The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen

Author:Elizabeth Bowen [Bowen, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction - General, Classic fiction
ISBN: 9780140183016
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 2002-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

"WE MUST be running late," the passengers had been saying from time to time, uncertainly glancing at one another as though the feeling of lateness might be subjective, then at the blinded windows of the carriage. "Whereabouts would we be now?--how far are we along?" Now and then somebody in a corner prised at a blind's edge, put an eye to the crack--but it was useless; Midland canals and hedges were long gone from view; not a hill or tower showed through the drape of night; every main-line landmark was blotted out. Only a loud catastrophic roar told them, even, when they were in a tunnel. But by now speed had begun to slacken; from the sound of the train, more and more often constricted deep in cuttings between and under walls, they _must__ be entering London: no other city's built-up density could be so strongly felt. Now, with what felt like the timidity of an intruder, the train crept, jarred nervily, came to halts with steam up--allowing traffic over the metal bridges and shunting on wastes of lines to be heard. Passengers who had not yet reached down their bags from the racks now shot up and did so: Stella was among them. The fatigue of the long day's journey had, while it numbed her body into a trance, reduced her mind to one single thought: she was fixed upon what she meant to say. Her hope that Robert would come to meet her had become the hope that she might speak soon. Euston. All the way down the train doors burst open while the inky ribbon of platform still slipped by. Nobody could wait for the train to stop; everybody was hurling themselves on London as though they, too, must act upon some inhuman resolution before it died down. She, now it came to the point, was to be the last to leave the carriage; she stopped to stare at herself, as though for the last time, in the mirror panel over the seat. Picking up her suitcase, stepping out on to the platform, she looked from left to right, then began to walk along the flank of the train. The few blued lights of the station just showed the vaultings up into gloom; toppling trolleys cut through the people heaving, thrusting, tripping, peering. Recognition of anybody by anybody else seemed hopeless--those hoping to be met, hoping to be claimed, thrust hats back and turned up faces drowningly. Arrival of shades in Hades, the new dead scanned dubiously by the older, she thought that she could have thought; but she felt nothing--till her heart missed a beat, her being filled like an empty lock: with a shock of love she saw Robert's tall turning head. The whole return of sensation made her suitcase, of whose heaviness she had been unconscious, tear suddenly at her arm-muscles: she put it down.--"_Robert__!" This was to be like Donovan trying to make the victory news heard. Robert, still stock still, posted

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