1
It was Mrs. Bailey coming up the top flight clearing her throat. Tapping at the door.
“Ah. I thought the young lady was in. I thought so.” Mrs. Bailey stood approving inside the door. The sunlight streamed on to her shabby skirt. The large dusty house, the many downstair rooms, the mysterious dark-roomed vault of the basement, all upright in her upright form; hurried smeary cleansings, swift straightening of grey-sheeted beds, the strange unfailing water-system, gurgling cisterns, gushing taps and lavatory flushes, the wonder of gaslight and bedroom candles, the daily meals magically appearing and disappearing; her knowledge of the various mysteriously arriving and vanishing people, all beginning and ending in her triumphant, reassuring smile that went forward outside beyond these things, with everybody.
Now that she was there, bearing and banishing all these heavy things, the squat green teapot on the table in the blaze of window-light, the Chinese lantern hanging from the hook in the ceiling, the little Madras muslin curtains at either end of the endmost lattices made a picture and set the room free from the challenge of the house accumulating as Miriam had come up through it and preventing the effect she had sought when she put out the green teapot on the sunlit table. She was receiving Mrs. Bailey as a guest, backed up by the summery little window-room. She stood back in the gloom, dropping back into the green lamplit stillness of the farm-house garden. The Song of Hiawatha sounded on and on amongst the trees, the trunk of the huge sheltering oak lit brightly by the shaded lamp on the little garden table, the forms in the long chairs scarcely visible. She offered Mrs. Bailey the joy of her journey down, her bicycle in the van, Miss Szigmondy’s London guests, the sixteenth-century ingle, the pine-scented bedrooms with sloping floors, the sandy high-banked lanes and pine-clad hills, the strange talk with the connoisseur, the kind stupid boyish mind of the London doctor who had seen myopic astigmatism across the lunch table and admitted being beaten in argument without resentment; the long dewy morning ride to Guildford; the happy thorns in her hands keeping the week-end still going on at Wimpole Street; her renewed sense of the simplicity of imposing looking people, their personal helplessness on the surface of wealthy social life; the glow of wealthy social life lighting the little wooden window-room, gleaming from the sheeny flecks of light on the well-shaped green teapot.
Mrs. Bailey advanced to the middle of the floor and stood looking towards the window. My word aren’t we smart she breathed.
“I like the teapot and the lantern, don’t you?” said Miriam.
“Very pretty, mts, very pretty, young lady.”
“It reminds me of week-ends. It is a week-end. That is my drawing-room.”
“That’s it. It’s a week-end,” beamed Mrs. Bailey. But she had come for something. The effect was not spoiled by giving a wrong, social impression of it, because Mrs. Bailey was busily thinking behind her voice. When she had gone the silent effect would be there, more strongly. Perhaps she had some new suggestion to make about Sissie.
“Well, young lady, I want to talk to you.” Mrs. Bailey propped one elbow on the mantelpiece and brushed at her skirt. Miriam waited, watching her impatiently. The Tansley Street life was fading into the glow of the oncoming holiday season. Rain was cooling the July weather, skirmishy sunlit April rain and wind drawing her forward. There was leisure in cool uncrowded streets and restaurants and in the two cool houses, no pressure of work, the gay easy August that was almost as good as a holiday, and the certainty beyond the rain, of September brilliance.
“Well you know I’ve a great regard for you, young lady.”
Miriam stared back at the long row of interviews with Mrs. Bailey and sought her face for her invisible thoughts.
“Well to come straight to the point without beating about the bush, it’s about him, that little man, you know who I mean.”
“Who?”
“Mendizzable.”
Miriam’s interest awoke and flared. That past patch of happy life had been somehow or other visible to Mrs. Bailey. She felt decorated and smiled into the room.
“Well; you know I don’t believe in talk going about from one to another. In my opinion people should mind their own business and not listen to tittle-tattle, or if they do, keep it to themselves without passing it on and making mischief.”
“Has someone been trying to make mischief about poor little Mr. Mendizabal?”
“Well, if it was about him I wouldn’t mind so much. Little villain. That’s my name for him.”
“Fascinating little villain if he must be called a villain.”
“Well; that’s what I’ve got to ask you my chahld; are you under a fascination about him? You’ll excuse me asking such a question.”
Solicitude! what for?
“Well. I did think him fascinating; he fascinated me, he would anybody. He would fascinate Miss Scott if he chose.”
“’Er? ’Er be fascinated by anybody? She thinks too much of number one for that.”
... Miss Scott. Dressing so carefully, so full of independent talk and laughter and not able to be fascinated ... too far-seeing to be fascinated.
“But why do you ask? I’m not responsible for Mr. Mendizabal’s being a fascinating little man.”
“Fascinating little devil. You should have heard Dr. Winchester.”
Something hidden; all the time; behind the politeness of the house.
“Dr. Winchester?”
“Dr. Winchester. Do you remember him coming out into the hall one evening when you were brushing your coat?”
“And brushing it for me. Yes.”
“He didn’t know how to let you go.” There was a trembling in Mrs. Bailey’s voice. “He said,” she pursued breathlessly, “he was in two minds to come with you himself.”
“Where? Why?”
“Why? He knew that fella was waiting for you round the corner.”
Suddenly appearing, brushing so carefully ... why not have spoken and come.
“Well now we’re coming to it. I can’t tell you how it all happened, that’s between Mr. Gunner and Miss S. They got to know you was going out with Mendizzable and where you went. It’s contemptible I know, if you like, but there’s many such people about.”
Miriam checked her astonishment, making a mental note for future contemplation of the spectacle of Mr. Gunner, or Miss Scott, following her to Ruscino’s. They had told Mrs. Bailey and talked to the doctors.... Spies; talking idle; maliciously picking over her secret life.
“Dr. Winchester said he was worried half out of his senses about you.”
“Why not have said so?”
“You may be wondering,” Mrs. Bailey flushed a girlish pink, “why I come up to-day telling you all this. That’s just what I say. That’s just the worst of it. He never breathed a word to me till he went.”
Dr. Winchester gone ... the others gone ... of course. Next week would be August. They had all vanished away; out of the house, back to Canada. Dr. von Heber gone without a word. Perhaps he had been worried. They all had. That was why they had all been so nice and surrounding.... That was the explanation of everything.... They were brothers. Jealous brothers. The first she had had. This was the sort of thing girls had who had brothers. Cheek. If only she had known and shown them how silly they were.
“Lawk. I wish to goodness he’d come straight to me at once.”
“Well. It’s awfully sweet of them from their point of view. They were such awfully nice little men in their way.”... Why didn’t they come to me, instead of all this talk? They knew me well enough. All those long talks at night. And all the time they were seeing a foolish girl fascinated by a disreputable foreigner. How dare they?
“That’s what I say. I can’t forgive him for that. They’re all alike. Selfish.”
“All old men like Dr. Winchester are selfish. Selfish and weak. They get to think of nothing but their comforts. And keep out of everything by talk.”
“It’s not him I mean. It’s the other one.”
“Which?” What was Mrs. Bailey going to say? What? Miriam gazed angrily.
“That’s what I must tell you. That’s why I asked you if you was under a fascination.”
“Oh well, they’ve gone. What does it matter?”
“I feel I ought to tell you. He, von Heber, had made up his mind to speak. He was one in a thousand, Winchester said. She’s lost von Heber he said. He thought the world of her, ’e sez,” gasped Mrs. Bailey. “My word, I wish I’d known what was going on.”
Miriam flinched. Mrs. Bailey must be made to go now.
“Oh really,” she said in trembling tones. “He was an awfully nice man.”
“My word. Isn’t it a pity,” said Mrs. Bailey with tears in her eyes. “It worries me something shocking.”
“Oh well, if he was so stupid.”
“Well, you can’t blame him after what Mendizzable said.”
“You haven’t told me.”
“He said he’d only to raise his finger. Oh Lawk. Well there you are, now you’ve got it all.”
Mrs. Bailey must go. Mr. Mendizabal’s mind was a French novel. He’d said French thoughts in English to the doctors. They had believed. Even Canadian men can have French minds.
“Yes. Well I see it all now. Mr. Mendizabal’s vanity is his own affair.... I’m sure I hope they’ve all had an interesting summer. I’m awfully glad you’ve told me. It’s most interesting.”
“Well, I felt it was my duty to come up and tell you. I felt you ought to know.”
“Yes ... I’m awfully glad you’ve told me. It’s like, er, a storm in a teacup.”
“It’s not them I’m thinking of. Lot of low-minded gossips. That’s my opinion. It’s the harm they do I’m thinking of.”
“They can’t do any harm. As for the doctors they’re quite able to take care of themselves.” Miriam moved impatiently about the room. But she could not let herself look at her thoughts with Mrs. Bailey there.
“Well young lady,” murmured Mrs. Bailey dolorously at last, “I felt I couldn’t do less than come up, for my own satisfaction.”
She thinks I have made a scandal, without consulting her ... her mind flew, flaming, over the gossiping household, over Mrs. Bailey’s thoughts as she pondered the evidence. Wrenching away from the spectacle she entrenched herself far off; clutching out towards the oblivion of the coming holidays; a clamour came up from the street, the swaying tumult of a fire-engine, the thunder of galloping horses, the hoarse shouts of the firemen; the outside life to which she went indifferent to any grouped faces either of approval or of condemnation.
“I’m awfully sorry you’ve had all this, Mrs. Bailey.”
“Oh that’s nothing. It’s not that I think of.”
“Don’t think about anything. It doesn’t matter.”
“Well I’ve got it off my mind now I’ve spoken.”
“It is abominable isn’t it. Never mind. I don’t care. People are perfectly welcome to talk about me if it gives them any satisfaction.”
“That is so. It’s von Heber I’m so mad about.”
“They’re all alike as you say.”
“He might have given you a chance.”
Dr. von Heber; suddenly nearer than anyone. Her own man. By his own conviction. Found away here, at Mrs. Bailey’s; Mrs. Bailey’s regret measuring his absolute genuineness. Gone away....
She steadied herself to say “Oh, if he’s selfish.”
“They’re all that, every one of them. But we’ve all got to settle in life, sooner or later.”
That was all, for Mrs. Bailey. She rallied woefully in the thought that Mrs. Bailey knew she could have settled in life if she had chosen.
Flickering faintly far away was something to be found behind all this, some silent thing she would find by herself if only Mrs. Bailey would go.
Fascinated. How did they find the word? It was true; and false. This was the way people talked. These were the true-false phrases used to sum up things for which there were no words.
They had no time. They were too busy. That was in the scheme. They were somehow prevented from doing anything. Dr. von Heber had been saved. The fascinating eyes and snorting smile had saved him; coming out of space to tell him she was a flirt. He had boasted. She adore me; hah! I tell you she adore me, he would say. It was history repeating itself. Max and Ted. Again after all these years. A Jew.