Seventeen

Edrita telephoned at four o’clock. “Are you ready?” she asked him.

“Do you mean right now?”

“Yes. Right now,” she said.

“Look, I can’t go right now,” he said “I—”

“Why not? Why can’t you go now?”

“Let’s wait a few days,” he said. “I can’t go right this afternoon.”

“No,” she said. “We mustn’t wait a few days. I’m ready to go now. I’m ready to go this afternoon.”

“It just isn’t that easy,” he said. “It isn’t easy to just pick up and walk out of here. Give me a few days.”

“Oh, Hugh. A few days is the same as a few weeks or a few months or a few years. It’s the same as never. He who hesitates is lost, darling.”

“Now you’re sounding like my grandfather,” he said.

“Am I? Then I’ll try sounding like myself. You said you’d come back here to reappraise your life. That was what you said to me.”

“Yes.”

“Well, when you reappraise something and find that it isn’t worth very much, don’t you try to get rid of it as soon as possible? Don’t you try to walk away from it as quickly as possible?”

“Yes.”

“And you said right after the funeral.”

“I know.”

“This is right after the funeral. You promised me.”

“Where will we go? Where is there to go?”

“Don’t worry about that. I have that all worked out.”

“Where?”

“I’ll pick you up in my car. To-night, we’ll drive to New York. We’ll stay at the Plaza. Then, to-morrow, I have us on a train—our own compartment.”

“A train going where?”

“To Virginia. The train will carry us back to Old Virginny! To Hot Springs, Hugh—the Homestead. It’s a perfect time of year, darling. We’ll sit on that big veranda and have a julep. We’ll have that wonderful Homestead food. Waiters with trays balanced on their heads! Can you think of anything more perfect, because, if you can, we’ll go there. But Hot Springs, Hugh! Hot Springs eternal in the human breast! All the Appalachians are in bloom right now. The Shenandoah Valley is covered with azaleas …”

“Yes.”

“We’ll climb Bald Knob! We’ll sit in the sun. We’ll sleep till noon. Tell me you like the idea, Hugh.”

“I like it,” he said.

“Oh, darling, good! Good. Then hurry—hurry and pack your suitcase. Be a runaway. We’ll both be runaways. I’ll pick you up—you’ll be my pick-up …”

“What are you telling your parents?”

“We’re old enough, aren’t we, not to tell our parents? I’m telling them that I’m driving back to Chicago. I’ve told them I’ve decided I should be getting back. The visit was a mistake, and they know it and I know it. We really don’t get along very well any more. Later on, I’ll write and tell them what I’ve really done.”

“And what are we going to do after Hot Springs?” he asked her.

“After that—whatever you say. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do. Hot Springs is where we’ll decide all those things.”

“I wish I could believe that it could be that easy,” he said.

“Easy is as easy does. I’m full of little bits of wisdom to-day, aren’t I? Oh, Hugh, I feel so strange, so funny. Frightened, yes, but I feel that I’m flying, floating—like Dorothy off to see the Wizard! But I have such a funny, certain faith that this is the right thing, darling—that at last we’re going to do what we were always meant to do. Hot Springs is Oz. How do you feel, Hugh?”

“I feel—not so certain,” he said.

“See? You’re scared, too. Well, let’s be scared together, then. We’ll hold each other’s hands all the way. I love you so. Tell me you like the idea of Hot Springs, Hugh.”

“I like the idea,” he said again.

“And can you think of a single, solitary reason why we shouldn’t go?”

“No,” he said slowly, “I really can’t. And I guess that’s the trouble.”

“You see? The only trouble is that there isn’t any trouble. Now hurry and pack your bag.”

“All right …”

“Good. And hurry, darling.”

“I’ll have to speak to Sandy.”

“Good. Tell her—tell her anything you want. Tell her the truth, if you want to. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything, Hugh, except that we’re going away from here together.”

“Give me—give me about half an hour, Edrita.”

“All right. I’ll pick you up in half an hour. Tell me you’re happy, darling.”

“I’m happy.”

“So am I. I’ll pick you up in half an hour and we’ll head into the sunset together!”

“All right. I’ll see you then.”

“Don’t be late. If you’re late I’ll die, thinking that you’ve changed your mind. Be—be strong with her, Hugh.”

“I will. Good-bye, Edrita.”

“Good-bye, darling.”

He sat for a while in the chair by the library phone. He was thinking about the house, the family, Pansy and Austin, and the faraway voice of James Lord, Junior, and about Anne, and about his father and Mrs. Schiller, and the strange way things had worked out and how, not very many days ago, he had thought that nothing about the house or family ever changed, and how suddenly everything had changed. Was it really possible, he thought, that he could leave them all so quickly and so easily and—like Edrita, like a bird—simply take wing? The investment of the years; all the years he had spent on them, seemed to hang so heavily upon him. He had changed, too; the years had changed him. There seemed to be no way of escaping their weight. He had talked about reappraising his life. But his life was only the years, and how could you reappraise years? How could you pick up years again, and look at them, and try to turn them into something different, something they had never been? The years existed now, like the stones of the house, and there was nothing about them anywhere that could be changed, or rearranged, or reappraised. He thought: Well, I seem to be going to Hot Springs. And suddenly Hot Springs, Warm Springs, Colorado Springs (why had Edrita chosen another Springs?) all seemed like the same place. And it took an effort of the mind to remember that Hot Springs was where he was going, and with Edrita. But he sat very still in the chair, not going anywhere, looking at the late, yellow sunlight on the leather furniture, the books in the shelves all around the fireplace, at the very bad nineteenth-century paintings, artfully lighted by electricity, recessed in the walnut panelling.

At last he stood up and went out of the library, across the living-room, towards the hall. Pappy and Maria had been busy, since the family had left, and everything had been picked up. The sofa cushions were plump and round again, the ash-trays had been emptied, and everything was immaculate. It was hard to believe that anyone had been there at all. He started slowly up the stairs, wondering if his mother had heard about the two tourists who had come to the funeral thinking that the house was open to the public, and thought that he might tell her about that first; it might appeal to her sense of the ridiculous. And then, after that, he would say something simple—something very simple and kind. There was no point, after all, in being unkind now. He would say something like, “Sandy, I’m going away for a few days …”

And in the middle of the stairs he suddenly thought of Ellen Brier. “Niceness is your problem, Hugh,” she had said. “I like that part of you, of course. But still niceness can be a problem.” And he wondered what Ellen would be doing now. She would be coming home from the office soon, getting into her elevator, letting herself into the apartment on Central Park West with her key. Perhaps she would fix herself a cup of coffee and then pick up the yellow foolscap sheets of her musical-comedy script, and do some more work on that, write a few more lines. As he paused on the stairs to contemplate it, the serenity of that scene seemed both real and overpoweringly appealing, and he wondered if she had meant it when she had said she would like to get away. Thinking of her wide, appraising eyes that always looked as though they could be astonished by nothing, he was sure she had. “We must keep in touch,” she had said. And now he was in that room with her, saying, “Ellen, would you like to go to California with me?”

And then, brushing away that thought, he continued up the stairs, trying to fix it in his mind that he was going to Hot Springs with Edrita. There were voices from his mother’s room. He tapped lightly at the door.

Reba came to the door and quickly stepped outside into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. “Don’t go in there now, Hugh,” Reba said. “She’s not feeling well. She doesn’t want to see anybody.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“She’s sick. She’s—this day has been too much for her. She’s sick. She can’t see anybody now.”

“I’ve got to speak to her, Reba.”

“Can’t it wait till to-morrow?”

“No, it can’t wait till to-morrow. I’ve got to see her now.”

“You’re not going to—to tell her you’re leaving, are you?”

“I want to speak to her, Reba.”

“Because if you are, I’ve already mentioned that—that you might be going back to New York in a few days. So she knows all that. You don’t need to bother telling her about that now.”

“I want to tell her now,” he said.

“Oh, you can’t be leaving now. Are you? Because if you are, you can’t. She’s too upset already. She’s terribly sick, she can’t—”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I—I don’t know. I think perhaps—perhaps it’s her heart, Hugh. You see, we can’t do anything that would upset her any more.”

“Her heart? Have you called a doctor?”

“No, but I’m going to. I’m going to right now. So don’t go in there, Hugh.”

“At least let me see her.”

“No!” she said. She stood across the door, blocking it with her body. “No, I won’t let you. You cannot see her now.”

“I’m sorry, Reba,” he said. Gently he pushed her to one side.

“Hugh, don’t go in that room!” she cried, but his hand was on the knob, and he pressed the door open and stepped inside, shutting it behind him.

“What’s Reba screaming about?” his mother asked him. “What’s the matter with Reba?” She looked at him from across the room. “Hi, baby,” she said.

She was sitting up in bed, wearing the white marabou jacket and all her jewellery. Her yellow hair was unpinned and hung down about her shoulders and, on the table beside her bed, there was a half-empty whisky bottle, and she had a dark-brown drink in her hand.

“Have a drink, baby,” she said, raising her glass.

He stared at her. In the corner of the room, the movie screen was set up on its tripod and, on the little table beside her chair, stood the projector. All over the floor, unwound in thin black curls, was the reel of eight-millimetre movie film.

“Well, then don’t have a drink!” she said. She closed her eyes and, as she did, two tears ran down across her cheeks.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” he asked her.

“What in God’s name does it look like I’m doing?” she said.

“I’m going to get Dad.”

She opened her eyes and brushed at the tears with an angry gesture of her hand. “Yes, get Dad,” she said, “Get Dad. You’ll have a little trouble getting Dad, baby. Dad is off with his whore. Off with his fat whore. If you try to get Dad now, you might interrupt something, and Dad wouldn’t like that very much, baby.” She took a swallow of her drink and reached for the bottle beside her bed.

He stepped towards her. “Put that bottle down,” he said.

She seized the bottle and hugged it to her bosom with her ringed fingers. “Don’t you dare!” she said. “Don’t you dare touch this! It’s mine!” She gazed fiercely at him. Then, very carefully, she tipped the bottle and poured some more whisky into her already near-full glass.

“Reba told me you were having a heart attack!”

“Ha!” she laughed. “Well, I am. I’m having an attack of heartbreak.”

“What on earth are you trying to do to yourself?” he asked her.

She put the bottle back on the table beside her bed and, using both hands, she held the glass to her lips. She smiled coyly at him over the rim. “Well,” she said. “Well, let’s see. Oh, I know. I remember. One thing I was trying to do is, was—I’ve been trying to write a letter. A simple little apology letter. I’ve been sitting here trying to write a simple little god-damned apology letter.” She waved towards the sheets of pink stationery that lay about the bed on top of the coverlet. “I’ve been trying to write a perfectly simple letter, but I can’t get the god-damned phrasing right.”

“Who is this letter to?” he asked.

“Oh,” she lifted her hand vaguely. “I’ve been trying to write to some—to some god-damned commandant. But I can’t even get the beginning of it right. I mean, how the hell do you begin a letter to a commandant? Do you say, ‘Dear Commandant’? Or, ‘My darling Commandant,’ or, ‘Commandant, my angel’? And I’ve forgotten his stupid name. I mean, I don’t know whether it should be, ‘My darling Commandant Jones,’ or—hey,” she said. “You were in the Army, weren’t you, baby? You ought to know.”

“I wouldn’t write any more letters to commandants if I were you,” he said.

“Oh?” she said. “You wouldn’t? Really?”

“Certainly not in the state you’re in.”

“I’m in a state of shock, that’s what I’m in. And he’s in the state of Colorado. Ha! That’s funny, isn’t it? I’m in a state of shock, and he’s in the state of Colorado. Well, maybe I won’t write him any more letters.” She took another swallow of her drink and looked at him crookedly over the top of her glass again. “Oh, by the way,” she said. “By the way Reba tells me you’re thinking of leaving.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“Well, then,” she said. “Then get out. Get out. Get out and don’t come back.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do, Mother.”

“Good!” she said. “Good riddance.” She put her head back against the pillows and looked up at the ceiling. “Get out and don’t come back,” she said. “Are you going to tell me where you’re going? Or is that going to be your great, big secret? I mean, it might be nice if I knew where you were going. After all, I am your mother. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care where you go. You can go to the moon for all I care. Only it might be nice if I knew where you were going, in case I wanted to send you a letter. To my darling son. To my devoted son. To my precious son. Address: Care of the moon. To my darling, son, address: The Moon. The Sea of Whatchamacallit—the Sea of Tranquillity, The Moon, U.S.A.”

“I’ll let you know when I get there,” he said.

“Where do you think you’re going to get to?” she said.

“Would you really like to know, Mother?”

“I’m curious, yes.”

“I’m going to California,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s nice. California. I’ve heard of California. California’s as far as the moon, isn’t it? Farther. Well, what are you going to do in California? Are you going to go into the movies? They’re looking for a replacement for Clark Gable, aren’t they? Or are you just going to be a—a gentleman of leisure?”

“Well, if you really want to know, I’m going to look for a job on a newspaper.”

“Oh, A newspaper. I see. A newspaper. Why?”

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Oh. It’s something you’ve always wanted to do. Yes. Yes, I can see it now. Hugh Carey, ace reporter. Chasing after news stories! I can just see it. Hugh Carey, running after the masked bandit. Bang, bang! Running back to the paper with the hot scoop! Hugh Carey, star reporter, with his nose for news. Who’d hire you to work for a newspaper?”

“Well,” he said. “I think there are some people who would. But let me take care of that, Mother.”

“Yes,” she said. “I can imagine. I can imagine you taking care of that. Who’d ever hire you for a newspaper? Who’d ever hire you for anything? Well,” she said, sitting up again and waving at him with the glass, “let me know when you get there.”

“You seem to forget,” he said, “that I’ve spent nearly seven years at a very good job in New York.”

“Seven years,” she said. “Seven years at a very good job in New York. What very good job are you talking about, my sweet? Who hired you for what very good job in New York?”

“Joe Wallace hired me,” he said, “as you know damn’ well.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Wait a minute. Joe Wallace hired you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and neither do you.”

“That’s right, baby,” she said. “That’s right, baby, baby. Keep your little innocent illusions, baby.”

“I’m leaving, Mother.”

“That’s right—leave. Leave and take your pretty little illusions with you. Ignorance is bliss, my baby.”

He stood facing her for a moment. Then he said, “You disgust me.”

“I disgust you? Is that what you said? Well, you disgust me!”

“Good-bye.”

“Wait a minute!” she said. “I disgust you, do I? Well, do you really think Joe Wallace hired you?”

“Of course he did.”

“Oh, wait just a minute, baby! Let me refresh your poor memory! Joe Wallace didn’t hire you. The way I remember it, Joe Wallace loaned you a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a five-year note to buy into his business.”

“That’s right.”

“And where do you suppose Joe Wallace got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Where would Joe Wallace get money like that, baby mine? Baby mine, whom I disgust! Would you like to see my cancelled cheques? Would you? They’re right in my second drawer—right over there. Go get my cancelled cheques. Where do you suppose Joe Wallace ever got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars? And where do you suppose Joe Wallace got the money to pay you a fancy salary—so that you could pay the loan back to him and still have some left over for yourself—so that Joe Wallace could gradually pay back the hundred and fifty thousand to me? Get my cancelled cheques!”

He stood, uncertainly, in the centre of the floor. A tall column of despair seemed to rise up and fill the room; it pressed against him and he couldn’t move. “But I don’t understand,” he said. “Why?”

“Why? Well, I should think it would be very clear to you why! I wanted my darling son to have a job! And I wanted my darling son to think that somebody else really wanted him to work for them—wanted him enough to lend him a hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Joe Wallace didn’t hire you, my sweet. I stuffed you down Joe Wallace’s reluctant throat. Do you want to see my cancelled cheques?”

He turned blindly away from her. “No!” he said.

“Get them! They’re in my second drawer. Why do you think I made you come home? What do you think I thought when Joe told me that you’d been idiot enough to give the whole thing up? I was stunned! Stunned. I’m a little deeper into this, you see, than just a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. There’s nearly another eighty thousand dollars that I’ve given outright to you, through Joe—to help pay your fancy salary. You owe me eighty thousand dollars, if you want to look at it that way.”

“You’ll get it back,” he said.

“I don’t want it. Take it to the moon. I don’t give a damn. You’d never have been anything without me. See how far you get on your little rocket without me! Newspaperman!”

“We’ll see,” he said.

“Yes. We’ll see you when you come limping back! Who’d ever hire you? You cripple! Helpless, worthless cripple!”

He started for the door, across the room.

Behind him, she pushed aside her bedclothes and put her feet on the floor. “Wait!” she cried, half rising. “Wait a minute! I didn’t mean that! Oh, God, I didn’t mean that!” She held out her hand.

But he continued, without hesitating, towards the door.

She took two short steps after him, across the room. Her arms went up. Then her knees buckled and she fell forward on the floor. It was a graceless fall, and the whole room seemed to descend with her as she fell, the sound splitting the air into awkward, discordant pieces. Twisted about her, the marabou bed-jacket fell open. Her long fingers gripped the rug. “Oh, please!” she sobbed. “Please—I didn’t mean it—oh, my love—oh, stop! Wait! Stop!”

But his hand was on the doorknob and he could not stop. It was too late now to stop. He opened the door and stepped quickly out into the hall.

Behind him, from where she lay, she had begun to scream: “Reba! Reba!”

He met Reba in the middle of the stairs. She took him by both arms. “You can’t go now,” she said. “You can’t leave her like this.”

“I’m sorry, Reba.”

“You can’t. You can’t. What did she say to you?”

“She said enough.”

“She didn’t mean it. She’s not herself. You know she doesn’t mean anything she says when she’s like this. You cannot leave her, Hugh. She loves you too much, you’ll hurt her too much, she needs you too much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You can’t leave her like this! You saw her, you saw how she was. She needs you more desperately now than ever before. If you leave her now, Hugh, you’ll kill her! She’ll die!”

“I’m sorry … sorry.”

“Oh, Hugh!” she said, trying to encircle him with her arms and hold him on the stairs. “Oh, Hugh, don’t you ever understand? Don’t you ever understand anything? Don’t you understand how she needs you, and how I need you, too? Don’t you see what we are—she and I? Don’t you understand what we always were—right from the beginning? The Chinless Charmers! Two beautiful princesses who lived in a castle? No! Two funny freaks that everybody laughed at! That’s all we ever were and all we ever can be. Two funny freaks. We were never anything but that. There was never anything else for us but that. Papa knew it—he told us so. There was never any reality for us except each other. She’s the only reality that I have, and you’re the only reality that she has. And if you leave her, Hugh, she’ll die, and then what will happen to me?”

“I’m sorry, Reba,” he said. And he pulled away from her.

“You’re killing us both!”

He went quickly on down the stairs.

Outside, at the foot of the white stone steps, Edrita was waiting for him in her car. She was wearing her college-girl beaver coat, and her hands, in short brown gloves, were resting on top of the steering wheel in the attitude of a girl sitting in a sulky. Seeing him, she smiled. “Are you ready to go?” she asked him.

He walked around to her side of the car. She frowned at him. “Where’s your suitcase?” she asked him. “Aren’t you ready to go?”

“I’m ready to go,” he said. “But I’m not going with you, Edrita.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Edrita, but I can’t go with you.”

“I see,” she said. “You’re not going with me—ever?”

“No.”

“Are you going back to Anne?”

“No, I’m not going back to Anne.”

She looked at him. “Did you talk to your mother?”

“Yes.”

“I think I see,” she said. “She said something to you, didn’t she, that made you change your mind? I knew it.”

“No, that’s not really it,” he said.

“It must be!”

“No,” he said.

“Of course it is! It’s always been that way! She said something.”

“You’ve never understood my mother, Edrita.”

“Haven’t I? Oh God! Are you going to start telling me again what a magnificent woman she is? Are you?”

“No, I’m not going to starting telling you that.”

It was true, of course, that he wasn’t. Still, it was hard to put into words to Edrita just what he did want to say. She had never understood his mother, and he was sure that she never would. She would never understand how, in a funny way, he saw now that his mother had been right. She had wanted him to reach upwards, for the stars and—so far, at least—he never had, and in that way he had always failed her. One might argue with her about what the stars consisted of, of course. But all this was too complicated, too difficult to explain to Edrita now. “I’m going away from here,” he said. “I have no idea now whether or not the thing I want to do will work. But I’m going, and I’m not coming back, and I can’t go with you.”

“Then where are you going?” she asked. “If you’re not going with me to see the azaleas, and if you’re not going back to Anne—then where?”

“I’m going into the village to get a train to New York,” he said. “I’m going to pick up some things at the apartment and then—”

“And then somewhere else,” she said.

“Yes, and then somewhere else.”

She looked abruptly away from him. “Hot Springs didn’t sound like fun, then.”

“Yes, it sounded like fun. But I know now—I’ve found out something now—that makes me realise that wherever I go and whatever I do next, I have to do on my own. Can you understand that, Edrita?”

For a minute or two she said nothing, still looking away from him. Then she said, “Is it really that? Or is it really because I’m a part of home? And now—now that you’ve finally decided to leave home, you don’t want to take any little parts of home with you?”

“Yes,” he said. “You’re part of home.”

“Yes,” she said. “I thought so.”

“Please try to understand.”

“I’m sitting here—trying. Do you love me, Hugh?”

“I loved you when I was seventeen and eighteen and nineteen,” he said. “I think I loved you when I was twenty. But all those years have gone by now. It’s too much to expect that we could ever pick things up again exactly as they were. The other day in the woods you said we hadn’t changed much. But we have changed. All those years have changed us both. It’s too late for us now, Edrita. Too much has happened to us in between.” He smiled and nodded towards the waterfall that was visible through the trees. “Too much water has gone over the dam.”

“You’re saying that you don’t love me any more.”

“You’ve given something very wonderful to me, Edrita. I’ll always be grateful.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I suppose that’s as good an answer as any.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well,” she said, still not looking at him. “I guess that’s that, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You know,” she said, “I should probably say that I admire you for what you’re doing. But I was prepared to give up a lot to go with you. I was prepared to give up my home, my marriage, my husband, and my child. Those weren’t cheap things to me.”

“I know,” he said. “Now you won’t have to give up those things.”

“Yes,” she said. “So do you mind if I call you a bastard?”

“No, I don’t mind, Edrita.”

“Well,” she said, looking at him clear-eyed. “Can I give you a lift to the station, you bastard?”

“No thanks.”

“Well, then,” she said. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Edrita.”

He stepped away from the car and she started the engine. He watched her as she swung the car broadly around the circle in front of the house and drove back down along the steep drive without looking back.

Reba was standing at the top of the white steps. She was wearing a long black coat and she was carrying a pair of silver gardening shears in one hand. “Come back inside the house now, Hugh,” she said. She placed the gardening shears on top of the terrace wall and opened her arms for him.

He hesitated for a moment. Then he went up the steps to her and kissed her on the cheek. She held him to her with a grip that seemed implacable, so tight that he could feel the thin bands of muscle in her arms through the soft fabric of her coat. For a moment they teetered together on the top step, with her arms anchoring him. Then she released him.

“I’ve got to put some things in a suitcase, Reba,” he said. “Then I’ll be going.”

She lifted her hands, and nodded in a nervous, abstracted way. She picked up the gardening shears. “She wants some flowers for her room,” she said. She turned away from him and started across the terrace towards the flower-beds.

He went in the house and up the stairs to his room. He closed the door and took his suitcase from the closet. Lifting things from hangers, he began to pack. There were only a few things. He had brought very little up here with him, and there was very little to take away. He took his doeskin trousers from the hanger and folded them; a small object fell from a pocket and rolled under a chair. He reached for it and picked it up. It was the catnip mouse. He looked at it for a moment or two, and then placed it carefully on the dresser-top. He placed a few more articles in the suitcase, then closed it, snapped it shut.

He walked to the window and looked out. Outside, on the terrace, Reba and Pappy were picking flowers. The early rush of spring had brought several more narcissi into blossom, and a few of the early Kaufmaniana tulips had opened in the planting bed around the fountain. Reba knelt, snipped a stem with the silver shears, and handed each flower to Pappy, who collected them, holding the flowers in front of him like a small bridal nosegay. It was a silent tableau that had a certain charm to it. And watching them, it was easy to suppose that they would always be there, in those poses, arrested in time, picking, and handing, and gathering flowers: the woman, in her black coat, bent like a Z over the flower-bed, cutting the flowers with her shears, offering them one by one to the little houseman in his white jacket, who accepted them, collected them. He turned away from the window.

In a way, he wished that he had not kissed Reba good-bye. A kiss was a sentimental, an old-fashioned gesture. Still, he had wanted to do something simple and kind. And, he thought, he really loved Reba, so perhaps the simple and kind thing was owed most to her. He would miss her. He closed his eyes, very briefly, to shut out the picture of her now for ever. All at once there was so much else to do. The precedence and sequence of things—the next thing and the next thing and the next—loomed before him. The first thing was to call a taxi to take him to the village, and the train. This would be a familiar distance. After all, he had walked this distance many times when he had been a boy, once upon a time.