School for Love by Olivia Manning

Author:Olivia Manning
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2010-11-12T22:00:00+00:00

8

Although the spring was bright and dry, the night cold held a long time that year. At supper Miss Bohun would say: ‘I usually put the fire away in the spring, but if you still feel the cold . . .’ Felix did feel the cold, so also did Mrs Ellis. She said: ‘I’ve never lived in a house as cold as this; it’s like living in a vault.’ One evening when she came down from the attic, Miss Bohun found Mrs Ellis holding her hands to the bar of the fire, her fingers dark with cold.

‘Haven’t you any gloves?’ asked Miss Bohun.

‘No thick ones. I can’t find any here.’

Miss Bohun started her meal, but suddenly, as she was lifting a fork to her mouth, she exclaimed: ‘Oh, I know!’ and, dropping the fork with the food still on it, she rose and ran upstairs. When she came back she was holding a pair of fur-lined leather gloves.

‘Now,’ she announced impressively, ‘these are for you. I’m going to make you a present of them. They were given to me one Christmas by an officer friend who lived here, but I’ve never had occasion to wear them. They’re too good – so you must wear them for me.’

Mrs Ellis frowned at the gloves, then shook her head: ‘It is very kind of you but I could not possibly accept them.’

‘But you must,’ Miss Bohun looked surprised at this refusal, ‘I want you to have them.’

‘No. I couldn’t take them.’ Her refusal was coldly decided: it was clear that nothing would persuade her to take the gloves.

Miss Bohun still stood holding them towards Mrs Ellis. Felix, seeing Miss Bohun’s hurt and confusion, wished that Mrs Ellis would anyway reach out, take the gloves into her hands, and perhaps admire them or make some alleviating comment before returning them. But Mrs Ellis did nothing.

Miss Bohun at last put them down on a corner of the table, where they lay throughout the meal with a forlorn, repudiated look. She ate in silence: the others had nothing to say. Mrs Ellis sat with a cross little frown as though there had been in the incident some insult to herself. Felix, unable to understand her annoyance, felt her remote now, a disturbing and frightening person. Her behaviour was to him different from the behaviour of anyone he had known before; this greatly increased her attraction for him.

Mrs Ellis was the first to speak. After the last course, she turned her chair to be nearer the fire and suddenly smiled at Felix: ‘Look who’s here,’ she said and Felix saw that Faro was curled on her lap. At that moment Miss Bohun, as she often did, threw off her depression and said loudly and cheerfully: ‘How nice! How nice! To-night we really are a happy family. What a pity I have to dash away again. And Faro, too . . .’ she put out her dry, yellow hand and gave Faro a touch: ‘How thick their fur is!’ she said.

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