Complete Short Stories (VMC) Read Online Free PDF Page A

figure – a skating lady with raised muff and Regency bonnet – solitary, like herself, blurred, frozen, imprisoned.
    ‘Will she be at dinner?’ Beatrice was asking. She flopped down on the marriage-bed itself, still playing with the paper-weight.
    Hester, at dinner, did not appear to Beatrice to be a worthy adversary to a woman of Muriel’s elegance. She said nothing, except when coaxed by Muriel herself into brief replies; for Muriel had acquired courage and was fluent and vivacious, making such a social occasion of the conversation that they seemed to be characters in a play. ‘
This
is how experienced people behave,’ she seemed to imply. ‘We never embarrass by breaking down. In society, we are impervious.’
    Robert patronised their conversation in the way of husbands towards wives’ women-friends – a rather elaborate but absent-minded show of courtesy. When Hester spilt some wine, he dipped his napkin into the water-jug and sponged the table-cloth without allowing an interruption of what he was saying. He covered her confusion by a rather long speech, and, at its end, Hugh Baseden was ready to take over with an even longer speech of his own. This protectiveness on their part only exposed Hester the more, for Beatrice took the opportunity of not having to listen to observe the girl more closely. She also observed that clumsiness can have a kind of appeal she had never suspected.
    She observed technically at first – the fair thick hair which needed drastic shaping: it was bunched up with combs which looked more entangled than controlling. The face was set in an expression which was sulky yet capable of breaking into swift alarm – even terror – as when her hand had knocked against the wine-glass. The hands themselves were huge and helpless, rough, reddened, the nails cropped down. A piece of dirty sticking-plaster covered one knuckle. A thin silver bracelet hung over each wrist.
    Then Beatrice next observed that Hugh Baseden’s protectiveness was ignored, but that Robert’s brought forth a flush and tremor. While he was sponging the table-cloth, the girl watched his hand intently, as if it had a miraculous or terrifying power of its own. Not once did she look at his face.
    Beatrice thought that an ominous chivalry hung in the air, and she could see that every victory Muriel had, contributed subtly to her defeat. ‘She should try less,’ she decided. She was the only one who enjoyed her dinner.
    The boys were all in from the fields and gardens before Robert and Muriel dined, but throughout the meal those in the dining-room were conscious of the school-life continuing behind the baize-covered doors. The sounds of footsteps in the tiled passages and voices calling went on for a long time, and while coffee was being served the first few bars of ‘
Marche Militaire
’ could be heard again and again – the same brisk beginning, and always the same tripping into chaos. Start afresh. Robert beat time with his foot. Muriel sighed. Soon she accompanied Beatrice out to her car, and at once Hester, rather than stay in the room with Robert (for Hugh Baseden had gone off to some duty), went up to her room.
    Now, a curious stillness had fallen over the school, a silence drawn down almost by force. The ‘
Marche Militaire
’ was given up and other sounds could be heard – Muriel saying good-bye to Beatrice out on the drive, and an owl crying; for the light was going.
    Hester knelt by her window with her elbows on the sill. Evening afterevening she thought thunder threatened, and because it did not come she had begun to wonder if the strange atmosphere was a permanent feature of this landscape, and intensified by her own sense of foreboding. The black hillside trees, the grape-coloured light over the church and the bilious green lawns were the after-dinner scene, and she longed for darkness to cover it.
    Beatrice’s car went down the long drive. A door banged. So Muriel had come in, had returned to the