The Remains of the Day - By Kazuo Ishiguro Page 0,94
remain this further day here; an early start tomorrow will ensure that I am back at Darlington Hall by teatime.
It is now fully two days since my meeting with Miss Kenton in the tea lounge of the Rose Garden Hotel in Little Compton. For indeed, that was where we met, Miss Kenton surprising me by coming to the hotel. I had been whiling away some time after finishing my lunch – I was, I believe, simply staring at the rain from the window by my table – when a member of the hotel staff had come to inform me that a lady was wishing to see me at the reception. I rose and went out into the lobby, where I could see no one I recognized. But then the receptionist had said from behind her counter: ‘The lady’s in the tea lounge, sir.’
Going in through the door indicated, I discovered a room filled with ill-matching armchairs and occasional tables. There was no one else present other than Miss Kenton, who rose as I entered, smiled and held out her hand to me.
‘Ah, Mr Stevens. How nice to see you again.’
‘Mrs Benn, how lovely.’
The light in the room was extremely gloomy on account of the rain, and so we moved two armchairs up close to the bay window. And that was how Miss Kenton and I talked for the next two hours or so, there in the pool of grey light while the rain continued to fall steadily on the square outside.
She had, naturally, aged somewhat, but to my eyes at least, she seemed to have done so very gracefully. Her figure remained slim, her posture as upright as ever. She had maintained, too, her old way of holding her head in a manner that verged on the defiant. Of course, with the bleak light falling on her face, I could hardly help but notice the lines that had appeared here and there. But by and large the Miss Kenton I saw before me looked surprisingly similar to the person who had inhabited my memory over these years. That is to say, it was, on the whole, extremely pleasing to see her again.
For the first twenty or so minutes, I would say we exchanged the sort of remarks strangers might; she inquired politely about my journey thus far, how I was enjoying my holiday, which towns and landmarks I had visited and so on. As we continued to talk, I must say I thought I began to notice further, more subtle changes which the years had wrought on her. For instance, Miss Kenton appeared, somehow, slower. It is possible this was simply the calmness that comes with age, and I did try hard for some time to see it as such. But I could not escape the feeling that what I was really seeing was a weariness with life; the spark which had once made her such a lively, and at times volatile person seemed now to have gone. In fact, every now and then, when she was not speaking, when her face was in repose, I thought I glimpsed something like sadness in her expression. But then again, I may well have been mistaken about this.
After a little while, what little awkwardness as existed during the initial minutes of our meeting had dissipated completely, and our conversation took a more personal turn. We spent some time reminiscing about various persons from the past, or else exchanging any news we had concerning them, and this was, I must say, most enjoyable. But it was not so much the content of our conversation as the little smiles she gave at the end of utterances, her small ironic inflexions here and there, certain gestures with her shoulders or her hands, which began to recall unmistakably the rhythms and habits of our conversations from all those years ago.
It was around this point, also, that I was able to establish some facts concerning her present circumstances. For instance, I learnt that her marriage was not in quite as parlous a state as might have been supposed from her letter; that although she had indeed left her home for a period of four or five days – during which time the letter I had received had been composed – she had returned home and Mr Benn had been very pleased to have her back. ‘It’s just as well one of us is sensible about these things,’ she said with a smile.