23
The second carriage swept round the bend of the road with a yellow silk slipper swinging in the rear. Miriam struggled for breath through tears. Gerald and Harriett had taken the old life away with them in their carriage. Harriett had taken it, and gone. But she knew. She would bring it back with her. They would come back. Harriett would never forget. Nothing could change or frighten her. She would come back the same, in her new dresses, laughing.
A fat voice ... Mrs. Bywater ... “proud of your gails, Mrs. Henderson” ... fat flattering voice. The brightness had gone from the houses and the roadway ... unreal people were moving about with absurd things on their heads. Bridesmaids in cold white dresses, moving in pounces, as people spoke to them ... the Hendon girls.... What bad complexions Harriett’s school friends had. Why were they all dark? Why did Harriett like them? Who was Harriett? Why did she have dark, sallow friends? Oh ... this dark face, near and familiar ... saying something—eyes looking at nothing; haunted eyes looking at nothing, very dear and familiar ... relief ... the sky seems to lift again; kind harmless bitter features, coming near and speaking.
“I am obliged to go——” rasping voice, curious sawing breath....
“Oh yes....” Perhaps there will be a thunderstorm or something—something will happen.
“We shall meet again.”
“Yes—oh, yes.”
24
There was no reason to feel nervous, at any rate for a night or two. Burglars who wanted the presents would take some time to find out that there was only one young lady in the house and a little servant sleeping in a top room. It was all right. No need to put the dinner-bell on the dressing-table. Next week the middle-aged servant would have arrived. Would she mind being alone with the presents and the little maid? The only way to feel quite secure at night would be to marry ... how awful ... either you marry and are never alone or you risk being alone and afraid ... to marry for safety ... perhaps some women did. No wonder ... and not to turn into a silly scared nervous old maid ... how tiresome, one thing or the other ... no choice.
She laid her head on the pillow. Thank Heaven I’m here and not at home ... out of it.... “I’ll come round, first thing, to cut up the cake”—that would be jolly too. But here ... with all these new things, magical and easy, secure with Gerald and Harriett, chosen to embark on their new life with them.... “You chuck your job, my dear, and stay with us for a bit.” They would like it. That was so jolly. Absurd free days with Harriett; tea in the garden, theatres; people coming, Mr. Tremayne and Mr. Grove....
But there was something, some thought sweeping round all these things, something else, sweeping round outside the weddings and the joy of being at home, making all these things extra, like things thrown in, jolly and perfect and surprising, but thrown in with something else that was her own, something hovering around and above, in and out the whole day keeping her apart. This morning the weddings had seemed the end of everything. They were over, Harriett’s and Sarah’s lives going forward and her own share in them, and home still there too, three things instead of one, easily hers. And yet they did not concern her. It would be a sham to pretend they did, with this other thing haunting—to go on from thing to thing, living with people and for them as if there were nothing else, as people seemed to do, one thing happening after another all the time. Sham.
Harriett and Sarah had rushed out into life. They had changed everything. Things did not seem to matter now that they had achieved all that. Harriett would take the first shock of life for her. Curiosities could come to an end. It did not seem to matter. That was all at peace, through Harriett. Life had come into the family, leaving her free....
Was she free? That strange, dark priestliness. If he called to her, if he really called.... But he called in a dark dreadful way ... and yet mysteriously linked to something in her. She could not give the help he needed. She would fail. Over their lives would shine, far away, visible to both of them the radiance of heaven. They both wanted to be good; redemption from sin. They both believed these things. But he was weak, weak ... and she not strong enough to help. And there was that other thing beckoning far from this suburban life and quite as far from him, away, up in London, down at Newlands, a brightness....
She looked through the darkness at the harmony of soft tones and draperies at distant Newlands ... etchings; the strange effect of etchings ... there were no etchings in the suburbs ... curious, close, strong lines that rested you and had a meaning and expression even though you did not understand the subject. There were so many things to take you away from people. In the suburbs people were everything, and there was nothing in them. They did not understand anything; but going on. They were helpless and without thoughts; amongst their furniture. They did not even have busts of Beethoven. At Newlands people might be dead, the women in bright hard deaths or deaths of cold, cruel deceitfulness, the men tiny insects of selfishness, but there were things that made up for everything full and satisfying.
And Salviati’s window....
She must hold on to these things. Life without them would be impossible.
It was—Style ... or something. Le style c’est l’homme. That meant something. It was the same with clothes.... Suburban people could be fashionable, never stylish. And manners.... They were fussily kind and nice to each other; as if life were pitiful ... life ... pitiful. They all pitied, and despised each other.