A Misalliance by Anita Brookner

Author:Anita Brookner [Brookner, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82634-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

‘So when she said she was going to Cornwall with her sister, I made no demur.’ Miss Elphinstone spoke from the doorway of the drawing-room, duster in one hand, silver candlestick in another. ‘Well, I wasn’t going to argue with her. I just gave her to understand that I couldn’t comment. What I can’t appreciate, I ignore.’

Blanche listened half-heartedly, although apparently giving Miss Elphinstone her full attention. Now if ever was the time to summon up her famous resources. The summer was advancing, revealing its empty side to those who stayed at home. Each morning the sun, blanketed in white mist, rose over the garden and hovered uncertainly for the rest of the day, before blazing with sudden intensity at about five o’clock, encouraging thoughts of settled weather. But the weather remained unsettled, with unusually high rainfall, which Blanche heard crepitating on the leaves of the garden in the early dawn. She rose in a daze of tiredness, her mind empty of thought, to face a day whose demands seemed to increase rather than to disappear with habit. Postcards arrived from absent friends. Barbara and Jack, about to depart for their cottage, telephoned with instructions about feeding the cats while they were away. Blanche imagined Bertie in Greece.

‘And what will you do with yourself while I’m away, Blanche?’ enquired Miss Elphinstone. ‘Mark you, I’ll only be gone the week. Just give you time to miss me, won’t I?’ And she flashed Blanche a smile of great kindness before turning away to pack her leather hold-all, her rubber gloves carefully folded around her holiday money, and a freshly baked cherry cake, Blanche’s going away present, poised delicately on the top.

This would be a tedious day. Blanche supposed that she should telephone Sally but found herself curiously unwilling to do so. This little adventure had run its course, and perhaps Patrick was the one who could best steer it to some sort of conclusion. She felt a passing sadness at her own inadequacy but retained enough common sense to know that in this particular situation the complications would simply proliferate. It seemed to her that no one in Sally’s entourage had the brutality to engage her fully in the problems of the present. In any event, the focus of attention must now not be Sally but her mysterious husband, whom Blanche had no desire to meet. I really only wanted to know Elinor, she thought; her parents were necessary footnotes, whilst Elinor was the main concern. And now I don’t suppose that I shall see her again. Out of her pervading sorrow, she thought with sadness of the child.

It was in the early afternoon, when Miss Elphinstone had left, and a silence had fallen on the house, and on the street outside, that the telephone rang. ‘Why, hello, Blanche,’ said Sally warmly. ‘How are you?’ Blanche murmured that she was well. ‘Nellie and I were wondering if you could come to tea today. Nellie’s longing to see you,’ said Sally. There was

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