5
Miriam awoke in the darkness abruptly. About her were the images that had filled her mind when Miss Holland’s candle had gone out. She regarded them sleepily, wondering what could so soon have called her back. What was calling her now, urgently, out from the thickness of sleep. She stirred and woke completely.
“Are you awake?” Miss Holland’s voice coming anxious and reproachful through the stillness was added to the minute unmistakable irritations.
“Yes, are you? I mean are you being devoured alive?”
“Indeed, indeed, I am,” wailed Miss Holland. “It is a disaster.”
“It’s weird,” said Miriam, lunging. “Where can they all come from? I’m going to get up.”
“Indeed, that is all we can do. Light candles and make instant warfare.”
“I’m so sleepy. I think I shall change in the dark.”
“I fear that will be useless,” groaned Miss Holland, striking a match. “I fear, I fear the worst.”
Out on the green floor and with the two candles cheerfully gleaming.... Alone such an adventure would have been misery.
She grew interested in following Miss Holland’s instructions, and was almost disappointed when the white expanse of her bed offered no further prey.
“Seven,” she announced.
“All drowned?” asked Miss Holland suspiciously.
“Mm, poor things.”
“I fear I do not share your solicitude,” chuckled Miss Holland.
“Well, perhaps I associate them with summer. In a London summer there are always one or two, having their little day. I’ve tried once or twice to keep still and endure.”
“I shake my nightgown out of the window, but always feel mean.”
“You are most tender-hearted.”
“I agree with the Frenchman, ‘ce n’est point la piqûre dont je me plains, c’est le promenade.’”
“You speak French delightfully, toote ah fay kom oon Parisienne.”
“Imitation; I can imitate any sound. But where do all these fleas come from?”
“The floor, the floor, I fear.”
“Heaven and earth! We must leave at once.”
“Well, I think perhaps with perchloride in the cracks ...”
“Meantime?”
“We must do our best.”
“It goes from the brain to the toes.”
“To the toes. But only for the unfortunate possessors of thin skins. And them, the wretches seek. If there were in the universe only one flea, it would make straight for me.”
Her voice ended on a childish wail. Fleee, she had said, making it innocent and pretty.
“Do you mean to say there are people ...”
“I do indeed. During my first period of training in the slums I was amazed at the complete insensibility of many of my fellow-workers. Amazed, and under the circumstances, envious.”
“Oh, I don’t envy them a bit. Those people with skins like felt; they miss everything.”
“I agree. At the same time, I think a moderately thick skin is a boon. I see no disadvantage in escaping intolerable discomforts. It is possible to have too thin a skin.”
“For survival, yes. Blond people are dying out, they say.”
“Blondes have not a monopoly of thin skins.”
“No. I have a friend who slums. She loathes the poor.”
“Dear, dear; a most unfortunate qualification for her work.”
“Not their poverty. Their sameness. She is one of the kindest people I know.”
“They ought to be pensioned.”
“The poor?”
“Everybody. I should love to be pensioned.”
“And remain in idleness and dependence? Oh, no.”
“Not dependence. Interdependence. No compulsion.”
“What would you do?”
“Spend several years staring; and then go round the world.”
“You are delightful! I am not sure that I approve of the years of staring. But to go round the world would, of course, be most enchanting.”
“Yes: but I should not want to improve my mind. I should still stare. If I went. Probably I shouldn’t go. Nothing short of dynamite will shift me. I am astounded to find myself shifted here.”
“I fear at the moment you must be wishing yourself safely back again.”
She had no realisation of the adventure it was to be anywhere at all. To her it was not a strange, strange adventure that their two voices should be sounding together in the night, a double thread of sound in a private darkness, making a pattern with all the other sounds in the world. But she had accepted the compliment. There was a vibration in her voice: joyful.
Again and again they were awakened for battle, until their slumber was too deep to be disturbed.