"Yes," I answered desperately. "You are--thank you very much."
_Later_.
I threw this on the top of the chest of drawers because mother came in
to say "good night!"
She has never done such a thing before.
"What a dreadfully old-fashioned nighty you are wearing, Pam," she said.
"It was one of yours," I answered. "I always have yours when you have
done with them."
"You must have some pretty new things now, dear," she said. She stayed
and chatted for a few minutes, and then strayed out again, leaving an
atmosphere of elegance and jasmine scent.
I really am numbed mentally. My brain keeps taking records to-night,
like a camera. It's a sort of human sensitised plate, but I don't feel
anything, not even that it is really happening to me.
When the C.O. and his wife made their appearance, we all turned and
walked up the hill together; father and the Colonel and his wife walked
on in front, and the man and I walked behind.
The man bent his head quite close to my head and laughed. It was rather
a beastly laugh, not villainy, just as if he didn't care whether an
earthquake or the millennium started next minute.
"Well," he said, "you seem to have had your innings, Miss Burbridge.
Now I want mine."
"I'll tell dad when I get home," I babbled foolishly. "I'll explain
fully all about the searchlights and everything."
I felt absolutely the same as I did when I sat down at my "maths." paper
when I tried to matric., after having been awake all night with raging
toothache. I felt I couldn't be decisive or adequate or even sensible,
I couldn't deal efficiently with a fly that settled on my own nose.
"The inopportune arrival of the Colonel and his wife have made it rather
difficult to explain," he hazarded. "Don't you remember gracefully
acknowledging our tender regard for each other, and equally gracefully
accepting congratulations on existence of same?" He sounded all the
time frightfully amused in a bored sort of manner. He had the most
delightful kind of voice, frightfully deep and soft, and he drawled in a
fascinating way.
We walked, unconsciously, slower and slower, far behind the others, in
the scent of the heather that clothed the hill.
It was a wonderful night. It sort of caught you by the throat and made
you ache for all the things you could never, never have; crave the deep
friendships and wonderful love that would never come your way.
"I am afraid I have been very stupid," I said. "I often am. You see, I
am afraid of father."
"He's a bully, a rotten bully," he said; and then: "I beg your pardon,
Miss Burbridge--I shouldn't have said that."
"It's just that he shouts, and I can't think when he shouts. I just say
something that will make him stop shouting--anything."
"It's funny my not meeting you before," he said. "I've met your mother
scores of times. Of course, I've heard of you." He paused thoughtfully,
as if he were trying to remember what he had heard.
"I don't go about much," I put in.