“I wish it would end.” Eve wanted to go upstairs; the hours of her freedom were limited, but if she had to join up, and she supposed it was inevitable, she would rather scrub floors than go into a Ministry. The indecision of bureaucracy was unendurable. “Have you been out today, Mr. Rashleigh?” He was so forlorn that she felt guilty about leaving him.
“Yes, I had quite a walk this morning, although the northeast wind was bitter cold. I was dreaming—ah, now you are going to laugh—that I could hold one more exhibition of my charcoal drawings.”
“I think you should,” Eve said with vague hopefulness. She could see no future for Horatio, whatever happened. Even her sisters were against thatched cottages, and would be more likely to hang up a photograph of their spaniel than the best of Horatio’s calendars. “Have you got enough for a show?”
Rashleigh shook his head. “Alas, with the scoundrel Nazis at the helm it is difficult to keep the Lamp of Art alight. Will you come and see my portfolio one Sunday, Miss Eve? And do me the honour of taking a cup of tea?”
“Oh, thanks, it would be a great pleasure sometime,” Eve said cautiously; “at present we’re so busy I even bring work home with me evenings.” It was not strictly true, but she was more and more jealous of her hours alone; her doom was near, she felt it every moment of the business day. It was already a question of clearing up and shutting down; sooner or later the purely civilian trades would cease. Her sister liked the noisy army barracks where she was in training; it was, as she said enthusiastically, just like school. But Eve had no temperament for collective life. What a seesaw it all was! She was happy in peace and Joe in war; surely somebody could devise a means so that they could both enjoy their work without the continents being plunged into chaos. “Here’s the post, Mr. Rashleigh,” she said, as the door opened; it was a chance to escape. “I do hope we get a quiet night.” The postman was in a hurry to get his round done before blackout; he slammed the mail on Selina’s desk and left with a muttered “Afternoon” to Mary, who picked up the letters, sorted them onto a tray, and came over to Horatio. “One for you, sir, one for Cook, and the rest are for upstairs.” She waited for him to move so that she could turn out the last light.
Horatio took the rather thick grey envelope; it was Agatha’s writing. He had no excuse now for sitting in the tearoom any longer, though it was an economy of fuel and his joints creaked and he puffed wheezily directly he started up the steps. Extraordinary, he thought, extraordinary; my dear wife would never have believed that I could climb these three flights twice a day. He rested, of course, on each landing.
If he had to define to Eve the difference—the only difference—between her high spirits and his old age, Horatio thought, he would describe it as monotony. There were fewer breaks in the routine of unpleasant repetition. He paused opposite the door of the first-floor parlour that was now used as a storeroom. It was the sallow paint and the smell of soap and soda that became unendurable, at least to a temperament accustomed to the scent of grasses, a lacy parasol of leaves. Miss Tippett was a person of neither affluence nor taste or she would not sit behind a teashop desk; but she could have done something to this bleakness—repainted it, for example, some soft, attractive colour: green, a pale almond green with a grey carpet and a door that opened not on bins of sago but a bowl of roses. You could do a lot with a house as old as this, almost eighteenth century, if you only had the means. It is sad, my young friend, Rashleigh felt he ought to say to Eve the day that she had tea with him, to have the instinct for palaces and to be obliged to dwell in lodgings; but as a young man I had the whole of Nature for my kingdom. Yes, the sky was my ceiling with little, tumbling clouds making a medallion of nymphs above my head.
The chair was drawn up by the gas fire with a box of matches handy when Horatio panted his way at last into the attic. Mary had blacked out the window and left, as she did so often, a duster over the bed-rail. He hung up his coat carefully; perhaps tonight, if Miss Tippett were very pressing, he would consider the shelter. Then he settled down, pulled the rug over his knees, and opened Agatha’s letter.
There was a cheque inside for the usual amount. Horatio slipped it carefully into his wallet: an old and shiny thing but solid, he thought, running his fingers over its dark leather. Nobody would know that a corner had come unsewn; but quality paid, it was seventeen years now since his wife had given it to him. He replaced it in his pocket and began to read the rather coarse handwriting.
“Dear Cousin Horatio, Here is your monthly allowance. As you know, this is a voluntary action on my part for you have no call on me or mine” (that was untrue), “and I feel I owe it to myself to discontinue these payments. The times are hard and I am obliged because of the war to retrench my expenses. So many sufferers need our help and my nephew, who you will remember joined up last November, is expecting an addition to his family.” Of course the fellow would volunteer, his wife was always nagging at him. “I hope you have escaped our current perils. We had a bomb at the bottom of our street and in addition I have caught a severe
