“Oh, why do you stay here? They aren’t your sort.”
But he had heard nothing. He was poring over the long tassel of the blind, weaving it into a six-strand plait. I couldn’t help watching his fingers. He had the most beautiful hands that I’ve ever seen on a man. They looked like two alive and independent creatures. They looked as if they could do anything they chose, whether he were there to superintend or not. And he was miles away. I was glad. Anita’s voice was rising like a dreary wind.
“Just that is so strange. All the time I’ve known her I’ve thought of her in the past tense. Her moods, her ways, her actions, were finished things to me—chapters of the Life. I wrote her all the time. But now, when she is mine, as it were, now that she exists only in my notes and papers and remembrance of her, now it comes that I’m shaken. I can’t think of her as a subject any more. I shall be wanting her—herself. I can’t think clearly. It’s frightening me, the work there is ahead of me. Because I’ve got to do it without her. She’s lying dead down there in Surrey—now—at this minute. And there’s that man—and a child. One’s overwhelmed. It’s so cruel. The only creature who ever cared for me. Think of Madala, quite still, not answering, not lighting up when you speak to her, staring at the ceiling, staring at her own coffin-lid. In two days she’ll be under the ground. Do you ever think what that means—burial—the corruption—the——”
“Stop it, Nita!” Miss Howe’s movement blotted out my cousin’s face. “Do you hear? I can’t stand it. Here—drink some coffee. Jasper! Say something!” I heard the coffee-cup dance in its saucer.
There came Aunt Serle’s anxious quaver—
“Anita! Nita! What’s the matter, my dear? What’s the matter with my daughter?”
Nobody answered. She was like a tortoise as she poked her head from the hood of her chair.
“Jenny!” she called cautiously. “Jenny!”
I slipped across the room to her.
“What’s it about, Jenny? Eh? Speak up, my dear! Not crying, is she? Temper, that’s it. Don’t say I said so.”