7
Then this was “Society.” To come so easily up from the Corries’ beautiful home, via the West End hat shop to this wonderful West End flat and eat strawberries in April.... If only the home people could see. Her fatigue vanished. Secure from Mrs. Kronen’s notice she sat in a mauve and white striped chair and contemplated her surroundings.
While they were waiting for the tea-cakes, Mrs. Kronen trailed about the mauve floor reciting her impressions of the weather. “So lovely,” she intoned in her curious half-Cockney. “I almost—went—out. But I haven’t. I—haven’t—stirred. It is lovely inside on this sort of spring day—the light.”
She paused and swept about. There is something about her, thought Miriam. It’s true, the light inside on a clear spring day.... I never thought of that. It is somehow spring in here in the middle of London in some real way. Her blood leaped and sang as it had done driving across the commons; but even more sweetly and keenly. It wouldn’t be, in a dingy room, even in the country.... It’s an essence—something you feel in the right surroundings.... What chances these people have. They get the most out of everything. Get everything in advance and over and over again. They can go into the country any minute as well as have clear light rooms. Nothing is ever grubby. And London there, all round; London ... London was a soft, sea-like sound; a sound shutting in the spring. The spring gleamed and thrilled through everything in the pure bright room.... She hoped Mrs. Kronen would say no more about the light. Light, light, light. As the manservant brewed the tea and the silver teapot shone in the light as he moved it—silver and strange black splashes of light—caught and moving in the room. Drawing off her gloves she felt as if she could touch the flowing light.... Flowing in out of the dawn, moving and flowing and brooding and changing all day, in rooms. Mrs. Kronen was back on her settee sitting upright in her mauve gown, all strong soft curves. “That play of Wilde’s ...” she said. Miriam shook at the name. “You ought not to miss it. He—has—such—genius.” Wilde ... Wilde ... a play in the spring—someone named Wilde. Wild spring. That was genius. There was something in the name.... “Never go to the theatre; never, never, never,” Mrs. Corrie was saying, “too much of a bore.” Genius ... genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. Capacity. A silly definition; like a proverb—made up by somebody who wanted to explain.... Wylde, Wilde.... Spring.... Genius.
8
The little feast was over and Mrs. Kronen was puffing at a cigarette when the hats were announced. As the fine incense reached her Miriam regretted that she had not confessed to being a smoker. The suggestion of tobacco brought the charm of the afternoon to its height. When the magic of the scented cloud drew her eyes to Mrs. Kronen’s face it was almost intolerable in its keenness. She gazed wondering whether Mrs. Kronen felt so nearly wild with happiness as she did herself.... Life what are you—what is life? she almost said aloud. The face was uplifted as it had been in the photograph, but with all the colour, the firm bows of gold hair, the colour in the face and strong white pillar of neck, the eyes closed instead of staring upwards and the rather full mouth flattened and drooping with its weight into a sort of tragic shapeliness—like some martyr ... that picture by Rossetti, Beata Beatrix, thought Miriam ... perfect reality. She liked Mrs. Kronen for smoking like that. She was not doing it for show. She would have smoked in the same way if she had been alone. She probably wished she was, as Mrs. Corrie did not smoke. How she must have hated missing her smokes at Newlands, unless she had smoked in her room.
“It’s—a—mis-take,” said Mrs. Kronen incredulously, in response to the man’s announcement of the arrival of the hats. She waved her cigarette “imperiously,” thought Miriam, “how she enjoys showing off” ... to and fro in time with her words. Mrs. Corrie rose laughing and explaining and apologising. Waving her cigarette about once more Mrs. Kronen ordered the hats to be brought in and her maid to be summoned, but retained her expression of vexed incredulity. She’s simply longing for us to be off now, thought Miriam, and changed her opinion a few moments later when Mrs. Kronen, assuming on the settee the reclining position in which they had found her when they came in, disposed one by one of the hats as Mrs. Corrie and the maid freed them from their boxes and wrappings, with a little flourish of the cigarette and a few slow words.... “Im-poss-i-ble; not-in-key-with-your-lines; slightly too ingénue,” etc.: to three or four she gave a grudging approval, whereupon Mrs. Corrie who was laughing and pouncing from box to box would stand upright and pace holding the favoured hat rakishly on her head. The selection was soon made and Miriam, whose weariness had returned with the millinery, was sent off to instruct the messenger that three hats had been selected and a bill might be sent to Brook Street in the morning.
As she was treating with the messenger in the little mauve and white hall, Mrs. Corrie came out and tapped her on the shoulder. Turning, Miriam found her smiling and mysterious. “We’re going by the 5.30,” she whispered. “Would you like to go for a walk for half an hour and come back here?”
“Rather!” said Miriam heartily, with a break in her voice and feeling utterly crushed. The beautiful clear room. She loved it and belonged to it. She was turned out. “All right,” smiled Mrs. Corrie encouragingly and disappeared. Under the eyes of the messenger and the servants who were coming out of the boudoir laden with hat boxes, she got herself out through the door.