7
“What is your book dear?”
“Oh—Villette.”
“Is it a pretty book?”
She didn’t want to know. She was saying something else.... How to mention it? Why say anything about it? But no one had ever asked. No one had known. This woman was the first. She of all people was causing the first time of speaking of it.
“I bought it when I was fifteen,” said Miriam vaguely, “and a Byron—with some money I had; seven and six.”
“Oh yes.”
“I didn’t care for the Byron; but it was a jolly edition; padded leather with rounded corners and gilt edged leaves.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve been reading this thing ever since I came back from my holidays.”
“It doesn’t look very big.”
Miriam’s voice trembled. “I don’t mean that. When I’ve finished it I begin again.”
“I wish you would read it to me.”
Miriam recoiled. Anything would have done; Donovan or anything.... But something had sprung into the room. She gazed at the calm profile, the long slender figure, the clear grey and pink, the pink frill of the jacket falling back from the soft fair hair turned cleanly up, the clean fluffy curve of the skull, the serene line of the brow bent in abstracted contemplation of the steaming pan. “I believe you’d like it” she said brightly.
“I should love you to read to me when we’ve ’ad our supper.”
“Oh—I’ve had my supper.”
“A bit of haddock won’t hurt you dear.... I’m afraid we shall have to be very knockabout; I’ve got a knife and a fork but no plates at present. It comes of living in a box,” said Miss Dear pouring off the steaming water into the slop-pail.
“I’ve had my supper—really. I’ll read while you have yours.”
“Well, don’t sit out in the middle of the room dear.”
“I’m all right” said Miriam impatiently, finding the beginning of the first chapter. Her hands clung to the book. She had not made herself at home as Eve would have done and talked. Now, those words would sound aloud, in a room. Someone would hear and see. Miss Dear would not know what it was. But she would hear and see something.
“It’s by a woman called Charlotte Brontë” she said and began headlong with the gaslight in her eyes.
The familiar words sounded chilly and poor. Everything in the room grew very distinct. Before she had finished the chapter Miriam knew the position of each piece of furniture. Miss Dear sat very still. Was she listening patiently like a mother, or wife, thinking of the reader as well as of what was read, and with her own thoughts running along independently, interested now and again in some single thing in the narrative, something that reminded her of some experience of her own or some person she knew? No, there was something different. However little she saw and heard, something was happening. They were looking and hearing together ... did she feel anything of the grey ... grey ... grey made up of all the colours there are; all the colours, seething into an even grey ... she wondered as she read on almost by heart, at the rare freedom of her thoughts, ranging about. The book was cold and unreal compared to what it was when she read it alone. But something was happening. Something was passing to and fro between them, behind the text; a conversation between them that the text, the calm quiet grey that was the outer layer of the tumult, brought into being. If they should read on, the conversation would deepen. A glow ran through her at the thought. She felt that in some way she was like a man reading to a woman, but the reading did not separate them like a man’s reading did. She paused for a moment on the thought. A man’s reading was not reading; not a looking and a listening so that things came into the room. It was always an assertion of himself. Men read in loud harsh unnatural voices, in sentences, or with voices that were a commentary on the text, as if they were telling you what to think ... they preferred reading to being read to; they read as if they were the authors of the text. Nothing could get through them but what they saw. They were like showmen....
“Go on, dear.”
“My voice is getting tired. It must be all hours. I ought to have gone; ages ago,” said Miriam settling herself in the little chair with the book standing opened on the floor at her side.
“The time does pass quickly, when it is pleasantly occupied.”
A cigarette now would not be staying on. It would be like putting on one’s hat. Then the visit would be over; without having taken place. The incident would have made no break in freedom. They had been both absent from the room nearly all the time. Perhaps that was why husbands so often took to reading to their wives, when they stayed at home at all; to avoid being in the room listening to their condemning silences or to their speech, speech with all the saucepan and comfort thoughts simmering behind it.
“I haven’t had much time to attend to study. When you’ve got to get your living there’s too much else to do.”
Miriam glanced sharply. Had she wanted other things in the years of her strange occupation? She had gone in for nursing sentimentally and now she knew the other side; doing everything to time, careful carrying out of the changing experiments of doctors. Her reputation and living depended on that; their reputation and living depended on her. And she had to go on, because it was her living.... Miss Dear was dispensing little gestures with bent head held high and inturned eyes. She was holding up the worth and dignity of her career. It had meant sacrifices that left her mind enslaved. But all the same she thought excuses were necessary. She resented being illiterate. She had a brain somewhere, groping and starved. What could she do? It was too late. What a shame ... serene golden comeliness, slender feet and hands, strange ability and knowledge of the world, and she knew, knew there was something that ought to be hers. Miriam thrilled with pity. The inturned eyes sent out a challenging blue flash that expanded to a smile. Miriam recoiled battling in the grip of the smile.
“I wish you’d come round earlier to-morrow dear, and have some supper here.”
“How long are you going to stay here?” ... to come again and read further and find that strange concentration that made one see into things. Did she really like it?
“Well dear you see I don’t know. I must settle up my affairs a little. I don’t know where I am with one thing and another. I must leave it in the hands of an ’igher power.” She folded her hands and sat motionless with inturned eyes, making the little movements with her lips that would lead to further speech, a flashing forth of something....
“Well, I’ll see” said Miriam getting up.
“I shall be looking for you.”