She made a tremendous effort. But it was not much good, really. She might just as well have spared herself the pains. She simply could not get on with them, any more than they could get on with her. There seemed to be no possible point of contact between them. Anna would dance with them, and play games with them, with the best will in the world. But as soon as she tried to talk to them, an invisible, impassable barrier seemed to slip into place, like a glass dome over an old-fashioned clock, shutting her off, absolutely on her own little pedestal of isolation.
It was at the same time dreary and discouraging; a tedious round of discouragement. After the congenial fullness, the completeness of her life at Haddenham, this futile pursuit of amusements which failed to amuse was both irritating and distressing. Only the thought of going to Oxford in the autumn helped her through the days. That, and her correspondence with Sidney.
Now that Anna found herself in an unsympathetic atmosphere, she relied more and more on the consciousness of Sidney’s affection. From day to day she was made to feel that the atmosphere of Blue Hills was one of covert, undeclared but growing hostility towards herself. She was, in some way, in complete, basic, involuntary opposition to the whole life of the place. And in some way, everyone seemed instinctively to be aware of her opposition, though she tried hard to conceal it.
Anna knew that Lauretta was aware of the distaste, the slight involuntary contempt, which she felt for this empty, aimless existence, of the sort of faint horror which it inspired in her. She knew that Lauretta bitterly resented her attitude, that she thought of her as conceited, supercilious and affected. But for the life of her she could not conceal her feelings. By her silences, by her expressions, by the very inflexions of her voice she seemed, against her will, to reveal the truth. And the hostility mounted against her day by day.
So that now, for her consolation and support, she had only her letters from Sidney, and those which she wrote in reply. Sidney wrote almost every day, short, disjointed sentences that were like her conversation, but full of encouragement for Anna, full of Sidney’s own wild, proud charm, reckless and half savage, faithful in a shy intensity of love. A sort of wild strength of devotion behind the abrupt phrases.
Anna wrote back daily, long, carefully-worded, rather consciously-clever letters, analytical and introspective. A certain pathos in the well-selected phrases; and also a soullessness, a hardness, rather repulsive. But nevertheless a vast sincerity.
She was always writing or reading. Whenever she could snatch a few minutes from the exacting, boring social round, she would slip away into some corner or other with a book, or a block of writing-paper. A habit which annoyed Heyward Bland.
He couldn’t bear it. It made him indignant. And immediately, he had to swoop down upon her, when he saw her sitting quietly somewhere, furious that she should be quiet.
‘What are you up to now?’ he snapped, snarling at Anna’s book as if it had been a deadly insult offered to him, personally. ‘Always reading and lounging about! Why can’t you behave like other girls of your age — Be a bit more coltish instead of going about with your nose in the air all day!’
And Anna, quietly but definitely, would walk away to escape the old man’s bullying rudeness, eyeing him contemptuously with grey, stone-like eyes, not saying a word.
One morning the expected letter from Sidney failed to appear, and Anna went about the house disconsolate and wondering, till, in Lauretta’s room, she saw the familiar square white envelope addressed in Sidney’s small writing, lying on the silver quilt with its incrustations of pale flowers. And Lauretta sitting up in bed in her lacy wrapper with a kind of pointed, bird-like ferocity on her pretty face where the slackness of middle-age was just beginning to show itself.
Queer, the sharp, bright malevolence on Lauretta’s face, as she sat and looked at her niece. A cruel, tormenting look, with something ugly behind — jealousy, perhaps.
‘My letter —’ Anna began, and put out her hand to pick it up.
But Lauretta was quicker. With a pouncing, darting movement, her hand with its small, sharp, pink-tinted nails flashed out, and took the letter away.
Anna’s arm dropped to her side. She stood quite motionless, as if paralysed.
On Lauretta’s face a slight smirk of ferocity came, as she touched the letter.
‘Yes, your letter,’ she said, with a peculiar sharp insolence, like the jab of a bird’s beak. ‘Your letter,’ she repeated: and paused.
‘What about it?’ said Anna, suddenly angry. ‘Give it to me, please.’
Lauretta’s eyes gleamed with malevolent ridicule, watching her.
‘I have read it,’ she said, not making any move, but watching, watching, her eyes fixed mockingly on Anna’s face, with a kind of satisfaction.
‘Why did you read it?’ asked Anna coldly. ‘What right have you to read my letters?’
‘As your guardian I have the right to watch over your morals. More than a right — it is a duty.’
The subtle gleam of satisfaction lurked in Lauretta’s eyes as she spoke. She was doing her best to get her own back, to trample over Anna.
Anna was very quiet. She would not show her anger. She knew how to stand very still, isolating herself from the woman in the bed.
‘I don’t approve of your friendship with this girl — Sidney, or whatever she calls herself.’ The strange, vicious insolence of the tone!
‘Sidney is her name.’ Anna’s voice dropped, cold as a stone, into the silence.
Lauretta made a faint, insulting grimace.
‘It would be something like that, of course.’
There was a little blank pause, heavy with anger. Then:
‘Perhaps you think that because I don’t say very much I don’t notice what is going on, in my own house, under my very nose. Perhaps you imagine that I haven’t seen you creeping off day after day to write your secret letters. And this girl’s letters that come for you every day.’
Anna did not want to speak. She would rather have kept silent. But since the mocking, insulting voice had paused as if for a reply from her, she said:
‘Well, why shouldn’t we write to one another? We were friends at Haddenham for a long time, and no one there objected to our friendship.’
A peculiar light flashed in Lauretta’s eyes. Her whole face assumed a secret and somewhat blenched expression, a sly look of wicked, secret cunning and knowingness, like an evil little bird.
‘I’m beginning to think that Haddenham was not a very desirable place. It seems to have had a remarkably bad effect upon you.’
Anna felt herself beginning to tremble inwardly. An irritable disgust had fallen upon her, so that she wanted to make some violent gesture, to smash something, and to run out of the room. But outwardly she remained perfectly calm.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
‘I hope for your sake that is true; that you don’t understand me.’
It was perfectly clear that Lauretta was enjoying herself. She rejoiced because she had been able to bring that pale, disgusted look to Anna’s face. Her eyes were bright points of malice in her soft face.
‘But, anyhow, your friendship with this Sidney must stop. It’s unhealthy, and I won’t allow it to continue.’
‘Unhealthy!’ cried Anna, in a voice quivering with anger. ‘Sidney’s the healthiest person alive!’
Lauretta gave a little triumphant smirk. Her desire to wound and insult Anna was gratified. She had touched her on the raw.
‘I think not,’ she said. ‘This is an unhealthy letter. It is not at all a normal, harmless letter from one girl to another. It’s a love letter, neither more nor less!’