To-daythe 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 thatsat 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....
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 byknowingthem 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 mein 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.
AtleastI have broken up his confounded complacency.
He will be embarrassed.Ishan’t.
... “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 whoknew. And now she was free tostep out and there was hardly any time left. But there was a little time. Women whoknoware 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 andwomen 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. Sociallife. 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....
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 isperfect, 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.... Iamfrantically 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 peopleknowmore about it than others. Intelligent people. I suppose I am intelligent. I can’thelpit. I don’t want to be different. Yes I do—oh Lord yes Ido. Mag knows. But she goes in amongst people and the complaintsand 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 manohfor a man—sionin the skies.... Wot a big voice I’ve got, Mother.
“Cooooooo—ooo—er—Bill.” The sudden familiar sound came just above her head. Where was she?Whata 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 isperfecthappiness. 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 notsee 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 thesameas 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 housebehind 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.
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 ... thenmemorywas 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. Ithadbeen, 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 speakingtentatively....”
“A long lean mizzerable tentative——”
“I perceive that you are still asleep. Shall I sing it—“Idurr-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.
Coolwith 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.
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 inthe 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 ableto 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.
“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.
“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.”
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....Howcould 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 ... Imustdie. I can’t go on living in it ... the whole world full ofcreatures; 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. Theremust, 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 betweenmen 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.
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-facedwomen with babies. But if they liked all the fuss and noise and talk as much as they seemed to do.... If they didnot, what were they doing? What was everybodydoing? So busily.
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.
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 onmalehumanity ... 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 stopnow?
“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. (ThomasBabington Macaulay.) 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.
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.
Theroom 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 sostrongriding down through London, everything dropping away, nothing to think of; off and free, the holiday ahead, nothing but lovely, lonely freedom all round one.
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. Harriettmustunderstand 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,Idunno, 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 toDeath” 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 withevery 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. Thimmbeaming, 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.”
“Fancyyou!”
“I know. I can’t ’elpit.”
“I can’t ’elp it, Micky.Lovelay 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.
“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 aboutit 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.”
“Imusthave 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.”
Therewas 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-lemthe 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.
Iknownot, oh, I,know, not.
Iknownot, oh, I,know, not.
Iknownot, oh, I,know, not.
Iknownot, 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.
Theystandthosehallsofzi-onAll jubilantwithsong.
Theystandthosehallsofzi-onAll jubilantwithsong.
Theystandthosehallsofzi-onAll jubilantwithsong.
Theystandthosehallsofzi-on
All jubilantwithsong.
As she neared Colnbrook the road grew heavier and a closer mist lay over the fields. It was too soon for fatiguebut 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.
“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 asoul, 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 ... howfunnyI 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. Therewassome 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 waslightcoming 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.
I’ve got my sea-legs ... this isriding—not just straining along trying to forget the wobbly bicycle, but feeling it wobble and being able to control it ... being able tolook 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.
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 andget 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 “Isay—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 menaremore 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’tit a lovely day?Isn’tit? Just look.
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 byright 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.
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.
“GoodeLord—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.
“You don’t think of riding up over the downs at this time of night?” It was like an At home. Everybody inthe 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 wouldfeelfat 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.
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 heavylight limbs glowing with fever. “By Jove, I’m tired.... I’ve had nothing since breakfast m—but a m-bath bun and an acidulatudddrop.” ... 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.
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 afraidhimselfof 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 hehad not read Robert Elsmere then. He was jealous of a thunderbolt flung by a woman....
And now I’ve got beyondRobert 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?
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. Imustgo to sleep.
Beingreally 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 peoplethinkwhen they say these things?
“We are like daisies,drenchedin dew.” She pursed up her face towards the sky.
They laughed and silence came again. Heavy and happy.
“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. ShelikedMrs. 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 privatevision 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’renot 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 alwaysworries” 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 fearfullybusy.”
“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?