The Empty House Read Online Free PDF Page B

as she had known his footfall, stepping in over the flagged threshold of The Mermaid's Arms.
    She took a mouthful of Coke, laid down the glass. All at once her cigarette tasted bitter; she stubbed it out and turned her head to look at him, and she saw the blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled back from his brown forearms, and the eyes very blue and the short, rough, brown hair cut like a pelt, close to the shape of his head. And because there was nothing else to be done she said, "Hallo, Eustace."
    Startled, his head swung round and his expression was that of a man who had suddenly been hit in the stomach, bemused and incapable. She said, quickly, "It really is me," and his smile came, incredulous, rueful, as though he knew he had been made to look a fool.
    "Virginia."
    She said again, stupidly, "Hallo."
    "What in the name of heaven areyou doing here?"
    She was aware that every earin the place was waiting for her to reply.She made it very light and casual. "Buying cigarettes. Having a drink."
    "I didn't mean that. I mean in Cornwall. Here, in Lanyon."
    "I'm on holiday. Staying with the Lingards in Porthkerris."
    "How long have you been here?"
    "About a week ..."
    "And what are you doing out here?"
    But before she had time to tell him, the barman had pushed Eustace's tankard of beer across the counter, and Eustace was diverted by trying to find the right money in his trouser pocket.
    "Old friends, are you?" asked Joe, looking at Virginia with new interest, and she said, "Yes, I suppose you could say that."
    "I haven't seen her for ten years," Eustace told him, pushing the coins across the counter. He looked at Virginia's glass. "What are you drinking?"
    "Coke."
    "Bring it outside, we may as well sit in the sun."
    She followed him, aware of the unblinking stares which followed them; the insatiable curiosity. Outside in the sunshine he put their glasses down on to a wooden table and they settled, side by side on a bench, with the sun on their heads and their backs against the whitewashed wall of the pub.
    "You don't mind being brought out here, do you? Otherwise we couldn't say a word without it being received and transmitted all over the county within half an hour."
    "I'd rather be outside."
    Half turned towards her, he sat so close that Virginia could see the rough, weather-beaten texture of his skin, the network of tiny lines around his eyes, the first frosting of white in that thick brown hair. She thought, I'm with him again.
    He said, "Tell me."
    "Tell you what?"
    "What happened to you." And then quickly: "I know you got married."
    "Yes. Almost at once."
    "Well, that would have put paid to the London Season you were dreading so much."
    "Yes, it did."
    "And the coming-out dance."
    "I had a wedding instead."
    "Mrs. Anthony Keile. I saw the announcement in the paper." Virginia said nothing. "Where do you live now?"
    "In Scotland. There's a house in Scotland . . ."
    "And children?"
    "Yes. Two. A boy and a girl."
    "How old are they?" He was really interested, and she remembered how the Cornish loved children, how Mrs. Jilkes was for ever going dewy-eyed over some lovely little great-nephew or niece.
    "The girl's eight and the boy's six."
    "Are they with you now?"
    "No. They're in London. With their grandmother."
    "And your husband? Is he down? What's he doing this morning? Playing golf?"
    She stared at him, accepting for the first time the fact that personal tragedy is just that. Personal. Your own existence could fall to pieces but that did not mean that the rest of the world necessarily knew about it, or even bothered. There was no reason for Eustace to know.
    She laid her hands on the edge of the table, aligning them as though their arrangement were of the utmost importance. She said, "Anthony's dead." Her hands seemed all at once insubstantial, almost transparent, the wrists too thin, the long almond-shaped nails, painted coral pink, as fragile as petals. She wished suddenly, fervently, that they were not like that, but strong