6
“Goodness gracious, isn’t she a swell!”
“Are they all right?”
“Are you a millionaire my dear? Have they raised your salary?”
“Do you really like them?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen you look so nice. You ought always to go about in a large black hat trimmed with lilac.”
“Didn’t one of the artists want to paint your portrait.”
“They all did. I’ve promised at least twenty sittings.”
“Come nearer to the lamp fair child that I may be even more dazzled by thy splendour.”
“I’m awfully glad you like them—they’ll have to go on for ever.”
“Where on earth did you find the money child?”
“Borrowed it from Harry. It was her idea. You see I shall get four pounds for my four weeks’ holiday; and if I go to stay with them it won’t cost me anything; so she advanced me two pounds.”
“And you got all this for two pounds?”
“Practically; the hat was ten and six and the other things twenty seven and six and the gloves half a crown.”
“Where did you get them?”
“Edgware Road.”
“And just put them on?”
“It is really remarkable. Do you realise how lucky you are in being a stock size?”
“I suppose I am. But you know the awful thing about it is that they will never come in for Wimpole Street.”
“Why on earth not? What could be more ladylike, more—simple, more altogether suitable?”
“You see I have to wear black there.”
“What an extraordinary idea. Why?”
“Well they asked me to. I don’t know. I believe it’s the fault of my predecessor. They told me she rustled and wore all kinds of dresses——”
“I see—a series of explosions.”
“On silk foundations.”
“But why should they assume that you would do the same?”
“I don’t know. It’s an awful nuisance. You can’t get black blouses that will wash; it will be awful in the summer; besides it’s so unbecoming.”
“There I can’t agree. It would be for me. It makes me look dingy; but it suits you, throws up your rose-leaf complexion and your golden hair. But I call it jolly hard lines. I’d like to see the governor dictating to me what I should wear.”
“It’s so expensive if one can’t wear out one’s best things.”
“It’s intolerable. Why do you stand it?”
“What can I do?”
“Tell them you must either wear scarlet at the office or have a higher screw.”
“It isn’t an office you see. I have to be so much in the surgeries and interviewing people in the waiting-room, you know.”
“Yes—from dukes to dustmen. But would either the dukes or the dustmen disapprove of scarlet.”
“One has to be a discreet nobody. It’s the professional world; you don’t understand; you are equals, you two, superiors, pampered countesses in your offices.”
“Well I think it’s a beastly shame. I should brandish a pair of forceps at Mr. Hancock and say ‘scarlet—or I leave.’”
“Where should I go? I have no qualifications.”
“You wouldn’t leave. They would say ‘Miss Henderson wear purple and yellow, only stay.’ I think it’s a reflection on her taste, don’t you Jan?”
“Certainly it is. It is fiendish. But employers are fiends—to women.”
“I haven’t found that soh.”
“Ah you keep yours in order, you rule them with a rod of iron.”
“I do. I believe in it.”
“I envy you your late hours in the morning.”
“Ah-ha—she’s had a row about that.”
“Have you Mag?”
“Not a row; simply a discussion.”
“What happened?”
“Simply this. The governor begged me—almost in tears—to come down earlier—for the sake of the discipline of the office.”
“What did you say?”
“I said Herr Epstein; what can I do? How do you suppose I can get up, have breakfast and be down here before eleven?”
“He protested and implored and offered to pay cabs for me.”
“Good Lord Mag, you are extraordinary.”
“I am not extraordinary and it is no concern of the Deity’s. I fail to see why I should get to the office earlier than I do. I don’t get my letters before half-past eleven. I am fresh and gay and rested, I get through my work before closing-time. I work like anything whilst I am there.”
“And you still go down at eleven?”
“I still go down at eleven.”
“I do envy you. You see my people always want me most first thing in the morning. It’s awful, if one has been up very late.”
“And what is our life worth without late hours? The evening is the only life we have.”
“Exactly. And they are the same really. They do their work to be free of it and live.”
“Precisely; but they are waited on. They have their houses and baths and servants and meals and comforts. We get up in cold rooms untended and tired. They ought to be first at the office and wait upon us.”
“She is a queen in her office; waited upon hand and foot.”
“Well—why not? I do them the honour of bringing my bright petunia clad feminine presence into their dingy warehouse; I expect some acknowledgment of the honour.”
“You don’t allow them either to spit or swear.”
“I do not; and they appreciate it.”
“Mine are beasts. I defy anyone to do anything with them. I loathe the city man.”
Miriam sighed. In neither of these offices she felt sure, could she hold her own—and yet compared to her own long day—what freedom the girls had—ten to five and eleven to six and any clothes they found it convenient to wear. But city men ... no restrictions were too high a price to pay for the privileges of her environment; the association with gentlemen, her quiet room, the house, the perpetual interest of the patients, the curious exciting streaks of social life, linking up with the past and carrying the past forward on a more generous level. The girls had broken with the past and were fighting in the world. She was somehow between two worlds, neither quite sheltered, nor quite free ... not free as long as she wanted, in spite of her reason to stay on at Wimpole Street and please the people there. Why did she want to stay? What future would it bring? Less than ever was there any chance of saving for old age. She could not for ever go on being secretary to a dentist.... She drove these thoughts away; they were only one side of the matter; there were other things; things she could not make clear to the girls; nor to anyone who could not see and feel the whole thing from inside, as she saw and felt it. And even if it were not so, if the environment of her poorly paid activities had been trying and unsympathetic, at least it gave seclusion, her own room to work in, her free garret and her evening and week-end freedom. But what was she going to do with it?
“Tell us about the show, Miriam. Cease to gaze at Jan’s relations; sit down, light a cigarette.”
“These German women fascinate me,” said Miriam swinging round from the mantelshelf; “they are so like Jan and so utterly different.”
“Yes; Jan is Jan and they are Minna and Erica.”
Taking a cigarette from Mag’s case Miriam lit it at the lamp. Before her eyes the summer unrolled—concerts with Miss Szigmondy, going in the cooling day in her new clothes, with a thin blouse, from daylight into electric light and music, taking off the zouave inside and feeling cool at once, the electric light mixing with the daylight, the cool darkness to walk home in alone, full of music that would last on into the next day; Miss Szigmondy’s musical at homes, evenings at Wimpole Street, week-ends in the flowery suburbs windows and doors open, cool rooms, gardens in the morning and evening, week-ends in the country, each journey like the beginning of the summer holiday, week-ends in town, Sunday afternoons at Mr. Hancock’s and Miss Szigmondy’s—all taking her away from Kennett Street. All these things yielded their best reality in this room. Glowing brightly in the distance they made this room like the centre of a song. But a week-end taken up was a week-end missed at Kennett Street. It meant missing Slater’s on Saturday night, the week end stretching out ahead immensely long, the long evening with the girls, its lateness protected by the coming Sunday, waking lazily fresh and happy and easy-minded on Sunday morning, late breakfast, the cigarette in the sunlit window space, its wooden sides echoing with the clamour of St. Pancras bells, the three voices in the little rooms, irlandisches ragout, the hours of smoking and talking out and out on to strange promontories where everything was real all the time, the faint gradual coming of the twilight, the evening untouched by the presence of Monday, no hurry ahead, no social performances, no leave-taking, no railway journey.
“Yes; Jan is Londonised; she looks German; her voice suggests the whole of Germany; these girls are Germany untouched, strong, cheerful, musical, tree-filled Germany, without any doubts. They’ve got Jan’s sense of humour without her cynicism.”
“Is that so, Jan?”
“Yes I think perhaps it is. They are sweet simple children.” Yes sweet—but maddening too. German women were so sure and unsuspicious and practical about life. Jan had some of that left. But she was English too, more transparent and thoughtful.
“The show! The show!”
She told them the story of the afternoon in a glowing précis, calling up the splendours upon which she felt their imaginations at work, describing it as they saw it and as with them, in retrospect, she saw it herself. Her descriptions drew Mag’s face towards her, glowing, wrapt and reverent. Jan sat sewing with inturned eyes and half open, half-smiling appreciative face. They both fastened upon the great gold-framed pictures, asking for details. Presently they were making plans to visit the Academy and foretelling her joy in seeing them again and identifying them. She had not thought of that; certainly, it would be delightful; and perhaps seeing the pictures in freedom and alone she might find them wonderful.
“Why do you say their wives were all like cats?”
“They were.” She called up the unhatted figures moving about among the guests in trailing gowns,—keeping something up, pretending to be interested, being cattishly nice to the visitors, and thinking about other things all the time.... I can’t stand them, oh, I can’t stand them.... But the girls would not have seen them in that way; they would have been interested in them and their dresses, they would have admired the prettiness of some of them and found several of them ‘charming’ ... if Mag were an artist’s wife she would behave in the way those women behaved....
“Were they all alike?” that was half sarcastic....
“Absolutely. They were all cats, simply.”
“Isn’t she extraordinary?”
“It’s the cats who are extraordinary. Why do they do it girls! Why do they do it?” She flushed feeling insincere. At this moment she felt that she knew that Mag in social life, would conform and be a cat. She had never thought of her in social life; here in poverty and freedom she was herself.
“Do phwatt me dear?”
“Oh let them go. It makes me tired, even to think of them. The thought of the sound of their voices absolutely wears me out.”
“I’m not laaazy—I’m tie-erd—I was born tie-erd.”
“I say girls, I want to ask you something.”
“Well?”
“Why don’t you two write?”
“Write?”
“Us?”
“Just as we are, without one”—
“Flea—I know. No. Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly serious. I mean it. Why don’t you write things—both of you. I thought of it this morning.”
Both girls sat thoughtful. It was evident that the idea was not altogether unfamiliar to them.
“Someone kept telling me the other day I ought to write and it suddenly struck me that if anyone ought it’s you two. Why don’t you Mag?”
“Why should I? Have I not already enough on my fair young shoulders?”
“Jan, why don’t you?”
“I, my dear? For a most excellent reason.”
“What reason?” demanded Miriam in a shaking voice. Her heart was beating; she felt that a personal decision was going to be affected by Jan’s reason, if she could be got to express it. Jan did not reply instantly and she found herself hoping that nothing more would be said about writing, that she might be free to go on cherishing the idea, alone and unbiassed.
“I do not write” said Jan slowly, “because I am perfectly convinced that anything I might write would be mediocre.”
Miriam’s heart sank. If Jan, with all her German knowledge and her wit and experience of two countries felt this, it was probably much truer of herself. To think about it, to dwell upon the things Mr. Wilson had said was simply vanity. He had said anyone could learn to write. But he was clever and ready to believe her clever in the same way, and ready to take ideas from him. It was true she had material, “stuff” as he called it, but she would not have known it, if she had not been told. She could see it now, as he saw it, but if she wrote at his suggestion, a borrowed suggestion, there would be something false in it, clever and false.
“Yes—I think Jan’s right,” said Mag cheerfully. “That is an excellent reason and the true one.”
It was true. But how could they speak so lightly and cheerfully about writing ... the thing one had always wanted to do, that everyone probably secretly wanted to do, and the girls could give up the idea without a sigh. They were right. It would be wrong to write mediocre stuff. Why was she feeling so miserable? Of course because neither of them had suggested that she should write. They knew her better than Mr. Wilson and it never occurred to them that she should write. That settled it. But something moved despairingly in the void.
“Do you think it would be wrong to write mediocre stuff?” she asked huskily.
“It would be worse than wrong child—it would be foolish; it wouldn’t sell.”