THE TUNNEL




                         VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES


                           POINTED ROOFS
                           BACKWATER
                           HONEYCOMB
                           THE TUNNEL
                              In preparation
                           INTERIM




                               THE TUNNEL


                                   BY
                         DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON
                    AUTHOR OF "POINTED ROOFS," ETC.


                                 LONDON
                            DUCKWORTH & CO.
                   3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN


                     First Published February, 1919
                     Second Impression March, 1919


                          All rights reserved


                                   TO
                                 M. K.




                               THE TUNNEL




                               CHAPTER I


                                   1

Miriam paused with her heavy bag dragging at her arm. It was a disaster.
But it was the last of Mornington Road. To explain about it would be to
bring Mornington Road here.

"It doesn't matter now" said Mrs. Bailey as she dropped her bag and
fumbled for her purse.

"Oh, I'd better settle it at once or I shall forget about it. I'm so
glad the things have come so soon."

When Mrs. Bailey had taken the half-crown they stood smiling at each
other. Mrs. Bailey looked exactly as she had done the first time. It was
exactly the same; there was no disappointment. The light coming through
the glass above the front door made her look more shabby and worn. Her
hair was more metallic. But it was the same girlish figure and the same
smile triumphing over the badly fitting teeth. Miriam felt like an
inmate returning after an absence. The smeariness of the marble-topped
hall table did not offend her. She held herself in. It was better to
begin as she meant to go on. Behind Mrs. Bailey the staircase was
beckoning. There was something waiting upstairs that would be gone if
she stayed talking to Mrs. Bailey.

Assuring Mrs. Bailey that she remembered the way to the room she started
at last on the journey up the many flights of stairs. The feeling of
confidence that had come the first time she mounted them with Mrs.
Bailey returned now. She could not remember noticing anything then but a
large brown dinginess, one rich warm even tone everywhere in the house;
a sharp contrast to the cold harshly lit little bedroom in Mornington
Road. The day was cold. But this house did not seem cold and when she
rounded the first flight and Mrs. Bailey was out of sight the welcome of
the place fell upon her. She knew it well, better than any place she had
known in all her wanderings--the faded umbers and browns of the stair
carpet, the gloomy heights of wall, a patternless sheen where the
staircase lights fell upon it and in the shadowed parts a blurred
scrolling pattern in dull madder on a brown background; the dark
landings with lofty ceilings and high dark polished doors surmounted by
classical reliefs in grimed plaster, the high staircase windows screened
by long smoke grimed lace curtains. On the top landing the ceiling came
down nearly level with the tops of the doors. The light from above made
the little grained doors stare brightly. Patches of fresh brown and buff
shone here and there in the threadbare linoleum. The cracks of the
flooring were filled with dust and dust lay along the rim of the
skirting. Two large tin trunks standing one upon the other almost barred
the passage way. It was like a landing in a small suburban
lodging-house, a small silent afternoon brightness, shut in and smelling
of dust. Silence flooded up from the lower darkness. The hall where she
had stood with Mrs. Bailey was far away below and below that were
basements deep in the earth. The outside of the house with its
first-floor balcony, the broad shallow flight of steps leading to the
dark green front door, the little steep flight running sharply down into
the railed area seemed as far away as yesterday.

The little landing was a bright plateau, under the skylight, shut off by
its brightness from the rest of the house, the rooms leading from it
would be bright and flat and noisy with light compared with the rest of
the house. From above came the tap-tap of a door swinging gently in a
breeze and behind the sound was a soft faint continuous murmur. She ran
up the short twisting flight of bare stairs into a blaze of light. Would
her room be a bright suburban bedroom? Had it been a dull day when she
first called? The skylight was blue and gold with light, its cracks
threads of bright gold. Three little glaring yellow grained doors opened
on to the small strip of uncovered dusty flooring; to the left the
little box-loft, to the right the empty garret behind her own and in
front of her her own door ajar; tapping in the breeze. The little brass
knob rattled loosely in her hand and the hinge ran up the scale to a
high squeak as she pushed open the door and down again as it closed
behind her neatly with a light wooden sound. The room was half dark
shadow and half brilliant light.


                                   2

She closed the door and stood just inside it looking at the room. It was
smaller than her memory of it. When she had stood in the middle of the
floor with Mrs. Bailey she had looked at nothing but Mrs. Bailey,
waiting for the moment to ask about the rent. Coming upstairs she had
felt the room was hers and barely glanced at it when Mrs. Bailey opened
the door. From the moment of waiting on the stone steps outside the
front door everything had opened to the movement of her impulse. She was
surprised now at her familiarity with the detail of the room ... that
idea of visiting places in dreams. It was something more than that ...
all the real part of your life has a real dream in it; some of the real
dream part of you coming true. You know in advance when you are really
following your life. These things are familiar because reality is here.
Coming events cast _light_. It is like dropping everything and walking
backwards to something you know is there. However far you go out you
come back.... I am back now where I was before I began trying to do
things like other people. I left home to get here. None of those things
can touch me here. They are mine....

... The room asserted its chilliness. But the dark yellow graining of
the wall-paper was warm. It shone warmly in the stream of light pouring
through the barred lattice window. In the further part of the room
darkened by the steep slope of the roof it gleamed like stained wood.
The window space was a little square wooden room, the long low double
lattice breaking the roof, the ceiling and walls warmly reflecting its
oblong of bright light. Close against the window was a firm little deal
table covered with a thin brightly coloured printed cotton tablecloth.
When Miriam drew her eyes from its confusion of rich fresh tones the
bedroom seemed very dark. The bed drawn in under the slope showed an
expanse of greyish white counterpane, the carpet was colourless in the
gloom. She opened the door. Silence came in from the landing. The blue
and gold had gone from the skylight. Its sharp grey light shone in over
the dim colours of the threadbare carpet and on to the black bars of the
little grate and the little strip of tarnished yellow grained
mantelpiece, running along to the bedhead where a small globeless gas
bracket stuck out at an angle over the head of the bed. The sight of her
luggage piled up on the other side of the fireplace drew her forward
into the dimness. There was a small chest of drawers battered and almost
paintless but with two long drawers and two small ones and a white cover
on which stood a little looking glass framed in polished pine ... and a
small yellow wardrobe with a deep drawer under the hanging part and a
little drawer in the rickety little washstand and another above the
dusty cupboard of the little mahogany sideboard. I'll paint the bright
part of the ceiling; scrolls of leaves.... Shutting the quiet door she
went into the brilliance of the window space. The outside world
appeared; a long row of dormer windows and the square tops of the larger
windows below them, the windows black or sheeny grey in the light, cut
out against the dinginess of smoke grimed walls. The long strip of roof
sloping back from the dormers was a pure even dark grey. She bent to see
the sky, clear soft heavy grey, striped by the bars of her window.
Behind the top rim of the iron framework of the bars was a discoloured
roll of window blind. Then the bars must move.... Shifting the table she
pressed close to the barred window. It smelt strongly of rust and dust.
Outside she saw grey tiles sloping steeply from the window to a cemented
gutter beyond which was a little stone parapet about two feet high. A
soft wash of madder lay along the grey tiles. There must be an afterglow
somewhere, just out of sight. Her hands went through the bars and lifted
the little rod which held the lattice half open. The little square four
paned frame swung free and flattened itself back against the fixed
panes, out of reach, its bar sticking out over the leads. Drawing back
grimed fingers and wrists striped with grime she grasped the iron bars
and pulled. The heavy framework left the window frame with a rusty creak
and the sound of paint peeling and cracking. It was very heavy but it
came up and up until her arms were straight above her head and looking
up she saw a stout iron ring in a little trap door in the wooden ceiling
and a hook in the centre of the endmost bar in the iron framework.

Kneeling on the table to raise the frame once more and fix it to the
ceiling she saw the whole length of the top row of windows across the
way and wide strips of grimy stucco placed across the house fronts
between the windows.

The framework of the freed window was cracked and blistered but the
little square panes were clean. There were four little windows in the
row, each with four square panes. The outmost windows were immovable.
The one next to the open one had lost its bar, but a push set it free
and it swung wide. She leaned out holding back from the dusty sill and
met a soft fresh breeze streaming straight in from the west. The distant
murmur of traffic changed into the clear plonk plonk and rumble of swift
vehicles. Right and left at the far end of the vista were glimpses of
bare trees. The cheeping of birds came faintly from the distant squares
and clear and sharp from neighbouring roofs. To the left the trees were
black against pure grey, to the right they stood spread and bunched in
front of the distant buildings blocking the vista. Running across the
rose-washed façade of the central mass she could just make out
"Edwards's Family Hotel" in large black letters. That was the distant
view of the courtyard of Euston Station.... In between that and the
square of trees ran the Euston Road, by day and by night, her unsleeping
guardian, the rim of the world beyond which lay the northern suburbs,
banished.

From a window somewhere down the street out of sight came the sound of
an unaccompanied violin, clearly attacking and dropping and attacking a
passage of half a dozen bars. The music stood serene and undisturbed in
the air of the quiet street. The man was following the phrase,
listening; strengthening and clearing it, completely undisturbed and
unconscious of his surroundings. 'Good heavens' she breathed quietly,
feeling the extremity of relief, passing some boundary, emerging strong
and equipped in a clear medium.... She turned back into the twilight of
the room. Twenty-one and only one room to hold the richly renewed
consciousness, and a living to earn, but the self that was with her in
the room was the untouched tireless self of her seventeenth year and all
the earlier time. The familiar light moved within the twilight, the old
light.... She might as well wash the grime from her wrists and hands.
There was a scrap of soap in the soap dish, dry and cracked and seamed
with dirt. The washstand rocked as she washed her hands; the toilet
things did not match, the towel-horse held one small thin face towel and
fell sideways against the wardrobe as she drew off the towel. When the
gas was on she would be visible from the opposite dormer window. Short
skimpy faded Madras muslin curtains screened a few inches of the endmost
windows and were caught back and tied up with tape. She untied the tape
and disengaged with the curtains a strong smell of dust. The curtains
would cut off some of the light. She tied them firmly back and pulled at
the edge of the rolled up blind. The blind streaked and mottled with
ironmould came down in a stifling cloud of dust. She rolled it up again
and washed once more. She must ask for a bath towel and do something
about the blind, sponge it or something; that was all.


                                   3

A light had come in the dormer on the other side of the street. It
remained unscreened. Watching carefully she could see only a dim figure
moving amongst motionless shapes. No need to trouble about the blind.
London could come freely in day and night through the unscreened happy
little panes; light and darkness and darkness and light.

                   *       *       *       *       *

London, just outside all the time, coming in with the light, coming in
with the darkness, always present in the depths of the air in the room.


                                   4

The gas flared out into a wide bright flame. The dingy ceiling and
counterpane turned white. The room was a square of bright light and had
a rich brown glow, shut brightly in by the straight square of level
white ceiling and thrown up by the oblong that sloped down, white, at
the side of the big bed almost to the floor. She left her things half
unpacked about the floor and settled herself on the bed under the gas
jet with the Voyage of the Beagle. Unpacking had been a distraction from
the glory, very nice, getting things straight. But there was no _need_
to do anything or think about anything ... ever, here. No interruption,
no one watching or speculating or treating one in some particular way
that had to be met. Mrs. Bailey did not speculate. She knew, everything.
Every evening here would have a glory, but not the same kind of glory.
Reading would be more of a distraction than unpacking. She read a few
lines. They had a fresh attractive _meaning_. Reading would be real. The
dull adventures of the Beagle looked real, coming along through reality.
She put the book on her knee and once more met the clear brown shock of
her room.


                                   5

The carpet is awful, faded and worn almost to bits. But it is right, in
this room.... This is the furnished room; one room. I have come to it.
"You could get a furnished room at about seven shillings rental." The
awful feeling, no tennis, no dancing, no house to move in, no society.
The relief at first when Bennett found those people ... maddening
endless roads of little houses in the east wind ... their kind way of
giving more than they had undertaken, and smiling and waiting for smiles
and dying all the time in some dark way without knowing it. Filling the
rooms and the piano and the fern on the serge table cloth and the broken
soap dish in the bath room until it was impossible to read or think or
play because of them, the feeling of them stronger and stronger till
there was nothing but crying over the trays of meals and wanting to
scream. The thought of the five turnings to the station, all into long
little roads looking alike and making you forget which was which and
lose your way, was still full of pain ... the _relief_ of moving to
Granville Place still a relief, though it felt a mistake from the first.
Mrs. Corrie's old teacher liking only certain sorts of people knew it
was a mistake, with her peevish silky old face and her antique brooch.
But it had been the beginning of London.... Bond Street that Sunday
morning in the thick fog; these sudden pictures gleaming in a window,
filmy ... von Hier. Adelina Compayne, hanging out silk stockings on the
top balustrade. "I _love_ cawfy" ... that was the only real thing that
had been said downstairs. There was no need to have been frightened of
these two women in black silk evening dresses. None of these clever
things were real. They said young Asquith is a really able man to hide
their thoughts. The American Academy pupils talked together to keep
everybody off, except when they made their clever jokes ... "if anyone
takes that top bit there'll be murder Miss Spink." When they went out of
the room they looked silly. The young man was real somewhere else.

The little man talking about the wonders of the linotype in the smoking
room.... How did I get into the smoking room? Someone probably told Miss
Spink I talked to him in the smoking room and smoked a cigarette.
Perhaps his wife. If they could have seen. It was so surprising to hear
anybody suddenly talking. Perhaps he began in the hall and ushered me
into the smoking room. There was no one there and I can't remember
anything about the linotype, only the quiet and the talking face and
suddenly feeling in the heart of London. But it was soon after that they
all began being stand-offish; before Mr. Chamberlayne came; before Adela
began playing Esther Summerson at the Kennington. They approved of my
going down to fetch her until he began coming too. The shock of seeing
her clumsy heavy movements on the stage and her face looking as though
it were covered with starch.... I can _think_ about it all, here, and
not mind.


                                   6

She _was_ beautiful. It was happiness to sit and watch her smoking so
badly, in bed, in the strip of room, her cloud of hair against the wall
in the candlelight, two o'clock ... the Jesuit who had taught her chess
... and Michael Somebody, the little book "The Purple Pillar." He was an
_author_ and he wanted to marry her and take her back to Ireland.
Perhaps by now she was back from America and had gone, just out of
kindness. She was strong and beautiful and good, sitting up in her
chemise, smoking.... I've got that photograph of her as Marcia
somewhere. I must put it up. Miss Spink was surprised that last week,
the students getting me into their room ... the dark clean shining
piano, the azaleas and the muslin shaded lamp, the way they all sat in
their evening dresses, lounging and stiff with stiff clean polished
hair.... "Miss Dust here's going to be the highest soprano in the
States." ... "None of that Miss Thicker." ... "When she caught that top
note and the gold medal she went right up top, to stay there, that
minute."

She was surprised when Mrs. Potter took me to hear Melba. I heard Melba.
I don't remember hearing her. English opera houses are small; there are
fine things all over the world. If you see them all you can compare one
with the other; but then you don't see or hear anything at all. It seems
strange to be American and at the same time stout and middle-aged. It
would have got more and more difficult with all those people. The
dreadful way the Americans got intimate and then talked or hinted openly
everywhere about intimate things. No one knew how intimate Miss O'Veagh
was. I shall remember. There is something about being Irish Roman
Catholic that makes _happiness_. She did not seem to think the George
Street room awful. She was _surprised_ when I talked about the hole in
the wall and the cold and the imbecile servant and the smell of ether.
"We are brought up from the first to understand that we must never
believe anything a man says." She _came_ and sat and talked and wrote
after she had gone ... "goodbye--sweet blessed little rose of Mary" ...
she tried to make me think I was young and pretty. She was sorry for me
without saying so.

I should never have gone to Mornington Road unless I had been nearly mad
with sorrow ... if Miss Thomas disapproved of germs and persons who let
apartments why did she come and take a room at George Street? She must
have seen she drove me nearly mad with sorrow. The thought of Wales full
of Welsh people like her, makes one mad with sorrow.... Did she think I
could get to know her by hearing all her complaints? She's somewhere
now, sending someone mad.

I was mad already when I went to Mornington Road.

"You'll be all right with Mrs. Swanson" ... the awful fringes, the
_horror_ of the ugly clean little room, the horror of Mrs. Swanson's
heavy old body moving slowly about the house, a heavy dark mountain,
fringes, bulges, slow dead eyes, slow dead voice, slow grimacing evil
smile ... housekeeper to the Duke of Something and now moving slowly
about heavy with disapproval. She thought of me as a business young
lady.


                                   7

Following advice is certain to be wrong. When you don't follow advice
there may be awful things. But they are not arranged beforehand. And
when they come you do not know that they are awful until you have half
got hold of something else. Then they change into something that has not
been awful. Things that remain awful are in some way not finished....
Those women are awful. They will get more and more awful, still
disliking and disapproving till they die. I shall not see them again....
I will never again be at the mercy of such women or at all in the places
where they are. That means keeping free of all groups. In groups sooner
or later one of them appears, dead and sightless and bringing blindness
and death ... although they seem to like brightness and children and the
young people they approve of. I run away from them because I must. They
kill me. The thought of their death is awful. Even in heaven no one
could explain anything to them if they remain as they are. Wherever
people advise you to go there is in the end one of those women....


                                   8

When she turned out the gas the window spaces remained faintly alight
with a soft light like moonlight. At the window she found a soft bluish
radiance cast up from below upon the opposite walls and windows. It went
up into the clear blue darkness of the sky.

When she lay down the bed smelt faintly of dust. The air about her head
under the sharply sloping ceiling was still a little warm with the gas.
It was full of her untrammelled thoughts. Her luggage was lying about,
quite near. She thought of washing in the morning in the bright light on
the other side of the room ... leaves crowding all round the lattice and
here and there a pink rose ... _several pink roses_ ... the lovely air
chilling the water ... the basin quite up against the lattice ... dew
splashing off the rose bushes in the little garden almost dark with
trellises and trees, crowding with Harriett through the little damp
stiff gate, the sudden lineny smell of Harriett's pinafore and the
thought of Harriett in it, feeling the same, sudden bright sunshine, two
shouts, great cornfields going up and up with a little track between
them ... up over Blewburton ... _Whittenham Clumps_. Before I saw
Whittenham Clumps I had always known them. But we saw them before we
knew they were called Whittenham Clumps. It was a surprise to know
anybody who had seen them and that they had a name.


                                   9

St. Pancras bells were clamouring in the room; rapid scales, beginning
at the top, coming with a loud full thump on to the fourth note and
finishing with a rush to the lowest which was hardly touched before the
top note hung again in the air, sounding outdoors clean and clear while
all the other notes still jangled together in her room. Nothing had
changed. The night was like a moment added to the day; like years going
backwards to the beginning; and in the brilliant sunshine the unchanging
things began again, perfectly new. She leaped out of bed into the
clamorous stillness and stood in the window rolling up the warm hair
that felt like a shawl round her shoulders. A cup of tea and then the
'bus to Harriett's. A 'bus somewhere just out there beyond the morning
stillness of the street. What an _adventure_ to go out and take a 'bus
without having to face anybody. They were all out there, away somewhere,
the very thought and sight of them, disapproving and deploring her
surroundings. She listened. There they were. There were their very
voices, coming plaintive and reproachful with a held-in indignation,
intonations that she knew inside and out, coming on bells from somewhere
beyond the squares--another church. She withdrew the coloured cover and
set her spirit lamp on the inkstained table. Strong bright light was
standing outside the window. The clamour of the bells had ceased. From
far away down in the street a loud hoarse voice came thinly up.
Referee--Lloyd's--Sunday Times--People--_pypa_.... A front door opened
with a loud crackle of paint. The voice dropped to speaking tones that
echoed clearly down the street and came up clear and soft and
confidential. Referee? Lloyd's? The door closed with a large firm wooden
sound and the harsh voice went on down the street.

St. Pancras bells burst forth again. Faintly interwoven with their
bright headlong scale were the clear sweet delicate contralto of the
more distant bells playing very swiftly and reproachfully a five finger
exercise in a minor key. That must be a very high-Anglican church; with
light coming through painted windows on to carvings and decorations.


                                   10

As she began on her solid slice of bread and butter St. Pancras bells
stopped again. In the stillness she could hear the sound of her own
munching. She stared at the surface of the table that held her plate and
cup. It was like sitting up to the nursery table. "How frightfully happy
I am," she thought with bent head. Happiness streamed along her arms and
from her head. St. Pancras bells began playing a hymn tune in single
firm beats with intervals between that left each note standing for a
moment gently in the air. The first two lines were playing carefully
through to the distant accompaniment of the rapid weaving and
interweaving in a regular unbroken pattern of the five soft low
contralto bells. The third line of the hymn ran through Miriam's head a
ding-dong to and fro from tone to semitone. The bells played it out,
without the semitone, with a perfect satisfying falsity. Miriam sat
hunched against the table listening for the ascending stages of the last
line. The bells climbed gently up, made a faint flat dab at the last top
note, left it in the air askew above the decorous little tune and rushed
away down their scale as if to cover the impropriety. They clamoured
recklessly mingling with Miriam's shout of joy as they banged against
the wooden walls of the window space.




                               CHAPTER II


                                   1

"Been to church?" said Gerald digging his shoulders into his chair.

"No. Have you?"

"We've not been for weeks.... Everybody thinks us awful heathens."

"P'raps you are."

"It's Curls. She says she's hanged if she's going any more."

"I can't stand the vicar" said Harriett. "He doesn't believe a word he
says."

Fancy Harriett!...

"Besides, what's the good?"

"Oh, there you are."

"There's nothing the matter with church once in a way to my way of
thinking if it's a decent high musical service."

"Even Eve hardly ever goes now--and nobody could possibly be more goody
than she is."

This was disquieting. It was one thing to be the agnostic of the
family--but Eve and Harriett. Miriam pondered resentfully while Gerald
smoked and flicked his clothing and Harriett sat upright and pursed and
untroubled in her great chair. She wondered whether she ought to say
something about Unitarianism. But after all there might not be anything
in it and they might not feel the relief of the way it cleared up the
trouble about Christ. Besides there was no worry here in the room. A
discussion would lead nowhere. They could all three look at each other
if they wanted to and laugh everything off. In the middle of a sleepy
Sunday afternoon with nothing to do sitting in three huge chairs and
looking at each other they were all right. Harriett's strength and scorn
were directed against everything in the world but not against herself
... never against herself. Harriett often thought her grumpy and
ill-tempered, but she approved of her. She was approving now.

"After all Frills it's good form to go" Gerald said idly. "Go on. Smart
people go to show their clothes."

"Well, we've shown ours."

Harriett flew out of her chair and daintily kicked him.

He grabbed and missed and sank back wailing, his face hidden in a
cushion. Her dainty foot flew out once more and he smothered a shriek.

"Shut up" said Harriett curling herself up in her chair.

Gerald wailed on.

"Do we smoke in here?" said Miriam, wanting the scene to drop or change
while it was perfect. She would tell them now about her change of
lodgings.

"Yes" said Harriett absently with an eye on Gerald.

"I've changed my diggings" began Miriam formally, fumbling for her
packet of cigarettes. Harriett was hurling a cushion. Gerald crumpled
into the depths of his chair and sobbed aloud, beating with his arms.

"Stop it silly" piped Harriett blushing.

"I've changed my diggings" repeated Miriam uncomfortably. Harriett's
face flashed a response. Gerald's loud wailings were broken by
beseeching cries. Real, absolutely real and satisfying. Miriam answered
them from some far deep in herself as if they were her own cries. Harry
was embarrassed. Her bright strength was answering. She was ashamed at
being seen answering.

Miriam got up conversationally and began looking about for matches in
the soft curtained drawing-room light. There were swift movements and
Harriett's voice busily chiding. When she turned Gerald was sitting on
the floor at Harriett's knee beating it gently with his head.

"Got a match, G?" she said seeing in imagination the flare of the match
in the soft greenish glare of the room. There was bright light all round
the house and a glare of brightness in the garden, beyond the curtains.
"Rather," said Gerald, "dozens." He sat up and handed out a box. Leaning
back against Harriett's knee he began intoning a little poem of appeal.
There was a ring at the front door bell. Miriam got herself to the piano
putting cigarettes and matches behind a vase on the mantelshelf. "That's
old Tremayne" said Gerald cheerfully, shooting his linen and glancing in
the strip of mirror in the overmantel. The door opened admitting the
light from the hall. The curtains at the open French windows swayed
forward flooding the room with the bright garden light. Into the
brightness stepped Mr. Tremayne, grey-clad and with a pink rose in his
buttonhole.

Over tea they heard the story of his morning and how it had been
interrupted by the man on the floor above who had come down in his
dressing gown to tell him about a birthday party ... the two men sitting
telling each other stories about drinks and people seeing each other
home. After tea he settled back easily in his chair and went on with his
stories. Miriam found it almost impossible to follow him. She grew weary
of his bantering tone. It smeared over everything he touched and made
him appear to be saying one thing over and over again in innuendo.
Something he could not say out and would never get away from. He made
little pauses and then it gleamed horribly about all his refinement of
dress and bearing and Gerald laughed encouragingly and he went on,
making a story that was like a play, that looked like life did when you
looked at it, a maddening fussiness about nothing and people getting
into states of mind. He went on into a story about business life ...
people getting the better of each other. It made her feel sick with
apprehension. Anybody in business might be ruined any minute unless he
could be sure of getting the better of someone else. She had never
realised that before.... It pressed on her breathing and made her feel
that she had had too much tea.... She hated the exponent sitting there
so coolly. It made the cool green-lit afternoon room an island amongst
horrors. But it was that to him too ... he felt the need of something
beyond the everlasting innuendo of social life and the everlasting
smartness of business life. She felt it was true that he spent Sunday
mornings picking out hymn tunes with one finger and liked "Sabbath
music" and remembered the things his mother used to play to him. He
wanted a home, something away from business life and away from social
life. He saw her as a woman in a home, nicely dressed in a quiet drawing
room, lit by softly screened clear fresh garden daylight.... "Business
is business." ... "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart--'tis
woman's whole existence." Tennyson did not know what he was saying when
he wrote it in his calm patronising way. Mr. Tremayne would admire it as
a "great truth"--thinking it like a man in the way Tennyson thought it.
What a hopeless thing a man's consciousness was. How awful to have
nothing but a man's consciousness. One could test it so easily if one
were a little careful, and know exactly how it would behave....

Opening a volume of Mendelssohn she played from his point of view one of
the Songs without Words quietly into the conversation. The room grew
still. She felt herself and Mr. Tremayne as duplicates of Harriett and
Gerald only that she was a very religious very womanly woman, the ideal
wife and mother and he was a bad fast man who wanted to be saved. It was
such an easy part to play. She could go on playing it to the end of her
life, if he went on in business and made enough money, being a "gracious
silence," taking an interest in his affairs, ordering all things well,
quietly training the servants, never losing her temper or raising her
voice, making the home a sanctuary of rest and refreshment and religious
aspiration, going to church.... She felt all these things expressing
themselves in her bearing. At the end of her piece she was touched to
the heart by the look of adoration in his eyes, the innocent
youthfulness shining through his face. There was something in him she
could have and guard and keep if she chose. Something that would die if
there were no woman to keep it there. There was nothing in his life of
business and music halls to keep it there, nothing but the memory of his
mother and he joined her on to that memory. His mother and his wife were
sacred ... apart from life. But he could not be really happy with a
woman unless he could also despise her. Any interest in generalities,
any argument or criticism or opposition would turn him into a towering
bully. All men were like that in some way. They each had a set of
notions and fought with each other about them whenever they were
together and not eating or drinking. If a woman opposed them they went
mad. He would like one or two more Mendelssohns and then supper. And if
she kept out of the conversation and listened and smiled a little he
would go away adoring. She played the Duetto; the chords made her think
of Beethoven and play the last page carelessly and glance at Harriett.
Harriett had felt her response to the chords and knew she was getting
away from Mendelssohn. Mr. Tremayne had moved to a chair quite close to
the piano, just behind her. She found the Beethoven and played the first
movement of a sonata. It leapt about the piano breaking up her pose,
using her body as the instrument of its gay wild shapeliness, spreading
her arms inelegantly, swaying her, lifting her from the stool with the
crash and vibration of its chords.... "Go on" said Harriett when it came
to an end. The Largo came with a single voice deep and broad and quiet;
the great truth behind the fuss of things. She felt her hearers grow
weary of its reiterations and dashed on alone recklessly into the storm
of the last movement. Through its tuneless raging she could hear the
steady voice and see the steady shining of the broad clear light.
Daylight and gaiety and night and storm and a great song and truth, the
great truth that was bigger than anything. Beethoven. She got up,
charged to the fingertips with a glow that transfigured all the
inanimate things in the room. The party was wrecked ... a young lady who
banged the piano till her hair nearly came down.... Mr. Tremayne had
heard nothing but noise.... His eyes smiled and his uneasy mouth felt
for compliments.


                                   2

"Why didn't you ask him to supper La Fée?"

"The Bollingdons are coming round, silly."

"Well?"

"With one small chicken and a blancmange."

"Heaven help us."

When they sat down to play halfpenny nap after supper Miriam recovered
her cigarette from its hiding place. She did not know the game. She sat
at Harriett's new card-table wrapped in the unbroken jesting of the
Bollingdons and the Ducaynes, happily learning and smoking and feeling
happily wicked. The Bollingdons taught her simply with a complete
trustful friendliness, Mrs. Bollingdon leaning across in her pink satin
blouse, her clear clean bulging cheeks and dark velvet hair like a full
blown dark rose. Between the rounds they poured out anecdotes of earlier
nap parties, all talking at once. The pauses at the fresh beginnings
were full of the echoes of their laughter. Miriam in the character of
the Honourable Miss Henderson had just accepted Lord Bollingdon's
invitation to join the Duke and Duchess of Ducayne and himself and Lady
Bollingdon in an all-day party to Wembley Park in a break and four on
Easter Monday and had lit a second cigarette and accepted a small whisky
and soda when Mr. Grove was announced. Harriett's face flushed jocular
consternation.

When the party subsided after Mr. Grove's spasmodic handshakings Miriam
got herself into a chair in a far corner, smoking her cigarette with
burning cheeks. Sitting isolated with her cigarette and her whisky while
he twice sent his low harsh clearly murmuring voice into the suddenly
empty air to say that he had been to evensong at the Carmelites and was
on his way home, she examined the relief of his presence and the nature
of her farewell. Mr. Bollingdon responded to him remarking each time on
the splendour of the evening.


                                   3

Strolling home towards midnight along the narrow pavement of Endsleigh
Gardens Miriam felt as fresh and untroubled as if it were early morning.
When she had got out of her Hammersmith omnibus into the Tottenham Court
Road she had found that the street had lost its first terrifying
impression and had become part of her home. It was the borderland of the
part of London she had found for herself; the part where she was going
to live, in freedom, hidden, on her pound a week. It was all she wanted.
That was why she was young and glad; that was why fatigue had gone out
of her life. There was nothing in the world that could come nearer to
her than the curious half twilight half moonlight effect of lamplit
Endsleigh Gardens opening out of Gower Place; its huge high trees, their
sharp shadows on the little pavement running by the side of the
railings, the neighbouring gloom of the Euston Road dimly lit by lamps
standing high in the middle of the roadway at long intervals, the great
high quiet porched houses, black and still, the shadow mass of St.
Pancras church, the great dark open space in front of the church, a
shadowy figure-haunted darkness with the vague stream of the Euston Road
running to one side of it and the corridor of Woburn Place opening on
the other. The harsh voice of an invisible woman sounded out from it as
she turned off into her own street.... "Dressed up--he was--to the
bloody death." ... The words echoed about her as she strolled down the
street controlling her impulse to flinch and hurry. The woman was there,
there and real and that was what she had said. Resentment was lurking
about the street. The woman's harsh voice seemed close. Miriam pictured
her glaring eyes. There was no pretence about her. She felt what she
said. She belonged to the darkness about St. Pancras church ... people
had been garrotted in that part of the Euston Road not so very long
ago.... Tansley Street was a soft grey gloaming after the darkness. When
she rattled her key into the keyhole of number seven she felt that her
day was beginning. It would be perpetually beginning now. Nights and
days were all one day; all hers, unlimited. Her life and work at Wimpole
Street were something extra, thrown in with her own life of endless day.
Sarah and Harriett, their lives and friends, her own friends, the
Brooms, the girls in Kennett Street, all thrown in. She lit her table
lamp and the gas and two candles, making her little brown room brilliant
under a brilliant white ceiling and sat down eager to tell someone of
her wealth and freedom.


                                   4

Someone must know she was in London, free, earning her own living.
Lilla? She would not see the extraordinary freedom; earning would seem
strange and dreadful to her ... someone who would understand the
extraordinary freedom.... Alma. _Alma!_ Setting forth the London address
in a heavy careless hand at the head of a postcard she wrote from the
midst of her seventeenth year, "Dear A. Where are you?"

                   *       *       *       *       *

Walking home along the Upper Richmond Road; not liking to buy sweets;
not enjoying anything to the full--always afraid of her refinements;
always in a way wanting to be like her; wanting to share her mysterious
knowledge of how things were done in the world and the things one had to
do to get on in some clever world where people were doing things. Never
really wanting it because the mere thought of that would take the beauty
of the syringa and make it look sad. Never being able to explain why one
did not want to do reasonable clever things in a clever brisk reasonable
way; why one disliked the way she went behaving up and down the Upper
Richmond Road with her pretty neat brisk bustling sidling walk, keeping
her secret with a sort of prickly brightness. The Upper Richmond Road
was heaven, pure heaven; smelling of syringa. She liked flowers but she
did not seem to know.... _Syringa._ I had forgotten. That is one of the
things I have always wanted to stop and remember.... What was it all
about? What was she doing now? Anyhow the London post-card would be an
answer. A letter, making her see Germany and bits of Newlands and what
life was now would answer everything, all her snubs and cleverness and
bring back the Upper Richmond Road and make it beautiful. She will know
something of what it was to me then. Perhaps that was why she liked me
even though she thought me vulgar and very lazy and stupid.




                              CHAPTER III


                                   1

There was a carriage at the door. West-end people, after late nights,
managing to keep nine o'clock appointments--in a north wind. Miriam
pressed the bell urgently. The scrubbed chalky mosaic and the busy
bright brass plate reproached her for her lateness during the long
moment before the door was opened.... It must be someone for Mr. Orly;
an appointment made since last night; that was the worst of his living
in the house. He was in his surgery now, with the patient. The
nine-fifteen patient would come almost at once. He would discover that
his charts were not out before there was any chance of getting at his
appointment book.... As the great door swung open she saw Mr. Hancock
turn the corner of the street walking very rapidly before the north
wind.... Mr. Orly's voice was sounding impatiently from the back of the
hall.... "Where's Miss Hends.... Oh--here y'are Miss Hends, I say call
up Chalk for me will ya, get him to come at once, I've got the patient
waiting." His huge frock-coated form swung round into his surgery
without waiting for an answer. Miriam scurried through the hall past Mr.
Leyton's open surgery door and into her room. Mr. Leyton plunged out of
his room as she was flinging down her things and came in briskly.
"Morning, Pater got a gas case?"

"Mm"; said Miriam. "I've got to call up Chalk and I haven't a second to
do it."

"Why Chalk?"

"Oh I don't know. He said Chalk" said Miriam angrily, seizing the
directory.

"I'll call him up if you like."

"You are a saint. Tell him to come at once--sooner," said Miriam dabbing
at her hair as she ran back through the hall and upstairs. As she passed
the turn of the staircase Mr. Hancock was let in at the front door. She
found his kettle furiously boiling on its wrought-iron stand near the
chair. The stained glass window just behind it was dim with steam. She
lowered the gas, put a tumbler in the socket of the spittoon, lit the
gas burner on the bracket table and swiftly pulled open its drawers one
by one. The instruments were all right ... the bottles--no chloroform,
the carbolic bottle nearly empty and its label soaked and defaced.
Gathering the two bottles in her hand she turned to the instrument
cabinet, no serviettes, no rubber dam, clamps not up from the workshop.
The top of the cabinet still to be dusted. Dust and scraps of amalgam
were visible about the surfaces of the paper lining the instrument
drawers. No saliva tubes in the basin. She swung round to the bureau and
hurriedly read through the names of the morning's patients. Mr. Hancock
came quietly in as she was dusting the top of the instrument cabinet by
pushing the boxes and bottles of materials that littered its surface to
the backmost edge. They were all lightly coated with dust. It was
everlasting and the long tubes and metal body of the little furnace were
dull again. "Good morning," they said simultaneously, in even tones.
There were sounds of letters being opened and the turning of the pages
of the appointment book. The chain of Mr. Hancock's gold pencil case
rattled softly as he made notes on the corners of the letters.

"Did you have a pleasant week-end?"

"Very" said Miriam emphatically.

There was a squeak at the side of the cabinet. "Yes" said Miriam down
the speaking tube.... "Thank you. Will you please bring up some tubes
and serviettes."

"Mr. Wontner."

"Thank you." ... "Mrs. Hermann is 'frightfully shocked' at the amount of
her account. What did we send it in for?"

"Seventy guineas. It's a reduction, and it's two years' work for the
whole family." The bell sounded again.... "Lady Cazalet has bad
toothache and can you see her at once."

"Con_found_.... Will you go down and talk to her and see if you can get
one of the others to see her."

"She won't."

"Well then she must wait. I'll have Mr. Wontner up." Miriam rang. Mr.
Hancock began busily washing his hands. The patient came in. He greeted
him over his shoulder. Miriam gathered up the sheaf of annotated letters
and the appointment book and ran down-stairs. "Has Mr. Leyton a patient
Emma?" "Miss Jones just gone in, Miss." "Oh, Emma, will you ask the
workshop for Mr. Hancock's rubber and clamps?" She rang through to Mr.
Leyton's room. "There's a patient of Mr. Hancock's in pain, can you see
them if I can persuade them?" she murmured. "Right, in ten minutes" came
the answering murmur. Mr. Hancock's bell sounded from her room. She went
to his tube in the hall. "Can I have my charts?" Running into her room
she hunted out the first chart from a case full and ran upstairs with
it. Mr. Hancock's patient was sitting forward in the chair urging the
adoption of the decimal system. Running down again she went into the
waiting room. The dark Turkey carpeted oak furnished length seemed full
of seated forms. Miriam peered and Lady Cazalet, with her hat already
off rose from the deep arm-chair at her side. "Can he see me?" she said
in a clear trembling undertone, her dark eyes wide upon Miriam's. Miriam
gazed deep into the limpid fear. What a privilege. How often Captain
Cazalet must be beside himself with unworthiness. "Yes, if you can wait
a little" she said dropping her eyes and standing with arms restrained.
"I think it won't be very long" she added lingering a moment as the
little form relapsed into the chair.

"Lady Cazalet will wait until you can see her" she tubed up to Mr.
Hancock.

"Can't you make her see one of the others?"

"I'm afraid it's impossible; I'll tell you later."

"Well I'll see her as soon as I can. I'm afraid she'll have to wait."

Miriam went back to her room to sort out the remaining charts. On her
table lay a broken denture in a faded morocco case; a strip of paper
directed "five-thirty sharp" in Mr. Orly's handwriting. Mr. Leyton's
door burst open. He came with flying coat-tails.

"Vi got to see that patient of Mr. Hancock's" he asked breathlessly.

"No" said Miriam "she won't."

"Right" he said swinging back. "I'll keep Miss Jones on."

Mr. Hancock's bell sounded again. Miriam flew to the tube.

"My clamps please."

"Oh yes" she answered shocked, and hurried back to her room.

Gathering up the broken denture she ran down the stone steps leading to
the basement. Her cheap unyielding shoes clattered on the unyielding
stones. The gas was on in the lunch room, Mrs. Willis scrubbing the
floor. The voices of the servants came from the kitchens in the unknown
background. She passed the lunch room and the cellar and clamped on
across the stone hall to the open door of the workshop.


                                   2

Winthrop was standing at the small furnace in the box-lined passage way.
It was roaring its loudest. Through its open door the red light fell
sharply on his pink-flushed face and drooping fair moustache and poured
down over his white apron. "Good ph-morning" he said pleasantly, his eye
on the heart of the furnace, his foot briskly pumping the blower. From
the body of the room came sounds of tapping and whistling ... the noise
of the furnace prevented their knowing that anyone had come in....
Miriam drew near to the furnace, relieved at the shortness of her
excursion. She stared at the tiny shape blazing red-gold at the heart of
the glare. Winthrop gathered up a pair of tongs and drew the mould from
the little square of light. The air hissed from the bellows and the
roaring of the flames died down. In a moment he was standing free with
hot face and hot patient ironic eyes, gently taking the denture from her
hands. "Good morning" said Miriam, "Oh, Mr. Winthrop, it's a repair for
Mr. Orly. It's urgent. Can you manage it?" "It's ph--ph--sure to be
urgent" said Winthrop examining the denture with a short-sighted frown.
Miriam waited anxiously. The hammering and whistling had ceased. "It'll
be all right, Miss Ph-Henderson" said Winthrop encouragingly. She turned
to the door. The clamps.... Gathering herself together she went down the
passage and stood at the head of the two stone steps leading down into
the body of the room. A swift scrubbing of emery paper on metal was
going on at the end of the long bench, lit by a long sky-light, from
which the four faces looked up at her with a chorus of good mornings in
response to her greeting. "Are Mr. Hancock's clamps ready?" she asked
diffidently. "Jimmy ..." The figure nearest to her glanced down the row
of seated forms. The small bullet-headed boy at the end of the bench
scrubbed vigorously and ironically with his emery stick. "He won't be a
minute, Miss Henderson" said the near pupil comfortingly.

Miriam observed his spruce grey suit curiously masked by the mechanic's
apron, the quiet controlled amused face, and felt the burden of her
little attack as part of the patient prolonged boredom of his pupillage.
The second pupil, sitting next to him kept dog-like sympathetic eyes on
her face, waiting for a glance. She passed him by, smiling gently in
response without looking at him while her eyes rested upon the form of
the junior mechanic whose head was turned in the direction of the
scrubbing boy. The head was refined, thin and clear cut, thatched with
glossy curls. Its expression was servile--the brain eagerly seeking some
flowery phrase--something to decorate at once the occasion and the
speaker, and to give relief to the mouth strained in an arrested
obsequious smile. Nothing came and the clever meticulous hands were idle
on the board. It seemed absurd to say that Mr. Hancock was waiting for
the clamps while Jimmy was scrubbing so busily. But they had obviously
been forgotten. She fidgeted.

"Will somebody send them up when they're done?"

"Jimmy, you're a miserable sinner, hurry up" said the senior pupil.

"They're done" said Jimmy in a cracked bass voice. "Thank goodness"
breathed Miriam, dimpling. Jimmy came round and scattered the clamps
carefully into her outstretched hand, with down-cast eyes and a crisp
dimpling smile.

"Rule Bri_tan_nia," remarked the junior pupil, resuming his work as
Miriam turned away and hurried along the passage and through the door
held open for her by Winthrop. She flew up to Mr. Hancock's room three
steps at a time, tapped gently at the door and went in. He came forward
across the soft grey green carpet to take the clamps and murmured gently
"Have you got my carbolic?"


                                   3

Miriam looked out the remainder of the charts and went anxiously through
the little pile of letters she had brought down from Mr. Hancock's room.
All but three were straight-forward appointments to be sent. One bore
besides the pencilled day and date the word "Tape" ... she glanced
through it--it was from a University settlement worker, asking for an
appointment for the filling of two front teeth.... She would understand
increasing by one thickness per day until there were five, to be
completed two days before the appointment falls due so that any
tenderness may have passed off. Mrs. Hermann's letter bore no mark. She
could make a rough summary in Mr. Hancock's phraseology. The third
letter enclosed a printed card of appointment with Mr. Hancock which she
had sent without filling in the day and hour. She flushed. Mr. Hancock
had pencilled in the missing words. Gathering the letters together she
put them as far away as her hand would reach, leaving a space of shabby
ink-stained morocco clear under her hands. She looked blindly out of the
window; hand-painted, they are hand-painted, forget-me-nots and gold
tendrils softly painted, not shining, on an unusual shape, a merry
Christmas. Melly Klismas. In this countree heapee lain, chiney man lun
home again, under a red and green paper umbrella in the pouring rain,
that was not a hand-painted one, but better, in some _strange_ way,
close bright colours drawing everything _in_; a shock. I stayed in
there. There was something. Chinee man lun _home_ again. Her eye roamed
over the table; everything but the newly-arrived letters shabby under
the high wide uncurtained window. The table fitted the width of the
window. There was something to be done before anything could be done.
Everything would look different if something were done. The fresh
letters could lie neatly on the centre of the table in the midst of
something. They were on the address books, spoiled by them. It would
take years to check the addresses one by one till the old books could be
put away. If the day books were entered up to date, there would still be
those, disfiguring everything. If everything were absolutely up to date,
and all the cupboards in perfect order and the discounts and decimals
always done in the depot-books to time there would be time to do
something. She replaced the letters in the centre of the table and put
them back again on the address books. His nine-forty-five patient was
being let in at the front door. In a moment his bell would ring and
something must be said about the appointment card. "Mr. Orly?" A big
booming elderly voice, going on heavily murmuring into the waiting-room.
She listened tensely to the movements of the servant. Was Mr. Orly in
"the den" or in his surgery? She heard the maid ring through to the
surgery and wait. No sound. The maid came through her room and tapped at
the door leading from it. _Come_ in sang a voice from within and Miriam
heard the sound of a hammer on metal as the maid opened the door. She
flew to the surgery. Amidst the stillness of heavy oak furniture and
dark Turkey carpet floated the confirming smell. There it was all about
the spittoon and the red velvet covered chair and the bracket table, a
horrible confusion--and blood stains, blood blotted serviettes, forceps
that made her feel sick and faint. Summoning up her strength she
gathered up the serviettes and flung them into a basket behind the
instrument cabinet. She was dabbing at the stains on the American cloth
cover of the bracket when Mr. Orly came swinging in, putting on his grey
frock-coat and humming Gunga Din as he came. "Regular field day" he said
cheerfully. "I shan't want those things--just pop 'em out of sight." He
turned up the cupboard gas and in a moment a stream of boiling water
hissed down into the basin filling the room with steam. "I say, has this
man got a chart? Don't throw away those teeth. Just look at this--how's
that for twisted? Just look here." He took up an object to which Miriam
forced reluctant eyes, grotesquely formed fangs protruding from the
enclosing blades of a huge forceps. "How's that eh?" Miriam made a
sympathetic sound. Gathering the many forceps he detached their contents
putting the relic into a bottle of spirit and the rest into the hidden
basket. The forceps went head first into a jar of carbolic and Miriam
breathed more freely. "I'll see to those. I say has this man got a
chart?" "I'll see" said Miriam eagerly making off with the appointment
book. She returned with the chart. Mr. Orly hummed and looked. "Right.
Tell 'em to send him in. I say, vi got any gold and tin?" Miriam
consulted the box in a drawer in the cabinet. It was empty. "I'm afraid
you haven't" she said guiltily. "All right, I'll let y'know. Send 'im
in," and he resumed Gunga Din over the wash-hand basin. Mr. Hancock's
bell was ringing in her room and she hurried off with a sign to the
little maid waiting with raised eyebrows in the hall. Darting into her
room she took the foils from the safe, laid them on a clean serviette
amongst the litter on her table and ran upstairs. Mr. Leyton opened his
door as she passed "I say, can you feed for me" he asked breathlessly,
putting out an anxious head. "I'll come down in a minute" promised
Miriam from the stairs. Mr. Hancock was drying his hands. He sounded his
bell as she came in. The maid answered. "I'm so sorry" began Miriam.
"Show up Mr. Green" said Mr. Hancock down the speaking tube. "You
remember there's Lady Cazalet?" said Miriam relieved and feeling she was
making good her carelessness in the matter of the appointment card.

"Oh con_found_." He rang again hurriedly. "Show up Lady Cazalet." Miriam
swept from the bracket table the litter of used instruments and
materials, disposing them rapidly on the cabinet, into the sterilising
tray, the waste basket and the wash-hand basin, tore the uppermost leaf
from the headrest pad, and detached the handpiece from the arm of the
motor drill while the patient was being shown upstairs. Mr. Hancock had
cleared the spittoon, set a fresh tumbler, filled the kettle and whisked
the debris of amalgam and cement from the bracket table before he began
the scrubbing and cleansing of his hands, and when the patient came in
Miriam was in her corner reluctantly handling the instruments, wet with
the solution that crinkled her fingertips and made her skin brittle and
dry. Everything was in its worst state. The business of drying and
cleansing, freeing fine points from minute closely adhering fragments,
polishing instruments on the leather pad, repolishing them with the
leather, scraping the many little burs with the fine wire brush,
scraping the clamps, clearing the obstinate amalgam from slab and
spatula, brought across her the ever-recurring circle. The things were
begun, they were getting on, she had half-done ... the exasperating
tediousness of holding herself to the long series of tiny careful
attention-demanding movements ... the punctual emergence when the end
was in sight of the hovering reflection, nagging and questioning, that
another set of things was already getting ready for another cleansing
process; the endless series to last as long as she stayed at Wimpole
Street ... were there any sort of people who could do this kind of thing
patiently, without minding? ... the evolution of dentistry was
wonderful, but the more perfect it became the more and more of this sort
of thing there would be ... the more drudgery workers, at fixed salaries
... it was only possible for people who were fine and nice ... there
must be, everywhere, women doing this work for people who were not nice.
They _could_ not do it for the work's sake. Did some of them do it
cheerfully, as unto God. It was wrong to work unto man. But could God
approve of this kind of thing ... was it right to spend life cleaning
instruments ... the blank moment again of gazing about in vain for an
alternative ... all work has drudgery. That is not the answer....
Blessèd be Drudgery, but that was housekeeping, not someone else's
drudgery.... As she put the things back in the drawers, every drawer
offered tasks of tidying, replenishing, and repapering of small boxes
and grooves and sections. She had remembered to bring up Lady Cazalet's
chart. It looked at her propped against the small furnace. Behind it
were the other charts for the day complete. The drug bottles were full,
there was plenty of amadou pulled soft and cut ready for use, a fair
supply of both kinds of Japanese paper. None of the bottles and boxes of
stopping materials were anywhere near running short and the gold drawer
was filled. She examined the drawers that held the less frequently used
fittings and materials, conducting her operations noiselessly without
impeding Mr. Hancock's perpetual movements to and fro between the chair
and the instrument cabinet. Meanwhile the dressing of Lady Cazalet's
painful tooth went quietly on and Mr. Leyton was waiting, hoping for her
assistance downstairs. There was no excuse for waiting upstairs any
longer. She went to the writing table and hung over the appointment
book.


                                   4

It was a busy day. He would hardly have half an hour for lunch.... She
examined the names carefully, one by one, and wrote against one "ask
address," underlined and against another "enquire for brother--ill."
Lady Cazalet drew a deep sigh ... she had been to other dentists. But
perhaps they were good ones. Perhaps she was about thirty ... had she
ever gone through a green baize door and seen a fat common little man
with smooth sly eyes standing waiting for her in a dark stuffy room
smelling of creosote? Even if she had always been to good ones they were
not Mr. Hancock. They were dentists. Cheerful ordinary men with ordinary
voices and laughs, thinking about all manner of things. Or apparently
bland, with ingratiating manners. Perhaps a few of them, some of his
friends and some of the young men he had trained were something like
him. Interested in dentistry and the way it was all developing, some of
them more enthusiastic and interested in certain special things than he
was. But no one could be quite like him. No other patients had the lot
of his patients. No other dentist was so completely conscious of the
patient all the time, as if he were in the chair himself. No other
dentist went on year after year remaining sensitive to everything the
patient had to endure. No one else was so unsparing of himself ...
children coming eagerly in for their dentistry, sitting in the chair
with slack limbs and wide open mouths and tranquil eyes ... small bodies
braced and tense, fat hands splayed out tightly on the too-big arms of
the chair in determination to bear the moment of pain bravely for
him.... She wandered to the corner cupboard and opened it and gazed idly
in. But none of them knew what it cost.... "I think you won't have any
more pain with that; I'll just put in a dressing for the present"--she
was Lady Cazalet again, without tooth-ache, and that awful feeling that
you know your body won't last ... they did not know what it cost. What
always doing the best for the patient _meant_. Perhaps they knew in a
way; or knew something and did not know what it was ... there would be
something different in Mr. Hancock's expression, especially in the three
quarters view when his face was turned away towards the instrument
cabinet, if he saved his nerves and energy and money by doing things
less considerately, not perpetually having the instruments sharpened and
perpetually buying fresh outfits of sharp burs. The patient would suffer
more pain ... a dentist at his best ought to be more delicately strong
and fine than a doctor ... like a fine engraving ... a surgeon working
amongst live nerves ... and he would look different himself. It was in
him. It was keeping to that, all day, and every day, choosing the best
difficult tiresome way in everything that kept that radiance about him
when he was quietly at work ... I mustn't stay here thinking these
thoughts ... it's that evil thing in me, keeping on and on, always
thinking thoughts, nothing getting done ... going through life like--a
stuck pig. If I went straight on things would come like that just the
same in flashes--bang, bang, in your heart, everything breaking into
light just in front of you, making you almost fall off the edge into the
expanse coming up before you, flowers and light stretching out. Then you
shut it down, letting it go through you with a leap that carries you to
the moon--the sun, and makes you bump with life like the little boy
bursting out of his too small clothes and go on choking with song to do
the next thing deftly. That's right. Perhaps that is what they all _do_?
Perhaps that's why they won't stop to remember. Do you realise? Do you
realise you're in Brussels? Just _look_ at the white houses there with
the bright green trees against them in the light. It's the _air_, the
clearness. Sh--If they hear you, they'll put up the rent. They were just
Portsmouth and Gosport people, staying in Brussels and fussing about
Portsmouth and Gosport and Aunt this and Mr. that.... I shan't realise
Brussels and Belgium for years because of that. They hated and killed me
because I was like that.... I must be like that ... something comes
along, _golden_, and presently there is a thought. I can't be easy till
I've said it in my mind, and I'm sad till I have said it somehow ... and
sadder when I have said it. But nothing gets done. I must stop thinking,
from now, and be fearfully efficient. Then people will understand and
like me. They will hate me too, because I shall be absurd, I shan't be
really in it. Perhaps I shall. Perhaps I shall get in. The wonder is
they don't hate me more. There was a stirring in the chair and a gushing
of fresh water into the tumbler. _Why_ do I meet such nice people? One
after another. "There" said Mr. Hancock, "I don't think that will
trouble you any more. We will make another appointment." Miriam took the
appointment book and a card to the chair-side and stayed upstairs to
clear up.


                                   5

When she reached the hall Mr. Orly's door was standing wide. Going into
the surgery she found the head parlourmaid rapidly wiping instruments
with a soiled serviette. "Is it all right, James?" she said vaguely,
glancing round the room.

"Yes miss," answered James briskly emptying the half-filled tumbler and
going on to dry and polish it with the soiled serviette ... the
housemaid spirit ... the dry corner of a used serviette probably
appeared to James much too good to wipe anything with. Telling her would
not be any good. She would think it waste of time.... Besides, Mr. Orly
himself would not really mind; and the things were "mechanikly clean"
... that was a good phrase of Mr. Leyton's ... with his own things
always soaking even his mallets, until there was no polish left on the
handles; and his nailbrush in a bath of alcohol.... Mr. Orly came in,
large and spruce. He looked at his hands and began combing his beard,
standing before the overmantel. "Hancock busy?"

"Frightfully busy."

Miriam looked judicially round the room. James hovered. The north wind
howled. The little strip of sky above the outside wall that obscured the
heavily stained glass of the window seemed hardly to light the room and
the little light there was was absorbed by the heavy dull oak furniture
and the dark heavy Turkey carpet and dado of dull red and tarnished
gold.

"It _is_ dark for April" murmured Miriam. "I'll take away your gold and
tin box if I may."

"Thank ye" said Mr. Orly nervously, wheeling about with a harsh sigh to
scan the chair and bracket-table; straightening his waistcoat and
settling his tie. "I got through without it--used some of that new
patent silicate stuff of Leyton's. All right--show in the Countess."

James disappeared. Miriam secured the little box and made off. On her
table was a fresh pile of letters, annotated in Mr. Orly's clear stiff
upright rounded characters. She went hurriedly through them. Extricating
her blotter she sat down and examined the inkstand. Of course one of her
pens had been used and flung down still wet with its nib resting against
the handle of the other pens.... Mr. Leyton ... his gold filling; she
ought to go in and see if she could help ... perhaps he had finished by
now. She wiped away the ink from the nib and the pen-handles.

Tapping at Mr. Leyton's door she entered. He quickly turned a flushed
face his feet scrabbling noisily against the bevelled base of the chair
with the movement of his head. "Sawl right Miss Henderson. I've
finished. 'V'you got any emery strips--mine are all worn out."


                                   6

Back once more in her room she heard two voices talking both at once
excitedly in the den. Mrs. Orly had a morning visitor. She would
probably stay to lunch. She peered into the little folding mirror
hanging by the side of the small mantelpiece and saw a face flushed and
animated so far. Her hair was as unsatisfactory as usual. As she looked
she became conscious of its uncomfortable weight pinned to the back of
her head and the unpleasant warm feeling of her thick fringe. By
lunch-time her face would be strained and yellow with sitting at work in
the cold room with her feet on the oil-cloth under the window. She
glanced at the oil lamp standing in the little fireplace, its single
flame glaring nakedly against the red-painted radiator. The telephone
bell rang. Through the uproar of mechanical sounds that came to her ear
from the receiver she heard a far off faint angry voice in incoherent
reiteration. "Hullo, hullo" she answered encouragingly. The voice faded
but the sounds went on punctuated by a sharp angry popping. Mr. Orly's
door opened and his swift heavy tread came through the hall. Miriam
looked up apprehensively, saying "Hullo" at intervals into the angry din
of the telephone. He came swiftly on humming in a soft light baritone,
his broad forehead, bald rounded crown and bright fair beard shining in
the gloom of the hall. A crumpled serviette swung with his right hand.
Perhaps he was going to the workshop. The door of the den opened. Mrs.
Orly appeared and made an inarticulate remark abstractedly and
disappeared. "Hullo, hullo" repeated Miriam busily into the telephone.
There was a loud report and the thin angry voice came clear from a
surrounding silence. Mr. Orly came in on tiptoe, sighed impatiently and
stood near her drumming noiselessly on the table at her side. "Wrong
number" said Miriam, "will you please ring off?"

"What a lot of trouble they givya" said Mr. Orly. "I say, what's the
name of the American chap Hancock was talking about at lunch yesterday?"

Miriam frowned.

"Can y'remember? About sea-power."

"Oh" said Miriam relieved. "Mahan."

"Eh?"

"Mahan. May-ann."

"That's it. You've got it. Wonderful. Don't forget to send off Major
Moke's case sharp will ye?"

Miriam's eyes scanned the table and caught sight of a half hidden
tin-box.

"No. I'll get it off."

"Right. It's in a filthy state, but there's no time to clean it."

He strode back through the hall murmuring Mahan. Miriam drew the tin
from its place of concealment. It contained a mass of dirty cotton-wool
upon which lay a double denture coated with tartar and joined by
tarnished gold springs. "Eleven thirty sharp" ran the instruction on an
accompanying scrap of paper. No address. The name of the patient was
unfamiliar. Mrs. Orly put her head through the door of the den.

"What did Ro want?"

Miriam turned towards the small sallow eager face and met the kind sweet
intent blue glint of the eyes. She explained and Mrs. Orly's anxious
little face broke into a smile that dispelled the lines on the broad
strip of low forehead leaving it smooth and sallow under the smoothly
brushed brown hair.

"How funny" said Mrs. Orly hurriedly. "I was just comin' out to ask you
the name of that singer. You know. Mark something. Marksy...."

"Mar-kaysie" said Miriam.

"That's it. I can't think how you remember." Mrs. Orly disappeared and
the two voices broke out again in eager chorus. Miriam returned to her
tin. Mastering her disgust she removed the plate from the box, shook the
cotton-wool out into the paper-basket collected fresh wool, packing
paper, sealing wax, candle and matches and set to work to make up the
parcel. She would have to attack the workshop again and get them to take
it out. Perhaps they would know the address. When the case was half
packed she looked up the patient's name in the ledger. Five entries in
about as many years--either repairs or springs--how simple dentistry
became when people had lost all their teeth. There were two addresses, a
town and a country one written in a long time ago in ink; above them
were two in pencil, one crossed out. The newest of the address books
showed these two addresses, one in ink, neither crossed out. What had
become of the card and letter that came with the case? In the den with
Mrs. Orly and her guest....

Footsteps were coming neatly and heavily up the basement stairs.
Winthrop. He came in smiling, still holding his long apron gathered up
to free his knees. "Ph--Ph--Major Moke's case ready?" he whispered
cheerfully.

"Almost--but I don't know the address."

"It's the ph--ph--_Buck_inam Palace Otel. It's to go by hand."

"Oh, thank goodness" laughed Miriam sweeping the scissors round the
uneven edge of the wrapping paper.

"My _word_" said Winthrop, "What an eye you've got I couldn't do that to
ph-save melife and I'm supposed to be a ph-mechanic."

"Have I," said Miriam surprised, "I shan't be two minutes; it'll be
ready by the time anybody's ready to go. But the letters aren't."

"All right. I'll send up for them when we go out to lunch," said
Winthrop consolingly, disappearing.

Miriam found a piece of fine glazed green twine in her string box and
tied up the neat packet--sealing the ends of the string with a neat blob
on the upper side of the packet and the folded paper at each end. She
admired the two firmly flattened ends of string close together. Their
free ends united by the firm red blob were a decorative substitute for a
stamp on the white surface of the paper. She wrote in the address in an
upright rounded hand with firm rotund little embellishments. Poring over
the result she examined it at various distances. It was delightful. She
wanted to show it to someone. It would be lost on Major Moke. He would
tear open the paper to get at his dreadful teeth. Putting the stamps on
the label, she regretfully resigned the packet and took up Mr. Orly's
day-book. It was in arrears--three, four days not entered in the ledger.
Major Moke repair--one guinea, she wrote. Mr. Hancock's showing out bell
rang. She took up her packet and surveyed it upside down. The address
looked like Chinese. It was really beautiful ... but handwriting was
doomed ... short-hand and typewriting ... she ought to know them if she
were ever to make more than a pound a week as a secretary ... awful.
What a good thing Mr. Hancock thought them unprofessional ... yet there
were already men in Wimpole Street who had their correspondence typed.
What did he mean by saying that the art of conversation was doomed? He
did not like conversation. Jimmy came in for the parcel and scuttled
downstairs with it. Mr. Hancock's patient was going out through the
hall. He had not rung for her to go up. Perhaps there was very little to
clear and he was doing it himself.


                                   7

He was coming downstairs. Her hands went to the pile of letters and
busily sorted them. Through the hall. In here. Leisurely. How are you
getting on? Half amused. Half solicitous. The first weeks. The first
day. She had only just come. Perhaps there would be the hand on the back
of the chair again as before he discovered the stiffness like his own
stiffness. He was coming right round to the side of the chair into the
light, waiting, without having said anything. She seemed to sit through
a long space waiting for him to speak, in a radiance that shaped and
smoothed her face as she turned slowly and considered the blunted grave
features, their curious light, and met the smiling grey eyes. They were
not observing the confusion on the table. He had something to say that
had nothing to do with the work. She waited startled into an overflowing
of the curious radiance, deepening the light in which they were grouped.
"Are you busy?" "No," said Miriam in quiet abandonment. "I want your
advice on a question of decoration" he pursued smiling down at her with
the expression of a truant schoolboy and standing aside as she rose. "My
patient's put off" he added confidentially, holding the door wide for
her. Miriam trotted incredulously upstairs in front of him and in at the
open surgery door and stood contemplating the room from the middle of
the great square of soft thick grey green carpet with her back to the
great triple window and the littered remains of a long sitting.

Perhaps a question of decoration meant altering the positions of some of
the pictures. She glanced about at them, enclosed in her daily
unchanging unsatisfying impressions--the green landscape plumy with
meadow-sweet, but not letting you through to wander in fields, the
little soft bright coloury painting of the doorway of St. Mark's--San
Marco, painted by an Englishman, with a procession going in at the door
and beggars round the doorway, blobby and shapeless like English
peasants in Italian clothes ... bad ... and the man had worked and
studied and gone to Italy and had a name and still worked and people
bought his things ... an engraving very fine and small of a low bridge
in a little town, quiet sharp cheering lines; and above it another
engraving, a tiresome troubled girl, all a sharp film of fine woven
lines and lights and shadows in a rich dark liny filmy interior, neither
letting you through nor holding you up, the girl worrying there in the
middle of the picture, not moving, an obstruction.... Maris ... the two
little water colours of Devonshire, a boat with a brown sail and a small
narrow piece of a street zig-zagging sharply up between crooked houses,
by a Londoner--just to say how crooked everything was ... that thing in
this month's Studio was better than any of these ... her heart throbbed
suddenly as she thought of it ... a narrow sandy pathway going off,
frilled with sharp greenery, far into a green wood.... Had he seen it?
The studios lay safely there on the polished table in the corner, the
disturbing bowl of flowers from the country, the great pieces of
pottery, friends, warm and sympathetic to touch, never letting you grow
tired of their colour and design ... standing out against the soft dull
gold of the dado and the bold soft green and buff of the wall paper. The
oil painting of the cousin was looking on a little superciliously ...
centuries of "fastidious refinement" looking forth from her child's
face. If she were here it would be she would be consulted about the
decoration; but she was away somewhere in some house, moving about in a
dignified way under her mass of gold hair, saying things when speech
became a necessity in the refined fastidious half-contemptuous tone,
hiding her sensitive desire for companionship, contemptuous of most
things and most people. To-day she had an interested look, she was half
jealously setting standards for him all the time.... Miriam set her
aside. The Chinese figures staring down ferociously from the narrow
shelf running along the base of the high white frieze were more real to
her. They belonged to the daily life here, secure from censure.


                                   8

From the brown paper wrappings emerged a large plaque of Oriental
pottery. Mr. Hancock manoeuvred it upright, holding it opposite to her
on the floor, supported against his knees. "There--what do you think of
that?" he murmured bending over it. Miriam's eyes went from the veinings
on his flushed forehead to the violent soft rich red and blue and dull
green covering the huge concave disc from side to side. It appeared to
represent a close thicket of palm fronds, thin flat fingers,
superimposed and splaying out in all directions over the deep blue
background. In the centre appeared the head and shoulders of an enormous
tiger, coming sinuously forward, one great paw planted on the greenery
near the foremost middle edge of the plaque.

"M'm," said Miriam staring.

Mr. Hancock rubbed the surface of the plaque with his forefinger. Miriam
came near and ran her finger down across the rich smooth reliefs.

"Where shall I put it?" said Mr. Hancock.

"I should have it somewhere on that side of the room, where the light
falls on it."

Mr. Hancock raised the plaque in his arms and walked with it to the wall
raising it just above his head and holding it in place between the two
pictures of Devonshire. They faded to a small muddled dinginess, and the
buff and green patterning of the wall-paper showed shabby and dim.

"It looks somehow too big or too small or something.... I should have it
down level with the eyes, so that you can look straight into it."

Mr. Hancock carefully lowered it.

"Let me come and hold it so that you can look" said Miriam advancing.

"It's too heavy for you" said Mr. Hancock straining his head back and
moving it from side to side.

"I believe it would look best" said Miriam "across the corner of the
room as you come in--where the corner cupboard is--I'm sure it would"
she said eagerly and went back to the centre of the carpet.

Mr. Hancock smiled towards the small oak cupboard fixed low in the angle
of the wall.

"We should have to move the cupboard," he said dubiously and carried the
heavy plate to the indicated place.

"That's simply lovely" said Miriam in delight as he held the plaque in
front of the long narrow façade of black oak.

Mr. Hancock lowered the plaque to the floor and propped it crosswise
against the angle.

"It would be no end of a business fixing it up" he murmured crossing to
her side. They stood looking at the beautiful surface blurred a little
in the light by its backward tilt. They gazed fascinated as the plaque
slid gently forward and fell heavily breaking into two pieces.

They regarded one another quietly and went forward to gather up the
fragments. The broken sides gritted together as Miriam held hers steady
for the other to be fitted to it. When they were joined the crack was
hardly visible.

"That'll be a nice piece of work for Messrs. Nikkoo" said Mr. Hancock
with a little laugh, "we'd better get it in back behind the sofa for the
present." They spread the brown paper over the brilliant surfaces and
stood up. Miriam's perceptions raced happily along. How had he known
that she cared for things? She was not sure that she did ... not in the
way that he did.... How did he know that she had noticed any of his
things? Because she had blurted out "Oh what a perfectly lovely picture"
when he showed her the painting of his cousin? But that was because he
admired his cousin and her brother had painted the picture and he
admired them both and she had not known about this when she spoke.

"Did you see this month's Studio?" she asked shyly.

He turned to the table and took up the uppermost of the pile.

"There's a lovely green picture" said Miriam, "at least I like it."

Mr. Hancock turned pages ruminatively.

"Those are good things" he said flattening the open page.

"Japanese flower Decorations" read Miriam looking at the reproduced
squares of flowering branches arranged with a curious naturalness in
strange flat dishes. They fascinated her at once--stiff and real,
shooting straight up from the earth and branching out. They seemed
coloured. She turned pages and gazed.

"How nice and queer."

Mr. Hancock bent smiling. "They've got a whole science of this you know"
he said; "it takes them years to learn it; they apprentice themselves
and study for years...."

Miriam looked incredulously at the simple effects--just branches placed
"artistically" in flat dishes and fixed somehow at the base amongst
little heaps of stones.

"It looks easy enough."

Mr. Hancock laughed. "Well--you try. We'll get some broom or something,
and you shall try your hand. You'd better read the article. Look
here--they've got names for all the angles.... 'Shin'--he read with
amused admiring delight, 'sho-shin' ... there's no end of it."

Miriam fired and hesitated. "It's like a sort of mathematics.... I'm no
good at mathematics."

"I expect you could get very good results ... we'll try. They carry it
to such extraordinary lengths because there's all sorts of social
etiquette mixed up with it--you can't have a branch pointing at a guest
for instance--it would be rude."

"No wonder it takes them years" said Miriam.

They laughed together, moving vaguely about the room.

Mr. Hancock looked thoughtfully at the celluloid tray of hairpins on the
mantelshelf, and blew the dust from it ... there was something she
remembered in some paper, very forcibly written, about the falsity of
introducing single specimens of Japanese art, the last results of
centuries of an artistic discipline, that was it, that had grown from
the life of a secluded people living isolated in a particular spot under
certain social and natural conditions, into English household
decoration.... "Gleanings in Buddha Fields" the sun on rice-fields ...
and Fujiama--Fuji-no-San in the distance ... but he did not like
Hearn--"there's something in the chap that puts me off" ... puts
off--what a good phrase ... "something sensuous in him" ... but you
could never forget Buddha Fields. It made you know you were in Japan, in
the picture of Japan ... and somebody had said that all good art, all
great art, had a sensuous element ... it was dreadful, but probably true
... because the man had observed it and was not an artist, but somebody
looking carefully on. Mr. Hancock, Englishman, was "put off" by
sensuousness, by anybody taking a delight in the sun on rice fields and
the gay colours of Japan ... perhaps one ought to be "put off" by Hearn
... but Mr. Hancock liked Japanese things and bought them and put them
in with his English things, that looked funny and tame beside them. What
he did not like was the expression of delight. It was queer and annoying
somehow ... especially as he said that the way English women were
trained to suppress their feelings was bad. He had theories and fixed
preferences and yet always seemed to be puzzled about so many things.

"D'you think it right to try to introduce single pieces of Japanese art
into English surroundings?" she said tartly, beginning on the
instruments.

"East is East and West is West and never the twain can meet?"

"That's a dreadful idea--I don't believe it a bit."

Mr. Hancock laughed. He believed in those awful final dreary-weary
things ... some species are so widely differentiated that they cannot
amalgamate--awful ... but if one said that he would laugh and say it was
beyond him ... and he liked and disliked without understanding the
curious differences between people--did not know why they were
different--they put him off or did not put him off and he was just. He
liked and reverenced Japanese art and there was an artist in his family.
That was strange and fine.

"I suppose we ought to have some face-powder here," mused Mr. Hancock.

"They'll take longer than ever if we do."

"I know--that's the worst of it; but I commit such fearful depredations
... we want a dressing room ... if I had my way we'd have a proper
dressing room downstairs. But I think we must get some powder and a
puff.... Do you think you could get some...?" Miriam shrank. Once in a
chemist's shop, in a strong Burlington Arcade west-end mood buying some
scent, she had seized and bought a little box.... La Dorine de Poche ...
Dorin, Paris ... but that was different to asking openly for powder and
a puff ... la Dorine de Dorin Paris was secret and wonderful.... "I'll
try" she said bravely and heard the familiar little sympathetic laugh.


                                   9

Lunch would be ready in a few minutes and none of the letters were done.
She glanced distastefully at the bold handwritings scrawling, under
impressive stamped addresses with telephone numbers, and names of
stations and telegraphic addresses, across the well-shaped sheets of
expensive note-paper, to ask in long, fussy, badly-put sentences for
expensive appointments. Several of the signatures were unfamiliar to her
and must be looked up in the ledger in case titles might be attached.
She glanced at the dates of the appointments--they could all go by the
evening post. What a good thing Mr. Hancock had given up overlooking the
correspondence. Mrs. Hermann's letter he should see ... but that could
not anyhow have been answered by return. The lunch-bell rang.... Mr.
Orly's letters! There was probably a telegram or some dreadful urgent
thing about one or other of them that ought to have been dealt with.
With beating heart she fumbled them through--each one bore the word
answered in Mrs. Orly's fine pointed hand. Thank goodness. Opening a
drawer she crammed them into a crowded clip ... at least a week's
addresses to be checked or entered.... Mr. Hancock's unanswered letters
went into the same drawer, leaving her table fairly clear. Mr. Leyton's
door burst open, he clattered down the basement stairs. Miriam went into
his room and washed her hands in the corner basin under the patent
unleaking taps. Everything was splashed over with permanganate of
potash. The smell of the room combined all the dental drugs with the
odour of leather--a volunteer officer's accoutrements lay in confusion
all over on the secretaire. Beside them stood an open pot of leather
polish. Mr. and Mrs. Orly passed the open door and went downstairs. They
were alone. The guest had gone.


                                   10

"Come and share the remains of the banquet Miss Hens'n."

"_Do_ have just a bit of somethin', Ro darling, a bit of chicking or
somethin'."

"Feeling the effects?" remarked Mr. Leyton cheerfully munching, "I've
got a patient at half past" he added nervously glancing up as if to
justify his existence as well as his remark. Miriam hoped he would go
on; perhaps it would occur to Mrs. Orly to ask him about the patient.

"You'd feel the effects my boy if you hadn't had a wink the whole
blessed night."

"Hancock busy Miss Hens'?" Miriam glanced at the flushed forehead and
hoped that Mr. Orly would remain with his elbows on the table and his
face hidden in his hands. She was hungry and there would be no peace for
anybody if he were roused.

"Too many whiskies?" enquired Mr. Leyton cheerfully, shovelling salad on
to his plate.

"Too much whisking and frisking altogether sergeant," said Mr. Orly
incisively, raising his head.

Mrs. Orly flushed and frowned at Mr. Orly.

"Don't be silly Ley--you know how father hates dinner parties."

Mr. Orly sighed harshly, pulling himself up as Miriam began a
dissertation on Mr. Hancock's crowded day.

"Ze got someone with him now?" put in Mrs. Orly perfunctorily.

"Wonderful man" sighed Mr. Orly harshly, glancing at his son.

"Have a bit of chicking Ro."

"No my love no not all the perfumes of Araby--not all the chickens of
Cheshire. Have some paté Miss Hens'--No? You despise paté?"

A maid came briskly in and looked helpfully round.

"Who's your half past one patient Ley?" asked Mrs. Orly nervously.

"Buck" rapped Mr. Leyton. "We going to wait for Mr. Hancock, Mater?"

"No, of course not. Keep some things hot Emma and bring in the sweets."

"Have some more chicken Miss Hens'--Emma!" he indicated his son with a
flourish of his serviette. "Wait upon Mr. Leyton, serve him speedily."

Emma arrested looked helpfully about, smiled in brisk amusement, seized
some dishes and went out.

Mrs. Orly's pinched face expanded. "Silly you are, Ro." Miriam grinned,
watching dreamily. Mr. Leyton's flushed face rose and dipped
spasmodically over the remains of his salad.

"Bucking for Buck"--laughed Mr. Orly in a soft falsetto.

"Ro, you _are_ silly, who's Buck, Ley?"

"Don't question the officer Nelly."

"Ro, you _are_ absurd," laughed Mrs. Orly.

"Help the _jellies_ dearest" shouted Mr. Orly in a frowning whisper.
"Have some jelly, Miss Hens'. It's all right Ley ... glad you so busy,
my son. How many did you have this morning?" Mopping his brow and
whisking his person with his serviette he glanced sidelong.

"Two" said Mr. Leyton, noisily spooning up jelly, "any more of that
stuff mater, how about Hancock?"

"There's plenty here" said Mrs. Orly helping him. Miriam laboured with
her jelly and glanced at the dish. People wolfed their food. It would
seem so conspicuous to begin again when the fuss had died down; with Mr.
Orly watching as if feeding were a contemptible self-indulgence.

"Had a beastly gold case half the morning" rapped Mr. Leyton and drank,
with a gulp.

"Get any help?" said Mr. Orly glancing at Miriam.

"No" said Mr. Leyton in a non-committal tone, reaching across the table
for the cheese.

"Hancock too busy?" asked Mr. Orly. "Have some more jelly, Miss Hens'n."

"No thank you" said Miriam.

"A bit of cheese; a fragment of giddy Gorgonzola."

"No thanks."

Mrs. Orly brushed busily at her bodice, peering down with indrawn chin.
The room was close with gas. If Mr. Hancock would only come down and
give her the excuse of attending to his room.

"What you doing s'aafnoon?" asked Mr. Leyton.

"I, my boy, I don't know," said Mr. Orly with a heavy sigh, "string
myself up, I think."

"You'd much better string yourself round the Outer Circle and take
Lennard's advice."

"Good advice my boy--if we all took good advice ... eh Miss Hens'n? I've
taken twenty grains of phenacetin this morning."

"Well, you go and get a good walk," said Mr. Leyton clattering to his
feet. "S'cuse me, Mater."

"Right my boy! Excellent! A Daniel come to judgment! All right Ley--get
on with you. Buck up and see Buck. Oh-h-h my blooming head. Excuse my
language Miss Hens'n. Ah! Here's the great man. Good morning Hancock.
How are you? D'they know you're down?"

Mr. Hancock murmured his greetings and sat down opposite Miriam with a
grave preoccupied air.

"Busy?" asked Mr. Orly turning to face his partner.

"Yes--fairly" said Mr. Hancock pleasantly.

"Wonderful man.... Ley's gone off like a bee in a gale. D'they know
Hancock's down Nelly?"

Miriam glanced at Mr. Hancock wishing he could lunch in peace. He was
tired. Did he too feel oppressed with the gas and the pale madder store
cupboards? ... glaring muddy hot pink?

"I've got a blasted head on ... excuse my language. Twenty of 'em,
twenty to dinner."

"Oh yes?" said Mr. Hancock shifting in his chair and glancing about.

"_Nelly!_ D'they know he's down? Start on a paté, Hancock. The remains
of the banquet."

"Oh ... well, thanks."

"You never get heads do ye?"

Mr. Hancock smiled and began a murmuring response as he busied himself
with his paté.

"Poor Ro he's got a most awful head.... How's your uncle Mr. Hancock?"

"Oh--thank you.... I'm afraid he's not very flourishing."

"He's better than he used to be, isn't he?"

"Well--yes, I think perhaps on the whole he is."

"You ought to have been there, Hancock. Cleave came. He was in no end of
form. Told us some fine ones. Have a biscuit and butter Miss Hens'n."

Miriam refused and excused herself.

On her way upstairs she strolled into Mr. Leyton's room. He greeted her
with a smile--polishing instruments busily.

"Mr. Hancock busy?" he asked briskly.

"M'm."

"You busy? I say if I have Buck in will you finish up these things?"

"All right, if you like" said Miriam, regretting her sociable impulse.
"Is Mr. Buck here?" She glanced at the appointment book.

"Yes, he's waiting."

"You haven't got anybody else this afternoon" observed Miriam.

"I know. But I want to be down at Headquarters by five in full kit if I
possibly can. Has the Pater got anybody?"

"No. The afternoon's marked off--he's going out, I think. Look here,
I'll clear up your things afterwards if you want to go out. Will you
want all these for Mr. Buck?"

"Oh--all right, thanks; I dunno. I've got to finish him off this
afternoon and make him pay up."

"Why pay up? Isn't he trustworthy?"

"Trustworthy? A man who's just won three hundred pounds on a horse and
chucked his job on the strength of it."

"What a fearfully insane thing to do."

"Lost his head."

"Is he very young?"

"Oo--'bout twenty-five."

"H'm. I spose he'll begin the rake's progress."

"That's about it. You've just about hit it" said Mr. Leyton with heavy
significance.

Miriam lingered.

"I boil every blessed thing after he's been ... if that's any indication
to you."

"_Boil_ them!" said Miriam vaguely distressed and pondering over Mr.
Leyton standing active and aseptic between her and some horror ...
something infectious ... it must be that awful mysterious thing ... how
awful for Mr. Leyton to have to stop his teeth.

"Boil 'em" he chuckled knowingly.

"Why on earth?" she asked.

"Well--there you are" said Mr. Leyton--"that's all I can tell you. I
_boil_ 'em."

"Crikey" said Miriam half in response and half in comment on his
falsetto laugh, as she made for the door. "Oh, but I say, I don't
understand your boiling apparatus, Mr. Leyton."

"All right, don't you worry. I'll set it all going and shove the things
in. You've only to turn off the gas and wipe 'em. I daresay I shall have
time to do them myself."


                                   11

When she had prepared for Mr. Hancock's first afternoon patient Miriam
sat down at her crowded table in a heavy drowse. No sound came from the
house or from the den. The strip of sky above the blank wall opposite
her window was an even cold grey. There was nothing to mark the movement
of the noisy wind. The room was cold and stuffy. Shivering as she moved,
she glanced round at the lamp. It was well trimmed. The yellow flame was
at its broadest. The radiator glared. The warmth did not reach her. She
was cold to the waist, her feet without feeling on the strip of
linoleum; her knees protruding into the window space felt as if they
were in cold water. Her arms crept and flushed with cold at every
movement, strips of cold wrist disgusted her, showing beyond her skimpy
sleeves and leading to the hopelessness of her purplish red hands
swollen and clammy with cold. Her hot head and flushed cheeks begged for
fresh air. Warm rooms, with carpets and fires; an even, airy warmth....
There were people who could be in this sort of cold and be active, with
cool faces and warm hands, even just after lunch. If Mr. Leyton were
here he would be briskly entering up the books--perhaps with a red nose;
but very brisk. He was finishing Buck off; briskly, not even talking.
Mr. Hancock would be working swiftly at well up-to-date accounts,
without making a single mistake. Where had he sat doing all those pages
of beautiful spidery book-keeping? Mr. Orly would be rushing things
through. What a drama. He knew it. He _knew_ he had earned his rest by
the fire ... doing everything, making and building the practice ...
people waiting outside the surgery with basins for him to rush out and
be sick. Her sweet inaccurate help in the fine pointed writing on cheap
paper ... the two cheap rooms they started in.... The Wreck of the _Mary
Gloucester_ ... "and never a doctor's brougham to help the missis
unload." They had been through everything together ... it was all there
with them now ... rushing down the street in the snow without an
overcoat to get her the doctor. They were wise and sweet; in life and
wise and sweet. They had gone out and would be back for tea. Perhaps
they had gone out. Everything was so quiet. Two hours of cold before
tea. Putting in order the materials for the gold and tin she propped her
elbows on the table and rested her head against her hands and closed her
eyes. There was a delicious drowsiness in her head but her back was
tired. She rose and wandered through the deserted hall into the empty
waiting room. The clear blaze of a coal fire greeted her at the doorway
and her cold feet hurried in on to the warm Turkey carpet. The dark oak
furniture and the copper bowls and jugs stood in a glow of comfort. From
the centre of the great littered table a bowl of daffodils asserted the
movement of the winter and pointed forward and away from the winter
stillness of the old room. The long faded rich crimson rep curtains
obscured half the width of each high window and the London light
screened by the high opposing houses fell dimly on the dingy books and
periodicals scattered about the table. Miriam stood by the mantelpiece
her feet deep in the black sheepskin rug and held out her hands towards
the fire. They felt cold again the instant she withdrew them from the
blaze. The hall clock gonged softly twice. The legal afternoon had
begun. Anyone finding her in here now would think she was idling. She
glanced at the deep dark shabby leather armchair near by and imagined
the relief that would come to her whole frame, if she could relax into
it for five undisturbed minutes. The ringing of the front door bell sent
her hurrying back to her room.

The sound of reading came from the den--a word-mouthing word-slurring
monotonous drawl--thurrah-thurrah-thurrah; thurrah thurrah ... a single
beat, on and on, the words looped and forced into it without any
discrimination, the voice dropping uniformly at the end of each sentence
... _thrah_.... An Early Victorian voice giving reproachful instruction
to a child ... a class of board school children reciting.... Perhaps
they had changed their minds about going out.... Miriam sat with her
hands tucked between her knees musing with her eyes fixed on the thin
sheets of tin and gold ... extraordinary to read any sort of text like
that ... but there was something in it, something nice and good ...
listening carefully you would get most of the words. It would be better
to listen to than a person who read with intelligent modulations, as if
they had written the thing themselves; like some men read ... and
irritatingly intelligent women ... who knew they were intelligent. But
there ought to be clear ... enunciation. Not expression--that was like
commenting as you read; getting at the person you were reading to ...
who might not want to comment in the same way. Reading, with expression,
really hadn't any expression. How wonderful--of course. Mrs. Orly's
reading had an expression; a shape. It was exactly like the way they
looked at things; exactly; everything was there; all the things they
agreed about, and the things he admired in her ... things that by this
time she knew he admired.... She was conscious of these things ... that
was the difference between her and her sister, who had exactly the same
things but had never been admired ... standing side by side exactly
alike, the sister like a child--clear with a sharp fresh edge; Mrs. Orly
with a different wisdom ... softened and warm and blurred ... conscious,
and always busy distracting your attention, but with clear eyes like a
child, too.


                                   12

Presently the door opened quietly and Mrs. Orly appeared in the doorway.
"Miss Hens'n" she whispered urgently. Miriam turned to meet her flushed
face. "Oh Miss Hens'n" she pursued absently, "if Mudie's send d'you mind
lookin' and choosin' us something nice?"

"Oh" said Miriam provisionally with a smile.

Mrs. Orly closed the door quietly and advanced confidently with
deprecating bright wheedling eyes. "Isn't it tahsome" she said
conversationally. "Ro's asleep and the carriage is comin' round at half
past. Isn't it tahsome?"

"Can't you send it back?"

"I want him to go out; I think the drive will do him good. I say, d'you
mind just lookin'--at the books?"

"No, I will; but how shall I know what to keep? Is there a list?"

Mrs. Orly looked embarrassed. "I've got a list somewhere" she said
hurriedly, "but I can't find it."

"I'll do my best" said Miriam.

"_You_ know--anythin' historical ... there's one I put down 'The Sorrows
of a Young Queen.' Keep that if they send it and anything else you
think."

"Is there anything to go back?"

"Yes, I'll bring them out. We've been reading an awful one--awful."

Miriam began fingering her gold foil. Mrs. Orly was going to expect her
to be shocked....

"By that awful man Zola...."

"Oh yes" said Miriam, dryly.

"Have you read any of his?"

"Yes" said Miriam carefully.

"_Have_ you? Aren't they shockin'?"

"Well I don't know. I thought 'Lourdes' was simply wonderful."

"Is that a nice one--what's it about?"

"Oh you know--it's about the Madonna of Lourdes, the miracles, in the
south of France. It begins with a crowded trainload of sick people going
down through France on a very hot day ... it's simply stupendous ... you
feel you're in the train, you go through it all"--she turned away and
looked through the window overcome ... "and there's a thing called 'La
Rêve'" she went on incoherently with a break in her voice "about an
embroideress and a man called Felicien--it's simply the most _lovely_
thing."

Mrs. Orly came near to the table.

"You understand about books don't you," she said wistfully.

"Oh no" said Miriam. "I've hardly read anything."

"I wish you'd put those two down."

"I don't know the names of the translations," announced Miriam with
conceited solicitude.

A long loud yawn resounded through the door.

"Better, boysie?" asked Mrs. Orly turning anxiously towards the open
door.

"Yes, my love," said Mr. Orly cheerfully.

"I _am_ glad, boy--I'll get my things on--the carriage'll be here in a
minute."

She departed at a run and Mr. Orly came in and sat heavily down in a
chair set against the slope of the wall close by and facing Miriam.

"Phoo" he puffed, "I've been taking phenacetin all day; you don't get
heads do you?"

Miriam smiled and began preparing a reply.

"How's it coming in? Totting up, eh?"

"I think so" said Miriam uneasily.

"What's it totting up to this month? Any idea?"

"No; I can see if you like."

"Never mind, never mind.... Mrs. O's been reading ... phew! You're a
lit'ry young lady--d'you know that French chap--Zola--Emmil Zola----"
Mr. Orly glanced suspiciously.

"Yes" said Miriam.

"Like 'im?"

"Yes" said Miriam firmly.

"Well--it's a matter of taste and fancy" sighed Mr. Orly heavily.
"Chacun à son goût--shake an ass and go, as they say. One's enough for
me. I can't think why they do it myself--sheer well to call a spade a
spade sheer bestiality those French writers--don't ye think so, eh?"

"Well no. I don't think I can accept that as a summary of French
literature."

"Eh well, it's beyond me. I suppose I'm not up to it. Behind the times.
Not cultured enough. Not cultured enough I guess. Ready dearest?" he
said addressing his wife and getting to his feet with a groan. "Miss
Hens'n's a great admirer of Emmil Zola."

"She says some of his books are pretty, didn't you, Miss Hens'n. It
isn't fair to judge from one book, Ro."

"No my love no. Quite right. Quite right. I'm wrong--no doubt. Getting
old and soft. Things go on too fast for me."

"Don't be so silly, Ro."


                                   13

Drowsily and automatically Miriam went on rolling tin and gold--sliding
a crisp thick foil of tin from the pink tissue paper leaved book on to
the serviette ... a firm metallic crackle ... then a silent layer of
thin gold ... then more tin ... adjusting the three slippery leaves in
perfect superposition without touching them with her hands, cutting the
final square into three strips, with the long sharp straight bladed
scissors--the edges of the metal adhering to each other as the scissors
went along--thinking again with vague distant dreamy amusement of the
boy who cut the rubber tyre to mend it--rolling the flat strips with a
fold of the serviette, deftly until they turned into neat little twisted
crinkled rolls--wondering how she had acquired the knack. She went on
and on lazily, unable to stop, sitting back in her chair and working
with outstretched arms, until a small fancy soap box was filled with the
twists--enough to last the practice for a month or two. The sight filled
her with a sense of achievement and zeal. Putting on its lid she placed
the soap box on the second chair. Lazily, stupidly, longing for tea--all
the important clerical work left undone, Mr. Orly's surgery to clear up
for the day--still she was working in the practice. She glanced
approvingly at the soap box ... but there were ages to pass before tea.
She did not dare to look at her clock. Had the hall clock struck three?
Bending to a drawer she drew out a strip of amadou--offended at the
sight of her red wrist coming out of the harsh cheap black sleeve and
the fingers bloated by cold. They looked lifeless; no one else's hands
looked so lifeless. Part of the amadou was soft and warm to her touch,
part hard and stringy. Cutting out a soft square she cut it rapidly into
tiny cubes collecting them in a pleasant flummery heap on the blotting
paper--Mr. Hancock should have those; they belonged to his perfect
treatment of his patients; it was quite just. Cutting a strip of the
harsher part, she pulled and teased it into comparative softness and cut
it up into a second pile of fragments. Amadou, gold and tin ... Japanese
paper? A horrible torpor possessed her. Why did one's head get into such
a hot fearful state before tea? ... grey stone wall and the side of the
projecting glass roofed peak of Mr. Leyton's surgery ... grey stone wall
... wall ... railings at the top of it ... cold--a cold sky ... it was
their time--nine to six--no doubt those people did best who thought of
nothing during hours but the work--cheerfully--but they were always
pretending--in and _out_ of work hours they pretended. There was
something wrong in them and something wrong in the people who shirked.
La--te--ta--te--te--ta, she hummed searching her table for relief. Mr.
Hancock's bell sounded and she fled up to the warmth of his room. In a
moment Mudie's cart came and the maid summoned her. There was a pile of
books in the hall.... She glanced curiously at the titles worried with
the responsibility--'The Sorrows'--that was all right. 'Secrets of a
Stormy Court' ... that was the sort of thing ... "you can't make a silk
purse out of a sow's ear" ... one day she must explain to Mr. Orly that
that was really "sousière" a thing to hold halfpence. 'My Reminiscences'
by Count de Something. Perhaps that was one they had put down. The maid
presented the volumes to be returned. Taking them Miriam asked her to
ask Mr. Hancock if he had anything to change. 'Cock Lane and Common
Sense' she read ... there was some sort of argument in that ... the
'facts' of some case ... it would sneer at something, some popular idea
... it was probably by some doctor or scientific man ... but that was
not the book.... 'The Earth' ... Emile Zola. She flapped the book open
and hurriedly read a few phrases. The hall pulsated curiously. She
flushed all over her body. "There's nothing for Mr. Hancock, miss." "All
right; these can go and these are to be kept," she said indistinctly.
Wandering back to her room she repeated the phrases in her mind in
French. They seemed to clear up and take shelter--somehow they were
terse and acceptable and they were secret and secure--but English people
ought not to read them; in English. It was--outrageous. English men. The
French man had written them simply ... French logic ... English men were
shy and suggestive about these things--either that or breezy ... "filth"
which was almost worse. The Orlys ought not to read them at all ... it
was a good thing the book was out of the house ... they would forget.
But she would not forget. Her empty room glanced with a strange confused
sadness; the clearing up upstairs was not quite done; but she could not
go upstairs again yet. Three-fifteen; the afternoon had turned; her
clock was a little slow too. The warm quiet empty den was waiting for
the tea-tray. Clearing the remnants from her table she sat down again.
The heavy stillness of the house closed in.... She opened the drawer of
stationery. Various kinds of notepaper lay slid together in confusion;
someone had been fumbling there. The correspondence cards propped
against the side of the drawer would never stay in their proper places.
With comatose meticulousness she put the whole drawer in order,
replenishing it from a drawer of reserve packets, until it was so full
that nothing could slide. She surveyed the result with satisfaction; and
shut the drawer. She would tidy one drawer every afternoon.... She
opened the drawer once more and looked again. To keep it like that would
mean never using the undermost cards and notepaper. That would not do
... change them all round sometimes. She sat for a while inertly and
presently lazily roused herself with the idea of going upstairs. Pausing
in front of a long three-shelved whatnot filling the space between the
door and the narrow many drawered specimen case that stood next her
table she idly surveyed its contents. Nothing but piles of British
Dental Journals, Proceedings of the Odontological Society, circulars
from the Dental Manufacturing Companies. Propping her elbows on the
upper shelf of the what-not she stood turning leaves.


                                   14

"Tea up?"

"Don't know" said Miriam irritably, passing the open door. He could see
she had only just come down and could not possibly know. The soft
jingling of the cups shaken together on a tray by labouring footsteps
came from the basement stairs. Mr. Leyton's hurried clattering
increased. Miriam waited impatiently by her table. The maid padded
heavily through swinging the door of the den wide with her elbow. When
she had retired, Miriam sauntered warm and happy almost before she was
inside the door into the den. With her eyes on the tea-tray she felt the
afternoon expand.... "There's a Burma girl a settin' and I know she
thinks of me." ... "Come you _back_ you British soldier, come you _back_
to Mandalay." Godfrey's tune was much the best; stiff, like the words,
the other was only sing-song. Pushing off the distraction she sat down
near the gently roaring blaze of the gas fire in a low little chair,
upholstered in cretonne almost patternless with age. The glow of the
fire went through and through her. If she had tea at once, everything
would be richer and richer, but things would move on, and if they came
back she would have finished and would have to go. The face of the
railway clock fixed against the frontage of the gallery at the far end
of the room said four-fifteen. They had evidently ordered tea to be a
quarter of an hour late and might be in any minute ... this curious
feeling that the room belonged to her more than to the people who owned
it, so that they were always intruders.... Leaving with difficulty the
little feast untouched ... a Dundee cake from Buszards ... she browsed
rapidly, her eyes roaming from thing to thing ... the shields and
assegais grouped upon the raised dull gold papering of the high opposite
wall, the bright beautiful coloured bead skirts spread out amongst
curious carved tusks and weapons, the large cool placid gold Buddha
reclining below them with his chin on his hand and his elbow on a red
velvet cushion, on the Japanese cabinet; the Japanese cupboard fixed
above Mrs. Orly's writing table, the fine firm carved ivory on its
panels; the tall vase of Cape gooseberries flaring on the top of the
cottage piano under the shadow of the gallery; the gallery with its
upper mystery, the happy clock fastened against its lower edge, always
at something after four, the door set back in the wall, leading into her
far-away midday room, the light falling from the long high frosted
window along the confusion of Mr. Orly's bench, noisy as she looked at
it with the sound of metal tools falling with a rattle, the drone and
rattle of the motor lathe, Mr. Orly's cheerful hummings and whistlings,
the bench swept down the length of the room to her side ... the movable
shaded electric lamp; Mr. Orly's African tobacco pouch bunched
underneath it on the edge of the bench near the old leather armchair
near to the fire, facing the assegais; the glass-doored bookcase on
either side of the fireplace, the strange smooth gold on the strips of
Burmese wood fastened along the shelves, the clear brown light of the
room on the gold, the curious lettering sweeping across the gold.

"Tea? Good."

Mr. Leyton pulled up a chair and plumped into it digging at his person
and dragging out the tails of his coat with one hand, holding a rumpled
newspaper at reading length. When his coat-tails were free he scratched
his head and scrubbed vigorously at his short brown beard.

"You had tea?" he said to Miriam's motionlessness, without looking up.

"No--let's have tea," said Miriam. Why should he assume that she should
pour out the tea....

"I _say_ that's a _nasty_ one" said Mr. Leyton hysterically and began
reading in a high hysterical falsetto.

Miriam began pouring out. Mr. Leyton finished his passage with a little
giggling shriek of laughter and fumbled for bread and butter with his
eyes still on the newspaper. Miriam sipped her hot tea. The room darkled
in the silence. Everything intensified. She glanced impatiently at Mr.
Leyton's bent unconscious form. His shirt and the long straight narrow
ends of his tie made a bulging curve above his low-cut waistcoat. The
collar of his coat stood away from his bent neck and its tails were
bunched up round his hips. His trousers were so hitched up that his bent
knees strained against the harsh crude Rope Brothers cloth. The ends of
his trousers peaked up in front, displaying loose rolls of black sock
and the whole of his anatomical walking-shoes. Miriam heard his busily
masticating jaws and dreaded his operations with his tea-cup. A wavering
hand came out and found the cup and clasped it by the rim, holding it at
the edge of the lifted newspaper. She busied herself with cutting stout
little wedges of cake. Mr. Leyton sipped, gasping after each loud
quilting gulp; a gasp, and the sound of a moustache being sucked. Mr.
Hancock's showing out bell rang. Mr. Leyton plunged busily round,
finishing his cup in a series of rapid gulps. "Kike?" he said.

"M" said Miriam, "jolly kike--did you finish Mr. Buck?"

"More or less----"

"Did you boil the remains?"

"Boiled every blessed thing--and put the serviette in k'bolic."

Miriam hid her relief and poured him out another cup.

Mr. Hancock came in through the open door and quickly up to the
tea-tray. Pouring out a cup he held the teapot suspended, "another cup?"

"No thanks, not just at present" said Miriam getting to her feet with a
morsel of cake in her fingers.

"Plenty of time for my things" said Mr. Hancock sitting down in Mr.
Orly's chair with his tea, his flat compact slightly wrinkled and
square-toed patent leather shoes gleamed from under the rims of his soft
dark grey beautifully cut trousers with a pleasant shine as he sat back
comfortable and unlounging, with crossed knees in the deep chair.

Mr. Leyton had got to his feet.

"Busy?" he said rapidly munching. "I say I've had that man Buck this
afternoon."

"Oh yes" said Mr. Hancock brushing a crumb from his knee.

"_You_ know--that case I told you about."

"Oh yes?" said Mr. Hancock with a clear glance and a slight tightening
of the face.

Miriam made for the door. Mr. Hancock was not encouraging the topic. Mr.
Leyton's cup came down with a clatter. "I'm fearfully rushed" he said.
"I must be off." He caught Miriam up in the hall. "I say tea must have
been fearfully late. I've got to get down to headquarters by five
_sharp_."

"You go on first" said Miriam standing aside.

Mr. Leyton fled up through the house three steps at a time.


                                   15

When she came down again intent on her second cup of tea in the empty
brown den a light had been switched on, driving the dark afternoon away.
The crayon drawings behind the piano shone out on the walls of the dark
square space under the gallery as she hesitated in the doorway. There
was someone in the dim brightness of the room. She turned noiselessly
towards her table.

"Come and have some more tea Miss Hens'n."

Miriam went in with alacrity. The light was on in the octagonal brass
framed lantern that hung from the skylight and shed a soft dim radiance
through its old glass. Mrs. Orly still in her bonnet and fur-lined cape
was sitting drinking tea in the little old cretonne chair. She raised a
tired flushed face and smiled brightly at Miriam as she came down the
room.

"I'm dying for another cup; I had to fly off and clear up Mr. Hancock's
things."

"Mr. Hancock busy? Have some cake, it's rather a nice one." Mrs. Orly
cut a stout little wedge.

Clearing away the newspaper Miriam took possession of Mr. Leyton's
chair.

Mr. Orly swung in shutting the door behind him and down the room peeling
off his frock coat as he came.

"Tea darling?"

"Well m'love, since you're so pressing."

Mr. Orly switched on the lamp on the corner of the bench and subsided
into his chair his huge bulk poised lightly and alertly, one vast leg
across the other knee.

"'Scuse my shirt-sleeves Miss Hens'n. I say I've got a new song--like to
try it presently or are ye too busy?"

Poised between the competing interests of many worlds Miriam basked in
the friendly tones.

"Well I _have_ got rather a fearful lot of things to do."

"Come and try it now, d'ye mind?"

"Have your tea Ro, darling."

"Right my love, right, right, always right--Hancock busy?"

"Yes; he has two more patients after this one."

"Marvellous man."

"Mr. Hancock never gets rushed or flurried does he? He's always been the
same ever since we've known him."

"He's very even and steady outwardly" said Miriam indifferently.

"You think it's only outward?"

"Well I mean he's really frightfully sensitive."

"Just so; it's his coolness carries him through, self-command, I wish
I'd got it."

"You'd miss other things boysie; you can't have it both ways."

"Right m'love--right. I don't understand him. D'you think anyone does,
Miss Hens'n--really--I mean. D'you understand him?"

"Well you see I haven't known him very long----"

"No--but you come from the same district and know his relatives."

"The same Berkshire valley and his cousins happened to be my people's
oldest friends."

"Well don't ye see, that makes all the difference--I say I heard a
splendid one this afternoon. D'you think I could tell Miss Hens'n that
one Nelly?--you're not easily shocked, are you?"

"I've never been shocked in my life" said Miriam getting to her feet.

"Must ye go? Shall we just try this over?"

"Well if it isn't too long."

"Stop and have a bit of dinner with us can ye?"

Miriam made her excuse, pleading an engagement and sat down to the
piano. The song was a modern ballad with an easy impressive
accompaniment, following the air. The performance went off easily and
well, Mr. Orly's clear trained baritone ringing out persuasively into
the large room. Weathering a second invitation to spend the evening she
got away to her room.


                                   16

Her mind was alight with the sense of her many beckoning interests,
aglow with fulness of life. The thin piercing light cast upon her table
by the single five candle power bulb, drawn low and screened by a green
glass shade was warm and friendly. She attacked her letters, despatching
the appointments swiftly and easily in a bold convincing hand and
drafted a letter to Mrs. Hermann that she carried with a glow of
satisfaction to Mr. Hancock's room. When his room was cleared in
preparation for his last patient it was nearly six o'clock. She began
entering his day-book in the ledger. The boy coming up for the letters
brought two dentures to be packed and despatched by registered post from
Vere Street before six o'clock. "They'll be ready by the time you've got
your boots on" said Miriam and packed her cases brilliantly in a mood of
deft-handed concentration. Jimmy clattered up the stairs as she was
stamping the labels. When he fled with them she gave a general sigh and
surveyed the balance of her day with a responsible cheerful wicked
desperation; her mind leaping forward to her evening. The day books
would not be done, even Mr. Hancock's would have to go up unentered; she
had not the courage to investigate the state of the cash book; Mr.
Leyton's room was ready for the morning; she ran through to Mr. Orly's
room and performed a rapid perfunctory tidying up; many little things
were left; his depleted stores must be refilled in the morning; she
glanced at his appointment book, no patient so far until ten. She left
the room with her everyday guilty consciousness that hardly anything in
it was up to the level of Mr. Hancock's room ... look after Hancock, I'm
used to fending for myself ... but he knew she did not do her utmost to
keep the room going. There were times when he ran short of stores in the
midst of a sitting. That could be avoided.


                                   17

When Miriam entered his room at half past six Mr. Hancock was switching
off the lights about the chair. A single light shone over his desk. The
fire was nearly out.

"Still here?"

"Yes" said Miriam switching on a light over the instrument cabinet.

"I should leave those things tonight if I were you."

"It isn't very late."

She could go on, indefinitely, in this confident silence, preparing for
the next day. He sat making up his day-book and would presently come
upon Mrs. Hermann's letter. As long as he was there the day lingered.
Its light had left the room. The room was colourless and dark except
where the two little brilliant circles of light made bright patches of
winter evening. Their two figures quietly at work meant the quiet and
peace of the practice; the full, ended day, to begin again to-morrow in
broad daylight in this same room. The room was full of their quiet
continuous companionship. It was getting very cold. He would be going
soon.

He stood up, switching off his light. "That will do excellently" he said
with an amused smile, placing Mrs. Hermann's letter on the flap of the
instrument cabinet and wandering into the gloomy spaces.

"_Well._ I'll say good night."

"Good night" murmured Miriam.

Leaving the dried instruments in a heap with a wash leather flung over
them she gathered up the books switched the room into darkness, felt its
promise of welcome and trotted downstairs through the quiet house. The
front door shut quietly on Mr. Hancock as she reached the hall. She flew
to get away. In five minutes the books were in the safe and everything
locked up. The little mirror on the wall, scarcely lit by the single
globe over the desk just directed the angle of her hat and showed the
dim strange eager outline of her unknown face. She fled down the hall
past Mr. Leyton's room and the opening to the forgotten basement,
between the heavy closed door of Mr. Orly's room and the quiet scrolled
end of the balustrade and past the angle of the high dark clock staring
with its unlit face down the length of the hall, between the high oak
chest and the flat oak coffer confronting each other in the glooms
thrown by Mrs. Orly's tall narrow striped Oriental curtains; she saw
them standing in straight folds, the beautiful height and straightness
of their many coloured stripes, as they must have been before the
outside stripe of each had been cut and used as a tie-up; and was out
beyond the curtains in the brightly lit square facing the door. The
light fell on the rich edge of the Turkey carpet and the groove of the
bicycle stand. In the corner stood the blue and white pipe, empty of
umbrellas. Her hand grasped the machine-turned edge of the small flat
circular knob that released the door ... brahma; that was the word, at
last.... The door opened and closed with its familiar heavy wooden
firmness, neatly, with a little rattle of its chain. Her day scrolled up
behind her. She halted, trusted and responsible, for a long second in
the light flooding the steps from behind the door.

The pavement was under her feet and the sparsely lamplit night all round
her. She restrained her eager steps to a walk. The dark houses and the
blackness between the lamps were elastic about her.




                               CHAPTER IV


                                   1

When she came to herself she was in the Strand. She walked on a little
and turned aside to look at a jeweller's window and consider being in
the Strand at night. Most of the shops were still open. The traffic was
still in full tide. The jeweller's window repelled her. It was very
yellow with gold, all the objects close together and each one bearing a
tiny label with the price. There was a sort of commonness about the
Strand, not like the cheerful commonness of Oxford Street, more like the
City with its many sudden restaurants. She walked on. But there were
theatres also, linking it up with the west-end and streets leading off
it where people like Bob Greville had chambers. It was the tailing off
of the west-end and the beginning of a deep dark richness that began
about Holywell. Mysterious important churches crowded in amongst little
brown lanes ... the little dark brown lane.... She wondered what she had
been thinking since she left Wimpole Street and whether she had come
across Trafalgar Square without seeing it or round by some other way.
They were _fighting_; sending out suffocation and misery into the
surrounding air ... she stopped close to the two upright balanced
threatening bodies, almost touching them. The men looked at her. "Don't"
she said imploringly and hurried on trembling.... It occurred to her
that she had not seen fighting since a day in her childhood when she had
wondered at the swaying bodies and sickened at the thud of a fist
against a cheek. The feeling was the same to-day, the longing to explain
somehow to the men that they _could_ not fight.... Half-past seven.
Perhaps there would not be an A.B.C. so far down. It would be impossible
to get a meal. Perhaps the girls would have some coffee. An A.B.C.
appeared suddenly at her side, its panes misty in the cold air. She went
confidently in. It seemed nearly full of men. Never mind, city men; with
a wisdom of their own which kept them going and did not affect anything,
all alike and thinking the same thoughts; far away from anything she
thought or knew. She walked confidently down the centre, her plaid-lined
golf-cape thrown back her small brown boat-shaped felt hat suddenly hot
on her head in the warmth. The shop turned at a right angle showing a
large open fire with a fireguard, and a cat sitting on the hearthrug in
front of it. She chose a chair at a small table in front of the fire.
The velvet settees at the sides of the room were more comfortable. But
it was for such a little while to-night and it was not one of her own
A.B.Cs. She felt as she sat down as if she were the guest of the city
men and ate her boiled egg and roll and butter and drank her small
coffee in that spirit-gazing into the fire and thinking her own thoughts
unresentful of the uncongenial scraps of talk that now and again
penetrated her thoughts; the complacent laughter of the men amazed her;
their amazing unconsciousness of the things that were written all over
them.

The fire blazed into her face. She dropped her cape over the back of her
chair and sat in the glow; the small pat of butter was not enough for
the large roll. Pictures came out of the fire, the strange moment in her
room, the smashing of the plaque, the lamplit den; Mr. Orly's song, the
strange rich difficult day and now her untouched self here, free, unseen
and strong, the strong world of London all round her, strong free
untouched people, in a dark lit wilderness happy and miserable in their
own way, going about the streets looking at nothing, thinking about no
special person or thing, as long as they were there, being in London.

Even the business people who went about intent, going to definite places
were in the secret of London and looked free. The expression of the
collar and hair of many of them said they had homes. But they got away
from them. No one who had never been alone in London was quite alive....
I'm free--I've got free--nothing can ever alter that she thought, gazing
wide-eyed into the fire, between fear and joy. The strange familiar pang
gave the place a sort of consecration. A strength was piling up within
her. She would go out unregretfully at closing time and up through
wonderful unknown streets, not her own streets till she found Holborn
and then up and round through the Squares.


                                   2

On the hall table lay a letter ... from Alma; under the shadow of the
bronze soldier leaning on his gun. Miriam gathered it up swiftly. No one
knew her here ... no past and no future ... coming in and out unknown,
in the present secret wonder. Pausing for a moment near the smeary
dimly-lit marble slab the letter out of sight she held this
consciousness. There was no sound in the house ... its huge high thick
walls held all the lodgers secure and apart, fixed in richly enclosed
rooms in the heart of London; secure from all the world that was not
London, flying through space, swinging along on a planet spread with
continents--Londoners. Alma's handwriting, the same as it had been at
school only a little larger and firmer, broke into that. Of course Alma
had answered the postcard ... it had been an impulse, a cry of triumph
after years of groping about. But it was like pulling a string. Silly.
And now this had happened. But it was only a touch, only a finger laid
on the secret hall table that no one had seen. The letter need not be
answered. Out of sight it seemed to have gone away ... destroyed
unopened it would be as if it had never come and everything would be as
before.... Enough, more than enough without writing to Alma. An evening
paper boy was shouting raucously in the distance. The letter-box brought
his voice into the hall as he passed the door. Miriam moved on up the
many flights.


                                   3

Upstairs she found herself eagerly tearing open the letter.... "I've
just heard from an old schoolfellow" she heard herself saying to the
girls in Kennett Street. There was something exciting in the letter ...
at the end Alma Wilson (officially Mrs. G. Wilson) ... strange people in
the room ... Alma amongst them; looking out from amongst dreadfulness.
_Married._ She had gone in amongst the crowd already--forever. How
clever of her ... deceitful ... that little spark of Alma in her must
have been deceitful ... sly, at some moment. Alma's eyes glanced at her
with a new more preoccupied and covered look ... she used to go
sometimes to theatres with large parties of people with money and the
usual dresses who never thought anything about anything ... perhaps that
was part of the reason, perhaps Alma was more that than she had thought
... marrying in the sort of way she went to theatre-parties--clever. The
letter was full of excitement ... Alma leaping up from her marriage and
clutching at her ... not really married; dancing to some tune in some
usual way like all those women and jumping up in a way that fizzled and
could not be kept up....

"You dear old thing! ... fell out of the sky this morning ... to fill
pages with 'you dear old thing!' ... see you at _once_! _Immediately!_
... come up to town and meet you ... some sequestered tea-shop ... our
ancient heads together ... tell you all that has happened to me since
those days ... next Thursday ... let you know how really really rejoiced
I am ... break the very elderly fact that I am married ... but that
makes no difference...." That would not be so bad--seeing Alma alone in
a tea shop in the west end; in a part of the new life, that would be all
right; nothing need happen, nothing would be touched, "all I have had
the temerity to do ..." what did that mean?


                                   4

Unpinning the buckram-stiffened black velvet band from her neck, she
felt again with a rush of joy that her day was beginning and moved
eagerly about amongst the strange angles and shadows of her room, the
rich day all about her. Somebody had put up her little varnished oak
bookshelf just in the right place, the lower shelf in a line with the
little mantelpiece. When the gas bracket was swung out from the wall the
naked flame shone on the backs of the indiscriminately arranged books
... the calf-bound Shakespeare could be read now comfortably in the
immense fresh dark night under the gas flame; the Perne's memorial
edition of Tennyson.... She washed her face and hands in hard cold water
at the little rickety washstand, yellow-grained rich beloved, drying
them on the thin holey face towel hurriedly. Lying neatly folded amongst
the confusion of oddments in a top drawer was her lace tie. Holding it
out to its full length she spread it against her neck, crossed the ends
at the back bringing them back round her neck to spread in a narrow flat
plastron to her waist, kept in place by a brooch at the top and a pin
fastened invisibly half way down. Her face shone fresh and young above
the creamy lace ... the tie was still fairly new and crisp ... when it
had to be washed it would be limp ... but it would go on some time just
for evenings transforming her harsh black John Doble half guinea costume
into evening dress. For some moments she contemplated its pleasant
continuous pattern and the way the rounded patterned ends fell just
below the belt....


                                   5

The top-floor bell would not ring. After some hesitation Miriam rang the
house bell. The door was opened by a woman in a silk petticoat and a
dressing jacket. Miriam gazed dumbly into large clear blue eyes gazing
at her from a large clean clear fresh face feathered with little soft
natural curls, cut out sharply against the dark passage.

"Are you for the top?" enquired the woman in a smooth serene sleepy
voice.

"Yes" announced Miriam eagerly coming in and closing the door, her ears
straining to catch the placid words spoken by the woman as she
disappeared softly into a softly-lit room. She went tremulously up the
dark stairs into a thick stale odour of rancid fried grease and on
towards a light that glimmered from the topmost short flight of steep
uncarpeted winding stairs. "They're in" said her thoughts with a quick
warm leap. "Hullo" she asserted, ascending the stairs.

"Hullo" came in response a quick challenging voice ... a soft clear
reed-like happy ring that Miriam felt to her knees while her happy feet
stumbled on.

"Is that the Henderson?"

"It's me" said Miriam emerging on a tiny landing and going through the
open door of a low-ceiled lamplit room. "It's me it's me" she repeated
from the middle of the floor. An eager face was turned towards her from
a thicket of soft dull wavy hair. She gazed vaguely. The small slippered
feet planted firmly high up against the lintel the sweep of the red
dressing-gown, the black patch of the Mudie book with its yellow label,
the small ringed hand upon it, the outflung arm and hand the little
wreath of smoke about the end of the freshly lit cigarette, the cup of
coffee on the little table under the lamp, the dim shapes about the room
lit by the flickering blaze....

Miriam smiled into the smiling steel blue of the eyes turned towards her
and waited smiling for the silver reed of tone to break again. "I'm so
glad you've come. I wanted you. Sit down and shut the door my child....
I don't mind which you do first, but--do--them--both," she tinkled,
stretching luxuriously and bringing her feet to the ground with a swing.
Miriam closed the door. "Can I take off my things?"

"Of course child ... take them all off; you know I admire you most
draped in a towel."

"I've got such awful feet" said Miriam hugging the compliment as she
dropped her things in a distant arm-chair.

"It's not your feet, it's your extraordinary shoes."

"M."

"How beautiful you look. You put on ties better than anyone I know. I
wish I could wear things draped round my neck."

Miriam sat down in the opposite wicker chair.

"Isn't it cold--my feet are freezing; it's raining."

"Take off your shoes."

Miriam got off her shoes and propped them in the fender to dry.

"What is that book?"

"Eden Philpotts's 'Children of the Mist'" fluted the voice reverently.
"Read it?"

"No" said Miriam expectantly.

The eager face turned to an eager profile with eyes brooding into the
fire. "He's so wonderful" mused the voice and Miriam watched eagerly.
Mag read books--for their own sake; and could judge them and compare
them with other books by the same author ... but all this wonderful
knowledge made her seem wistful; knowing all about books and plays and
strangely wistful and regretful; the things that made her eyes blaze and
made her talk reverently or in indignant defence always seemed sad in
the end ... wistful hero worship ... raving about certain writers and
actors as if she did not know they were people.

"He's so wonderful" went on the voice with its perpetual modulations "he
gets all the atmosphere of the west country--perfectly. You _live_ there
while you're reading him."

With a little chill sense of Mag in this wonderful room alone, living in
the west country and herself coming in as an interruption, Miriam noted
the name of the novelist in her mind ... there was something about it,
she knew she would not forget it; soft and numb with a slight clatter
and hiss at the end, a rain-storm, the atmosphere of Devonshire and the
mill-wheel.

"Devonshire people are all consumptive," she said decisively.

"Are they?"

"Yes, it's the mild damp air. They have lovely complexions; like the
Irish. There must be any amount of consumption in Ireland."

"I suppose there is."

Miriam sat silent and still watching Mag's movements as she sipped and
puffed, so strangely easy and so strangely wistful in her wonderful rich
Bloomsbury life--and waiting for her next remark.

"You look very happy tonight child; what have you been doing?"

"Nothing."

"You look as happy as a bird."

"Are birds happy?"

"Of _course_ birds are happy."

"Well--they prey on each other--and they're often frightened."

"How wise we are."

Brisk steps sounded on the little stairs.

"Tell me what you have been doing."

"Oh. I don't know. Weird things have been happening.... Oh, weird
things."

"Tell your aunt at once." Mag gathered herself together as the brisk
footsteps came into the room. "Hoh" said a strong resonant voice "it's
the Henderson. I thought as much."

"Yes. Doesn't she look pretty?"

"Yes--she has a beautiful lace tie."

"I wish I could wear things like that round my neck, don't you von
Bohlen?"

"I _do_. She can stick _anything_ round her neck--and look nice."

"Anything; a garter or a--a _kipper_...."

"Don't be so cracked."

"She says weird things have been happening to her. I say I didn't make
any coffee for you and the spirit lamp wants filling."

"Damn you--Schweinhund--verfluchte Schweinhund."

Miriam had been gazing at the strong square figure in the short round
fur-lined cloak and sweeping velvet hat, the firm decisive movements and
imagining the delicate pointed high-heeled shoes. Presently those things
would be off and the door closed on the three of them.

"There's some Bass."

"I'm going to have some suppe. Have some suppe, Henderson."

"Non, merci."

"She's proud. Bring her some. What did you have for supper, child?"

"Oh, we had an enormous lunch. They'd had a dinner-party."

"What did you have for supper?"

"Oh lots of things."

"Bring her some suppe. I'm not sure I won't have a basin myself."

"All right. I'll put some on." The brisk steps went off and a voice
hummed in and out of the other rooms.

Watching Mag stirring the fire, giving a last pull at her cigarette end
and pushing back the hair from her face ... silent and old and ravaged,
and young and animated and powerful, Miriam blushed and beamed silently
at her reiterated demands for an account of herself.

"I say I saw an extraordinary woman downstairs."

Mag turned sharply and put down the poker.

"Yes?"

"In a petticoat."

"Frederika Elizabeth! She's seen the Pierson!"

"Hoh! Has she?" The brisk footsteps approached and the door was closed.
The dimly shining mysteries of the room moved about Miriam, the outside
darkness flowing up to the windows moved away as the tall
dressing-gowned figure lowered the thin drab loosely rattling Venetian
blinds; the light seemed to go up and distant objects became more
visible; the crowded bookshelf the dark littered table under it, the
empty table pushed against the wall near the window--the bamboo
bookshelf between the windows above a square mystery draped to the
ground with a table cover--the little sofa behind Mag's chair, the
little pictures, cattle gazing out across a bridge of snow, cattish
complacent sweepy women. Albert...? Moore? the framed photographs of
Dickens and Irving, the litter on the serge draped mantelpiece in front
of the mirror of the bamboo overmantel, silver candlesticks, photographs
of German women and Canon Wilberforce ... all the riches of comfortable
life.

"You are late."

"Yes I am fear-fully late."

"Why are you late Frederika Elizabeth von Bohlen?"

The powerful rounded square figure was in the leather armchair opposite
the blaze, strongly moulded brown knickered black stockinged legs
comfortably crossed stuck firmly out between the heavy soft folds of a
grey flannel dressing gown. The shoes had gone, grey woollen bedroom
slippers blurred all but the shapely small ankles. Mag was lighting
another cigarette, von Bohlen was not doing needlework, the room settled
suddenly to its best rich exciting blur.

"Tonight I must smoke or die."

"_Must_ you, my dear."

"Why."

"To-_nate_,--a, ay must smoke--a, or _daye_."

"Es ist bestimmt, in Gottes Rath."

"Tell us what you think of the Pierson, child."

"She was awfully nice. Is it your landlady?"

"Yes--isn't she nice? We think she's extraordinary--all things
considered. You know we hadn't the least idea what she was when we came
here."

"What is she?"

"Well--er--you embarrass me, child, how shall we put it to her, Jan?"

"D'you mean to say she's improper?"

"Yes--she's improper. We hadn't the faintest notion of it when we came."

"How extraordinary."

"It is extraordinary. We're living in an improper house--the whole
street's improper we're discovering."

"How absolutely awful."

"_Now_ we know why Mother Cosway hinted when we left her to come here
that we wanted to be free for devil's mirth."

"How did you find out?"

"Henriette told us; you see she works for the Pierson."

"What did she tell you?"

"Well--she told us."

"Six"--laughed Mag, quoting towards Jan.

"Six," trumpeted Jan "and if not six, seven."

They both laughed.

"In one evening," trumpeted Jan.

"I say are you going to leave?" The thought of the improper street was
terrible and horrible; but they might go right away to some other part
of London. Mag answered instantly but the interval had seemed long and
Miriam was cold with anxiety.

"No; we don't see why we should."

Miriam gazed dumbly from one to the other, finding herself admiring and
wondering more than ever at their independence and strength.

"You see the woman's so absolutely self-respecting."

"Much more so than we are!"

"Out of doors she's a model of decorum and good style."

"We're ashamed when we meet her."

"We are. We skip into the gutter."

"We babble and slink!"

"Indoors she's a perfect landlady. She's been awfully good to us."

"A perfect brick!"

"She doesn't drink; she's most exquisitely clean. There's nothing
whatever to--to indicate the er--nature of her profession."

"Except that she sits at the window."

"But she does not tire her hair and look forth."

"Or fifth."

"_Fool._"

Miriam giggled.

"Really Miriam she _is_ rather wonderful you know. We like her."

"Henriette is devoted to her."

"And so apparently is her husband."

"Her _husband_?"

"Yes--she has a husband--he appears at rare intervals--and a little girl
at boarding school. She goes to see her but the child never comes here.
She tells us quite frankly that she wants to keep her out of harm's
way."

"How amazing!"

"Yes, she's extraordinary. She's Eurasian. She was born in India."

"That accounts for a good deal. Eurasians are awful; they've got all the
faults of both sides."

"East is East and West is West and never the two shall meet."

"Well, we like her."

"So we have decided to ignore her little peccadilloes."

"I don't see that it's our business. Frankly I can't see that it has
anything whatever to do with us. Do you?"

"Well I don't know; I don't suppose it has really."

"What would you do in our place?"

"I don't know ... I don't believe I should have found out."

"I don't believe you would; but if you had?"

"I think I should have been awfully scared."

"You would have been afraid that the sixth."

"Or the seventh."

"Might have wandered upstairs."

"No; I mean the whole idea."

"Oh; the idea...."

"London, my dear Miriam, is full of ideas."

"I will go and get the suppe."

Jan rose; her bright head and grey shoulders went up above the
lamplight, darkening to steady massive outlines, strongly moving as she
padded and fluttered briskly out of the room.

The rich blur of the room free of the troubling talk and the swift
conversational movements of the two, lifted and was touched with a faint
grey, a suggestion of dawn or twilight, as if coming from the hidden
windows. Mag sat motionless in her chair, gazing into the fire.

"... Wise and happy infant, I want to ask your opinion."

Miriam roused herself and glanced steadily across. The outlines of
things grew sharp. She could imagine the room in daylight and felt a
faint sharp sinking; hungry.

"I'm going to state you a case. I think you have an extraordinarily
sharp sense of right and wrong."

"Oh _no_."

"You have an extraordinarily sharp sense of right and wrong. Imagine a
woman. Can you imagine a woman?"

"Go on."

"Imagine a woman engaged to a man. Imagine her allowing--another man--to
kiss her."

Miriam sat thinking. She imagined the two, the snatched caress, the
other man alone and unconscious.

"Would you call that treachery to the other person?"

"It would depend upon which she liked best."

"That's just the difficulty."

"_Oh._ That's awful."

"Don't you think a kiss, just a kiss--might be,--well--neither here nor
there."

"Well, if it's nothing, there's nothing in the whole thing. If there
_is_ anything--you can't talk about just kisses."

"Dreadful Miriam."

"Do you believe in blunted sensibilities?" How funny that Mag should
have led up to that new phrase ... but this was a case.

"You mean----"

"Whether if a sensibility is blunted it can ever grow sharp again."

"No. I suppose that's it. How can it?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure. It's a perfectly awful idea, I think."

"It is awful--because we are all blunting our sensibilities all the
time--are we not?"

"That's just it--whether we ought."

"Does one always know?"

"Don't you think so? There's a feeling. Yes I think one always knows."

"Suppe, children."

Miriam took her bowl with eager embarrassment ... the sugar-basin, the
pudding basin and the slop bowl together on a tray, the quickly produced
soup--the wonderful rich life the girls lived in their glowing
rooms--each room with a different glow.... Jan's narrow green clean room
with its suite and hair brushes and cosmetics and pictures of Christ,
Mag's crowded shadowy little square, its litter and its many
photographs, their eiderdowns and baths and hot water bottles; the
kitchen alive with eyes and foreheads--musicians, artists philosophers
pasted on the walls ... why? Why?... Jan with wonderful easy knowledge
of the world's great people ... and strange curious intimate liking for
them ... the sad separate effect of all those engraved faces ... the
perfectly beautiful blur they made all together in patches on the walls
... the sitting room, Mag, nearly all Mag, except the photographs on the
mantelpiece ... the whole rooms from the top of the stairs ... her
thoughts folded down; they were not going away; not; that was certain.

"I say I can't go on for ever eating your soup."

"_Drink_ it then for a change my child."

"No but really."

"This is special soup; there is a charge; one guinea a basin."

"Use of room two guineas."

"Intellectual conversation----"

"One and eleven three."

Miriam flung out delighted admiring glances and laughed unrestrainedly.
Mag's look saying "it does not take much to keep the child amused" took
nothing from her mirthful joy. Their wit, or was it humour?--always
brought the same happy shock ... they were so funny; there was a secret
in it.

"It's awfully good soup."

"Desiccated----"

"A penny a packet."

"Thickened with pea flour."

"Twopence a packet."


                                   6

"Was she your favourite schoolfellow?"

Miriam's jarred mind worked eagerly. The girls thought this was a
revival of some great school friendship ... they would not be in the
least jealous; they were curious and interested, but they must
understand ... they must realise that Alma was wonderful ... something
to be proud of ... in the strange difficult scientific way; something
they knew hardly anything about. Mag almost not at all and Jan only in a
general way in her neat wide education; but not in Alma's way of being
rigid and reverent and personally interested about, so that every other
way of looking at things made her angry. But they must understand, they
must in some quite certain way be quickly made to understand at the same
time that she was outside ... an extra ... a curious bright distant
resource, nothing whatever to do with the wonderful present ... the
London life was sacred and secret, away from everything else in the
world. It would disappear if one had ties outside ... anything besides
the things of holidays and week-ends that they all three had and brought
back from outside to talk about. It would be easy and exciting to meet
Alma if that were clear, and to come back and tell the girls about it.

"I don't think so."

They both looked up, stirring in their quick way, and waited.

Miriam moved her head uneasily. It was painful. They were using a sort
of language ... that was the trouble ... your favourite flower ... your
favourite colour ... it was just the sort of pain that came in trying to
fill up confession albums. This bit of conversation would be at an end
presently. Her anger would shut it up, and they would put it away
without understanding and Mag would go on to something else.

"No--I don't think she was. She was very small and pretty--petite. She
had the most wonderful limpid eyes."

Mag was sitting forward with her elbows on her knees and her little
hands sticking out into the air. A comfortable tinkling chuckle shook
her shoulders. Miriam tugged and wrenched.

"I don't think she cared for me, really ... she was an only child."

Mag's chuckle pealed up into a little festoon of clear laughter.

"She doesn't care for you because--she's--an--only--child" she shook
out.

"One of the sheltered ones." Jan returned to her chiffon pleats. She was
making conversation. She did not care how much or how little Alma
mattered.

"She's sheltered now anyhow--she's married."

"Oh--she's married...."

"She's married is she?"

Polite tones ... they were not a bit surprised ... both faces looked
calm and abstracted. The room was dark and clear in the cold
entanglement. It must be got over now, as if she had not mentioned Alma.
She felt for her packet of cigarettes with an uneasy face, watching
Mag's firm movements as she rearranged herself and her dressing gown in
her chair.

"How old is she?"

"About my age."

"Oh--about nine; that's early to begin the sheltered life."

"You can't begin the sheltered life too early; if you are going to begin
it at all."

"Why begin it at all, Jan?"

"Well my dear little Miriam I think there is a good deal to be said for
the sheltered life."

"Yes----" Mag settled more deeply into her chair, burrowing with her
shoulders and crossing her knees with a fling--"and if you don't begin
it jolly early it's too late to begin it at all...."

Then Mag meant to stay always as she was ... oh, good, good ... with
several people interested in her ... what a curious worry her engagement
must be ... irrelevant ... and with her ideas of loyalty. "Don't you
think soh?" Irritating--why did she do it--what was it--not a
provincialism--some kind of affectation as if she were on the stage. It
sounded brisk and important--soh--as if her thoughts had gone on and she
was making conversation with her lips. Why not let them and drop it ...
there was something waiting, always something waiting just outside the
nag of conversation.

"I can't imagine anything more awful than what you call the sheltered
life" said Miriam with a little pain in her forehead. Perhaps they would
laugh and that would finish it and something would begin.

"For us yes. Imagine either of us coming down to it in the morning; the
regular breakfast table, the steaming coffee, the dashes of rishers ...
dishers of rashes I mean, the eggs...."

"You are alluding I presume to the beggs and acon."

"Precisely. We should die."

"Of boredom."

"Imagine not being able to turn up on Sunday morning in your knickers
with your hair down."

"I love Sundays. That first cigarette over the _Referee_."

"Is like nothing on earth."

"Or in heaven."

"Well, or in heaven."

"The first cigarette anyhow, with or without the _Referee_. It's just
pure absolute bliss that first bit of Sunday morning; complete
well-being and happiness."

"While the sheltered people are flushed with breakfast table-talk----"

"Or awkward silences."

"The deep damned silence of disillusionment."

"And thinking about getting ready for church."

"The men smoke."

"Stealthily and sleepily in armchairs like cats--ever seen a cat
smoke?--like cats--with the wife or somebody they are tired of talking
to on the doormat--as it were--tentatively, I speak _ten_tatively ... in
a dead-alley--Dedale--Dedalus--coming into the room any minute in Sunday
clothes----"

"To stand on the hearthrug."

"No hanging about the room. If there's any hearthrug standing it's the
men who do it, smoking blissfully alone, and trying to look weary and
wise and important if anyone comes in."

"Like Cabinet ministers?"

"Yes; when they are really--er."

"Cabinets."

"Footstools; office stools; you never saw a sheltered woman venture on
to the hearthrug except for a second if she's short-sighted to look at
the clock." Miriam sprang to the hearthrug and waved her cigarette.
"Con-fu-sion to the sheltered life!" The vast open of London swung,
welcoming, before her eyes.

"Hoch! Hoch!"

"Banzai!"

"We certainly have our compensations."

"Com-pen-_sa_-tions?"

"Well--for all the things we have to give up."

"What things?"

"The things that belong to us. To our youth. Tennis, dancing--er
irresponsibility in general...."

"I've never once thought about any of those things; never once since I
came to town" said Miriam grappling with little anxious pangs that
assailed her suddenly; dimly seeing the light on garden trees, hearing
distant shouts, the sound of rowlocks, the lapping of water against
smoothing swinging sculls. But all that life meant people, daily
association with sheltered women and complacent abominable men, there
half the time and half the time away on their own affairs which gave
them a sort of mean advantage, and money. There was nothing really to
regret. It was different for Mag. She did not mind ordinary women. Did
not know the difference; or men.

"Yes but anyhow. If we were in the sheltered life we should either have
done with that sort of thing and be married--or still keeping it up and
anxious about not being married. Besides anyhow; think of the awful
_people_."

"Intolerant child."

"Isn't she intolerant. What a good thing you met us."

"Yes of course; but I'm not intolerant. And look here. Heaps of those
women envy us. They envy us our freedom. What we're having is
wanderyahre; the next best thing to wanderyahre."

"Women don't want wanderyahre."

"I do, Jan."

"So do I. I think the child's quite right there. Freedom is life. We may
be slaves all day and guttersnipes all the rest of the time but ach
Gott, we are free."


                                   7

"What a perfectly extraordinary idea."

"I know. But I don't see how you can get away from it" mused Miriam,
dreamily holding out against Jan's absorbed sewing and avoiding for a
moment Mag's incredulously speculative eyes; "if it's true," she went
on, the rich blur of the warm room becoming as she sent out her voice
evenly, thinking eagerly on, a cool clear even daylight, "that
everything that can possibly happen does happen, then there must be
somewhere in the world, every possible kind of variation of us and this
room."

"D'you mean to say" gurgled Mag with a fling of her knickered leg and an
argumentative movement of the hand that hung loosely dangling a
cigarette over the fireside arm of the chair, "that there are millions
of rooms exactly like this each with one thing different--say the stem
of one narcissus broken instead of whole for instance."

"My dear Miriam, infinitude couldn't hold them."

"Infinitude can hold anything--of course I can see the impossibility of
a single world holding all the possible variations of everything at
once--but what I mean is that I can think it and there must be something
corresponding to it in life--anything that the mind can conceive is
realised, somehow, all possibilities must come about, that's what I mean
I think."

"You mean you can see, as it were in space, millions of little rooms--a
little different" choked Mag.

"Yes I can--quite distinctly--solid--no end to them."

"I think it's a perfectly horrible idea" stated Jan complacently.

"It isn't--I love it and it's true ... you go on and on and on, filling
space."

"Then space is solid."

"It is solid. People who talk of empty space don't think ... space is
more solid than a wall ... yes ... more solid than a diamond--girls, I'm
sure."

"Space is full of glorious stars...."

"Yes; I know but that's such a tiny bit of it...."

"Millions and trillions of miles."

"Those are only words. Everything is words."

"Well you _must_ use words."

"You ought not to think in words. I mean--you can think in your brain by
imagining yourself going on and on through it, endless space."

"You can't grasp space with your mind."

"You don't GRASP it. You go through it."

"I see what you mean. To me it is a fearful idea. Like eternal
punishment."

"There's no such thing as eternal punishment. The idea is too silly. It
makes God a failure and a fool. It's a man's idea. The men who take the
hearthrug. Sitting on a throne judging everybody and passing sentence is
a thing a man would do."

"But humanity is wicked."

"Then God is. You can't separate God and humanity and that includes
women who don't really believe any of those things."

"_But._ Look at the churches. Look at women and the parsons."

"Women like ritual and things and they like parsons, _some_ parsons,
because they are like women, penetrable to light, as Wilberforce said
the other day, and understand women better than most men do."

"Miriam, are you a pantheist?"

   "The earth the sea and the sky
   "The sun the moon and the stars
   "Are not these, oh soul,
   "That's the Higher Pantheism."

"Nearer is he than breathing, closer than hands and feet. It doesn't
matter what you call it."

"If you don't accept eternal punishment there can't be eternal
happiness."

"Oh punishment, happiness; tweedledum, tweedledee."

"Well--look here, there's remorse. That's deathless. It must be. If you
feel remorseful about anything the feeling must last as long as you
remember the thing."

"Remorse is real enough. I know what you mean. But it may be
short-sightedness. Not seeing all round a thing. Is that Tomlinson? Or
it may be cleansing you. If it were _complete_ Mag it would _kill_ you
outright. I can believe that. I can believe in annihilation. I am
prepared for it. I can't think why it doesn't happen to me. That's just
it."

"I should like to be annihilated."

"Shut up von Bohlen; you wouldn't. But look here Miriam child, do you
mean to say you think that as long as there is something that keeps on
and on, fighting its way on in spite of everything one has, well, a
right to exist?"

"Well, that may be the survival of the fittest which doesn't mean the
ethically fittest as Huxley had to admit. We kill the ethically fittest
at present. We killed Christ. They go to Heaven. All of us who survive
have things to learn down here in hell. Perhaps this is hell. There
seems something, ahead."

"Ourselves. Rising on the ashes of our dead selves. Lord, it's
midnight----"

The chill of the outside night, solitude and her cold empty room....

"I'm going to bed."

"So am I. We shall be in bed, Miriam, five minutes after you have gone."

Jan went off for the hot water bottles.

"All right, I'm going----" Miriam bent for her shoes. The soles were
dry, scorching; they scorched her feet as she forced on the shoes; one
sole cracked across as she put her foot to the ground ... she braced the
muscles of her face and said nothing. It must be forgotten before she
left the room that they were nearly new and her only pair; two horrid
ideas, nagging and keeping things away.


                                   8

Outside in the air daylight grew strong and clear in Miriam's mind.
Patches of day came in a bright sheen from the moonlit puddles,
distributed over the square. She crossed the road to the narrow pathway
shadowed by the trees that ran round the long oblong enclosure. From
this dark pathway the brightness of the wet moonlit roadway was brighter
and she could see façades that caught the moonlight. There was something
trying to worry her, some little thing that did not matter at all, but
that some part of her had put away to worry over and was now wanting to
consider. Mag's affairs ... no she had decided about that. It might be
true about blunted sensibilities; but she had meant for some reason to
let that other man kiss her, and people never ask advice until they have
made up their minds what they are going to do and Mag was Mag quite
apart from anything that might happen. She would still be Mag if she
were old ... or mad. That was a firm settled real thing, real and
absolute in the daylight of the moonlit square. She wandered slowly on
humming a tune; every inch of the way would be lovely. The figure of a
man in an overcoat and a bowler hat loomed towards her on the narrow
pathway and stopped. The man raised his hat, and his face showed smiling
with the moonlight on it. Miriam had a moment's fear; but the man's
attitude was deprecating and there was her song; it was partly her own
fault. But why why ... fierce anger at the recurrence of this kind of
occurrence seized her. She wanted him out of the way and wanted him to
know how angry she was at the interruption.

"Well," she snapped angrily, coming to a standstill in the moonlit gap.

"Oh" said the man a little breathlessly in a lame broken tone, "I
thought you were going this way."

"So I am," retorted Miriam in a loud angry shaking tone, "obviously."

The man stepped quickly into the gutter and walked quickly away across
the road. St. Pancras church chimed the quarter.

Miriam marched angrily forward with shaking limbs that steadied
themselves very quickly ... the night had become suddenly cold; bitter
and penetrating; a north-east wind, of course. It was frightfully cold
after the warm room; the square was bleak and endless; the many façades
were too far off to keep the wind away; the pavement was very cold under
her right foot; that was it; the broken sole was the worry that had been
trying to come up; she could walk with it; it would not matter if the
weather kept dry ... an upright gait, hurrying quickly away across the
moonlit sheen; just the one she had summoned up anger and courage to
challenge was not so bad as the others ... they were not bad; that was
not it; it was the way they got in the way ... figures of men, dark, in
dark clothes, presenting themselves, calling attention to themselves and
the way they saw things, mean and suggestive, always just when things
were loveliest. Couldn't the man see the look of the square and the
moonlight? ... that afternoon at Hyde Park Corner ... just when
everything flashed out after the rain ... the sudden words close to her
ear ... my beauty ... my sweet ... you sweet girl ... the puffy pale old
face, the puffs under the sharp brown eyes. A strange ... _conviction_
in the trembling old voice ... it was deliberate; a sort of statement;
done on purpose, something chosen that would please most. It was like
the conviction and statement there had been in Bob Greville's voice. Old
men seemed to have some sort of understanding of things. If only they
would talk with the same conviction about other things as there was in
their tone when they said those personal things. But the things they
said were worldly--generalisations, like the things one read in books
that tired you out with trying to find the answer, and made books so
awful ... things that might look true about everybody at some time or
other and were not really true about anybody--when you knew them. But
people liked those things and thought them clever and smiled about them.
All the things the old men said about life and themselves and other
people, about everything but oneself, were sad; disappointed and sad
with a glint of far off youth in their faces as they said them ...
something moving in the distance behind the blue of their eyes.... "Make
the best of your youth my dear before it flies." If it all ended in
sadness and envy of youth, life was simply a silly trick. _Life_ could
not be a silly trick. Life cannot be a silly trick. That is the simple
truth ... a certainty. Whatever happens, whatever things look like, life
is not a trick.

Miriam began singing again when she felt herself in her own street,
clear and empty in the moonlight. The north wind blew down it
unobstructed and she was shivering and singing ... "spring is _co_-ming
a-and the _swa_-llows--have come _back_ to te-ell me _so_." Spring could
not be far off. At this moment in the dark twilight behind the thick
north wind the squares were green.


                                   9

Her song, restrained on the doorstep and while she felt her already
well-known way in almost insupportable happiness through the unlit hall
and through the moonlight up the seventy-five stairs, broke out again
when her room was reached and her door shut; the two other doors had
stood open showing empty moonlit spaces. She was still alone and unheard
on the top floor. Her room was almost warm after the outside cold. The
row of attic and fourth floor windows visible from her open lattice were
in darkness, or burnished blue with moonlight. Warm blue moonlight
gleamed along the leads sloping down to her ink-black parapet. The room
was white and blue lit, with a sweet morning of moonlight. She had a
momentary impulse towards prayer and glanced at the bed. To get so far
and cast herself on her knees and hide her face in her hands against the
counterpane, the bones behind the softness of her hands meeting the
funny familiar round shape of her face, the dusty smell of the
counterpane coming up, her face praying to her hands, her hands praying
to her face, both throbbing separately with their secret, would drive
something away. Something that was so close in everything in the room,
so pouring in at the window that she could scarcely move from where she
stood. She flung herself more deeply into her song and passed through
the fresh buoyant singing air to light the gas. The room turned to its
bright evening brown. _Prayer._ Being so weighed down and free with
happiness was the time ... sacrifice ... the evening _sacrifice_ of
praise and prayer. That is what that means. To toss all the joys and
happiness away and know that you are happy and free without anything.
That you cannot escape being happy and free. It always comes.

Why am I so happy and free she wondered with tears in her eyes. Why? Why
do lovely things and people go on happening? To _own_ that something in
you had no right. But not crouching on your knees ... standing and
singing till everything split with your joy and let you through into the
white white brightness.


                                   10

To _see_ the earth whirling slowly round, coloured, its waters catching
the light. She stood in the middle of the floor hurriedly discarding her
clothes. They were old and worn, friendly and alive with the fresh
strength of her body. Other clothes would be got somehow; just by going
on and working ... there's so much--eternally. It's stupendous. I've no
right to be in it; but I'm in. Someone means me to be in. _I_ can't help
it. Fancy people being alive. You would think everyone would go mad. She
found herself in bed, sitting up in her flannellette dressing jacket.
The stagnant air beneath the sharp downward slope of the ceiling was
warmed by the gas. The gaslight glared beautifully over her shoulder
down on to the page....


                                   11

_All_ that has been said and known in the world is in _language_, in
words; all we know of Christ is in Jewish words; all the dogmas of
religion are words; the meanings of words change with people's thoughts.
Then no one _knows_ anything for certain. Everything depends upon the
way a thing is put, and that is a question of some particular
civilisation. Culture comes through literature, which is a half-truth.
People who are not cultured are isolated in barbaric darkness. The
Greeks were cultured; but they are barbarians ... why? Whether you agree
or not, language is the only way of expressing anything and it dims
everything. So the Bible is not true; it is a culture. Religion is wrong
in making word-dogmas out of it. Christ was something. But Christianity
which calls Him divine and so on is false. It clings to words which get
more and more wrong ... then there's nothing to be afraid of and nothing
to be quite sure of rejoicing about. The Christians are irritating and
frightened. The man with side-whiskers understands something. But.




                               CHAPTER V


                                   1

Then all these years they might have been going sometimes to those
lectures. Pater talking about them--telling about old Rayleigh and old
Kelvin as if they were his intimates--flinging out remarks as if he
wanted to talk and his audience were incapable of appreciation ...
light, heat, electricity, sound-waves; and _never_ saying that members
could take friends or that there were special lectures for children ...
Sir Robert Ball ... "a fascinating Irish fellow with the gift of the gab
who made a volcano an amusing reality" Krakatoa ... that year of
wonderful sunsets and afterglows ... the air half round the world, full
of fine dust ... it seemed cruel ... deprivation ... all those years;
all that wonderful knowledge just at hand. And now it was coming, the
Royal Institution ... this evening. She must find out whether one had to
dress and exactly how one got in. Albemarle Street.... It all went on in
_Albemarle_ Street.


                                   2

"We might meet" said Mr. Hancock, busily washing his hands and lifting
them in the air to shake back his coat sleeves. Miriam listened from her
corner behind the instrument cabinet, stupid with incredulity; he
_could_ not be speaking of the lecture ... he must be ... he had meant
all the time that he was going to be with her at the lecture.

"... in the library at half past eight."

"Oh yes" she replied casually.


                                   3

To sit hearing the very best in the intellectual life of London, the
very best science there was; the inner circle suddenly open ... the
curious quiet happy laughter that went through the world with the idea
of the breaking up of air and water and rays of light; the strange
_love_ that came suddenly to them all in the object lesson classes at
Banbury Park. That was to begin again ... but now not only books, not
the strange heavenly difficult success of showing the children the
things that had been found out; but the latest newest things from the
men themselves--there would be an audience and a happy man with a lit
face talking about things he had just found out. Even if one did not
understand there would be that. Fancy Mr. Hancock being a member and
always going and not talking about it ... at lunch. He must know an
enormous number of things besides the wonders of dentistry and pottery
and Japanese art.

It was education ... a liberal education. It made up for only being able
to say one was secretary to a dentist at a pound a week ... it sounded
strange at the end of twelve years of education and five months in
Germany and two teaching posts--to people who could not see how
wonderful it was from the inside; and the strange meaning and rightness
there was; there had been a meaning in Mr. Hancock from the beginning, a
sort of meaning in her privilege of associating with fine rare people,
so different to herself and yet coming one after another, like questions
into her life, and staying until she understood ... somebody struggled
all night with the angel ... I will not let thee go until thou bless me
... and there was some meaning--of course, meanings everywhere ...
perhaps a person inside a life could always feel meanings ... or perhaps
only those who had moved from one experience to another could get that
curious feeling of a real self that stayed the same through thing after
thing.


                                   4

"This is the library" said Mr. Hancock leading Miriam along from the
landing at the top of the wide red-carpeted staircase. It seemed a vast
room--rooms leading one out of the other, lit with soft red lights and
giving a general effect of redness, dull crimson velvet in a dull red
glow and people, standing in groups and walking about--a quite new kind
of people. Miriam glanced at her companion. He looked in place; he was
in his right place; these were his people; people with gentle
enlightened faces and keen enlightened faces. They were all alike in
some way. If the room caught fire there would be no panic. They were
gentle, shyly gentle or pompously gentle, but all the same and in
agreement because they all knew everything, the real important difficult
things. Some of them were discussing and disagreeing; many of the
women's faces had questions and disagreements on them and they were
nearly all worn with thought; but they would disagree in a way that was
not quarrelsome, because everyone in the room was sure of the importance
of the things they were discussing ... they were all a part of
science.... "Science is always right and the same, religion cannot touch
it or be reconciled with it, theories may modify or cancel each other
but the methods of science are one and unvarying. To question that
fundamental truth is irreligious" ... these people were that in the type
of their minds--one and unvarying; always looking out at something with
gentle intelligence or keen intelligence ... this was Alma's world ...
it would be something to talk to Alma about. There was something they
were not. They were not ... jolly. They could not be. They would never
stop "looking." Culture and refinement; with something about it that
made them quite different to the worldly people, a touch of rawness, raw
school harshness about them that was unconscious of itself and could not
come to life. Their shoulders and the backs of their heads could never
come to life. It gave them a kind of deadness that was quite unlike the
deadness of the worldly people, not nearly so dreadful--rather funny and
likable. One could imagine them all washing, very carefully, in an
abstracted way still looking and thinking and always with the
advancement of science on their minds; never really aware of anything
behind or around them because of the wonders of science. Seeing these
people changed science a little. They were almost something tremendous;
but not quite.


                                   5

"That's old Huggins" murmured Mr. Hancock, giving Miriam's arm a gentle
nudge as a white-haired old man passed close by them with an old woman
at his side, with short white hair exactly like him. "The man who
invented spectrum analysis--and that's his wife; they're both great
fishermen." Miriam gazed. _There_, was the splendid thing.... In her
mind blazed the coloured bars of the spectrum. In the room was the light
of the beauty, the startling _life_ these two old people shed from every
part of their persons. The room blazed in the light they shed. She stood
staring, moving to watch their gentle living movements. They moved as
though the air through which they moved was a living medium,--as though
everything were alive all round them--in a sort of hushed vitality. They
were young. She felt she had never seen anyone so young. She longed to
confront them just once, to stand for a moment the tide in which they
lived.

"_Ah_ Meesturra Hancock--you _are_ a faceful votary."

That's a German, thought Miriam, as the flattering deep caressing
gutturals rebounded dreadfully from her startled consciousness. What a
determined intrusion. How did he come to know such a person? Glancing
she met a pair of swiftly calculating eyes fixed full on her face. There
was fuzzy black hair lifted back from an anxious, yellowish, preoccupied
little face. Under the face came the high collar-band of a
tightly-fitting dark claret-coloured ribbed silk bodice, fastened from
the neck to the end of the pointed peak by a row of small round German
buttons, closely decorated with a gilded pattern. Mr. Hancock was
smiling an indulgent, deprecating smile. He made an introduction and
Miriam felt her hand tightly clasped and held by a small compelling
hand, while she sought for an answer to a challenge as to her interest
in science. "I don't really know anything about it" she said vaguely,
strongly urged to display her knowledge of German. The eyes were removed
from her face and the little lady boldly planted and gazing about her
made announcements to Mr. Hancock--about the fascinating subject of the
lecture and her hopes of a large and appreciative audience.

What did she want? She could not possibly fail to see that Mr. Hancock
was telling her that he could see through her social insincerities. It
was dreadful to find that even here there were social insincerities. She
was like a busy ambassador for things that belonged somewhere else and
that he was laughing at in an indulgent, deprecating way that must make
her blaze with an anger that she did not show. Looking at her as her
eyes and mouth made and fired their busy sentences, Miriam suddenly felt
that it would be easy to deal with her, take her into a corner and talk
about German things, food and love affairs and poetry and music. But she
would always be breaking away to make a determined intrusion on somebody
she knew. She could not really know any English person. What was she
doing, bearing herself so easily in the inner circle of English science?
Treating people as if she knew all about them and they were all alike.
How surprised she must often be, and puzzled.


                                   6

"That was Miss Teresa Szigmondy" said Mr. Hancock, reproducing his
amused smile as they took their seats in the dark theatre.

"Is she German?"

"Well ... I think, as a matter of fact, she's part Austro-Hungarian and
part--well, _Hebrew_." A Jewess ... Miriam left her surroundings,
pondering over a sudden little thread of memory. An eager, very
bright-eyed, curiously dimpling school-girl face peering into hers, and
a whispering voice--"D'you know why we don't go down to prayers? 'Cos
we're _Jews_"--they had always been late; fresh faced and shiny haired
and untidy and late and clever in a strange brisk way and talkative and
easy and popular with the teachers.... Their guttural voices ringing out
about the stairs and passages, deep and loud and stronger than any of
the voices of the other girls. The Hyamson girls--they had been
foreigners, like the Siggs and the de Bevers, but different ... what was
the difference in a Jew? Mr. Hancock seemed to think it was a sort of
disgraceful joke ... what was it? Max Sonnenheim had been a Jew, of
course, the same voice. Banbury Park "full of Jews" ... the Brooms said
that in patient contemptuous voices. But what _was_ it? What did
everybody mean about them?

"Is she scientific?"

"She seems to be interested in science" smiled Mr. Hancock.

"How funny of her to ask me to go to tea with her just because you told
her I knew German."

"Well, you go; if you're interested in seeing notabilities you'll meet
all kinds of wonderful people at her house. She knows everybody. She's
the niece of a great Hungarian poet. I believe he's to be seen there
sometimes. They're all coming in now." Mr. Hancock named the great names
of science one by one as the shyly gentle and the pompously gentle
little old men ambled and marched into the well of the theatre and took
their seats in a circle round the central green table.


                                   7

"_There's_ a pretty lady" said Mr. Hancock, conversationally, just as
the light was lowered. Miriam glanced across the half circle of faintly
shining faces and saw an effect, a smoothly coiffured head and smooth
neck and shoulders draped by a low deep circular flounce of lace rising
from the gloom of a dark dress, sweep in through a side door bending and
swaying--"or a pretty dress at any rate"--and sat through the first
minutes of the lecture, recalling the bearing and manner of the figure,
with sad fierce bitterness. Mr. Hancock admired "feminine" women ... or
at any rate he was bored by her own heavy silence and driven into random
speech by the sudden dip and sweep of the lace appearing in the light of
the doorway. He was surprised himself by his sudden speech and half
corrected it ... "or a pretty dress." ... But anyhow he, even he, was
one of those men who do not know that an effect like that was just an
effect, a deliberate "charming" feminine effect. But if he did not know
that, did not know that it was a trick and the whole advertising manner,
the delicate, plunging fall of the feet down the steps--"I am late; look
how nicely and quietly I am doing it; look at me being late and
apologetic and interested"--out of place in the circumstances; then what
was he doing here at all? Did he _want_ science or would he really
rather be in a drawing room with "pretty ladies" advertising effects and
being "arch" in a polite, dignified, lady-like manner? How dingy and
dull and unromantic and unfeminine he must find her. She sat in a lively
misery, following the whirling circle of thoughts round and round,
stabbed by their dull thorns, and trying to drag her pain-darkened mind
to meet the claim of the platform, where, in a square of clear light, a
little figure stood talking eagerly and quietly in careful slow English.
Presently the voice on the platform won her--clear and with its curious,
even, unaccented rat-tat-tat flowing and modulated with pure passion,
the thrill of truth and revelation running alive and life-giving through
every word. That, at least, she was sharing with her companion ...
"development-in-thee-method-of-intaircepting-thee-light." "Daguerre" ...
a little Frenchman stopping the sunlight, breaking it up, making it
paint faces in filmy black and white on a glass.... There would only be
a few women like the one with the frill in an audience like this ...
"women will talk shamelessly at a concert or an opera, and chatter on a
mountain top in the presence of a magnificent panorama; their paganism
is incurable." Then men mustn't stare at them and treat them as works of
art. It was entirely the fault of men ... perfectly reasonable that the
women who got that sort of admiration from men should assert themselves
in the presence of other works of art. The thing men called the noblest
work of God must be bigger than the work by a man. Men plumed themselves
and talked in a clever expert way about women and never thought of their
own share in the way those women went on ... unfair, unfair; men were
stupid complacent idiots. But they were wonderful with their brains. The
life and air and fresh breath coming up from the platform amongst the
miseries and uncertainties lurking in the audience was a man ... waves
of light which would rush through the film at an enormous speed and get
away into space without leaving any impression were stopped by some
special kind of film and went surging up and down in confinement--making
strata ... supairposeetion of strata ... no Englishman could move his
hands with that smoothness, making you see. "Violet subchloride of
silver." That would interest Mr. Hancock's chemistry. She glanced at the
figure sitting very still, with bent head, at her side. He was asleep.
Her thoughts recoiled from the platform and bent inwards, circling on
their miseries. That was the end, for him, of coming to a lecture, with
her. If she had been the frilled lady, sitting forward with her
forward-falling frill, patronising the lecture and "exhibiting" her
interest he would not have gone to sleep.


                                   8

When the colour photographs came, Miriam was too happy for thought.
Pictures of stained glass, hard crude clear brilliant opaque flat
colour, stood in miraculous squares on the screen and pieces of gardens,
grass and flowers and trees shining with a shadeless blinding
brilliance.

She made vague sounds. "It's a wonderful achievement" said Mr. Hancock,
smiling with grave delighted approval towards the screen. Miriam felt
that he understood, as her ignorance could not do, exactly what it all
meant scientifically; but there was something else in the things as they
stood, blinding, there that he did not see. It was something that she
had seen somewhere, often.

"They'll never touch pictures."

"Oh no--there's no atmosphere; but there's something else; they're
exactly like something else...."

Mr. Hancock laughed, a little final crushing laugh that turned away
sceptical of further enlightenment.

Miriam sat silent, busily searching for something to express the effect
she felt. But she could not tell him what she felt. There was something
in this intense hard rich colour like something one sometimes _saw_ when
it wasn't there, a sudden brightening and brightening of all colours
till you felt something must break if they grew any brighter--or in the
dark, or in one's mind, suddenly, at any time, unearthly brilliance. He
would laugh and think one a little insane; but it was the real certain
thing; the one real certain happy thing. And he would not have patience
to hear her try to explain; and by that he robbed her of the power of
trying to explain. He was not interested in what she thought. Not
interested. His own thoughts were statements, things that had been
agreed upon and disputed and that people bandied about, competing with
each other to put them cleverly. They were not _things_. It was only by
pretending to be interested in these statements and taking sides about
them that she could have conversation with him. He liked women who
thought in these statements. They always succeeded with men. They had a
reputation for wit. Did they really think and take an interest in the
things they said, or was it a trick, like "clothes" and "manners"--or
was it that women brought up with brothers or living with husbands got
into that way of thinking and speaking. Perhaps there was something in
it. Something worth cultivating; a fine talent. But it would mean hiding
so much, letting so much go; all the real things. The things men never
seemed to know about at all. Yet he loved beautiful things; and worried
about religion and had found comfort in "Literature and Dogma" and
wanted her to find comfort in it, assuming her difficulties were the
same as his own; and knowing the dreadfulness of them. The brilliant
unearthly pictures remained in her mind, supporting her through the
trial of her consciousness of the stuffiness of her one long-worn dress.
Dresses should be fragrant in the evening. The Newlands evening dress
was too old fashioned. Things had changed so utterly since last year.
There was no money to have it altered. But this was awful. Never again
could she go out in the evening, unless alone or with the girls. That
would be best, and happiest, really.




                               CHAPTER VI


                                   1

Miriam sat on a damp wooden seat at the station. Shivering with
exhaustion, she looked across at the early morning distance, misty black
and faint misty green.... Something had happened to it. It was not
beautiful; or anything. It was not anything.... That was the
punishment.... The landscape was dead. All that had come to an end. Her
nimble lifeless mind noted the fact. There was dismay in it. Staring at
the landscape she felt the lifelessness of her face; as if something had
brushed across it and swept the life away, leaving her only sight. She
could never feel any more.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Behind her fixed eyes something new seemed moving forward with a strange
indifference. Suddenly the landscape unrolled. The rim of the horizon
was no longer the edge of the world. She lost sight of it in the rolling
out of the landscape in her mind, out and out, in a light easy stretch,
showing towns and open country and towns again, seas and continents on
and on; empty and still. _No_thing. Everywhere in the world nothing. She
drifted back to herself and clung, bracing herself. She was somebody. If
she was somebody who was going to do something ... not roll trolleys
along a platform. The train swept busily into the landscape; the black
engine, the brown, white-panelled carriages, warm and alive in the empty
landscape. Her strained nerves relaxed. In a moment she would be inside
it, being carried back into her own world. She felt eagerly forward
towards it. Hearts-ease was there. She would be able to breathe again.
But not in the same way; unless she could forget. There were other eyes
looking at it. They were inside her; not caring for the things she had
cared for, dragging her away from them.

                   *       *       *       *       *

They are not my sort of people. Alma does not care for me personally.
Little cries and excitement and affection. She wants to; but she does
not care for anyone personally. Neither of them do. They live in a
world.... "Michael Angelo" and "Stevenson" and "Hardy" and "Dürer" and
that other man, ... Alma ... popping and sweeping gracefully about with
little cries and clever sayings and laughter, trying to be real; in a
bright outside way, showing all the inside things because she kept
crushing them down. It was so tiring that one could not like being with
her. She seemed to be carrying something off all the time; and to be as
if she were afraid if the talk stopped for a moment, it would be
revealed.

In the teashop with Alma alone it had been different; all the old
school-days coming back as she sat there. Her eager story. It was
impossible to do anything but hold her hands and admire her bravery and
say you did not care. But it was not quite real; it was too excited and
it was wrong, certainly wrong, to go down not really caring. I need not
go down again.


                                   2

Cold and torpid she got up and stepped into an empty carriage. Both
windows were shut and the dry stuffy air seemed almost warm after her
exposure. She let one down a little; sheltered from the damp the little
stream of outside air was welcome and refreshing. She breathed deeply,
safe, shut in and moving on. With an unnecessarily vigorous swing of her
arms she hoisted her pilgrim basket on to the rack. Of _course_, she
murmured smiling, of _course_ I shall go down again ... _rather_.


                                   3

That extraordinary ending of fear of the great man at the station. Alma
and the little fair square man not much taller than herself looking like
a grocer's assistant with a curious kind confidential ... unprejudiced
eye ... they had come, both of them, out of their house to the station
to meet her ... "this is Hypo" and the quiet shy walk to the house he
asking questions by saying them--statements. You caught the elusive
three-fifteen. This is your bag. We can carry it off without waiting for
the ... British porter. You've done your journey brilliantly. We haven't
far to walk.


                                   4

The strange shock of the bedroom, the strange new thing springing out
from it ... the clear soft bright tones, the bright white light
streaming through the clear muslin, the freshness of the walls ... the
flattened dumpy shapes of dark green bedroom crockery gleaming in a
corner; the little green bowl standing in the middle of the white spread
of the dressing table cover ... wild violets with green leaves and
tendrils put there by somebody with each leaf and blossom standing
separate ... touching your heart; joy, looking from the speaking pale
mauve little flowers to the curved rim of the green bowl and away to the
green crockery in the corner; again and again the fresh shock of the
violets ... the little cold change in the room after the books, strange
fresh bindings and fascinating odd shapes and sizes, gave out their
names ... The White Boat--Praxiter--King Chance--Mrs. Prendergast's
Palings ... the promise of them in their tilted wooden case by the
bedside table from every part of the room, their unchanged names, the
chill of the strange sentences inside--like a sort of code written for
people who understood, written at something, clever raised voices in a
cold world. In Mrs. Prendergast's Palings there were cockney
conversations spelt as they were spoken. None of the books were about
ordinary people ... three men, seamen, alone, getting swamped in a boat
in shallow water in sight of land ... a man and a girl he had no right
to be with wandering on the sands, the cold wash and sob of the sea; her
sudden cold salt tears; the warmth of her shuddering body. Praxiter
beginning without telling you anything, about the thoughts of an
irritating contemptuous superior man, talking at the expense of
everybody. Nothing in any of them about anything one knew or felt;
casting you off ... giving a chill ache to the room. To sit ... alone,
reading in the white light, amongst the fresh colours--but not these
books. To go downstairs was a sacrifice: coming back there would be the
lighting of the copper candlestick, twisting beautifully up from its
stout stem. What made it different to ordinary candlesticks? _What?_ It
was like ... a gesture.


                                   5

"You knew Susan at school." The brown, tweed-covered arm of the little
square figure handed a tea-cup. The high huskily hooting voice ... what
was the overwhelming impression? A common voice, with a cockney twang.
Overwhelming. "What was Susan like at school?" The voice was saying two
things; that was it; doing something deliberately; it was shy and
determined and deliberate and expectant. Miriam glanced incredulously,
summoning all her forces against her sense of strange direct attack,
pushing through and out to some unknown place, dreading her first words,
not taking in a further remark of the live voice. She could get up and
go away for ever; or speak and whatever she spoke would keep her there
for ever. Alma, sitting behind the tea-tray in a green Alma dress with
small muslin cuffs and collars had betrayed her into this. Alma had been
got by this and had brought her to the test of it. The brown walls,
brown paper all over, like parcel paper and Japanese prints; nothing
else, high-backed curious shaped wooden chairs all with gestures, like
the candlestick, and the voice that was in the same difficult, different
world as the books upstairs.... Alma had betrayed her, talking as if
they were like other people and not saying anything about this strange
cold difference. Alma had come to it and was playing some part she had
taken up ... there was some wrong hurried rush somewhere within the
beautiful room. Stop, she wanted to say, you're all wrong. You've
dropped something you don't know anything about deliberately. Alma ought
to have told you. Hasn't she told you?

"Alma hasn't changed" she said, desperately questioning the smooth soft
movements of the smooth soft hands, the quiet controlled pose of the
head. Alma had the same birdlike wide blink and flash of her limpid
brown eyes, the same tight crinkle and snicker when she laughed, the
same way of saying nothing or only the clever superficially true things
men said. Alma had agreed with this man and had told him nothing or only
things in the clever way he would admire.

He made little sounds into his handkerchief. He was nonplussed at a dull
answer. It would be necessary to be brilliant and amusing to hold his
attention--in fact to tell lies. To get on here one would have to say
clever things in a high bright voice.

The little man began making statements about Alma. Sitting back in his
high-backed chair with his head bent and his small fine hands clasping
his large handkerchief he made little short statements, each improving
on the one before it and coming out of it, and little subdued snortings
at the back of his nose in the pauses between his sentences as if he
were afraid of being answered or interrupted before he developed the
next thing. Alma accompanied his discourse with increasing snickerings.
Miriam after eagerly watching the curious mouthing half hidden by the
drooping straggle of moustache and the strange concentrated gleam of the
grey blue eyes staring into space, laughed outright. But how could he
speak so of her? He met the laughter with a minatory outstretched
forefinger, and raised his voice to a soft squeal ending as he launched
with a little throw of the hand his final jest, in a rotund crackle of
high hysterical open-mouthed laughter. The door opened and two tall
people were shown in; a woman with a narrow figure and a long
dark-curtained sallow horse-like face, dressed in a black striped cream
serge coat and skirt and a fair florid troubled fickle smiling man in a
Norfolk tweed and pale blue tie. "Hullo" said the little man propelling
himself out of his chair with a neat swift gesture and standing small
and square in the room making cordial sounds and moving his arms about
as if to introduce and seat his guests without words and formalities.
Alma's thin excited hubbub and the clearly enunciated, obviously
prepared facetiousnesses of the newcomers--his large and tenor and
florid ... a less clever man than Mr. Wilson ... and hers bass and crisp
and contemptuous ... nothing was hidden from her; she would _like_ the
queer odd people who went about at Tansley Street--was broken into by
the entry of three small young men, all three dark and a little grubby
and shabby looking. The foremost stood with vivid eager eyes wide open
as if he had been suddenly checked in the midst of imparting an
important piece of news. Alma came forward to where they stood herded
and silent just inside the door and made little faint encouraging
maternal sounds at them as she shook hands.

As she did this Miriam figured them in a flash coming down the road to
the house; their young men's talk and arguments, their certainty of
rightness and completeness, their sudden embarrassment and secret anger
with their precipitate rescuer. Mr. Wilson was on his feet again, not
looking at them nor breaking up the circle already made, but again
making his sociable sounds and circular movements with his arms as if to
introduce and distribute them about the room. The husband and wife kept
on a dialogue in strained social voices as if they were bent on showing
that their performance was not dependant on an audience. Miriam averted
her eyes from them, overcome by painful visions of the two at breakfast
or going home after social occasions. The three young men retreated to
the window alcove behind the tea-table one of them becoming Miriam's
neighbour as she sat in the corner near the piano whither she had fled
from the centre of the room when the husband and wife came in.

It was the young man with the important piece of news. He sat bent
forward holding his cup and plate with outstretched arms. His headlong
expression remained unchanged. Wisps of black hair stood eagerly out
from his head and a heavy thatch fell nearly to his eyebrows. "Did
anybody see anything of Mrs. Binks at the station?" asked Alma from her
table. "Oh my dear" she squealed gently as the maid ushered in a little
lady in a straight dress of red flannel frilled with black chiffon at
the neck and wrists, "we were all afraid you weren't coming." "Don't
anybody move"--the deep reedy voice reverberated amongst the standing
figures; the firm compact undulating figure came across the room to
Alma. Its light-footed swiftness and easy certainty filled Miriam with
envy. The envy evaporated during the embracing of Alma and the general
handshaking. The low strong reedy voice went on saying things out into
the silence of the room in a steady complete way. There was something
behind it all that did not show, or showed in the brilliant ease,
something that Miriam did not envy. She tried to discover what it was as
the room settled, leaving Mrs. Binkley on a low chair near to Alma,
taking tea and going on with her monologue, each of her pauses
punctuated by soft appreciative sounds from Alma and little sounds from
Mr. Wilson. She was popular with them. Mr. Wilson sat surveying her. Did
they know how hard she was working? Perhaps they did and admired or even
envied it. But what was it for? Surely she must feel the opposition in
the room? Alma and Mr. Wilson approved and encouraged her exhibition.
She was in their curious league for keeping going high-voiced clever
sayings. So had the husband appeared to be at first. Now he sat silent
with a kind polite expression about his head and figure. But his mouth
was uneasy, he was afraid of something or somebody and was staring at
Mrs. Binkley. The wife sat in a gloomy abstraction smoking a large
cigarette ... she was something like Mrs. Kronen in her way; only
instead of belonging to South Africa she had been a hard featured
English school-girl; she was still a hard-featured English school-girl,
with the oldest eyes Miriam had ever seen.

"Why not write an article about a lamp-post?" said one of the young men
suddenly in a gruff voice in answer to a gradually growing murmur of
communications from one of his companions. Miriam breathed easier air.
The shameful irritating tension was over. It was as if fresh wonderful
life-giving things that were hovering in the room, driven back into
corners, pressing up and away against the angles of the ceiling and
about the window-door behind the young men and against the far-away door
of the room, came back, flooding all the spaces of the room. Mr. Wilson
moved in his chair, using his handkerchief towards the young men with an
eye on the speaker. "Or a whole book" murmured the young man farthest
from Miriam in an eager cockney voice. The two young men were speaking
towards Mr. Wilson, obviously trying to draw him in, bringing along one
of his topics; something that had been discussed here before. There
would be talk, men's talk, argument and showing off; but there would be
something alive in the room. In the conflict there would be ideas, wrong
ideas, men taking sides, both right and both wrong; men showing off; but
wanting with all their wrongness to get at something. Perhaps somebody
would say something. She regretted her shy refusal of a cigarette from
Mr. Wilson's large full box. It stood open now by the side of the
tea-tray. He would not offer it again. Cigarettes and talk.... What
would Mr. Hancock think? "People do not meet together for conversation,
nowadays." ... There was going to be conversation, literary conversation
and she was going to hear it ... be in it. Clever literary people trying
to say things well; of course they were all literary; they were all the
same set, knowing each other, all calling Mr. Wilson "Hypo"; talk about
books was the usual Saturday afternoon thing here; and she was in it and
would be able to be in it again, any week. It was miraculous. All these
people were special people, emancipated people. Probably they all wrote,
except the women. There were too many women. Somehow or other she must
get a cigarette. Life, suddenly full of new things made her bold.
Presently, when the conversation was general she would beg one of the
young man at her side. Mr. Wilson would not turn to her again. She had
failed twice already in relation to him; but after her lame refusal of
the cigarette which he had accepted instantly and sat down with, he had
glanced sharply at her in a curious personal way, noticing the little
flat square of white collarette--the knot of violets upon it, the
long-sleeved black nun's-veiling blouse, the long skirt of her old
silkette evening dress. These items had made her sick with anxiety in
their separate poverty as she put them on for the visit; but his eyes
seemed to draw them all together. Perhaps there in the dark corner they
made a sort of whole. She rejoiced gratefully in the memory of Mag's
factory girl, in her own idea of having the sleeves gauged at the wrists
in defiance of fashion, to make frills extending so as partly to cover
her large hands; over the suddenly realised possibility of wearing the
silkette skirt as a day skirt. She must remain in the corner, not
moving, all the afternoon. If she moved in the room the bright light
would show the scrappiness of her clothes. In the evening it would be
all right. She sat back in her corner, happy, and forgetful. She had not
had so much tea as she wanted. She had refused the cigarette against her
will. Now she was alive. These weak things would not happen again, and
next time she would bring her own cigarettes. To take out a cigarette
and light it here, at home amongst her own people. These were her
people. There was something here in the exciting air that she did not
understand; something that was going to tax her more than she had ever
been taxed before. She had found her way to it through her wanderings;
it had come; it was her due. It corresponded to something in herself,
shapeless and inexpressible; but there. She knew it by herself, sitting
in her corner; her own people would know it, if they could see her here;
but no one here would find it out. Every one here was doing something;
or the wife of somebody who did something. They were like a sort of
secret society ... all agreed about something ... about what? _What_ was
it Mr. Wilson was so sure about?... They would despise everybody who was
living an ordinary life, or earning a living in anything but something
to do with books. Seeing her there they would take for granted that she
too, was somebody ... and she was somehow, within herself somewhere;
although she had made herself into a dentist's secretary. She was better
qualified to be here and to understand the strange secret here, in the
end, than anyone else she knew. But it was a false position, unless they
all knew what she was. If she could say clever things they would like
her; but she would be like Alma and Mrs. Binkley; pretending; and
without any man to point to as giving her the right to be about here. It
was a false position. It was as if she were there as a candidate to
become an Alma or a Mrs. Binkley; imitating the clever sayings of men,
or flattering them.

"_Do_ it Gowry," said Mr. Wilson ... "a book" ... he made his little
sound behind his nose as he felt for the phrases that were to come after
his next words ... "a--er--book; about a lamp-post. You see" he held up
his minatory finger to keep off an onslaught and quench an eager
monologue that began pouring from Miriam's nearest neighbour, and went
on in his high weak husky voice. The young men were quiet. For a few
moments the red lady and Alma made bright conversation as if nothing
were happening; but with a curious hard emptiness in their voices, like
people rehearsing and secretly angry with each other. Then they were
silent, sitting posed and attentive, with uneasy intelligent smiling
faces; their costumes and carefully arranged hair useless on their
hands. Mrs. Binkley did not suffer so much as Alma; her corsetless eager
crouch gave her the appearance of intentness, her hair waved naturally,
had tendrils and could be left to look after itself; her fresh easy
strength was ready for the next opportunity. It was only something
behind her face that belied her happy pose. Alma was waiting in some
curious fixed singleness of tension; her responses hovered fixed about
her mouth, waiting for expression, she sat fixed in a frozen suspension
of deliberate amiability and approval, approval of a certain chosen set
of things; approval which excluded everything else with derision ... it
was Alma's old derision, fixed and arranged in some way by Mr. Wilson.

"There will be books--with all that cut out--him and her--all that sort
of thing. The books of the future will be clear of all that."


                                   6

Miriam sat so enclosed in her unarmed struggle with the new definition
of a book that the entry of the newcomers left her unembarrassed. Two
rotund ruddy men in mud-spotted tweeds, both fair, one with a tuft like
a cockatoo standing straight up from his forehead above a smooth pink
face, the other older than anybody in the room, with a shaggy head and a
small pointed beard. They came in talking aloud and stumped about the
room, making their greetings. Miriam bowed twice and twice received a
sturdy handclasp and the kindly gleam of blue eyes, one pair large, mild
and owl-like behind glasses; the other fierce and glinting, a shaft of
whimsical blue light. The second pair of eyes surely would not agree
with what Mr. Wilson had been saying. But their coming in had broken a
charm; the overwhelming charm of the way he put things; so that even
while you hated what he was saying and his way of stating things as if
they were the final gospel and no one else in the world knew anything at
all, you wanted him to go on; only to go on and to keep on going on. It
was wrong somehow; he was all wrong; "though I speak with the tongues of
men and of angels"; it was wrong and somehow wicked; but it caught you,
it had caught Alma and all these people; and in a sense he despised them
all, and was talking to something else; the thing he knew; the secret
that made him so strong, even with his weak voice and weak mouth; strong
and fascinating. It was wrong to be here; it would be wrong to come
again; but there was nothing like it anywhere else; no other such group
of things; and thought and knowledge of things. More must be heard. It
would be impossible not to risk everything to hear more.

Alma ordered fresh tea; Mr. Wilson and the husband and the two new men
were standing about. The elder man was describing in a large shouting
voice a new mantelpiece--a Tudor mantelpiece. What was a Tudor
mantelpiece? ... to buy a _house_ to put round it. What a clever
idea.... Little Mr. Wilson seemed to be listening; he squealed
amendments of the jests between the big man's boomings ... buy a _town_
to put round it.... What a lovely idea ... buy a NATION to put round it
... there was a burst of guffaws. Mr. Wilson's face was crimson; his
eyes appeared to be full of tears. The big man went on. Mrs. Binkley
kept uttering deep reedy caressing laughs. Two of the young men were
leaning forward talking eagerly with bent heads. Miriam's neighbour sat
upright with his hands on his knees, his eyes glaring as if ... as if he
were just going to jump out of his skin. Hidden by the increased stir
made by the re-entry of the maid, and encouraged by the extraordinary
clamour of hilarious voices Miriam ventured to ask him if he would
perform an act of charity by allowing her to rob him of one of his
cigarettes. She liked her unrecognisable voice. It was pitched deep, but
strong; a little like Mrs. Binkley's. The young man started and turned
eagerly towards her, stammering and muttering and fumbling about his
person. "I swear" he brought out, "I could cut my throat ... my _God_
... oh here we are." Seizing the open box from the tea-table he swung
round with his crossed legs extended across her corner so that she was
cut off from the rest of the room, and held the box eagerly towards her.
They both took cigarettes and he lit them with matches obtained from his
neighbour. "Thank you" said Miriam blissfully drawing "that has saved my
life." Precipitately restoring the matches he swung round again leaning
forward with his elbow on his knee, blocking out Miriam's view. Before
it was blocked out she had caught the eye of Mr. Wilson who was standing
facing her in the little group of men about the tea-table and still
interpolating their hubbub with husky squeals of jocularity, quietly
observing the drama in her corner. For the moment she did not wish to
listen; Alma's appreciative squeals were getting strained and the big
man was a bore. Seen sitting in profile taking his tea he reminded her
of Mr. Staple-Craven; her eye caught and recoiled from weak patches,
touches of frowsy softness here and there about the shaggy head. Cut off
from the room safe in the extraordinary preoccupation of the young man
whose eager brooding was moving now towards some imminent
communication--she had undisturbed knowledge of what she had done.
Speech and action had launched her, for good or ill, into the strange
tide running in this house. Its cold waters beat against her breast. She
was no longer quite herself. There was something in it that quickened
all her faculties, challenged all the strength she possessed. By speech
and action she had accepted something she neither liked, nor approved
nor understood; refusal would have left its secret unplumbed, standing
aside in her life, tormenting it. The sense of the secret intoxicated
her ... perhaps I am selling my soul to the devil. But she was glad that
Mr. Wilson had witnessed her launching.

"You are magnificent" gasped the young man glaring at the wall. "I mean
you are simply magnificent." He flashed unconscious eyes at her--_he_
had no consciousness of the cold tide with its curious touch of evil; it
was hand in hand with him and his simplicity that she had stepped down
into the water--and hurried on. "An angel of dreams. Dreams ... you
know--I say," he spluttered incoherently, "I _must_ tell you." His
working preoccupied face turned to face hers with a jerk that brought
part of the heavy sheaf of hair across one of his eyes. "I've been doing
the best work this week I ever did in my life!" Red flooded the whole of
his face and the far-away glare of his one visible eye became a blaze of
light, near, and smiling a guilty delighted smile. He was demanding
_her_ approval, _her_ sympathy, just on the strength of her being there.
It was the moment of consenting to Alma that had brought this. However
it had come she would have been unable to withstand it. He wanted
approval and sympathy; someone here had some time or other shut him up;
perhaps he was considered second-rate, perhaps he was second-rate; but
he was innocent as no one else in the room was innocent. "_Oh_, I _am_
glad" she replied swiftly. Putting his cigarette on the edge of the
piano he seized one of her hands and crushed it between his own. His
face perspired and there were tears in his eye. "_Do_ tell me about it"
she said with bold uneasy eagerness hoping he would drop her hand when
he spoke. "It's a play" he shouted in a low whisper, a spray of saliva
springing through his lips "a play--it's the finest stuff I ever rout."
Were all these people either cockney or with that very bland anglican
cultured way of speaking--like the husband and the man with the Tudor
mantelpiece?


                                   7

"I can of course admit that the growth of corn was, at first, accidental
and unconscious, and that even after the succession of processes began
to be grasped and the soil methodically cultivated the success of the
crop was supposed to depend upon the propitiation of a _god_. I can see
that the discovery of the possibility of growing _food_ would enormously
alter the savage's conception of God, by introducing a new set of
attributes into his _consciousness_ of him; but in defining the God of
the Christians as a _corn_ deity you and Allen are putting the cart
before the horse."

That was it, that was it--that was right somehow; there was something in
this big red-faced man that was not in Mr. Wilson; but why did his talk
sound so lame and dull, even while he was saving God--and Mr. Wilson's,
while he made God from the beginning a nothing created by the fears and
needs of man, so thrilling and convincing, so painting the world anew?
He was wrong about everything and yet while he talked everything changed
in spite of yourself.

The earlier part of the afternoon looked a bright happy world behind the
desolation of this conflict; the husband and wife and the young men and
Mrs. Binkley and the bright afternoon light, dear far-off friends ...
withstanding in their absence the chilly light of Mr. Wilson's talk. Who
was Mr. Wilson? But he was so certain that men had created God ... life
in that thought was a nightmare. Nothing that could happen could make it
anything but a nightmare henceforth ... it did not matter what happened,
and yet he seemed pleased, amused about everything and eager to go on
and "do" things and get things done.... His belief about life was worse
than agnosticism. There was no doubt in it. "Mr. G" was an invention of
man. There was nothing but man; man, coming from the ape, some men a
little cleverer than others, men had discovered science, science was the
only enlightenment, science would put everything right; scientific
imagination, scientific invention. Man. Women were there, cleverly
devised by nature to ensnare man for a moment and produce more men; to
bring scientific order out of primeval chaos; chaos was decreasing order
increasing; there was nothing worth considering before the coming of
science; the business of the writer was imagination, not romantic
imagination, but realism, fine realism, the truth about "the savage"
about all the past and present, the avoidance of cliché ... what was
cliché?...

                   *       *       *       *       *

"Well my dear man you've got the Duke of Argyll to keep you company"
sighed Mr. Wilson with a smothered giggle, getting to his feet.

Miriam went from the sitting room she had entered in another age with
the bedroom violets pinned against her collarette, stripped and cold and
hungry into the cold of the brightly-lit little dining room. The gay
cold dishes, the bright jellies and fruits, the brown nuts, the pretty
Italian wine in thin white long-necked decanters ... Chianti ... Chianti
... they all seemed familiar with the wine and the word; perhaps it was
a familiar wine at the Wilson supper-parties; they spoke of it sitting
at the little feast amongst the sternness of nothing but small drawings
and engravings on walls that shone some clear light tone against the few
pieces of unfamiliar grey-brown furniture like people clustering round a
fire. But it was a feast of death; terrible because of their not knowing
that it was a feast of death. The wife of the cockatoo had come in early
enough to hear nearly the whole of the conversation and had sat
listening to it with a quiet fresh talkative face under her fresh dark
hair; the large deep furrow between her eyebrows was nothing to do with
anything here, it was permanent, belonging to her life. She had brought
her life in with her and kept it there, the freshness and the furrow;
she seemed now, at supper to be out for the evening, to enjoy
herself--at the Wilsons' ... coming to the Wilsons' ... for a jolly
evening, just as anybody would go anywhere for a jolly evening. She did
not know what was there, what it all meant. Perhaps because of the two
little boys. She, with two little unseen boys and the big house so near,
big and full of her and noise and things, and her freshness and the
furrow of her thought about it prevented anything from going on; the
dreadful thing had to be dropped where it was, leaving the big man who
had fought to pretend to be interested and amused, leaving Mr. Wilson
with the last word and his quiet smothered giggle.

Alma tried to answer Mrs. Pinner's loud fresh talking in the way things
had been answered earlier in the afternoon before the departure of all
the other people. Everything she said was an attempt to beat things up.
Every time she spoke Miriam was conscious of something in the room that
would be there with them all if only Alma would leave off being funny;
something there was in life that Alma had never yet known, something
that belonged to an atmosphere she would call "dull." Mr. Wilson knew
that something ... had it in him somewhere, but feared it and kept it
out by trying to be bigger, by trying to be the biggest thing there was.
Alma went on and on, sometimes uncomfortably failing, her thin voice
sounding out like a corkscrew in a cork without any bottle behind it,
now and again provoking a response which made things worse because it
brought to the table the shamed sense of trying to keep something
going.... The clever excitements would not come back. Mrs. Binkley would
have helped her.... Miriam sat helpless and miserable between her
admiration of Alma's efforts and her longing for the thing Alma kept
out. Her discomfiture at Alma's resentment of her dulness and Alma's
longing for Mrs. Binkley was made endurable by her anger over Alma's
obstructiveness. Mr. Pinner and the big man were busily feeding. Mrs.
Pinner laughed and now and again tried to imitate Alma; as if she had
learned how it was done by many visits to the Wilsons', and then forgot
and talked in her own way, forgetting to try to say good things. Alma
grew smaller as supper went on and Mr. and Mrs. Pinner larger and
larger. Together they were too strong in their sense of some other life
and some other way of looking at things to give the Wilson way a clear
field. Mr. Wilson began monologues in favourable intervals, but they
tailed off for lack of nourishing response. Miriam listened eagerly and
suspiciously; lost in admiration and a silent, mentally wordless
opposition. She felt the big man was on her side and that the Pinners
would be if they could understand. They only saw the jokes ... the--the,
higher facetiousness ... good phrase, that was the Chianti. And they
were getting used to that; perhaps they were secretly a little tired of
it.


                                   8

After supper Mr. Pinner sang very neatly in a small clear tenor voice an
English translation of Es war ein König im Thule. Miriam longed for the
German words; Mr. Pinner cancelled even the small remainder of the
German sentiment by his pronunciation of the English rendering; "there
was a king of old tame" he declared and so on throughout the song. Alma
followed with a morsel of Chopin. The performance drove Miriam into a
rage. Mr. Pinner had murdered his German ballad innocently, his little
Oxford voice and his false vowels did not conceal the pleasure he took
in singing his unimagined little song, Alma played her piece at her
audience, every line of her face and body proclaiming it fine music, the
right sort of music, and deprecating all the compositions that were not
"music." It was clear that her taste had become cultivated, that she
_knew_ now, that the scales had fallen from her eyes as they had fallen
from Miriam's eyes in Germany; but the result sent Miriam back with a
rush to cheap music, sentimental "obvious" music, shapely waltzes, the
demoralising chromatics of Gounod, the demoralising descriptive passion
pieces of Chaminade, those things by Liszt whom somebody had called a
charlatan who wrote to make your blood leap and your feet dance and made
your blood leap and your feet dance ... why not?...

Her mind went on amazed at the rushing together of her ideas on music,
at the amount of certainty she had accumulated. Any of these things she
declared to herself played, really _played_, would be better than Alma's
Chopin. The Wilsons had discovered "good" music, as so many English
people had, but they were all wrong about music; nearly all English
people were. Only in England would either the song or the solo have been
possible. The song was innocent, the solo was an insult. The player's
air of superiority to other music was insufferable; her way of playing
out bar by bar of the rain on the roof as if she were giving a lesson
was a piece of intellectual snobbery. Chopin she had never met, never
felt or glimpsed. Chopin was a shape, an endless delicate stern rhythm
as stern as anything in music; all he was came through that, could come
only through it and she played tricks with the shape, falsified all the
values, outdid the worst trickery of the music she was deprecating. At
the end of the performance which was applauded with a subdued reverence,
Miriam eased her agony by humming the opening phase of the motive again
and again in her brain and very nearly aloud, it was such a perfect
rhythmic drop. For long she was haunted and tortured by Alma's horrible
holding back of the third note for emphasis where there was no emphasis
... it was like ... finding a _wart_ at the dropping end of a fine
tendril, she was telling herself furiously while she fended off Alma's
cajoling efforts to make her join in a game of cards. She felt too angry
and too suffering--what _was_ this wrong thing about music in all
English people--even if she had not been too shy to exhibit her large
hands and her stupidity at cards. So they were going to play cards,
actually cards. The room felt cold to her in her long suppressed anger
and misery. She began to wish the Pinners would go. Sitting by the fire
shivering and torpid she listened to Mrs. Pinner's outcries and the
elaboration between the rounds of jests that she felt were weekly jests.
Sitting there dully listening she began to have a sort of insight into
the way these jests were made, it was a thing that could be cultivated.
Her tired brain experimented. Certain things she heard she knew she
would remember; she felt she would repeat them--with an air of
originality. They would seem very brilliant in any of her
circles--though the girls did that sort of thing rather well; but in a
less "refined" way; that was true! This was the sort of thing the girls
did; only their way was not half so clever ... if she did, everyone
would wonder what was the matter with her; and she would not be able to
keep it up, without a great deal of practice; and it would keep out
something else ... but perhaps for some people there was something in
it; it was their way. It had always been Alma's way a little. Only now
she did it better. Perhaps ... it was like Chopin's shape.... They do
not know how angry I have been ... they are quite amiable. I am simply
horrid ... wanting Alma to know I know she's wrong quite as much as I
care for Chopin; perhaps more ... no; if _anybody_ had _played_, I
should be happy; perfectly happy ... what does that mean ... because
real musicians are not at all nice people ... "a queer soft lot." But
why are the English so awful about music? They are poets. Why are they
not musicians? I hope I shall never hear Alma play Beethoven. As long as
she plays Chopin like that I shall never like her.... Perhaps English
people ought never to play, only to listen to music. They are not
innocent enough to play. They cannot forget themselves.

At ten o'clock they trooped into the kitchen. Miriam, half asleep and
starving for food, eagerly ate large biscuits too hungry to care much
for Alma's continued resentment of her failure to join the card party
and her unconcealed contempt of her sudden return to animation at the
prospect of nourishment. She had never felt so hungry.


                                   9

Going at last to her room Miriam found its gleaming freshness warm and
firelit. Warm fresh deeps of softly coloured room that were complete
before she came in with her candle. She stood a moment imagining the
emptiness. The April night air was streaming gently in from meadows.
Going across to the window she hesitated near the flowered curtain. It
stirred gently; but not in that way as if moved by ghostly fingers. The
meadows here were different. They might grow the same again. But woods
and meadows were always there, away from London. One could go to them.
They were going on all the time. All the time in London spring and
summer and autumn were passing unseen. But this was not the time. They
were _different_ here. She pulled a deep wicker chair close up to the
exciting white ash-sprinkled hearth. The evening she had left in the
flames downstairs was going on up here. To-morrow, to-day, in a few
hours she would be sitting with them again, facing flames; no one else
there. She sat with her eyes on the flames. A clock struck two.... I've
got to them at last, the people I ought to be with. The books in the
corner showed their bindings and opened their pages here and there. They
made a little sick patch on her heart. They approved of them. Other
people approved of things. Nothing had been done yet that anybody could
approve of ... the _some_thing village of Grandpré ... und dann sagte
darauf, die gute vernünftige Hausfrau.... It all floated in the air.
They would see it if somebody showed it. They would be angry and amused
if anybody tried to show it. It was wrong in some way to try and show
the things you were looking at. Keep quiet about them. Then somebody
else expressed them; and those other people turned to you and demanded
your admiration--and wondered why you were furious. It's too long to
wait, until the things come up of themselves. You _must_ attend to
them....

How the fragrance of the cigarette stood out upon the fresh warm air ...
that was perique, that curious strong flavour. They were very strong, he
had said so; but downstairs, talking like that they had had no
particular flavour, just cigarettes, bringing the cigarette mood ... no
wonder he had been surprised, really surprised, at her smoking so many
... but then he had been surprised at her eating a hard apple at
midnight ... the sitting room had suddenly looked familiar going into it
alone while they were seeing out the Pinners and the big man. Strange
unknown voices that perhaps she would not hear again, going out into the
night ... their voices jesting the last jests as the guests went down
the garden, sounding in the hall, familiar and homely, well known to
her, presently coming back into the sitting room; the fire burning
brightly like any other fire, the exciting deep pinkness of the shaded
lamplight like nothing else in the world. Alma knew it, rushing in ...
whirling about with Alma in that room with that afternoon left in it;
the sounds of bolting and locking coming in from the hall.


                                   10

... "You looked extraordinarily pretty...."

"You have come through it all remarkably well" ... remarkable had a k in
it in English, and German, merkwürdig, and perhaps in Scandinavian
languages; but not in other languages; it was one of the things that
separated England from the south ... remarkable ... hard and chilly.

"You know you're awfully good stuff. You've had an extraordinary variety
of experience; you've got your freedom; you ought to write."

"That is what a palmist told me at Newlands. It was at a big afternoon
'at home'; there was a palmist in a little dark room sitting near a
lamp; she looked at nothing but your hands; she kept saying whatever you
do, write. If you haven't written yet, write, if you don't succeed go on
writing."

"Just so, have you written?"

"Ah, but she also told me my self-confidence had been broken; that I
used to be self-confident and was so no longer. It's true."

"Have you written anything?"

"I once sent in a thing to Home Notes. They sent it back but asked me to
write something else and suggested a few things."

"If they had taken your stuff you would have gone on and learnt to turn
out stuff bad enough for Home Notes and gone on doing it for the rest of
your life."

"But then an artist, a woman who had a studio in Bond Street and knew
Leighton, saw some things I had tried to paint and said I ought to make
any sacrifice to learn painting, and a musician said the same about
music."

"You could work in writing quite well with your present work."

... "Pieces of short prose; anything; a description of an old woman
sitting in an omnibus ... anything. There's plenty of room for good
work. There's the Academy always ready to consider well-written pieces
of short prose. Write something and send it to me."

Nearing London shivering and exhausted she recalled Sunday morning and
the strangeness of it being just as it had promised to be. Happy waking
with a clear refreshed brain in a tired drowsy body, like the feeling
after a dance; making the next morning part of the dance, your mind full
of pictures and thoughts and the evening coming up again and again, one
great clear picture in the foreground of your mind. The _evening_ in the
room as you sat propped on your pillows drinking the clear pale
curiously refreshing tea left by the maid on a little wooden tray by
your bedside; its fragrance drew you to sip at once, without adding milk
and sugar. It was delicious; it steamed aromatically up your nostrils
and went straight to your brain; potent without being bitter. Perhaps it
was "China" tea; it must be. The two biscuits on the little plate
disappeared rapidly, and she poured in milk and added much sugar to her
remaining tea to appease her hunger. The evening stayed during her
deliberately perfunctory toilet; she wanted only to be down. It began
again unbroken with the first cigarette after breakfast, when a nimble
remark thrown out from the excited gravity of her happiness made Mr.
Wilson laugh. She was learning how to do it. It stayed on through the
day, adding the day to itself in a chain, a morning of talk, a visit to
Mr. Wilson's study--the curious glimpses of pinewood from the windows;
pinewood looking strange and far-away--there were people in Weybridge to
whom those woods were real woods where they walked and perhaps had the
thoughts that woods bring; here they were like woods in a picture book;
not real, just a curious painted background for Mr. Wilson's talk ...
all those books in fifty years' time burnt up by the air; he did not
seem to think it an awful idea ... you can do anything with English ...
and then the names of authors who had done some of these things with
English ... making it sing and dance and march, making it like granite
or like film and foam. Other languages were more simple and single in
texture; less flexible.... Gazing out at the exciting silent pines--so
dark and still, waiting, not knowing about the wonders of
English--Miriam recalled her impressions of those of the authors she
knew. It was true that those were their effects and the great
differences between them. How did he come to know all about it and to
put it into words? Did the authors know when they did it? She
passionately hoped not. If they did, it was a trick and spoilt books.
Rows and rows of "fine" books; nothing but men sitting in studies doing
something cleverly, being very important, "men of letters"; and looking
out for approbation. If writing meant that, it was not worth doing.
English a great flexible language; more than any other in the world. But
German was the same? Only the inflections filled the sentences up with
bits. English was flexible and beautiful. Funny. Foreigners did not
think so. Many English people thought foreign literature the best.
Perhaps Mr. Wilson did not know much foreign literature. But he wanted
to; or he would not have those translations of Ibsen and Björnsen.
German poetry marched and sang and did all sorts of things. Anyhow it
was wonderful about English--but if books were written like that,
sitting down and doing it cleverly and knowing just what you were doing
and just how somebody else had done it, there was something wrong, some
mannish cleverness that was only half right. To write books, knowing all
about style would be to become like a man. Women who wrote books and
learned these things would be absurd and would make men absurd. There
was something wrong. It was in all those books upstairs. "Good stuff"
was wrong, a clever trick, not worth doing. And yet everybody seemed to
want to write.

The rest of the day--secret and wonderful. Sitting about, taken for one
of the Wilson kind of people, someone who was writing or going to write,
by the two Scotch professors; sitting about listening to their quiet
easy eager unconcerned talk, seeing them "all round" as Mr. Wilson saw
them, the limits of professorship and teaching, the silly net and trick
of examinations, their simplicity and their helplessness; playing the
lovely accompaniment like quiet waves, of Schubert's Ave Maria, the
sudden, jolly, sentimental voice of Professor Ewings, his nice
attentions ... if it had been Wimpole Street or anywhere in society he
would not have seen me....

It would be wrong to try and write just because Mr. Wilson had said one
ought.... The reasons he had given for writing were the wrong ones ...
but it would be impossible to go down again without doing some
writing.... Impossible not to go down again.... They knew one was
"different"; and liked it and thought it a good thing; a sort of
distinction. No one had thought that before. It made them a home and a
refuge. The only refuge there was except being by oneself ... only their
kind of difference was not the same. They thought nearly everyone
"futile" and "dull"--everyone who did not see things in their way was
that. Presently they would find that one was not different in the same
way. He had spoken of people who grow "dull" as you get to know them.
Awful ... perhaps already, he meant----

                   *       *       *       *       *

"It's all very well ... people read Matthew Arnold's simple
profundities; er--simple profundities; and learn his little trick; and
go _about_--hcna, hcna,--arm in arm with this swell ... hcna ...
_puffing_ with illumination. All about _nothing_. It's all, my dear Miss
Henderson, about absolutely nothing."

                   *       *       *       *       *

The train stopped. Better not to go down again. There was something all
wrong in it. Wrong about everything. The Pinners and the big man were
right ... but there was something dreadful in them, the something that
is in all simple right sort of people, who just go on, never thinking
about anything. Were they good and right? It did not enter their heads
to think that they were wrong in associating with him.... Here in London
it seemed wrong ... she hurried wearily with aching head up the long
platform. The Wimpole Street people would certainly think it wrong; if
they knew about the marriage. They knew he was a coming great man; the
great new "critic"; a new kind of critic ... they knew everybody was
beginning to talk about him. But if they knew they would not approve.
They would never understand his way of seeing things. Impossible to
convey anything to them of what the visit had been.


                                   11

The hall clock said half-past nine. The hall and the large rooms had
shrunk. Everything looked shabby and homely. The house was perfectly
quiet. Passing quietly and quickly into her room she found the table
empty. The door into the den was shut and no sound came from behind it.
No one but James had seen her. The holiday was still there. Perhaps
there would be time to take hold in the new way before anyone discovered
her and made demands. Perhaps they were all three wanting her at this
moment. But the house was so still, there was nothing urgent. Perhaps
she would never feel nervous at Wimpole Street again. It was really all
so easy. There was nothing she could not manage if only she could get a
fair start and get everything in order and up to date. Her mind tried to
encircle the book-keeping. There must be a plan for it all; so much work
on the accounts to keep the whole ledger-full sent out to date, so much
on the address books, and so much on the monthly cash books--a little of
all these things every day in addition to the day's work, whatever
happened; that would do it. Then there would be no muddle and nothing to
worry about and perhaps time to write. They must be told that she would
use any spare time there was on other things.... They would be quite
ready for that provided the books were always up to date and the
surgeries always in order. That is what a Wilson would have done from
the first.


                                   12

"Mr. Grove to see you, miss."

"Mr. _Grove_?"

"Yes miss; a dark gentleman."

Miriam rose from her chair. James had gone after a moment of sympathetic
waiting, back down the basement stairs to her dinner. Miriam felt
herself very tall and slender--set apart and surrounded; healed of all
fighting and effort. She went quickly through the hall thinking of
nothing; herself, walking down Harriett's garden path. At the door of
the waiting-room she hesitated. Mr. Grove was the other side of the
door, waiting for her to come in. She opened the door with a flourish
and advanced with stiffly outstretched hand. Before she said "teeth?" in
a cheerful breezy professional tone that exploded into the past and
scattered it she saw the pained anxiousness of his face and the flush
that had risen under his dark skin.

"No" he said recoiling swiftly from his limp handshake and sitting
abruptly down on the chair from which he had risen. Miriam watched him
go helplessly on to say in stiff resentfulness what he had come to say
while she stood apologetically at his chair side.

"I meant to write to you--two or three times."

"Oh why didn't you?" she responded emphatically.... Why can't I be quiet
and hear what he has to say? He must have wanted to see me dreadfully to
come here like this.

His eyes were fixed blindly upon the far-off window.

"Yes. I wanted to very much. How do you like your life here?" He was
flushing again. His skin still had that shiny film over it, so unlike
the clear snaky brilliance of the eyes. They were dreadful and all the
rest flappy and floppy and somehow feverish.

"Oh--I like it immensely."

"That is a very good thing."

"Do you like your life?"

He drew in his lower lip on an indrawn breath and held it with his
teeth. His eyes were thinking busily under a slight frown.

"That is one of the things I wished to discuss with you."

"Oh _do_ discuss it with me," cried Miriam.

"I am very glad you are getting on here so well" he murmured
thoughtfully, gazing through the window, to and fro as if scanning the
opposite house-fronts.

"Oh, I like it immensely" said Miriam after a silence. Her head was
beginning to ache. He sat quite still, scanning to and fro, his lip
recaptured under his teeth.

"They are such nice people. I like it for so many things."

He looked absently round at her.

"M-yes. On several occasions I thought of writing to you."

"Yes" said Miriam sitting down opposite to him.

He shifted a little in his chair to keep his way clear to the window.

For a few moments they sat silent; then he suddenly took out his watch
and stood up.

Miriam rose. "Have you seen the Ducaynes lately?" she asked hurriedly,
moving nervously towards the door. Murmuring an indistinct response he
led the way to the door and held it open for her.

James was coming forward with a patient. They stood aside for the
patient to pass in, James waiting to escort Mr. Grove to the front door.
They shook hands limply and silently. Miriam stood watching his narrow
loosely knit clerical back as he plunged along through the hall and out.
She turned as James turned from the door.... What it must have cost him
to break in here and ask for me ... how silly and how rude I was.... I
_can't_ believe he's been; it's like a dream. He's seen me in the new
life changed ... and I'm not really changed.




                              CHAPTER VII


                                   1

Why must I always think of her in this place.... It is always worst just
along here.... Why do I always forget there's this piece ... always be
hurrying along seeing nothing and then suddenly Teetgen's Teas and this
row of shops. I can't bear it. I don't know what it is. It's always the
same. I always feel the same. It is sending me mad. One day it will be
worse. If it gets any worse I shall be mad. Just here. Certainly.
Something is wearing out in me. I am meant to go mad. If not I should
not always be coming along this piece without knowing it, whichever
street I take. Other people would know the streets apart. I don't know
where this bit is or how I get to it. I come every day because I am
meant to go mad here. Something that knows brings me here and is making
me go mad because I am myself and nothing changes me.




                              CHAPTER VIII


                                   1

The morning went on. It seemed as though there was to be no opportunity
of telling Mr. Hancock until lunch had changed the feeling of the day.
He knew there was something. Turning to select an instrument from a
drawer she was at work upon he had caught sight of her mirth and smiled
his amusement and anticipation into the drawer before turning gravely
back to the chair. Perhaps that was enough, the best, like a moment of
amusement you share with a stranger and never forget. Perhaps by the
time she was able to tell him he would be disappointed. No. It was too
perfect. Just the sort of thing that amused him.

He had one long sitting after another, the time given to one patient
overlapping the appointment with the next so that her clearings and
cleansings were done with a patient in the chair, noiselessly and
slowly, keeping her in the room, making to-day seem like a continuation
of yesterday afternoon. Yesterday shed its radiance. The shared mirth
made a glowing background to her toil. The duties accumulating
downstairs made her continued presence in the surgery a sort of truancy.
She felt more strongly than ever the sense of her usefulness to him. She
had never so far helped him so deftly and easily, being everywhere and
nowhere, foreseeing his needs without impeding his movements, doing
everything without reminding the patient that there was a third person
in the room. She followed sympathetically the long slow processes of
excavation and root treatment, the delicate shaping and undercutting of
the walls of cavities, the adjustment and retention of the many
appliances for the exclusion of moisture, the insertions of the amalgams
and pastes whose pounding and mixing made a recurrent crisis in her
morning. She wished again and again that the dentally ignorant dentally
ironic world could see the operator at his best; in his moments of quiet
intense concentration on giving his best to his patients.


                                   2

The patients suffering the four long sittings were all of the best
group, leisurely and untroubled as to the mounting up of guineas and
three of them intelligently appreciative of what was being done. _They_
knew all about the "status" of modern dentistry and the importance of
teeth. They were all clear serene tranquil cheerful people who probably
hardly ever went to a doctor. They would rate oculists and dentists on a
level with doctors and two of them at least would rate Mr. Hancock on a
level with anybody.... Tomorrow would be quite different, a rush of gas
cases, that man who was sick if an instrument touched the back of his
tongue; Mrs. Wolff, disputing fees, the deaf-mute, the grubby little man
on a newspaper ... he ought to have no patients but these intelligent
ones and really nervous and delicate people and children.


                                   3

"I sometimes wish I'd stuck to medicine."

"Why?"

"Well--I don't know. You know they get a good deal more all round out of
their profession than a dentist does. It absorbs them more.... I don't
say it ought not to be the same with dentistry. But it isn't. I don't
know a dentist who wants to go on talking shop until the small hours.
I'm quite sure _I_ don't. Now look at Randle. He was dining here last
night. So was Bentley. We separated at about midnight; and Randle told
me this morning that he and Bentley walked up and down Harley Street
telling each other stories, until two o'clock."

"That simply means they talk about their patients."

"Well--yes. They discuss their cases from every point of view. They get
more human interest out of their work."

"Of course everybody knows that medical students and doctors are famous
for stories. But it doesn't really mean they know anything about
_people_. I don't believe they do. I think the dentist has quite as much
opportunity of studying human nature. Going through dentistry is like
dying. You must know almost everything about a patient who has had much
done, or even a little----"

"The fact of the matter is their profession is a hobby to them as well
as a profession. That's the truth of the matter. Now I think a man who
can make a hobby of his profession is a very fortunate man."


                                   4

How surprised the four friendly wealthy patients, especially the
white-haired old aristocrat who was always pressing invitations upon him
would have been, ignoring or treating her with the kindly consideration
due to people of her station, if they could have seen inside his house
yesterday and beheld her ensconced in the most comfortable chair in his
drawing-room ... talking to Miss Szigmondy.


                                   5

Each time she came downstairs she sat urgently down to the most pressing
of her clerical duties and presently found her mind ranging amongst
thoughts whose beginnings she could not remember. She felt equal to
anything. Every prospect was open to her. Simple solutions to problems
that commonly went unanswered round and round in her head presented
themselves in flashes. At intervals she worked with a swiftness and ease
that astonished her, making no mistakes, devising small changes and
adjustments that would make for the smoother working of the practice,
dashing off notes to friends in easy expressive phrases that came
without thought.


                                   6

Rushing up towards lunch time in answer to the bell she found Mr.
Hancock alone. He turned from the washstand and stood carefully drying
his hands. "Are they showing up?" he murmured and seeing her, smiled his
sense of her eagerness to communicate and approached a few steps waiting
and smiling with the whole of his face exactly as he would smile when
the communication was made. There was really no need to tell. Miriam
glanced back for an incoming patient. "Miss Szig_mon_dy" she began in a
voice deep with laughter.

He laughed at once, with a little backward throw of his head just as the
patient came in. Miriam glided swiftly into her corner.


                                   7

At tea-time she found herself happily exhausted, sitting alone in the
den waiting for the sound of footsteps. For the first time the gas-stove
was unlit. The rows of asbestos balls stood white and bare. But a flood
of sunlight came through the western panes of the newly washed skylight.
The little low tea-table with its fresh uncrumpled low hanging white
cover and compact cluster of delicate china stood in full sunshine
amidst the comfortable winter shabbiness. The decorative confusion on
the walls shone richly out in the new bright light. It needed only to
have all the skylights open the blue of the sky visible, the thin spring
air coming in, the fire alight making a summery glow, to be perfect;
like spring tea-time in a newly visited house. The Wilsons' sitting-room
would be in an open blaze of shallow spring sunshine. She saw it going
on day by day towards the rich light of summer ... jealously. One ought
to be there every day. So much life would have passed through the room.
Every day last week had been full of it, everything changed by it, and
now, since yesterday it seemed months ago. It seemed too late to begin
going down again. One thing blots out another. You cannot have more than
one thing intensely. Quite soon it would be as if she had never been
down; except in moments now and again, when something recalled the
challenge of their point of view. They would not want her to go down
again unless she had begun to be different. Until yesterday she might
have begun. But yesterday afternoon they had been forgotten so
completely, and waking up from yesterday she no longer wanted to begin
their way of being different. But other people had already begun to
identify her with them. That came of talking. If she had said nothing,
nothing would have been changed; either at Wimpole Street or with the
girls. Did they really like reading "The Evolution of the Idea of God"
or were they only pretending? Sewing all the time, busily, like wives,
instead of smoking and listening and thinking.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Which was the stronger? The interest of getting the whole picture there,
and struggling with Mr. Wilson's deductions or the interest of getting
the girls to grasp and admire his conclusions even while she herself
refused them....

"Why can't I keep quiet about the things that happen? It's all me, my
conceit and my way of rushing into things." ... But other people were
the same in a way. Only there was something real in their way. They
believed in the things they rushed into. "Miss Henderson knows the great
critic, intimately." He had thought that would impress Miss Szigmondy.
It did. For a moment she had stopped talking and looked surprised. There
was time to disclaim, to tell them they were being impressed in the
wrong way; to tell them something, to explain in some way. The moment
had passed, full of terrible far-off trouble, "decisive."

                   *       *       *       *       *

There is always a fraction of a second when you know what you are doing.
Miss Szigmondy would have gone on talking about bicycling until Mr.
Hancock came back. There was no need to say suddenly, without thinking
about it "I am dying to learn." _Really_ that sudden remark was the
result of having failed to speak when they were all talking about Mr.
Wilson. If, then, one had suddenly said "I am dying to learn bicycling"
or _anything_ they would have known something of the truth about Mr.
Wilson. It was the worrying thought of him, still there, that made one
say, without thinking, "I am dying to learn." It was too late. It linked
up with the silence about Mr. Wilson and left one being a person who
knew and altogether approved of Mr. Wilson and wanted to learn
bicycling. Altogether wrong. "You know--I don't approve of Mr. Wilson;
and you might not if you heard him talk, and ... his marriage ... you
know...."

... If I had done that, I should have been easy and strong and could
have 'made conversation' when she began talking about bicycling. I was
like the man who proposed to the girl at the dance because he could not
think of anything to say to her. He could not think of anything to say
because he had something on his mind....

And Miss Szigmondy would not have called this morning.

                   *       *       *       *       *

"_No_ one can pgonounce my name. You had better call me Thégèse my dear
girl. Yes, do; I want you to." She had said that with a worried face, a
sudden manner of unsmiling intimacy. She certainly had some plan.
Standing there with her broken hearted voice and her anxious face she
seemed to be separate from the room, even from her own clothes. Yet
something within her was moving so quickly that it made one breathless.
She was so intent that she was unconscious of the appealing little
figure she made huddled in her English clothes. She stood dressed and
determined and prosperous her smart little toque held closely against
her dark hair and sallow face with the kind of chenille-spotted veil
that was a rampart against _everything_ in the world to an Englishwoman.
But it did not touch her or do anything for her. It gave an effect of
prison bars behind which she was hanging her head and weeping and
appealing. One could have laughed and gathered her up. Why was she
forlorn? Why did she imagine that one was also forlorn? The sight of her
made all the forlornness one had ever seen or read about seem peopled
with knowledge and sympathy and warm thoughts that flew crowding along
one's brain as close and bright as the texture of everybody's everyday.
But the eyes were anxious and preoccupied, blinking now and then in her
long unswerving appealing gaze, shutting swiftly for lightning
calculations between her rapid appealing statements. What was she trying
to do?

                   *       *       *       *       *

She tried to stand in front of everything, to put everything aside as if
it were part of something she knew. Laughing over it with Mr. Hancock
would not dispose of that. After the fun of telling him, she would still
be there, with the two bicycle lessons that were going begging. He knew
already that she had been and would assume that she had suggested things
and that one was not going to do them. If one told him about the lessons
he would say that is very kind and would mean it. He was always fine in
thinking a "kind" action kind ... but she does not come because she
wants me. She does not want anybody. She does not know the difference
between one person and another.... He knows only her social manner. She
has never been alone with him and come close and shown him her
determination and her sorrow ... sorrow ... sorrow....

He could never see that it was impossible without forcibly crushing her,
to get out of doing some part of what she desired....

If one were drawn in and did things, let oneself want to do things for
anyone else, there would be a change in the atmosphere at Wimpole
Street. That never occurred to him. But he would feel it if it happened.
If there were someone near who made distractions there would be a
difference, something that was not given to him. He was so unaware of
this. He was absolutely ignorant of what it was that kept things going
as they were.




                               CHAPTER IX


                                   1

The cycling school was out of sight and done with and Miriam hurried
down the Chalk Farm Road. If only she could see an omnibus and be in it
going anywhere down away from the north. Miss Szigmondy had brought
shame and misery upon her, in Chalk Farm. There was nothing there to
keep off the pain. Once back she would never think of Chalk Farm again.
How could anyone think it was a place, like other places? It was torture
even to be in it, going through it.... Of course the man had thought I
should take on a course of lessons and pay for them. I have to learn
everything meanly and shamefully. He thinks I'm getting all I can for
nothing. The people in the bus will see me pay my fare and I shall be
all right again, going down there. What an _awful_ road, going on and on
with nothing in it. I am shamed and helpless; _helpless_. It's no use to
try and do anything. It always exposes me and brings this maddening
shame and pain. It's over again this time and I shall soon forget it
altogether. I might just as well begin to stop thinking about it now.
It's this part of London. It's like Banbury Park. The people are
absolutely awful. They take cycling lessons quite coolly. They are not
afraid of anybody. To them this part is the best bit of North London.
They are that sort of people. They are all alike. All of them would
dislike me. I should die of being with them.

Why is it that no one seems to know what north London is? They say it is
healthy and open. Perhaps I shall meet someone who feels like I do about
it and would get ill and die there. It is not imagination. It is a real
feeling that comes upon me....

The north London omnibus reached the tide of the Euston Road and pulled
up at Portland Road station. Miriam got out weak and ill. The first
breath of the central air revived her. Standing there, the omnibus
looked like any other omnibus. She crossed the road, averting her eyes
from the north-going roads on either side of the church and got into the
inmost corner of another bus. She wanted to ride about, getting from bus
to bus, inside London until her misery had passed. Opposite her was a
stout woman in a rusty bonnet and shawl and dust-defaced black skirt,
looking about with eyes that did not see what they looked at, all the
London consciousness in her. Miriam sat gazing at her. The woman's eyes
crossed her and passed unperturbed....

The lane of little shops flowed away, their huddled detail crushing
together, wide shop windows glittered steadily by and narrowed away.
When the bus stopped at Gower Street the spire of St. Pancras church
came into sight spindling majestically up, screened by trees.

The trees in Endsleigh Gardens came along gently waving their budding
branches in bright sunshine. The colour of the gardens was so intense
that the sun must just be going to set behind Euston Station. The large
houses moved steadily behind the gardens in blocks, bright white, with
large quiet streets opening their vistas in between the blocks, leading
to green freshness and then safely on down into Soho. The long square
came to an end. The shrub-trimmed base of St. Pancras church came
heavily nearer and stopped. As Miriam got out of the bus she watched its
great body rise in clear sharp outline against the blue. Its clock was
booming the hour out across the gardens through the houses and down into
the squares. On this side its sound was broken up by the narrow roar of
the Euston Road and the clamour coming right and left from the two great
stations.

Her feet tramped happily across the square of polished roadway patterned
with shadows and along the quiet clean sunlit pavement behind the
gardens. It was always bright and clean and quiet and happy there, like
the pavement of a road behind a sea-front. The sound of a mail van
rattling heavily along Woburn Place changed to a soft rumble as she
turned in between the great houses of Tansley Street and walked along
its silent corridor of afternoon light. Sparrows were cheeping in the
stillness. To be able to go down the quiet street and on into the
squares--on a bicycle.... I must learn somehow to get my balance. To go
along, like in that moment when he took his hands off the handle-bars,
in knickers and a short skirt and all the summer to come.... Everything
shone with a greater intensity. Friends and thought and work were
nothing compared to being able to ride alone, balanced, going along
through the air.

On the hall table was a post-card. "Come round on Sunday if you're in
town--Irlandisches Ragout. Mag." Her heart stirred; that settled it--the
girls wanted her; Mag wanted her. She took Alma's crumpled letter from
her pocket and glanced through it once more ... "such a dull Sunday and
all your fault. Why did you not come? Come on Saturday _any_ time or
Sunday morning if you can't manage the week-end?" What a good thing she
had not written promising to go. She would be in London, safe in Kennett
Street for Sunday. Mag was quite right; going away unsettled you for the
week and you did not _get_ Sunday. She looked at her watch, five-thirty;
in half an hour the girls would probably be at Slater's; the London
week-end could begin this minute; all the people who half-expected her,
the Brooms, the Pernes, Sarah and Harriett, the Wilsons, would be in
their homes far away; she safe in Bloomsbury, in the big house the big
kind streets, Kennett Street; places they none of them knew; safe for
the whole length of the week-end. Saturday had looked so obstructed,
with the cycling lesson, and the visit to Miss Szigmondy and the many
alternatives for the rest of the time.... "Oh I've got about _fifty_
engagements for Saturday" and now Saturday was clear and she felt equal
to anything for the week-end. What a discovery, standing hidden, there
in the London house, to drop everything and go down, with all the
discarded engagements, all the solicitous protecting friends put aside;
easy and alone through the glimmering green squares to the end of the
Strand and find Slater's.... I'll never stir out of London again. The
girls are right. It isn't worth it.


                                   2

She saw the girls seated at a table at the far end of the big restaurant
and shyly advanced.

"Hulloh child!"

"What you having?" she asked sitting down opposite to them. The empty
white table-cloth shone under a brilliant incandescent light; far away
down the vista the door opened on the daylit street.

"Isn't it a glorious Spring evening?" Spring? It was, of course.
Everyone had been saying the spring would never come, but to-day it was
very warm. Spring was here of course. Perspiring in a dusty cycling
school and sitting in a hot restaurant was not spring. Spring was
somewhere far away. Going to stay and talk in people's houses did not
bring Spring--landscapes belonging to people were _painted_; you must be
alone ... or perhaps at the Brooms. Perhaps next week-end at the Brooms
would be in time for the spring; in their back garden, the watered green
lawn and the sweetbriar and the distant trees in the large garden beyond
the fence. In London it was better not to think about the times of year.

But Mag seemed to find Spring in London. Her face was all glowing with
the sense of it.

"What you having?"

"Have you observed with what a remarkable brilliance the tender green
shines out against the soot-black branches?" Yes, that was wonderful but
what was the joke?

"Every spring I have spent in Lonndonn I have heard that remark at least
fifty times."

Miriam laughed politely. "Jan, _what_ have you ordered?"

"We've ordered beef my child, cold beefs and salads."

"Do you think I should like salad?"

"If you _had_ a brother would he like salad?"

"Do they put dressing on it? If I could have just plain lettuce."

"Ask for it my child, ask and it shall be given unto thee."

A waitress brought the beef and salad, two glasses with an inch of
whisky in each, and a large syphon.

Miriam ordered beef and potatoes.

"I suppose the steak and onion days are over."

"I shan't have another steak and onions, please God, until next
November."

Miriam laughed delightedly.

"Why haven't you gone away for the week-end, child?"

"I told you she wouldn't."

"I don't know. I wanted to come down here."

"Is that a compliment to us?"

"I say, I've had a bicycle lesson."

Both faces came up eagerly.

"You remember; that extraordinary woman I met at the Royal Institution."

The faces looked at each other.

"Oh you know; I _told_ you about it--the two lessons she didn't want."

"Go on my child; we remember; go on."

Miriam sat eating her beef.

"Go on Miriam. You've really had a lesson. I'm delighted my child. Tell
us all about it."

"D'you remember the extraordinary moment when you felt the machine going
along; even with the man holding the handle-bars?"

"You wait until there's nobody to hold the handlebars."

"Have you been out alone yet?"

The two faces looked at each other.

"Shall we tell her?"

"You _must_ tell me; es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath." They leaned across
the table and spoke low one after the other. "We went out--last
night--after dark--and rode--round Russell Square--twice--in our
knickers----"

"_No._ Did you really? How simply heavenly."

"It _was_. We came home nearly crying with rage at not being able to go
about, permanently, in nothing but knickers. It would make life an
_absolutely_ different thing."

"The freedom of movement."

"Exactly. You feel like a sprite you are so light."

"And like a poet though you don't know it."

"You feel like a sprite you are so light, and you feel so strong and
capable and so broadshouldered you could knock down a policeman. Jan and
I knocked down several last night."

"Yes; and it is not only that; think of never having to brush your
skirt."

"I know. It would be bliss."

"I spend half my life brushing my skirt. If I miss a day I notice it--if
I miss two days the office notices it. If I miss three days the public
notices it."

"La vie est dure; pour les femmes."

"You don't want to be a man Jan."

"Oh I do, sometimes. They have the best of everything all round."

"_I_ don't. I wouldn't be a man for anything. I wouldn't have a
man's--_consciousness_, for anything."

"Why not asthore?"

"They're too absolutely pig-headed and silly...."

"_Isn't_ she intolerant?"

Miriam sat flaring. That was not the right answer. There was something;
and they must know it; but they would not admit it.

"Then you can both really ride?"

"We do nothing else; we've given up walking; we no longer walk up and
downstairs; we ride."

Miriam laughed her delight. "I can quite understand; it alters
everything. I realised that this afternoon at the school. To be able to
bicycle would make life utterly different; on a bicycle you feel a
different person; nothing can come near you, you forget who you are.
Aren't you glad you are alive to-day, when all these things are
happening?"

"What things little one?"

"Well cycling and things. You know girls when I'm thirty I'm going to
cut my hair short and wear divided skirts."

Both faces came up.

"Why on earth?"

"I can't face doing my hair and brushing skirts and keeping more or less
in the fashion, that means about two years behind because I never
realise fashions till they're just going, even if I could afford
to,--all my life."

"Then why not do it now?"

"Because all my friends and relatives would object. It would worry them
too--they would feel quite sure then I should never marry--and they
still entertain hopes, secretly."

"Don't you want to marry--ever; ever?"

"Well--it would mean giving up this life."

"Yes, I know. I agree there. That can't be faced."

"I should think _not_. Aren't you going to have any pudding?"

"But why thirty? Why not thirty-one?"

"Because nobody cares what you do when you're thirty; they've all given
up hope by that time. Aren't you two going to have any pudding?"

"No. But that is no reason why you should not."

"What a good idea--to have just one dish and coffee."

"That's what we think; and it's cheap."

"Well, I couldn't have had any dinner at all only I'm cadging dinner
with you to-morrow."

"What would you have done?"

"An egg, at an A.B.C."

"How fond you are of A.B.C's."

"I love them."

"What is it that you love about them."

"Chiefly I think their dowdiness. The food is honest; not showy, and
they are so blissfully dowdy."

Both girls laughed.

"It's no good. I have come to the conclusion I like dowdiness. I'm not
smart. You are."

"This is the first we have heard of it."

"Well you know you are. You keep in the fashion. It may be quite right,
perhaps you are more sociable than I am."

"One is so conspicuous if one is not dressed more or less like other
people."

"That's what I hate; dressing like other people. If I could afford it I
should be stylish--not smart. Perfect coats and skirts and a few good
evening dresses. But you must be awfully well off for that. If I can't
be stylish I'd rather be dowdy and in a way I like dowdiness even better
than stylishness."

The girls laughed.

"But aren't clothes awful, anyhow? I've spent four and eleven on my
knickers and I can't possibly get a skirt till next year if then, or
afford to hire a machine."

"Why don't you ask them to raise your salary?"

"After four months? Besides any fool could do the work."

"If I were you I should tell them. I should say 'Gentlemen--I wish for a
skirt and a bicycle.'"

"Mag, don't be so silly."

"I _can't_ see it. _They_ would benefit by your improved health and
spirits. Jan and I are new women since we have learned riding. _I_ am
thinking of telling the governor I must have a rise to meet the
increased demands of my appetite. Our housekeeping expenses I shall say
are doubled. What _will_ you? Que faire?"

"You see the work I'm doing is not worth more than a pound a week--my
languages are no good there. I suppose I ought to learn typing and
shorthand; but where could I find the money for the training?"

"Will you teach her shorthand if I teach her typing?"

"Certainly if the child wants to learn. I don't advise her."

"Why not Jan. _You_ did. How long would it take me in evenings?"

"A year at least, to be marketable. It's a vile thing to learn, unless
you are thoroughly stupid."

"That's true. Jan was a perfect fool. The more intelligent you are the
longer you take."

"You see it isn't a language. It is an arbitrary system of signs."

"With your intelligence you'd probably grow grey at the school. Wouldn't
she, Jan?"

"Probably."

"Besides I can't imagine Mistress Miriam in an office."

"Nobody would have me. I'm not business-like enough. I am learning
book-keeping at their expense. And don't forget they give me lunch and
tea. I say are we going to read 'The Evolution Idea of God' to-night?"

"Yes. Let's get back and get our clothes off. If I don't have a
cigarette within half an hour I shall die."

"Oh, so shall I. I had forgotten the existence of cigarettes."

Out in the street Miriam felt embarrassed. The sunset glow broke through
wherever there was a gap towards the north-west, and flooded a strip of
the street and struck a building. The presence of the girls added a
sharpness to its beauty, especially the presence of Mag who felt the
spring even in London. But both of them seemed entirely oblivious. They
marched along at a great rate, very upright and swift--like
grenadiers--why grenadiers? Like grenadiers, making her hurry in a way
that increased the discomfort of her hard cheap down-at-heel shoes.
Their high-heeled shoes were in perfect condition and they went on and
on laughing and jesting as if there were no spring evening all round
them. She wanted to stroll, and stop at every turn of the road. She grew
to dislike them both long before Kennett Street was reached, their brisk
gait as they walked together in step, leaving her to manoeuvre the
passing of pedestrians on the narrow pavements of the side streets, the
self-confident set of their this-season's clothes, "line" clothes, like
everyone else was wearing, everyone this side of the west-end; Oxford
Street clothes ... and to long to be wandering home alone through the
leafy squares. Were people who lived together always like this, always
brisk and joking and keeping it up? They got on so well together ... and
she got on so well too with them. "No one ever feels a third" Mag had
said. I am tired, too tired. They are stronger than I am. I feel dead;
and they are perfectly fresh.

"D'you know I believe I feel too played out to read" she said at their
door.

"Then come in and smoke" said Mag taking her arm. "The night is yet
young."




                               CHAPTER X


                                   1

Miriam swung her legs from the table and brought her tilted chair to the
ground. The leads sloped down as she got to her feet and the strip of
sky disappeared. The sunlight made a broad strip of gold along the
parapet and a dazzling plaque upon the slope of the leads. She lounged
into the shadowy middle of the room and stood feeling tall and steady
and easy and agile in the freedom of knickers. The clothes lying on the
bed were transformed. "I say" she murmured. Her cigarette end wobbling
encouragingly from the corner of her lips as she spoke, "they're not
bad." She strolled about the room glancing at them from different points
of view. They really made quite a good whole. It was the lilac that made
them a good whole, the fresh heavy blunt cones of pure colour. In the
distance the bunched ribbon looked almost all green. She drew the hat
nearer to the light and the ribbon became mauve with green shadows and
green with mauve shadows as it moved. The girl had been right about
bunching the ribbon a little way up the sugar-loaf and over the wide
brim. It broke the papery stiffness of the lilac and the harshness of
the black straw. The straw looked very harsh and black in the clearer
light. Out of doors it would look almost as if it had been done with
that awful shiny hat polish. If the straw had been dull and silky and
some shaded tone of mauve and green it would have been one of those hats
that give you a sort of madness, taking your eyes in and in, with the
effect of a misty distant woodland brought near and moving, depths of
interwoven colour under your eyes. But it would not have gone with the
black and white check. The black part of the hat was right for the tiny
check. That is the idea of some smart woman.... I did not think of it in
the shop, but I got it right somehow, I can see now. It's right. Those
might be someone else's things.... The sight of the black suède gloves
and the lace-edged handkerchief and the powder box laid out on the chest
of drawers made her eager to begin. This was dressing. The way to feel
you were dressing was to put everything out first and come back as
another person and make a grand toilet. It makes you feel free and
leisurely. There had been the long strange morning. In half an hour the
adventure would begin and go on and be over. The room would not be in
it. Something nice or horrible would come back. But the room would not
be changed.


                                   2

She found the dark green Atlas 'bus standing ready by the curb and
waited until it was just about to start, looking impatiently up and down
the long vistas of the empty Sunday street, and then jumped hurriedly in
with the polite half-irritated resignation of the man about town who
finds himself stranded in a godforsaken part of London, and steered
herself carefully against the swaying of the vehicle along between the
rows of seated forms, keeping her eyes carefully averted and fixed upon
distant splendours. Securing an empty corner she sat down provisionally,
on the edge of the seat, occupying the least possible space, clear of
her neighbour, her eyes turned inwards on splendours still raking the
street, her person ready to leap up at the sight of a crawling
hansom--telling herself in a drawl that she felt must somehow be audible
to an observant listener how damnable it was that there were not hansoms
in these remarkable backwoods--so damned inconvenient when your own
barrow is laid up at Windover's. But a hansom might possibly appear....
She turned to the little corner window at her side and gazed with fierce
abstraction down the on-coming street. Presently she would really be in
a hansom. Miss Szigmondy had mentioned hansoms ... supposing she should
have to pay her share? Her heart beat rapidly and her face flushed as
she thought of the fourpence in her purse. She would not be able even to
offer. But if Miss Szigmondy were alone she would take cabs. There would
be no need to mention it. The ambling trit-trot of the vehicle gradually
prevailed over the mood in which she had dressed. She was becoming aware
of her companions. Presently she would be taking them all in and getting
into a world that had nothing to do with her afternoon. Turning aside so
that her face could not be seen and her own vision might be restricted
to the roadway rolling slowly upon her through the little end window she
dreamed of contriving somehow or other to save money for hansoms.
Hansoms were a necessary part of the worldly life. Floating about in a
hansom in the west-end, in the season was like nothing else in the
world. It changed you, your feelings, manner, bearing, everything. It
made you part of a wonderful exclusive difficult triumphant life, a
streak of it, going in and out. It cut you off from all personal
difficulties, made you drop your personality and lifted you right out
into the freedom of a throng of happy people, a great sunlit tide
singing, all the same laughing song, wave after wave, advancing, in open
sunlight. It took you on to a great stage, lit and decked, where you
were lost, everything was lost and forgotten in the masque. Nothing
personal could matter so long as you were there and kept there, day and
night. Everyone was invisible and visionless, united in the spectacle,
gilding and hiding the underworld in a brilliant embroidery ...
continuously.

As they rumbled up Baker Street, she wondered impatiently why Miss
Szigmondy had not appointed a meeting place in the West end. Baker
Street began all right; one felt safe going up Orchard Street, past the
beautiful china shop and the Romish richness of Burns and Oates, seeing
the sequestered worldliness of Granville Place and rolling through
Portman Square with its enormous grey houses masking hidden wealth; but
after that it became a dismal corridor retreating towards the full chill
of the north. If they had met in Piccadilly they could have driven
straight down through heaven into Chelsea. Perhaps it would not be
heaven with Miss Szigmondy. She would not know the difference in the
feeling of the different parts of London. She would drive along like a
foreigner--or a member of a provincial antiquarian society,
"intelligently" noticing things, knowing about the buildings and the
statues. Londoners were always twitted with not knowing about London ...
the reason why they jested about it, half proudly, was their
consciousness of being Londoners, living in London, going about happy,
the minute they were outside their houses, looking at nothing and
feeling everything, like people wandering happily from room to room in a
well known house at some time when everybody's attention was turned away
by a festival or a catastrophe.... London was like a prairie. In a
hansom it would be heaven, with anybody. A hansom saved you from your
companion more than any other vehicle. You were as much outside it in
London as you were inside with your companion, if you were anywhere
south of Marylebone ... the way the open hood framed the vista....


                                   3

There was a hansom waiting outside Miss Szigmondy's garden gate. The
afternoon would begin at once with a swift drive back into the world.
Miss Szigmondy met her in the dark hall, with an outbreak of bright
guttural talk, talking as she collected her things, breaking in with
shouted instructions to an invisible servant. Her voice sounded very
foreign in the excited upper notes, but it rang, a thin wiry ring, not
shrieking and breaking like the voices of excited Englishwomen, perhaps
that was "voice production."

In the cab she sat sorting her cards, reading out names. Miriam thrilled
as she heard them. Miss Szigmondy's attention was no longer on her. Her
mind slipped easily back; the intervening time fell away. She was going
with her sisters along past the Burlington Arcade, she saw the pillar
box, the old man selling papers, the old woman with the crooked black
sailor hat and the fringed shawl, sitting on a box behind her huge
basket of tulips and daffodils ... the great grimed stone pillars, the
court yard beyond them blazing with sunshine, the wide stone steps at
the far end of the court yard leading up into cool shadow, the turnstile
and great hall, an archway, and the sudden fresh blaze of colours....

                   *       *       *       *       *

But the hansom had turned into the main road and was going _north_. They
were going even further north than Miss Szigmondy's ... up a straight
empty Sunday suburban road between rows of suburban houses with gardens
that tried to look pretty ... an open silly prettiness like suburban
ladies coming up to town for matinées ... if there were artists living
up here it would not be worth while to go and see them....


                                   4

As the afternoon wore on it dawned upon Miriam that if Miss Szigmondy
were to be at the poet's house in evening dress by half past six, they
had seen nearly all they were going to see. There could be no thought of
Chelsea. But she answered with a swift negative when Miss Szigmondy
enquired as they were shown into their hansom outside their eighth large
Hampstead house whether she were tired. Her unsatisfied consciousness
ran ahead, waiting; just beyond, round the next corner was something
that would relieve the oppression. "I just want to rgun in and see that
poor boy Gilbert Haze." Then it was over and she must go on enduring
whilst Miss Szigmondy paid a call; unable to get free because she was
being paid for and could not afford to go back alone. They drove for
some distance, the large houses disappeared, they were in amongst little
drab roadways like those round about Mornington Road. Perhaps if she
improvised an engagement she could find her way to Regent's Park and get
back. But they had come so far. They must be on the outskirts of N.W.,
perhaps even in N. They pulled up before a small drab villa. The sun had
gone behind the clouds, the short street was desolate. No touch of life
or colour anywhere, hardly a sign of spring in the small parched
shrub-filled front gardens, uniformly enclosed by dusty railings. She
dreaded her wait alone in the cab with her finery and her empty
afternoon while Miss Szigmondy visited her sick friend.

"Come along," said Miss Szigmondy from the little garden path "poor
cgeature you _do_ look tired." Miriam got angrily out of the cab. Whose
fault was it that she was tired? Why did Miss Szigmondy go to these
things? She had not cared and was not disappointed at not caring. She
was just the same as when she had started out.

"I will wait in the garden" she said hurriedly as the door opened on the
house of sickness. A short young man with untidy dark hair and a shabby
suit stood in the doorway. His brilliant dark eyes smiled sharply at
Miss Szigmondy and shot beyond her towards Miriam as he stood aside
holding the door wide. "Come along" shouted Miss Szigmondy disappearing.
Miriam came reluctantly forward and got herself through the door,
reaping the second curious sharp smile as she passed. The young man had
an extraordinary face, cheerful and grimy, like a street arab; he was
rather like a street arab. Miss Szigmondy was talking loudly from a
little room to the right of the door. Miriam's embarrassment in the
impossibility of explaining her own superfluous presence was not
relieved when she entered the room. The young man was clearly not
prepared. It was a most unwarrantable intrusion. She stood at a loss
behind Miss Szigmondy who was planted, still eagerly talking, on the
small clear space of bare boards--cracked and dusty, like a
warehouse--in the middle of the room and tried not to see anything in
particular; but her eyes already had the sense that there was nothing to
sit upon, no corner to retire into, nothing but an extraordinary
confusion of shabby dust-covered things laid bare by the sunlight that
poured through the uncurtained window. Her eyes took refuge in the face
of the young man confronting Miss Szigmondy, making replies to her
volley of questions. He had no front teeth, nothing but blackened
stumps; dreadful, one ought not to look, unless he were going to be
helped. Perhaps Miss Szigmondy was going to help him. But he did not
look ill. His bright glancing eyes shot about as if looking at something
that was not there and he answered Miss Szigmondy's sallies with a sort
of cheerful convulsion of his whole frame. He seemed to be "on wires";
but not weak; strong and cheerful; happy; a kind of cheerfulness and
happiness she had never met before. It was quiet. It came from him
soundlessly making within his pleasant voice a gay noise that conquered
the strange embarrassing room. Presently in answer to a demand from Miss
Szigmondy he opened folding doors and ushered them into an adjoining
room.


                                   5

Miriam stood holding the little group in her hands longing for words.
She could only smile and smile. The young man stood by looking at it and
smiling, too, giving his attention to Miss Szigmondy's questions about
some larger white things standing in the bare room. When he moved away
towards these and she could leave off wondering whether it would do to
say "and is this really going to the Academy next week" instead of again
repeating "how beautiful," and her eye could run undisturbed over and
over the outlines of the two horses, impressions crowded upon her. The
thing moved and changed as she looked at it; it seemed as if it must
break away, burst out of her hands into the surrounding atmosphere.
Everything about took on a happy familiarity, as if she had long been in
the bright bare plaster-filled little room. From the edges of the small
white group a radiance spread freshening the air, flowing out into the
happy world, flowing back over the afternoon, bringing parts of it to
stand out like great fresh bright Academy pictures. The great studios
opening out within the large garden-draped Hampstead houses rich and
bright with colour in a golden light, their fur rugs and tea services on
silver trays, and velvet coated men, wives with trailing dresses and the
people standing about, at once conspicuous and lost, were like Academy
pictures. It was all real now, the pictures on the great easels, scraps
of the Academy blaze; the studio with the bright light, and marble, and
bright clear tiger skins on the floor, the big clean fresh tiger almost
filling the canvas ... the dark studio with antique furniture and
pictures of people standing about in historical clothes....


                                   6

"Goodness gracious, _isn't_ she a swell!"

"Are they all right?"

"Are you a millionaire my dear? Have they raised your salary?"

"Do you really like them?"

"Yes. I've never seen you look so nice. You ought always to go about in
a large black hat trimmed with lilac."

"Didn't one of the artists want to paint your portrait."

"They all did. I've promised at least twenty sittings."

"Come nearer to the lamp fair child that I may be even more dazzled by
thy splendour."

"I'm awfully glad you like them--they'll have to go on for ever."

"Where on earth did you find the money child?"

"Borrowed it from Harry. It was her idea. You see I shall get four
pounds for my four weeks' holiday; and if I go to stay with them it
won't cost me anything; so she advanced me two pounds."

"And you got all this for two pounds?"

"Practically; the hat was ten and six and the other things twenty seven
and six and the gloves half a crown."

"Where did you get them?"

"Edgware Road."

"And just put them on?"

"It is really remarkable. Do you realise how lucky you are in being a
stock size?"

"I suppose I am. But you know the awful thing about it is that they will
never come in for Wimpole Street."

"Why on earth not? What could be more ladylike, more--simple, more
altogether suitable?"

"You see I have to wear black there."

"What an extraordinary idea. _Why?_"

"Well they asked me to. I don't know. I believe it's the fault of my
predecessor. They told me she _rustled_ and wore all kinds of
dresses----"

"I see--a series of explosions."

"On silk foundations."

"But why should they assume that you would do the same?"

"I don't know. It's an awful nuisance. You can't get black blouses that
will wash; it will be awful in the summer; besides it's so unbecoming."

"There I can't agree. It would be for me. It makes me look dingy; but it
suits you, throws up your rose-leaf complexion and your golden hair. But
I call it jolly hard lines. I'd like to see the governor dictating to me
what I should wear."

"It's so expensive if one can't wear out one's best things."

"It's intolerable. Why do you stand it?"

"What can I do?"

"Tell them you must either wear _scarlet_ at the office or have a higher
_screw_."

"It isn't an office you see. I have to be so much in the surgeries and
interviewing people in the waiting-room, you know."

"Yes--from dukes to dustmen. But would either the dukes or the dustmen
disapprove of scarlet."

"One has to be a discreet nobody. It's the professional world; you don't
understand; you are equals, you two, superiors, pampered countesses in
your offices."

"Well I think it's a beastly shame. I should brandish a pair of forceps
at Mr. Hancock and say 'scarlet--or I leave.'"

"Where should I go? I have no qualifications."

"You wouldn't leave. They would say 'Miss Henderson wear purple and
yellow, only stay.' I think it's a reflection on her taste, don't you
Jan?"

"Certainly it is. It is fiendish. But employers _are_ fiends--to women."

"I haven't found that soh."

"Ah you keep yours in order, you rule them with a rod of iron."

"I do. I believe in it."

"I envy you your late hours in the morning."

"Ah-ha--she's had a row about that."

"_Have_ you Mag?"

"Not a row; simply a discussion."

"What happened?"

"Simply this. The governor begged me--almost in tears--to come down
earlier--for the sake of the discipline of the office."

"What did you say?"

"I said Herr _Epstein_; what can I do? How do you suppose I can get up,
have breakfast and be down here before eleven?"

"What did he say?"

"He protested and implored and offered to pay cabs for me."

"Good Lord Mag, you are extraordinary."

"I am not extraordinary and it is no concern of the Deity's. I fail to
see why I should get to the office earlier than I do. I don't get my
letters before half-past eleven. I am fresh and gay and rested, I get
through my work before closing-time. I work like anything whilst I am
there."

"And you still go down at eleven?"

"I still go down at eleven."

"I _do_ envy you. You see my people always want me most first thing in
the morning. It's awful, if one has been up very late."

"And what is our life worth without late hours? The evening is the only
life we have."

"Exactly. And they are the same really. They do their work to be free of
it and live."

"Precisely; but they are waited on. They have their houses and baths and
servants and meals and comforts. We get up in cold rooms untended and
tired. _They_ ought to be first at the office and wait upon us."

"She is a queen in her office; waited upon hand and foot."

"Well--why not? I do them the honour of bringing my bright petunia clad
feminine presence into their dingy warehouse; I expect some
acknowledgment of the honour."

"You don't allow them either to spit or swear."

"I do not; and they appreciate it."

"Mine are beasts. I defy anyone to do anything with them. I _loathe_ the
city man."

Miriam sighed. In neither of these offices she felt sure, could she hold
her own--and yet compared to her own long day--what freedom the girls
had--ten to five and eleven to six and any clothes they found it
convenient to wear. But city men ... no restrictions were too high a
price to pay for the privileges of her environment; the association with
gentlemen, her quiet room, the house, the perpetual interest of the
patients, the curious exciting streaks of social life, linking up with
the past and carrying the past forward on a more generous level. The
girls had broken with the past and were fighting in the world. She was
somehow between two worlds, neither quite sheltered, nor quite free ...
not free as long as she wanted, in spite of her reason to stay on at
Wimpole Street and please the people there. Why did she want to stay?
What future would it bring? Less than ever was there any chance of
saving for old age. She could not for ever go on being secretary to a
dentist.... She drove these thoughts away; they were only one side of
the matter; there were other things; things she could not make clear to
the girls; nor to anyone who could not see and feel the whole thing from
inside, as she saw and felt it. And even if it were not so, if the
environment of her poorly paid activities had been trying and
unsympathetic, at least it gave seclusion, her own room to work in, her
free garret and her evening and week-end freedom. But what was she going
to do with it?

"Tell us about the _show_, Miriam. Cease to gaze at Jan's relations; sit
down, light a cigarette."

"These German women fascinate me," said Miriam swinging round from the
mantelshelf; "they are so like Jan and so utterly different."

"Yes; Jan is Jan and they are Minna and Erica."

Taking a cigarette from Mag's case Miriam lit it at the lamp. Before her
eyes the summer unrolled--concerts with Miss Szigmondy, going in the
cooling day in her new clothes, with a thin blouse, from daylight into
electric light and music, taking off the zouave inside and feeling cool
at once, the electric light mixing with the daylight, the cool darkness
to walk home in alone, full of music that would last on into the next
day; Miss Szigmondy's musical at homes, evenings at Wimpole Street,
week-ends in the flowery suburbs windows and doors open, cool rooms,
gardens in the morning and evening, week-ends in the country, each
journey like the beginning of the summer holiday, week-ends in town,
Sunday afternoons at Mr. Hancock's and Miss Szigmondy's--all taking her
away from Kennett Street. All these things yielded their best reality in
this room. Glowing brightly in the distance they made this room like the
centre of a song. But a week-end taken up was a week-end missed at
Kennett Street. It meant missing Slater's on Saturday night, the week
end stretching out ahead immensely long, the long evening with the
girls, its lateness protected by the coming Sunday, waking lazily fresh
and happy and easy-minded on Sunday morning, late breakfast, the
cigarette in the sunlit window space, its wooden sides echoing with the
clamour of St. Pancras bells, the three voices in the little rooms,
irlandisches ragout, the hours of smoking and talking out and out on to
strange promontories where everything was real all the time, the faint
gradual coming of the twilight, the evening untouched by the presence of
Monday, no hurry ahead, no social performances, no leave-taking, no
railway journey.

"Yes; Jan is Londonised; she looks German; her voice suggests the whole
of Germany; these girls are Germany untouched, strong, cheerful,
musical, tree-filled Germany, without any doubts. They've got Jan's
sense of humour without her cynicism."

"Is that so, Jan?"

"Yes I think perhaps it is. They are sweet simple children." Yes
sweet--but maddening too. German women were so sure and unsuspicious and
practical about life. Jan had some of that left. But she was English
too, more transparent and thoughtful.

"The show! The show!"

She told them the story of the afternoon in a glowing précis, calling up
the splendours upon which she felt their imaginations at work,
describing it as they saw it and as with them, in retrospect, she saw it
herself. Her descriptions drew Mag's face towards her, glowing, wrapt
and reverent. Jan sat sewing with inturned eyes and half open,
half-smiling appreciative face. They both fastened upon the great
gold-framed pictures, asking for details. Presently they were making
plans to visit the Academy and foretelling her joy in seeing them again
and identifying them. She had not thought of that; certainly, it would
be delightful; and perhaps seeing the pictures in freedom and alone she
might find them wonderful.

"Why do you say their wives were all like cats?"

"They were." She called up the unhatted figures moving about among the
guests in trailing gowns,--keeping something up, pretending to be
interested, being cattishly nice to the visitors, and thinking about
other things all the time.... I can't _stand_ them, oh, I can't stand
them.... But the girls would not have seen them in that way; they would
have been interested in them and their dresses, they would have admired
the prettiness of some of them and found several of them 'charming' ...
if Mag were an artist's wife she would behave in the way those women
behaved....

"Were they all _alike_?" that was half sarcastic....

"Absolutely. They were all _cats_, simply."

"Isn't she _extraordinary_?"

"It's the cats who are extraordinary. Why do they do it girls! _Why_ do
they do it?" She flushed feeling insincere. At this moment she felt that
she knew that Mag in social life, would conform and be a cat. She had
never thought of her in social life; here in poverty and freedom she was
herself.

"Do _phwatt_ me dear?"

"Oh let them go. It makes me tired, even to think of them. The thought
of the sound of their voices absolutely wears me out."

"I'm not laaazy--I'm tie-erd--I was _born_ tie-erd."

"I say girls, I want to ask you something."

"Well?"

"Why don't you two write?"

"_Write?_"

"Write what?"

"Us?"

"Just as we are, without one"--

"Flea--I know. No. _Don't_ be silly. I'm perfectly serious. I mean it.
Why don't you write things--both of you. I thought of it this morning."

Both girls sat thoughtful. It was evident that the idea was not
altogether unfamiliar to them.

"Someone kept telling me the other day I ought to write and it suddenly
struck me that if anyone ought it's you two. Why don't you Mag?"

"Why should I? Have I not already enough on my fair young shoulders?"

"_Jan_, why don't _you_?"

"I, my dear? For a most excellent reason."

"What reason?" demanded Miriam in a shaking voice. Her heart was
beating; she felt that a personal decision was going to be affected by
Jan's reason, if she could be got to express it. Jan did not reply
instantly and she found herself hoping that nothing more would be said
about writing, that she might be free to go on cherishing the idea,
alone and unbiassed.

"I do not write" said Jan slowly, "because I am perfectly convinced that
anything I might write would be mediocre."

Miriam's heart sank. If Jan, with all her German knowledge and her wit
and experience of two countries felt this, it was probably much truer of
herself. To think about it, to dwell upon the things Mr. Wilson had said
was simply vanity. He had said _anyone_ could learn to write. But he was
clever and ready to believe her clever in the same way, and ready to
take ideas from him. It was true she had material, "stuff" as he called
it, but she would not have known it, if she had not been told. She could
see it now, as he saw it, but if she wrote at his suggestion, a borrowed
suggestion, there would be something false in it, clever and false.

"Yes--I think Jan's right," said Mag cheerfully. "That is an excellent
reason and the true one."

It was true. But how could they speak so lightly and cheerfully about
writing ... the thing one had always wanted to do, that everyone
probably secretly wanted to do, and the girls could give up the idea
without a sigh. They were right. It would be wrong to write mediocre
stuff. Why was she feeling so miserable? Of course because neither of
them had suggested that she should write. They knew her better than Mr.
Wilson and it never occurred to them that she should write. That settled
it. But something moved despairingly in the void.

"Do you think it would be _wrong_ to write mediocre stuff?" she asked
huskily.

"It would be worse than _wrong_ child--it would be foolish; it wouldn't
sell."




                               CHAPTER XI


                                   1

Everything was ready for the two o'clock patient. There was no excuse
for lingering any longer. Half past one. Why did they not come up? On
her way to the door she opened the corner cupboard and stood near the
open door hungry, listening for footsteps on the basement stairs,
dusting and ranging the neat rows of bottles. At the end of five minutes
she went guiltily down. If he had finished his lunch they would wonder
why she had lingered so long. If she had hurried down as soon as she
could no one would have known that she hoped to have lunch alone. Now
because she had waited deliberately someone would read her guilt. She
wished she were one of those people who never tried to avoid anything.
The lunch-room door opened and closed as she reached the basement
stairs. James's cheerful footsteps clacked along--neat high-heeled
shoes--towards the kitchen. She had taken something in. They were still
at lunch, unconsciously, just in the same way. No. She was glad she was
not one of those people who just went on--not avoiding things....

Mr. Hancock was only just beginning his second course. He must have
lingered in the workshop.... He was helping himself to condiments; Mr.
Orly proffered the wooden pepper mill; "oh--thank you"; he screwed it
with an air of embarrassed appreciativeness. There was a curious fresh
lively air of embarrassment in the room making a stirring warmth in its
cellar-like coolness. Miriam slipped quietly into her place hoping she
was not an interloper. At any rate everyone was too much engrossed to
ponder over her lateness. Mr. Orly was sitting with his elbows on the
table and his serviette crumpled in his hands, ready to rise from the
table, beaming mildness and waiting. Mrs. Orly sat waiting and smiling
with her elbows on the table.

"Ah," said Mr. Orly gently as Miriam sat down, "here comes the clerical
staff."

Miriam beamed and began her soup. It was James waiting to-day too, with
her singing manner; a happy day.

Mrs. Orly asked a question in her happiest voice. They were fixing a
date.... They were going ... to a _theatre_ ... together. Her astonished
mind tried to make them coalesce ... she saw them sitting in a row, two
different worlds confronted by one spectacle ... there was not a scrap
of any kind of performance that would strike them both in the same way.

"Got anything on on Friday Miss Henderson?"

The sudden question startled her. Had it been asked twice? She answered,
stammering, in amazed consciousness of what was to follow and accepted
the invitation in a flood of embarrassment. Her delight and horror and
astonishment seemed to flow all over the table. Desperately she tried to
gather in all her emotions behind an easy appreciative smile. She felt
astonishment and dismay coming out of her hair, swelling her hands,
making her clumsy with her knife and fork. Far away, beyond her grasp
was the sense she felt she ought to have, the sense of belonging;
socially. It was being offered. But something or someone was fighting
it. Always, everywhere someone or something was fighting it.

Mr. Orly had given a ghostly little chuckle. "Like dining at
restaurants?" he asked kindly and swiftly.

"I don't think I ever have."

"Then we shall have the pleasure of initiating you. Like caviare?"

"I don't even know what it is" said Miriam trying to bring gladness into
her voice.

"Oh--this is great. Caviare to the million eh?--oh, I ought not to have
put it like that, things one would rather have said otherwise--no
offence intended--none taken I hope--don't yeh know really?--Sturgeon's
roe, y'know."

"Oh, I know I don't like _roe_" said Miriam gravely.

"Chalk it up. Miss Henderson doesn't like roe."

Miriam flushed. Pressing back through her anger to what had preceded she
found inspiration.

"My education has been neglected."

"Quite so, but now's your chance. Seize your opportunity; carpe diem.
See?"

"I thought it was caviare, not carp" said Mr. Hancock quietly.

Was it a rescue, or a sacrifice to the embarrassing occasion? She had
never heard him jest with the Orlys. Mrs. Orly chuckled gleefully,
flashing out the smile that Miriam loved. It took every line from her
care-fashioned face and lit it with a most extraordinary radiance. She
had smiled like that as a girl in response to the jests of her many
brothers ... her eyes were sweet; there was a perfect sweetness in her
somewhere.

"Bravo Hancock, that's a good one.... Ye gods and fishes large and small
listen to _that_" he murmured half turning towards the door.

The clattering of boots on the stone stairs was followed by the rattling
of the loose door knob and the splitting open of the door. Mr. Leyton
shot into the room searching the party with a swift glance and taking
his place in the circle in a state of headlong silent volubility. By the
way he attacked his lunch it was clear he had a patient waiting or
imminent. It occurred to Miriam to wonder why he did not always arrange
his appointments round about lunch-time ... but any such manoeuvre would
be discovered and things would be worse than ever. Mr. Orly watched
quietly while he refused Mrs. Orly's offer to ring for soup, devouring
bread and butter until she should have carved for him,--and then
extended his invitation to his son.

"Oh, is this the annual?" asked Mr. Leyton gruffly. "What's the show?"

"My dear will you be so good as to inform Mr. Leyton of----"

"Don't be silly Ro" said Mrs. Orly trying to laugh "we're going to
Hamlet Ley."

"We have the honour of begging Mr. Leyton's company on the occasion of
our visit, dinner included, to----"

"What's the date?" rapped Mr. Leyton with his tumbler to his lips.

"The date, ascertained as suited to all present with the exception of
your lordship--oh my God, Ley" sighed Mr. Orly hiding his face in his
serviette, his huge shoulders shaking.

"What have I done now?" asked Mr. Leyton, gasping after his long drink.

"Don't be so silly Ley. You haven't answd fathez queshun."

"How can I answer till I'm told the _date_?"

"Don't be silly, you can come any evening."

"_Friday_" whispered Miriam.

"_What?_" said Mr. Orly softly, emerging from his serviette, "a traitor
in the camp?"

"Friday is it? Well, then it's pretty certain I _can't_ come."

"Don't be silly Ley--you haven't any engagements."

"_Haven't I?_ There's a sing-song at Headquarters Friday."

"Enough, my dear, enough, press him no more" said Mr. Orly rising. "Far
be it from us to compete. Going to sing Ley or to song, eh? Never mind
boy, sorry you can't come" he added, sighing gustily as he left the
room.

"You'll be able to come Ley won't you?" whispered Mrs. Orly impatiently
lingering.

"If you'd only let me know the date beforehand instead of springing it
on me."

"Don't be si'y Ley it vexes Father so. You needn't go to the si'y
sing-song."

"I don't see how I can get out of it. It's rather a big function; as an
officer I ought to be there."

"Oh never mind; you'd better come."

Mr. Orly called from the stairs.

"All right darling" she said in anxious cheerful level tones hurrying to
the door. "You _must_ come Ley, you can manage somehow."

Miriam sat feeling wretchedly about in her mind. Mr. Leyton was busily
finishing his lunch. In a moment Mr. Hancock would re-assert himself by
some irrelevant insincerity. She found courage to plunge into speech, on
the subject of her two lessons at the school. Her story strove strangely
against the echoes and fell, impeded. It was an attempt to create a
quiet diversion.... It should have been done violently ... how many
times had she seen it done, the speaker violently pushing off what had
gone before and protruding his diversion, in brisk animated deliberately
detached tones. But it was never really any good. There was always a
break and a wound, something left unhealed, something standing unlearned
... something that can only grow clear in silence....

"You'll never learn cycling like _that_" said Mr. Leyton with the
superior chuckle of the owner of a secret, as he snatched up a biscuit
and made off. She clung fearfully to his cheerful harassed departing
form. There was nothing left now in the room but the echoes. Mr. Hancock
sat munching his biscuits and cheese with a look of determined steely
preoccupation in his eyes that were not raised above the level of the
spread of disarray along the table; but she could hear the busy
circulation of his thoughts. If now she could endure for a moment. But
her mind flung hither and thither seeking with a loathed servility some
alien neutral topic. She knew anything she might say with the
consciousness of his thoughts in her mind would be resented and slain.
To get up and go quietly away with some murmured remark about her work
would be to leave him with his judgment upon him. What he wanted was to
give her an instruction about something in a detached professional voice
and get rid of her, believing that she had gone unknowing, and remaining
in his circle of reasonable thoughts. She hit out with all her force,
coming against the buttress of silent angry forehead with random speech.

"I can't believe that it's less than two months to the longest day."

"Time flies" responded Mr. Hancock grimly. She recoiled exhausted by her
effort and quailed under the pang in the midday gaslit room of
realisation of the meaning of her words. Her eye swept over the
grey-clad form and the blunted features seeking some power that would
stay the inexorable consumption of the bright passing days.

"'Tempus fugit' I suppose one ought to say" he said with a little laugh
getting up.

"Oui," said Miriam angrily, "le temps s'envole; die Zeit vergeht, in
other words."




                              CHAPTER XII


                                   1

Running upstairs to Mr. Hancock's room a quarter of an hour before his
arrival in the morning Miriam found herself wishing that she lived
altogether at Wimpole Street. They were all so kind. Life would be
simplified if she could throw in her lot with them. Coming in to
breakfast after the lesson had been a sort of home-coming. There were
pleasant noises about the house; the family shouted carelessly to each
other on the stairs, the school-boy slid down the banisters; the usual
subdued manner of the servants was modified by an air of being a
possession of the house and liking it. They rushed quietly and happily
about. The very aroma of the coffee seemed tranquilly to feed one. At
breakfast everyone was cheerful and kind. It was home. They were so
sympathetic and amused over the adventure. The meeting in the freshness
of the morning made everything easier to handle. It gave the morning a
beginning and shed its brightness over the professional hush that fell
upon the house at nine o'clock. It would make lunch-time more easy; and
at the end of the day, if asked, she would join the family party again.

While Mr. Hancock was looking through his letters she elaborately
suppressed a yawn.

"How did you get on?" he asked, with prompt amusement, his eyes on a
letter.

"Well, I couldn't get off; that was just it" murmured Miriam quietly,
enjoying her jest; how strong she felt after her good breakfast....

He turned an amused enquiring face and they both laughed.

Everything in the room was ready for the day's work. She polished the
already bright set of forceps with a luxurious sense of leisure.

"It was perfectly awful. When we got to the Inner Circle Mr. Leyton
simply put me on the bicycle and sent me off. _He_ rode round the other
way and I had to go on and on. He scorched about and kept passing me."

Mr. Hancock waited smiling for the more that stood in her struggling
excited voice.

"There were people going round on horse-back and a few other people on
bicycles."

"I expect they all gave you a pretty wide berth."

"They _did_; except one awful man, an old gentleman sailing along
looking at nothing."

"What happened?" laughed Mr. Hancock delightedly.

"It was awful, I was most fearfully rude--I shouted '_Get_ out of the
way' and I was on the wrong side of the road; but miles off, only I
_knew_ I couldn't get back I had forgotten how to steer."

"What did he do?"

"He swept round me looking very frightened and disturbed."

"Hadn't you a bell?"

"Yes, but it meant sliding my hand along. I daren't do that; nobody
seemed to want it, they all glided about; they were really awfully nice.
I _had_ to go on because I couldn't get off. I can wobble along, but I
can't mount or dismount. I was never so frightened in my life."

"I'm afraid you've had a very drastic time."

"I fell off in the end I was so dead beat."

"But this is altogether too drastic. Where was Leyton?"

"Rushing round and round meeting me and then overtaking me, startling me
out of my wits by ringing behind for me to get to the side. Nobody else
did that. It was awfully kind. I went tacking about from side to side."

"I'm afraid you've had a very drastic time. I think you'd better come up
this evening and learn getting on and off on the lawn; that's the way to
do it."

"Oh" said Miriam gratefully; "but I have no machine. Mrs. Orly lent me
hers."

"I daresay we can hire a machine."




                              CHAPTER XIII


                                   1

Miriam found it difficult to believe that the girl was a dental
secretary. She swept about among Miss Szigmondy's guests in a long
Liberty dress, her hands holding her long scarf about her person as if
she were waiting for a clear space to leap or run, staying nowhere,
talking here and there with the assurance of a successful society woman,
laughing and jesting, swiftly talking down the group she was with and
passing on with a shouted remark about herself as she had done in the
library on the night of Lord Kelvin's lecture.... "I'm tired of being
good; I'm going to try being naughty for a change." Mr. Hancock had
stood planted before her in laughing admiration, waiting for the next
thing that she might say. How could he of all men in the world be taken
out of himself by an effective trick? He had laughed more spontaneously
than Miriam had ever seen him do. What _was_ this effective thing? An
appearance of animation. That it seemed, could make any man, even Mr.
Hancock, if it were free from any suggestion of loudness or vulgarity,
stand gaping and disarmed. Why had he volunteered the information that
she was eighteen and secretary to his friend in Harley Street. "You
don't seem very _keen_"; that was her voice from the other end of the
room; using the new smart word with a delicate emphasis, pretending
interest in something, meaning nothing at all. She was a middle-aged
woman, she would never be older than she was now. She saw nothing and no
one, nor ever would. In all her life she would never be arrested by
anything. Nice kind people would call her "a charming girl." ...
"Charming girls" were taught to behave effectively and lived in a
brilliant death, dealing death all round them. Nothing could live in
their presence. No natural beauty, no spectacle of art, no thought, no
music. They were uneasy in the presence of these things, because their
presence meant cessation of "charming" behaviour--except at such moments
as they could use the occasion to decorate themselves. _They had no
souls._ Yet in social life nothing seemed to possess any power but their
surface animation.

There was real power in that other woman. Her strong young comeliness
was good, known to be good. It was strange that a student of music
should be known for her work among the poor. The serene large outlines
of her form gave out light in the room; and the light on her white brow
unconscious above her deliberately kind face was the loveliest thing to
be seen; the deliberately kind face spoiled it, and would presently
change it; unless some great vision came to her it would grow furrowed
over "the housing problem" and the face would dry up, its white life cut
off at a source; at present she was at the source; one could tell her
anything. Mr. Hancock recognised her goodness, spoke of her with
admiration and respect. What was she doing here, among all these worldly
musicians? _She_ would never be a musician, never a first-class
musician. Then she had ambition. She was poor. Someone was helping her
... Miss Szigmondy! Why? She must know she would never make a musician.
Miriam cowered in her corner. The good woman was actually going to sing
before all these celebrities. What a fine great free voice.... "_When_
shall we meet--_refined_ and free, amongst the moorland _brack-en_ ..."
if Mr. Hancock could have heard her sing that, surely his heart must
have gone out to her? She knew, to her inmost being, what that meant.
She _longed_ for cleansing fires, even she with her radiant forehead;
her soul flew out along the sustained notes towards its vision, her dark
eyes were set upon it as she sang, the clear tones of her voice called
to the companion of her soul for the best that was in him. She was the
soul of truth, counting no cost. She would attain her vision, though the
earthly companion she longed for might pass her by. The pure beauty of
the moorland would remain for her, would set itself along the shores of
her life forever....

But she could not sing. It was the worst kind of English singing, all
volume and emphasis and pressure. Was there that in her goodness too ...
deliberate kindness to everybody. Was that a method--just a social
method? She was one of those people about whom it would be said that she
never spoke ill of anyone. But was not indiscriminate deliberate
conscious goodness to everybody an insult to humanity? People who were
like that never knew the difference between one person and another.
'Philanthropic' people were never sympathetic. They pitied. Pity was not
sympathy. It was a denial of something. It assumed that life was
pitiful. Yet her clear eyes would see through anything, any evil thing
to the human being behind. But she knew it, and practised it like a
doctor. She had never been amazed by the fact that there were any human
beings at all ... and with all her goodness she had plans and ambitions.
She wanted to be a singer--and she was thinking about somebody. Men were
dazzled by the worldly little secretary and they reverenced the singer
and her kind. Irreligious men would respect religion for her sake--and
would wish, thinking of her, to live in a particular kind of way; but
she would never lead a man to religion because she had no thoughts and
no ideas.

The surprise of finding these two women here and the pain of observing
them was a just reward for having come to Miss Szigmondy's At Home
without a real impulse--just to see the musicians and to be in the same
room with them. All that remained was to write to someone about them by
name. There was nothing to do but mention their names. There was no
wonder about them. They were all _fat_. Not one of them was an artist
and they all hated each other. It was like a ballad concert. They all
sang in the English way. They were not in the least like the
instrumentalists; or St. James's Hall Saturday afternoon audiences, not
that kind of "queer soft lot"; not shadowy grey or dead white or with
that curious transparent look; they all looked ruddy or pink, and sleek;
they had the same sort of kindly commonsense as Harriett's Lord and Lady
Bollingdon ... perhaps to keep a voice going it was necessary to be fat.




                              CHAPTER XIV


                                   1

"It was simply heavenly going off--all standing in the hall in evening
dress while the servants blew for hansoms. I wore my bridesmaid's dress
with a piece of tulle arranged round the top of the bodice. It was wrong
at the back so I had to sit very carefully the whole evening to prevent
it going up like a muffler, but never mind; it was heavenly I tell you.
We bowled off down through the west-end in three hansoms one behind the
other, in the dark. You know the gleam and shine inside a hansom
sprinting along a dark empty street where the lamps are few and dim;
(see 'The Organist's Daughter') and then came the bright streets all
alight and full of dinner and theatre people in evening dress in hansoms
and you kept getting wedged in between other hansoms with people talking
and laughing all round you; and it took about ten minutes to get from
the end of Regent Street across to the other side of Piccadilly where we
dined in wicked Rupert Street. Just as the caviare was brought in we
heard that the Prince of Wales had won the Derby. Shakespeare is
extraordinary. I had no idea Hamlet was so full of quotations."

Miriam flushed heavily as the last words ran automatically from her pen.
The sense of the richly moving picture that had filled her all the
morning and now kept her sitting happily under the hot roof at her small
dusty table in the full breadth of Saturday afternoon would be gone if
she left that sentence. She felt a curious painful shock at the tips of
her fingers as she re-read it; a current singing within her was driven
back by it.... Mrs. Orly's face had been all alive and alight when she
had leant forward across Mr. Hancock and said the words that had seemed
so meaningless and irritating. Perhaps she too had felt something she
wanted to express and had lost it at that moment. Certainly both she and
Mr. Orly would feel the beauty of Shakespeare. But the words had
shattered the spell of Shakespeare and writing them down like that was
spoiling the description of the evening, though Harriett would not think
so.

But anyhow the letter would not do for Harriett--even if words could be
found to express "Shakespeare." That would not interest Harriett. She
would think the effort funny and Miriamish but it would not mean
anything to her. She had been to Shakespeare because she adored Ellen
Terry and put up with Irving for her sake.... People in London seemed to
think that Irving was just as great as Ellen Terry.... Perhaps now
Irving would seem different. Perhaps Irving was great.... I will go and
hear Irving in Shakespeare ... no money and no theatres except with
other people.... The rest of the letter would simply hurt Harriett,
because it would seem like a reflection on theatres with her. Theatres
with her had had a magic that last night could not touch ... sitting in
the front row of the pit, safely in after the long wait, the walls of
the theatre going up, softly lit buff and gold, fluted and decorated and
bulging with red curtained boxes, the clear view across the empty stalls
of the dim height of fringed curtain hanging in long straight folds, the
certainty that Harriett shared the sense of the theatre, that for her
too when the orchestra began the great motionless curtain shut them in
in a life where everything else in the world faded away and was
forgotten, the sight of the perfection of happiness on Harriett's little
buff-shadowed face, the sudden running ripple, from side to side, of the
igniting footlights ... the smoothly clicking rustle of the withdrawing
curtain ... the magic square of the lit scene ... the daily growth of
the charm of these things during that week when they had gone to a
theatre every night, so that on looking back the being in the theatre
with the certainty of the moving changing scenes ahead was clearer than
either of the plays they had seen.... She sat staring through the open
lattice.... The sound of the violin from the house down the street that
had been a half-heard obbligato to her vision of last night came in
drearily, filling the space whence the vision had departed, with uneasy
questions. She turned to her letter to recapture the impulse with which
she had sat down.... If she turned it into a letter to Eve, all the
description of the evening would have to be changed; Eve knew all about
grandeurs, with the Greens' large country house and their shooting-boxes
and visits to London hotels; the bright glories must go--overwhelming
and unexpressed. Why did that make one so sad? Was it because it
suggested that one cared more for the gay circumstances than for the
thing seen? What was it they had seen? Why had they gone? What _was_
Shakespeare? Her vision returned to her as she brooded on this fresh
problem. The whole scene of the theatre was round her once more; she was
sitting in the half darkness gazing at the stage. What had it been for
her? What was it that came from the stage? Something--_real_ ... to say
that drove it away. She looked again and it clustered once more, alive.
The gay flood of the streets, the social excitements and embarrassments
of the evening were a conflagration; circling about the clear bright
kernel of moving lights and figures on the stage. She gazed at the
bright stage. Moments came sharply up, grouped figures, spoken words.
She held them, her contemplation aglow with the certainty that something
was there that set her alight with love, making her whole in the midst
of her uncertainty and ignorance. Words and phrases came, a sentence
here and there that had suddenly shaped and deepened a scene. Perhaps it
was only in seeing Shakespeare acted that one could appreciate him? But
it was _not_ the acting. No one could act. They all just missed it. It
was all very well for Mag to laugh. They _did_ just miss it.... "Why, my
child? In what way?" "They act at the audience, they take their cues too
quickly and have their emotions too abruptly; and from outside not
inside." "But if they felt at all, all the time, they would go mad or
die." "No, they would not. But even if they did not feel it, if they
looked, it would be enough. They don't _look_ at the thing they are
doing." It was not the acting. Nor the play. The characters of the story
were always tiresome. The ideas, the wonderful quotations if you looked
closely at them were everyone's ideas; things that everybody knew. To
read Shakespeare carefully all through would only be to find all the
general things somewhere or other. But that did not matter. Being
ignorant of him and of history did not matter, as long as you heard him.
Poetry! The poetry of Shakespeare...? Primers of literature told one
that. It did not explain the charm. Just the sound. Music. Like
Beethoven. Bad acting cannot spoil Shakespeare. Bad playing cannot
destroy Beethoven. It was the _sound_ of Shakespeare that made the
scenes real--that made Winter's Tale, so long ago and so bewildering,
remain in beauty.... "Dear Eve, Shakespeare is a sound ..." She tore up
the letter. The next time she wrote to Eve she must remember to say
that. The garret was stifling. Away from the brilliant window the room
was just as hot; the close thick smell of dust sickened her. She came
back to the table, sitting as near as possible to the open. The
afternoon had been wasted trying to express her evening and nothing had
been expressed. The thought of last night was painful now. She had
spoiled it in some way. Her heart beat heavily in the stifling room. Her
head ached and her eyes were tired. She was too tired to walk; and there
was no money; barely enough for next week's A.B.C. suppers. There was no
comfort. It was May ... in a stuffy dusty room. May. Her face quivered
and her head sank upon the hot table.




                               CHAPTER XV


                                   1

Nearly all the roses were half-opened buds; firm and stiff. Larger ones
put in here and there gave the effect of mass. Closest contemplation
enhanced the beauty of the whole. Each rose was perfect. The radiant
mass was lovely throughout. The body of the basket curved firmly away to
its slender hidden base; the smooth sweep of the rim and the delicate
high arch of the handle held the roses perfectly framed. It was a
perfect gift.... It had been quite enough to have the opportunity of
doing little things for Mrs. Berwick ... the surprise of the roses. The
_surprise_ of them. Roses, roses, roses ... all the morning they had
stood, making the morning's work happy; visible all over the room.
Everyone in the house had had the beautiful shock of them. And they were
still as they had been when they had been gathered in the dew. If they
were in water by the end of the afternoon the buds would revive and
expand ... even after the hours in the Lyceum. If they were thrown now
into the waste-paper basket it would not matter. They would go on being
perfect--to the end of life. "And as long; as my heart is bea-ting; as
long; as my eyes; have; tears."

                   *       *       *       *       *

Winthrop came up punctually at one o'clock as he had promised. "It would
save you comin' down if I was to ph-come up." It would go on then. He
had thought about it and meant to do it. She opened the cash box quickly
and deftly in her gratitude and handed him his four sovereigns and the
money for the second mechanic and the apprentices. He waited gently
while she counted it out. Next Saturday she would have it ready for him.
"Thank you Miss----; ph--ph _Good_ afternoon" he said cheerfully. "Good
afternoon Mr. Winthrop" she responded busily with all her heart and
listened as he clattered away downstairs. A load was lifted from
Saturday mornings, for good. No more going down to run the gauntlet of
the row of eyes and get herself along the bench, depositing the various
sums. Nothing in future but the letters, the overhauling of Mr.
Hancock's empty surgery, the easy lunch with Mr. Leyton, and the
week-end. She entered the sums in the petty cash book. There was that.
They would always be that week after week. But to-day the worrying
challenge of it disappeared in the joy of the last entry. "Self" she
wrote, the light across the outspread prospect of her life steadying and
deepening as she wrote, "one pound, five." The five, written down, sent
a thrill from the contemplated page. Taking the customary sovereign from
the cash-box she placed it carefully in the middle pocket of her purse
and closed the clip. The five shillings she distributed about the
side-pockets; half a crown, a shilling, two sixpenny bits and six
coppers. The purse was full of money. By September she would have about
four pounds five in hand and two pounds ten of her month's holiday money
still unspent; six pounds fifteen; she could go to a matinée every week
and still have about half the four pounds five; about four pounds
fifteen altogether; enough to hire a bicycle for the month and buy some
summer blouses for the holiday.... She pocketed the heavy purse. Why was
there always a feeling of guilt about a salary? It was the same every
week. The life at Wimpole Street was so full and so interesting; she was
learning so much and seeing so much. Salary was out of place--a payment
for leading a glorious life, half of which was entirely her own. The
extra five shillings was a present from the Orlys and Mr. Hancock. She
could manage on the pound. The new sum was wealth, superfluity. They
would expect more of her in future. Surely it would be possible to give
more; with so much money; to find the spirit to come punctually at nine;
always to have everything in complete readiness in all three surgeries;
to keep all the books up to date.... But they would not have given her
the rise at the end of five months if they had not felt she was worth
it.... It would make all the difference to the summer. Hopefully she
took a loose sheet of paper and made two lists of the four pages of the
week's entries--dissecting them under the heads of workshop and surgery.
About fifteen pounds had been spent. Again and again with heating head
she added her pages of small sums, getting each time slightly different
results, until at last they balanced with the dissected lists--twice in
succession. The hall clock struck one and Mr. Leyton came downstairs
rattling and rattled into her room. "How d'you like this get up?" The
general effect of the blue grey uniform and brown leather belt and
bandolier was pleasing. "Oh, _jolly_" she said abstractedly to his
waiting figure. He clattered downstairs to lunch. _Everybody_ had
outside interests. Mr. Hancock would be on the Broads by now. Her
afternoon beckoned, easy with the superfluity of money. Anxiously she
counted over the balance in the cash box. It was two and ninepence
short. Damnation. Damnation. "Put it down to stamps--or miscellanea; not
accounted for." She looked back through her entries. Stamps, one pound,
at the beginning of the week. Stamps, ten shillings yesterday. It could
not be that. It was some carelessness--something not entered--or a
miscalculation. Something she had paid out to the workshop in the middle
of a rush and forgotten to put down. She went back through her entries
one by one with flaring cheeks; recovering the history of the week and
recalling incidents. Nothing came that would account for the
discrepancy. It was simply a mistake. Something had been put down wrong.
The money had been spent. But was it a workshop or a surgery expense
that had gone wrong? "Postage etc.: two and nine," would make it all
right--but the account would not be right. Either the workshop or the
surgery account must suffer. It would be another of those little
inaccurate spots that came every few weeks; that she would always have
to remember ... her mind toiled, goaded and hot.... Mr. Orly had
borrowed five pounds to buy tools at Buck and Hickman's and come back
with the money spent and some of the tools to be handed to the practice.
Perhaps it was in balancing that up that the mistake had occurred ... or
the electric lamp account; some for the house, some for the practice and
some for the workshop. Thoroughly miserable she made a provisional entry
of the sum against surgery in pencil and left the account unbalanced.
Perhaps on Monday it would come right. When the ledgers were all in
place and the safe and drawers locked she stretched her limbs and forced
away her misery. The roses reproached her, but only for a moment. They
understood, in detail, as clearly as she did, all the difficulties. They
took her part. Standing there waiting, they too felt that there was
nothing now but lunch and Irving.


                                   2

With the basket of roses over her arm she walked as rapidly as possible
down to Oxford Circus taking the first turning out of Wimpole Street to
hurry the more secretly and conveniently. A 'bus took her to Charing
Cross where she jumped off as soon as it began pulling up and ran down
the Strand. As soon as she felt herself flying towards her bourne the
fears that last week's magic would have disappeared left her altogether.
Last week had been wonderful, an adventure her first deliberate piece of
daring in London. Inside the theatre the scruples and the daring had
been forgotten. To-day again everything would be forgotten, everything;
to-day's happiness was more secure; it would not mean going almost
foodless over the week-end and without an egg for supper all next week;
there was no anticipation of disapproving eyes in the theatre this week;
the sense of the impropriety of going alone had gone; it would never
return; the feeling of selfishness in spending money on a theatre alone
was still there, but a voice within answered that--saying that there was
no one at hand to go and no one she knew who would find at the Lyceum
performance just what she found, no one to whom it would mean much more
than a theatre; like any other theatre and a play, amongst other plays,
with a celebrated actor taking the chief part ... except Mag. Mag had
been with her as she gazed. Mag was with her now. Mag, fulfilling one or
other of her exciting Saturday afternoon engagements would sit at her
side.

Easy and happy she fled along ... her heart greeting each passenger in
the scattered throng she threaded, her eyes upon the traffic in the
roadway. A horseless brougham went by, moving smoothly and silently
amongst the noisy traffic--the driver looked as though he were fastened
to the front of the vehicle, a little tin driver on a clockwork toy;
there was nothing between him and the road but the platform of the
little tank on which his feet were set. He looked as if he were falling
off. If anything ran into him there was nothing to protect him. It left
an uncomfortable memory ... it would only be for carriages; the
well-loved horse omnibuses would go on ... it must be somewhere near
here ... "Lyceum Pit," there it was, just ahead, easily discernible.
Last week when she had had to ask, she had not noticed the words printed
on the side of the passage that showed as you came down the Strand. The
pavement was clear for a moment and she rounded the near angle and ran
home down the passage without slackening her pace, her half-crown ready
in her hand, a Lyceum pittite.


                                   3

The dark pit seemed very full as she entered the door at the left hand
corner; dim forms standing at the back told her there were no seats
left; but she made her way across to the right and down the incline
hoping for a neglected place somewhere on the extreme right. Her vain
search brought her down to the barrier and the end of her inspection of
the serried ranks of seated forms to her left swept her eyes forward.
She was just under the overhanging balcony of the dress-circle; the well
of the theatre opened clear before her as she stood against the barrier,
the stalls half full and filling with dim forms gliding in right and
left, the upward sweep of the theatre walls covered with boxes from
which white faces shone in the gloom, a soft pervading saffron light,
bright light heavily screened. There was space all round her, the empty
gangway behind, the gangway behind the stalls just in front of the
barrier, the view clear away to the stage over the heads of the people
sitting in the stalls.... Why not stay here? If people stood at the back
of the pit they might stand in front. She retreated into the angle made
by the out-curving wall of the pit and the pit barrier. Putting down the
basket of roses on the floor at her side she leaned against the barrier
with her elbows on its rim.


                                   4

He was there before he appeared ... in the orchestra, in the audience,
all over the house. Presently, in a few moments he was going to appear,
moving and speaking on the stage. Someone might come forward and
announce that he was ill or dead. He would die; perhaps only years
hence; but long before one was old ... death of Henry Irving. No more
thoughts of that; he is there--perhaps for twenty years; coming and
going, having seasons at the Lyceum. He knew he must die; he did not
think about it. He could turn with a smile and go straight up, in a rosy
chariot ... well done thou good and faithful and happy servant. He would
go, closing his eyes upon the vision that was always in them, something
they saw, something they gave out every moment. Whom the gods love die
young ... not always young in years, but young always; trailing clouds
of glory. It is always the unexpected that happens. Things you dread
never happen. That is Weber--or Meyerbeer. Who chooses the music?
Perhaps he does.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The orchestration brought back last week's performance. It was all
there; behind the curtain. Shylock, swinging across the stage with his
halting dragging stride; halting, standing with bent head; shut-in,
lonely sweetness. She looked boldly now, untrammelled in her dark corner
at the pictures which had formed part of her distant view all last week
in the far-away life at Wimpole Street; the great scenes ... beautifully
staged; "Irving always _stages_ everything perfectly"--and battled no
longer against her sympathy for Shylock. It no longer shocked her to
find herself sharing something of his longing for the blood of the
Christians. It was wrong; but were not they too wrong? They must be;
there must be some reason for this certainty of sympathy with Shylock
and aversion from Bassanio. It might be a wrong reason, but it was there
in her. Mag said "that's his genius; he makes you sympathise even with
Shylock...." He shows you that you _do_ sympathise with Shylock; Mag
thinks that is something to admit shamefacedly. Because those other
people were to her just "people." Bassanio--was it not just as wrong to
get into debt and raise money from the Jews as to let money out on
usury? But it was his friend. He was innocent. Never mind. They were
all, all, smug and complacent in their sunshine. Polished lustful man,
with his coarse lustful men friends. Portia and Nerissa were companions
in affliction. Beautiful first of all; as lovely and wandering and full
of visions as Shylock until their lovers came. Hearn was right. English
lovers would shock any Japanese. Not that the Japanese were prudish.
According to him they were anything but ... they would not talk as
Englishmen did among themselves and in mixed society in a sort of code;
thinking themselves so clever; anyone could talk a code who chose to
descend to a mechanical trick.

How much more real was the relation between Portia and Nerissa than
between either of the sadly jesting women and their complacently jesting
lovers. Did a man _ever_ speak in a natural voice--neither blustering,
nor displaying his cleverness, nor being simply a lustful slave? Women
always despise men under the influence of passion or fatigue. What
horrible old men those two would be--still speaking in put on voices to
hide their shame, pompous and philosophising.... "Man's love is of man's
life a thing apart ..." so much the worse for man; there must be
something very wrong with his life. But it would go on until men saw and
admitted this.... Portia was right when she preached her sermon--it made
everyone feel sorry for all harshness--then one ought not to be harsh to
the blindness of men ... somebody had said men would lose all their
charm if they lost their vanity and childish cocksureness about their
superiority--to force and brow-beat them into seeing themselves would
not help--but that is what I want to do. I am like a man in that,
overbearing, bullying, blustering. I am something between a man and a
woman; looking both ways. But to pretend one did not see through a man's
voice would be treachery. Nearly all men will hate me--because I can't
play up for long. Harshness must go; perhaps that was what Christ meant.
But Portia only wanted to save Bassanio's life; and did it by a trick.
It was not a Daniel come to judgment; it showed the folly of law;
pettifogging; the abuse of the letter of the law. She was harsh to
Shylock. Which is most cruel, to take life or to torture the living? The
Christians were so self-satisfied; going off to their love-making; that
spoiled the play, their future was much more dark and miserable than the
struggle between the sensual Englishman and the wily Jew. The play ought
to have ended there, with the woman in the cap and gown pleading,
showing something that could not be denied--ye are all together in one
condemnation. In that moment Portia was great, her red robe shone and
lit the world. She ought to have left them all and gone through all the
law courts of the world; showing up the law. Wit. Woman's wit. Men at
least bowed down to that; though they did not know what it was. 'Wit'
used to mean knowledge--"in-wit," conscience. The knowledge of woman is
larger, bigger, deeper, less wordy and clever than that of men.
Certainly. But why do not men acknowledge this? They talk about
mother-love and mother-wit and instinct, as if they were mysterious
tricks. They have no real knowledge, but of things; a sort of
superiority they get by being free to be out in the world amongst
things; they do not understand people. If a woman is good it is all
right; if she is bad it is all wrong. Cherchez la femme. Then everything
in life depends upon women? "A civilisation can never rise above the
level of its women." Perhaps if women became lawyers they would change
things. Women do not respect law. No wonder, since it is folly, an
endless play on words. Portia? She had been quite complacent about being
unkind to the Jew. She had been invented by a man. There was no reality
in any of Shakespeare's women. They please men because they show women
as men see them. All the other things are invisible; nothing but their
thoughts and feelings about men and bothers. Shakespeare did not know
the meaning of the words and actions of Nerissa and Portia when they
were alone together, the beauty they knew and felt and saw, holy beauty
everywhere. Shakespeare's plays are 'universal' because they are about
the things that everybody knows and hands about, and they do not trouble
anybody. They make everyone feel wise. It isn't what he says it's the
way he says all these things that don't matter and leave everything out.
It's all a sublime fuss.

Italians! Of course. Well--Europeans. It is the difference between the
Europeans and the Japanese that Hearn had meant.


                                   5

Then there _is_ tragedy! Things are not simple right and wrong. There
are a million sides to every question; as many sides as there are people
to see and feel them and in all big national struggles two clear sides,
both right and both wrong. The man who wrote "The Struggle against
Absolute Monarchy" was a Roundhead; and he made me a Roundhead; Green's
History is Roundhead. I never saw Charles' point of view or thought
about it; but only of the unjust levies and the dissolution of
Parliament and the dissoluteness of the Court. If I had seen Irving then
it would have made a difference. He could never have been Cromwell. He
is Charles. Things happen. People tell him things and he cannot
understand. He believes in divine right ... sweet and gentle, with
perfect manners for all ... perfect in private life ... the first
gentleman in the land, the only person free to have perfect manners; the
representative of God on earth. "Decaying feudalism." But they ought not
to have killed him. He cannot _understand_. He is the scapegoat. Freedom
looks so fine in your mind. Parliaments and Trial by Jury and the
abolition of the Star Chamber and the triumph of Cromwell's visionaries.
But it means this gentle velvet-coated figure with its delicate ruffled
hands, its sweetness and courtesy, going with bandaged eyes--to death.
Was there no way out? Must one either be a Royalist or a Roundhead. Must
monarchies decay? Then why did the Restoration come? What do English
people want? "A limited Monarchy"; a King controlled by Parliament. As
well not have a King at all. Who would not rather live with Charles than
with Cromwell? Charles would have entertained a beggar royally. Cromwell
was too busy with "affairs of State" to entertain beggars. Charles dying
for his faith was more beautiful than Cromwell fighting for his reason.
Yet the people must be free; there must be justice. Kings ought to be
taught differently. He did not understand. No one believing in divine
right can understand. Was the idea of divine right a mistake? Can no one
be trusted? Cromwell's son was a weak fool. How can a country be ruled?
People will never agree. What ought one to be if one can neither be
quite a Roundhead nor quite a Cavalier? They worshipped two gods. Are
there two Gods?... Irving ... walking gently about inside Charles
feeling as he felt the beauty of the sunlit garden, the delicate
clothes, the refinement of fine living, the charm of perfect
association, the rich beauty of each day as it passed.... Charles died
with all that in his eyes, _knowing_ it _good_. Cromwell was a farmer.
Christ was a carpenter. Christ did not bother about kings. "Render unto
Cæsar."




                              CHAPTER XVI


                                   1

They had walked swiftly and silently along through the bright evening
daylight of the Finchley Road. Miriam held her knowledge suspended,
looking forward to the enclosure at the end of the few minutes' walk.
But the conservatoire was not enclosed. The clear bright light flooding
the rows and rows of seated summer clad Hampstead people and lighting up
every corner of the level square hall was like the outside evening
daylight. The air seemed as pure as the outside air. She followed Mr.
Hancock to their seats at the gangway end of the fourth row passing
between the sounds echoing thinly from the platform and the wave of
attention sweeping towards the platform from the massed rows of
intelligent faces. As they sat down the chairman's voice ceased and the
lights were lowered; but so slightly that the hall was still perfectly
exposed and clear. The people still looked as though they were out of
doors or in their large houses. This was modern improvement--hard clear
light. Their minds and their thoughts and their lives and their clothes
were always in it. She stared at the screen. A large slide was showing,
lit from behind. It made a sort of stage scenery for the rest of the
scene, all in one light. She fixed her attention. An enormous vessel
with its side stove in, yes, "stove in"; in a dock. They got
_information_ at any rate and then perhaps got free and thought their
own thoughts. No. They would follow and think and talk intelligently
about the information. Rattling their cultured voices. Mad with
pretences.... In _dry_ dock, going to be repaired. Gazing sternly at the
short man with the long pointer talking in an anxious high thin voice,
his head with its upstanding crest of hair half-turned towards the
audience, she suppressed a giggle. Folding her hands she gazed, shaking
in every limb, not daring to follow what he said for fear of laughing
aloud. Shreds of his first long sentence caught in her thoughts and gave
her his meaning, shaking her into giggles. Her features quivered under
her skin as she held them in forcing her eyes towards the distances of
sky beyond the ship. Her customary expletives shot through her mind in
rapid succession with each one the scarves and silk and velvet of the
audience grew brighter about the edge of her circle of vision.


                                   2

She was an upstart and an alien and here she was. It was more
extraordinary in this Hampstead clarity than at a theatre or concert in
town. It was a part of his world ... and theirs; one might get the
manner and still keep alive.... Was he out of humour because he had
realised what he had done or because she had been late for dinner? Was
he thinking what his behaviour amounted to in the eyes of his aunt and
cousins; even supposing they did not know that the invitation to dinner
and the lecture had been given only this afternoon? He must have known
it was necessary to go home and tidy up. When he said the conservatoire
was so near that there would be plenty of time was not that as good as
saying she might be a little late? Why had he not said they were staying
with him? Next week was full of appointments for their teeth. So he knew
they were coming ... and then to go marching in to the midst of them
three quarters of an hour late and to be so dumbfounded as to be unable
to apologise ... my dear I shall _never_ forget the faces of those
women. I could not imagine at first what was wrong. He was looking so
strange. The women barely noticed me--barely noticed me. "I'm afraid
dinner will be spoiled" he said, in his way. "They had all been sitting
round the fire three mortal quarters of an hour waiting for _me_!" How
they would talk. Their thoughts and feelings about employees could be
seen at a glance. It was bad enough for them to have a secretary
appearing at dinner the first evening of their great visit. And now they
were sitting alone round the fire and she was at the lecture alone,
unchaperoned, with him, "she had the effrontery to come to dinner three
quarters of an hour late ..." feathery hair and periwinkle eyes and
white noses; gentle die-away voices. Perhaps the thought of his
favourite cousins coming next week buoyed him up. No wonder he wanted to
get away to the lecture. He had come, reasonably; not seeing why he
should not; just as he would have gone if they had not been there. Now
he saw it as they saw it. There he sat. She gazed at the shifting scenes
... ports and strange islands in distant seas, sunlit coloured mountains
tops peaking up from forests. The lecturing voice was far away,
irrelevant and unintelligible. Peace flooded her.




                              CHAPTER XVII


                                   1

The patient sat up with a groan of relief. His dark strong positive
liverish profile turned away towards the spittoon. There was a clean
broad gap of neck between the strong inturned ending of his hair and the
narrow strip of firm heavily glazed blue white collar fitting perfectly
into the collar of the well-cut grey coat clothing the firm bulk of his
body. "To my mind there's no reason why they shouldn't do thoroughly
well" he said into the spittoon. "All the hospitals would employ 'em in
the end. They're more natty and conscientious than men and there's
nothing in the work they can't manage."

"No, I think that's so."

Miriam cleared her throat emphatically. They had no right to talk in
that calm disposing way in the presence of a woman. Mr. Hancock felt
that too. That kind of man was always nice to women. Strong and cheerful
and helping them; but with his mind full of quotations and
generalisations. He would bring them out anywhere. It would never occur
to him that the statement of them could be offensive. His newspaper
office would be full of little girls. "It's those little ph'girls." But
the Amalgam Company probably had quite uneducated girls. Nobody ought to
be asked to spend their lives calculating decimal quantities. The men
who lived on these things had their drudgery done for them. They did it
themselves first. Yes, but then it meant their future. A woman clerk
never becomes a partner. There was no hope for women in business. That
man's wife would be wealthy and screened and looked after all her days;
he working. He would live as long as she--a little old slender nut-brown
man.

"What was the employment Mr. Dolland was speaking of?"

"Dispensing. I think he's quite right. And it's not at all badly paid."

"It ought not to be. Think of the responsibility and anxiety."

"It's a jolly stiff exam too."

"I like the calm way he talks, as if it were his business to decide what
is suitable."

Mr. Hancock laughed. "He's a very influential man, you know," he said
going to the tube. "Yes?--Oh, show them up."

Miriam detected the note that meant a trial ahead and went about her
clearing with quiet swift busy sympathy. But Mr. Dolland had been a good
introduction to the trying hour. Her thoughts followed his
unconsciousness down to his cab. She saw the spatted boot on the
footplate, the neat strong swing of the body, the dip of the hansom, the
darkling face sitting inside under the shiny hat ... the room had become
dreadful; empty and silent; pressed full with a dreadful atmosphere;
those women from Rochester--but they always sat still. These people were
making little faint fussings of movement, like the creakings of clothes
in church and the same silent hostile feeling; people being obliged to
be with people. There were two or three besides the figure in the chair.
Mr. Hancock had got to work with silent assiduity. His face when he
turned to the cabinet was disordered, separate from the room and from
his work; a most curious expression. He turned again, busily. It was
something in the mouth, resentful, and a bad-tempered look in the eyes;
a look of discomposed youth. Of course. The aunt and cousins. Had she
cut them, standing with her back to the room, or they her? She moved
sideways with her bundle of cleaned instruments to the cabinet putting
them all on the flap and beginning to open drawers, standing at his
elbow as he stood turned away from the chair mixing a paste.

"You might leave those there for the present" he murmured. She turned
and went down the room between the unoccupied seated figures, keeping
herself alert to respond to a greeting. They sat vacant and still.
Ladies in church. Acrimonious. Querulously dressed in pretty materials
and colours that would only keep fresh in the country. She went to the
door lingeringly. It was so familiar. There had been all that at
Babington. It was that that was in these figures straggling home from
school, in pretty successful clothes, walking along the middle of the
sunlit road ... _May-bell_ deah ... not balancing along the row of drain
pipes nor pulling streaks of Berkshire goody through their lips. This
was their next stage. When she reached the stairs she felt herself
wrapped in their scorn. It was true; there was something impregnable
about them. They sat inside a little fortress, letting in only certain
people. But they did not know she could see everything inside the
fortress, hear all their thoughts much more clearly than the things they
said. To them she was a closed book. They did not want to open it. But
if they had wanted to they could not have read.


                                   2

The _insolence_ of it. Her social position had been identical with
theirs and his. Her early circumstances a good deal more ambitious and
generous.... 'A moment of my consciousness is wider than any of theirs
will be in the whole of their lives.' ... If she could have stayed in
all that, she would have been as far as possible just the same,
sometimes ... for certain purposes. A little close group, loyal and
quarrelsome for ends that any woman could see through. Fawning and
flattering and affectionate to each other and getting half-maddened by
the one necessity. The girls would repeat the history of their mother,
and get her sour faced pretty delicate refinement. They were so
exquisite, now, to look at--the flower-like edges of their faces,
unchanging from morning to night; warmth and care and cleanliness and
rich clean food; no fatigue or worry or embarrassment, once they had
learned how to sit and move and eat. To many men they would appear
angels. They would not meet many in the Berkshire valley. But their
mother would manoeuvre engagements for them and their men would see them
as angels fresh from their mother's hands; miracles of beauty and
purity....

Refined shrews, turning in circles, like moths on pins; brainless,
mindless, heartless, the prey of the professions; priests, doctors and
lawyers. These two groups kept each other going. There was something
hidden in the fact that these women's men always entered professions.


                                   3

Large portions of the mornings and afternoons of that week were free
from visits to the upstairs surgery. From Tuesday morning she kept it
well filled with supplies; guessing that she was to be saved further
contact with the aunt and cousins; and drew from the stimulus of their
comings and goings, the sound of their voices in the hall and on the
stairs a fund of energy that filled her unexpected stretches of leisure
with unceasing methodical labour. Uninterrupted work on the ledgers
awakened her interest in them, the sense that the books were nearly all
up to date, the possibility of catching up altogether before the end of
the week brought a relief and a sense of mastery that made the June
sunshine gay morning after morning as she tramped through it along the
Euston Road. Every hour was full of a strange excitement. Wide vistas
shone ahead. On the first of September shone a blinding radiance. She
would get up that morning in her dusty garret in the heat and dust of
London with nothing to do for a month; and ride away, somewhere, ride
away through the streets, free, out to the suburbs, like a Sunday
morning ride, and then into the country. She had weathered the winter
and the strange beginnings and would go away to come back; the rest of
the summer till then would go dancing, like a dream. There was all that
coming; making her heart leap when she thought of it, unknown
Wiltshire--with Leader landscapes for a week and then something else.
And meanwhile Wimpole Street. She went about her work borne along
unwearied upon a tide that flowed out in glistening sunlit waves over
the sunlit shore of the world. The doors and windows of her cool shaded
room opened upon a life that spread out before her fanwise towards
endless brilliant distances. Moments of fatigue, little obstinate knots
and tangles of urgent practical affairs did their utmost to convince her
that life was a perpetual conflict, nothing certain and secure but the
thwarting and discrediting of the dream-vision; every contact seemed to
end in an assurance of her unarmed resourceless state. Pausing now and
again to balance her account, to try to find a sanction for her joy, she
watched and felt the little stabs of the actual facts as they would be
summarised by some disinterested observer, and again and again saw them
foiled. Things danced, comically powerless against some unheard piping;
motes, funny and beloved, in the sunbeam of her life.... Next week and
the coming of the favourite cousins made a bright barrier across the
future and a little fence round her labours. Everything must be ordered
and straight before then. She must be free and reproachless for the
wonders and terrors of their visit.... Perhaps there might be only the
one meeting; the evening already arranged might be all the week's visit
would bring. The week would pass unseen by her and everything would be
as before. As before; was not that enough, and more than enough?


                                   4

Her rare visits to the surgery were festivals. Free from the usual daily
fatigue of constant standing for reiterated clearances and cleansings of
small sets of instruments, she swept full of cheerful strength, her mind
free for method, her hands steady and deft, upon the accumulations left
by long sittings, rapping out her commentary upon his prolonged
endurance by emphatic bumpings of basins and utensils; making it
unnecessary for him to voice the controlled exasperation that spoke for
her from every movement and tone. Once or twice she felt it wavering
towards speech and whisked about and bumped things down with extra
violence. Once or twice he smiled into her angry face and she feared he
was going to speak of them.




                             CHAPTER XVIII


                                   1

It was a sort of formality. They all three seemed to be waiting for
something to begin. They were not at ease. Perhaps they had come to the
end of everything they had to say to each other and had only the memory
of their common youth to bind them to each other. Members of the same
family never seemed to be quite at ease sitting together doing nothing.
These three met so seldom that they were obliged when they met to appear
to be giving their whole attention to each other, sitting confronted and
trying to keep talk going all the time. That made everyone speak and
smile and look self-consciously. Perhaps they reminded each other by
their mutual presence that the dreams of their youth had not been
fulfilled. And the cousins were formal. Like the other cousins they
belonged to the prosperous provincial middle class that always tries to
get its sons into professions. Without the volume of Sophocles one would
have known he was part of a school and she would have been nothing but
the wife or daughter or sister of an English professional man. It was
always the same world; once the only world that was worthy of one's
envious admiration and respect; changed now ... "hardworked little text
book people and here and there an enlightened thwarted man." ... Was Mr.
Canfield thwarted? There was a curious look of lonely enlightenment
about his head. At the University, and now and again with a head master
or a fellow assistant-master he had had moments of exchange and been
happy for a moment and seen the world alight. But his happiest times had
been in loneliness, with thoughts coming to him out of books. They had
been his solace and his refuge since he was fifteen; and in spite of the
hair greying his temples he was still fifteen; within him were all the
dreams and all the dreadful crudities of boyhood ... he had never grown
to man's estate.... He had understood at once. "It always seems
unnecessary to explain things to people; you feel while you are
explaining that they will meet the same thing themselves, perhaps in
some different form; but certainly, because things are all the same."
"Oh yes; that's certainly so." He had looked pleased and lightened.
Darkness and cold had come in an instant with Mrs. Canfield's unexpected
reverent voice. "I don't quite understand what that means; tell me." She
had put down her fancy work and lifted her flower-like face, not
suspiciously as the other cousins would have done, but with their type
of gentle formal refinement and something of their look. She could be
sour and acid if she chose. She could curl her lips and snub people.
What was the secret of the everlasting same awfulness of even the nicest
of refined sheltered middle-class Englishwoman? He had stumbled and
wandered through a vague statement. He knew that all the long loneliness
of his mind lay revealed before one--and yet she had been the dream and
wonder and magic of his youth and still was his dear companion. The
'lady' was the wife for the professional Englishman--simple sheltered
domesticated, trained in principles she did not think about and living
by them; revering professional and professionally successful men; never
seeing the fifth-form schoolboys they all were. No woman who saw them as
they were with their mental pride and vanity and fixity, would stay with
them; no woman who saw their veiled appetites.... But where could all
these wives go?


                                   2

Throughout the evening she was kept quiet and dull and felt presently
very weary. Her helpless stock-taking made it difficult to face the
strangers, lest painful illumination and pity and annoyance should
stream from her too visibly.... Perhaps they too took stock and pitied;
but they were interested, a little eager in response and though too well
bred for questions, obviously full of unanswered surmises, which perhaps
presently they would communicate to each other. There were people who
would say she was too egoistic to be interested in them, a selfish,
unsocial, unpleasant person and they were kind charming people,
interested in everybody. That might be true.... But it was also true
that they were eager and interested because their lives were empty of
everything but principles and a certain fixed way of looking at things;
and one could be fond of their niceness and respectful to their goodness
but never interested because one knew everything about them, even their
hidden thoughts and the side of them that was not nice or good without
having any communication with them.... He had another side; but there
was no place in his life which would allow it expression. It could only
live in the lives of people met in books; in sympathies here and there
for a moment; in people who passed "like ships in the night"; in moments
at the beginning and end of holidays when things would seem real, and as
if henceforth they were going to be real every day. If it found
expression in his life, it would break up that life. Anyone who tried to
make it find personal expression would be cruel; unless it were to turn
him into a reformer or the follower of a reformer. That could happen to
him. He was secretly interested in adventurers and adventuresses.




                              CHAPTER XIX


                                   1

It had evidently been a great festival. One of the events of Mr.
Hancock's summer; designed by him for the happiness and enjoyment of his
friends and enjoyed by him in labouring to those ends. It was
_beautiful_ to look back upon; in every part; the easy journey, the
approach to the cottage along the mile of green-feathered river, the
well-ordered feast in the large clean cottage; the well-thought out
comfort of the cottage bedrooms, the sight of the orchard lit by Chinese
lanterns, the lantern-lit boats, the drifting down the river in the soft
moonlit air; the candle lit supper table, morning through the cottage
windows, upstairs and down, far away from the world, people meeting at
breakfast like travellers in a far-off country, pleased to see well
known faces ... the morning on the green river ... the gentleness and
kindliness and quiet dignity of everybody, the kindly difficult gently
jesting discussion of small personal incidents; the gentle amiable
strains; the mild restrained self-effacing watchfulness of the women;
the uncompeting mutual admiration of the men; the general gratitude of
the group when one or other of the men filled up a space of time with a
piece of modestly narrated personal reminiscence....


                                   2

Never, never could she belong to that world. It was a perfect little
world; enclosed; something one would need to be born and trained into;
the experience of it as an outsider was pure pain and misery;
admiration, irritation and resentment running abreast in a fever.
Welcome and kindliness could do nothing; one's own straining towards it,
nothing; a night of sleepless battering at its closed doors, nothing.
There was a secret in it, in spite of its simple seeming exterior; an
undesired secret. Something to which one could not give oneself up. Its
terms were terms on which one could not live. That girl could live on
them, in spite of her strenuous different life in the east-end
settlement ... in spite of her plain dull dress and red hands. She knew
the code; her cheap straw hat waved graciously, her hair ruffled about
her head in soft clouds. Why had he never spoken of her uncle's cottage
so near his own? She must be always there. When she appeared in the
surgery she seemed to come straight out of the east-end ... his respect
for workers amongst the poor ... his general mild revulsion from
philanthropists; but down here she was not a philanthropist ...
outwardly a girl with blowy hair and a wavy hat, smiling in boats,
understanding botany and fishing ... inwardly a designing female, her
mind lit by her cold intellectual "ethical"--hooooo--the very _sound_ of
the word--"ethical Pantheism"; cool and secret and hateful. "Rather a
nice little thing"; "pretty green dress"; _nice_!




                               CHAPTER XX


                                   1

Miriam turned swiftly in her chair and looked up. But Mr. Hancock was
already at the door. There was only a glimpse of his unknown figure
arrested for a moment with its back to her as he pulled the door wide
enough to pass through. The door closed crisply behind him and his crisp
unhastening footsteps went away out of hearing along the thickly
carpeted hall.

"_Dear_ me!" she breathed through firmly held lips, standing up. Her
blood was aflame. The thudding of her heart shook the words upon her
breath. She was fighting against something more than amazement. She knew
that only part of her refused to believe. In a part of her brain
illumination leaving the shock already far away in the past, was at work
undisturbed, flowing rapidly down into thoughts set neatly in the
language of the world. She held them back, occupying herself
irrelevantly about the room, catching back desperately at the familiar
trains of revery suggested by its objects; cancelling the incident and
summoning it again and again without prejudice or afterthought. Each
time the shock recurred unchanged, firmly registered, its quality
indubitable. She sat down at last to examine it and find her thoughts.
Taking a pencil in a trembling hand she began carefully adding a long
column of figures. A system of adding that had been recommended to her
by the family mathematician now suggested itself for the first time in
connection with her own efforts....

How _dare_ he?

It was deliberate. A brusque casual tone, deliberately put on; a tone he
sometimes used to the boys downstairs, or to cabmen. How did he dare to
use it to her? It must cease instantly. It was not to be suffered for a
moment. Not for a moment could she hold a position which would
entitle any one, particularly any man to speak to her in
that--outrageous--_official_ tone. Why not? It was the way of business
people and officials all the world over.... Then he should have begun as
he meant to go on.... I won't endure it now. No one has ever spoken to
me in that way--and no one shall, with impunity. I have been fortunate.
They have spoiled me.... I should never have come if I had found they
had that sort of tone. It was his difference that made me come.


                                   2

Those two had talked to him and made him think. The aunt and cousins had
prepared the way. But their hostility had been harmless. These two had
approved. That was clear at the week-end. They must have chaffed him and
given him their blessing. Then, for the first time, he had thought,
sitting alone and pondering reasonably. It was he himself who had drawn
back. He was quite right. He belonged to that side of society and must
keep with them and go their way. Very wise and right ... but damn his
insolent complacency....

                   *       *       *       *       *

"Everything a professional man does, must stabilise his position."
Perhaps that is true. But then his business relationships must be
business relationships from the first ... that was expected. The wonder
of the Wimpole Street life was that it had not been so. Instead of an
employer there had been a sensitive isolated man; prosperous and strong
outwardly and as suffering and perplexed in mind as any one could be. He
had not hesitated to seek sympathy.


                                   3

_Any_ fair-minded onlooker would condemn him. Anyone who could have seen
the way he broke through resistance to social intercourse outside the
practice. He may have thought he was being kind to a resourceless girl.
It was _not_ to resourcelessness that he had appealed. It was not that.
That was not the truth.


                                   4

He would have cynical thoughts. The truth was that something came in and
happened of itself before one knew. A woman always knows first. It was
not clear until Babington. But there was a sharp glimpse then. He must
have known how amazed they would be at his cycling over after he had
neglected them for years, on that one Sunday. They had concealed their
amazement from him. But it was they who had revealed things. There was
nothing imaginary after that in taking one wild glance and leaving
things to go their way. Nothing. No one was to blame. And now he knew
and had considered and had made an absurd reasonable decision and taken
ridiculous prompt action.

                   *       *       *       *       *

A business relationship ... by _all_ means. But he shall acknowledge and
apologise. He shall explain his insulting admission of fear. He shall
admit in plain speech what has accounted for his change of manner.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Then that little horror is also condemned. _She_ is not a wealthy
efficient woman of the world.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Men are simply paltry and silly--all of them.

                   *       *       *       *       *

In pain and fear she wandered about her room, listening for her bell. It
had gone; the meaning of their days had gone; trust and confidence could
never come back. A door was closed. His life was closed on her for
ever....


                                   5

The bell rang softly in its usual way. The incident had been an
accident; an illusion. Even so; she had been prepared for it, without
knowing she was prepared, otherwise she would not have understood so
fully and instantly. If she had only imagined it, it had changed
everything, her interpretation of it was prophetic; just as before he
had not known where they were so now the rupture was imminent whether he
knew it or no. She found herself going upstairs breathing air thick with
pain. This was dreadful.... She could not bear much of this.... The
patient had gone. He would be alone. They would be alone. To be in his
presence would be a relief ... this was appalling. This pain could not
be endured. The sight of the room holding the six months would be
intolerable. She drew her face together, but her heart was beating
noisily. The knob of the door handle rattled in her trembling hand ...
large flat brass knob with a row of grooves to help the grasp ... she
had never observed that before. The door opened before her. She flung it
wider than usual and pushed her way, leaving it open ... he was standing
impermanently with a sham air of engrossment at his writing table and
would turn on his heel and go the moment she was fairly across the room.
Buoyant with pain she flitted through the empty air towards the distant
bracket-table. Each object upon it stood marvellously clear. She reached
it and got her hands upon the familiar instruments ... no sound; he had
not moved. The flame of the little spirit-lamp burned unwavering in the
complete stillness ... now was the moment to drop thoughts and anger. Up
here was something that had been made up here, real and changeless and
independent. The least vestige of tumult would destroy it. It was
something that no one could touch; neither his friends nor he nor she.
They had not made it and they could not touch it. Nothing had happened
to it; and he had stood quietly there long enough for it to re-assert
itself. Steadily with her hands full of instruments she turned towards
the sterilising tray. The room was empty. Pain ran glowing up her arms
from her burden of nauseating relics of the needs of some complacent
patient ... the room was stripped, a west-end surgery, among scores of
other west-end surgeries, a prison claiming her by the bonds of the
loathsome duties she had learned.




                              CHAPTER XXI


                                   1

To-day the familiar handwriting brought no relief. This letter must be
the final explanation. She opened it, standing by the hall table. "Dear
Miss Henderson--you are very persistent." She folded the letter up and
walked rapidly out into the sunshine. The way down to the Euston Road
was very long and sunlit. It was radiant with all the months and weeks
and days. She thought of going on with the unread letter and carrying it
into the surgery, tearing it up into the waste paper basket and saying I
have not read this. It is all right. We will not talk any more. One
thing would have gone. But there would be a tremendous cheerfulness and
independence and the memory of the things in the other letters. The
letter once read two things would have gone, everything. She paused at
the corner of the gardens looking down at the pavement. There was in
some way that would not come quite clear so much more at stake than
personal feelings about the insulting moment. It was something that
stuck into everything, made everything intolerable until it was admitted
and cancelled. As long as he went on hedging and pretending it was not
there there could be no truth anywhere. It was something that must go
out of the world, no matter what it cost. It would be smiling and
cattish and behaving to drop it. Explained, it would be wiped away, and
everything else with it. To accept his assertions would be to admit lack
of insight. That would be treachery. The continued spontaneity of manner
which it would ensure would be the false spontaneity that sat everywhere
... all over that woman getting into the 'bus; brisk cheerful falsity.
She glanced through to the end of the letter ... "foolish gossip which
might end by making your position untenable." _Idiot._ Charming
chivalrous gentleman.

                   *       *       *       *       *

I want to have it both ways. To keep the consideration and flout the
necessity for it. No one shall dare to protect me from gossip. To prove
myself independent and truth-demanding I would break up anything. That's
damned folly. Never mind. Why didn't he admit it at once? He hated being
questioned and challenged. He may have thought that manner was "the
kindest way." It is not for him to choose ways of treating me. This
cancels the past. But it admits it. Not to admit the past would be to go
on for ever in a false position. He still hides. But he knows that I
know he is hiding. Where we have been we have been. It may have been
through a false estimate of me to begin with. That does not matter.
Where we have been we have been. That is not imagination. One day he
will know it is not imagination. There is something that is making me
very glad. A painful relief. Something forcing me back upon something.
There is something that I have smashed, for some reason I do not know.
It's something in my temper, that flares out about things. Life allows
no chance of getting at the bottom of things....


                                   2

I have nothing now but my pained self again, having violently rushed at
things and torn them to bits. It's all my fault from the very beginning.
But I stand for something. I would dash my head against a wall rather
than deny it. I make people hate me by _knowing_ them and dashing my
head against the wall of their behaviour. I should never make a good
chess-player. Is God a chess-player? I shan't leave until I have proved
that no one can put me in a false position. There is something that is
untouched by positions....

                   *       *       *       *       *

I did not know what I had.... Friendship is fine fine porcelain. I have
sent a crack right through it....

Mrs. Bailey ... numbers of people I never think of would like to have me
always there....

The sky fitting down on the irregular brown vista bore an untouched
life.... There were always mornings; at work. I am free to work
zealously and generously with and for him.

At _least_ I have broken up his confounded complacency.

He will be embarrassed. _I_ shan't.




                              CHAPTER XXII


                                   1

... "And at fifty, when a woman is beginning to sit down intelligently
to life--behold, it is beginning to be time to take leave...."

That woman was an elderly woman of the world; but a dear. She
understood. She had spent her life in amongst people, having a life of
her own going on all the time; looking out at something through the
bars, whenever she was alone and sometimes in the midst of
conversations; but no one would see it, but people who _knew_. And now
she was free to step out and there was hardly any time left. But there
was a little time. Women who _know_ are quite brisk at fifty. "A man
must never be silent with a woman unless he wishes for the quiet
development of a relationship from which there is no withdrawing ... if
ordinary social intercourse cannot be kept up he must fly ... in silence
a man is an open book and unarmed. In speech with a man a woman is at a
disadvantage--because they speak different languages. She may understand
his. Hers he will never speak nor understand. In pity, or from other
motives she must therefore, stammeringly, speak his. He listens and is
flattered and thinks he has her mental measure when he has not touched
even the fringe of her consciousness.... Outside the life relationship
men and women can have only conversational, and again conversational,
interchange." ... That's the truth about life. Men and women never meet.
Inside the life relationship you can see them being strangers and
hostile; one or the other or both, completely alone. That was the world.
Social life. In social life no one was alive but the lonely women
keeping up half-admiring half-pitying endless conversations with men,
with one little ironic part of themselves ... until they were fifty and
had done their share of social life. But outside the world--one could be
alive always. Fifty. Thirty more years....


                                   2

When I woke in the night I felt nothing but tiredness and regret for
having promised to go. Now, I never felt so strong and happy. This is
how Mag is feeling. Their kettle is bumping on their spirit lamp too.
She loves the sound just in this way, the Sunday morning sound of the
kettle with the air full of coming bells and the doors opening--I'm
half-dressed, without any effort--and shutting up and down the streets
is _perfect_, again, and again; at seven o'clock in the silence, with
the air coming in from the Squares smelling like the country is bliss.
"You know, little child, you have an extraordinary capacity for
happiness." I suppose I have. Well; I can't help it.... I _am_
frantically frantically happy. I'm up here alone, frantically happy.
Even Mag has to talk to Jan about the happy things. Then they go, a
little. The only thing to do is either to be silent or make cheerful
noises. Bellow. If you do that too much people don't like it. You can
only keep on making cheerful noises if you are quite alone. Perhaps that
is why people in life are always grumbling at 'annoyances' and things;
to hide how happy they are ... "there is a dead level of happiness all
over the world"--hidden. People go on about things because they are
always trying to remember how happy they are. The worse things are the
more despairing they get, because they are so happy. You know what I
mean. It's there--there's nothing else there.... But some people _know_
more about it than others. Intelligent people. I suppose I am
intelligent. I can't _help_ it. I don't want to be different. Yes I
do--oh Lord yes I _do_. Mag knows. But she goes in amongst people and
the complaints and the fuss and takes sides. But they both come out
again; to be by themselves and talk about it all ... they sit down
intelligently to life.... They do things that have nothing to do with
their circumstances. They were always doing things like this all the
year round. Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter things. They had
done, for years. The kind of things that made independent elderly women,
widows and spinsters who were free to go about, have that look of
intense appreciation ... "a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and
sympathise"; no, that type was always inclined to revel in other
people's troubles. It was something more than that. Never mind. Come on.
Hurry up. _Oh_--for a man, oh for a man _oh_ for a man--_sion_ in the
skies.... Wot a big voice I've got, Mother.


                                   3

"Cooooooo--ooo--er--Bill." The sudden familiar sound came just above her
head. Where was she? _What_ a pity. The boys had wakened her. Then she
had been asleep! It was perfect. The footsteps belonging to the voice
had passed along just above her head; nice boys, they could not help
chi-iking when they saw the sleeping figures, but they did not mean to
disturb. They had wakened her from her first day-time sleep. Asleep! She
had slept in broad sunlight at the foot of the little cliff. Waking in
the day time is _perfect_ happiness. To wake suddenly and fully,
nowhere; in paradise; and then to see sharply with large clear strong
eyes the things you were looking at when you fell asleep. She lay
perfectly still. Perhaps the girls were asleep. Presently they would all
be sitting up again and she would have to begin once more the tiring
effort to be as clever as they were. But it would be a little different
now that they had all lain stretched out at the foot of the cliffs
asleep. She was changed. Something had happened since she had fallen
asleep disappointed in the east-coast sea and the little low cliff,
wondering why she could not see and feel them like the seas and cliffs
of her childhood. She could see and feel them now, as long as no one
spoke and the first part of the morning remained far away. She closed
her eyes and drifted drowsily back to the moment of being awakened by
the sudden cry. In the instant before her mind had slid back and she had
listened to the muffled footsteps thudding along the turf of the low
cliff above her head, waiting angrily and anxiously for further
disturbance, she had been perfectly alive, seeing; perfect things all
round her, no beginning or ending ... there had been moments like that,
years ago, in gardens, by seas and cliffs. Her mind wandered back
amongst these; calling up each one with perfect freshness. They were all
the same. In each one she had felt exactly the same; outside life,
untouched by anything, free. She had thought they belonged to the past,
to childhood and youth. In childhood she had thought each time that the
world had just begun and would always be like that; later on, she now
remembered, she had always thought when such a moment came that it would
be the last and clung to it with wide desperate staring eyes until tears
came and she had turned away from some great open scene with a strong
conscious body flooded suddenly by a strong warm tide to the sad dark
world to live for the rest of her time upon a memory. But the moment she
had just lived was the same, it was exactly the _same_ as the first one
she could remember, the moment of standing, alone, in bright sunlight on
a narrow gravel path in the garden at Babington between two banks of
flowers, the flowers level with her face and large bees swinging slowly
to and fro before her face from bank to bank, many sweet smells coming
from the flowers and amongst them a strange pleasant smell like burnt
paper.... It was the same moment. She saw it now in just the same way;
not remembering going into the garden or any end to being in the bright
sun between the blazing flowers, the two banks linked by the slowly
swinging bees, nothing else in the world, no house behind the little
path, no garden beyond it. Yet she must somehow have got out of the
house and through the shrubbery and along the plain path between the
lawns.


                                   4

All the six years at Babington were the blazing alley of flowers without
beginning or end, no winters, no times of day or changes to be seen.
There were other memories, quarrelling with Harriett in the nursery,
making paper pills, listening to the bells on Sunday afternoon, a bell
and a pomegranate, a bell or a pomegranate round about the hem of
Aaron's robe, the squirting of water into one's aching ear, the taste of
an egg after scarlet fever, the witch in the chimney, cowslip balls, a
lobster walking upstairs on its tail, dancing in a ring with grown-ups,
the smell of steam and soap the warm smell of the bath towel, Martha's
fingers warming one's feet, her lips kissing one's back, something going
to happen to-morrow, crackling green paper clear like glass and a gold
paper fringe in your hand before the cracker went off; an eye blazing
out of the wall at night "Thou God seest me," apple pasties in the
garden; coming up from the mud pies round the summer house to bed, being
hit on the nose by a swing and going indoors screaming at the large
blots of blood on the white pinafore, climbing up the cucumber frame and
falling through the glass at the top, blowing bubbles in the hay-loft
and singing Rosalie the Prairie Flower, and whole pieces of life indoors
and out coming up bit by bit as one thought, but all mixed with sadness
and pain and bothers with people. They did not come first or without
thought. The blazing alley came first without thought or effort of
memory. The flowers all shining separate and distinct and all together,
indistinct in a blaze. She gazed at them ... sweet Williams of many
hues, everlasting flowers gold and yellow and brown and brownish purple,
pinks and petunias and garden daisies white and deep crimson ... then
_memory_ was happiness, one happiness linked to the next.... It was the
same already with Germany ... the sunny happy beautiful things came
first ... in a single glance the whole of the time in Germany was
beautiful, golden happy light, and people happy in the golden light,
garlands of music, and the happy ringing certainty of voices, no matter
what they said, the way the whole of life throbbed with beauty when the
hush of prayers was on the roomful of girls ... the wonderful house,
great dark high wooden doors in the distance thrown silently open, great
silent space of sunlight between them, high windows, alight against the
shadows of rooms; the happy confidence of the open scene.... Germany was
a party, a visit, a gift. It _had_ been, in spite of everything in the
difficult life, what she had dreamed it when she went off; all woods and
forests and music ... happy Hermann and Dorothea happiness in the summer
twilight of German villages. It had become that now. The heart of a
German town was that, making one a little homesick for it.... The
impulse to go and the going had been right. It was part of something ...
with a meaning; perhaps there is happiness only in the things one does
deliberately, without a visible reason; drifting off to Germany, because
it called; coming here to-day ... in freedom. If you are free you are
alive ... nothing that happens in the part of your life that is not
free, the part you do and are paid for, is alive. To-day, because I am
free I am the same person as I was when I was there, but much stronger
and happier because I know it. As long as I can sometimes feel like this
nothing has mattered. Life is a chain of happy moments that cannot die.

"Damn those boys--they woke me up."

"Did they Mag; so they did me; did you dream?"

Perhaps Mag would say something ... but people never seemed to think
anything of "dropping off to sleep."

"I drempt that I dwelt in Marble Halls; you awake von Bohlen?"

"I don't quite know."

"But speaking _tent_atively...."

"A long lean mizzerable tentative----"

"I perceive that you are still asleep. Shall I sing it--"I _durr-e-_empt
I da-_we_-elt in ma-ha-har-ble halls."

"Cooooo--oooo--er Bill." The response sounded faintly from far away on
the cliffs.

"Cooooo--ooo--er Micky" warbled Miriam. "I like that noise. When they
are further off I shall try doing it very loud to get the proper crack."

"I think we'd better leave her here, don't you von Bohlen?"

Was it nearly tea-time? Would either of them soon mention tea? The
beauty of the rocks had faded. Yet, if they ceased being clever and
spoke of the beauty, it would not come back. The weariness of keeping
things up went on. When the gingernuts and lemonade were at last set out
upon the sand, they shamed Miriam with the sense of her long
preoccupation with them. The girls had not thought of them. They never
seemed to flag in their way of talking. Perhaps it was partly their
regular meals. It was dreadful always to be the first one to want
food....

But she was happier down here with them than she would have been alone.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Going alone for a moment in the twilight across the little scrub, as
soon as she had laughed enough over leaving the room in the shelter of a
gorse bush, she recovered the afternoon's happiness. There was a little
fence, bricks were lying scattered about and half-finished houses stood
along the edge of the scrub. But a soft land-breeze was coming across
the common carrying the scent of gorse; the silence of the sea reminded
her of its presence beyond the cliffs; her own gorse-scented breeze, and
silent sea and sunlit cliffs.




                             CHAPTER XXIII


                                   1

Cool with sound short sleep she rose early, the memory of yesterday
giving a Sunday leisure to the usual anxious hurry of breakfast. She was
strong with her own possessions. Wimpole Street held nothing but her
contract of duties to fulfil. These she could see in a clear vexatious
tangle, against the exciting on-coming of everybody's summer; an
excitement that was enough in itself. Patients were pouring out of
town--in a fortnight the Orlys would be gone; all Mr. Orly's accounts
must be out by then. In a month Mr. Hancock would go. For a month before
her own holiday there would be almost nothing to do. If everyone's
accounts were examined before then, she could get them off at leisure
during that month ... then for this month there was nothing to do but
the lessening daily duties and to get everyone to examine accounts; then
the house to herself, with only Mr. Leyton there; the cool ease of
summer in her room, and her own month ahead.


                                   2

The little lavatory with its long high window sending in the light from
across the two sets of back to back tree-shaded Bloomsbury gardens, its
little shabby open sink cupboard facing her with its dim unpolished taps
and the battered enamel cans on its cracked and blistered wooden top
became this morning one of her own rooms, a happy little corner in the
growing life that separated her from Wimpole Street. There were no
corners such as this in the beautiful clever Hampstead house; no remote
shabby happy corners at all; nothing brown and old and at peace. Between
him and his house were his housekeeper and servants; between him and his
life was his profession ... and the complex group of people with whom he
must perpetually deal, with whom he dealt in alternations of intimacy
and formality. He was still at his best in his practice. That was still
his life. There was nothing more real as yet in his life than certain
times and moments in his room at Wimpole Street.... Life had answered no
other questions for him.... His thought-life and his personal life were
troubled and dark and cold ... in spite of his attachment to some of his
family group ... he could buy beautiful things, and travel freely in his
leisure ... perhaps that, those two glorious things, were sufficient
compensation. But there was something wrong about them; they gave a
false sense of power ... the way all those people smiled at each other
when they went about and bought things, picked up a fine thing at a
bargain, or gave a price whose size they were proud of ... thinking
other people's thoughts ... apart from this worldly side of his life, he
was entirely at Wimpole Street; the whole of him; an open book; there
was nothing else in his life, yet ... his holiday with those two
men--even the soft-voiced sensuous one who would quote poetry and talk
romantically and cynically about women in the evenings--would bring
nothing else. Yet he was counting upon it so much that he could not help
unbending about his boat and his boots and his filters ... perhaps all
that was the best of the holiday--men were never tired of talking about
the way they did this and that ... clever difficult things that made all
the difference; but they missed all the rest. Even when they sat about
smoking their minds were fussing. The women in their parties dressed,
and smiled and appreciated. There would be no real happiness in such a
party ... except when the women were alone, doing the things with no
show about them. Supposing I were able to go anywhere on this page ...
Ippington ... 295m; pop. 760 ... trains to Tudworth and thence two or
three times daily ... Spray Bay Hotel.... A sparrow cheeped on the
window sill and fluttered away. The breath of happiness poured in at the
high window; all the places in the railway guide told over their charms;
mountains and lakes and rivers, innumerable strips of coast, village
streets to walk along for the first time, leading out ... going,
somewhere, in a train. Standing on tiptoe she gazed her thoughts across
the two garden spaces towards the grimed backs of the large brown
houses. Why was one allowed to be so utterly happy? There it was ...
happily here and happily going away ... away.




                              CHAPTER XXIV


                                   1

"There; how d'ye like that, eh? A liberal education in twelve volumes
with an index. Read them when ye want to. See?" ...

They looked less set up like that in a row than when they had lain about
on the floor of the den ... taking up Dante and Beethoven at tea time.


                                   2

"Books posted? I wonder I'm not more rushed. I say--v'you greased all
Hancock's and the Pater's instruments?"

He knows I'm slacking ... he'll tell the others when they come back....

Mr. Leyton's door shut with a bang. He would be sitting reading the
newspaper until the next patient came. The eternal sounds of laughter
and dancing came up from the kitchen. The rest of the house was
perfectly still. Her miserable hand reopened the last page of the Index.
There were five or six more entries under "Woman."


                                   3

If one could only burn all the volumes; stop the publication of them.
But it was all books, all the literature in the world, right back to
Juvenal ... whatever happened, if it could all be avenged by somebody in
some way, there was all that ... the classics, the finest
literature,--"unsurpassed." Education would always mean coming in
contact with all that. Schoolboys got their first ideas.... _How_ could
Newnham and Girton women endure it? How could they go on living and
laughing and talking?

                   *       *       *       *       *

And the modern men were the worst ... "we can now, with all the facts in
our hands sit down and examine her at our leisure." There was no getting
away from the scientific facts ... _inferior;_ mentally, morally,
intellectually and physically ... her development arrested in the
interest of her special functions ... reverting later towards the male
type ... old women with deep voices and hair on their faces ... leaving
off where boys of eighteen began. If that is true everything is as clear
as daylight. "Woman is not undeveloped man but diverse" falls to pieces.
Woman is undeveloped man ... if one could die of the loathsome visions
... I _must_ die. I can't go on living in it ... the whole world full of
_creatures_; half-human. And I am one of the half-human ones or shall be
if I don't stop now.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Boys and girls were much the same ... women stopped being people and
went off into hideous processes. What for? What was it all for?
Development. The wonders of science. The wonders of science for women
are nothing but gynæcology--all those frightful operations in the
"British Medical Journal" and those jokes--the hundred golden rules....
Sacred functions ... highest possibilities ... sacred for what? The hand
that rocks the cradle rules the world? The Future of the Race? What
world? What race? Men.... Nothing but men; forever.

                   *       *       *       *       *

If by one thought all the men in the world could be stopped, shaken and
slapped. There _must_, somewhere be some power that could avenge it all
... but if these men were right there was not. Nothing but Nature and
her decrees. Why was nature there? Who started it? If nature "took good
care" this and that ... there must be somebody. If there was a trick
there must be a trickster. If there is a god who arranged how things
should be between men and women and just let it go and go on I have no
respect for him. I should like to give him a piece of my mind....

                   *       *       *       *       *

It will all go on as long as women are stupid enough to go on bringing
men into the world ... even if civilised women stop the colonials and
primitive races would go on. It is a nightmare.

                   *       *       *       *       *

They invent a legend to put the blame for the existence of humanity on
woman and if she wants to stop it they talk about the wonders of
civilisation and the sacred responsibilities of motherhood. They can't
have it both ways. They also say women are not logical.

                   *       *       *       *       *

They despise women and they want to go on living--to
reproduce--themselves. None of their achievements, no "civilisation," no
art, no science can redeem that. There is no pardon possible for man.
The only answer to them is suicide; all women ought to agree to commit
suicide.


                                   4

The torment grew as the August weeks passed. There were strange
interesting things unexpectedly everywhere. Streets of great shuttered
houses, their window boxes flowerless, all grey cool and quiet and
untroubled on a day of cool rain; the restaurants were no longer
crowded; torturing thought ranged there unsupported, goaded to madness,
just a mad feverish swirling in the head, ranging out, driven back by
the vacant eyes of little groups of people from the country. Unfamiliar
people appeared in the parks and streets talking and staring eagerly
about, women in felt boat-shaped hats trimmed with plaid
ribbons--Americans. They looked clever--and ignorant of worrying
thoughts. Men carried their parcels. But it was just the same. It was
impossible to imagine these dried, yellow-faced women with babies. But
if they liked all the fuss and noise and talk as much as they seemed to
do.... If they did _not_, what were they doing? What was everybody
_doing_? So busily.


                                   5

Sleeplessness and every day a worse feeling of illness. Every day the
new torture. Every night the dreaming and tossing in the fierce,
stifling, dusty heat, the awful waking, to know that presently the
unbearable human sounds would begin again; the torment of walking
through the streets the solitary torment of leisure to read again in the
stillness of the office; the moments of hope of finding a fresh meaning;
hope of having misread.


                                   6

There was nothing to turn to. Books were poisoned. Art. All the
achievements of men were poisoned at the root. The beauty of nature was
tricky femininity. The animal world was cruelty. Humanity was based on
cruelty. Jests and amusements were tragic distractions from tragedy.
Religion was the only hope. But even there there was no hope for women.
No future life could heal the degradation of having been a woman.
Religion in the world had nothing but insults for women. Christ was a
man. If it was true that he was God taking on humanity--he took on
_male_ humanity ... and the people who explained him, St. Paul and the
priests, the Anglicans and the non-Conformists it was the same story
everywhere. Even if religion could answer science and prove it wrong
there was no hope, for women. And no intelligent person can prove
science wrong. Life is poisoned, for women, at the very source. Science
is true and will find out more and more and things will grow more and
more horrible. Space is full of dead worlds. The world is cooling and
dying. Then why not stop _now_?


                                   7

"Nature's great Salic Law will never be repealed." "Women can never
reach the highest places in civilisation." Thomas Henry Huxley. With
side-whiskers. A bouncing complacent walk. Thomas Henry Huxley.
(_Thom_as _Ba_bington Ma_cau_lay.) The same sort of walk. Eminent men.
Revelling in their cleverness. "The Lord has delivered him into my
hand." He did not believe in any future for anybody. But he built his
life up complacently on home and family life while saying all those
things about women, lived on them and their pain, ate their food,
enjoyed the comforts they made ... and wrote conceited letters to his
friends about his achievements and his stomach and his feelings.


                                   8

What is it in me that stands back? Why can't it explain? My head will
burst if it can't explain. If I die now in wild anger it only makes the
thing more laughable on the whole.... That old man lives quite alone in
a little gaslit lodging. When he comes out he is quite alone. There is
nothing touching him anywhere. He will go quietly on like that till he
dies. But he is me. I saw myself in his eyes that day. But he must have
money. He can live like that with nothing to do but read and think and
roam about because he has money. It isn't fair. Some woman cleans his
room and does his laundry. His thoughts about women are awful. It's the
best way ... but I've made all sorts of plans for the holidays. After
that I will save and never see anybody and never stir out of Bloomsbury.
The woman in black works. It's only in the evenings she can roam about
seeing nothing. But the people she works for know nothing about her. She
knows. She is sweeter than he. She is sweet. I like her. But he is more
me.




                              CHAPTER XXV


                                   1

The room still had the same radiant air. Nothing looked worn. There was
not a spot anywhere. Bowls of flowers stood about. The Coalport tea
service was set out on the little black table. The drawn-thread work
table cover.... She had arranged the flowers. That was probably all she
did; going in and out of the garden, in the sun, picking flowers. The
Artist's Model and The Geisha and the Strand Musicals still lay about;
the curious new smell came from the inside of the piano. But there was
this dreadful tiredness. It was dreadful that the tiredness should come
nearer than the thought of Harriett. A pallid worried disordered face
looked back from the strip of glass in the overmantel. No need to have
looked. Always now, away from London, there was this dreadful
realisation of fatigue, dreadful empty sense of worry and hurry ...
feeling so _strong_ riding down through London, everything dropping
away, nothing to think of; off and free, the holiday ahead, nothing but
lovely, lonely freedom all round one.


                                   2

Perhaps Harriett would be nervous and irritable. She had much more
reason to be. But even if she were it would be no good. It would be
impossible to conceal this frightful fatigue and nervousness. Harriett
_must_ understand at once how battered and abject one was. And it was a
misrepresentation. Harriett knew nothing of all one had come from; all
one was going to in the distance. Maddening.... Lovely; how rich and
good they looked, more honest than those in the London shops. Harriett
or Mrs. Thimm or Emma had ordered them from some confectioner in
Chiswick. Fancy being able to buy anything like that without thinking.
How well they went with the black piano and the Coalport tea-service and
the garden light coming in. Gerald did not think that women were
inferior or that Harriett was a dependent.... But Gerald did not think
at all. He knew nothing was too good for Harriett. Oo, _I_ dunno, she
would say with a laugh. She thought all men were duffers. Perhaps that
was the best way. Selfish babies. But Gerald was not selfish. He would
never let Harriett wash up if he were there. He would never pretend to
be ignorant of 'mysteries' to get out of doing things. I get out of
doing things--in houses. But women won't let me do things. They all know
I want to be mooning about. How do they know it? What is it? But they
like me to be there. And now in houses there's always this fearful worry
and tiredness. What is the meaning of it?

Heavy footsteps came slowly downstairs.

"I put tea indoors. I thought Miss Miriam'd be warm after her ride."

A large undulating voice with a shrewd consoling glance in it. She must
have come to the kitchen door to meet Harriett in the hall.

"Yes, I'ke spect she will." It was the same voice she had had in the
nursery, resonant with practice in speaking to new people. Miriam felt
tears coming.

"Hullo, you porking? Isn't it porking?"

"Simply porked to death my dear. Porked to _Death_" bawled Miriam
softly, refreshed and delighted. Harriett was still far off, but she
felt as if she had touched her. Even the end of the awful nine months
was not changing her. Her freshly shampooed hair had a leisurely glint.
There was colour in her cheeks. She surreptitiously rubbed her own hot
face. Her appearance would improve now with every hour. By the evening
she would be her old self. After tea she would play The Artist's Model
and The Geisha.

"Let's have tea. I was asleep. I didn't hear you come." She sank into
one of the large chairs, her thin accordion pleated black silk tea-gown
billowing out round her squared little body. Even her shoulders looked
broader and squarer. From the little pleated white chiffon chemisette
her radiant firm little head rose up, her hair glinting under the light
of the window behind her. She looked so fine--such a "fine
spectacle"--and seemed so strong. How did she feel? Mrs. Thimm brought
the teapot. The moment she had gone Harriett handed the rich cakes. Mrs.
Thimm _beaming_, shedding strong beams of happiness and approval....

"Come on" said Harriett. "Let's tuck in. There's some thin bread and
butter somewhere but I can't eat anything but these things."

"Can't you?"

"The last time I went up to town Mrs. Bollingdon and I had six between
us at Slater's and when we got back we had another tea."

"Fancy _you_!"

"I know. I can't '_elp_ it."

"I can't 'elp it, Micky. _Love_lay b-hird."

The fourth cup of creamy tea; Harriett's firm ringed hand; the gleaming
serene world; the sunlit flower-filled garden shaded at the far end by
the large tree the other side of the fence coming in, one with the room;
the sun going to set and bring the evening freshness and rise to-morrow.
Twenty-eight leisurely teas, twenty-eight long days; a feeling of
strength and drowsiness. Nothing to do but clean the bicycle and pump up
the tyres on the lawn, to-morrow. Nothing--after carrying the bicycle
from the coal cellar up the area steps and through the house into the
Tansley Street back yard. Nothing more but setting out after two nights
of sleep in a cool room.


                                   3

"That your machine in the yard, Mirry?"

"Yes; I've hired it, thirty bob for the whole month."

"Well, if you're going a sixty mile ride on it I advise you to tighten
up the nuts a bit."

"I will if you'll show me where they are. I've got a lovely spanner. Did
you look in the wallet?"

"I'll have a look at it all over if you like."

"Oh Gerald you saint...."

"Now he's happy," said Harriett as Gerald's white flannelled figure
flashed into the sunlight and disappeared through the yard gate.

"Ph--how hot it is; it's this summer-house."

"Let's go outside if you like," said Miriam lazily, "it seems to me
simply perfect in here."

"It's all right--ph--it's hot everywhere," said Harriett languidly. She
mopped her face. Her face emerged from her handkerchief fever-flushed,
the eyes large and dark and brilliant; her lips full and drawn in and
down at the corners with a look of hopeless anxiety.

Anger flushed through Miriam. Harriett at nineteen, in the brilliant
beauty of the summer afternoon facing hopeless fear.

"That's an awfully pretty dress" she faltered nervously.

Harriett set her lips and stretched both arms along the elbows of her
basket chair.

"You could have it made into an evening gown."

"I loathe the very sight of it. I shall burn it the minute I've done
with it."

It was awful that anything that looked so charming could seem like that.

"D'you feel bad? Is it so awful?"

"I'm all right, but I feel as if I were bursting. I wish it would just
hurry up and be over."

"I think you're simply splendid."

"I simply don't think about it. You don't think about it except now and
again when you realise you've got to go through it and then you go hot
all over."

"The head's a bit wobbly," said Gerald riding round the lawn.

"Does that matter?"

"Well, it doesn't make it any easier to ride, especially with this great
bundle on the handle-bars. You want a luggage-carrier."

"I daresay. I say Gerald, show me the nuts to-morrow, not now."

The machine was lying upside down on the lawn with its back wheel
revolving slowly in the air.

"The front wheel's out of the true."

"What do you think of the saddle?"

"The saddle's all right enough."

"It's a Brooks's, B. 40; about the best you can have. It's my own and
so's the Lucas's Baby bell."

"By Jove, she's got an adjustable spanner."

"That's not mine nor the repair outfit; Mr. Leyton lent me those."

"And vaseline on the bearings."

"Of course."

"I don't think much of your gear-case, my dear."

"Gerald, do you think it's all right on the whole?"

"Well, it's sound enough as far as I can see; bit squiffy and wobbly. I
don't advise you to ride it in traffic or with this bundle."

"I _must_ have the bundle. I came down through Tottenham Court Road and
Oxford Street and Bond Street and Piccadilly all right."

"Well, there's no accounting for tastes. Got any oil?"

"There's a little oil can in the wallet wrapped up in the rag. It's
lovely; perfectly new."




                              CHAPTER XXVI


                                   1

There was a strong soft grey light standing at the side of the blind ...
smiling and touching her as it had promised. She leaped to the floor and
stood looking at it swaying with sleep. Ships sailing along with masts
growing on them, poplars streaming up from the ships, all in a steam of
gold.... Last night's soapy water poured away and the fresh poured out
ready standing there all night, everything ready.... I must not forget
the extra piece of string.... Je-ru-sa-_lem_ the Gol-den,
with-milk-and-hun-ney--blest.... Sh, not so much noise ... beneath thy
con, tem, pla, tion, sink, heart, and, voice, o, ppressed.

   I _know_ not, oh, I, _know_, not.

Sh--Sh ... hark hark my soul angelic songs are swelling O'er earth's
green fields, and ocean's wave-beat shore ... damn--blast where are my
bally knickers? sing us sweet fragments of the songs above.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The green world everywhere, inside and out ... all along the dim
staircase, waiting in the dim cold kitchen.

                   *       *       *       *       *

No blind, brighter. Cool grey light, a misty windless morning. Shut the
door.

   _They_ STAND _those_ HALLS _of_ ZI-ON
   ALL JUBILANT _with_ SONG.


                                   2

As she neared Colnbrook the road grew heavier and a closer mist lay over
the fields. It was too soon for fatigue but her knees already seemed
heavy with effort. Getting off at the level crossing she found that her
skirt was sodden and her zouave spangled all over with beads of
moisture. She walked shivering across the rails and remounted rapidly,
hoisting into the saddle a draggled person that was not her own and
riding doggedly on beating back all thoughts but the thought of sunrise.


                                   3

"Is this Reading?"

The cyclist smiled as he shouted back. He knew she knew. But he liked
shouting too. If she had yelled Have you got a _soul_, it would have
been just the same. If everyone were on bicycles all the time you could
talk to everybody, all the time, about anything ... sailing so steadily
along with two free legs ... how much easier it must be with your knees
going so slowly up and down ... how _funny_ I must look with my knees
racing up and down in lumps of skirt. But I'm here, at the midday rest.
It must be nearly twelve.

Drawing into the curb near a confectioner's she thought of buying two
bars of plain chocolate. There _was_ some sort of truth in the Swiss
Family Robinson. If you went on, it was all right. There was only death.
People frightened you about things that were not there. I will never
listen to anybody again; or be frightened. That cyclist knew, as long as
he was on his bicycle. Perhaps he has people who make him not himself.
He can always get away again. Men can always get away. I am going to
lead a man's life always getting away....

Wheeling her machine back to the open road she sat down on a bank and
ate the cold sausage and bread and half of the chocolate and lay down to
rest on a level stretch of grass in front of a gate. Light throbbed
round the edges of the little high white fleecy clouds. She swung
triumphantly up. The earth throbbed beneath her with the throbbing of
her heart ... the sky steadied and stood further off, clear peaceful
blue with light neat soft bunches of cloud drifting slowly across it.
She closed her eyes upon the dazzling growing distances of blue and
white and felt the horizon folding down in a firm clear sweep round her
green cradle. Within her eyelids fields swung past green, cornfields
gold and black, fields with coned clumps of harvested corn, dusty gold,
and black, on either side of the bone-white grass trimmed road. The road
ran on and on lined by low hedges and the strange everlasting
back-flowing fields. Thrilling hedges and outstretched fields of distant
light, coming on mile after mile, winding off, left behind ... "it's the
Bath Road I shall be riding on; I'm going down to Chiswick to see which
way the wind is on the Bath Road...." Trees appeared golden and green
and shadowy with warm cool strong shaded trunks coming nearer and
larger. They swept by, their shadowy heads sweeping the lower sky.
Poplars shot up drawing her eyes to run up their feathered slimness and
sweep to the top of the pointed plumes piercing the sky. Trees clumped
in masses round houses leading to villages that shut her into little
corridors of hard hot light ... the little bright sienna form of the hen
she had nearly run over; the land stretching serenely out again, rolling
along, rolling along in the hot sunshine with the morning and evening
freshness at either end ... sweeping it slowly in and out of the deeps
of the country night ... eyelids were transparent. It was _light_ coming
through one's eyelids that made that clear soft buff; soft buff light
filtering through one's body ... little sounds, insects creeping and
humming in the hedge, sounds from the grass. Sudden single quiet sounds
going up from distant fields and farms, lost in the sky.


                                   4

I've got my sea-legs ... this is _riding_--not just straining along
trying to forget the wobbly bicycle, but feeling it wobble and being
able to control it ... being able to look about easily ... there will be
a harvest moon this month, rolling up huge and hot, suddenly over the
edge of a field; the last moon. I shall see that anyhow whatever the
holiday is like. It will be cold again in the winter. Perhaps I shan't
feel so cold this winter.


                                   5

She recognised the figure the instant she saw it. It was as if she had
been riding the whole day to meet it. Completely forgotten it had been
all the time at the edge of the zest of her ride. It had been everywhere
all the time and there it was at last dim and distant and unmistakable
... coming horribly along, a murk in the long empty road. She slowed up
looking furtively about. The road had been empty for so long. It
stretched invisibly away behind, empty. There was no sound of anything
coming along; nothing but the squeak squeak of her gear-case; bitter
empty fields on either side, greying away to the twilight, the hedges
sharp and dark, enemies; nothing ahead but the bare road, carrying the
murky figure; there all the time; and bound to come. She rode on at her
usual pace struggling for an absorption so complete as to make her
invisible, but was held back by her hatred of herself for having
wondered whether he had seen her. The figure was growing more distinct.
Murky. Murk from head to foot. Wearing openly like a coat the expression
that could be seen hidden inside everybody. She had made an enemy of
him. It was too late. The voice in her declaring sympathy, claiming
kinship faded faint and far away within her ... hullo old boy, isn't it
a bloody world ... he would know it had come too late. He came walking
along, slowly walking like someone in a procession or a quickly moving
funeral; like someone in a procession, who must go on. He was surrounded
by people, pressed in and down by them, wanting to kill everyone with a
look and run, madly, to root up trees and tear down the landscape and
get outside ... he is myself.... He stood still. Her staring eyes made
him so clear that she saw his arrested face just before he threw out an
arm and came on, stumbling. Measuring the width of the roadway she rode
on slowly along the middle of it, pressing steadily and thoughtlessly
forward, her eyes fixed on the far-off spaces of the world she used to
know, towards a barrier of swirling twilight. He was quite near,
slouching and thinking and silently talking, on and on. He was all right
poor thing. She put forth all her strength and shot past him in a sharp
curve, her eye just seeing that he turned and stood, swaying.

What a blessing he was drunk what a blessing he was drunk she chattered
busily, trying to ignore her trembling limbs. Again and again as she
steadied and rode sturdily and blissfully on came the picture of herself
saying with confidential eagerness as she dismounted "I _say_--make
haste--there's a madman coming down the road--get behind the hedge till
he's gone--I'm going for the police." A man would not have been afraid.
Then men _are_ more independent than women. Women can never go very far
from the protection of men--because they are physically inferior. But
men are afraid of mad bulls.... They have to resort to tricks. What was
that I was just thinking? Something I ought to remember. Women have to
be protected. But men explain it the wrong way. It was the same
thing.... The polite protective man was the same; if he relied on his
strength. The world is the most sickening hash.... I'm so sorry for you.
I hate humanity too. _Isn't_ it a lovely day? _Isn't_ it? Just look.


                                   6

The dim road led on into the darkness of what appeared to be a private
estate. The light from the lamp fell upon wide gates fastened back. The
road glimmered on ahead with dense darkness on either side. There had
been no turning. The road evidently passed through the estate. She rode
on and on between the two darknesses, her light casting a wobbling
radiance along her path. Rustling sounded close at hand, and quick
thuddings startled her making her heart leap. The hooting of an owl
echoed through the hollows amongst the trees. Stronger than fear was the
comfort of the dense darkness. Her own darkness by right of riding
through the day. Leaning upon the velvety blackness she pushed on, her
eyes upon the little circle of light, steady on the centre of the
pathway, wobbling upon the feet of the trees emerging in slow procession
on either side of the way.


                                   7

The road began to slope gently downwards. Wearily back-pedalling she
crept down the incline her hand on the brake, her eyes straining
forward. Hard points of gold light--of course. She had put them there
herself. Marlborough ... the prim polite lights of Marlborough; little
gliding moving lights, welcoming, coming safely up as she descended.
They disappeared. There must have been a gap in the trees. Presently she
would be down among them.


                                   8

"_Goode_ Lord--it's a woman."

She passed through the open gate into the glimmer of a descending road.
Yes. Why not? Why that amazed stupefaction? Trying to rob her of the
darkness and the wonderful coming out into the light. The man's voice
went on with her down the dull safe road. A young lady, taking a bicycle
ride in a daylit suburb. That was what she was. That was all he would
allow. It's something in men.


                                   9

"You don't think of riding up over the downs at this time of night?" It
was like an At home. Everybody in the shop was in it, but she was not in
it. Marlborough thoughts rattling in all the heads; with Sunday coming.
They had sick and dying relations. But it was all in Marlborough.
Marlborough was all round them all the time, the daily look of it, the
morning coming each day excitingly, all the people seeing each other
again and the day going on. They did not know that that was it; or what
it was they liked. Talking and thinking with the secret hidden all the
time even from themselves. But it was that that made them talk and make
such a to do about everything. They had to hide it because if they knew
they would _feel_ fat and complacent and wicked. They were fat and
complacent because they did not know it.

"Oh yes I do," said Miriam in feeble husky tones.

She stood squarely in front of the grating. The people became angry
gliding forms; cheated; angry in an eternal resentful silence;
pretending. The man began thoughtfully ticking off the words.

"How far have you come" he said suddenly pausing and looking up through
the grating.

"From London."

"Then you've just come down through the Forest."

"Is that a forest?"

"You must have come through Savernake."

"I didn't know it was a forest."

"Well I don't advise you to go on up over the downs at this time of
night."

If only she had not come in she could have gone on without knowing it
was "the downs."

"My front tyre is punctured" she said conversationally, leaning a little
against the counter.

The man's face tightened. "There's Mr. Drake next door would mend that
for you in the morning."

"Next door. Oh, thank you." Pushing her sixpence under the rail she went
down the shop to the door seeing nothing but the brown dusty floor
leading out to the helpless night.

Why did he keep making such impossible suggestions? The tyre was
absolutely flat. How much would a hotel cost? How did you stay in hotels
... hotels ... her hands went busily to her wallet. She drew out the
repair outfit and Mr. Leyton's voice sounded, emphatic and argumentative
"You know where you are and they don't rook you." There was certain to
be one in a big town like this. She swished back into the shop and
interrupted the man with her eager singing question.

"Yes" came the answer, "there's a quiet place of that sort up the road,
right up against the Forest."

"Has my telegram gone? Can I alter it?"

"No, it's not gone, you're just in time."

It was the loveliest thing that could have happened. The day was
complete, from morning to night.


                                   10

Someone brought in the meal and clattered it quietly down, going away
and shutting the door without a word. A door opened and the sound of
departing footsteps ceased. She was shut in with the meal and the lamp
in the little crowded world. The musty silence was so complete that the
window hidden behind the buff and white blinds and curtains must be
shut. The silence throbbed. The throbbing of her heart shook the room.
Something was telling the room that she was the happiest thing in
existence. She stood up, the beloved little room moving as she moved,
and gathered her hands gently against her breast, to ... get through,
through into the soul of the musty little room.... "Oh...." She felt
herself beating from head to foot with a radiance, but her body within
it was weak and heavy with fever. The little scene rocked, crowding
furniture, antimacassars, ornaments, wool mats. She looked from thing to
thing with a beaming, feverish, frozen smile. Her eyes blinked wearily
at the hot crimson flush of the mat under the lamp. She sank back again
her heavy light limbs glowing with fever. "By Jove, I'm tired....
I've had nothing since breakfast m--but a m-bath bun and an
acidulatudd _drop_." ... She laughed and sat whistling softly ...
Jehoshophat--Manchester--Mesopotamia--beloved--you sweet sweet
thing--Veilchen, unter Gras versteckt--out of it all--here I am. I shall
always stay in hotels.... Glancing towards the food spread out on a
white cloth near the globed lamp she saw beyond the table a little stack
of books. Ham and tea and bread and butter.... Leaning unsteadily across
the table ... battered and ribbed green binding and then a short moral
story or natural history--blue, large and fat, a 'story-book' of some
kind ... she drew out one of the undermost volumes.... "Robert Elsmere"!
Here, after all these years in this little outlandish place. She poured
out some tea and hurriedly slid a slice of ham between two pieces of
bread and butter and sat back with the food drawn near, the lamplight
glaring into her eyes, the printed page in exciting shadow. Everything
in the room was distinct and sharp,--morning strength descended upon
her.


                                   11

How he must have liked and admired. It must have amazed him; a woman
setting forth and putting straight the muddles of his own mind.
"Powerful" he probably said. It was a half jealous keeping to himself of
a fine, good thing. If he could have known that it would have been, just
at that very moment, the answer to my worry about Christ he would have
been jealous and angry quite as much as surprised and pleased and
sympathetic ... he was afraid _himself_ of the idea that anyone can give
up the idea of the divinity of Christ and still remain religious and
good. He ought to have let me read it.... If he could have stated it
himself as well, that day by the gate he would have done so ... "a very
reasonable dilemma my dear." He knew I was thinking about things. But he
had not read Robert Elsmere then. He was jealous of a thunderbolt flung
by a woman....


                                   12

And now I've got beyond _Robert Elsmere_.... That's Mrs. Humphry Ward
and Robert Elsmere; that's gone. There's no answering science. One must
choose. Either science or religion. They can't both be true. This is the
same as Literature and Dogma.... Only in Literature and Dogma there is
that thing that is perfectly true--that thing--what is it? What was that
idea in Literature and Dogma?


                                   13

I wonder if I've strained my heart. This funny feeling of sinking
through the bed. Never mind. I've done the ride. I'm alive and alone in
a strange place. Everything's alive all round me in a new way. Nearer.
As the flame of the candle had swelled and gone out under her blowing
she had noticed the bareness of everything in the room--a room for
chance travellers, nothing that anyone could carry away. She could still
see it as it was when she moved and blew out the candle, a whole room
swaying sideways into darkness. The more she relinquished the idea of
harm and danger, the nearer and more intimate the room became.... No one
can prevent my being alone in a strange place, near to things and loving
them. It's more than worth half killing yourself. It makes you ready to
die. I'm not going to die, even if I have strained my heart. 'Damaged
myself for life.' I am going to sleep. The dawn will come, no one
knowing where I am. Because I have no money I must go on and stay with
these people. But I have been alive here. There's hardly any time. I
_must_ go to sleep.




                             CHAPTER XXVII


                                   1

Being really happy or really miserable makes people like you and like
being with you. They need not know the cause. Someone will speak now, in
a moment.... Miriam tried to return to the falling rain, the soft light
in it, the soft light on the greenery, the intense green glow everywhere
... misty green glow. But her eyes fell and her thoughts went on. They
would have seen. Her face must be speaking of their niceness in coming
out on the dull day so that she might drive about once more in Lord
Lansdowne's estate. Someone will speak. Perhaps they had not found
forgetfulness in the green through the rain under the grey. Moments came
suddenly in the lanes between the hedges, like that moment that always
came where the lane ran up and turned and the fields spread out in the
distance. But usually you could not forget the chaise and the donkey and
the people. In here amongst the green something always came at once and
stayed. Perhaps they did not find it so, or did not know they found it,
because of their thoughts about the "fine estate." They seemed quite
easy driving in the lanes, as easy as they ever seemed when one could
not forget them. What were they doing when one forgot them? They knew
one liked some things better than others; or suddenly liked everything
very much indeed ... she said you were apathetic ... what does that mean
... what did she mean ... with her one could see nothing and sat waiting
... I said I don't think so, I don't think she is apathetic at all. Then
they understood when one sat in a heap.... They had been pleased this
morning because of one's misery at going away. They did not know of the
wild happiness in the garden before breakfast nor that the garden had
been so lovely because the strain of the visit was over, and London was
coming. They did not know that the happiness of being in amongst the
greenery to-day, pouring out one's heart in farewell to the great trees
had grown so intense because the feeling of London and freedom was
there. They could not see the long rich winter, the lectures and books,
out of which something was coming....

"It's a pity the rain came."

Ah no, that is not rain. It is not raining. What is 'raining'? What do
people _think_ when they say these things?

"We are like daisies, _drenched_ in dew." She pursed up her face towards
the sky.

They laughed and silence came again. Heavy and happy.


                                   2

"I'm glad you came up. I want to ask you what is to be done about
Hendie."

Miriam looked about the boudoir. Mrs. Green had hardly looked at her.
She was smiling at her fancy work. But if one did not say something soon
she would speak again, going on into things from her point of view.
Doctor and medicine. Eve liked it all. She _liked_ Mrs. Green's clever
difficult fancy work and the boudoir smell of Turkish beans and the
house and garden and the bazaars and village entertainments and the
children's endless expensive clothes and the excitements and troubles
about that fat man. Down here she was in a curious flush of excitement
all the time herself....

"I think she wants a rest."

"I told her so. But resting seems to make her worse. We all thought she
was worse after the holidays."

Miriam's eyes fell before the sudden glance of Mrs. Green's blue green
eye. She must have seen her private vision of life in the great rich
house ... misery, death with no escape. But they had Eve. Eve did not
know what was killing her. She liked being tied to people.

"She is very nervous."

"Yes. I know it's only nerves. I've told her that."

"But you don't know what nerves are. They're not just nothing...."

"_You're_ not nervous."

"Don't you think so?"

"Not in the way Hendie is. You're a solid little person."

Miriam laughed and thought of Germany and Newlands and Banbury Park. But
this house would be a thousand times worse. There was no one in it who
knew anything about anything. That was why when she was not too bad Eve
thought it was good for her to be there.

"I think she's very happy here."

"I'm glad you think that. But something must be done. She can't go on
with these perpetual headaches and sleeplessness and attacks of
weepiness."

"I think she wants a long rest."

"What does she do with her holidays? Doesn't she rest then?"

"Yes, but there are always _worries_" said Miriam desperately.

"You have had a good deal of worry--how is your father?"

How much do you know about that.... How does it strike you....

"He is all right, I think."

"He lives with your eldest sister."

"Yes."

"That's very nice for him. I expect the little grandson will be a great
interest."

"Yes."

"And your youngest sister has a little girl?"

"Yes."

"Do you like children?"

"Yes."

"I expect you spend a good deal of your time with your sisters."

"Well--it's a fearful distance." Why didn't you ask me all these things
when I was staying with you. There's no time now....

"Do you like living alone in London?"

"Well--I'm fearfully _busy_."

"I expect you are. I think it's wonderful. But you must be awfully
lonely sometimes."

Miriam fidgeted and wondered how to go.

"Well--come down and see us again. I'm glad I had this chance of talking
to you about Hendie."

"Perhaps she'll be better in the winter. I think she's really better in
the cold weather."

"Well--we'll hope so," said Mrs. Green getting up. "I can't think what's
the matter with her. There's nothing to worry her down here."

"No" said Miriam emphatically in a worldly tone of departure. "Thank you
so much for having me" she said feebly as they passed through the
flower-scented hall the scent of the flowers hanging delicately within
the stronger odour of the large wood-fire.

"I'm glad you came. We thought it would be nice for both of you."

"Yes it was very kind of you. I'm sure she wants a complete rest." Away
from us away from you in some new place....

In the open light of the garden Mrs. Green's eyes were almost invisible
points. She ought to do her hair smaller. The fashionable bundle of
little sausages did not suit a large head. The eyes looked more sunken
and dead than Eve's with her many headaches. But she was strong--a
strong hard thunder-cloud at breakfast. Perhaps very unhappy. But
wealthy. Strong, cruel wealth, eating up lives it did not understand.
How did Eve manage to read Music and Morals and Olive Schreiner here?




                             CHAPTER XXVIII


                                   1

"Miss Dear to see you Miss."

"Is there anyone else in the waiting room?"

"No miss--nobody."

Miriam went in briskly.... "Well? How is the decayed gentlewoman?" she
said briskly from the doorway. She hardly looked. She had taken in the
close-fitting bonnet and chin bow and the height-giving look of the long
blue uniform cloak together with the general aspect of the heavily
shaded afternoon room....

"Oh, she's very well."

Miss Dear had stood quite still in her place half way down the room
between the sofa and the littered waiting room table. She made a small
controlled movement with her right hand as Miriam approached. Miriam
paused with her hand on a "Navy League," absorbed in the low sweet even
tone. She found herself standing reverently, pulled up a few inches from
the dark figure. Suddenly she was alight with the radiance of an
uncontrollable smile. Her downcast eyes were fixed upon a tall slender
figure in a skimpy black dress, tendrils of fine gold hair dancing in
the rough wind under a cornflower blue toque, a clear living
rose-flush.... Something making one delicate figure more than the open
width of the afternoon, the blue afternoon sea and sky. She looked up.
The shy sweet flower pink face glowed more intensely under the cap of
gold hair clasped flatly down by the blue velvet rim of the bonnet. The
eyes, now like Weymouth Bay, now like Julia Doyle's, now a clear
expressionless blue, were fixed on hers; the hesitating face was
breaking again into watchful speech. But there was no speech in the
well-remembered outlines moulding the ominous cloak. Miriam flung out to
stem the voice, rushing into phrases to open the way to the hall and the
front door. Miss Dear stood smiling and laughing her little smothered
obsequious laugh, just as she had done at Bognor, making one feel like a
man.

"Well--I'm most frightfully busy," wound up Miriam cheerfully turning to
the door. "That's London--isn't it? One never has a minute."

Miss Dear did not move. "I came to thank you for the concert tickets,"
she said in the even thoughtful voice that dispersed one's thoughts.

"Oh yes. Was it any good?"

"I enjoyed it immensely," said Miss Dear gravely. "So did Sister North,"
she added, shaking out the words in delicate laughter.

... _I_ don't know 'Sister _North_.' ... "Oh, good," said Miriam opening
the door.

"It was most kind of you to send them. I'm going to a case to-morrow,
but I shall hope to see you when I come back."

"Sister North sported a swell new blouse" said Miss Dear in clear
intimate tones as she paused in the hall to take up her umbrella.

"I hope it won't rain," said Miriam formally, opening the front door.

"She was no _end_ of a swell" pursued Miss Dear, hitching her cloak and
skirt from her heels with a neat cuffed gloved hand, quirked compactly
against her person just under her waist and turned so that her elbow and
forearm made a small compact angle against her person. She spoke over
her shoulder, her form slenderly poised forward to descend the steps; "I
told her she would knock them." She was aglow with the afternoon
sunlight streaming down the street.

Miriam spoke as she stepped down with delicate plunges. She did not hear
and paused turning on the last step.

"It was too _bad_ of you" shouted Miriam smiling "to leave my sister
alone at the Decayed Gentlewomen's."

"I couldn't help myself," gleamed Miss Dear. "My time was up."

"Did you _hate_ being there?"

Miss Dear hung, poised and swaying to some inner breeze. Miriam gazed,
waiting for her words, watching the in-turned eyes control the sweet
lips flowering for speech.

"It was rather comical"--the eyes came round, clear pure blue;--"until
your sister came." The tall slender figure faced the length of the
street; the long thin blue cloak flickering all over gave Miriam a
foresight of the coming swift hesitating conversational progress of the
figure along the pavement, the poise of the delicate surmounting head,
slightly bent, the pure brow foremost, shading the lowered thoughtful
eyes, the clear little rounded dip of the chin indrawn.

"I'm glad she gave me your address," finished Miss Dear a little furrow
running along her brow in control of the dimpling flushed oval below it.
"I'll say au revoir and not good bye for the present."

"Good bye," flung Miriam stiffly at the departing face. Shutting the
neglected door she hurried back through the hall and resumed her
consciousness of Wimpole Street with angry, eager swiftness.... Eve,
getting mixed up with people ... it is right ... _she_ would not have
been angry if I had asked her to be nice to somebody.... I did not mean
to do anything ... I was proud of having the tickets to send ... if I
had not sent them I should have had the thought of all those nurses,
longing for something to do between cases. They are just the people for
the Students Concerts ... if she comes again.... "I can't have social
life, unfortunately," how furious I shall feel saying that "you see I'm
so fearfully full up--lectures every night and I'm away every week end
... and I'm not supposed to see people here----"




                              CHAPTER XXIX


                                   1

Miriam had no choice but to settle herself on the cane-seated chair.
When Miss Dear had drawn the four drab coloured curtains into place the
small cubicle was in semi-darkness.

"I hope the next time you come to tea with me it will be under rather
more comfortable circumstances."

"This is all right," said Miriam in abstracted impatient continuation of
her abounding manner. Miss Dear was arranging herself on the bed as if
for a long sitting. The small matter of business would come now. Having
had tea it would be impossible to depart the moment the discussion was
over. How much did the tea cost here? That basement tea-room, those
excited young women and middle-aged women watchful and stealthy and ugly
with poverty and shifts, those tea-pots and shabby trays and thick bread
and butter were like the Y.W.C.A. public restaurant at the other end of
the street--fourpence at the outside; but Miss Dear would have to pay
it. She felt trapped ... "a few moments of your time to advise me" and
now half the summer twilight had gone and she was pinned in this prison
face to face with anything Miss Dear might choose to present; forced by
the presences audible in the other cubicles to a continuation of her
triumphant tea-room manner.

"You must excuse my dolly." She arranged her skirt neatly about the
ankle of the slippered bandaged foot.

Anyone else would say what is the matter with your foot.... It stuck
out, a dreadfully padded mass, dark in the darkness of the dreadful
little enclosure in the dreadful dark hive of women, collected together
only by poverty.

"Have you _left_ your association?"

"Oh _no_, de-er; not _permanently_ of course," said Miss Dear pausing in
her tweakings and adjustments of draperies to glance watchfully through
the gloom.

"I'm still a member there."

"Oh yes."

"But I've got to look _after_ myself. They don't give you a chance."

"No----"

"It's rush in and rush out and rush in and rush out."

"What are you going to do? ... what do you want with me...."

"What do you mean de-er."

"Well I mean, are you going on nursing."

"Of _course_ de-er. I was going to tell you."

Miriam's restive anger would not allow her to attend fully to the long
story. She wandered off with the dreadful idea of nursing a
"semi-mental" sitting in a deck-chair in a country garden, the hopeless
patient, the nurse half intent on a healthy life and fees for herself,
and recalled the sprinkling of uniformed figures amongst the women
crowded at the table, all in this dilemma, all eagerly intent; all
overworked by associations claiming part of their fees or taking the
risks of private nursing, all getting older; all anyhow as long as they
went on nursing bound to live on illness; to live with illness knowing
that they were living on it. Yet Mr. Leyton had said that no hospital
run by a religious sisterhood was any good ... these women were run by
doctors....

"You see de-er it's the best thing any sensible nurse can do as soon as
she knows a sufficient number of influenchoo peopoo--physicians and
others."

"Yes, I see." ... But what has all this to do with me....

"I shall keep in correspondence with my doctors and friends and look
_after_ myself a bit."

"Yes, I see," said Miriam eagerly. "It's a _splendid_ plan. What did you
want to consult me about?"

"Well you see it's like this. I must tell you my little difficulty. The
folks at thirty-three don't know I'm here and I don't want to go back
there just at present. I was wondering if when I leave here you'd mind
my having my box sent to your lodgings. I shan't want my reserve things
down there."

"Well--there isn't much _room_ in my room."

"It's a flat box. I got it to go to the Colonies with a patient."

"_Oh_, did you go?..." Nurses did see life; though they were never free
to see it in their own way. Perhaps some of them ... but then they would
not be good nurses.

"Well I didn't _go_. It was a chance of a life-time. Such a de-er old
gentleman--one of the Fitz-Duff family. It would have been nurse
companion. He didn't want me in uniform. My word. He gave me a complete
outfit, _took_ me round, coats and skirts at Peters, gloves at
Penberthy's, a _lovely_ gold-mounted umbrella, everything the heart
could desire. He treated me just like a daughter." During the whole of
this speech she redeemed her words by little delicate bridling movements
and adjustments, her averted eyes resting in indulgent approval on the
old gentleman.

"Why didn't you go?"

"He _died_ dear."

"Oh I see."

"It could go under your bed, out of the way."

"I've got hat-boxes and things. My room is full of things I'm afraid."

"P'raps your landlady would let it stand somewhere."

"I might ask her--won't they let you leave things here?"

"They _would_ I daresay," frowned Miss Dear "but I have special reasons.
I don't wish to be beholden to the people here." She patted the tendrils
of her hair, looking about the cubicle with cold disapproval.

"I daresay Mrs. Bailey wouldn't mind. But I hardly like to ask her you
know. There seems to be luggage piled up everywhere."

"Of course I should be prepared to pay a fee."

... What a wonderful way of living ... dropping a trunk full of things
and going off with a portmanteau; starting life afresh in a new strange
place. Miriam regarded the limber capable form outstretched on the
narrow bed. This dark little enclosure, the forced companionship of the
crowd of competing adventuresses, the sounds of them in the near
cubicles, the perpetual sound filling the house like a sea of their busy
calculations ... all this was only a single passing incident ... beyond
it were the wide well-placed lives of wealthy patients.

"Miss Younger is a sweet woman."

Miriam's eyes awoke to affronted surprise.

"You know de-er; the wan yow was sitting by at tea-time. I told you just
now."

"Oh" said Miriam guiltily.

Miss Dear dropped her voice; "she's told me her whole story. She's a
dear sweet Christian woman. She's working in a settlement. She's
privately engaged to the Bishop. It's not to be published yet. She's a
sweet woman."

Miriam rose. "I've got to get back, I'm afraid."

"Don't hurry away, dear. I hoped you would stay and have some supper."

"I really can't" said Miriam wearily.

"Well, perhaps we shall meet again before Thursday. You'll ask Mrs.
Bailey about my box," said Miss Dear getting to her feet.

"Fancy your remembering her name" said Miriam with loud cheerfulness,
fumbling with the curtains.

Miss Dear stood beaming indulgently.

All the way down the unlit stone staircase they rallied each other about
the country garden with the deck chairs.

"Well" said Miriam from the street, "I'll let you know about Mrs.
Bailey."

"All right dear, I shall expect to hear from you; au revoir" cried Miss
Dear from the door. In the joy of her escape into the twilight Miriam
waved her hand towards the indulgently smiling form and flung away,
singing.




                              CHAPTER XXX


                                   1

"Regular field-day, eh Miss Hens'n? Look here----" Mr. Orly turned
towards the light coming in above the front door to exhibit his torn
waistcoat and broken watch-chain. "Came for me like a fury. They've got
double strength y'know when they're under. Ever seen anything like it?"

Miriam glanced incredulously at the portly frontage.

"Fancy breaking the _chain_" she said, sickened by the vision of small
white desperately fighting hands. He gathered up the hanging strings of
bright links, his powerful padded musicianly hands finding the edges of
the broken links and holding them adjusted with the discoloured ravaged
fingers of an artizan. "A good tug would do it," he said kindly. "A
chain's no stronger than the weakest link" he added with a note of
dreamy sadness, drawing a sharp sigh.

"Did you get the tooth out" clutched Miriam automatically making a
mental note of the remark that flashed through the world with a sad
light, a lamp brought into a hopeless sick-room ... keeping up her
attitude of response to show that she was accepting the apology for the
extremities of rage over the getting of the anæsthetist. Mrs. Orly
appearing in the hall at the moment, still flushed from the storm,
joined the group and outdid Miriam's admiring amazement, brilliant
smiles of relief garlanding her gentle outcry. "Hancock busy?" said Mr.
Orly in farewell as he turned and swung away to the den followed by Mrs.
Orly, her unseen face busy with an interrupted errand. He would not hear
that her voice was divided.... No one seemed to be aware of the divided
voices ... no men. Life went on and on, a great oblivious awfulness,
sliding over everything. Every moment things went that could never be
recovered ... on and on, and it was always too late, there was always
some new thing obliterating everything, something that looked new, but
always turned out to be the same as everything else, grinning with its
sameness in an awful blank where one tried to remember the killed things
... if only everyone would stop for a moment and let the thing that was
always hovering be there, let it settle and intensify. But the whole of
life was a conspiracy to prevent it. Was there something wrong in it? It
could not be a coincidence the way life _always_ did that ... she had
reached the little conservatory on the half landing, darkened with a
small forest of aspidistra. The dull dust-laden leaves identified
themselves with her life. What had become of her autumn of hard work
that was to lift her out of her personal affairs and lead somewhere?
Already the holiday freshness and vigour had left her; and nothing had
been done. Nothing was so strong as the desire that everything would
stop for a moment and allow her to remember ... wearily she mounted the
remaining stairs to Mr. Hancock's room. "I think" said a clear high
confident voice from the chair and stopped. Miriam waited with painful
eagerness while the patient rinsed her mouth; "that that gentleman
thinks himself a good deal cleverer than he is," she resumed sitting
back in the chair.

"I am afraid I'm not as familiar with his work as I ought to be, but I
can't say I've been very greatly impressed as far as I have gone."

"Don't go any further. There's nothing there to go for."

Who are you speaking of? How do you know? What have _you_ got that makes
you think he has nothing?--Miriam almost cried aloud. Could she not see,
could not both of them see that the quiet sheen of the green-painted
window-frame cast off their complacent speech? Did they not hear it
tinkle emptily back from the twined leaves and tendrils, the flowers and
butterflies painted on the window in front of them? The patient had
turned briskly to the spittoon again after her little speech. She would
have a remark ready when the brisk rinsing was over. There could be no
peace in her presence. Even when she was gagged there would be the sense
of her sending out little teasing thoughts and comments. They could
never leave anything alone ... oh it was _that_ woman ... the little
gold knot at the back of the cheerful little gold head; hair that curled
tightly about her head when she was a baby and that had grown long and
been pinned up, as the clever daughter of that man; getting to know all
he had said about women. If she believed it she must loathe her married
state and her children ... how _could_ she let life continue through
her? Perhaps it was the sense of her treachery that _gave_ her that
bright brisk amused manner. It was a way of carrying things off, that
maddening way of speaking of everything as if life were a jest at
everybody's expense ... all "clever" women seemed to have that, _never_
speaking what they thought or felt, but always things that sounded like
quotations from men; so that they always seemed to flatter or criticise
the men they were with according as they were as clever as some man they
knew, or less clever. _What_ was she like when she was alone and dropped
that bright _manner_.... "Have you made any New Year resolutions? I
don't make any. My friends think me godless, _I_ think _them_ lacking in
common sense" ... exactly like a man; taking up a fixed attitude ...
having a sort of prepared way of taking everything ... like the Wilsons
... anything else was 'unintelligent' or 'absurd' ... their impatience
meant something. Somehow all the other people were a reproach. If some
day everyone lived in the clear light of science, "waiting for the
pronouncements of science in all the affairs of life," waiting for the
pronouncements of those sensual dyspeptic men with families who thought
of women as existing only to produce more men ... admirably fitted by
Nature's inexorable laws for her biological rôle ... perhaps she agreed
or pretended to think it all a great lark ... the last vilest flattery
... she had only two children ... si la femme avait plus de sensibilité
elle ne retomberait pas si facilement dans la grossesse.... La femme,
c'est peu galant de le dire, est la femelle de l'homme. The Frenchman at
any rate _wanted_ to say something else. But why want to be gallant ...
and why not say man; it is not very graceful to say it, is the male of
woman. If women had been the recorders of things from the beginning it
would all have been the other way round ... Mary. Mary, the Jewess,
write something about Mary the Jewess; the Frenchman's Queen of Heaven.

Englishmen; the English were "the leading race." "England and America
together--the Anglo-Saxon peoples--could govern the destinies of the
world." _What_ world? ... millions and millions of child-births ...
colonial women would keep it all going ... and religious people ... and
if religion went on there would always be all the people who took the
Bible literally ... and if religion were not true then there was only
science. Either way was equally abominable ... for women.


                                   2

The far end of the ward was bright sunlight ... there she was enthroned,
commanding the whole length of the ward, sitting upright, her head and
shoulders already conversational, her hands busy with objects on the bed
towards which her welcoming head was momentarily bent; like a hostess
moving chairs in a small drawing room ... chrysanthemums all down the
ward--massed on little tables ... a _parrot_ sidling and bobbing along
its perch, great big funny solemn French grey, fresh clean living French
grey pure in the sunlight, a pure canary coloured beak ... clean grey
and yellow ... in the sun ... a curious silent noise in the stillness of
the ward.

"I couldn't hear; I wasn't near enough."

"Better late than never, I _said_."

"D'you _know_ I thought you'd only been here a few days and to-day when
I looked at your letter I was simply _astounded_. You're sitting up."

"I should hope I am. They kept me on my back, half starving for three
weeks."

"You look very pink and well now."

"That's what Dr. Ashley Densley said. You ought to have seen me when I
came in. You see I'm on chicken now."

"And you feel better."

"Well,--you can't really tell how you are till you're up."

"When are you going to get up?"

"Tomorrow I hope dear. So you see you're just in time."

"Do you mean you are going away?"

"They turn you out as soon as you're strong enough to stand."

"But--_how_ can you get about?"

"Dr. Ashley Densley has arranged all that. I'm going to a convalescent
home."

"_Oh_, that's very nice."

"Poor Dr. Ashley Densley, he was dreadfully upset."

"You've had some letters to cheer you up." Miriam spoke impatiently, her
eyes rooted on the pale leisurely hands mechanically adjusting some
neatly arranged papers.

"_No_ de-er. My friends have all left me to look after my_self_ this
time but since I've been sitting up, I've been trying to get my affairs
in order."

"I thought of bringing you some flowers but there was not a single shop
between here and Wimpole Street."

"There's generally women selling them outside. But I'm glad you didn't;
I've too much sympathy with the poor nurses."

Miriam glanced fearfully about. There were so many beds with forms
seated and lying upon them ... but there seemed no illness or pain.
Quiet eyes met hers; everything seemed serene; there was no sound but
the strange silent noise of the sunlight and the flowers. Half way down
the ward stood a large three-fold screen covered with dark American
cloth.

"She's unconscious today," said Miss Dear; "she won't last through the
night."

"Do you mean to say there is someone _dying_ there?"

"_Yes de_-er."

"Do you mean to say they don't put them into a separate room to _die_?"

"They can't dear. They haven't got the _space_" flashed Miss Dear.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Death shut in with one lonely person. Brisk nurses putting up the
screen. Dying eyes cut off from all but those three dark surrounding
walls, with death waiting inside them. Miriam's eyes filled with tears.
There, just across the room, was the end. It had to come somewhere; just
that; on any summer's afternoon ... people did things; hands placed a
screen, people cleared you away.... It was a relief to realise that
there were hospitals to die in; worry and torture of mind could end
here. Perhaps it might be easier with people all round you than in a
little room. There were hospitals to be ill in and somewhere to die
neatly, however poor you were. It was a relief ... "she's always the
last to get up; still snoring when everybody's fussing and washing."
That would be me ... it lit up the hostel. Miss Dear liked that time of
fussing and washing in company with all the other cubicles fussing and
washing. To be very poor meant getting more and more social life with no
appearances to keep up, getting up each day with a holiday feeling of
one more day and the surprise of seeing everybody again; and the
certainty that if you died somebody would do something. Certainly it was
this knowledge that gave Miss Dear her peculiar strength. She was a
nurse and knew how everything was done. She knew that people, all kinds
of people were _people_ and would do things. When one was quite alone
one could not believe this. Besides no one _would_ do anything for me. I
don't want anyone to. I should hate the face of a nurse who put a screen
round my bed. I shall not die like that. I shall die in some other way,
out in the sun, with--yes--oh yes--Tah-dee, t'_dee_, t'dee--t'dee.

"It must be funny for a nurse to be in a hospital."

"It's a little too funny sometimes dear--you know too much about what
you're in for."

"Ilikeyourredjacket. Good _Heavens_!"

"That's nothing dear. He does that all the afternoon."

"How can you stand it?"

"It's Hobson's choice, madam."

The parrot uttered three successive squawks fuller and harsher and even
more shrill than the first.

"He's just tuning up; he always does in the afternoon just as everybody
is trying to get a little sleep."

"But I never _heard_ of such a thing! It's monstrous, in a hospital. Why
don't you all complain."

"'Sh dear; he belongs to Matron."

"Why doesn't she have him in her room? Shut _up_, polly."

"He'd be rather a roomful in a little room."

"Well--what is he _here_? It's the wickedest thing of its kind I've ever
heard of; some great fat healthy woman ... why don't the _doctors_ stop
it?"

"Perhaps they hardly notice it dear. There's such a bustle going on in
the morning when they all come round."

"But hang it all she's here to look after you, not to leave her luggage
all over the ward."


                                   3

The ripe afternoon light ... even outside a hospital ... the strange
indistinguishable friend, mighty welcome, unutterable happiness. Oh
death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? The light has
no end. I know it and it knows me, no misunderstanding, no barrier. I
love you--people say things. But nothing that anybody says has any
meaning. Nothing that anybody says has any meaning. There is something
more than anything that anybody says, that comes, first, before they
speak ... vehicles travelling along through heaven; everybody in heaven
without knowing it; the sound the vehicles made all together, sounding
out through the universe ... life touches your heart like dew; that is
_true_ ... the edge of his greasy knowing selfish hair touches the
light; he brushes it; there is something in him that remembers. It is in
everybody; but they won't stop. How maddening. But they know. When
people die they must stop. Then they remember. Remorse may be complete;
until it is complete you cannot live. When it is complete something is
burned away ... ou-agh, flows out of you, burning, inky, acid, flows
right out ... purged ... though thy sins are as _scarlet_ they shall be
white as snow. _Then_ the light is there, nothing but the light, and new
memory, sweet and bright; but only when you have been killed by remorse.

                   *       *       *       *       *

This is what is meant by a purple twilight. Lamps alight, small round
lights, each in place, shedding no radiance, white day lingering on the
stone pillars of the great crescent, the park railings distinct, the
trees shrouded but looming very large and permanent, the air wide and
high and purple, darkness alight and warm. Far far away beyond the
length of two endless months is Christmas. This kind of day lived for
ever. It stood still. The whole year, funny little distant fussy thing
stood still in this sort of day. You could take it in your hand and look
at it. Nobody could touch this. People and books and all those things
that men had done, in the British Museum were a crackling noise,
outside.... Les yeux gris, vont au paradis. That was the two poplars
standing one each side of the little break in the railings, shooting up;
the space between them shaped by their shapes, leading somewhere. I
_must_ have been through there; it's the park. I don't remember. It
isn't. It's waiting. One day I will go through. Les yeux gris, vont au
paradis. Going along, along, the twilight hides your shabby clothes.
They are not shabby. They are clothes you go along in, funny; jolly.
Everything's here, any bit of anything, clear in your brain; you can
look at it. What a terrific thing a person is; bigger than anything. How
_funny_ it is to be a person. You can never not have been a person.
Bouleversement. It's a fait bouleversant. _Christ_-how-rummy. It's
enough. Du, Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück, ich habe genossen dass
irdische Glück; ich habe geleibt und gelebet.... Oh let the solid earth
not fail beneath my feet, until I am quite quite sure.... Hullo, old
Euston Road, beloved of my soul, my own country, my native heath.
There'll still be a glimmer on the table when I light the lamp ... how
shall I write it down, the _sound_ the little boy made as he carefully
carried the milk jug ... going along, trusted, _trusted_, you could see
it, you could see his mother. His legs came along, little loose feet,
looking after themselves, pottering, behind him. All his body was in the
hand carrying the milk jug. When he had done carrying the milk jug he
would run; running along the pavement amongst people, with cool round
eyes not looking at anything. Where the crowd prevented his running he
would jog up and down as he walked, until he could run again, bumping
solemnly up and down amongst the people; boy.


                                   4

The turning of the key in the latch was lively with the vision of the
jumping boy. The flare of the match in the unlit hall lit up eternity.
The front door was open, eternity poured in and on up the stairs. At one
of those great staircase windows where the last of the twilight stood a
sudden light of morning would not be surprising. Of course a letter;
curly curious statements on the hall-stand.

That is mother-of-pearl, nacre; twilight nacre; crépuscule nacre; I must
wait until it is gone. It is a visitor; pearly freshness pouring in; but
if I wait I may feel different. With the blind up the lamp will be a
lamp in it; twilight outside, the lamp on the edge of it, making the
room gold, edged with twilight.

                   *       *       *       *       *

I _can't_ go to-night. It's all _here_; I _must_ stay here. Botheration.
It's Eve's fault. Eve would rather go out and see that girl than stay
here. Eve _likes_ getting tied up with people. I _won't_ get tied up; it
drives everything away. Now I've read the letter I must go. There'll be
afterwards when I get back. No one has any power over me. I shall be
coming back. I shall always be coming back.


                                   5

Perhaps it had been Madame Tussaud's that had made this row of houses
generally invisible; perhaps their own awfulness. When she found herself
opposite them, Miriam recognised them at once. By day they were one high
long lifeless smoke-grimed façade fronted by gardens colourless with
grime, showing at its thickest on the leaves of an occasional laurel. It
had never occurred to her that the houses could be occupied. She had
seen them now and again as reflectors of the grime of the Metropolitan
Railway. Its smoke poured up over their faces as the smoke from a
kitchen fire pours over the back of a range. The sight of them brought
nothing to her mind but the inside of the Metropolitan Railway; the
feeling of one's skin prickling with grime the sense of one's
smoke-grimed clothes. There was nothing in that strip between Madame
Tussaud's and the turning into Baker Street but the sense of exposure to
grime ... a little low grimed wall surmounted by paintless sooty iron
railings. On the other side of the road a high brown wall, protecting
whatever was behind, took the grime in one thick covering, here it
spread over the exposed gardens and façades turning her eyes away.
To-night they looked almost as untenanted as she had been accustomed to
think them. Here and there on the black expanse a window showed a
blurred light. The house she sought appeared to be in total darkness.
The iron gate crumbled harshly against her gloves as she set her weight
against the rusty hinges. Gritty dust sounded under her feet along the
pathway and up the shallow steps leading to the unlit doorway.


                                   6

Her flight up through the sickly sweet-smelling murk of the long
staircase ended in a little top back room brilliant with unglobed
gaslight. Miss Dear got her quickly into the room and stood smiling and
waiting for a moment for her to speak. Miriam stood nonplussed, catching
at the feelings that rushed through her and the thoughts that spoke in
her mind. Distracted by the picture of the calm tall, gold-topped figure
in the long grey skirt and the pale pink flannel dressing-jacket. Miss
Dear was smiling the smile of one who has a great secret to impart.
There was a saucepan or frying pan or something--with a handle--sticking
out.... "I'm glad you've brought a book" said Miss Dear. The room was
closing up and up ... the door was shut. Miriam's exasperation flew out.
She felt it fly out. What would Miss Dear do or say? "I 'oped you'd
come" she said in her softest most thoughtful tones. "I've been rushing
about and rushing about." She turned with her swift limber silent-footed
movement to the thing on the gas-ring. "Sit down dear" she said, as one
giving permission, and began rustling a paper packet. A haddock came
forth and the slender thoughtful fingers plucked and picked at it and
lifted it gingerly into the shallow steaming pan. Miriam's thoughts
whirled to her room, to the dark sky-domed streets, to the coming
morrow. They flew about all over her life. The cane-seated chair
thrilled her with a fresh sense of anger.

"I've been shopping and rushing about" said Miss Dear disengaging a
small crusty loaf from its paper bag. Miriam stared gloomily about and
waited.

"Do you like haddock, dear?"

"Oh--well--I don't know--yes I think I do."

The fish smelled very savoury. It was wonderful and astonishing to know
how to cook a real meal, in a tiny room; cheap ... the lovely little
loaf and the wholesome solid fish would cost less than a small egg and
roll and butter at an A.B.C. How did people find out how to do these
things?

"You know how to cook?"

"Haddock doesn't hardly need any cooking" said Miss Dear, shifting the
fish about by its tail.


                                   7

"What is your book dear?"

"Oh--_Villette_."

"Is it a pretty book?"

She didn't want to know. She was saying something else.... How to
mention it? Why say anything about it? But no one had ever asked. No one
had known. This woman was the first. She of all people was causing the
first time of speaking of it.

"I bought it when I was fifteen," said Miriam vaguely, "and a
Byron--with some money I had; seven and six."

"Oh yes."

"I didn't care for the Byron; but it was a jolly edition; padded leather
with rounded corners and gilt edged leaves."

"_Oh._"

"I've been reading this thing ever since I came back from my holidays."

"It doesn't look very big."

Miriam's voice trembled. "I don't mean that. When I've finished it I
begin again."

"I wish you would read it to me."

Miriam recoiled. Anything would have done; Donovan or anything.... But
something had sprung into the room. She gazed at the calm profile, the
long slender figure, the clear grey and pink, the pink frill of the
jacket falling back from the soft fair hair turned cleanly up, the clean
fluffy curve of the skull, the serene line of the brow bent in
abstracted contemplation of the steaming pan. "I believe you'd like it"
she said brightly.

"I should love you to read to me when we've 'ad our supper."

"Oh--I've had my supper."

"A bit of haddock won't hurt you dear.... I'm afraid we shall have to be
very knockabout; I've got a knife and a fork but no plates at present.
It comes of living in a _box_," said Miss Dear pouring off the steaming
water into the slop-pail.

"I've had my supper--really. I'll read while you have yours."

"Well, don't sit out in the middle of the room dear."

"I'm all right" said Miriam impatiently, finding the beginning of the
first chapter. Her hands clung to the book. She had not made herself at
home as Eve would have done and talked. Now, those words would sound
aloud, in a room. Someone would hear and see. Miss Dear would not know
what it was. But she would hear and see something.

"It's by a woman called Charlotte Brontë" she said and began headlong
with the gaslight in her eyes.

The familiar words sounded chilly and poor. Everything in the room grew
very distinct. Before she had finished the chapter Miriam knew the
position of each piece of furniture. Miss Dear sat very still. Was she
listening patiently like a mother, or wife, thinking of the reader as
well as of what was read, and with her own thoughts running along
independently, interested now and again in some single thing in the
narrative, something that reminded her of some experience of her own or
some person she knew? No, there was something different. However little
she saw and heard, something was happening. They were looking and
hearing together ... did she feel anything of the grey ... grey ... grey
made up of all the colours there are; all the colours, seething into an
even grey ... she wondered as she read on almost by heart, at the rare
freedom of her thoughts, ranging about. The book was cold and unreal
compared to what it was when she read it alone. But something was
happening. Something was passing to and fro between them, behind the
text; a conversation between them that the text, the calm quiet grey
that was the outer layer of the tumult, brought into being. If they
should read on, the conversation would deepen. A glow ran through her at
the thought. She felt that in some way she was like a man reading to a
woman, but the reading did not separate them like a man's reading did.
She paused for a moment on the thought. A man's reading was not reading;
not a looking and a listening so that things came into the room. It was
always an assertion of himself. Men read in loud harsh unnatural voices,
in sentences, or with voices that were a commentary on the text, as if
they were telling you what to think ... they preferred reading to being
read to; they read as if they were the authors of the text. Nothing
could get through them but what they saw. They were like showmen....

"Go on, dear."

"My voice is getting tired. It must be all hours. I ought to have gone;
ages ago," said Miriam settling herself in the little chair with the
book standing opened on the floor at her side.

"The time does pass quickly, when it is pleasantly occupied."

A cigarette now would not be staying on. It would be like putting on
one's hat. Then the visit would be over; without having taken place. The
incident would have made no break in freedom. They had been both absent
from the room nearly all the time. Perhaps that was why husbands so
often took to reading to their wives, when they stayed at home at all;
to avoid being in the room listening to their condemning silences or to
their speech, speech with all the saucepan and comfort thoughts
simmering behind it.

"I haven't had much time to attend to study. When you've got to get your
living there's too much else to do."

Miriam glanced sharply. Had she wanted other things in the years of her
strange occupation? She had gone in for nursing sentimentally and now
she knew the other side; doing everything to time, careful carrying out
of the changing experiments of doctors. Her reputation and living
depended on that; their reputation and living depended on her. And she
had to go on, because it was her living.... Miss Dear was dispensing
little gestures with bent head held high and inturned eyes. She was
holding up the worth and dignity of her career. It had meant sacrifices
that left her mind enslaved. But all the same she thought excuses were
necessary. She resented being illiterate. She had a brain somewhere,
groping and starved. What could she do? It was too late. What a _shame_
... serene golden comeliness, slender feet and hands, strange ability
and knowledge of the world, and she knew, _knew_ there was something
that ought to be hers. Miriam thrilled with pity. The inturned eyes sent
out a challenging blue flash that expanded to a smile. Miriam recoiled
battling in the grip of the smile.

"I wish you'd come round earlier to-morrow dear, and have some supper
here."

"How long are you going to stay here?" ... to come again and read
further and find that strange concentration that made one see into
things. Did she really like it?

"Well dear you see I don't know. I must settle up my affairs a little. I
don't know where I am with one thing and another. I must leave it in the
hands of an 'igher power." She folded her hands and sat motionless with
inturned eyes, making the little movements with her lips that would lead
to further speech, a flashing forth of something....

"Well, I'll see" said Miriam getting up.

"I shall be looking for you."




                              CHAPTER XXXI


                                   1

It was ... jolly; to have something one was obliged to do every
evening--but it could not go on. Next week-end, the Brooms, that would
be an excuse for making a break. She must have other friends she could
turn to ... she must _know_ one could not go on. But bustling off every
evening regularly to the same place with things to get for somebody was
evidently good in some way ... health-giving and strength-giving....

                   *       *       *       *       *

She found Miss Dear in bed; sitting up, more pink and gold than ever.
There was a deep lace frill on the pink jacket. She smiled deeply, a
curious deep smile that looked like "a smile of perfect love and
confidence" ... it _was_ partly that. She was grateful, and admiring.
That was all right. But it could not go on; and now illness. Miriam was
aghast. Miss Dear seemed more herself than ever, sitting up in bed, just
as she had been at the hospital.

"Are you ill?"

"Not really ill, de-er. I've had a touch of my epileptiform neuralgia."
Miriam sat staring angrily at the floor.

"It's enough to _make_ anyone ill."

"_What_ is?"

"To be sitoowated as I am."

"You haven't been able to hear of a case?"

"How can I take a case dear when I haven't got my uniforms?"

"Did you sell them?"

"_No_ de-er. They're with all the rest of my things at the hostel. Just
because there's a small balance owing they refuse to give up my box.
I've told them I'll settle it as soon as my pecuniary affairs are in
order."

"I see. That was why you didn't send your box on to me? You know I could
pay that off if you like, if it isn't too much."

"No dear I couldn't hear of such a thing."

"But you _must_ get work, or something. Do your friends know how things
are?"

"There is no one I should care to turn to at the moment."

"But the people at the Nursing Association?"

Miss Dear flushed and frowned. "Don't think of _them_ dear. I've told
you my opinion of the superintendent and the nurses are in pretty much
the same box as I am. More than one of them owes me money."

"But surely if they knew----"

"I tell you I don't _wish_ to apply to Baker Street at the present
time."

"But you _must_ apply to _someone_. _Something_ must be done. You see I
can't, I shan't be able to go on indefinitely."

Miss Dear's face broke into weeping. Miriam sat smarting under her own
brutality ... poverty is brutalising, she reflected miserably, excusing
herself. It makes you helpless and makes sick people fearful and
hateful. It ought not to be like that. One can't even give way to one's
natural feelings. What ought she to have done? To have spoken gently ...
you see dear ... she could hear women's voices saying it ... my
resources are not unlimited, we must try and think what is the best
thing to be done ... humbug ... they would be feeling just as frightened
just as self-protecting, inside. There were people in books who
shouldered things and got into debt, just for any casual, helpless,
person. But it would have to come on somebody, in the end. What then?
Bustling people with plans ... 'it's no good sitting still waiting for
Providence' ... but that was just what one wanted to avoid ... it had
been wonderful, sometimes in the little room. It was _that_ that had
been outraged. It was as if she had struck a blow.

"I _have_ done something dear."

"_What?_"

"I've sent for Dr. Ashley-Densley."


                                   2

"There is our gentleman," said Miss Dear tranquilly just before
midnight. Miriam moved away and stood by the window as the door split
wide and a tall grey-clad figure plunged lightly into the room. Miriam
missed his first questions in her observations of his well-controlled
fatigue and annoyance, his astonishing height and slenderness and the
curious wise softness of his voice. Suddenly she realised that he was
going. He was not going to take anything in hand or do anything. He had
got up from the chair by the bedside and was scribbling something on an
envelope ... no sleep for two nights he said evenly in the soft musical
girlish tones. A prescription ... then he'd be off.

"Do you know Thomas's?" he said colourlessly.

"Do you know Thomas's--the chemist--in Baker Street?" he said casting a
half-glance in her direction as he wrote on.

"I do," said Miriam coldly.

"Would you be afraid to go round there now?"

"What is it you want?" said Miriam acidly.

"Well, if you're not afraid, go to Thomas's, get this made up, give Miss
Dear a dose and if it does not take effect, another in two hours' time."

"You may leave it with me."

"All right. I'll be off. I'll try to look in sometime to-morrow," he
said turning to Miss Dear. "Bye-bye" and he was gone.


                                   3

When the grey of morning began to show behind the blind Miriam's
thoughts came back to the figure on the bed. Miss Dear was peacefully
asleep lying on her back with her head thrown back upon the pillow. Her
face looked stonily pure and stern; and colourless in the grey light.
There was a sheen on her forehead like the sheen on the foreheads of old
people. She had probably been asleep ever since the beginning of the
stillness. Everybody was getting up. "London was getting up." That man
in the _Referee_ knew what it was, that feeling when you live right _in_
London, of being a Londoner, the thing that made it _enough_ to be a
Londoner, getting up, in London; the thing that made real Londoners
different to everyone else, going about with a sense that made them
_alive_. The very idea of living anywhere but in London, when one
thought about it, produced a blank sensation in the heart. What was it I
said the other day? "London's got me. It's taking my health and eating
up my youth. It may as well have what remains...." Something stirred
powerfully, unable to get to her through her torpid body. Her weary
brain spent its last strength on the words, she had only half meant them
when they were spoken. _Now_, once she was free again, to be just a
Londoner she would ask nothing more of life. It would be the answer to
all questions; the perfect unfailing thing, guiding all one's decisions.
And an ill-paid clerkship was its best possible protection; keeping one
at a quiet centre, alone in a little room, untouched by human
relationships, undisturbed by the necessity of being anything. Nurses
and teachers and doctors and all the people who were doing special
things surrounded by people and talk were not Londoners. Clerks were,
unless they lived in suburbs, the people who lived in St. Pancras and
Bloomsbury and in Seven Dials and all round Soho and in all the slums
and back streets everywhere were. She would be again soon ... not a
woman ... a Londoner.

She rose from her chair feeling hardly able to stand. The long endurance
in the cold room had led to nothing but the beginning of a day without
strength--no one knowing what she had gone through. Three days and
nights of nursing Eve had produced only a feverish gaiety. It _was_
London that killed you.

"I will come in at lunch-time" she scribbled on the back of an envelope,
and left it near one of the hands outstretched on the coverlet.

Outdoors it was quite light, a soft grey morning, about eight o'clock.
People were moving about the streets. The day would be got through
somehow. Tomorrow she would be herself again.


                                   4

"Has she applied to the Association to which she belongs?"

"I think she wishes for some reason to keep away from them just now. She
suggested that I should come to you when I asked her if there was anyone
to whom she could turn. She told me you had helped her to have a holiday
in a convalescent home." These were the right people. The quiet grey
house, the high church room, the delicate outlines of the woman, clear
and fine in spite of all the comfort.... The All Souls Nursing
Sisters.... They _were_ different ... emotional and unhygienic
... cushions and hot water bottles ... good food ... early
service--Lent--stuffy churches--fasting. But they would not pass by on
the other side ... she sat waiting ... the atmosphere of the room made
much of her weeks of charity and her long night of watching, the quiet
presence in it knew of these things without being told. The weariness of
her voice had poured out its burden, meeting and flowing into the
patient weariness of the other women and changing. There was no longer
any anger or impatience. Together, consulting as accomplices, they would
see what was the best thing to do--whatever it was would be something
done on a long long road going on forever; nobody outside, nobody left
behind. When they had decided they would leave it, happy and serene and
glance at the invisible sun and make little confident jests together.
She was like Mrs. Bailey--and someone farther back--mother. This was the
secret life of women. They smiled at God. But they all flattered men.
All these women....

"They ought to be informed. Will you call on them--to-day? Or would you
prefer that I should do so?"

"I will go--at lunch-time" said Miriam promptly.

"Meanwhile I shall inform the clergy. It is a case for the parish. You
must not bear the responsibility a moment longer."

Miriam relaxed in her capacious chair, a dimness before her eyes. The
voice was going on, unnoticing, the figure had turned towards a bureau.
There were little straggles about the fine hair--Miss Jenny Perne--the
Pernes. She was a lonely old maid.... One must listen ... but London had
sprung back ... in full open midday roar; brilliant and fresh; dim,
intimate, vast, from the darkness. This woman preferred some provincial
town ... Wolverhampton ... Wolverhampton ... in the little room in
Marylebone Road Miss Dear was unconsciously sleeping--a pauper.


                                   5

There was a large bunch of black grapes on the little table by the
bedside and a book.

"Hullo you literary female" said Miriam seizing it ... Red Pottage ... a
curious novelish name, difficult to understand. Miss Dear sat up,
straight and brisk, blooming smiles. What an easy life. The light
changing in the room and people bringing novels and grapes, smart new
novels that people were reading.

"What did you do at lunch time dear?"

"Oh I had to go and see a female unexpectedly."

"I found your note and thought perhaps you had called in at Baker
Street."

"At your Association, d'you mean? Oh my dear lady."

Miriam shook her thoughts about, pushing back. "She owes money to almost
every nurse in this house and seems to have given in in every way" and
bringing forward "one of our very best nurses for five years."

"Oh I went to see the woman in Queen Square this morning."

"I know you did dear." Miss Dear bridled in her secret way, averted, and
preparing to speak. It was over. She did not seem to mind. "I liked her"
said Miriam hastily, leaping across the gap, longing to know what had
been done, beating out anywhere to rid her face of the lines of shame.
She was sitting before a judge ... being looked through and through....
Noo, Tonalt, suggest a tow-pic....

"She's a sweet woman" said Miss Dear patronisingly.

"She's brought you some nice things" ... poverty was worse if you were
not poor enough....

"Oh no dear. The curate brought these. He called twice this morning. You
did me a good turn. He's a real friend."

"Oh--oh, I'm so glad."

"Yes--he's a nice little man. He was most dreadfully upset."

"What can he do?"

"How do you mean dear?"

"Well in general?"

"He's going to do everything dear. I'm not to worry."

"How splendid!"

"He came in first thing and saw how things stood and came in again at
the end of the morning with these things. He's sending me some wine,
from his own cellar."

Miriam gazed, her thoughts tumbling incoherently.

"He was most dreadfully upset. He could not write his sermon. He kept
thinking it might be one of his own _sisters_ in the same sitawation. He
couldn't rest till he came back."

Standing back ... all the time ... delicately preparing to speak ...
presiding over them all ... over herself too....

"He's a real friend."

"Have you looked at the book?" There was nothing more to do.

"No dear. He said it had interested him very much. He reads them for his
sermons you see" ... she put out her hand and touched the volume ...
John's books ... Henry is so interested in photography ... unknowing
patronising respectful gestures.... "Poor little man. He was dreadfully
upset."

"We'd better read it."

"What time are you coming dear?"

"Oh--well."

"I'm to have my meals regular. Mr. Taunton has seen the landlady. I wish
I could ask you to join me. But he's been so generous. I mustn't run
expenses up you see dear."

"Of course not. I'll come in after supper. I'm not quite sure about
to-night."

"Well--I hope I shall see you on Saturday. I can give you tea."

"I'm going away for the week-end. I've put it off and off. I must go
this week."

Miss Dear frowned. "Well dear, come in and see me on your way."


                                   6

Miss Dear sat down with an indrawn breath.

Miriam drew her Gladstone bag a little closer. "I have only a second."

"All _right_ dear. You've only just come."

It was as if nothing had happened the whole week. She was not going to
say anything. She was ill again just in time for the week-end. She
looked fearfully ill. Was she ill? The room was horrible--desolate and
angry....

Miriam sat listening to the indrawn breathings.

"What is the matter?"

"It's my epileptiform neuralgia again. I thought Dr. Ashley-Densley
would have been in. I suppose he's off for the week-end."

She lay back pale and lifeless looking with her eyes closed.

"All right, I won't go, that's about it," said Miriam angrily.


                                   7

"Have another cup dear. He said the picture was like me and like my
name. He thinks it's the right name for me--'you'll always be able to
inspire affection' he said."

"Yes that's true."

"He wants me to change my first name. He thought Eleanor would be
pretty."

"I _say_; look here."

"Of course I can't make any decision until I know certain things."

"D'you mean to say ... _good_ness!"

Miss Dear chuckled indulgently, making little brisk movements about the
tea-tray.

"So I'm to be called Eleanor Dear. He's a dear little man. I'm very fond
of him. But there is an earlier friend."

"Oh----"

"I thought you'd help me out."

"_I?_"

"Well dear, I thought you wouldn't mind calling and finding out for me
how the land lies."

Miriam's eyes fixed the inexorable shapely outlines of the tall figure.
That dignity would never go; but there was something, that would never
come ... there would be nothing but fuss and mystification for the man.
She would have a house and a dignified life. He, at home, would have
death. But these were the women. But she had liked the book. There was
something in it she had felt. But a man reading, seeing only bits and
points of view would never find that far-away something. She would hold
the man by being everlastingly mysteriously up to something or other
behind a smile. He would grow sick to death of mysterious nothings; of
things always centering in her, leaving everything else outside her
dignity. Appalling. What _was_ she doing all the time, bringing one's
eyes back and back each time after one had angrily given in, to question
the ruffles of her hair and the way she stood and walked and prepared to
speak.

"Oh...! of _course_ I will--you wicked woman."

"It's very puzzling. You see he's the earlier friend."

"You think if he knew he had a rival. Of course. Quite right."

"Well dear, I think he ought to _know_."

"So I'm to be your mamma. What a _lark_."

Miss Dear shed a fond look. "I want you to meet my little man. He's
longing to meet you?"

"Have you mentioned me to him."

"Well dear who should I mention if not you?"


                                   8

"So I thought the best thing to do would be to come and ask you what
would be the best thing to do for her."

"There's nothing to be done for her." He turned away and moved things
about on the mantelpiece. Miriam's heart beat rebelliously in the
silence of the consulting-room. She sat waiting stifled with
apprehension, her thoughts on Miss Dear's familiar mysterious figure. In
an unendurable impatience she waited for more, her eye smiting the tall
averted figure on the hearthrug, following his movements ... small
framed coloured pictures--very brilliant--photographs?--of dark and fair
women, all the same, their shoulders draped like the Soul's Awakening,
their chests bare, all of them with horrible masses of combed out waving
hair like the woman in the Harlene shop only waving naturally. The most
awful minxes ... his ideals. What a man. What a ghastly world. "If she
were to go to the south of France, at once, she might live for years"
... this is hearing about death, in a consulting-room ... no escape ...
everything in the room holding you in. The Death Sentence.... People
would not die if they did not go to consulting-rooms ... doctors make
you die ... they watch and threaten.

"What is the matter with her?" Out with it, don't be so important and
mysterious.

"Don't you know, my dear girl?" Dr. Densley wheeled round with searching
observant eyes.

"Hasn't she told you?" he added quietly with his eyes on his nails.
"She's phthisical. She's in the first stages of pulmonary tuberculosis."

The things in the dark room darkled with a curious dull flash along all
their edges and settled in a stifling dusky gloom. Everything in the
room dingy and dirty and decaying, but the long lean upright figure. In
time he would die of something. Phthisis ... that curious terrible damp
mouldering smell, damp warm faint human fungus ... in Aunt Henderson's
bedroom.... But she had got better.... But the curate ought to know. But
perhaps he too, perhaps she had _imagined_ that....

"It seems strange she has not told such an old friend."

"I'm not an old friend. I've only known her about two months. I'm hardly
a friend at all."

Dr. Densley was roaming about the room. "You've been a friend in need to
that poor girl" he murmured contemplating the window curtains. "I
recognised that when I saw you in her room last week." How
superficial....

"Where did you meet her?" he said, a curious gentle high tone on the
where and a low one on the meet as if he were questioning a very
delicate patient.

"My sister picked her up at a convalescent home."

He turned very sharply and came and sat down in a low chair opposite
Miriam's low chair.

"Tell me all about it my dear girl" he said sitting forward so that his
clasped hands almost touched Miriam's knees.


                                   9

"And she told you I was her oldest friend," he said, getting up and
going back to the mantelpiece.

"I first met Miss Dear" he resumed after a pause, speaking like a
witness "last Christmas. I called in at Baker Street and found the
superintendent had four of her disengaged nurses down with influenza. At
her request I ran up to see them. Miss Dear was one of the number. Since
that date she has summoned me at all hours on any and every pretext.
What I can, I have done for her. She knows perfectly well her condition.
She has her back against the wall. She's making a splendid fight. But
the one thing that would give her a chance she obstinately refuses to
do. Last summer I found for her employment in a nursing home in the
South of France. She refused to go, though I told her plainly what would
be the result of another winter in England."

"Ought she to marry?" said Miriam suddenly, closely watching him.

"Is she thinking of marrying, my dear girl" he answered, looking at his
nails.

"Well of course she _might_----"

"Is there a sweetheart on the horizon?"

"Well she inspires a great deal of affection. I think she is inspiring
affection _now_."

Dr. Densley threw back his head with a laugh that caught his breath and
gasped in and out on a high tone, leaving his silent mouth wide open
when he again faced Miriam with the laughter still in his eyes.

"Tell me my dear girl" he said smiting her knee with gentle affection,
"is there someone who would like to marry her?"

"What I want to _know_" said Miriam very briskly "is whether such a
person ought to know about the state of her health." She found herself
cold and trembling as she asked. Miss Dear's eyes seemed fixed upon her.

"The chance of a tuberculous woman in marriage" recited Dr. Densley "is
a holding up of the disease with the first child; after the second she
usually fails."

Why children? A doctor could see nothing in marriage but children. This
man saw women with a sort of admiring pity. He probably estimated all
those women on the mantelpiece according to their child-bearing
capacity.

"Personally, I do not believe in forbidding the marriage of
consumptives; provided both parties know what they are doing; and if
they are quite sure they cannot do without each other. We know so little
about heredity and disease, we do not know always what life is about.
Personally I would not divide two people who are thoroughly devoted to
each other."

"No" said Miriam coldly.

"Is the young man in a position to take her abroad?"

"I can't tell you more than I know" said Miriam impatiently getting up.

Dr. Densley laughed again and rose.

"I'm very glad you came my dear girl. Come again soon and report
progress. You're so near you can run in any time when you're free."

"Thank you" said Miriam politely, scrutinising him calmly as he waved
and patted her out into the hall.


                                   10

Impelled by an uncontrollable urgency she made her way along the
Marylebone Road. Miss Dear was not expecting her till late. But the
responsibility, the urgency. She must go abroad. About Dr. Densley. That
was easy enough. There was a phrase ready about that somewhere. Three
things. But she could not go abroad to-night. Why not go to the Lyons at
Portland Road station and have a meal and get calm and think out a plan?
But there was no time to lose. There was not a moment to lose. She
arrived at the dark gate breathless and incoherent. A man was opening
the gate from the inside. He stood short and compact in the gloom
holding it open for her.

"Is it Miss Henderson?" he said nervously as she passed.

"Yes" said Miriam stopping dead, flooded with sadness.

"I have been hoping to see you for the last ten days" he said hurriedly
and as if afraid of being overheard. In the impenetrable gloom darker
than the darkness his voice was a thread of comfort.

"Oh yes."

"Could you come and see me?"

"Oh yes of course."

"If you will give me your number in Wimpole Street I will send you a
note."


                                   11

"My _dear_!"

The tall figure, radiant, lit from head to foot, "as the light on a
falling wave" ... "as the light on a falling wave." ...

Everything stood still as they gazed at each other. Her own self gazed
at her out of Miss Dear's eyes.

"Well I'm _bothered_" said Miriam at last, sinking into a chair.

"No need to be bothered any more dear" laughed Miss Dear.

"It's extraordinary." She tried to recover the glory of the first moment
in speechless contemplation of the radiant figure now moving chairs near
to the lamp. The disappearance of the gas, the shaded lamp, the rector's
wife's manner, the rector's wife's quiet stylish costume; it was like a
prepared scene. How funny it would be to know a rector's wife.

"He's longing to meet you. I shall have a second room to-morrow. We will
have a tea party."

"It was to-day, of course."

"Just before you came" said Miss Dear her glowing face bent, her hands
brushing at the new costume. "You'll be our greatest friend."

"But how grand you are."

"He made my future his care some days ago dear. As long as I live you
shall want for nothing he said."

"And to-day it all came out."

"Of course he'll have to get a _living_ dear. But we've decided to
ignore the world."

What did she mean by that.... "You won't have to."

"Well dear I mean let the world go by."

"I see. He's a jewel. I think you've made a very good choice. You can
make your mind easy about that. I saw the great medicine man to-day."

"It was all settled without that dear. I never even thought about him."

"You needn't. No woman need. He's a man who doesn't know his own mind
and never will. I doubt very much whether he has a mind to know. If he
ever marries he will marry a _wife_, not any particular woman; a smart
worldly woman for his profession, or a thoroughly healthy female who'll
keep a home in the country for him and have children and pour out his
tea and grow things in the garden, while he flirts with patients in
town. He's most awfully susceptible."

"I expect we shan't live in London."

"Well that'll be better for you won't it?"

"How do you mean de-er?"

"Well. I ought to tell you Dr. Densley told me you ought to go abroad."

"There's no need for me to go abroad dear, I shall be all right if I can
look _after_ myself and get into the air."

"I expect you will. Everything's happened just right hasn't it?"

"It's all been in the hands of an 'igher power, dear."

Miriam found herself chafing again. It had all rushed on, in a few
minutes. It was out of her hands completely now. She did not want to
know Mr. and Mrs. Taunton. There was nothing to hold her any longer. She
had seen Miss Dear in the new part. To watch the working out of it, to
hear about the parish, sudden details about people she did not
know--intolerable.




                             CHAPTER XXXII


                                   1

The short figure looked taller in the cassock, funny and hounded, like
all curates; pounding about and arranging a place for her and trying to
collect his thoughts while he repeated how good it was of her to have
come. He sat down at last to the poached eggs and tea laid on one end of
the small book-crowded table.

"I have a service at four-thirty" he said busily eating and glaring in
front of him with unseeing eyes, a little like Mr. Grove only less
desperate because his dark head was round and his eyes were blue--"so
you must excuse my meal. I have a volume of _Plato_ here."

"Oh yes" said Miriam doubtfully.

"Are you familiar with Plato?"

She pondered intensely and rushed in just in time to prevent his
speaking again.

"I _should_ like him I know--I've come across extracts in other books."

"He is a great man; my favourite companion. I spend most of my leisure
up here with Plato."

"What a delightful life" said Miriam enviously, looking about the small
crowded room.

"As much time as I can spare from my work at the Institute and the
Mission chapel; they fill my _active_ hours."

Where would a woman, a wife-woman, be in a life like this? He poured
himself out a cup of tea; the eyes turned towards the tea-pot were
worried and hurried; his whole compact rounded form was a little worried
and anxious. There was something--bunnyish about him. Reading Plato the
expression of his person would still have something of the worried
rabbit about it. His face would be calm and intent. Then he would look
up from the page, taking in a thought and something in his room would
bring him back again to worry. But he was too stout to belong to a
religious order.

"You must have a very busy life" said Miriam, her attention wandering
rapidly off hither and thither.

"Of course" he said turning away from the table to the fire beside which
she sat. "I think the clergy should keep in touch to some extent with
modern thought--in so far as it helps them with their own particular
work."

Miriam wondered why she felt no desire to open the subject of religion
and science; or any other subject. It was so extraordinary to find
herself sitting tête-à-tête with a clergyman, and still more strange to
find him communicatively trying to show her his life from the inside. He
went on talking, not looking at her but gazing into the fire. She tried
in vain to tether her attention. It was straining away to work upon
something, upon some curious evidence it had collected since she came
into the room; and even with her eyes fixed upon his person and her mind
noting the strange contradiction between the thin rippling many-buttoned
cassock and the stout square-toed boots protruding beneath it, she could
not completely convince herself that he was there.

"... novels; my friends to recommend any that might be helpful."

He had looked up towards her with this phrase.

"Oh yes, Red Pottage" she said grasping hurriedly and looking attentive.

"Have you read that novel?"

"No. I imagined that you had because you lent it to Miss Dear."

"Miss Dear has spoken to you of me."

"Oh yes."

"Of you she has spoken a great deal. You know her very well. It is
because of your long friendship with her that I have taken courage to
ask you to come here and discuss with me about her affairs."

"I have known Miss Dear only a very short time" said Miriam, sternly
gazing into the fire. Nothing should persuade her to become the
caretaker of the future Mrs. Taunton.

"That surprises me very much indeed" he said propping his head upon his
hand by one finger held against a tooth. He sat brooding.

"She is very much in need of friends just now" he said suddenly and
evenly towards the fire without removing his finger from his tooth.

"Yes" said Miriam gravely.

"You are, nevertheless, the only intimate woman friend to whom just now
she has access."

"I've done little things for her. I couldn't do much."

"You were sorry for her." Mr. Taunton was studying her face and waiting.

"Well--I don't know--she" she consulted the fire intensely, looking for
the truth; "she seems to me too strong for that." Light! Women have no
pity on women ... they _know_ how _strong_ women are; a sick man _is_
more helpless and pitiful than a sick woman; almost as helpless as a
child. People in order of strength ... women, men, children. This man
without his worldly props, his money and his job and his health had not
a hundredth part of the strength of a woman ... nor had Dr. Densley....

"I think she _fascinated_ me."

Mr. Taunton gathered himself together in his chair and sat very upright.

"She has an exceptional power of inspiring affection--affection and the
desire to give her the help she so sorely needs."

"Perhaps that is it" said Miriam judicially. But you are very much
mistaken in calling on me for help ... 'domestic work and the care of
the aged and the sick'--very convenient--all the stuffy nerve-racking
never-ending things to be dumped on to women--who are to be openly
praised and secretly despised for their unselfishness--I've got twice
the brain power you have. You are something of a scholar; but there is a
way in which my time is more valuable than yours. There is a way in
which it is more right for you to be tied to this woman than for me.
Your reading is a habit, like most men's reading, not a quest. You don't
want it disturbed. But you are kinder than I am. You are splendid. It
will be awful--you don't know how awful yet--poor little man.

"I think it has been so in my case if you will allow me to tell you."

"Oh yes _do_" said Miriam a little archly--"of course--I know--I mean to
say Miss Dear has told me."

"Yes" he said eagerly.

"How things are" she finished looking shyly into the fire.

"Nevertheless if you will allow me I should like to tell you exactly
what has occurred and to ask your advice as to the future. My mother and
sisters are in the Midlands."

"Yes" said Miriam in a carefully sombre non-committal tone; waiting for
the revelation of some of the things men expect from mothers and sisters
and wondering whether he was beginning to see her unsuitability for the
rôle of convenient sister.

"When my rector sent me to look up Miss Dear" he began heavily "I
thought it was an ordinary parish case and I was shocked beyond measure
to find a delicately nurtured ladylike girl in such a situation. I came
back here to my rooms and found myself unable to enter into my usual
employments. I was haunted by the thought of what that lonely girl who
might have been one of my own sisters--must be suffering and enduring
and I returned to give what relief I could without waiting to report the
case to my rector for ordinary parish relief. I am not dependent on my
stipend and I felt that I could not withhold the help she ought to have.
I saw her landlady and made arrangements as to her feeding and called
each day myself to take little things to cheer her--as a rule when my
day's work was done. I have never come in contact with a more pathetic
case. It did not occur to me for ... a moment that she viewed my visits
and the help I was so glad to be able to give ... in ... in any other
light ... that she viewed me as other than her parish priest."

"Of _course_ not" said Miriam violently.

"She is a singularly attractive and lovable nature. That to my mind
makes her helplessness and resourcelessness all the more painfully
pathetic. Her very name----" he paused gazing into the fire. "I told her
lately in one of her moments of deep depression that she would never
want for friends, that she would always inspire affection wherever she
went and that as long as I lived she should never know want. Last
week--the day I met you at the gates--finding her up and apparently very
much better, I suggested that it would be well to discontinue my visits
for the present, pointing out the social reasons and so forth.... I had
with me a letter from a very pleasant Home in Bournemouth. She had
hinted much earlier that a long rest in some place such as Bournemouth
was what she wanted to set her up in health. I am bound to tell you what
followed. She broke down completely, told me that, socially speaking, it
was too late to discontinue my visits; that people in the house were
already talking."

"People in _that_ house!"--you little simpleton--"Who? It is the most
monstrous thing I ever heard."

"Well--there you have the whole story. The poor girl's distress and
dependence were most moving. I have a very great respect for her
character and esteem for her personality--and of course I am pledged."

"I see," said Miriam narrowly regarding him. Do you want to be
saved--ought I to save you--why should I save you--it is a solution of
the whole thing and a use for your money--you won't marry her when you
know how ill she is.

"It is of course the immediate future that causes me anxiety and
disquietude. It is there I need your advice and help."

"I see. Is Miss Dear going to Bournemouth?"

"Well; that is just it. Now that the opportunity is there she seems
disinclined to avail herself of it. I hope that you will support me in
trying to persuade her."

"Of course. She _must_ go."

"I am glad you think so. It is obvious that definite plans must be
postponed until she is well and strong."

"You would be able to go down and see her."

"Occasionally, as my duties permit, oh yes. It is a very pleasant place
and I have friends in Bournemouth who would visit her."

"She ought to be longing to go" said Miriam on her strange sudden smile.
It had come from somewhere; the atmosphere was easier; suddenly in the
room with her was the sense of bluebells, a wood blue with bluebells,
and dim roofs, roofs in a town ... sur les toits ... and books; people
reading books under them.

Mr. Taunton smiled too.

"Unfortunately that is not so" he said leaning back in his chair and
crossing his legs comfortably.


                                   2

"You know" he said turning his blue gaze from the fire to Miriam's face,
"I have never been so worried in my life as I have during the last ten
days. It's upsetting my winter's work. It is altogether too difficult
and impossible. I cannot see any possible adjustment. You see I cannot
possibly be continually interrupted and in such--strange ways. She came
here yesterday afternoon with a list of complaints about her landlady. I
_really_ cannot attend to these things. She sends me _telegrams_. Only
this morning there was a telegram. Come at once. Difficulty with
chemist. Of course it was impossible for me to leave my work at a
moment's notice. This afternoon I called. It seems that she was under
the impression that there had been some insolence ... it absorbs so much
_time_ to enter into long explanations with regard to all these people.
I cannot do it. That is what it comes to. I cannot do it."

_Ah._ You've lost your temper; like anyone else. You want to shelve it.
Anyone would. But being a man you want to shelve it on to a woman. You
don't care who hears the long tales as long as you don't....

"Have you seen her doctor?"

"No. I think just now he is out of town."

"_Really?_ Are you sure?"

"You think I should see him."

"Certainly."

"I will do so on the first opportunity. That is the next step. Meantime
I will write provisionally to Bournemouth."

"Oh, she must go to Bournemouth anyhow; that's settled."

"Perhaps her medical man may help there."

"He won't make her do anything she doesn't mean to do."

"I see you are a reader of character."

"I don't think I am. I always begin by idealising people."

"Do you indeed?"

"Yes, always; and then they grow smaller and smaller."

"Is that your invariable experience of humanity?'"

"I don't think I'm an altruist."

"I think one must have one's heroes."

"In life or in books?"

"In both perhaps--one has them certainly in books--in records. Do you
know this book?"

Miriam sceptically accepted the bulky volume he took down from the
book-crowded mantelshelf.

"Oh how interesting" she said insincerely when she had read Great
Thoughts from Great Lives on the cover.... I ought to have said I don't
like extracts. "Lives of great men all remind us. We can make our lives
sublime," she read aloud under her breath from the first page.... I
ought to go. I can't enter into this.... I hate 'great men' I think....

"That book has been a treasure-house to me--for many years. I know it
now almost by heart. If it interests you, you will allow me I hope to
present it to you."

"Oh you must not let me deprive you of it--oh _no_. It is very kind of
you; but you really mustn't." She looked up and returned quickly to the
fascinating pages. Sentences shone out striking at her heart and brain
... names in italics; Marcus Aurelius ... Lao-Tse. Confucius ... Clement
of Alexandria ... Jacob Boehme. "It's full of the most fascinating
things. Oh no; I couldn't think of taking it. You must keep it. Who is
Jacob Boehme? That name always _fascinates_ me. I must have read
something, somewhere, a long time ago. I can't remember. But it is such
a _wonderful_ name."

"Jacob Boehme was a German visionary. You will find of course all shades
of opinion there."

"All contradicting each other; that's the worst of it. Still, I suppose
all roads lead to Rome."

"I see you have thought a great deal."

"Well" said Miriam feverishly, "there's always _science_, always all
that awful business of science, and no getting rid of it."

"I think--in that matter--one must not allow one's mind to be led away?"

"But one must keep an _open_ mind."

"Are you familiar with Professor Tyndall?"

"Only by meeting him in books about Huxley."

"Ah--he was very different; very different."

"Huxley" said Miriam with intense bitterness "was an egoistic
_adolescent_--all his life. I _never_ came across _anything_ like
his conceited complacency in my life. The very look of his
side-whiskers,--well, there you have the whole man." Her heart burned
and ached, beating out the words. She rose to go holding the volume in
hands that shook to the beating of her heart. Far away in the bitter
mist of the darkening room was the strange little figure.

"Let me just write your name in the book."

"Oh, well, really, it is too bad--thank you very much."

He carried the book to the window-sill and stood writing his bent head
very dark and round in the feeble grey light. Happy monk alone up under
the roof with his Plato. It was a _shame_.




                             CHAPTER XXXIII


                                   1

"What a _huge_ room?"

"Isn't it a big room. Come in young lady."

Miriam crossed to the fireplace through a warm faintly sweet atmosphere.
A small fire was smoking and the gas was partly turned down but the room
was warm with a friendly brown warmth. Something had made her linger in
the hall until Mrs. Bailey had come to the dining-room door and stood
there with the door wide open and something to communicate waiting
behind her friendly greetings. As a rule there was nothing behind her
friendly greetings but friendly approval and assurance. Miriam had never
seen the dining-room door open before and sought distraction from the
communicativeness by drifting towards it and peering in. Once in and
sitting in the chair between the fireplace and Mrs. Bailey's tumbled
work-basket standing on the edge of the long table, bound to stay taking
in the room until Mrs. Bailey returned, she regretted looking in. The
hall and the stairs and her own room would be changed now she knew what
this room was like. In her fatigue she looked about half taking in half
recoiling from the contents of the room. "He stopped and got off his
bicycle and I said you don't seem very pleased to _see_ me." Already he
knew that they were tiresome strangers to each other. "I can't go
dancing off to Bournemouth at a moment's notice dear." "Well, I strongly
advise you to go as soon as you can." "Of _course_ I'm going, but I
can't just dance off." "Don't let him get into the habit of associating
you with the idea of worry." If she didn't _worry_ him and was always a
little ill, and pretty ... "he says he can't do without her. I've told
him without reserve what the chances are and given them my blessing."
Did he really feel that suddenly sitting there in the consulting-room?
If only she wouldn't be so mysterious and important about nothing....

There was a hugeness in the room, radiating from the three-armed
dim-globed chandelier, going up and up; to the high heavily-moulded
smoke-grimed ceiling, spreading out right and left along the length of
the room, a large enclosed quietness, flowing up to the two great
windows, hovering up and down the dingy rep and dingy lace curtains and
the drab coloured venetian blinds through whose chinks the street came
in. Tansley Street was there, pressing its secret peace against the
closed windows. Between the windows a long strip of mirror framed in
tarnished gilt, reflected the peace of the room. Miriam glanced about
peering for its secret; her eye running over the length of the faded
patterned deep fringed table cover, the large cracked pink bowl in the
centre, holding an aspidistra ... brown cracked leaves sticking out; the
faded upholstery of the armchair opposite her, the rows of dining-room
chairs across the way in line with the horsehair sofa; the piano in the
space between the sofa and the window; the huge mirror in the battered
tarnished gilt frame sweeping half way up the wall above the
mantelpiece, reflecting the pictures and engravings hung rather high on
the opposite wall, bought and liked long ago, the faded hearthrug under
her feet, the more faded carpet disappearing under the long table, the
dark stare of the fireplace, the heavy marble mantelpiece, the marble
cased clock and opaque pink glass fat-bodied jugs scrolled with a dingy
pattern, dusty lustres, curious objects in dull metal....


                                   2

"It'll give my chicks a better chance. It isn't fair on them--living in
the kitchen and seeing nobody."

"And you mean to risk sending the lodgers away."

"I've been thinking about it some time. When the dining-room left I
thought I wouldn't fill up again. Miss Campbell's going too."

"Miss Campbell?"

"The drawn-room and drawn-room bedroom ... my word ... had her rooms
turned out every week, carpets up and all."

"Every _week_!"

"Always talking about microbes. My _word_."

"How awful. And all the other people?"

"I've written them" smiled Mrs. Bailey at her busily interlacing
fingers.

"Oh."

"For the 14th prox; they're all weekly."

"Then if they don't stay as boarders they'll have to trot out at once."

"Well I thought if I was going to begin I'd better take the bull by the
horns. I've heard of two. Norwegian young gentlemen. They're coming next
week and they both want large bedrooms."

"I think it's awfully plucky if you've had no experience."

"Well, young lady, I see it like this. What _others_ have done, I can. I
feel I must do something for the children. Mrs. Reynolds has married
three of her daughters to boarders. She's giving up. Elsie is going into
the typing."

"You haven't written to _me_."

"You stay where you are, young lady."

"Well--I think it's awfully sweet of you Mrs. Bailey."

"Don't you think about that. It needn't make any difference to you."

"Well--of course--if you heard of a boarder----"

Mrs. Bailey made a little dab at Miriam's knee. "You stay where you
_are_ my dear."

"I do hope it will be a success. The house will be completely changed."

"I know it's a risk. But if you get on it pays better. There's less work
in it and you've got a house to live in. Nothing venture, nothing
_have_. It's no good to be backward in coming forward nowadays. We've
got to march with the times."

Miriam tried to see Mrs. Bailey presiding, the huge table lined with
guests. She doubted. Those boarding-houses in Woburn Place, the open
windows in the summer, the strange smart people, in evening dress, the
shaded lamps, she would be lost. She could never hold her own. The quiet
house would be utterly changed. There would be people going about, in
possession, all over the front steps and at the dining-room windows and
along the drawing-room balcony.


                PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
                           PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND




                             The Novels of
                           Dorothy Richardson


                            By MAY SINCLAIR

    Extracts from an article published in "The Egoist," April, 1918.

... By imposing very strict limitations on herself she has brought her
art, her method, to a high pitch of perfection, so that her form seems
to be newer than it perhaps is. She herself is unaware of the perfection
of her method. She would probably deny that she has written with any
deliberate method at all. She would say: "I only know there are certain
things I mustn't do if I was to do what I wanted." Obviously, she must
not interfere; she must not analyse or comment or explain. Rather less
obviously, she must not tell a story or handle a situation or set a
scene; she must avoid drama as she avoids narration. And there are some
things she must not be. She must not be the wise, all-knowing author.
She must be Miriam Henderson. She must not know or divine anything that
Miriam does not know or divine; she must not see anything that Miriam
does not see. She has taken Miriam's nature upon her. She is not
concerned, in the way that other novelists are concerned, with
character. Of the persons who move through Miriam's world you know
nothing but what Miriam knows. If Miriam is mistaken, well, she and not
Miss Richardson is mistaken. Miriam is an acute observer, but she is
very far from seeing the whole of these people. They are presented to us
in the same vivid but fragmentary way in which they appeared to Miriam,
the fragmentary way in which people appear to most of us. Miss
Richardson has only imposed on herself the conditions that life imposes
on us all. And if you are going to quarrel with those conditions you
will not find her novels satisfactory. But your satisfaction is not her
concern.

And I find it impossible to reduce to intelligible terms this
satisfaction that I feel. To me these three novels show an art and
method and form carried to punctilious perfection. Yet I have heard
other novelists say that they have no art and no method and no form, and
that it is this formlessness that annoys them. They say that they have
no beginning and no middle and no end, and that to have form a novel
must have an end and a beginning and a middle. We have come to words
that in more primitive times would have been blows on this subject.
There is a certain plausibility in what they say, but it depends on what
constitutes a beginning and a middle and an end. In this series there is
no drama, no situation, no set scene. Nothing happens. It is just life
going on and on. It is Miriam Henderson's stream of consciousness going
on and on. And in neither is there any grossly discernible beginning or
middle or end.

In identifying herself with this life, which is Miriam's stream of
consciousness, Miss Richardson produces her effect of being the first,
of getting closer to reality than any of our novelists who are trying so
desperately to get close. No attitude or gesture of her own is allowed
to come between her and her effect. Whatever her sources and her raw
material, she is concerned and we ought to be concerned solely with the
finished result, the work of art. It is to Miriam's almost painfully
acute senses that we owe what in any other novelist would be called the
"portraits" of Miriam's mother, of her sister Harriett, of the Corries
and Joey Banks in _Honeycomb_, of the Miss Pernes and Julia Doyle, and
the North London schoolgirls, in _Backwater_, of Fräulein Pfaff and
Mademoiselle, of the Martins and Emma Bergmann and Ulrica and "the
Australian" in _Pointed Roofs_. The mere "word-painting" is masterly....

It is as if no other writers had ever used their senses so purely and
with so intense a joy in their use.

This intensity is the effect of an extreme concentration on the thing
seen or felt. Miss Richardson disdains every stroke that does not tell.
Her novels are novels of an extraordinary compression, and of an
extenuation more extraordinary still. The moments of Miriam's
consciousness pass one by one, or overlapping; moments tense with
vibration, moments drawn out fine, almost to snapping-point.




                          Transcriber's Notes


The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved. In "The
Tunnel", Dorothy Richardson experimented with punctuation, in particular
leaving out many commas, in order to promote "creative collaboration"
with the reader. Therefore, punctuation was mostly left unchanged, as
was the varying usage of hyphens.

In a few cases, perhaps to mark Madame Szigmondy's pronounciation, "r"
has been substituted by "g" ("pgonounce", "Thégèse", "rgun",
"cgeature"). This seems to be intentional and has not been corrected.

On page 272, a few lines from Schiller's "Des Mädchens Klage" are cited
in German with numerous spelling deviations. This has not been changed,
as it was not clear whether the deviations (most present even in later
editions) were not intentional. The original reads like this:

   Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück,
   Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
   Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!

Likewise, on page 125, the correct German would be: "Es war ein König in
Thule".

On page 18, Richardson refers to Byron two times wrongly as Tennyson. On
pages 195-196, Bassanio (from the "Merchant of Venice") has in later
editions been corrected to Antonio. In both cases, the names have been
preserved as in the original.

A few obvious typographical errors were silently corrected. Further
careful corrections, some after consulting other editions, are listed
here (before/after):

   [p. 11]:
   ... about the house, a heavy dark mountain, fringes, bugles, ...
   ... about the house, a heavy dark mountain, fringes, bulges, ...

   [p. 81]:
   ... go right away to some other part of London. May answered ...
   ... go right away to some other part of London. Mag answered ...

   [p. 89]:
   ... married. Besides anyhow; thing of the awful people." ...
   ... married. Besides anyhow; think of the awful people." ...

   [p. 117]:
   ... unless they all know what she was. If she could say clever ...
   ... unless they all knew what she was. If she could say clever ...

   [p. 117]:
   ... voice. Tho young men were quiet. For a few moments ...
   ... voice. The young men were quiet. For a few moments ...

   [p. 126]:
   ... pieces of Chauminade, those things by Liszt whom somebody ...
   ... pieces of Chaminade, those things by Liszt whom somebody ...

   [p. 168]:
   ... "Yes; John is Londonised; she looks German; her ...
   ... "Yes; Jan is Londonised; she looks German; her ...

   [p. 187]:
   ... that had been a half-heard obligato to her vision of last ...
   ... that had been a half-heard obbligato to her vision of last ...

   [p. 188]:
   ... felt it all, all the time, they would go mad or die." "No, ...
   ... felt at all, all the time, they would go mad or die." "No, ...

   [p. 190]:
   ... the worrying challenge of is disappeared in the joy of the ...
   ... the worrying challenge of it disappeared in the joy of the ...

   [p. 203]:
   ... the collar of the well-cut grey coat clothing the firm balk ...
   ... the collar of the well-cut grey coat clothing the firm bulk ...

   [p. 222]:
   ... she was free to stop out and there was hardly any time left. ...
   ... she was free to step out and there was hardly any time left. ...

   [p. 222]:
   ... Outside the life relationship men and woman ...
   ... Outside the life relationship men and women ...

   [p. 247]:
   ... darkness by night of riding through the day. Leaning ...
   ... darkness by right of riding through the day. Leaning ...

   [p. 280]:
   ... and gold then ever. There was a deep lace frill on the ...
   ... and gold than ever. There was a deep lace frill on the ...

   [p. 282]:
   ... and the curious wide softness of his voice. Suddenly ...
   ... and the curious wise softness of his voice. Suddenly ...