’m sure. When we met—which I must confess was only two or three times—he did not behave at all like Thomas’s father, but like an off-the-map, seedy old family friend who doubts if he has done right in showing up. To punish himself by not seeing us became second nature with him: I don’t think he wanted to meet us, by the end. We came to think, in his own way he must be happy. We had no idea, till we got that letter of his, that he’d been breaking his heart, all those years abroad, about what Portia was missing—or, what he thought she was missing. He had felt, he said in the letter, that, because of being his daughter (and from becoming his daughter in the way that she had), Portia had grown up exiled not only from her own country but from normal, cheerful family life. So he asked us to give her a taste of that for a year.” Anna paused, and looked at St. Quentin sideways. “He idealised us rather, you see,” she said.
    “Would a year do much—however normal you were?”
    “No doubt he hoped in his heart that we’d keep her on—or else, perhaps, that she’d marry from our house. If neither should happen, she is to go on to some aunt, Irene’s sister, abroad… . He only spoke of a year, and Thomas and I, so far, have not liked to look beyond that. There are years and years—some can be wonderfully long.”
    “You are finding this one is?”
    “Well, it seems so since yesterday. But of course I could never say so to Thomas—Yes, yes, I know: that is my front door, down there. But must we really go in just yet?”
    “As you feel, of course. But you’ll have to some time. At present, it’s five to four: shall we cross by that other bridge and walk once more round the lake?—Though you know, Anna, it’s getting distinctly colder—After that, perhaps we might have our tea? Does your objection to tea (which I do frightfully want) mean that we’re unlikely to be alone?”
    “She just might go to tea with Lilian.”
    “Lilian?”
    “Oh, Lilian’s her friend. But she hardly ever does,” jaid Anna, despondent.
    “But look here, Anna, really—you must not let this get the better of you.”
    “That’s all very well, but you didn’t see all she said. Also you know, you do always seem to think there must be some obvious way for other people to live. In this case there is really not, I’m afraid.”
    Beside the crisscross diagonal iron bridge, three poplars stood up like frozen brooms. St. Quentin stopped on the bridge to tighten his scarf and shake himself down deeper into his overcoat—he threw a homesick glance up at Anna’s drawingroom window: inside, he saw firelight making cheerful play. “It all certainly does seem very complex,” he said, and with fatalistic briskness went on crossing the bridge. Ahead lay the knolls, the empty cold clay silence of inner Regent’s Park beneath a darkening sky. St. Quentin, not in an elemental mood, did not happily turn his back on a drawingroom as agreeable as Anna’s.
    “Not even