9
“You don’t think of riding up over the downs at this time of night?” It was like an At home. Everybody in the shop was in it, but she was not in it. Marlborough thoughts rattling in all the heads; with Sunday coming. They had sick and dying relations. But it was all in Marlborough. Marlborough was all round them all the time, the daily look of it, the morning coming each day excitingly, all the people seeing each other again and the day going on. They did not know that that was it; or what it was they liked. Talking and thinking with the secret hidden all the time even from themselves. But it was that that made them talk and make such a to do about everything. They had to hide it because if they knew they would feel fat and complacent and wicked. They were fat and complacent because they did not know it.
“Oh yes I do,” said Miriam in feeble husky tones.
She stood squarely in front of the grating. The people became angry gliding forms; cheated; angry in an eternal resentful silence; pretending. The man began thoughtfully ticking off the words.
“How far have you come” he said suddenly pausing and looking up through the grating.
“From London.”
“Then you’ve just come down through the Forest.”
“Is that a forest?”
“You must have come through Savernake.”
“I didn’t know it was a forest.”
“Well I don’t advise you to go on up over the downs at this time of night.”
If only she had not come in she could have gone on without knowing it was “the downs.”
“My front tyre is punctured” she said conversationally, leaning a little against the counter.
The man’s face tightened. “There’s Mr. Drake next door would mend that for you in the morning.”
“Next door. Oh, thank you.” Pushing her sixpence under the rail she went down the shop to the door seeing nothing but the brown dusty floor leading out to the helpless night.
Why did he keep making such impossible suggestions? The tyre was absolutely flat. How much would a hotel cost? How did you stay in hotels ... hotels ... her hands went busily to her wallet. She drew out the repair outfit and Mr. Leyton’s voice sounded, emphatic and argumentative “You know where you are and they don’t rook you.” There was certain to be one in a big town like this. She swished back into the shop and interrupted the man with her eager singing question.
“Yes” came the answer, “there’s a quiet place of that sort up the road, right up against the Forest.”
“Has my telegram gone? Can I alter it?”
“No, it’s not gone, you’re just in time.”
It was the loveliest thing that could have happened. The day was complete, from morning to night.