The Long Prospect Read Free Page B

smiling, recognizing in the child the reason for her continued association with Lilian. ‘She’s been very quiet. I don’t wonder that you didn’t notice her.’
    Her grandmother said, not unproudly, ‘Oh, she knows how to behave when there are grown-ups in the room. Don’t you? Don’t you, Emily?’
    And Thea remembered that Lilian had been brought up to be seen and not heard. The result there had been such that, looking at her, though she was dismayed to have the formula applied to Emily, Thea had to laugh.
    â€˜Oh, Lilian!’ she protested. ‘I thought I had convinced you long ago—’
    She was disregarded.
    â€˜Well!’ Lilian said irritably to the child. ‘Can’t you answer when I ask you a question?...Don’t you think she’s a great silly lump of a girl for nearly seven, Thea? What do you think of a girl as big as that who won’t open her mouth when she’s spoken to? Oh, she’s as stupid as all the Lawrences!’
    Salt waves of mortification washed over Emily. She met the scorn in her grandmother’s eyes and then bent her head to look at the carpet. No one could like a great lump of a girl. No one could not agree with a voice so positive.
    Yet, miraculously, the towering mountain that was Thea—suddenly beside her—could be heard to say, ‘She’s my most favourite girl of nearly seven. I love her.’ Turning to Lilian she said, ‘The most clever, too! Did you see her school books, tonight?’ She leaned down. ‘Sleepy? It’s late for you to be up...I know it really is too bad to have to go to bed when things are happening out here, but , Emmy...and I’m going very soon.’
    Rising, Lilian pointed an imperious finger at the door. ‘Take yourself off this minute! You should have gone hours ago without being told.’ Scarcely giving herself time to draw breath she said, ‘What do you say?’
    â€˜Yes, Grandma.’ Emily clutched at another chair as if to anchor herself to the room. She could not bear to go. But slowly, as she watched the two women, her fingers uncurled.
    â€˜I’ll help her,’ Thea said, but Lilian cried, ‘No, no, no, no! She can get herself off. We’ll have a cup of tea. I’ll put the kettle on. Now say good night to Thea or she’ll think you’ve got no manners and she won’t come to see you again.’
    The confusion of having the slow, full stream of Thea’s attention—all of Thea’s concentration—on her was great. She looked up and adored. When she said goodnight it would be over and Thea would go. Thea would go, and would she ever come back?
    She was all at once enfolded, engulfed in warmth and softness: she could have died in the embrace—anything to stay with Thea. But a moment later, inadequate, wriggling away, she giggled shrilly, called good night in a high false voice and, arms outstretched, twirled in dizzy circles to the bedroom, laughing stupidly.
    â€˜Well!’ said Lilian, not displeased. ‘After all you used to do for her. You used to be a great favourite. I noticed tonight she wouldn’t go near you.—Oh, the kettle!—Yes, you always spoilt her. But they forget. They change.’
    Sitting back in her chair Thea gazed heavy-lidded at her hands without answering. When Lilian still hovered over her, shifting her weight from foot to foot, fiddling with a china ornament at one moment, putting it down the next to squint along the length of a table for smears or dust, Thea felt rather than saw the sharp glances that investigated her face. She said, ‘And how is her mother? How is Paula? Have she and Harry come to any decision?’
    â€˜Oh, them!’ Lilian straightened up. ‘Paula’s all right. She still likes Sydney better than Ballowra and she sells a few hats now and then. She says she wouldn’t come back here for all the tea in China, but nothing