8
She opened the window upon Harriett and Gerald. Standing a little aloof from them was a man. As Harriett spoke to her Miriam met his strange eyes wide and dark, unseeing; no, glaring at things that did not interest him ... desperate, playing a part. His thin squarish frame hung loosely, whipped and beaten, within his dark clothes.
His eyes passed expressionlessly from her face to Harriett.
A great gust of laughter sounded from the open kitchen window away to the left, screened by a trellis over which the lavish trailings of a creeper made a bright green curtain. It was Bennett’s voice. He had just accomplished something or other.
“Ullo,” said Harriett. The strange man was holding his lower lip in with his teeth, as if in horror or pain.... They stood in a row on the gravel.
“Let me introduce Mr. Grove,” said Harriett, with a shy movement of her head and shoulders, keeping her hands clasped. Her face was all broken up. She could either laugh or cry. But there was something, a sort of light, chiselling it, holding everything back.
Miriam bowed. “What’s Bennett doing?” she said hurriedly.
“The last time I saw him he was standing on the kitchen table fighting with the gas bracket,” said Gerald.
The sallow man drew in his breath sharply and stood aside, staring down the garden. Miriam glanced at him, wondering. He was not criticising Gerald. It was something else.
“I say, Mirry, what did you do to old Tremayne this morning?” went on Gerald.
“What do you mean?” said Miriam interested. This was the novel going on....
She must read it through even at this strange moment ... this moment was the right setting to read through Gerald that little exciting far-away finished thing of the morning, to know that it had been right. She felt decked. Gerald stood confronting her and spoke low, fingering the anemones in her belt. The others were talking. Harriett in high short laughing sentences, the man gasping and moaning his replies, making jerky movements. He was not considering his words, but looking for the right, appropriate things to say. Miriam rejoiced over him as she smiled encouragingly at Gerald.
“Well, my dear, he wanted to know—who you were; and he swears he’s going to be engaged to you before the year is out.”
“What abominable cheek,” said Miriam, flushing with delight. Then she had taken the right line. How easy. This was how things happened.
“No, my dear, he didn’t mean to be cheeky.”
“I call it the most abominable cheek.”
“No you don’t”; Gerald was looking at her with fatherly solicitude. “That’s what he said anyhow—and he meant it. Ask Harry.”
“Frivolous young man.”
“Well, he’s an awful flirt, I warn you; but he’s struck this time—all of a heap ... came and raved about you the minute he’d seen you, and when he heard you were Harry’s sister that’s what he said.”
“I’m sure I’m awfully obliged to his majesty.”
Gerald laughed and turned, looking for Harriett and moving to her. Miriam caught at a vision of the well-appointed man, a year ... a home full of fresh new things, no more need to make money; a stylish contented devoted sort of man, who knew nothing about one. It would be a fraud, unfair to him ... so easy to pretend to admire him ... well, there it was ... an offer of freedom ... that was admirable, in almost any man, the power to lift one out into freedom. He wanted to lift her out—her, not any other woman. It was rather wonderful, and appealing. She hung over his moment of certainty in pride and triumph. But there was something wrong somewhere; though she felt that someone had placed a jewel in her hair. Gerald had drawn Harriett through the doorway into the drawing-room. The sunlight followed them. They looked solid and powerful. The strange terrors of the room were challenged by their sunlit figures.
9
Moving to the side of Gerald’s strange friend Miriam said something about the garden in a determined manner. He drew a sawing breath without answering. They walked down the short garden. It moved about them in an intensity of afternoon colour. He did not know it was there; there was something between him and the little coloured garden. He walked with bent head, his head dipping from his shoulders with a little bob at each step. Miriam wanted to make him feel the garden moving round them; either she must do that or ask him why he was suffering. He walked responsively, as if they were talking. He was feeling some sort of reprieve ... perhaps the afternoon had bored him. They had turned and were walking back towards the house. If they reached it without speaking, they would not have courage to go down the garden again. She could not relinquish the strange painful comradeship so soon. They must go on expressing their relief at being together; anything she might say would destroy that. She wanted to take him by the arm and groan ... on Harriett’s wedding-eve, and when she was feeling so happy and triumphant....
“Have you known Gerald long?” she said, as they reached the house. He turned sharply to face the garden again.
“Oh, for a very great number of years,” he said quickly, “a—very—great—number.” His voice was the voice of the ritualistic curate at All Saints. He sighed impatiently. What was it he was waiting for her to say? Nothing perhaps. This busy walking was a way of finishing his visit without having to try to talk to anybody.
“How different people are,” she said airily.
“I’m very different,” he said, with his rasping, indrawn breath. A darkness coming from him enfolded her.
“Are you?” she said insincerely. Her eyes consulted the flowered border. She saw it as he saw it, just a flowered border, meaningless.
“You cannot possibly imagine what I am.”
Her mind leapt out to the moving garden, recapturing it scornfully. He is conceited about his difficulties and differences. He doesn’t think about mine. But he couldn’t talk like this unless he knew I were different. He knows it, but is not thinking about me.
“Don’t you think people are all alike, really?” she said impatiently.
“Our common humanity,” he said bitingly.
She had lost a thread. They were divided. She felt stiffly about for a conventional phrase.
“I expect that most men are the average manly man with the average manly faults.” She had read that somewhere. It was sly and wrong, written by somebody who wanted to flatter.
“It is wonderful, wonderful that you should say that to me.” He stared at the grass with angry eyes. His mouth smiled. His teeth were large and even. They seemed to smile by themselves. The dark, flexible lips curled about them in an unwilling grimace.
“He’s in some horrible pit,” thought Miriam, shrinking from the sight of the desolate garden.
“What are you going to do in life?” she said suddenly.
During the long silent interval she had felt a growing longing to hurt him in some way.
“If I had my will—if—I had my will—I should escape from the world.”
“What would you do?”
“I should join a brotherhood.”
“Oh....”
“That is the life I should choose.”
“Do you see how unfair everything is?”
“Um?”
“If a woman joins an order she must confess to a man.”
“Yes,” he said indifferently.... “I can’t carry out my wish, I can’t carry out my dearest wish.”
“You have a dearest wish; that is a good deal.”
She ought to ask him why not and what he was going to do. But what did it matter? He was going unwillingly along some dreary path. There was some weak helplessness about him. He would always have a grievance and be sorry for himself ... self-pity. She remained silent.
“I’m training for the Bar,” he murmured, staring away across the neighbouring gardens.
“Why—in Heaven’s name?”
“I have no choice.”
“But it’s absurd. You are almost a priest.”
“The Bar. That is my bourne.”
“Lawyers are the most ignorant, awful people.”
“I cannot claim superiority.” He laughed bitterly.
“But you can; you are. You can never be a lawyer.”
“It is necessary to do one’s duty. Occupation does not matter.”
“There you are; you’re a Jesuit already,” said Miriam angrily, seeing the figure at her side shrouded in a habit, wrapped in tranquillity, pacing along a cloister, lost to her. But if he stayed in the world and became a lawyer he would be equally lost to her.
“I have been ... mad,” he muttered; “a madman ... nothing but the cloister can give me peace—nothing but the cloister.”
“I don’t know. It seems like running away.”
“Running towards, running towards——”
Can’t you be at peace now, in this garden? ran her thoughts. I don’t condemn you for anything. Why can’t we stop worrying at things and be at peace? If I were beautiful I could make you be at peace—perhaps. But it would be a trick. Only real religion can help you. I can’t do anything. You are religious. I must keep still and quiet....
If some cleansing fire could come and consume them both ... flaring into the garden and consuming them both, together. Neither of them were wanted in the world. No one would ever want either of them. Then why could they not want each other? He did not wish it. Salvation. He wanted salvation—for himself.
“My people must be considered first,” he said speculatively.
“They want you to be a barrister. That’s the last reason in the world that would affect me.”
He glanced at her with far-off speculative eyes, his upper lip drawn terribly back from his teeth.
“He is thinking I am a hard unfeminine ill-bred woman.”
“I do it as an atonement.”
The word rang in the garden ... the low tone of a bell. Her thoughts leaned towards the strength at her side.
“Oh, that’s grand,” she said hastily, and fluted quickly on, wondering where the inspiration had come from: “Luther said it’s much more difficult to live in the world than in a cell.”
“I am glad I have met you, glad I have met you,” he said, in a clear light tone.
She felt she knew the quality of the family voice, the way he had spoken as a lad, before his troubles came, his own voice easy and sincere. The flowers shone firm and steady on their stalks.
She laughed and rushed on into cheerful words, but his harsh voice drowned hers. “You have put my life in a nutshell.”
“How uncomfortable for you,” she giggled excitedly.
He laughed with a dip of the head obsequiously. There was a catch of mirth in his tone.
Miriam laughed and laughed, laughing out fully in relief. He turned towards her a young lit face, protesting and insisting. She wanted to wash it, with soap, to clear away a faint greasiness and do something with the lank, despairing hair.
“You have come at the right instant, and shown me wisdom. You are wonderful.”
She recoiled. She did not really want to help him. She wanted to attract his attention to her. She had done it and he did not know it. Horrible. They were both caught in something. She had wanted to be caught, together with this agonising priestliness. But it was a trick. Perhaps they hated each other now.
“It is jolly to talk about things,” she said, as the blood surged into her face.
He was grave again and did not answer.
“People don’t talk about things nearly enough,” she pursued.
10
“I saw Miriam through the window, deep in conversation with a most interesting young man.”
“Have those people written about the bouquets?” said Miriam irritably.... Then mother had moved about the new house and was looking through those drawing-room windows this afternoon. She had looked about the house with someone else, saying all the wrong things, admiring things in the wrong way, impressed in the wrong way, having no thoughts, and no one with her to tell her what to think....
She flashed a passionate glance towards the clear weak flexible voice, half seeing the flushed face ... you’re not upset about the weddings—“Miriam’s scandalous goings-on the whole day long,” said somebody ... because you’ve got me. You don’t know me. You wouldn’t like me if you did. You don’t know him. He doesn’t know you. But I know you, that’s the difference....
“I’ve just thought something out,” she said aloud, her voice drowned by two or three voices and the sound of things being served and handed about the supper-table. They were trying to draw her—still talking about the young men and her “goings-on.” They did not know how far away she was and how secure she felt. She laughed towards her mother and smiled at her until she made her blush. Ah, she thought proudly, it’s I who am your husband. Why have I not been with you all your life?... all the times you were alone; I knew them all. No one else knows them.
“I say,” she insisted, “what about the bouquets?”
Mrs. Henderson raised her eyebrows helplessly and smiled, disclaiming.
“Hasn’t anybody done anything?” roared Miriam.
Mary came in with a dish of fruit. Everyone went on so placidly.... She thought of the perfect set of her white silk bridesmaid’s dress, its freshness, its clear apple green pipings, the little green leaves and fresh pink cluster roses on the white chip hat. If the shower bouquets did not come it would be simply ghastly. And everybody went on chattering.
She leaned anxiously across the table to Harriett.
“Oo—what’s up?” asked Harriett.
Conversation had dropped. Miriam sat up to fling out her grievances.
“Well—just this. I’m told Gerald said the people would send a line to say it was all right, and they haven’t written, and so far as I can make out nothing’s been done.”
“Bouquets would appear to be one of the essentials of the ceremony,” hooted Mr. Henderson.
“Well, of course,” retorted Miriam savagely, “if you have a dress wedding at all. That’s the point.”
“Quite so, my dear, quite so. I was unaware that you were depending on a message.”
“I’m not anxious. It’s simply silly, that’s all.”
“It’ll be all right,” suggested Harriett, looking into space. “They’d have written.”
“Well, it’s your old bouquet principally.”
“Me. With a bouquet. Hoo——”