Angel by Elizabeth Taylor

Author:Elizabeth Taylor [Taylor, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780670125012
Publisher: Viking Adult
Published: 1957-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Nora and Esmé were reunited without enthusiasm on either side. She felt secure in Angel’s protection: at least while she was there there could not be talk of Italy, therefore no mention would be made of his desertion, of money owing or jewellery sold. Forewarned as she had been by Angel, Nora could only be terse and sarcastic in a general way. “Is it really Esmé? I had quite forgotten what you looked like. And we are none of us any younger, I suppose.”

He glanced at her and agreed. He almost dared to say that her greying moustache gave her a military, a more distinguished air: his private smile at the thought he had withheld ruffled her as much.

“In all these years, I daresay nobody mended your clothes,” she added. As Angel moved uneasily as if about to interrupt, Nora said: “If you give me that jacket and Miss Deverell will excuse your shirt-sleeves, I will mend the pocket here and now.”

She hoped that she humiliated him by making him hand it over and display a crumpled shirt, stained in the armpits; then she hurried from the room, leaving him, she felt sure, to Angel’s disdain.

But Angel was capable only of tenderness, which, far more than admiration and worship, can withstand a great deal: it can absorb disillusion and the day-by-day revelation of frailty, without becoming poisoned or attenuated. He sensed that he had begun well with her. At a time of exhaustion in him, she had appeared prophetically. He had so often taken the initiative in life, without the reserves to back up his actions; he was always withdrawing from absurd forays he should never have set out on. The emotions he had inspired in other people were not peaceful ones, adoration turned into contempt, desire to jealous anger. His life had been hindered by his beauty and the adventures it had permitted him. The adventures had all been expensive of money and of fortitude, and were beginning to be expensive of the beauty itself. Waking sometimes at the ebbing, hopeless time of dawn, he felt afraid of what he was doing with his life and where the life was leading him—my one life, he would think. He would shoulder dread away, turn over and wait for sleep. When the light was strong and the day really there at last, he felt his gay and careless self again. But since coming back to London, he had begun to suffer the moods of dejection during the day as well. In the late afternoons, the horror would swing over him, wherever he was, as long as he was alone. He would long for distraction. On the afternoon of Angel’s visit, he had gone eagerly to the window when he heard the children come shouting down the street; it might be something to watch, a thief on the run, a procession, a dog-fight. Angel, looking up and seeing him at the window, could not know how well she had timed her call.

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