2
Coming back in the afternoon, she found Miss Holland installed, her half of the larger room fully furnished.
From a low camp-bed with a limply frilled Madras muslin cover, her eyes passed to a wicker washstand-table, decked with a strip of the same muslin and set with chilly, pimpled white crockery. At its side was a dulled old Windsor chair, and underneath it a battered zinc footbath propped against the wall. Above a small shabby chest of drawers a tiny square of mirror hung by a nail to the strip of wall next the window. No colour anywhere but in the limp muslin, washed almost colourless.
But over the whole of the floor, gleaming, without blemish, was the new linoleum. And soon the dividing curtain would hang between her and Miss Holland’s cheerless things. A length of cord hung ready, suspended in a deep loop from the top of the window frame to a hook in the wall above the connecting door, and on the floor beneath the window lay a pile of material.
She cried out at the sight of it, bringing Miss Holland in from the next room.
“Yes,” she said disdainfully, “that is the curtain.”
Though in the course of two meetings Miriam had grown used to Miss Holland’s way of speaking, it was still fruitful of wonder. She wondered now, hearing it unchanged by the informality of the occasion, how it had first come into being. At Wimpole Street it was a familiar tone, common to upper middle-class dowdies of the better sort. Perhaps Henry James used it? In men, it was apt to be fluty; a contraction of the range of the voice to two or three fluty notes. In women it was almost only one note, a little curved, breaking at some point of its passage into distress; solicitous.
She had already discovered the exact amount of constriction of the throat necessary to its production, and felt it draw the muscles of her nose and mouth into an expression of faintly humorous contempt. Heard now, as it were in its dressing-gown, it gave a clue to the mode of being that would automatically produce it; a disdain of life’s external processes, of everything but high ends, any kind of high end, from the honour of England to the dignity of the speaker, that everything in life must be moulded to serve.
Once accepted, it would ban any kind of passionate feeling, even passionate chirpiness. Even mirth would not be allowed to reach beyond a faint amusement. On the whole, so far, she had decided against it, decided that it might even be possible to become a sort of châtelaine without the constricted voice.
But on this occasion the voice showed itself in a new light. Subtly attractive. For behind Miss Holland’s tone was a smile that beamed the more warmly for the frost through which it came. It reached and touched like sunlight. Garden sunlight that had been missing through all the wandering years.
Did all these people emanate from high walled gardens, scorning everything that was outside?
In any case, here she was, indefinitely committed to live at close quarters with a scorn she was not sure of being able to share. Must at least beware at the times, this was one of them, when the châtelaine way of taking life went to her head, of treachery to things that stood outside it. Meanwhile the experience would be charming. And to be a little moulded by it would not be atavism. For Miss Holland was more than the châtelaine. She had broken loose, set herself in adventurous circumstances; a châtelaine facing both ways.
“I saw you did not like the idea of sacking, though I think it might have been made quite pretty, painted artistically, as I am sure you could have done it, with a Grecian key pattern or something of the kind, along the border.”
She had spoken standing near the heaped material conciliatingly, and now bent and caught gingerly at an end, as if uncertain of its mood.
“Still, I thought I would get this. It is the new stuff they are calling ‘Casement cloth’ in quality rather like a fine ‘crash.’ Very durable, and not ruinous in price.”
“Perfect. Tones with the floor and my crocks. But you must let me pay. It’s my extravagance.”
“Not at all. I quite like it. I shall certainly contribute my share. Your things are here. They are charming. I perceive that you have excellent taste.”
“Joy, where are they?”
“I had them set down in here. I thought you would prefer to arrange them yourself.”
She threw open the connecting door and stood back, a gracious hostess introducing guests. How tall she was indoors, and big. Heavy in build, yet limber and light-footed; graceful. The grey in the sleek dark mass of hair scarcely showed. Her large eyes, set well apart on either side of her good nose, when there was no street light to show the tired muscles round about them, were really beautiful. Liquid radiant blue, with a darker ring.
“I suddenly,” Miriam said, going into the crowded little room, “remembered crockery and went back to Maple’s. But there’s a tragedy. I forgot an indispensable.”
She was startled by laughter, an abrupt fairy tinkle, affectionate and gay.
“Never mind,” said the voice, unchanged. “I will obtain one for you.”
“How?”
“Oh, quite easily, I assure you.”
“And, oh Lord, a pail! I forgot a pail.”
“There is no need to invoke the Deity. I have several pails.”
Miriam turned and saw happiness shine from her. Her presence was balm as she stood so lightly there—a momentary stillness poised for help, ready to welcome any confession, shoulder any burden that might be offered—and then turned on a dancing step towards the big room, thoroughly pleased, deep, quite deep, in delight at the prospect of settling down here in intimacy.
And here they were. And it was wonderful. Full of a deep refreshment. The experiment was turning to success. But not yet quite fully. Not until the curtain was up and the strips of privacy were secure.
She was not sure that Miss Holland desired a complete privacy. The curtain, for her, was an affair of modesty, a physical not a spiritual covering. Spiritually she had nothing to hide.
She had no back premises. No reservations. And here, at last, no doubt, was the secret of the effortless decorous speech of the “gentlewoman.” And the secret of its tiresomely unvarying form. The quality it expressed went right through. They not only spoke as they thought, but thought as they spoke, guided and fashioned their thought, even to themselves, in forms of decorous speech. Anything that could not so be moulded was banished. Anything “unspeakable”—their strongest term of contempt. Thus they were, even when alone, permanently at attention.
For herself, the coming of the curtain would be the moment of dropping the mask of attention, the moment of soaring freely within this new life. Things were going ahead too fast. Strong impressions succeeding and obliterating each other too swiftly to be absorbed.
“I’ll go round for my things. Must find a greengrocer,” she said, looking in on Miss Holland cutting a slice from a substantial bar of plain soap.
“You prefer a greengrocer? I am employing the Church Army myself. They are most useful. And it is quite the least expensive way of moving. The men should now be on their way with the last of my things. They could then, if you like, fetch yours.”
“Ah! Perfect,” said Miriam, and set forth.
Going westwards she met a sky ablaze with fiery rose thrown up behind clouds that hid the drooping sun, and saw, looking back, the London scene transformed; pink houses, grey roofs tinged with madder. The sun had still a good way to drop. The clouds might shift. Coming back she would walk in brilliance.