“Of course.”
He accompanied her to the door, and opened it for her, looking with half furtive intentness into her face.
“I think we shall get on very well together, Miss Carfax.”
“I hope so.”
She went out with a vague feeling of contempt and distaste.
Within a week Eve discovered that she was growing interested in her new work, and also interested, in a negative fashion, in Hugh Massinger. He was a rather baffling person, impressing her as a possible genius and as a palpable fool. She usually found him curled up on the lounge, smoking a hookah, and looking like an Oriental, sinister and sleepy. For some reason or other, his smile made her think of a brass plate that had not been properly cleaned, and was smeary. Once or twice the suspicion occurred to her that he took drugs.
But directly he began to use his brain towards some definite end, she felt in the presence of a different creature. His eyes lost their sentimental moonishness; his thin and shallow hands seemed to take a virile grip; his voice changed, and his mouth tightened. The extraordinary mixture of matter that she brought back from the Museum jumbled in her notes was seized on and sorted, and spread out with wonderful lucidity. His knowledge astonished her, and his familiarity with monkish Latin and Norman French and early English. The complex, richly coloured life of the Middle Ages seemed to hang before him like a splendid tapestry. He appeared to know every fragment of it, every shade, every faded incident, and he would take the tangle of threads she brought him and knot them into their places with instant precision. His favourite place was on the lounge, his manuscript books spread round him while he jotted down a fact here and there, or sometimes recorded a whole passage.
But directly his intellectual interest relaxed he became flabby, sentimental, and rather fulsome in his personalities. The manservant would bring in tea, and Massinger would insist on Eve sharing it with him. He always drank China tea, and it reminded her of Fernhill, and the teas in the gardens, only the two men were so very different. Massinger had a certain playfulness, but it was the playfulness of a cat. His pale, intent eyes made her uncomfortable. She did not mind listening while he talked about himself, but when he tried to lure her into giving him intimate matter in return, she felt mute, and on her guard.
This new life certainly allowed her more leisure, for there were afternoons when Hugh Massinger did not work at all, and Eve went home early to Bosnia Road. On these afternoons she managed to snatch an hour’s daylight, but the stuff she produced did not please her. She had all the craftsman’s discontent in her favour, but the glow seemed to have gone out of her colours.
Kate Duveen wanted to know all about Hugh Massinger. She had read some of his poetry, and thought it “erotic tosh.”