Encounters Stories-Elizabeth Bowen

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1:04But hurry, these deals won't last long. Toyota's easy choice sales event ends soon. We make it easy. Toyota, let's go places. Section 1 of Encounters, Stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libriVox.org, read by Cristiana Popesco. Encounters, Stories by Elizabeth Bowen, Breakfast. Behold, I died daily. Thought Mr. Rossett are entering the breakfast room. He saw the family in silhouette against the windows. The windows looked out into a garden close to darkly in upon by walls. There are so many of the families, since as though they must have multiplied during the night.

2:05Their flesh glimmed pinkly in the cold, north and light, and they were always moving. Often like the weary shepherd, he could have prayed them to keep still that he might count them. They turned at his entrance, profiles, and three quarter-faces towards him. There was a silence of suspended munching, and little budgets of food were thrust into their cheeks that they might wish him for functuary good mornings. Miss Emily further inquired whether he had slept well with a little bit of a vatious up till to the chin. Her voice was muffled. He gathered that the contents of her mouth was bacon, because she was engaged in soping up the liquid fat from her plate with little dyes of bread, which she pushed round briskly of the circular movement of a fork. It was not worth sitting down till she had finished, because she would be expected to take her plate away. Why was the only empty chair always beside Miss Emily?

3:07Last night, in the lamp light, he had almost begun to think he liked Miss Emily. She was the only lady present who had not beaten time with hand, or foot, or jerking head while they played to read a song on the gramophone. But here, pressed in upon her by the thick fumes of coffee and bacon, the doggie smelling carpet, the tight glazed noses of the family, ready to split loudly from their skins. There was contamination in the very warm edge of her plate, as she took it from her with the vetted head and clattered it down among the others on the sideboard. Bacon, Inc. Mrs. Russell. A little chilly, I'm afraid. I do hope this plenty, but we early birds are sometimes inclined to be rather ravenous. She added, there's an egg, but there was no invitation in her tone. She could never leave a phrase unmodified. He could have answered with the facetious emphasis

4:12that he was almost inclined to believe he would rather have enjoyed that egg. Dumbly, he took two rashes of the moistened, mottled bacon. And then, Hillary Bevel was recounting, it all changed and we were moving very quickly through a kind of pinkish mist, running it felt like only all my legs and arms were somewhere else. That was the time when you came into a tent, Willoughby. You were winding up your sewing machine like a motor car, kneeling down in sort of a bunching bathing dress. She had had an delicacy, reaching out for the marmalade, with a little agitated rustle, break up the silence with which her night's amazing experiences had been received. Miss Emily, always kindly, titted into her cup. She kicked the leg of Rosetta's chair then apologized, and he watched her thin, sharp shoulders shining through her blouse.

5:13Mrs. Russell's eye traveled slowly around the table. There's load and seas the rotatory mastication of her jaws. Above her hand was the square of white lights reflected across from the window to the other mantle. He wished that the sheen of the tablecloth were snow and that he could heep it over his head as the eye came round towards him. Now for it. He braced himself, clenching his hands upon his knife and fork, and squaring his elbows still one touched Miss Emily, who quivered. I'm afraid you couldn't hardly have heard the gong this morning, Mr. Rosetta. That new girl doesn't hardly know how to make it sound yet. She seems to me just to give it the sort of a rattle. Damn her impudence, she censored him for being late. Oh, I, um, I heard it, thank you. They had all stopped talking and ate quite quietly to hear him speak.

6:17Only Jov is beveled, drained his coffee cup with a gallpin gurgle. The fact is, I was, um, looking for my collar stud. Oh yes, I'm afraid you've sometimes been a little reckless about buying new ones before you were quite sure you'd lost the others, haven't you, Mr. Rosetta? Only fancy. She looked wrong to collect the attention of the breakfasters. There was a sensation to follow. Any found three good ones, really good ones, under the wardrobe when she was turning out your room. I can't think how they get there. He protested conscious of humanity. Perhaps they took little legs onto themselves and walked, suggested Hillary bevel. Perhaps the wardrobe got top in the night and set on top of them. Bet at Miss Emily. There was a rossel of laughter and she cast down her eyes with a de-precatory

7:18titter. The remark was a success. It was really funny. It was received by Mrs. Rossel with a warm benignity. Really, Emily, you do say silly things. She laughed her gentle, breathy laugh, gazing at Mr. Rosetta who rigged. I say, um, bevel, when you finished with that newspaper, Joseph's bevel looked insolently at him over the top of the paper. Sorry, I've only just begun. I left it lying on your plate sometime. That I didn't think you'd have much time to read it being rather rushed. Rosetta hated bevel with his leak head. He was not aware that he was rushed. What business had bevel got to tell him so? Well, when you have finished, Hillary bevel was staring at him across the table as though she had never seen him before. She had eyebrows like her brothers, owls eyebrows, and long-lidded

8:24slanting eyes, and affected the childish directness and ingeniousness of speech, which she considered attractive. The scarlet, loose-lipped mouth curled itself from her utterances, making them doubly distinct. Mr. Rosetta's got another tie on. A crimson tie, said Hillary bevel. Rosetta was instantly aware not only of his tie, but of his whole body visible above the table edge. He fell his hear as protruding fan-wise from his head, held them redden, and the blush burned slowly across his cheekbones, down his freaking skin to the tip of his nose. Mrs. Russell's attention was temporarily directed from himself by his curmish with Aunt Willoughby. The click of swerves was audible to all. Oh, but you wouldn't, Aunt Willoughby. Not when they've got five or six rooms to settle up every day, you wouldn't. You see with you, when poor uncle was alive, it was a different thing altogether.

9:27What I mean to say is, in proportion to the size of the family, had more of them, I mean, a kind of way. It was a larger stuff. Ah, then, Rosie. But what I always used to say, you do what I expect a few, and we won't expect any more than that. I'm reasonable. I used to say I won't expect any more than that. And he could tell you that was I used to say to her. As my dear husband used to say, and Willoughby raised her voice in dissipating an interruption, there are those that can get good work out of their servants and those that can't. We mustn't be set up about it. It's just a gift, like other gifts that many haven't got. I've had such a happy, happy home. She sighed towards the attentive Miss Emily. Always so comfortable it was.

10:29Any is a funny girl, reflected Mrs. Russell. She said to me, of course, I never take the things those girls say seriously. I wouldn't go back to Mrs. Willoughby, not for anything you might give me. I wouldn't. I said, but she spoke so well if you any, and she just whacked her head at me sort of. She is a funny girl. Of course, I didn't know her to tell you, but it made me laugh at the time. It did, really. I came down in her rather hard, admitted and Willoughby swiftly. I was so particular you see, and she had some dirty ways. Now I shouldn't wonder, when was it you lost those colour-starts, Mr. Rosseter? I don't exactly remember, said Rosseter, basically. He felt Mrs. Russell's approval worm upon him, but was sorry to have failed, and Willoughby, who disconcerted, relapsed until he relevancy.

11:32Miss Emily heart-backed. Oh, Hillary, you are awful. Why shouldn't he? Well, I didn't say he shouldn't. I simply said it was one. There'll be jealous of you at the office one day, Mr. Rosseter. Mr. Rosseter, I, and her contemplatively, suppose that Miss Bevel was a merry girl. It may mean an occasion for Mr. Rosseter, said Mrs. Russell from her old MPI behind the urn. You shouldn't draw attention to it, girls. But the light glanced on Hillary's suave and burnished hair as she turned her head towards Aunt Willoughby. Nobody takes any notice of little me when I go guarding, do the ante. Why it's all around the table in a minute if I come down with half an inch of new coloured cammy ribbons sticking out, above my jumper? I wouldn't put it in at all if you didn't think it was going to notice.

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13:35With a big mac or 10 piece McNuggets, fries and a medium coke all for just $9. Limited time only promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Remark her brother without raising his eyes from the daily express. I wouldn't put on anything at all if I was quite invisible if that's what you mean. Miss Emily glanced apprehensively at the unshaken barricade of newspaper. Oh, Hillary, you are off. Jervis had apparently not heard. Hillary said Mrs. Russell, I'm afraid you are shocking Mr. Rossita. She lingered on the name as though he was something delicious to eat. I believe, thought Rossita, they all want to marry me. Is this inside or dolly-a-m? Perhaps not, and will it be, but... He appraised Jervis from the edge of the newspaper. Surely he was showier or attractive.

14:37Why couldn't he divert some of their attentions? Take on say, Miss Emily and Mrs. Russell. Mrs. Russell was old enough to be the mother of either of them. A hand shot out suddenly from behind the urn. Rossita jumped. Had your second cup of coffee yet? Mrs. Russell was saying, you look quite poetic, Mr. Rossita. She was referring to his abstract glare. Aren't you going to pass along the cup? Thank you. Half a cup if you please. There's no hurry. She glanced over her shoulder at the round relentless clock base on the mantle. You see, you eat rather faster than the others, Mr. Rossita, though they have had a bit of a start this morning. Did he really bolt his foot and make perhaps disgusting noises with his mouth? That's why I always say, with rather breakfast early. All of us, even the ones who haven't necessarily got to rush,

15:41had so much home-ier, one feels, than a rough and tumble, modern breakfast nowadays. Everybody sort of rushing in and scrambling and snatching and making grabs at things of a table at the side. There's nothing so homely, said Mrs. Russell with conscious brilliance, as a comfortable sit-down family to breakfast. My God said, service irritably. There's going to be another strike on that damn railway. They're cutting down the trains again. Why pretend railways are a convenience? That's what I should like to know. No one could tell him. He pushes chair back from the table impatiently and across his legs. Poor off thing, then, drilled Hillary. Didams wasmscores. They're not taking off the 847, are they? Not the 847. They are. That means either the 827 or the 853. The 853.

16:50The 827. They decided unanimously. Then they'll just have to mean breakfast earlier, said Mrs. Russell brightly. You won't mind, will you girls? Her appeal included and will be, who made no response. You see, we couldn't hardly rush them over their breakfast, could we? This was home comforts. This is one of the privileges for which Rosita paid her 24-sheelings a week. Being set round and wide while you were eating. Not being rushed. He had a vision of rushed breakfast, a whirling endlessly through space while one snapped to the sausage with little fervent bites of munching bread and marmalade with the wind of one's velocity was slinked through one's teeth. Would it be better? Could it be worse? Not worse than his chair-edge creaking against Miss Emily's, the unseasing consciousness of her

17:52unseasing consciousness of him. Not worse than Hillary Bevel vis-a-vis with her complete and prettiness, her tinkling, labored wittices. Not worse than Aunt Woolebe's, Bevel the bearded morosity, then Jervis Bevel's sleet de-stain. He would escape from Mrs. Russell, her advances, her criticisms, her fumbling arguments that crushed you down beneath their heavy gentleness, until you felt you were being trampled death by a cow. By a blind cow that fumbled its way backwards and forwards across you. The girls deliver their ultimatum in chorus. England expects, declined Hillary, turning her eyes towards the ceiling. Every woman to do her duty. It's nice to be down early, said Miss Emily earnestly. With a nice long day stretching out

18:53in front of me. Breakfast will be at a quarter to eight sharp, said Mrs. Russell. Mr. Rossiter, we really must try not to lose our color studs. All his days and nights were loops, curving out from breakfast time, curving back to it again. Inexorably, the loops grew smaller. The breakfast longer, looming more and more over his nights. Toyota's easy choice sales event is on. Whether you're looking for the performance of the the versatility of her app for, the efficiency of a Corolla or all electric driving in the BZ. There's a Toyota that's just right for you. And with great deals across the lineup,

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20:54employee. And right now there's a limited time offer just for podcast listeners that makes it even easier to get started. Go to highpebble.ai before it's gone. That's highpebl.ai, terms and conditions apply. Eating more and more out of his days. Jeff is Bebble's size swerved over to the mantelpiece. He put his chair back further over the bristling carpet pile. Well, he said, I think it's almost time. The room broke up. The table grew smaller again as they all rose from their chairs. Mrs. Russell and Nant will be gathered themselves together. Hillary seized Miss Emily by the back of the waist and punted her laughingly towards the door. The coffee and the bacon and the hostility and the Christian forbearance blew out before them into the chili hole. End of section one.

21:56Section two of encounters, stories. This is a Libra Vax recording. All Libra Vax recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. This recording is by Michelle Fry, Matt and Rouge, Louisiana, in August 2022. Encounters, stories by Elizabeth Bowen. Defadils. Miss Merchison stopped at the corner of the high street to buy a bunch of defadils from the flower man. She counted out her money very carefully, pouring a little stream of coppers from her purse into the palm of her hand. Nine pints, ten, eleven pints, say penny, a shilling. Thank you very much, good afternoon. August of wind rushed up the street whirling her skirts up round her, like a ballet dancers, and rustling the rickets blue paper round the defadils. The slender gold trumpets tapped into

23:03quivered against her face, as she held them up with one hand and pressed her skirts down hastily with the other. She felt as though she had been enticed into a harlequinade by a company of Columbines who were quivering with laughter at her discomforture, and looked around to see if anyone had witnessed her display of checkered moirette, petty coat, and the inches of black stocking above her boots. But the world remained unembarassed. Today the houses seemed taller and farther apart, the street wider and full of a bright clear light that cast no shadows and was never sunshine. Under archways and between the houses the distances had a curious transparency as though they had been painted upon glass. Against the luminous and indeterminate sky the abbey tower rose distinct and delicate. Miss Merchison, forgetting all confusion, was conscious of her wings. She paused again to

24:04hitch up the bundle of exercise books slithering down beneath her elbow, then took the dipping road as a bird swings down into the air. Her mouth was faintly acrid with spring dust and the scent of defadils was in her nostrils. As she left the high street further behind her the traffic sounded as a faint and murmurous hum, striking here and there a tinkling note like wind bells. Under her detachment she was conscious of the houses, the houses, and the houses. They were square, flat faced and plaster-fronted, painted creams and grays and buffs, one a purple-ish rose-color. Venetian shutters, flat against the wall, broadened the line of the windows. They were colored fan-lights over all the doors, spiked railings before them shut off their little square gardens of grass or gravel from the road, and between the railings branches swung out to brush against her dress, and recall her to the wonder of their budding

25:06loveliness. Miss Merchison remembered that her mother would be out for tea and quickened her steps in anticipation of that delightful solitude. The silver birch tree that distinguished their front gardens slanted beckoningly to her across the pavement. She hesitated as her gate swung open and stood looking up and down the road. She was sorry to go in, but could not resist the invitation of the empty house. She wondered if tomorrow would fill her with so strange a stirring as today. Soon, in a few months, it would be summer, and there would be nothing more to come. Summer would be beautiful, but this spring made promise of a greater beauty than summer could fulfill. Hinted out a mystery which other summers had evaded rather than explained. She went slowly up the steps, fumbling for her latch-key. The day's dinner still hung dank and heavy in the air of the little hall. She stood in the doorway with that square of light

26:08and sound behind her, craving the protection and the comfort with which that dark entrance had so often received her. There was a sudden desolation in the emptiness of the house. Quickly, she entered the sitting room and flung open the window, which set the muslim curtain swaying in the breeze and clanked the little pictures on the walls. The window, in razor, was so deep that there was little light in the corners of the room. Arm chairs and cabinets were looking in the dusk. The square of daylight by the window was blocked by a bamboo table, groaning under an array of photographs. In her sweeping mood, she deposed the photographs, thrust the table to one side and pulled her chair up into the window. I can't correct my essays in the dark. She asserted, though she had done so every evening of the year. How tight laced you are, poor column-bonds. She said, throwing away the paper, seeing how the base cut deep into the fleshy stems. You were brave above it all, but there now.

27:14She cut the base and shook the flowers out into a vase. I can't correct, she sighed. With you all watching me, you are so terribly flippant. But what a curious coincidence. She had set her class to write an essay upon Devedils. You shall judge. I'll read them all out loud. They will amuse you. She dipped her pen in the red ink pot with an anticipatory titter. With the creek of wheels, a young woman went by slowly, wheeling a parambulator. She lent heavily on the handlebar, tilting the parambulator on its two back wheels, and staring up wide-mouthed at the windows. How nice to be so much interested, thought Miss Margison pressing open the first exercise book, but I'm sure it can't be a good thing for the baby. The essay is lacked originality. Each paragraph settled up self-consciously to openings for a suitable quotation to rush each one through with a guessp of triumph. And then my heart with pleasure

28:18fills and dances with the Devedils. Fair Devedils we weep to see you fade away so soon. She wondered if any of her class could weep for the departure of a Devedil. Mostly they had disclaimed responsibility for such weakness by the stern prefix, as the poet says. Flora Hopwood had, she remembered, introduced a quotation dictionary which must have been the round of her circle. I must forbid it. Why can't they see things for themselves? Think them out. I don't believe they ever really see anything, just accept things on the authority of other people. I could make them believe anything. What a responsibility teaching is. But is it? They believe me, but they wouldn't care. It wouldn't matter, really. They're so horribly used to things. Nothing ever comes new to them that they haven't grown up with. They get their very feelings out of

29:19books. Nothing ever surprises or impresses them. When spring comes, they get preoccupied, stare dreamily out of the windows. They're thinking out of their new hats. Oh, if only I didn't know them quite so well, or knew them a little better. If I had a school of my own, she meditated, writing her eyes down the pages and mechanically underlining spelling mistakes. I would make them think. I'd horrify them if nothing better. But here, however, can one teaching at a high school. Miss Peterson would... They do like me. At least one set does, I know. I'm rather occult. They appreciate my Tishin hair. They'd like me more, though, if I knew how to do it better, and knew better how to use my eyes. Their sentimentality embarrasses me. In a way, they're so horribly mature, I feel at a disadvantage with them. If only they'd be a little more spontaneous. But spontaneity is beyond

30:21them at present. They're simply calves, after all. Rather sophisticated calves. She dreamed, and was awakened by familiar laughter. Nobody's laughter, in particular, but surely it was the laughter of the high school. Three girls were passing with arms close linked, along the pavement underneath her window. She looked down on the expressive tilted ovals of their sailor hats, then on an impulse smacked the window sill to attract their attention. Instantly, they turned up three pink faces of surprise, which broadened into smiles of recognition. Hello, Miss Richardson! Hello, children! Come in for a minute and talk to me. I'm all alone. Millicent, Rosemary, and Edores hesitated. I ain't one another. Poised for flight. Righto, they agreed unanimously. Miss Margisen, all of a flutter, went round to open the front door. She looked back at the sitting-room as though she had never seen it before. Why had she

31:24asked them in? Those terrible girls whom she had scarcely spoken to. They would laugh at her. They would tell the others. The room was full of them, of their curiosity and embarrassment, and furtive laughter. She had never realized what large girls they were, how plump and well developed. She felt them eyeing her stack of outraged relatives. The photograph she swept off, fun to a chair. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Lori Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering something new every day.

32:28Start with today's special value. Then explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love, from beauty and fashion, to home, culinary, and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com. Have you heard that McDonald's spicy chicken McNuggets made with spicy tempura and a blend of aged cayenne are back? Remember to grab a few extra napkins. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba for a minute time and put spin McDonald's. Their eyes flitted from the photographs to the defadils, from the defadils to the open red-scored exercise books. Yes, she said, your writings, I dare say, do you recognize them? I was correcting defadils, and they made me dreary, so down, won't you? Dreary, I wonder if any of you have even used your senses. Smelt or seen things. Oh, do sit down.

33:29She seemed to be shouting into a forest of thick bodies. They seated themselves along the edge of an ottoman, in a bewildered row, this travestied their position in the classroom, and made her feel facing them terribly official and instructive. She tried to shake this off. It's cruel, isn't it, to lie in wait for you like this, and pull you in, and lecture you about what you don't feel about defadils? Her nervous laughter tinkled out into silence. It was a beastly subject, said someone heavily. Beastly! Oh, mill, rose, Mary, have you never seen a defadil? They giggled. No, but looked at one? Her earnestness swept aside her embarrassment. Not just heard about them. Oh, yes, defadils, yellow flowers, spring, mothers' vases, bulbs, borders, flashing past flower shop windows, but taken one

34:31up in your hands and felt it? How she was her ranging them. It's very difficult to be clever about things one's used to, said Millicent. That's why history essays are so much easier. You tell us about things, and we just write them down. That's why you're so lazy. You're using my brains, just giving me back what I gave to you. A little bit the worst for the where. They looked hurt and uncomfortable. Doris got up and walked over to the fireplace. Good, thought Miss Merchison. It will relieve the tension a bit if they will only begin to prowl. What a pretty photograph, Miss Merchison. Who is it? Not you. Me, said Miss Merchison with amusement. Yes, why not? Does it surprise you then? You got such a dinky hat on, cried the girl with naive astonishment. The others crowded around her. You look so different, said Doris, still scrutinizing

35:36the photograph. Offly happy and prosperous and cuck sure. Perhaps it was the hat, suggested Millicent. Oh Millicent, no, I'm sure Miss Merchison was thinking about something nice. Or somebody? Oh, Doris, you are awful. They all giggled and glanced apprehensively across at her. She wondered why she was not more offended by them. As a matter of fact, she enlightened them, that was because of Daffodils. It just illustrates my point curiously enough. They were still absorbed. Oh, Miss Merchison. Miss Merchison, when was it taken? Last Easter holidays, nearly a year ago, at Seabrook, by a friend of mine. Do give me one and me. I'm afraid that's the only print I've got, and that's smothers. Were there more? Yes, various people took them. You see, I haven't faced a real camera for years,

36:39so when I got these snaps, they were scrambled for by people who'd been asking me for photos. People? She was rising visibly in their estimation. Oh, yes, friends. Why Daffodils? Reverded Rose Mary. Somebody had just given me a great big bunch. She was impressed by their interest. I wonder if Daffodils will ever make any of you look like that. It all depends. You see, said Melison astutely. Nobody has ever given us any. If they did, perhaps. Really, said Miss Merchison, with innocent concern, take all those if they would really inspire you. No, dears, I'd like you to. She gathered the Daffodils together and lifted them dripping from the vase. The girls retreated. Oh, no, really, no, not your Daffodils. We don't mean not your Daffodils, Miss Merchison. It wasn't that a bit. Evidently, a false move on her part. She was bewildered by them. Could not fathom the depths of their cinema-bred romanticism.

37:44Dora said put away the photograph and stood with her back to the others, fingering the ornaments on the chimney-piece. There are lots of things, she said rapidly, that you only feel because of people. That's the only reason things are there for I think. You wouldn't notice them otherwise, or care about them. It's only sort of, she stopped her ears glowed crimson underneath her hat. Association, they side-pronestly. That's exactly what's the matter, cried Miss Merchison. We've got all the nice, fresh, independent, outside things, so smeared over with our sentimentalities and prejudices and associations that we can't see them anyhow, but as part of ourselves. That's how you're we're missing things and spoiling things for ourselves. You, we don't seem able to discover. Live said Dora's intentionally is a very big adventure. Of course, we all see that. The other two looked at her quickly. All three became suddenly hostile.

38:50She was encouraging them to outrage the decencies of conversation. It was bad form, this flakery and discussion of subjects only for their most secret and fervent whisperings. To her, they were still unaccountable. She had not wished to probe. I don't think that's what I meant. She said a little flatly. Of course, your lives will be full of interesting things and those will be your own affairs. Only if I could be able, I'm always trying to make you care about the little fine things you might pass over that have such big roots underground. I should like you to be as happy as I've been and as I'm going to be, she said imposively. I should love to watch you after you've left my form going up and up the school and getting bigger and then when you've left going straight and clearly to the essential things. The castle of the blind court tapped against the windowsill through the rustling curtains they looked out onto the road. They had awaited an disclosure

39:51intimate and personal. The donor of those last used affidels had taken form portentious in their minds, but she had told them nothing, given them the stone of her abstract, co-losside dealism while they sat there, open mouth for sentimental bread. Once she stayed to tea, she asked, oh, do we'll picnic? Boyle the kettle on the gas ring and eat sticky buns. I've got a bag of sticky buns. We'll have a party in honor of the daffodils. The prospect allured her. It would be a fantastic interlude. They all got up. Doris and Bilsen, they're coming to tea with me, Miss Margisyn. Mother's expecting us, thanks most awfully. Else we should have loved to. We should have loved to echo the others, thanks most awfully. She fell to poignant disappointment and relief. As standing with her eyes on the daffodils, she heard the children clattering down the steps. Tomorrow they will be again impersonal,

40:55three pink moons in a firmament of faces. The three released, I'd one another with a common understanding. Miss Margisyn has never really lived, said Doris. They lay storms again and sunted down the road. End of section 2, daffodils. Section 3 of Encounters, stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Yoganan. Encounters, stories by Elizabeth Bowen. The return. Mr and Mrs. Tottenham had come home. The noise, brown gravel of the drive and sweet bore in press of their fly wheels. Lydia Broadbent listened from the doorstep to the

41:59receiving gritty rumble of the empty fly and the click and rattle as the gate swung to. Behind her, in the dusky hole, Mr. Tottenham shouted directions for the disposed of the luggage. Flustered servants pumped against each other and re-coiled and pull off the gardener, shouldered the heavy trunks with caster and lurches, clutching at the banisters until they creaked. Lydia heard Mrs. Tottenham burst to open the drawing room door and crossed threshold with a little customary ponds. As though she hoped to catch somebody on her wets. She pictured her looking recently round her and knew that presently she would hear a tweaking at a curtains. During her six weeks of solitude, the house had grown very human to Lydia. She felt now as if it were drawing itself together into a nervous rigger as a man draws himself together and suffering irritation at the entrance of a fussy wife. Well these all the letters Lydia, I hope none may fall to wickly, pull off, to be careful of the paint. The fly was very stuffy Lydia, I wish you had ordered one

43:03of Bickelspeals. His are always clean. Mrs. Tottenham, had dotted out of the drawing room, swept up her letters from the table and stood hesitating at the bottom of the stairs. You might order three immediately. Yes, the drawing room for today. A wetshimmer of firelight invited them through the open door. Her butt, her butt, Mr. Tottenham was flattering the smoking room. His face peered crossly at them round the door. I wondered if you had gone upstairs. Holok had been very careless of the paint. You might have watched in Lydia. She vanished slowly into the gloom above. Lydia went into the drawing room and stood warming her hands before the fire. As servant with a light taper passed from gas bracket to gas bracket and the greenish lights sprang up bird in a wick. Outside the brown gloom deepened over the normal garden. The young distorted trees loomed dark and sullen. The air was thick with Moisha, heavy with decay. Today there had been no time to think. Lydia was aware but dimly of a sense of

44:08desolation and of loss. Something was shattered that had built itself around her during these coherent weeks, something violated which had been sacred on her wets. Every fiber of a quiver with hostility to these invaders were the owners of the house. She was at odds with herself again, at odds with her surroundings. She stared at a gaunt reflection in the fireplace and knew that her best companion had drawn back again forbiting her. She would be barefooted once again by the hostility of Lydia brought bent, her derision, her unsparing scorn. I was such friends with myself and they left us together. We were so harmonious and at ease with each other, me and myself and the house. Now we are afraid and angry with each other again. Mistress Mrs. Tottenham was very impossible. They were childless, humiless and dyspeptic. They were not even funny. There was nothing bizarre about them or tragic or violent or farcical. They neither loved nor hated each other. There was nothing they did not know about each other.

45:10No mystery or fear between them. In the early days of the marriage, they had been actively and articulately unhappy. She had had a lover. He had left her for months together and lived in some drug picketness elsewhere. Then her lover had deserted her. He had been left no money. They had drifted together again, bought the laurels, spun their shams and visories around them like a web and lurked within them. They visited were reputable and entertained and kept a home for Mr. Tottenham's review. They were expectant hair. Lydia, the thin voice fluted over the banisters. Lydia hurried up stairs, flicked her to the panel of Mrs. Tottenham's door and entered, her footsteps muffled among the willingness of many rocks. There was a blot of yellow light from a candle on the writing table. Mrs. Tottenham stood beside the bed, staring at two sheets of close written paper and an envelope which she held out fan-wise between rigid fingers as one holding a hand at cards. Did Asma has been taken his mail yet? Did he overlook the letters?

46:14I think Mr. Tottenham's post is still lying on the whole table. Is there anything you want to show him? They are all their correspondence and common. It was quite impersonal. No no Lydia, shut the door please. Is T. up? It is drafty. I should have liked a fire. You might get the things out of my dressing-back. There, it's over on the sofa. This constant attendance was to begin again. Lydia was well-schooled to it. Why, Hatchie, forgotten? She unpacked the combs and brushes and Mrs. Tottenham fidgeted before the class. Light the gas please, I hate this half-light. There was resentment and at glance towards the window where the last daylight leaked infinitely through draperies of parchment-colored lace. Why, was Mrs. Tottenham so agitated, tugging her hat off and patting at a crimped and faded hair? She bent to a level with the mirror, haggard-eyed and grinning with anxiety. She searched for bleached and baggy face to find what prettiness was there. Lydia watched her with apathetic curiosity. From where on an east beside the

47:17sofa, she unwrapped the shoes and bottles from the little hole in bags. Have you seen the photo? Ask Mrs. Tottenham suddenly, of me when I was 25, on the shiffer nail, the plush-framed one. He must know it. Lydia sent it. It's a good one, isn't it? Do you think it's like me? Now I mean quite a likeness, really considering, considering how sharp a voice was. Oh, change of fashion make a difference, doesn't it? And well, time of course. Of course, I knew it wasn't taken yesterday, Lydia. I don't need telling, but I'm a lot younger than Mr. Tottenham to look at. There was a gentleman at Hydro took us for father and daughter. Really, it did. Her voice was by turns parametry, confidential, almost appealing. It died out into silence. The room was restyverned, oh, you unhappy house, got Lydia. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

48:21It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Loric Ellor, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering something new every day. Start with today's special value. Then explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love, from beauty and fashion, to home, culinary, and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com.

49:32They have broken into her silence and given you nothing in return. Tea will be ready, I think, she reminded. Mrs. Tottenham turned sharply from the glass, and Lydia saw with amazement that she had reddened her lips. They shone with sticky brightness in a shallow face. Mrs. Tottenham was conscious of her glance. Shows rather than her, she queried definitively and rubbed her mouth with a back of hand till the red was smeared out over her cheeks. One looks so washy after a journey. Just a touch of colour. One wouldn't notice it hardly if it wasn't for the glare. Her muttered extenuations were not addressed to Lydia. They heard the tea tray rattling through the hole. Lydia turned the light out and they prepared to descend. Mrs. Tottenham poured her in the twilight. You needn't mention to Miss. Tottenham I opened any of my letters. I'll be showing you in the rest. This one is rather particular from a friend of mine it was. Nupield still queried on her husky tones which her paid companion had never heard

50:34before. From the drawing room, they saw Mr. Tottenham's cutting across the grass drawn tea words by the lighted window. There was something quick and fervent about him. Lydia had never been able to determine whether it dodged and darted as per sewer a pursued, a wretched evening, a wretched, he chatted his way across a crowded room. Been talking to Polock, gardens in an awful way, shrubberies like a jungle. He resailed the apples. He darted the inquiry at Lydia, turning a set sharply towards her with his eyes aborted as though he could not bear to look at her. At first she had imagined that her appearance repulsed in. She knew herself for a plain woman, but now she had learnt that he never looked at anybody if he could avoid it. Oh, he sold them well I believe. I thought he wrote about them. Oh yes, yes, sharp man Polock. They keep been running round for his things. Not often. He says he wants letters forward to Elham till further notice. The reference to Elham

51:35tickled the keys uncle. He put his cup down, giggled, mopped his mouth and darted a sight glance at his wife. Mrs. Totemham was not listening. She sat very stiff and upright, staring straight before her crumbling at a quake. Hey Molly, Dickie is going to Elham. Did you hear that? Oh, Dickie is going to Elham again. Never wrote and told me, never told me anything. The young dog, the silence was once more outtraced by his falsetto of giggles. He held his cup out for Lydia to refill and she watched with fascination the convulsive movements as throat made while he drank. Hey Molly, don't forget we are going to the gunnings tomorrow. Write it down my dear girl, write it down and tell them about ordering the cap. He always defer to Lydia obliquely as they or them. Gunnings a good fellow, informed the fireplace. This cake is uneatable Lydia. Wherever did you buy it, her grumble lacked conviction. It was perfect tree concession to a

52:37disperse to her companions housekeeping. Birches. I'm sorry Mrs. Totemham. I ain't too ready for more tea. It's nice and hot for you, isn't it? After the journey, Lydia felt as though she had caught her own eye and was embarrassed and disconfitted. She listened with derision to a glib and sugary banalities of speech, the perfect companion to enter the hostile self. What about all those fine big truths and principles we've recently reached out together? Yesterday we believed you were sincere, nice and hot after the journey. Buh. The mirror and the over mantle now fascinated Mrs. Totemham. She finished a tea mechanically, laid a cup down and stood before the fireplace, patting and tweaking at her hair. A husband looked at her contemptously. Trady little daughter I've got in mumbled with his mouth full of cake, there's a bitter comment on the mistake made by the gentleman at the hydro. Mrs. Totemham put her hands before her face and hurried from the room. Lydia began to gather

53:39up the tea things and a servant darkened the windows with a musty clatter of Venetian blinds. Mr. Totemham's chair creaked as he stretched his legs out to the fire. The room was hot with a smell of tea and tea cakes and the smell of the upholstery and wilting ferns was drawn out by the heat. The whole outside was cold and quiet. The sense of the afternoon's invasion had subsided from it like a storm. Through a strip of door the morning room beckoned her with its associations of the last six weeks. She saw the tall uncut in windows grade white in the gloom. Her book lay open on a table. She shotted with a sense of desolation. It would never be finished now. It was too good a thing to be read while they were in the house. To be punctuated by her petal and insystem chatter. His little shuffling furtive steps. Evoli this room were all her own. Invulable. She could leave the rest of the house to them. Tamar and Bully if she had only a few feet of silence of her own. To exclude the world from

54:40to build up in something of herself. If she did not go upstairs now Mrs. Totemham would call her and that in this room would be more than she could bear. Wagley's she pictured headlines. Laurel's murder mystery. Bodies in a system. Disappearance of companion. The darkness was all lurid with a visionary crime. Mrs. Totemham had not been around the house. She did not say the room smelt moldy and she'd left the curtain draperies alone. Lydia wondered deeply. Did you know Seven Oaks? The question a bashtop. What had Mrs. Totemham to do with Seven Oaks? No. Scarcely. Are we know over there sometimes for the day from Orpington? A friend of mine lives there. A Mr. Martin. He wrote to me today. He has come back from the colonies and bought a place there. It's funny to hear from an old friend suddenly. It makes me feel quite funny really. She did not sound funny. A voice was high pitched with agitation. Lydia had

55:41been told all about Mrs. Totemham's friends and seldom listened. But she did not remember Mr. Martin. He wants to come and see us. I really hardly like you know to suggest the idea to Mr. Totemham. I thought you had all your friends in common. How well these nightresses have washed. They must have laundered nicely at the Hydro. Ah, but this is different. You see, she laughed a little conscious laugh. Mr. Martin was a particular friend of mine. I, Mr. Totemham didn't use to know him. I see, said Lydia Wagley. A friend of yours before your marriage? Well, no. You see, I was very young when I was married. Quite an inexperienced young girl, a child you might almost say. Lydia suppose that Mrs. Totemham had been young. She strained an imagination to the effort. I did very well for myself and I married Mr. Totemham. The wife said sharply. I must say I never was a fool. My mother had never brought me up to go aboard. But we did a good deal of entertaining at one time, Mr. Totemham's friends and my own. And we always had things

56:46very nice as showy, but it was a lonely life. Mrs. Totemham's confidences were intolerable. Better than 100 times that she should nag. So you liked the Hydro. Found it really comfortable? Oh yes. Well, it's a coming back to this. Lydia, you're a good sort of girl. I wonder if I ought to tell you. Don't tell me anything you would regret, said Lydia defensively, jerking at the drawy handles. You see, Mr. Martin was a good deal to me at one time. Then we tore it and we went off to Canada and married there. I heard he had been unhappy and that there was the rumor of a split. Of course, he didn't write to anything. We had absolutely torn it, but I couldn't help hearing things. And she seems to have been a really bad sort of woman. There were children too. He's bringing the children back with him to seven orcs. He wants to come and see me. He's been thinking about me a great deal. He says and wondering if I've changed and wishing. He always was a straight sort of man. It was only circumstances throw him crooked. I dare say it was a good bit to blame.

57:50I kept his photograph though. I know I didn't ought, but I light having it by me to look at. She had unlocked a drawer and held a stiff packed photograph up beneath the light, scrutinizing it. Lydia listened to a distant surge of movement in the house beneath her, steps across the oil cloth, windows shutting, voices cut off by the swinging up the door. She felt revoltedly as though Mrs. Tottenham was stepping out of her clothes. He says his hardly changed at all. 17 years, they go past like a flash he says when you're working. 17 years said Lydia deliberately, about to make a difference to a woman. Did you care for him? Mrs. Tottenham made no answer. She was staring at the photograph, her eyes dilated, and she licked her lips. I suppose you'd be glad to see him again, suggested Lydia. She felt suddenly alert and interested as though she were watching through the lense of a microscope, some tortured insect twirling on a pin. Mrs. Tottenham sat down stiffly on the sofa and laid the photo on a lap.

58:53Suddenly, she clasp her hands and put them up before her eyes. I couldn't, she gasped. Not after all these years, I couldn't. Not like this. Oh Lord, I got so ugly, I can't Britain. I haven't got the heart to risk it. It's been so real to me, I couldn't bear to lose him. It's all gone. It's all gone. I've been pretending I used to be a fine figure of a woman. How can I have the heart to care when I couldn't keep him carrying? You broke it off. It was all over and done with you told me so. It was wrong besides. Why should either of you want to break it up when it was all passed and done with 17 years ago? Because it was wrong. It is his awful rightness that is killing me. My husband's been a bad man too. But here we both are smirking and grinning at each other just to keep hold of something we neither of us want. Lydia was terrified by the dry, swift sobbing. She felt suddenly hard and pregushed and immature. All the stresses, fears and passions,

59:56were such twilight things. Mrs. Tottenham stood upright and held the photograph from the flame of the gas jet, watching the ends curl upwards. For all of frizzle hair and jingling ornaments and smudgy tentative cosmetics, she was suddenly elemental and heroic. It was over. Lydia went quite lay out of the room and shut the door behind her. The place was vibrant with the humanity of Mrs. Tottenham. It was as though a child had been born in the house. The end of section 3 Section 4 of Encounters, Stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the pelvic domain. For more information on what to volunteer, please visit libriVox.org. Read by Oganan, Encounters, Stories by Elizabeth Bowen. The Confident. You are losing an imagination of quite modest. It was a bitter approach. He stood over her,

1:00:58rumbling up his hair, and the wily tubs sprung upright, curvering from his scalp. Penalope gulped, then sat for a moment in a silence full of the consciousness of a grutality. She had never dreamed that her secret preoccupation would be so perceptible to Morris. Unconsciously, she had been drawing her imaginations in upon herself like the petals of a flower, and emotions bust and throb within them like a pent-up bee. The room was dark with rain, and they heard the drip and rustle of leaves in the drinking garden. Through the open window the warm, wet air blew in on them, and a shimmer of rain was visible against the trees beyond. I never meant began penalope. A begaparten said Morris stiffly. I suppose I am becoming quite insufferable. I have been making perfectly undisturbable demands on your sympathy and patience and imagination. I am an ego-tistical brute, I dare say. Of course there is not the slightest reason why you, his indulgence,

1:02:00intimated that there was, on the contrary, every reason why she should. I felt a bit jarred just now. He excused himself with the simple pathos. I never meant a bit resumed penalope. I know, I know, said Morris, all magnanimity. The sickly sweetness of his reconciliation overpowered her. What a pair of fools we are, she quite historically. Morris dear, we are wearing this thin thin. I am afraid I have been doing gallery to you and Veronica for the last six months, and you have both played up to me magnificently. But Veronica protested Morris. Oh yes, Veronica comes here too. She comes and sits for hours over there just where you are now. There is not an aspect of your emotional relationship that we have not discussed. Veronica is coming here this afternoon. She said up abruptly. She is a chilly person. I better like the fire. God said Morris. Penalope was in her knees before the fireplace. I had almost inset the crate. Her voice came all over you from the dark versus.

1:03:03I thought you would be surprised she said, damn, it will not light. Surprised said Morris. Penalope is torn at the deadly reasonableness of a driven man's. I think you hardly realise what you are doing. I know you meant well my good girl, but really it puts us in such an impossible position. Surely you must see. I seek quite well, she has showed him. You and she both breathe and have your being in an atmosphere of conspiracy. It's your natural element of course, to force you into the strata, broader causes of the uncomplex would be asked Kroel has to upset a ball of coal fish in it and leave them gasping on the tablecloth. Oh, she sat back on the heels and drooply beheld her grimy fingers. Morris tried his hardest to endure her. She heard him breathing heavily. It's really quite unnecessary to have a fire. She is solely look-o-est. But it makes a point in a room I always think. Keeps one in countenance. Humanizer's things are bit. Makes a center point for. She became incoherent. Morris' irritation orderably increased.

1:04:08They were both conscious of the oppression of the darkening, rain-loud room. You are forcing a hands-rather, said Morris. Fosing you into the banality of meeting each other sanely and normally in my drawing room with no necessity to converse in allusions, insinuations and doubles on tonnress with me blessing you both and beaming sympathetically on you from afar, bullying you into that. I'm sorry, she flashed round on him impentently. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering something new. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across the brands and categories you love. From beauty and fashion, to home, culinary and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love

1:05:11across beauty, fashion, home and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Loric Eller, Philosophy, Ninja and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering something new every day. Start with today's special value. Then, explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love. From beauty and fashion, to home, culinary and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com. You don't understand. He winced and looked around him for his hat. I think it would be best for me to go. I suppose I mustn't keep you. She's considered polite reluctance. But I think you really ought to see

1:06:16Veronica. She has. She will have something of particular importance to say to you. I shall go of course. Oh don't. But surely there's nothing we can keep from you. And it makes it easier for both first as things are. But do you never want to be alone with her? More is considered. I don't believe said Penelope's swift leave. That you two have ever been alone together for a second since your acquaintance should begin? No said more is sombally. There have always been outsiders, audiences, Numer pernilope. Veggie pardon? Oh nothing. Well, you'll be alone this afternoon. I'm going out. She said with firmness. But don't you understand? Oh, I understand the strain would be colossal. Would have been. But there have been developments suddenly. Whereon I call have a great deal to tell to you. As it never occurred to you, she might get free after all. There'll be heaps to say. She said significantly. For heaven's sake, he threw up his hands again and pace the room and

1:07:17agitation stumbling over his tools. That was why I pulled up just now. She continued. Seemed hard, perhaps apathetic and unsympathetic when you are talking all that about awfulness, refined irony, frustration and things. I was thinking how soon you would, if you only knew, and then you told me I was losing my imagination, for which I've already begged your pardon said more is patiently. Penelope rose from the heart's rug and threw herself onto the chest of field. More is turned to her with a gauded expression and she regarded him with shining ice. Then the door opened with a jerk and Varanika entered stiffly with a rustle of agitation. More is true back into the shade and Varanika hesitated for a moment in the center of the room. Then grobbed out her hands towards Penelope as though she could see little in the sudden glow. Tell me, she cried without blin rays. You heard from Victor. Penelope, who had risen, clashed across it more. He took his cue. Varanika, who quay were askily. Varanika shoulders twitched,

1:08:21shittoned on him in the dusk like a wild ping with an expression that was almost painful. You, she said. Yes, admitted more is. I had simply no idea that I should just came in by chance, you know. It is just as well as in the interpost Penelope. We have, you have simply got to talk things out Varanika. Tell him. Show him Victor's letter. She moved towards the door. Don't go, shriek Varanika. You've got explained to him. I can't. She said with the finality of helplessness. The rain had stopped and through a sudden break in the clouds, the watery sunshine streamed across the garden. Varanika sat down on her auto man facing the window and Penelope knelt beside her looking at her pitifully. The long pale oval of her face was marred and puckered by a motion. Fair hair, lane streaks, across the forehead. Her clothes were glistening from the rain. Many tears it went through a mornful revolution through the lavish border on a nose. Her glowed hands lay across a lap and one was clutched a sheet of blue-grade note paper.

1:09:27She would not look at Morris but turned pathetic eyes on Penelope and made a peel with soundless moving lips. Varanika has had a letter from Victor, said Penelope, slowly and distinctly. He releases her from an engagement. He says, he explains, is not so blind as you both seem to have thought and is seen for some time that Varanika was not happy. He has noticed that she had been listless and preoccupied and has interpreted unhappiness rightly. He is convinced he says that Varanika has ceased to care for him but that she is too scrupulous or not quite brave enough to speak out and make an end of things hustle. He knows that her affections are elsewhere and he believes that he is doing the best thing he can for her by setting a free. Varanika had turned a little and sat facing Morris. Penelope saw the golden flicker of a lashes. The blue letter fluttered to the ground from between her writhing fingers.

1:10:27The trozio was all bought, she faltered. The going away dress came from Pam's this morning, just before I got that letter. Penelope could not speak. She felt utterly inadequate. Morris shifted his position and stood leaning up against the window of frame with the intensity of interest. He turned a said and looked into the garden. It stopped raining. He observed Varanika did not know. But Penelope saw his slide sideways following his movement under drooping glitz. How do you know all this? Morris asked abruptly, what Victor says and that when you have had no time to read his letter, he wrote to me to Sir Penelope. She had her own voice self-conscious and defiant. To you, why you? But we know each other rather well. Since much longer than he has known Varanika. And well, you see I am a cousin. He thought I'd make things easier for her. Do they explain as far as possible? Probably he thought I'd speak to you. She stealthily touched

1:11:28a pocket and smiled to feel the crisp, thick letter-paper crackle beneath the hand. Then she wondered if the sound were audible to the others and glanced guiltyly from one to the other of them. But they sat there silent, embarrassed, heavily preoccupied, one on either side of her. So now she said with bright aggressiveness, she could have shaken them. I do not think said Varanika in a small determined voice that I'm justified in accepting Victor's sacrifice. He's extraordinarily generous said Morris without enthusiasm. The loneliness went on Varanika, gazing wide at down some terrible vista. Picture it Penelope. The disappointment and the blackness for him. I could never have loved him, but I would have been a good wife to him. A voice grows in the present of surprise. She thought, how genuine I am. We had made so many plans she faltered. Fumble found no hand-couch it and spread her hands before her face. Penelope gave a little gasp half-synpathetic. She was spraying heart for tight. Varanika she said, I don't think

1:12:33you should let that stand between you and Morris. You mustn't be too soft-hearted dear. I don't think Victor's altogether unhappy. He's relieved I know. You see, the last few weeks have been awful strained for him as well as other people. How do you know? He told me. You have been discussing me. How Penelope? This is intolerable. He had been talking to me. He had no one else for a long time, I suppose. He put me in the position of assistant law. That was going too far, cried Morris. Have you neither of you the slightest idea of loyalty to Varanika? Penelope ignored him. She lends suddenly forward crimson-shaped and kissed Varanika. Oh, my dear, she said. Did you think that because he couldn't care about Victor and nobody else could? Do you expect him to go on giving you everything when you've got nothing to give him? They looked at her dazzled by a flash of comprehension. When she rose from between them, she left a gap. A gap she knew to be un-bridgeable for both. They were face-to-face with the hideous

1:13:36simplicity of life. She had upset their ball and left the two poor goldfish casping in an inclement Now at last you two have caught each other. She cried, smiling at them from the threshold. Nothing more to bother or disturb you. Just be as happy and as thankful as you can. They sat in silence till the last ironical echo died away. Then don't go, they cried in your song. Watch this song. The end of section 4 Section 5 of Encounters Stories The Slipper Fox Recordings in the Public Domain, read by Ben Tucker. Encounters stories by Elizabeth Elizabeth Rick Wiescott Magindi had bought the villa on his honeymoon, and in April three months after his death, his widow went out there alone to spend the spring and early summer. Stewart, who had been in India at the time of Howard Magindi's death,

1:14:38wrote to Mrs. Magindi before starting for home and her reply awaited him at his club. He re-read it several times looking curiously at her writing, which he had never seen before. The name of the villa was familiar to him. Magindi had been speaking of it the last time they dined together. He said it had a garden full of lemon trees and big cipreses, and more fountains than you could imagine. It was these that Elleline had loved. Stewart pictured Mrs. Magindi walking among the lemon trees in her widow's black. In her letter she expressed a wish to see him in a little while. I shall be returning to England at the end of June. There was a good deal of business to go through, and there are several things that Howard wished me to discuss with you. He said you would be willing to advise and help me. I do not feel that I can face England before then. I have seen nobody yet, and it is difficult to make a beginning. You understand that I feel differently about meeting you. Howard wished it, and I think that is enough for both of us.

1:15:38If you were to be in Italy I should ask you to come and see me here, but as I know that you will be going straight to Ireland, I will keep the papers until June. I'll accept the very important ones which I must sign without quite understanding, I suppose. In concluding she touched on his friendship with Howard, as for her alone it was permissible to touch. Stewart wired his apologies to Ireland, and planned a visit to the Italian lakes. Three weeks afterwards found him in the prow of a motorboat, furrowing Lake Como as he sped towards the villa. The sky was cloudless, the hills to the right rose sheer above him, casting the lengthening shadows of the afternoon across the luminous and oily water. To the left were brilliant and rugged above the clustered villages. The boat shot closely under Caternabia, and set the orange-hooded craft bobbing. The reflected houses rocked and quivered in her wake. Colors fled to the broken water. Sobito, sobito, said the boatman reassuringly, and Stewart started. He did not know that his impatience

1:16:43was so evident. The man shot off his engines, let the boat slide further into the shore, and displacing Stewart from the prow, crouched forward with a ready boat hook. They were approaching the water stairway of the villa. For a few moments after he had landed, while the motorboat went, chuffing out again into the sunshine, Stewart stood at the top of the stairway, looking irreolutely through the iron gates. He was wondering why he had come to Italy, and whether he ever cared at all for Mrs. Magindi. He felt incapable of making his way towards her under the clustered branches of those trees. If there had been a little side-gate, it would have been easier to go in. It would not have been so difficult either, if he had ever been here with Howard Magindi. But this was her place. She had loved it because of the fountains. He pushed open the big gate, already cold in the shadow, and followed the upward curve of the avenue among the lemon trees. Beyond the villa disclosed itself, unlike all that he had expected.

1:17:45He was surprised at his own surprise and did not realize till then how clearly he must have visualized it. There was a wide loja, a flight of steps, a terrace on a level with the loja running along the side of the hill. Cypress trees rose everywhere, breaking up the view. He passed under the windows, climbed the steps, and crossed the loja, not looking to the left or right for fear that he might see her suddenly, or even one of her books. The loja had an air of occupation. It was probable that on any of those tables or among the cushions he might see her book. Half-open, with a long handled lorn yets that Magindi had given her in France. The servant said that Mrs. Magindi was in the garden. She showed Stuart into a tall, cool parlor and disappeared to find her mistress. Stuart, distracted by a scent of heliatrop, made an unseeing circle of the room. He was standing before a Florentine chest when the girl came back with a message. Mrs. Magindi would see him in the garden. It would have been easier to meet her here. He had

1:18:50pictured them sitting opposite to one another in these high-backed chairs. He followed the girl obediently out of the house, along the terrace, and down a long alley between hedges of you. The white plume of a fountain quivered at the end. Other fountains were audible in the garden below. He could hear footsteps, too. Someone was approaching by another alley that converged with his beyond the fountain. Here they met. She was less beautiful than he had remembered her, and very tall and thin in her black dress. Her composure did not astonish him, her smile, undimmed, and the sound of her voice recalled to him the poignancy of his feelings when he had first known her. His resentment and sense of defeat, she had possessed herself of Howard so entirely. She was short-sighted. There was always a look of uncertainty in her eyes until she came quite near one. Her big pupils seemed to see too much at once, and nothing very plainly. I never knew you were in Italy, she said. He realized that it would have been more considerate to

1:19:53have written to prepare her for his visit. I came out, he said. Quite suddenly, I had always wanted to see the lakes, and I wanted to see you, but perhaps I should have written. I never thought it would have been better. It doesn't matter. It was very good of you to come. I'm glad that you should see the villa. Are you staying near? Over at Verena. How beautiful this is. The lake? I meant your garden. They turned and walked slowly back towards the house. I hope I didn't take you too much by surprise. Oh, no, she said. It almost seemed as though she had expected him. Yes, it is beautiful, isn't it? I've done nothing to it. It is exactly as we found it. They sat down on a stone bench on the terrace, looking a little way from one another. Their minds were full of the essential things impossible to be said. Sitting there with her face turned away from him. Every inch of her had that

1:20:57similitude of repose which covers tension. His lowered eyes took in her hands and longed thin fingers lying against the blackness of her dress. He remembered Howard telling him, among those confidences which had later ceased. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Lori Geller, Philosophy, Ninja and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com.

1:21:58At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love, across beauty, fashion, home and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Lori Geller, Philosophy, Ninja and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. Although he had fallen in love with the whole of her, it was her hands that he first noticed when details began to detach themselves. Now they looked bewildered, helpless hands. I took you at your word, he said. I wanted to help. I hoped there might be something I could do, and in your letter, I took you at your word in asking for help. There's a great deal I must do, and you could make things easier for me if you will. I shall be very grateful for your help about some business. There are papers I must sign, and I don't understand them quite.

1:23:03There were things that Howard had never explained. She looked full at him for a moment, and he knew that this was the first time she had uttered her husband's name. It would be easier now. He had told me everything. He said quickly, as though to intercept the shutting of door. I was always to be there if you should need me, I had promised him. She must realize that she owed him nothing for the fulfillment of a duty. He thought she did, before she was silent uttering no word of thanks. Why did you so seldom come and see us? She asked suddenly. Howard had begun to notice lately, and he wondered. I was in India. Before you went to India, a little inflection her voice made him despise his evasion. There is a time for all things, and that was the time for keeping away. Because he was married? Stuart did not answer. We wanted you, she said, but you didn't understand, did you? She did not understand, how could she?

1:24:05She must have discussed it all, those evenings with the magendi that belonged to her. He had not understood either. I was mistaken, I suppose, he said. I should have learned later. There was a slight contraction of her fingers, and Stuart knew that he had hurt her. If he heard her like this a little more, it would probably be possible to kill her. She was very defenseless here in the garden that magendi had bought her, looking out at the unmeaning like he had crowded out all tenderness for her, and her loneliness was nothing but a fact to him. There were messages for you. She said, turning her head again. Were there? He said. Her lips moved. She glanced at him a little apprehensively and was silent. I have written down everything that he said for you, and I believe he left you a letter. Can you remember the messages, he asked curiously. I wrote them down. I have them in the house. She looked at him again with that short-sighted intensity. She knew every word

1:25:11of the messages, and with an effort he could almost have read them from her eyes. Did he expect to see me? Yes, once he knew that he was ill, he knew that you could not possibly leave India before April, but he kept on expecting. I wanted to cable to, and he wouldn't let me, but I know he still believed, above all reason, that you'd come. If I'd known, if you think I should have cabled without telling him? She thought he blamed her, and she evidently feared his anger. Curious? He had been so conscious of her in difference before. He had been a person who did not matter. The nice friend, the family dog, relegated. It was that that had stung and stung. After all, he never had never gone to India. It had been a resource of panic. It had saved him nothing, and there had been no question of saving her. He wondered why she had not cabled. It was nothing to her whether he went or came, and Howard's happiness was everything. Yes, I wonder you didn't,

1:26:17cable. I am sorry. I was incapable of anything. My resource was sapped. He looked at her keenly. It was a doctor's look. What have you been doing since, he asked? As the medical man to whom no ground was sacred. What are you going to do? I was writing letters, shutting up the house, and here I'm trying to realize that there's nothing more to do that matters. And afterwards, well, I don't know, she said wearily. I'd rather not, please. Afterwords will come of itself. A smile is now he took upon himself the brother-in-law, the nice kind doggy person. You should have somebody with you, Helaline. You should. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to... He realized there was no one else to whom she owed it. To yourself, he repeated. You must think, you must be wise for yourself now. She looked, half-smiling at him. While he counseled,

1:27:23he had never achieved the fraternal, so completely. It's not that I don't think, she said. I think a great deal, and as for wisdom, there is not much more to learn, once one has grown up. I am as wise as I need to be for myself. When are you going back to England? If you would do one or two things for me, I'd needn't go back until the autumn. You can't stay here all this summer. No, she said, looking around at the ciprisis. How pitiful she was, and how it's garden. They say I couldn't. It would be too hot. I must go somewhere else. But if you could help me a little this autumn, I could finish up the business then. I may have to be in Ireland, then. He tore himself away from something brutally, and the brutality sounded in his voice. She retreated. Of course, she said. I know you ought to be there now, I was forgetting. Because he was a person

1:28:29who barely existed for her, probably. She had always been gentle with him, almost perpetuatory. One must be gentle with the nice old dog. It was not in her nature to be always gentle. Perhaps she had said bitter things to Howard who mattered to her. There was a hint of bitterness about her mouth. At himself, she was always looking in that vague, half startled way, as though she had forgotten who he was. Sometimes when he made a third, he had found her very silent. Still with boredom, once or twice he had felt with gratification that she almost disliked him. He wondered what she thought, he thought of her. Now it was the time of the Angulus, and Bells answered one another from the componyls of the clustered villages across the lake. A steamer, still gold in the sun, cleft along bright furrow in the shadowy water. The scene had all the passionless clarity of a Victorian watercolor. It is very peaceful, Stuart said appropriately. Peaceful, she echoed with

1:29:37the start. Yes, it's very peaceful. David, she had called him this. Will you forgive me? Forgive you? I think you could understand me if you wish to. Forgive me the harm I've done you. Don't hate me. How weak she was now. How she had come down. What harm have you done to me? He asked, unmoved. You should know better than I do. I suppose I must have heard you, and through you, Howard. And an intrusion isn't a happy thing. You didn't give me a chance to make it happy. You came at first, but there was always a cloud. I didn't want to interfere. I tried to play the game. Now that we've both lost him, couldn't you forgive? I'm sorry I should have given you the impression that I resented anything. That there was anything to resent. I didn't know that you were thinking that. Perhaps you

1:30:40rather ran away with a preconceived idea that, because you married Howard, I was bound to be unfriendly to you. If you did, you never showed it. I never imagined that I had disappointed you by anything I did or didn't do. It was not what you didn't do. It was what you weren't that made me feel I was a failure. So that was the matter. He had heard her vanity. A failure, he said, laughing a little. I thought you were making a success. If I didn't come often or it was not because I did not think you wanted me. But you said just now. A third is never really wanted. I had set my heart on seeing Howard happy. And when I had, I went away to think about it. Oh, she said hopelessly. She had guessed that he was putting her off. Shall we walk a little down the terrace? There is a pergola above two that I should like you to see. She was taking for granted that he would not come to the villa

1:31:40again. They rose. She stood for a moment looking irresolutely up and down the terrace and took a steeper path that mounted through the trees towards the pergola. Stuart followed her in silence, wondering. The world in her brain was a mystery to him, but evidently he had passed across it and cast some shadows. For a moment he almost dared to speak and trouble the peace of the garden with what had been pent up in him so long that he knew that he must leave her to live out her days and the immunity of finished grief. The silence of imperfect sympathy would still lie between them as it had always lain. His harshness could no longer cast a shadow in her world that was now as sunless as an evening garden. His lips were sealed still and forever by fear of her and shame for his dead loyalty to Howard. The generosity of love had turned to bitterness within him and he was silent from no fear to cause her pain. Beautiful, he said, when they reached the pergola

1:32:47and could look down on Lake and Garden through the cluster of roses. Will you be long at Beretta? I don't expect so, no. Some friends want me to join them on Lake Magior and I think of going on tomorrow afternoon. That will be better, she said slowly. It is lonely seeing places alone. They hardly seem worthwhile. I'm used to it. I'm going back to India in six months. He said abruptly. Oh, I didn't know. Her voice vaulted. He had not known himself till then. Her face was wider than ever in the dusk of the pergola and her hands were plucking, plucking at the creepers, shaking down from the roses above white petals which he kept brushing from his coat. I'm sorry you're going back, she said. Everybody will be sorry. I won't go until I have finished everything that I can do for you. An expression came into her eyes that he had never

1:33:48seen before. You have been a friend, she said. Men make better things for themselves out of life than we do. They don't last, he said involuntarily. I should have said that so far as anything is immortal. He watched a little tightening of her lips. It takes less than you think to kill these things, friendship, loyalty. Years was unassailable. Years in his, she spoke more to herself than to him. In those early days when we three went about together, that time in France I realized that. In France, he said stupidly. Yes, don't you remember? He remembered France. The days they had spent together in the long evenings in Starlight, and the evening he had strolled beside her on a terrace while Magendi tinkered with the car. It was a chilly evening, and she kept drawing her first together, and said very little. The night after he had laying awake listening to her voice and

1:34:49Magendi's in the next room, and making up his mind to go to India. Yes, he said, now will you let me have the papers and we could go through them now? I could take any that are urgent back to town with me. I shall be there in a week." She twisted her hands there, resolutely. Could you come tomorrow before you go? I would have them ready for you then. If you can spare the time, I'm tired this evening. I don't believe I would be able to understand them. Do you mind? No, of course not. But may I come in the morning? I'm going away early in the afternoon. She nodded slowly, looked away from him, and did not speak. She was evidently very much tired. I think I ought to go, he said after a pause. If you hurried you could catch that steamer down in Kattunabia, then I'll hurry, don't come down. I won't come down, she said holding out her hand. Goodbye, and thank you. He hurried to the end of the Pukola, hesitated,

1:35:54half turned his head, and stopped it resolutely. Surely she had called him. He listened, but there was no sound. She stood where he had left her, with her back towards him, leaning against a pillar, and looking out across the lake. Turning, he pushed his way between the branches, down the overgrown path. The leaves rustled, he listened again. Somebody was trying to detain him. As the slope grew steeper, he quickened his steps to a run, and scurrying the terrace took a shortcut onto the avenue, soon to lake glitter through the iron gates. She leaned back against the pillar, gripping and handfuls the branches of the climbing rows. She hurried his descending footsteps hesitate for a long second, gather speed, grow feint her, die away. The thorns ran deep into her hands, and she was dimly conscious of the pain. Far below the gate clanged, down among the trees. The branches of the roses shook a little, and more white petals came fluttering down. End of section 5.

1:37:07Section 6 of Encounters, Stories This is a Librevox Recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by Kurt from Tucson, Arizona. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Lori Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com.

1:38:14Meet the Red Bull Dragonberry Emergizer. It's one of the many new drinks out now. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all only at McDonald's. Encounters, Stories by Elizabeth Bowen. All Saints. The Vickr moved about the chancel in his casak, thoughtfully extinguishing the candles. Even song was over, and the ladies who had composed the congregation patterned down the aisle and melted away into the November dusk. At the back of the church, somebody was still kneeling. The Vickr knew that it was the emotional looking lady in black, waiting to speak to him as he came down to the vestry. He feared this might be a matter for the confessional, and that she might weep. The church was growing very dark. Her black draperies uncertainly detached themselves from

1:39:20the shadows under the gallery. As he came down towards her, her white face looked up at him. She made a rustling movement and half rose. A curious perfume diffused itself around her. Through the chilly mustiness of the pew. She murmured a request. The Vickr bowed his head. I will wait for you in the church porch, she said in a clear voice with a suggestion of a tremolo. Perhaps we could walk across the church yard. He hurried to the vestry with the sense of a reprieve. She was waiting in the porch with her hands clasped and smiled anxiously at the Vickr, who turned to lock the door behind him. Such a beautiful church, she said as they walked on together. We consider it very beautiful. How the people must love it. Her manner was very childlike. She have turned to him shyly, then turned away.

1:40:24Would you like another window? A window? A colored window for the lady chapel. I would love to give you a window. She made the offer so simply that the Vickr felt as though he was being offered a kitten. But, my dear lady, windows like that are very expensive. I know, she said eagerly, but I would be quite well able to afford one. A memorial window? A memorial? Of some relation or dear friend who has passed over? Oh, no, she said vaguely. I know so many people who have died, but I think none of them would care about a window. Then you have no particular purpose. I think colored windows are so beautiful. They make one feel so religious and good. The Vickr was nonplust. He wished to say a great deal to her, but did not know how to begin. Her ingenuousness, half touched and half offended him.

1:41:30She was not young, either. He could hardly explain her to himself as young. Yet standing up so straight among the slanting tombstones, she had no congruity with the years decline. The monotone of twilight, the solemn evening with its colorless falling leaves rejected her. She was not elderly, he thought. She was perennial. There was that about her that displeased the Vickr. She was theatrical. Having placed her, he felt more at ease. He said, I will place your very kind offer before the vestry, and took a few steps in the direction of the lich gate. She looked up at him with fine eyes that she had once learned how to use. She was so little conscious of the Vickr's masculinity that he might have been one of the tombstones, but eyes that have learned their lesson, never forget. Was do you go at once, she said pathetically? I want to talk a little more about the window.

1:42:32I would like to go and look from outside at the place where it is going to be. They retraced their steps a little, and took a path that skirted the north side of the church and passed underneath the two east windows. I know you're not a resident, said the Vickr. Still a different man, he disliked these inquiries, however oblique. They savored too strongly of par sonic a fissiousness, but still, one ought to know. Do you think of paying us a long visit? The country is hardly at its best, just now. Do you like the village? I think the village is sweet. It does appeal to me, so quaint and homely. I am staying here in lodgings. They are most uncomfortable, but I sleep well and the eggs are fresh, and then I love the country. My real name is Mrs. Barrows. Do you intend to long stay repeated the Vickr trying not to feel that her last sentence was peculiar? I want to watch them putting up the window. After that,

1:43:36I don't know. I don't think I could bear to be long away from London. Perhaps I might buy a cottage here if you would help me. Meet the Red Bull Dragonberry Emergizer. It's one of the many new drinks out now. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all, only at my toes. Toyota's easy choice sales event is on. Whether you're looking for the performance of a camera, the versatility of her app for the efficiency of a Corolla or all electric driving in the BZ, there's a Toyota that's just right for you. And with great deals across the lineup, now's the time to find yours. But hurry, these deals won't last long. Toyota's easy choice sales

1:44:38event ends soon. We make it easy. Toyota, let's go places. Evidently, she was a person of means. This is the lady chapel window, said the Vickr suddenly. Oh, she cried in consternation. I did not know it was so small. We must make it larger. I think this would never hold them. Hold whom? All Saints. I wanted to be an all-saints window. I went to church last Thursday. I heard the bells ringing and went in to see. I thought perhaps it wasn't wedding. I found a service so I stayed, and you were preaching an all-saints day sermon. It was beautiful. It gave me the idea. You said, call to be saints was meant for all of us. I'd never heard of that idea. I'd thought the saints were over long ago. I'd seen old pictures of them when I was a child.

1:45:38I thought yours was a beautiful idea. It helped me so. It is not only an idea. It is quite true. I know, but it was beautiful of you to think of it. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, said the Vickr have allowed. But then, of course, I suppose there must still be saints. And I thought of two or three people, then of quite a number. Ladies, I have met who have affected me most strongly, and one dear boy I know. We have most of us been privileged. Don't you think she said with round eyes that saints must often seem quite unconventional? And so far as conventionality is error. Yes. There, she cried. I knew you'd agree with me. Wouldn't you describe a saint as somebody who, going ahead by their own light, by light that is given to them? That's what I meant. Doesn't care what anybody says and helps other people. Really makes it possible for other people to go on living? Well, yes,

1:46:40the Vickr has atated over this definition. Don't saints seem always very strong? There is great strength in them, but there is weakness, too. They have a great deal in themselves to combat before, before they can fight other people's battles. Nobody can fight another's battle. We have got to fight our battles for ourselves, against ourselves. Oh, she said a little flatly. Now that wasn't my idea. When I'm in a difficulty or even in the blues, I just go to one of these friends of mine and talk it out and, well, it's quite extraordinary the difference I feel. I see light at once. It's as if they took a burden off my shoulders. There is only one who can do that. Can't you try and get straight to the divine? Her voice out of the darkness. It was now very dark, sounded lonely, and bewildered. No, I don't seem to want to. You see, I'm not at all good.

1:47:42All the more reason she ignored the interruption. It's power. That's what some people have. There what I call good people, saints. And, you know, these friends I was talking about, they're not at all conventional and they never go to church except perhaps to weddings. And one or two of them are very unconventional. You'd be surprised. They walked across the church yard, just able to see the path by the reflected light on the wet flagstones. The vicar tried to help her, and you find that contact with certain personalities brings with it healing and invigoration. She grasped eagerly at the phrase. Healing and invigoration. Yes, that's what I mean. It isn't anything to do with love or friendship. When I was younger, I thought that loving people was meant to help one. It led me oh so wrong. Loving is only giving, isn't it? Just a sort of luxury. Like giving this window. It doesn't do you any good or the person either. But people like, she named a notorious

1:48:48lady. I can't tell you how she's helped me. She's so brave, nobody seems too bad for her. She never despises you. And I have another friend who is a spiritualist. Error, she told me all about myself. She was so wonderful her eyes went through and through she said, you're going the wrong way. And then it all came to me. She helped me so. And another who was a missionary's wife, the seem simpler. But he wondered what he could get at behind it all. She didn't live with him. She had met him first at a revivalist meeting. She said he was too wonderful. But he couldn't have been as wonderful as her. She used to come and see me in the mornings when I was in bed. I was very lonely then a dear friend and I had just parted. She never talked religion but there was something wonderful about her face. And all this has really helped you? For some example, I don't want to copy them.

1:49:50I only want to know they're there. What holds you in them isn't of themselves, isn't it? It's simply a manifestation. She failed to understand him. They are able to help you. That is their privilege and God's will. But they can't do everything. They do, you see. They see, I can't do anything to help myself. And I suppose there must be a great many other people like me. They get at something I can't reach and hand it down to me. I could put it like that, couldn't I? That's what saints have always done. It seems to me. Nobody was ever meant to be a go-between, he said, with energy. You've simply no conception. I get everything I want that way. She said placidly. I'm a very weak sort of person. I only want to be helped. Saints are the sort of people who've been always helping people like me. I thought I'd like to put up a window as a sort of thank-off ring to them. Crowds and crowds of people I wanted to put in all with those yellow

1:50:53circles, round their heads, dressed in blue and violet. I think violet's such a beautiful color. And one big figure in the foreground just to look like helpfulness, holding out both hands with the look I've sometimes seen on people's faces. When can I know for sure about the window? I mean, one will you tell me if they'll let me put it up? I don't know, so the vicar agitatedly, hurrying towards the lich gate and holding it open for her to pass through. I'll come round and see you about it. Yes, I know the house. Oh, would you, she said, shyly? Well, that would be kind. You know, talking about helpfulness, you're one of that sort of people. You don't know what it's meant to me to hear you preaching. You'd hardly believe, good nights of the vicar agra abruptly. He raised his hat, turned on his heel, and fled through the darkness. End of Section 6 Section 7 of Encounters Stories

1:52:00This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librevox.org Read by Ben Tucker. Encounters Stories by Elizabeth Bowen The New House Coming up the avenue in the February dusk, you could see the flash and shimmer of firelight through the naked windows of the library. There was something unearthly in those squares of pulsing light that fretted the shadowy façade and lent to the whole and air of pasteboard on reality. The scrunch beneath his feet of the wet gravel brought his sister to the doorstep. Harvard, she cried. Odoe come in and see it all. You've been such ages today. What where are you doing? Your messages, he said. They delayed me. That stupid fellow at Billingham's had made a muddle over those window measurements for the blinds. I had to go over to the workshop and

1:53:01give the order personally. Standing in the hall, he was surprised to hear his voice ring out into spaciousness. I'd never realized how big it was. He said with gratification. Why, Sicily, you're all in the dark. You might have lighted up and made the place look a bit more festive. It's all very well to hear how big one's house is, but I'd like to see it with my own eyes. I'm sorry, said Sicily. As a matter of fact, I'd only just come in myself. I was out in the garden. Gardening. No, just poking about. You never heard anything like the way the thrushes sing. I never knew before they could sing like that, or perhaps I'd never had time to listen. And then the snow drops are coming out all along the kitchen garden border. Oh, Herbert. I should have thought that a house move was exactly the most leisurely time to listen to thrushes, but of course. But I had been working. His injured dignity was impenetrable, like a barrier of steel.

1:54:03She turned aside from it with a shrug. Come in and see what I've done. The library. Janet, she called down a dark hallway. Janet T! The master's in. Down the far end of the long room was an open fireplace. His chair was pushed up to the fire, and an impromptu tea table covered with newspaper had been set beside it. His books were stacked in piles against the walls, and their mustiness contested with the clean smell of scrubbed and naked boards. A nice room, said Herbert. On Sunday, I shall have a good long day at the picture-hanging. I can't have these windows, Sicily. They're quite indecent. Haven't you even got a dust sheet to pin up across them? Any tramp? I'll see. There won't be much light, though. Anyhow, the man was in today about the fittings, and he says they won't be able to turn the gas on at the main till tomorrow afternoon. We shall have to do our best by candlelight. I've got some ready. Toyota's easy choice sales event is on. Whether you're looking for the performance of a

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1:56:13let's go places. She folded paper into a spill and lighted a long row of candles, ranged in, motley, candlesticks along the chimney piece. Tuck, tuck, said Herbert. We shall find it very difficult to work. How tired some of these people are. Yes, said Sicily. He resented her tone of detachment. She had blown out her spill and stood twisting the chart ends of paper between her fingers. Long streaks of hair had loosened to themselves and hung across her forehead. Her cheeks were smeared with dust. Her tall, thin figure drooped with awareness. But her eyes were shining in the fire light with a strange excitement. She became conscious of his irritated scrutiny. I must be looking simply awful. Yes, said Herbert. I better try and tidy before tea. Yes, if we are going to have tea, if it doesn't come at once, I really can't be bothered. There's a great deal for me to do, and I can't afford to waste any time. He was a hungry man and Peabish having snatched a

1:57:17hasty and insufficient lunch. He thought that he detected a smile of indulgence as she raised her voice and shouted, Janet, hurry! They heard Janet stumbling up the three steps from the kitchen. She interred with the squat-brown teapot, one hand split against her heart. Such a house, she gassed. It's that unexpected, really it is! They ate in silence. All Herbert's old irritation with a sister surged up within him. She was a vague, uncertain, feckless creature. The air of startled spirituality that had become her as a girl now sat grotesquely on her middle age uncomliness. He contrasted her with the Bucsum Emily. Emily would have known how to make her brother comfortable. But of course, Emily had married. She spoke. I suppose I might take mother's furniture. It really is mine, isn't it? Just that little work table in the bookshelf and the Esquery-to-R? I don't see what you mean by take it. It'll all be in the same rooms and same house as the rest.

1:58:20Of course, poor mother gave them to you. But I don't see how that makes any difference. I was thinking we might put that little Esquery-to-R in the drawing room. It looked very well there. Cessily was silent. Herbert brushed the crumbs out of the creases and his waistcoat. Poor mother, he anxiously remarked. Come and see the house, said Cessily. She was aware that her quick speech shattered what should have been a little silent sacred to the memory of the dead. Come and see what she'd like to begin on and what Janet and I had better do tomorrow. We got the bedroom's tidy, but you're basin' and jugger odd, I'm afraid. The cases of crockery haven't arrived yet. I haven't got a basin and jug at all, she said defensively. Every step of Herbert's through the disordered house was a step in a triumphal progress. Every echo from the tiles and naked boards derided and denied the memory of that small brick of gilla where he and Cessily had been born. Where their mothers, wedded life had begun and ended. That villa now empty and denuded, whose furniture looked so

1:59:21meager in this spaciousness and height. He carried a candlestick in either hand and raised them high above his head as he passed from room to room, peering round him into corners, looking up to molded cornices and ceilings. Standing in the big front bedroom, he saw himself reflected in the mirror doors of a vast portentious wardrobe and beamed back at his beaming curiously shadowed face. Behind him he saw Cessily seat herself on the edge of the wire mattress and placed her candle carefully beside her on the floor. The mahogany bedrooms weed loomed up round them out of the shadows. She sensed his radiant satisfaction with relief. It is a lovely house, she said. Oh, Herbert, I do hope you're going to be happy. I hope we both are, he amended kindly. We must have some people staying, Cessily. The Jenkins, that lot, entertain a bit. After all my dear girl, we can afford it now. He was glad when she did not seem to realize how their circumstances had bettered. It gave him the opportunity for

2:00:24emphatic reminders. They passed out onto the landing and stood looking down into the depths of the well-staircase. I'm sure mother did want us both to be happy, said Cessily, peering over the banisters. Herbert felt eerily as though she were deferring to the opinion of some unseen presence below them in the darkness. Of course, she wished us the best poor mother. He collatered a little ostentatiously past her down the stairs. She would have loved this house. Her voice came softly after him, and he heard her limp hands slithering along the banister rail. Damn the gasman, he muttered feeling his way across the hall, where his candle flames riled and flickered in a drought. It was enough to give anyone the creeps, thus groping through an echoing deserted house with a ghost-ridden, lackadaisical woman trailing at his heels, if only they had the cast on. Cessily was a fool. He'd teach her. At the root of his malaise was a suspicion that the house was sneering at him, that as he repudiated the small brick villa, so the house repudiated him,

2:01:29that Cessily and the house had made a pact against him, shutting him out. He was no bourgeois, and no Parvanyu, he Herbert Pilkington, was good enough for any house bought with his own well-earned money. He pushed savagely against the panels of the drawing-room door. This was the largest room in the house. A pale light fell across the floor from the scoops of two great-bow windows, and there was a glimmer in the mirrors, fixtures, paneling the walls. Herbert put down his candles and stood back in admiration. Next year, he said, we will buy a grand piano. It would look well there, slanting out from that corner. The shutters. We ought to shut the shutters. Fussily, he wrestled with the catches. For all his middle-aged precision, he was like a child delirious over some new toy. It needs children. It's a room for children, said Sicily, when the clatter had subsided. Something in her tone filled him with a sense of impropriety. She was gripping the edges of the chimney-piece and staring down into the grate. Her knuckles stood out white and strained.

2:02:34Herbert Richard Evans wrote to me again yesterday. Today, I answered him, I'm going to be married. Sitting on the Chesterfield, Herbert scrutinized his boots. He heard his voice say, who was going to see about the furniture. His mind grappled with something a measurably far away. Sicily repeated, I'm going to be married. Suddenly it flashed across him. He was full of angry light. Married, he shouted. Married? You? I thought it was too late, she whispered. To quite lately, then when mother went, everything was broken up. This move came. All my life, I seemed to have been tied up, fastened on to things and people. Why, even the way the furniture was arranged at number seventeen, held me so that I couldn't get away. The way the chairs went into the sitting room. And mother, then when I stayed behind to see the vans off when I saw them taking down the ornamentals,

2:03:36and your books went out in the round table in the sofa, I felt quite suddenly. I'm free. I said to myself, if Richard asked me again, but I thought he must be tired of asking me. I said, if only he asked me again, I can get away before this new house fastens on to me. With her stoop, her untightiness, her vagueness and confusion, her irritating streaks of mysticism, he wondered. Could any man find her desirable? He remembered Richard Evans, Zan and Jerky, and vaguely displeasing to his orderly mind, with his terrible spasms of eloquence and his straggly mustache. He'd come in often when they were at number seventeen and sat for hours in the lamp light with a shadow gesticulating behind him on the wall. Nobody needs me, she was saying. Nobody wants me really, except him. I see it now, and I've got to. What about me? Don't I count? Don't I need you? What about all these years? The house keeping?

2:04:38His voice rose to a whale, and what the devil am I to do about the move? Of course I'll see you through the move, really Herbert. I've been a good brother to you. We've got along very well. We've had a happy little home together all these years. Haven't we, and now poor mother's gone? His eloquence choked him. He was stabbed by a conviction that she should be saying all this to him. Instead, she stood there, muleishly hanging down her head. You're too old to marry, he shouted. It's ridiculous. Richard doesn't think so. You don't seem to realize you're leaving me alone with this great house on my hands, this great barren of a house. Me, a lonely man with just that one silly old woman, I suppose Janet will go off and get married next. Nobody's too old to marry now, nowadays it seems. No, she said with a plasip conviction. You'll marry, of course. Marry me? She turned to look at him, pink, self-confident, idiotically pretty.

2:05:39But of course, that's what I've been feeling while I was here. Man, he's so conservative, but this is no sort of life for you, really Herbert. You want a wife? Pretty cheerful wife and children. Children? Oh, don't shout Herbert. Yes, you don't want the family to die out, do you? After you've made such a name for it, done such fine things? He felt that two springs were broken in the sofa and pressed cushions carefully with his hand to discover the extent of further damage. Damn it all, he said queralously. I can't get used to another woman at my time of life. Herbert, you've got no imagination. Her tone was amused, dispassionate. She was suddenly superior, radiant and aloof. Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros trust Fiber cement, party backer board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million kitchen's and bathrooms, party backer board, what the best

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2:07:42Go to Rakuten.com or get the app that's RAKUTN. Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros trust Fiber-Sement, Party Backer Board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and held block moisture. Chosen in over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms, Party Backer Board, what the best build on. Shop now at participating Home Depot, Lowe's, and floor into core stores. For more information, visit jameshardy.com slashhardybacker. He is no longer another man's possession. Her speech chimed in with his thoughts. Every man's got to have one woman. Taking one of the candles, she turned and left the room. He set there almost in the darkness, putting one hand up he fidgeted with his tie. Sleeking down his hair, he smiled to find it crisp, unthinned, and healthy.

2:08:44Slowly and cumbersly, the machinery of his imagination creaked into movement. He saw the drawing-room, suffused with rosy light. Chairs and sofas were bright with the sheen of flowered chinses hung about with crisp and fluted frills. Over by the fire was the dark triangle of a grand piano. The top was open, and a woman with bright crimpy hair sat before it, playing and singing. Pretty cheerful wife. There was a crimson carpet, soft like moss, and a tall palm shadowed up towards the ceiling. Muffled by the carpet, he heard the pattern of quick feet. The little girl wore a blue sash trailing down behind her, and there was a little boy, and a black velvet suit. They could do very well without Sicily's Esquiretoire. End of section 7

2:09:45Section 8 of Encounters Stories This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by Kurt from Tucson, Arizona. Encounters stories by Elizabeth Bowen. Lunch After all, said Martia. There are egoists and egoists. You are one sort of egoist. I am the other. A ladybird had dropped onto her plate from a cluster of leaves above, and she invited it onto her finger and transferred it very carefully to the rail of the veranda. Differentiates, said the stranger, watching the progress of the ladybird.

2:10:46They were lunching on the veranda, and the midday sun fell through a screen of leaves and quivering splashes onto the tablecloth. The elusive pattern of Martia's dress, the crude enameled brilliance of the salad in a willow pattern bowl, the dented plate and cutlery slanting together at angles of confusion. The water was spring water, so cold that a mist had formed on the sides of their tumblers and of the red glass water jug. They considered helpings of cold lamb, and their heads and faces were in shadow. Through the open window, the interior of the coffee room was murky and repellent, with its drab-dischouvel tables and chairs so huddled teta-teta that they travestied into messy. It was full of the musty reek of cruits and the rates of long digested meals,

2:11:47and of a brooding reproach for their desertion whenever they turned their heads towards it. A mournful waitress, too, reproached them, flicking desalterally about among the crumbs. From under the veranda the hotel garden slanted steeply down to the road. The burning dustiness beneath them was visible in glimpses between the branches of the lime trees. Cycleists, flashed past, and an occasional motor whirled up clouds of dust to settle in the patient lines. Behind their screen of leaves they too sat sheltered and conversant, looking out to wear beyond the village the country fell away into the hot blue distances of June, and cooled by a faint wind that crept towards them through a rustle and glitter of leaves from hayfields, and the heavy shade of elders. The jewels flashed in marshes' rings as she laid down

2:12:48knife and fork, and drumming with her fingers on the table proceeded to expatiate on egoists. Don't think I'm going to be clever, she implored him, and talk like a woman in a Meredith book. Well, quite boldly to begin with, one acknowledges that one puts oneself first, doesn't one. There may be other people, but it's ourselves that matter. He had relaxed his face to a calm attentiveness, and leaning limply back into his chair looked at her with tired, kindly eyes, like the eyes of a monkey between wrinkled lids. Music, food, art. These things define and unite us, and they come in colors that breathe culture, colors that connect us with their variety and richness. You'll find that same variety in Valsvar Ultra paints. Great coverage and durability starting at 2990A per gallon. Enjoy everyday protection against scuffs and wear with a smooth, washable finish. We're made of

2:13:52colors, and with Valsvar Ultra, you can reflect that pride of culture you have inside on every wall of your home, available at Lowe's. Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why trade pros trust Fiber cement, party backer board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms, party backer board. What the best build on? Shop now at participating home depot, Lowe's, and floor into core stores. For more information, visit jameshardy.com slashhardybacker. Granted, if you wish it for the sake of argument, but are you protesting inwardly that other people matter more? They do matter enormously, but the more they matter to you, still the more you're mattering to yourself. It merely raises your standard of values. Have you any children? Six said the tired man. I have three said marsha, and a husband. Quite enough, but I am very fond of

2:14:58them all. That is why I am always so glad to get away from them. He was cutting his lamb with quiet slashing strokes of his knife and eating quickly and abstractedly, like a man whose habits of life have made food less than indulgence than a necessity. She believed that she was interesting him. My idea in life, my particular form of egoism is a determination not to be swamped. I resent most fearfully, not the claims my family make on me, but the claims I make on my family. There's a tribute to my indispensability. Mine a proof of my dependence. Therefore, I am a perfectly charming woman, but quite extraordinarily selfish. That is how all my friends describe me. I admire their candor, but I never congratulate them on their perspicacity. My egoism is nothing if not blatant and unblushing.

2:16:01Now you go on, she said, encouragingly, helping herself to salad. Tell me about your selfishness, then I'll define how it's different from mine. He did not appear inspired. Yours is a much better kind, she supplemented. Finer, you have given up everything, but the thing that won't be given up. In fact, there's nothing wrong in your sort of egoism. It's only your self-consciousness that brings it to life at all. In the middle of your abject and terrible unsolfishness, you feel a tiny strain of resistance, and it worries you so much that it has rubbed you sore. It's mere morbidity on your part. That's what I condemn about it. Turn your family out into the street and crowds for a fortnight, and you'll be a better man at the end of it. Mine is healthy animal spirits. Mine is sheer exuberance. Yours is a badgered, hectic, unavowed resistance to the people you love

2:17:02best in the world, because unknowingly you still love yourself better. You wouldn't know the meaning of healthy animal spirits with six children on my income. I suppose what you are trying to say about me is the turning of the worm? No, said Marsha. Not exactly turning. I wonder if I am making a fool of myself. I don't believe you are an egoist at all. My ideas are beginning to desert me. I am really incapable of a sustained monologue on any subject under the sun. You see, generally, I talk in circles. I mean I say something cryptic that sounds clever and stimulates the activities of other people's minds, and when the conversation has reached a climax of brilliancy, I knock down my hammer like an auctioneer on somebody else's epigram, cap it with another, and smile round at them all with calm assurance and finality.

2:18:03By that time, everybody is in a sort of glow. Each believing that he or she has laid the largest and finest of the conversational eggs. Goodness, you finished. Would you just call through the window and ask that woman if there is anything else to eat? She has been taking such an interest in our conversation and our profiles. Say strawberries if possible, because otherwise, I have a premonition. It will be blunt mosh. The stranger put his head and shoulders through the window. Marsha studied his narrow back and the shabby tweed jacket. His thinning hair and the frayed edges of his collar. One hand gripped the back of his chair. She thought, how terrible to see a man who is in sunburned. She listened to his muffled conversation with the waitress and pushed her play away, deploring the oiliness of the salad. With flushed face, he reappeared, and two plump arms

2:19:03came through the window after him, removed their plates, and clattered onto the table a big bowl of strawberries and a small grayish blunt mosh in a thick glass dish. I wonder if I am tiring you, said Marsha remorsefully. I know you came out here to be quiet, and I've done nothing but sharpen my theories on you ever since we made common cause against the coffee-room. It was worthwhile, too, wasn't it? Never mind. I'll let you go directly after lunch, and you shall find the tranquility you came to look for underneath a lime tree, loud with bees. I never take the slightest interest in nature, but I always remember that touch about the bees. I came across it in a book. I see a book in your pocket. If I wasn't here, you'd be reading with it propped up against the water jug, blissfully dipping your strawberries into the salt and wondering why they tasted so funny. But do let's eat them in our fingers anyway. I never eat them with a spoon unless there's cream. My husband says he

2:20:07finds me too exhilarating for a prolonged tettetet. He smiled at her with embarrassment. Then leaned his elbow on the warm rail of the veranda and looked down onto the road. It's so hot, he said, with sudden petulence so beastly hot. I didn't realize how hot it was going to be or I wouldn't have bicycleed out. It's not very hot here, is it? Those leaves. No, but I was thinking about the hotness everywhere else. This makes it worse. Fancy bicycling. Do let me give you some blunt mosh. I think it is an heirloom. Did you come far? From Luisham, he added, I work in a publisher's office. A publisher, how interesting. I wonder if you could do anything to help a boy I know. Such a charming boy. He has written a book, but he flushed. I am not a, an influential member of the firm. Oh, then perhaps you couldn't. Tell me why did you come here today? I mean, why here, especially?

2:21:13Oh, for no reason, just at random. Why did you? To meet somebody who hasn't turned up, he was going to have brought a lunch basket and we were to have picnic down by the river. Oh, nobody I shouldn't meet. You haven't blundered into an allopment. I've got no brain for intrigue. After lunch we were going to have sketched. At least he would have sketched and I should have talked. He's by way of teaching me. We were to have met at twelve, but I suppose he's forgotten or is doing something else. Probably he wired, but it hadn't come before I started. Do you paint? I've got a paint box. She indicated a diminutive winsor and Newton and a large water color block lying at her feet. I'm sorry, he said differently. I'm afraid this must be something of a disappointment. Not a bit. She clasped her hands on the table leaning forward. I've really loved our lunch party. You listened. I've met very few people who could really listen.

2:22:18I've met very few people who were worthless night too. She raised her brows. Her shabby man was growing gallant. I am certain she smiled that with your delicate perceptions of the romantic you would rather we remained incognito. Names and addresses are banality. The leaves rustled and her muslins fluttered in a breath of warm wind. In silence they turned their faces out towards the distance. I love you, as she said. When there isn't anything to understand in them, there are no subtleties of emotion about June. She's so gloriously elemental. Not a month for self-justification, simply for self-abandonment. He turned towards her quickly. His whole face flushed and lighted up for speech. With a grind and screech of breaks, a big card threw up under the lime trees. Marshall leaned over the veranda rail. John, she cried, oh John!

2:23:18She reached out for her parasol and dived to gather up her sketching things. How late you are, she called again. How late you are. Did you have a puncture or what were you doing? She pushed back her chair with a greeting sound along the tiled floor of the veranda and stood looking down bright eyed at his weary, passive, disillusioned face. I was right, she said. There are two sorts of egoists, and I am both. End of Section 8 Section 9 of Encounters' Stories This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libravox.org. Read by Ben Tucker Encounters' Stories by Elizabeth Bowen The Lover

2:24:18Herbert Pilkington rang the electric bell and, taking a few steps back, looked up to contemplate the house front. In the full glare of the Westernly sun, it all looked trim and orderly enough. Sicily had not done so badly for herself after all by Mary and Richard Evans. Herbert congratulated himself on having foreseen the whole thing from the beginning, and furthered it with tact and sympathy. Of course, it had been difficult to get porcissally off. The hall door was opened suddenly by Sicily's nervous little maid who flattening herself against the passage wall to allow of his entrance, contrived by dodging suddenly under his arm to reach the drawing-room door before him and fling it wide. Richard and Sicily were discovered seated at opposite ends of the sofa and looking very conscious. Sicily wore a pink blouse, she looked prettier than Herbert could have imagined and curiously fluffy about the head. The white-walled drawing-room, dim in the ochreous twilight of drawn blinds,

2:25:19was hung with Richard's Italian watercolors and other pictorial mementos of the honeymoon. It smelled very strongly of varnish and seemed to Herbert emptier than a drawing-room ought to be. The chairs and sofas had retreated into corners. They lacked frilliness. There was something just as startled and staccato about the room as there was about Sicily and Richard. Poor mother and dear father eyed one another apprehensively from opposite walls. The very tick of the clock was hardly regular. They always gave one a warm welcome. Sicily was quite effusive, and long Richard Evans got up and stood in front of the fireplace, delightedly kicking the fender. Tea commanded Sicily through the crack of the door, just as she had done at number 17 and at the new house during the few short months of her reign there. Hot day said Herbert sitting down carefully. Richard's hot, said Sicily proudly. He's been mowing the lawn.

2:26:22Oh, Merle? Well, yes, one must slack off a bit this weather. Aitl dog said Herbert archley. Doesn't being engaged agree with Herbert, cried Sicily, slapping his knee. She had never taken these liberties at number 17. Don't you feel wonderful Herbert? Isn't it not like anything you've ever felt before? Herbert ran one finger around the inside of his collar and smiled what doors called his quizzical smile. Only three weeks more contributed Richard, and how's the trousseau getting on? My trousseau? Herders, of course, my dear Herbert. Those dressmaker women have got you in their fist. If they don't choose to let her have the clothes and time, she'll put the whole thing off. Herbert was not to be alarmed. Oh, they'll hurry up, he said easily. I'm making it worth her while. My cat Sicily, she does know how to dress. The armos wonderful clothes, she is lucky, isn't she, Richard. Herbert being complacency. She deserves it all, he said. I think she's getting

2:27:28handsome her every day. Happiness does a good deal for us all, said Herbert gallantly. By the way, said Sicily, winging across at Richard, an accomplishment he must have taught her. Look carefully around the room Herbert and see if you see anyone you know. Herbert, who had taken Richard's place on the sofa and was sitting with his hands and his pockets and his legs stretched out, turned his head as far as his collar would permit, and made an elaborate inspection of the chimney piece, the what-not, the piano top. Very well, she looks up there too, he said, raising himself a little with arched back for a better view, then relapsing with a grunt of relief. He had seen what he expected, the portrait of his beloved looking out coily at him from between two top heavy vases. Where did you get that, Sicily? She brought it round herself the day before yesterday. She came in just before supper. I was out, but she stayed a long time talking to Richard. Oh, Richard, look at Herbert getting crimson with jealousy.

2:28:31Herbert, who never changed color except after meals are from violent exertion, beaming with gratification. Never mind Herbert. Said Sicily, I'm jealous too, you see. Herbert was often irritated by the way that Richard and Sicily looked at one another across him. He did not enjoy the feeling of exclusion, but of course he indoors would be able to look at each other across people just like that when they were married. Do bring it over here, Richard, said Sicily, not at the portrait. I want to look at it again. Tee was carried in, not noiselessly, but quite unnoticed. The brother and sister were looking at the photograph. Herbert lent back, smiling at it with an absent and leisurely pride. Sicily bent forward and eager and short-sighted scrutiny. She seemed to be looking for something in it that she could not find. A young lady with symmetrically puffed out hair returned both regards from out of a silver flame with slightly bovine intensity. Her lips were bowed in an indulgent smile. Perhaps the photographer had been a funny man,

2:29:35a string of pearls closely encircled a long, plump neck. She has it framed for you very handsomely, said Herbert. I said to her when we were first engaged, never stint over present when it is necessary. I think that is so sound. Of course, I do not approve of giving indiscriminately. I said, but when they must be given, let them be handsome. It is agreeable to receive good presence and to give them always makes a good impression. Sicily looked guilty. Richard had insisted on consigning the coal-scuttle that Herbert had given them to the darkest corner of the study. Doros always understood me perfectly, continued Herbert, examining the frame to see if the price were still in the back. I think it will never be necessary for me to say anything to her twice. If I even express an opinion, she always remembers. It's quite extraordinary. Extraordinary, echoed Richard. His voice had often an ironical note in it that said prejudice Herbert against him

2:30:36at first. He seemed rather a disagreeable fellow, but now Herbert knew that it did not mean anything at all. Richard, though not showy looking, was really a good sort of chap. Sicily, a little pink, or perhaps it was only the reflection from her blouse, drew up the tea table and began pouring out. There was a short silence while Richard replaced the photograph. They heard two blue bottles buzzing against the ceiling. Richard hacked three quarters of a new cake into slices, placed the plate invitingly at Herbert's elbow and sat down on a music stool. Lifting his feet from the floor, he rotated idly till Sicily passed him his cup, which he emptied in three or four gulps and put down, then sat gazing expectantly at his brother-in-law. Marriage is a wonderful thing, said Herbert conversationally, recrossing his legs. Look at you too now, how comfortable you are. It's all been most successful. Sicily had never known till this moment whether Herbert really approved of them. The most surprising people, he continued, make a success of matrimony. Of course,

2:31:37people have varying ideas of comfort. Everybody does not understand this. Therefore, there have been, last, unhappy marriages. But the right people always find each other in the end, senselessly dreamily. You did sort of feel, didn't you, Herbert, when you first met doors? Women have all these fancies. Herbert was all indulgence for them. Doors has confessed to me that she was affected, quite extraordinarily affected by our first meeting. It made little or no impression upon me, but doors is a true woman. What is a true woman? Ask Richard suddenly. Herbert thought it must be very uncomfortable to live with a person who asked these, disconcerting rather silly questions. He supposed, Sicily was used to his ways. Sicily sat, staring her tea and smiled fattuously at her husband. Herbert, after consideration, decided to turn the question lightly aside. I think we all know, he said, when we find her. He wished Doris were sitting beside him instead of

2:32:38Sicily. He would have looked at her sideways, and she would have been so much pleased. As it was, he looked across the table at the bread and butter, and Richard jumped up and offered him some more. He asked, but what does she consist of? Ask Richard excitedly, forgetting to put down the plate. Herbert was silent. He thought this sounded rather indelicate. Sensibility suggested Sicily. Infinite sensibility, said Richard, and patience. Contraryness added Sicily. In consistency, amended Richard. Oh no, contrariness, Richard, and weak will. Herbert looked from one to the other, supposing they were playing some sort of game. She was infinitely adaptable too, said Richard. She has to be poor thing, said Sicily. This did not come well from Sicily. Derramee Sicily, and proposed Herbert blinking. So you consider women, or to be pity, do you? Sicily opened her mouth and shut it again. She clasped her hands.

2:33:40This does not speak well for Richard, said Herbert humorously. Doris would be much muse now. I suppose Doris is to be pity, doesn't she? Oh no, Herbert cried Sicily quickly. She doesn't seem unhappy. In fact, I believe there are very few young ladies Doris would change places with a present. And I think you are wrong, my dear Richard. I consider woman most consistent, if she is taught, and she can be easily taught. She is simpler and more childlike than we are, of course. Her way in life is simple. She doesn't seem unhappy. In fact, I believe there are very few young ladies Doris would change places with a present. And I think you are wrong, my dear Richard. I consider woman most consistent, if she is taught, and she can be easily taught. She is simpler and more childlike than we are, of course. Her way in life is simple. She is seldom placed in a position where it is necessary for her to think for herself. She need never dictate, except of course, to servants, and there she is backed

2:34:42by her husband's authority, all women wished to marry. Richard and Sicily listened respectfully. A true woman continued her bar warming to a subject, loves to clean. But she mustn't clean heavily, must she? Asks Sicily. She cleans not only to her husband, but in a lesser degree to her household, and he coughs silently. Children, her sphere, is the home, said Richard quickly. But suppose she hasn't got a home. She may now hope to look quite advanced age to obtain a home by matrimony. If she cannot, she must look for work. It is always possible for an unmarried woman to make herself useful if she is willing, and he considered carefully. Right. Do you like women to be bright? Asks Sicily eagerly. It depends, said her guardedly. He hated Sicily when she was skittish. It had sat grotesquely upon her as a spencer, though now that she was married a little

2:35:43matronly playfulness to not ill become her. Doris is bright, bright and equitable. Remembering with resentment how uncomfortable Sicily had sometimes made him, he raised his voice a little. She has no moods. She has simple tastes. She is always very bright and equitable. So you really suit each other very well. Some rise Richard twirling on the music stool. Appreciation is everything to a woman I congratulate her. Yes, said Herbert simply. But you should congratulate me. It is more usual, I think. But we are past all that now. There are many letters there were to answer. And now there are the presence to acknowledge a very handsome ink stand and a pair of vozzles came this morning. And another three weeks we shall be at Folkstone. His sister and brother-in-law were so silent that he thought they must have gone to sleep. They were an erratic couple. Matrimonies seemed to have made them stupid. Richard sat biting his mustache and staring at Sicily who with bent head

2:36:44absolutely smoothed out creases on the tablecloth. One might almost have said they were waiting for him to go. It was curious how little of this he had suspected in Sicily, although she was a sister. In the evenings he knew that Richard and she read poetry together and not him probably kissed. Through the folding doors he could hear their cold supper being laid out in the dining room. How could he have guessed that something inside her had been clamoring for these preposterous evenings all her life? She had seemed so contented so in by the lamp while he smoked and read the paper and poor mother dozed. It was wasting pity to be sorry for them. He turned from his anemic relations to the review his long perspective of upholstered happiness with doors. One might almost say that the upholstery was doors. Her work feeling his heart grow great within him could have written a testimonial to all the merchants of romance. Having given love a trial he had found it excellent and was prepared to recommend it personally,

2:37:44almost to offer a guarantee. Dare Doris would be waiting for him this evening. Demure, responsive, decently elated, he was going to visit her at home. This intention he communicated to Richard and Sicily who rose in vague and badly faint to stress. Herbert had said nothing about going as it happened, but since they had so understood him well, they were scarcely entertaining he had been there long enough. They saw him to the gate and stood together under the labyrinthum tree, watching him down the road. Richard's arm crept around Sicily's shoulders, but this, oh God, his love, he quoted. And Herbert had forgotten them before he reached the corner. End of section 9. Section 10 of Encounters' Stories. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libravox.org

2:38:50Read by Christine Rutger. Encounters' Stories by Elizabeth Bowen. 10. Mrs. Windameer. In the doorway of Fuller's Regent Street, they came face to face. This is Windameer grasped both Esme's wrists, drew them towards her bosom and cried in her deep tremolo, my dear. Esme had not imagined Mrs. Windameer out of Italy. She had never pictured that little pug dog face without the background of flickering olives or a velvety sun-gold walls, with ciprises dotted here and there like the exclamation marks in the lady's conversation. Mrs. Windameer now regarded her with intensity through the long fringes of her hat-brain. She said, the same as me, and gently massaged the wrists with her thumbs. This is splendid, said Esme inadequately,

2:39:51conscious of a rising pinkness and of the long stream of outcoming ladies damned by their encounter. What a funny coincidence. God guided me, dearest. Mrs. Windameer always mentioned the deity with confidential familiarity. One felt she had the entree everywhere. I admit to have lunch that stewards. I'm sorry you've had lunch. I will have more." said Mrs. Windameer recklessly. They pushed their way upstairs and stood over a little table in the window while it was vacated. Esme untwined the dangling parcels from her fingers and propped up her umbrella in a corner. Mrs. Windameer scanned the menu with the detachment of the satiated and Esme confessed that she was hungry. Then it must be Rizolese! said her friend enticingly. Little chicken Rizolese, I will have a couple of chocolate and an acclare. She gave the orders to the waitress and sat looking at Esme and

2:40:57tapping a corner of the menu card against her mouth. "'But you don't live in town?' No, said Esme. I'm up for the day. You would have written, wouldn't you? If we hadn't met, I should have been so much disappointed if we'd never. I hope to come and stay with you.' That will be lovely," said Esme, answering the smile. "'There was a moment silence. Do you miss Italy?' "'Yes!' There was an absent answer. Mrs. Windameer's thoughts were concentrated elsewhere. "'There's something strange about you, child,' she said. Esme now remembered how her conversation had been always little rushing advances on the personal. She had a way of yawning reproachily with a little click of the teeth and a surely we too know each other too well to talk about the weather. If one tried to give the conversation and outward twist.

2:41:58Esme had found their first walks together very interesting. They had the chilly, unusual, dream familiar sense of walking in one's skin. "'There is something strange,' said Mrs. Windameer. "'You look just the same as ever. There's just stillness there,' said the other, slipping a hand beneath her fur. Like the stillness in the heart of the whirlwind. Get right into it. Live in your most interior self. And you're unchangeable. You haven't found it yet. You're very young. You've never penetrated.' "'I don't think I have, perhaps,' said Esme thoughtfully, under the returning influence of Italy. Perhaps I'd rather like twirling.' "'Yes,' said Mrs. Windameer leaning back in her chair. Her lustrous eyes looked out mournfully, contentedly, from under pouchy lids, through the long fringes of her hat. Her ritruce nose was powder delicately moth. The very moist lips had a way of contracting quickly

2:43:05in the middle of a sentence in an unpug Lake effort to retain the saliva. Curly bunches of gray hair lay against her cheeks. A string of Roman pearls was twisted several times around her plump throat. Her fur's were slung across her bosom and one shoulder. Her every movement defused the odour of Avila de Parme. She had not removed her glows and opulent rolls of white kid in circled wrist and forearm. Her sleeves fell back from the elbow. She was an orthodox London edition of her Italian self. Twirling, she repeated narrowing her eyes. She looked round the mild, bright, crowded room, rustling with femininity, with its air of modest expensiveness. Simply twirling? How, with an obvious connection of ideas, is your husband? Very well indeed. He would like so much,

2:44:06as may could not picture Wolfred, meaning Mrs. Windomir. He would have liked to have come up with me today, she concluded. Yes, said the other looking beyond at something. How did he ever come to let you go to Italy alone? I wasn't alone though, was I? I was with Aunt Emma. Someone had to take her, and I'd never traveled. Spiritually you were alone. You were alert, a tiptoe breathlessly expectant. I came. But it might not have been I. How did he come to let you go like that? Men of his type are not so generous. These are not that type. The waitress brought the cup of chocolate, the eclair, and the russolets. Mrs. Windomir stretched out across the dishes, gently disengage the fork from Esme's fingers, and turned her hand palm upwards on the table.

2:45:07That little hand told me everything, she said. And do you know, child, you have this image at the back of your eyes? I know the type little loyal person. Wolfred likes me to travel, said as may feebly. He finds me rather a tiresome companion when he wants to talk about places, and you see he never has time to take me abroad himself. That was a very young marriage, said Mrs. Windomir, leaning forward suddenly. Oh, do you think so? But you're younger now, after four years of it, whereier, greedier, more dynamic, no children, never to be any children? I don't know. So wise and yet so foolish, she sipped delicately the hot chocolate, put the cup down, and once more slipped her hand under her fur. The mother heart, she said, is here. Hit, frozen, gross, stretching

2:46:08hands out, seeking, finding. I expect there are a great many outlets, said Esme helping herself to another russolet. Even if one never has any children of one's own, but I hope what you are seeking, said Mrs. Windomir firmly, is a lover. She took her fork up, speared the eclair, and watched the cream whose forth slowly with a smile of sensual contentment. She had been saying things like this repeatedly all the time they were in Italy, but they didn't somehow sound quite nice in fullers. Esme thought she saw women near them looking up. I don't think I am, you know. She argued gently. Wondering at what date Mrs. Windomir had arranged to come and stay with them. Oh child, child, you can't, you know, there's been too much between us, and the mother heart knows, you know, the yearnings in it bring about a vision. I see you treading strange, dim places,

2:47:13stumbling, crying out, trying to turn back, but always following the light. Mrs. Windomir laid down her fork and licked the cream from her lips. And then she said slowly, I see the light die out, extinguished. It was a pause. Thank you very much, said Esme earnestly. It saves a lot to know beforehand. I mean, if the light is going to go out, there's something rather desperate about my following it, isn't there? Wouldn't it be the light interrupt in Mrs. Windomir? Is yours took a heart? But wouldn't it be? Mrs. Windomir bowed her head and drew her first together. Such a child, she sighed. I think I'll have an eclair too, said Esme timidly. Won't you have another one to keep me company? I started Mrs. Windomir. I eclair what?

2:48:16Well, if it's going to make you shy, my watching, as may order two more eclairs. What she inquired are your plans? Did you think of going back to Italy? With the swallows, not before the swallows, I must smother down the panting and the tugging, because my friends can't let me go. They just rise up and say I mustn't. Comands, of course, are nothing, but in treaties. Did I tell you in Italy what some people call me? She laughed deprecatingly and watched the waitress threading her way between the tables with the eclairs. They call me the helper. It sounds like something in a mystery play, doesn't it? Oh, yes, it's a beautiful name. It does seem to be a sort of gift. Said Mrs. Windomir, looking beyond her, something given one to use. You see, I do see things other people can't see and tell them,

2:49:20and then, and help them to straighten out. Well, take your case, and I have another friend in Italy, the one I was going to stay with after who he parted. I don't know if I told you about her, well, she left her husband. She grew up and found she didn't need him anymore. Well, I saw all that for her and was able to help her. I told the other man how things stood, such a manly fellow. He'd been hanging back, not understanding. Well, they went. I bought their tickets for them and saw them off to Italy. They've been having difficult times, but they'll straighten out. I'm still able to help them. I've been staying there a good deal. I am able to help them. I suppose they did feel it was the right thing to do, said Esme. Hedge you, said Mrs. Windomir, bringing her suddenly into focus. What is going to happen to you?

2:50:22I must come down and have a look at this husband of yours, this will for a lemmy see. She dived suddenly. Her bag was on the floor. She reappeared with it, and its moths, sat in moth, gaped at Esme while she fumbled in its depths. Out came a small swayed notebook, and Mrs. Windomir feverishly nibbling the point of the pencil ran her eye down the pages. The twenty-if, she said, I could come then if you could have me, if not the 14th of the next, for the weekend. But if I came on the 20th, I could stay longer, failing the 14th. Esme pondered, lowering her lashes. I'm afraid, um, awfully afraid, it will have to be the 14th of next. All this month there will be Wilford's relations. Little cage thing, said Mrs. Windomir tenderly. Very well, the 14th. She jotted down something in her notebook, looked across that

2:51:26Esme smiled, and jotted down some more still with her head at one side, and a little secret smile. Ideas, ideas coming and going. And now, you, to your shoppings, and I, well, childy. Please, the bill, said Esme to the waitress, you must let me please, she whispered to Mrs. Windomir. No, I don't like. Oh, well, well, I haven't got a Wilford. Thanks, dear child. They pushed their chairs back and went downstairs together, at the door Esme drew a valedictory breath. It's been ever so nice, she said, lovely, such a bit of luck, and now I suppose, which way? Oh, Peter Robinson's? Well, I'll come with you. It doesn't matter about my little shoppings is, firmly encircling Esme's wrist, with a thumb and

2:52:27forefinger she led her down Regent Street, end of section 10. Section 11 of Encounters, Stories by Elizabeth Bowen This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libravox.org Read by Ben Tucker. Section 11. The Shatterway Third He was a pale little man with big teeth and prominent eyes, sitting opposite to him and a bus one would have found it incredible that there could be a woman to love him. As a matter of fact, there were two, one dead, not counting a mother whose inarticulate devotion he resented, and a pale sister also dead. The only woman of value to him came down every evening to meet the

2:53:27520 and stood very near the edge of the platform with her eyes flickering along the moving carriages. She never knew from which end of the train he would elite because, as he told her, it was only by the skin of his teeth that he caught it at all, and he often had to jump in at the nearest open door and stand the whole way down among other men's feet with his hand against the rack to steady himself. He could have come down easily and luxuriously by the 6'5 in the corner of a smoking carriage, but he gave himself this trouble for the sake of three quarters of an hour more with her. It was the consciousness of this, and of many other things which made her so speechless when they met. Often they were through the barrier and halfway down the road before she found a word to say. She was young, with thin features and light hair and eyes, and they had been married less than a year. When they turned from the road down the tree-shadowed lane, he would shift his back from one hand to the other, and still an arm round her shoulders. He loved her shy trimmer,

2:54:33and the little embarrassed way she would lean down to make a snatch at his back, which he would sometimes allow her to carry. Their house was among the first two or three on a new estate, and overlooked rolling country from the western windows, from the east, house backs of new roads. It had been built for him at the time of his first marriage four years ago, and still smelled a little plaster, and was coldly distempered, which he hated, but they said it was not yet safe to paper the walls. Today, she said, come down and have a look at the garden, Martin. I've been planting things. So he put down his bag, and they walked to the end of the garden, where a new flower bed looked scratched up and disordered, and was edged with little drooping plants. Very pretty, he said, looking at her, and absolutely prodding at the mold with a zumbrella. I suppose they'll grow. Oh, yes, Martin, they're going to grow right up and hide the board fence. It's so ugly.

2:55:33If they're going to be so tall, you should have planted them at the back, and put the smaller things in front, as it is, everything else would be hidden. Why, yes, she cried disheartened. I never thought of that. Oh, Martin, it seemed such a pity to go walking over the new flower bed, leaving footmarks. That's why I put them near the edge, and now I can't unplant them. Well, a lot there is to learn. Will you take me to the gardening exhibition next summer? I was reading about it there, corners of gardens by all the famous people in stone seats and fountains. We might buy a sundial there, and there are lectures you can go to in prize roses. We should learn a lot. Next summer? Well, well, see. He said, meanwhile, don't overdo it, all this gardening. They skirted the flower bed and went to lean up against the fence, resting their elbows on the top. She was half an inch taller than he, and her high heels gave her a further advantage. A little wind blew in their faces as they looked out towards the fading distance.

2:56:36The fields were dotted here and there with clumps of Elm, with here and there a farm roof, the long roofs and gleaming windows of a factory. This open country stretches for such miles, she said dreamily. Sometimes on these quiet, misty days I began to think the seas over there, and that if the clouds along the distance lifted, I should see it suddenly shining. And with this wind I could be sure I smell it and hear it. Yes, I know. When often gets that feeling. Do you? Well, no, he said confusingly, but I'm sure one does, I can imagine it. Someone had said the same thing to him just here three or four years ago. You often understand before I say things, don't you, Martin? Isn't it curious? All sorts of women's discoveries that I've made about this house were nothing new at all to you, like my idea about a fitment covered for that corner of the landing. Fancy, that having occurred to you!

2:57:39He did not answer. He had taken off his hat, and she watched the wind blowing through his bare hair, as soft and fine as a baby's. Little wrinkles were coming in at the forehead that she thought so noble. And his face, well, one could not analyze it, but it was a lovely face. She pictured him swaying for forty minutes in the train with his hand against the luggage rack in order to be with her now, and said, oh, Martin, Martin? Let's come into the house. No, not into the house. Why not? It's cold, your cold little woman. He drew her arm through his and shaved her hand. Let's stay out, she begged. It isn't time for supper. It isn't beginning to get dark yet. Do stay out, dear Martin. Why? He said looking around at her. One would think you were afraid of the house. She laughed. Afraid of our house? But he was still dissatisfied. Something was making her restless.

2:58:39She was out in the garden too much, and when she was not in the garden, she was always walking about the house. One or two days when he had stayed at home to work, he had heard her on the stairs and up and down the passages. Up and down, up and down. He knew that women in her state of health were abnormal, had strange fancies. Still, now she was talking about the new sundial, where they were going to put it. Nostertiums were to be planted round the foot. She said, because Nostertiums grew so fast and made a show. Her mind had a curious wave, edging away from the immediate future. Next summer, why, she should have other things besides sundials to think of, then, what a funny little woman she was. I wonder you never thought of having a sundial before, she insisted. Did anybody ever think of it? Well, no, he said. I don't think it ever occurred to me. Or anybody? No, nor anybody. She looked up at the house, silhouetted against the evening sky.

2:59:47It's funny living in such a new house. I never had. I wonder who will come after us? We're not likely to move for some time. He said sharply. Oh, no, only if we did. It seems so very much our house. I can't imagine anybody else at home here. We've made it so entirely you and I. What was it like the first month or two? Very damp. He said, now wishing to return to the sundial. Did you have the drawing room? Very pretty. Oh, yes, there were a great many curtains and things. I had to take down all the pictures. They were going moldy on the walls. It was always a pretty room, even with nothing in it at all. But it's nothing without you when it was. You didn't miss me for a long time, she said, with her cheek against his. Always, he said. Always, always, always. Oh, no, she said seriously. You know you couldn't have been lonely. Lonely, I was wretched. No hush.

3:00:51She cried with a start, putting her hand over his lips. Anyway, he kissed her fingers. Nobody is lonely now. Come into the house. She hung back on his arm a little, but did not, again, protest. They went in by glass door into the kitchen passage. As they passed through the archway into the hall, he put out his hand to sweep something aside. Then smiled, shame-facidly. It was funny how he had always expected that, portier, she had declared that a drawt came through from the kitchen and insisting on putting it up. She had filled the house with draperies, and Pussy had taken them down when the portier was there. He had always been forgetting it, and darting through to changes boots in the evening would envelop his head and shoulders ridiculously in the musty velvet folds. Funny how he could never custom himself to the changes. The house as it had been was always in his mind more present than the house as it was. He could never get used to the silence halfway

3:01:53up the stairs, where the grandfather clock used to be. Often he found himself halfway across the hall to see what was the matter with it. It had been an entire some clock more troubled than it was worth, with the most reverberating tick. Pussy had put a bracket of china there in its place. Because it was a chilly autumn evening, they had lighted a fire in the drawing room. The curtains were drawn. What an evening they would spend together after supper. An armchair had been pulled forward in a work basket gaped beside it. He wondered what Pussy had been sewing. He stood in the hall looking in through the open door and rumored her, making baby clothes by the fire, and holding them up in her fingers for him to see. Sometimes he had barely raised his eyes from his book. She had never been able to understand his passion for self-education. As she finished the things, she had taken them upstairs and locked them away, and sometimes she would put down her sewing. And rattled her work box maddeningly, and looked at him across the fire and sigh.

3:02:57It would be wonderful to watch Pussy sewing. He could hear her moving about in the hall. Such a pussy hanging up his overcoat, then opening the oak chest and rattling things about in it for all the world, as though she were after a mouse. I found some pictures, she said coming up behind him with a stack of something in her arms, come into the drawing room, and we'll look. The young fire gave out a fateful light, and they knelt down on the hearth rug, and put their heads together over the pictures. Nursery pictures, said Pussy. She must have been up in the attic. He wished he had cleared the contents of it out of his house. He stared at the smiling shepherds' farmer-poise, and woolly lambs. They are nursery pictures, aren't they, Martin? I didn't know you'd actually bought the pictures. Had anybody chosen the curtains too? Did you get as far as that? I don't know, he said. I don't really, Pussy, I don't remember.

3:04:03And did you take it all to pieces again? Did you alone or did anybody help you? I wonder you didn't leave it, Martin. You didn't want the room for anything else. But I suppose it would have made you sad, or other people sad. Have you done anything to the room yet, Pussy? I just pulled the furniture about a little, then I went to look for a fender in the attic and found these pictures. I don't know if there were any curtains, Martin. Shall I buy some more? I saw some cratons, especially for that kind of room, all over clowns and rabbits and little scarlet moons. I'll bring some patterns or come up to town someday, and we'll choose them together. She did not answer. She was looking at the pictures. Martin, was that one going to have been called Martin-to? Martin Ralph? I don't know, it hadn't been this sighted. Didn't anybody

3:05:05choose a name for him? Although he didn't live. He was a real person. It had never been decided, Pussy. I'm going to get you a longer sofa so that you can put your feet up. We can choose it when we choose the chances. Oh, you mustn't. This one is very comfortable. I never said in it, but that's because I just don't take to it. I hate to look at it. Well, get rid of it. She said smiling. Has neither of us wants a sofa? Did anybody ever sit on that one? As far as he remembered, it was the only thing in the room that she had ever set on. She had never looked comfortable on it. She had a way of sitting with her head at the darkest end and straining her eyes over her work, then blinking up at him when he spoke. Of course, she ought to have worn glasses. He hated women and glasses, and she knew it. But her short sightedness annoyed him, and he had frequently said so. She used to come and meet him at the station.

3:06:06He came back by the six-five in those days, sometimes by the six-fourty-three, and it had so greatly irritated him to watch her grimacing and screwing up her eyes at the carriages that he had slipped through the barrier behind her and pretended when she came home that he had not known she was there. Perhaps the little chap would have been short-sighted if he had lived. Made came in to say that supper was ready, and they were into the dining room. Here the curtains were undrawn, and they could see the lights twinkle and out in the windows of the other houses. He often felt as though those windows were watching him. Their gaze was hostile, full of comment and criticism. The sound of the wind among the bushes and the garden was like whispered comparisons. He said they saw a good deal too much of the neighbors, and Pussy said she'd like to the friendly lights. I wouldn't like to be shut in all round, but I couldn't live without any people. The next doors had been so kind. She came in with some plants this morning and

3:07:09stayed talking quite a long time, and said if there was ever anything she could do. She spoke so nicely of you, Martin. She's known you by sight ever since you were a little boy. Oh, it's funny to have lived in the same place all one's life. All these people, well, they're sometimes rather tiresome. Tiresome? When gets tired of there being the same. Would you like to travel, Pussy? Oh, Martin. Her eyes grew whistful. The prospect seemed remote. Well, we will, he said, with energy. We'll go to Switzerland some summer. I'd rather go to Italy, Venice. Oh, not Venice. I don't think you'd care for Venice. It's nothing very much really. Have you been there? Yes, for a bit, but I didn't care about it. You never told me, her eyes that had been looking into his looked suddenly away.

3:08:09The color surged up under her clear skin. She began to fidget with the spoons on the table. More, Martin? Yes, please. I say, Pussy, you're not eating. You must eat, darling. Oh, I am. Don't bother. I want to talk. She lifted her eyes again and glanced at him. The light glinting on her golden eyelashes and on her hair. I've been so lonely all day. Well, not lonely, but the house was so quiet I could hear myself think. I went into the east room and sat on a window-seat. It is a cold room. I don't know how we'll ever make it warm enough. It has never been used, you see. We must have fires there this winter. Has it never been used? Didn't anybody ever sit there or go in and out? Oh, they must have, Martin. It's not an empty feeling room like the attic. Did you stay there long? No, I didn't. I was feeling restless. The white chest of drawers is locked. I wonder where the key is. We shall be wanting to use it.

3:09:15The key's lost. He said in sudden fear. I know it's lost. I'll go up there someday and force open the drawers myself. They're empty. How funny to lock them if they're empty. What did you imagine was inside? He has done easily. Oh, nothing in particular, Martin. I think I will go up to town and buy those chinses myself. And there are other things I want. He remembered how he had heard her in the east room those last two months before she went, opening and shutting the drawers. It had disturbed him, working at his desk in the dining room below. And he had come up angrily once or twice. He could hear her scuffling to her feet at his approach. And when he entered, she was always standing by the window, looking intently out. She used to say, yes, all right, I won't, I'm sorry, Martin. And come downstairs after him humming. She had never seemed to have enough to do. Before the child came, she had been in an aimless

3:10:20bustle. But afterwards she did nothing. Nothing at all. Not even keep house for him decently. That was probably what had made her ill. That in the disappointment. All the time he had felt her watching his face, always on the verge of saying something. When they returned to the drawing room, the fire had burnt down a little. Martin piled on wood, then sat back in the shadow, watching Pussy, who, with a reading lamp at her elbow, had begun to sew. He never read these evenings. A table of brick-a-brack had been pushed up against the doors of the bookcase with the guilt-bound classics and encyclopedias which had beguiled his evenings other years. Books, after all, were musty things, and all the book-learning in the world didn't make him more valuable to Pussy, whose eye wandered when he spoke to her of dynasties or carnivorous plants. He would pull her work box towards him and amuse himself, sorting its contents.

3:11:24One evening, he came on a thimble case which made him start. Where did you get that, Pussy? He asked fiercely. It appeared that she had had it since she was a little girl. Strange that it should be the same as another. So familiar once. He confiscated it, and brought her a maracco one next day with a new thimble in it that did not fit. This evening, watching her head and hands in the circle of light, he could hardly keep at the other side of the hearth-rug from her. She was preoccupied, working very slowly. At intervals, she smoothed out her sewing on her knee, with her head on one side. Pussy was long-sighted, and always looked at things from as far away as possible. When he spoke her intent eyes fixed themselves on him unseeingly. What are you thinking about, Pussy? She evidently did not wish to tell him. She smiled, looked round the room a little fearfully, smiled again, and took up her work. Pussy? Oh, I don't know,

3:12:26I'm so happy. I'm so glad to have you back. I wonder if anyone was ever so happy? Then why do you look so sad? I was thinking it would be so terrible not to be happy. I was trying to imagine what I'd feel like if you didn't care. Didn't care. I couldn't imagine it, she admitted. He could no longer keep the length of the hearth-rug between them when she smiled like that. She continued with his arm round her. You never let me know the feel of wanting just the littlest differences in you would make me eat my heart out. I should never be able to ask you for things. I should just look and look at you trying to speak, and then you would grow to hate me. And then don't look at me like that, Martin. And then I should get ill. And if you didn't want me to come back, I'd die. Hi, silly, I was only imagining you shouldn't have made me talk. You shouldn't imagine things like that.

3:13:28You said somberly, what makes you do it? It's morbid. You might do yourself a great deal of harm. And besides, it's things like that happen. Good person go on loving and loving and never be wanted. How should I know? I think, she said, that not to want a person must be a sort of murder. I think a person who was done out of their life like that would be brought back by the injustice, much more than anybody who was shot or stabbed. Are these the sort of things you think about all day? She looked at his white face and later head against his shoulder and began to whimper. Oh, Martin, don't be angry. I'm so frightened. I'm so frightened. Hush. We're not safe, and I don't believe we're even good. It can't be right to be so happy when there isn't enough happiness in the world to go round. Suppose we had taken somebody else's happiness, somebody else's life.

3:14:31Pussy, hush, be quiet. I forbid you. You've been dreaming. You've been silly imagining these horrors. My darling, there's no sin and happiness. You shouldn't play with dreadful thoughts. Nothing can touch us. I sometimes feel the very room hates us. Nothing can touch us. He reiterated, looking defiantly into the corners of the room. End of section 11. Section 12 of Encounters, Stories. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by Kurt from Tucson, Arizona. Encounters, Stories by Elizabeth Bowen.

3:15:36The evil that men do. At the corner by the fire station, where Southampton Roe is joined by Theobald's road, a little man, hurrying back to his office after the lunch hour was run over by a motor lorry. He had been stepping backward to avoid a taxi when worse befell him. What was left of him was taken to hospital and remained for some days unidentified as no papers of any sort were to be found in his pockets. The morning after this occurrence, a lady living on the outskirts of a country town received a letter in an unfamiliar writing. The appearance of the envelope startled her. It was so exactly what she had been expecting for the last four days. She turned it over, biting her lip. The dining room was darker than usual.

3:16:40It was a dull, still morning, and she had risen and dressed with growing apprehension. Her husband was away, and the windows seemed further than ever now that she occupied his place, and breakfasted alone. She poured out a cup of tea and raised the plated cover of a dish, the sight of a lonely sausage decided her. She opened the letter. Before she had read to the end, she leaned forward to think with her knuckles doubled under her chin. Other people have that sinister advantage over one of being able to see the back of one's head. For the first time in her life she had the uncomfortable sense that somebody had done so, that somebody had not only glanced but was continuously staring. Her husband did not make her feel

3:17:41like this. Fancy, she thought. Just an hour and ten minutes exactly. Just that little time and all these years I never knew. Think of living among all these people, and never knowing how I was different. She folded up the letter for a moment and began betting against herself on his Christian name. Evelyn, she thought, or possibly Arthur or Philip, as a matter of fact. It was Charles. I know you so well the letter continued. Before you drew your gloves off, I knew that you were married. You have been living on the defensive for years. I know the books you read and what you see in the streets you walk in, of that town with the terrible name. You live in a dark house looking over a highway.

3:18:41Very often you stand in the light of the windows, leaning your head against the frame and trees with dull leaves, and the sunshine and shadow shivering over your face. Footsteps startle you. You start back into the crowded room. The morning you get this letter, go out bare headed into the garden and let the wind blow the sunshine through your hair. I shall be thinking of you then. Your husband and your children haven't treated on you. Even your children hurt you with their little soft hands, and yet you are, as you always were, untouched and lonely. You came slowly out of yourself at that poetry reading, like a nymph coming out of a wood. You came towards me like a white thing between the trees, and I snatched at you as you turned to go back. Her cheeks burnt. My goodness, she cried biting her thumbnail. Fancy anybody being able to write like that?

3:19:43Fancy living at 28, A. Buram Road, West Kensington. I wonder if he's got a wife. I do wonder. Delicious warmth crept down her. Poetry. I thought he wrote poetry. Fancy him having guests I read it. I am going to send you my poetry. It is not published yet, but I am having a type written. When it is published, there shall be just your one initial on the dedication page. I can't bear the thought of your living alone among those strange people who hurt you. Familiar, unfamiliar faces and cold eyes. I know it all. The num mornings, the feverish afternoons, the intolerable lamplet evenings, night. Now she thought, I am sure he has a wife. And your wand-dazed face turning without hope to the first gleams at the window.

3:20:46Guilty, guilty that she slept so well. The cook came in. When the meals for the day were ordered and her breakfast half surreptitiously eaten with the letter tucked inside the tea-cozy, she went upstairs to her room and tried on the hat she had worn in London, folding the side flaps of the mirror around her so that she could see her profile. She leaned forward, gazing at a point in space represented by the prismatic stopper of a scent bottle. With a long, slow breath, she went slowly through the action of drawing off a glove. Living, she settled out, for years and years on the defensive. She looked into the mirror at the neat quiet room behind her with the reflected pinkness from curtains and carpet over its white wall, and the two mahogany bedsteads with their dappled eye-to-downs. There were photographs of her

3:21:47aunts, her children, and her brother-in-law's wife along the mantelpiece, a print of the good shepherd above the washstand, and lumbling the ruins over the beds. On a bracket were some pretty vases of French-China, Harold had given her at Dieppe, and a photo-groverer of the Luxembourg gardens she had given Harold. In a bookcase were several selections from the poets, beautifully bound in colored swayed, and another book, white, with gold roses called The Joy of Living. She got up and slipped a novel from the local library into the bottom of a drawer. What on earth would be the good, she reasoned, of going out into the garden when there is no sun and no wind and practically no garden? She considered her reflection. I don't feel I could go down the high street in this hat. There must be something queer about it. Half past nine. Harold will be back at half past eleven. I wonder if

3:22:55he's bringing me anything from London. She put a good deal of powder on her face, changed her hat and earrings, selected a pair of half-soiled gloves from a drawer and went downstairs. Then she ran quickly up again and wiped off all the powder, like a wooden inf, she murmured, coming out of a wood. When she was halfway down the high street, she found that she had forgotten her shopping basket and her purse. Harold came home at half past eleven and found his wife still out. He whistled for some minutes in the hall, looked vainly into her bedroom, the kitchen and the nursery, then went round to the office to put in some work. Harold was a solicitor. Coming in again at lunchtime, he met her crossing the hall. She looked at him vaguely. Why, you are back early. I was back two hours ago, said he. Did you have a nice time in London? He explained with his usual patience that one does

3:24:00not expect to have a nice time when one goes up to London on business. Of course, he said, we're all out to get what we can out of London. We all, as you might say, pick it over. Only what I'm out for isn't pleasure. I leave that to you, don't I? I'm out for other pickings. Yes, Harold. This is very good beef. Yes, isn't it, she cried much gratified. I got it at Hoskins. Mrs. Peck deals there. She told me about it. It is much cheaper than at Bittles, Tuppens less in the Pound. I have to cross over to the other side of the street now when I walk past Bittles. I haven't been there for three days and he looks as though he were beginning to suspect. She sighed sharply. Her interest flagged. Ah, yes, said Harold, encouragingly. I'm tired of buying beef, she said, resentfully. Oh, come, tired of going down the high street. Why, what else would you?

3:25:06She felt that Harold was odious. He had not even brought her anything from London. All my day she cried, messed up with little things. Harold laid down his knife and fork. Oh, do please go on eating. Yes, said Harold. I was only looking for the mustard. What were you saying? Got any plans this afternoon? He said after luncheon, according to President. I'm going to write letters, she said, pushing past him into the drawing room. She shot the door behind her, leaving Harold in the hall. There was something in doing that, living on the defensive. But were there any corners, any moments of her life for the last eight years which Harold had not pervaded? And horrible, she had not only lived with him, but liked him. At what date in fact had she ceased liking Harold? Had she ever?

3:26:06She put her fingers quickly in her ears as though somebody had uttered the guilty thing allowed. Seating herself at the writing table, she shut her eyes and thoughtfully stroked her eyebrows with the pink feather at the tip of a synthetic will pen. She drew the feather slowly down the line of one cheek and tickled herself under the chin with it, a delightful sensation, productive of shivers. Oh, she sighed with a shuddering breath. How beautiful, beautiful you are! The top of a bus, lurching and rattling through obscure London, the cold air blowing on her throat moments under lighted windows when their faces had been mutually discernible. The sudden apparition of the conductor which had made him withdraw his hands from her wrist, their conversation, which she had forgotten. Ride, ride together, forever ride. When the bus stopped they had got down and got on to another. She did not remember where they

3:27:09had said goodbye. Fancy, all that from going to a poetry reading instead of a picture house. Fancy, and she hadn't even understood the poetry. She opened her eyes and the practical difficulties of correspondence presented themselves. One could not write that sort of letter on Asia Bond. The note paper he had used had been so indefinably right somehow. She did not know how to address him. He had not begun with a deer anything, but that did seem rather abrupt. One could not call him, dear Mr. Simmons. After an hour and ten minutes of such bus riding, how could you call a person Mr. Simmons when he said you were a nymph? Yet she couldn't take to Charles. Everything practical she found had been crowded into the post-gripped of his letter. People said that women did that. He said he thought it would be better

3:28:10if she were to write to him at his office in Southampton Row. It was an insurance office which somehow gave her confidence. Dear Charles, she began. It was a stiff little letter. I know it is she sighed distressfully rereading it. It doesn't sound abandoned, but how can I sound abandoned in this drawing-room? She stood up, self-consciously. That cage that it is, she said, allowed the intolerable cage and began to walk about among the furniture. Those chinses are pretty. I am glad I chose them, and those sweet, roost-satant cushions. If he came to tea, I would sit over here by the window with the curtains drawn a little behind me. No, over here by the fireplace, it would be in winter and there would be nothing but fire-light. But people of that sort never come to tea. He would come later on in the evening and the curtains would be drawn, and I should be

3:29:10wearing my, oh, like a nymph! How trivial it all seems! And Harold had wondered what there would be left for her to do if she didn't go down the high street. She would show him. But if she went through with this to the end, Harold must never know. And what would be the good of anything without Harold for an audience? She again reread the letter she had written. Of course, my husband has never entered into my inner life. And underlined the, of course, with short definite lines. It was quite true. She left books of poetry about and Harold never glanced at them. She sat for hours gazing at the fire, or, as Charles said, out of the window and Harold never asked her what she was thinking about. When she was playing with the children, she would break off suddenly and turn away her face and sigh. And Harold never asked her what was

3:30:11the matter. He would go away for days and leave her alone in the house with nobody to talk to, but the children and the servants and the people next door. But, of course, solitude was her only escape and solace. She added this as a post-script. Harold entered. I left this, he said, down at the office this morning by mistake. I thought I had forgotten it in London. I should not like to have done so. I was very much worried. I did not mention the matter as I did not want you to be disappointed. He extended a parcel. I don't know whether it is pretty, but I thought you might like it. It was the most beautiful handbag. Silver-grey with the delicate blue-monet of perfect swayed, darker when one stroked it one way, lighter the other. The clasp was real gold and the straps by which one carried it of exactly the right length. Inside it had three divisions. Drawing out the pads of tissue paper, one revealed a lining of

3:31:17ivory moire down, which the light shot into the shadows of the sumptuously scented interior and little trickles like water. Among the silk folds of the center compartment, were a purse with a gold clasp, a gold case that might be used for either cigarettes or visiting cards, and a darling little gold-backed mirror. There was a memorandum tablet and an outer pocket, and a little book of Papier Poudre. They sat down on the sofa to examine it. Their heads close together. Oh, she cried. You don't mind, Harold? Papier Poudre? Not, said Harold. If you don't put on too much. And look, the little wee mirror. Doesn't it make me have a little wee face? Harold breathed magnanimously over the mirror. Harold, she said, you are wonderful. Just what I wanted. You can take it out shopping tomorrow

3:32:23morning. Down the high street. She shut the bag with a click, brushed away the marks of her fingertips, and swung it by the straps from her wrist, watching it through half-closed eyes. Harold, she sighed ineffably. They kissed. Shall I post your letters, he inquired? She glanced towards the writing table. Would you wait a moment? Just a moment. There's an address I must write and a post script. My little wee wife said Harold contentedly. PPS, she added. You must not think that I do not love my husband. There are moments when he touches very closely my exterior life. She and Harold and the handbag went as far as the post together. And she watched the letters swallowed up in the maw of the pillar box. Another of your insurance policies asked Harold? Only just to know the general particulars, she said. She wondered for some time what Charles would think when he came to the last post script and never

3:33:32knew that fate had spared him this. End of Section 12. Section 13 of Encounters. Stories. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by Kurt from Tucson, Arizona. Encounters. Stories. By Elizabeth Bowen. Sunday. It was six o'clock. The dusky sky was streaked with gold behind the beach trees. And the bells were already beginning. They had sat like this since tea. Mrs. Roche had turned half-round to watch the sunset her hands were clasped along the back of her

3:34:36chair. And her chin rested on her interwoven fingers. She blinked a little in the level light. And all the little lines were visible about her eyes and round her puckered mouth. Laura May and Mrs. McCannis sat on the low window seat. faintly or yelled. Their empty cups beside them on the floor. Archie Manning was somewhere on the sofa away among the shadows of the room. Leaning back with his legs so twisted that his big feet stuck grotesquely out into the light. They had almost forgotten his existence. And his masculinity did not obtrude itself upon the conversation. Cups and silver held the last of the sunlight. The tall room gradually obscured itself. Here and there a frame or mirror gleamed on the shadowed walls. They were talking about the first woman.

3:35:37Something had been said of her in the sermon that morning and the thought had germinated in their minds all day. Little Mrs. McCannis had had so far most to say. Now she paused to light another cigarette. And Mrs. Roche turned her eyes in Laura's direction. She did not move her head. Laura has been nothing but a dusky profile. What is she thinking about that makes her so silent? Laura is one of those primitive women said Mrs. McCannis and Haley and Smoke. She doesn't think she commumes. Laura was a big fair girl. Her silences made other people talkative. Her virginal starts and blushes stimulated Mrs. McCannis. She set twisting and untwisting a gold chain round her neck and said, Oh, I don't know really. I am very unoriginal, you know. But nobody is original, said Mrs. Roche and her deep voice. It's no good really.

3:36:44All the oldest ideas are the best. But I was thinking, children, looking at the sunset, of her despair on that first night watching the light go out of the world. Think how it must have felt. I expect Adam was reassuring, said Mrs. McCannis. He'd seen it happen before. No, he hadn't. They were born on the same day. That is, weren't they? Father, look it up in Genesis. Yes, they were, said Laura conclusively. She was full of information. So Adam had no time to be lonely. That was a pity. It would have made him so much more grateful. Psychologically interrupted Mrs. Roche. How interesting it all is, supposing it were true. Eve, of course, was at first no practical assistance to him. There were no chores, no mending. They didn't wear fig leaves till after the fall. That must have been nice, said Mrs. McCannis.

3:37:47I mean, the no fig leaves. But, inexpressive. Yes, inexpressive. I was going to say rather impersonal. Oh, come, Guilder, one's own skin isn't personal. What is? I don't know, said Mrs. Roche slowly. I don't think it's very personal. After all, it's only the husk of one. Unavoidably there. But once clothes are part of what one has got to say. Eve was much more herself when she began putting flowers in her hair than when she sat about in just no fig leaves. And she was much more herself than ever when she had got the fig leaves on. And you and I are much more ourselves than she was. And do you think covering oneself up is being real? Ask Laura? She entered the conversation with heavy, serious grace, as she would have entered a room.

3:38:47I don't know, said Guilder Roche. The less of me that's visible, the more I'm there. Laura, looking at Guilder's face so nearly on a level with her own belief that it was one of the dearest on Earth, with those satirical eyes. It was in this belief that she came to stay for long weekends and was hurt by Mrs. Roche's other incomprehensible friends. That's your mind, she said? You mean you feel a deeper sense of identity behind reserve? Mrs. Roche looked at her for a moment, then out over her head at the sunset. Mrs. McKenna fidgeted. She disliked this interchange of the personal note. I don't agree with you, she said, raising her voice to drown the insistence of the bells. I'm for off with everything, clothes pose reserve. Oh, now Fanny, keep a little pose. Perhaps she conceded unblushingly. A little, just a flower in the hair. Then to walk among things like Eve among the trees and feel them

3:39:53brushing up against me. But the world is so crowded, Fanny, said Guilder, who seemed to be enjoying Mrs. McKenna. Just think wherever you went it would be like walking in the park. I am, rather, mix, said Laura. Are we speaking metaphorically or not? Not, said Mrs. McKenna, poking her. Oh, decidedly not. She had been longing to poke Laura for some time. Every line of the girls anatomy annoyed her. The bells came peeling chime after chime. Their echoes pervaded the darkening room. Archie stirred on the sofa. Don't they make one feel holy, he said? Laura, who had blushed for Archie during the parts of Mrs. McKenna's conversation. One never knew what that little woman was going to say. Her mind flickered about like a lizard. Thought that it might now be possible to turn the current. I like them, she asserted. I hate them. I hate them, cried Mrs. McKenna,

3:40:57putting her hands up over her ears and stamping her foot. They've been ringing for the last half hour, and you didn't seem to mine, said Guilder Roche, bending down to knock the ash off her cigarette and to Laura's tea-cup. Yes, but they come in at the pauses so reprovingly, like Wilson putting his owls face round the door. He longs to clear away the tea-things, but you give him no encouragement, and he is afraid of tumbling over Archie's feet. He's been in three times. I know, said Guilder penitently. But if he takes away the tea-things, it will leave us all sitting around in an empty circle, with no particular raison d'être. Archie is feeling holy, said Mrs. McKenna, looking across at the sofa, not without respect. I wonder what it feels like. That present is mind is in the past. When this present is the past, it will linger longest in this particular

3:41:58part of the past, how difficult that was to say. Seven or eight Sundays hence, Archie, when you are in Africa very lonely and primeval. Leaning on your gun, you will think back to one Sunday evening in the country, and Guild is drawing room, and you'll try and hum the chimes. Unconsciously, you're learning them now. You'll shut your eyes and see the big windows and the beaches, and Laura and me, and think what sweet women we were. Oh, shall I, said Archie, in a discouraging tone? Fanny McKenna was coming a little too near the mark. She was a discordant person all together and would have been better away. He was very happy with his head in the dark, listening to Guild and watching Laura listen. He had been curiously attracted lately by the movements of her big head, and big, rather incapable-looking white hands. I should like a life in the wild, said Mrs. McKenna

3:43:00thoughtfully. It's a pity I can't go with you. Yes, said Archie, politely. But it wouldn't suit me. I should be terrible, luxuriate, overdeveloped. I thought that was what you wanted, Fanny, said Gilda unwisely. Off with everything, you know? Not when there was nobody about. What would it matter if everything was off or on? Nobody would be the better for it. What's the good of being sincere when there's nobody to be sincere at? There'd be Archie. Well, anyway, there's William, said Mrs. McKenna conclusively, and I can't go. I'm afraid I don't love Archie enough, but he will be very lonely. Won't you, Archie? Oh, I don't know, said Archie evasively, rolling his head about among the cushions. I suppose so. I suppose one will live a good bit in the past and future if one has got too much time to think, and not enough to do in the present.

3:44:01What future, Archie, said Mrs. Roche with curiosity? Oh, I don't know. Coming back, I suppose. I ought to be back in four years. I wonder where everybody will be. I shall be here, a little grayer hair, perhaps, and stupid. Several of my friends will have given up coming down to see me, including Fanny, who will be wherever William isn't. Laura will probably be married. Oh, said Laura consciously. And you will come down once or twice and be very retrospective and sweet, Archie. Then drift away, too. Perhaps you will bring the girl you are engaged to down to see me, and she will kiss you on the way home and say, I am a dear old thing, and not be the least bit jealous anymore. I know I shall be very stupid someday. I can feel it coming down on me, like mist, from the top of a mountain. Laura will often come and see you, console Mrs. McKenna, and bring all the babies. We must all write to Archie, interposed Gilda.

3:45:06He will never answer, but he will expect the most enormous posts. It's queer that we three who have been talking so much about primeval simplicity should have nothing much in front of us, but drawing rooms and gardens for the next four years. While Archie, who never asks for anything better than a sofa, from all I've seen of him, should be actually going out into the wilds to do things. Why? Yes, said Mrs. McKenna. Archie is actually going to revert. Laura would do that easily, too. Now for you and me, Gilda, life is much more perilous. Archie and Laura would camp out quite happily, compassed about by a perfect cloud of lions, and so long as they weren't eaten, well, they just go on living, but for us the next four years are going to be most terribly dangerous. I've been feeling so happy lately that I know I must be terribly insecure, right at the edge of something,

3:46:06the struggle for life. They'll never know the meaning of it, will they, Gilda? The feeling that if you stopped for a moment, you'd go out. Gilda's eyes narrowed. Yes, it's desperate, Fanny, isn't it? You contesting every inch and eye longing to grow old beautifully, and murdering, said Fanny intensely, smothering your youth. Gilda began to laugh. I don't think you're right in saying that Archie and Laura live just negatively. They are a great deal more than not dead, and you're very sweeping, Fanny. Nobody likes to be dismissed as incomplex. Archie is a man of action, strenuous in his mind, and Laura is a reposful, which needs energy. That's why we love her. Yes, don't we, said Fanny generously, but we can't think how it's done. Oh, all big things are reposful, said Gilda. Look at the beach trees. I am a very wiry scotch fur,

3:47:10said Fanny, with relish. I stand against the skyline and cry out for gales when they come I ecstacize. Gilda, you are a large tree planted in a windy place. You look down and thank you long for a valley, but every inch of you undulates. In a calm, you'd go quite limp. You in a calm. It's all I want, said Gilda. She raised her chin from her hands and leaned back to look round the shadows of the room. Her hands still resting on the back of the chair. She had an eternal youthfulness and gesture and repose. Archie, watching her silhouette against the fading sky, thought she was like a girl of 19. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, and tone Fanny suddenly echoing the church bell, which was now ringing for late comers with a little note of urgency. Don't you think we might take Archie to church? It would give him some more to remember. We might arrive before the second lesson,

3:48:14if we started now, and he could sit between Laura and you in a rather dark pew and share a book and sing, lead kindly light? Oh, don't, Fanny! Fanny had wondered how much of this they were going to stand. She loved to see Gilda defending her lambs. Oh, it's only that tiresome little Mrs. McKenna, she assured them. Terribly flippant, isn't she? She sighed. I wonder if anyone will ever think of me on Sunday evenings. Only if they want a fourth at bridge, said Archie brutally. It was extraordinary how nice boys could hurt. I've never been to evening church. I know nothing about it. Is it poignant? Ask Gilda? Laura, we will go next time you're here. You might go about eight weeks hence suggested Archie disinterestedly. When I shall be there, you know, it would be rather amusing. And I say, suppose you always write on Sunday evenings. No, of course you couldn't.

3:49:20The house is always full of people. It's awfully funny to think of those bells going on all these chairs and sofas here and people in them and not me. It's funny to think of everywhere going on without one. And still going on if one never came back. I'll keep your corner of the sofa for you, Archie. No one else shall sit in it. Yes, you might. The room was getting so dark that it did not matter what one said. Laura leaned back with her head against the window frame and side. Fanny, with her arms folded, peered down at her own little feet. Archie began to whistle under his breath. Turned down an empty glass, he said. Four years will fly, said Laura. All depends, said Fanny. Four years hence, she shivered. Funny if we all met here again, said Archie. We won't said Fanny with conviction. Who knows? Who knows, said Gilda? Who wants to know? We'd never dare go

3:50:24on. Oh Fanny, dare? We've got to. We want to, said Laura quietly. Yes, by Joe, said Archie. It's all been jolly good so far. One feels they wouldn't let one down. They cried Fanny impatiently. They who? How dependent, how pitiful, how childish. Well, you don't believe we're in the dark forever now the sun's gone down, said Gilda, uncertainly. We guess it may come up again. We chance it. We're such optimists, such cowards. Well, what do you believe? Believe? I wouldn't sell myself. I think that's pitiful, said Laura. The door opened. Yes, Wilson, said Gilda, I think you might come in and take away the tea. They heard Wilson fumbling for a moment, and the room sprang into light. They blinked a little, suddenly aware of the furniture, each other's bodies, and a sense of betrayal.

3:51:26Mrs. McKenna rose briskly. We might have some bridge, she said. What a pity some of us can't play. She looked down at Laura. End of section 13. Section 14 of Encounters. Stories. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by Kurt from Tucson, Arizona. Encounters. Stories by Elizabeth Bowen. Coming home, all the way home from school, Rosalyn's cheeks burnt. She felt something throbbing in her ears. It was sometimes terrible to live so far away. Before her body had turned,

3:52:31the first corner, her mind had many times wrenched open their gate. Many times rushed up their path through the damp smells of the garden, waving the essay book and seen darling-ist coming to the window. Nothing like this had ever happened before to either her or darling-ist. It was the supreme moment that all these years they had been approaching of which those dim, improbable future years would be spent in retrospect. Rosalyn's essay had been read aloud, and everybody had praised it. Everybody had been there. The big girl sitting along the sides of the room had turned and looked at her, raising their eyebrows and smiling. For an infinity of time the room had held nothing but the rising and falling of Miss Wilfred's beautiful voice doing the service of Rosalyn's

3:53:35brain. When the voice dropped to silence and the room was once more unbearably crowded, Rosalyn had looked at the clock and seen that her essay had taken four and a half minutes to read. She found that her mouth was dry in her eyes, ached from staring at a small, fixed spot in the heart of whirling circles, and her knotted hands were damp and trembling. Somebody behind her gently poked the small of her back. Everybody in the room was thinking about Rosalyn. She felt their admiration and attention lapping up against her in small waves. A long way off somebody spoke her name repeatedly. She stood up stupidly and everybody laughed. Miss Wilfred was trying to pass her back the red exercise book. Rosalyn sat down again thinking to herself how days she was,

3:54:36days with glory. She was beginning already to feel about for words for darling-est. She had understood some time ago that nothing became real for her until she had time to live it over again. An actual occurrence was nothing but the blankness of a shock. Then the knowledge that something had happened. Afterwards one could creep back and look into one's mind and find new things in it clear and solid. It was like waiting outside the hen house till the hen came off the nest. And then going into look for the egg, she would not touch this egg until she was with darling-est. Then they would go and look for it together. Suddenly and vividly this afternoon would be real for her. I won't think about it yet, she said. For fear I'd spoil it. The house is gruescarser and the

3:55:38roads greener and Rosalyn relaxed a little. She was nearly home. She looked at the syringo bushes by the gate and it was as if a cold wing had brushed against her. Supposing darling-est were out. She slowed down her running steps to a walk. From here she would be able to call to darling-est. But if she didn't answer there would be still a torturous hope. She might be at the back of the house. She decided to pretend it didn't matter. One way or the other. She had done this before, and it rather took the wind out of somebody's sails, she felt. She hitched up her essay book under her arm, approached the gate, turned carefully to shut it, and walked slowly up the path looking carefully down at her feet, not up at all at the drawing-room window. Darling-est would think she was playing a game. Why didn't she hear her tapping on the glass with her thimble? As soon as she

3:56:43entered the hall she knew that the house was empty. Clocks ticked very loudly. Upstairs and downstairs the doors were a little open, letting through pale strips of light. Only the kitchen door was shut down the end of the passage and she could hear Emma moving about behind it. There was a spectral shimmer of light in the white paneling. On the table was a bowl of primrose's. Darling-est must have put them there that morning. The hall was chilly. She could not think why the primrose's gave her such a feeling of horror, then she remembered the wreath of primrose's and the scent of it, lying on the raw new earth of that grave. The pair of grey gloves were gone from the bowl of visiting cards. Darling-est had spent the morning doing those deathly primroses and then taken up her grey gloves and gone out at the end of the afternoon. Just when she knew her little girl would

3:57:47be coming in. A quarter past four. It was unforgivable of Darling-est. She had been a mother for more than twelve years. The mother exclusively of Rosalind. And still it seemed. She knew no better than to do a thing like that. Other people's mothers had terrible little babies. They ran quickly in and out to go to them, or they had smoky husbands who came in and sat with big feet. There was something distracted about other people's mothers. But Darling-est, so exclusively one's own. Darling-est could never have really believed in her. She could never have really believed that Rosalind would do anything wonderful at school, or she would have been more careful to be in to hear about it. Rosalind flung herself into the drawing-room. It was honey-colored and lovely in the pale spring light. Another little clock was ticking in the corner, and there were more bowls of primrose in black

3:58:52guide, lowering anemones. The tarnished mirror on the wall distorted and reproved her angry face in its mild moveness. Tee was spread on the table by the window. Tee for two that the two might never. Her work on an open book lay on the tumbled cushions of the window-seat. All the afternoon she had sat there waiting and working, and now poor little Darling-est, perhaps she had gone out because she was lonely. People who went out sometimes never came back again. Here she was, being angry with Darling-est and all the time. Well, she had drawn on those gray gloves and gone out wandering along the roads, vague and beautiful because she was lonely. And then, ask Emma, no, she wouldn't. Fancy having to ask her. Yes, your mother will be in soon, Miss Rosie. Now, run and get your things off. There is a good girl. Oh, no, intolerable. The whole house was full of the scent and horror

3:59:55of the primrose's. Rosalind dropped the exercise book on the floor. Look at it, hesitated, and putting her hands over her mouth when upstairs choking back her sobs. She heard the handle of the kitchen door turn. Emma was coming out. Oh, God! Now she was on the floor by Darling-est's bed with the branches swaying and brushing outside the window, smothering her face in the eye to down, smelling and tasting the wet satin. Down in the hall she heard Emma call her, mutter something, and slam back into the kitchen. How could she ever have left Darling-est? She might have known. She might have known. The sense of insecurity had been growing on her year by year. A person might be part of you, almost part of your body, and yet once you went away from them, they might utterly cease to be. That sea of horror, ebbing and flowing around the edges of the world, whose tides were chartered

4:00:58in the newspapers, might sweep out a long wave over them, and they would be gone. There was no security. Safety and happiness were a game that grown up people played with children to keep them from understanding, possibly to keep themselves from thinking. But they did think that was what made grown up people queer. Anything might happen. There was no security. And now Darling-est? This was her dressing table, with the long beads straggling over it. The little colored glass barrels and bottles had bright flames in the center. In front of the looking glass, filmed faintly over with a cloud of powder, Darling-est had put her hat on for the last time, supposing all that had ever been reflected in it were imprisoned somewhere in the back of the looking glass. The blue hat, with the drooping brim, was hanging over the corner of a chair.

4:02:01Rosland had never been kind about that blue hat. She didn't think it was becoming. And Darling-est had loved it so. She must have gone out wearing the brown one. Rosland went over to the wardrobe and stood on tiptoe to look on the top shelf. Yes, the brown hat was gone. She would never see Darling-est again in the brown hat coming down the road to meet her and not seeing her because she was thinking about something else. Po-Despania crept faintly from among the folds of the dresses. The blue, the gold, the soft furred edges of the teagown dripping out of the wardrobe. She heard herself making a high whining noise at the back of her throat, like a puppy. Felt her swollen face distorted by another peroxism. I can't bear it. I can't bear it. What have I done? I did love her. I did so awfully love her. Perhaps she was alright when I came in, coming home smiling. Then I stopped loving her.

4:03:05I hated her and was angry. And it happened. She was crossing a road and something happened to her. I was angry and she died. I killed her. I don't know that she's dead. I'd better get used to believing it. It will hurt less afterwards. Supposing she does come back this time. It's only for a little. I shall never be able to keep her. Now I've found out about this. I shall never be happy. Life's nothing but waiting for awfulness to happen and trying to think about something else. If she could come back just this once, darling, and I came halfway upstairs. Rosalind flattened herself behind the door. Will you begin your tea, Miss Rosie? No. Where's mother? I didn't hear her go out. I have the kettle boiling. Will I make your tea? No. No. Rosalind slammed the door on the angry mudderings and heard with a sense of desolation. Emma go downstairs. The silver clock by Darling is sped ticked. It was five o'clock.

4:04:11They had tea at a quarter past four. Darling ist was never, never late. When they came to tell her about it, men would come and they would tell Emma and Emma would come up with a frightened triumph and face and tell her. She saw the grey gloved hands spread out in the dust. A sound at the gate. I can't bear it. I can't bear it. Oh, save me, God! Steps on the gravel. Darling ist. She was at the window pressing her speechless lips together. Darling ist came slowly up the path with the long ends of her veil untied, hanging over her shoulders. A paper parcel was pressed between her arm and her side. She paused, stood smiling down at the daffodils. Then she looked up with a start at the windows as though she heard somebody calling. Rosalind drew back into the room. She heard her mother's footsteps cross the stone floor of the hall, hesitated at the door of the drawing room and come over to the foot of the stairs.

4:05:15The voice was calling. Lindy, Lindy ducky. She was coming upstairs. Rosalind leaned the weight of her body against the dressing table and dabbed her face with the big powder puff. The powder clung in pace to her wet lashes and in patches over her nose and cheeks. She was not happy. She was not relieved. She felt no particular feeling about Darling ist. Did not even want to see her. Something had slackened down inside her leaving her a little sick. Oh, you're there, said Darling ist from outside, hearing her movements. Where did? Where were? She was standing on the doorway. Nothing had been for the last time after all. She had come back. One could never explain to her how wrong she had been. She was holding out her arms. Something drew one towards them. But my little clown said Darling ist wiping off the powder.

4:06:17But oh, she scanned the glazed blurred face. Tell me why, she said. You were late. Yes, it was horrid of me. Did you mind? But that was silly, Rosalind. I can't be always in. But you are my mother. Darling ist was amused. Little trickles of laughter and gratification ran out of her. You weren't frightened, silly Billy. Her tone changed to distress. Oh, Rosalind, don't be cross. I'm not, said Rosalind coldly. Then come. I was wanting my tea. Rosalind, don't be. Rosalind walked past her to the door. She was hurting Darling ast beautifully hurting her. She would never tell her about that essay. Everybody would be talking about it. And when Darling asked her an aster about it, she would say, oh, that? I didn't think you'd be interested. That would hurt. She went down into the drawing room past the perm roses. The great loves were back

4:07:20on the table. This was the mob and golden room that Darling asked had come back to from under the shadow of death, expecting to find her little daughter. They would have sat together on the window-seat while Rosalind read the essay aloud, leaning their heads closer together as the room grew darker. That was all spoiled. Poor Darling asked up there alone in the bedroom, puzzled, hurt, disappointed, taking off her hat. She hadn't known she was going to be hurt like this when she stood out there on the gravel, smiling at the daffodils. The red essay book lay spread open on the carpet. There was the paper bag she had been carrying, lying on a table by the door. Macaroons all squashy from being carried the wrong way, discouraging through a tear in the paper, a little trickle of crumbs. The pathos of the forgotten macaroons, the silent pain, Rosalind ran upstairs to the bedroom. Darling ast did not hear her. She had forgotten.

4:08:26She was standing in the middle of the room with her face, turned towards the window, looking at something a long way away, smiling and singing to herself, and rolling up her veil. The End End of Section 14 End of Encounters Stories by Elizabeth Bowen