1
The cycling school was out of sight and done with and Miriam hurried
down the Chalk Farm Road. If only she could see an omnibus and be in it
going anywhere down away from the north. Miss Szigmondy had brought
shame and misery upon her, in Chalk Farm. There was nothing there to
keep off the pain. Once back she would never think of Chalk Farm again.
How could anyone think it was a place, like other places? It was torture
even to be in it, going through it.... Of course the man had thought I
should take on a course of lessons and pay for them. I have to learn
everything meanly and shamefully. He thinks I'm getting all I can for
nothing. The people in the bus will see me pay my fare and I shall be
all right again, going down there. What an _awful_ road, going on and on
with nothing in it. I am shamed and helpless; _helpless_. It's no use to
try and do anything. It always exposes me and brings this maddening
shame and pain. It's over again this time and I shall soon forget it
altogether. I might just as well begin to stop thinking about it now.
It's this part of London. It's like Banbury Park. The people are
absolutely awful. They take cycling lessons quite coolly. They are not
afraid of anybody. To them this part is the best bit of North London.
They are that sort of people. They are all alike. All of them would
dislike me. I should die of being with them.
Why is it that no one seems to know what north London is? They say it is
healthy and open. Perhaps I shall meet someone who feels like I do about
it and would get ill and die there. It is not imagination. It is a real
feeling that comes upon me....
The north London omnibus reached the tide of the Euston Road and pulled
up at Portland Road station. Miriam got out weak and ill. The first
breath of the central air revived her. Standing there, the omnibus
looked like any other omnibus. She crossed the road, averting her eyes
from the north-going roads on either side of the church and got into the
inmost corner of another bus. She wanted to ride about, getting from bus
to bus, inside London until her misery had passed. Opposite her was a
stout woman in a rusty bonnet and shawl and dust-defaced black skirt,
looking about with eyes that did not see what they looked at, all the
London consciousness in her. Miriam sat gazing at her. The woman's eyes
crossed her and passed unperturbed....
The lane of little shops flowed away, their huddled detail crushing
together, wide shop windows glittered steadily by and narrowed away.
When the bus stopped at Gower Street the spire of St. Pancras church
came into sight spindling majestically up, screened by trees.
The trees in Endsleigh Gardens came along gently waving their budding
branches in bright sunshine. The colour of the gardens was so intense
that the sun must just be going to set behind Euston Station. The large
houses moved steadily behind the gardens in blocks, bright white, with
large quiet streets opening their vistas in between the blocks, leading
to green freshness and then safely on down into Soho. The long square
came to an end. The shrub-trimmed base of St. Pancras church came
heavily nearer and stopped. As Miriam got out of the bus she watched its
great body rise in clear sharp outline against the blue. Its clock was
booming the hour out across the gardens through the houses and down into
the squares. On this side its sound was broken up by the narrow roar of
the Euston Road and the clamour coming right and left from the two great
stations.
Her feet tramped happily across the square of polished roadway patterned
with shadows and along the quiet clean sunlit pavement behind the
gardens. It was always bright and clean and quiet and happy there, like
the pavement of a road behind a sea-front. The sound of a mail van
rattling heavily along Woburn Place changed to a soft rumble as she
turned in between the great houses of Tansley Street and walked along
its silent corridor of afternoon light. Sparrows were cheeping in the
stillness. To be able to go down the quiet street and on into the
squares--on a bicycle.... I must learn somehow to get my balance. To go
along, like in that moment when he took his hands off the handle-bars,
in knickers and a short skirt and all the summer to come.... Everything
shone with a greater intensity. Friends and thought and work were
nothing compared to being able to ride alone, balanced, going along
through the air.
On the hall table was a post-card. "Come round on Sunday if you're in
town--Irlandisches Ragout. Mag." Her heart stirred; that settled it--the
girls wanted her; Mag wanted her. She took Alma's crumpled letter from
her pocket and glanced through it once more ... "such a dull Sunday and
all your fault. Why did you not come? Come on Saturday _any_ time or
Sunday morning if you can't manage the week-end?" What a good thing she
had not written promising to go. She would be in London, safe in Kennett
Street for Sunday. Mag was quite right; going away unsettled you for the
week and you did not _get_ Sunday. She looked at her watch, five-thirty;
in half an hour the girls would probably be at Slater's; the London
week-end could begin this minute; all the people who half-expected her,
the Brooms, the Pernes, Sarah and Harriett, the Wilsons, would be in
their homes far away; she safe in Bloomsbury, in the big house the big
kind streets, Kennett Street; places they none of them knew; safe for
the whole length of the week-end. Saturday had looked so obstructed,
with the cycling lesson, and the visit to Miss Szigmondy and the many
alternatives for the rest of the time.... "Oh I've got about _fifty_
engagements for Saturday" and now Saturday was clear and she felt equal
to anything for the week-end. What a discovery, standing hidden, there
in the London house, to drop everything and go down, with all the
discarded engagements, all the solicitous protecting friends put aside;
easy and alone through the glimmering green squares to the end of the
Strand and find Slater's.... I'll never stir out of London again. The
girls are right. It isn't worth it.
2
She saw the girls seated at a table at the far end of the big restaurant
and shyly advanced.
"Hulloh child!"
"What you having?" she asked sitting down opposite to them. The empty
white table-cloth shone under a brilliant incandescent light; far away
down the vista the door opened on the daylit street.
"Isn't it a glorious Spring evening?" Spring? It was, of course.
Everyone had been saying the spring would never come, but to-day it was
very warm. Spring was here of course. Perspiring in a dusty cycling
school and sitting in a hot restaurant was not spring. Spring was
somewhere far away. Going to stay and talk in people's houses did not
bring Spring--landscapes belonging to people were _painted_; you must be
alone ... or perhaps at the Brooms. Perhaps next week-end at the Brooms
would be in time for the spring; in their back garden, the watered green
lawn and the sweetbriar and the distant trees in the large garden beyond
the fence. In London it was better not to think about the times of year.
But Mag seemed to find Spring in London. Her face was all glowing with
the sense of it.
"What you having?"
"Have you observed with what a remarkable brilliance the tender green
shines out against the soot-black branches?" Yes, that was wonderful but
what was the joke?
"Every spring I have spent in Lonndonn I have heard that remark at least
fifty times."
Miriam laughed politely. "Jan, _what_ have you ordered?"
"We've ordered beef my child, cold beefs and salads."
"Do you think I should like salad?"
"If you _had_ a brother would he like salad?"
"Do they put dressing on it? If I could have just plain lettuce."
"Ask for it my child, ask and it shall be given unto thee."
A waitress brought the beef and salad, two glasses with an inch of
whisky in each, and a large syphon.
Miriam ordered beef and potatoes.
"I suppose the steak and onion days are over."
"I shan't have another steak and onions, please God, until next
November."
Miriam laughed delightedly.
"Why haven't you gone away for the week-end, child?"
"I told you she wouldn't."
"I don't know. I wanted to come down here."
"Is that a compliment to us?"
"I say, I've had a bicycle lesson."
Both faces came up eagerly.
"You remember; that extraordinary woman I met at the Royal Institution."
The faces looked at each other.
"Oh you know; I _told_ you about it--the two lessons she didn't want."
"Go on my child; we remember; go on."
Miriam sat eating her beef.
"Go on Miriam. You've really had a lesson. I'm delighted my child. Tell
us all about it."
"D'you remember the extraordinary moment when you felt the machine going
along; even with the man holding the handle-bars?"
"You wait until there's nobody to hold the handlebars."
"Have you been out alone yet?"
The two faces looked at each other.
"Shall we tell her?"
"You _must_ tell me; es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath." They leaned across
the table and spoke low one after the other. "We went out--last
night--after dark--and rode--round Russell Square--twice--in our
knickers----"
"_No._ Did you really? How simply heavenly."
"It _was_. We came home nearly crying with rage at not being able to go
about, permanently, in nothing but knickers. It would make life an
_absolutely_ different thing."
"The freedom of movement."
"Exactly. You feel like a sprite you are so light."
"And like a poet though you don't know it."
"You feel like a sprite you are so light, and you feel so strong and
capable and so broadshouldered you could knock down a policeman. Jan and
I knocked down several last night."
"Yes; and it is not only that; think of never having to brush your
skirt."
"I know. It would be bliss."
"I spend half my life brushing my skirt. If I miss a day I notice it--if
I miss two days the office notices it. If I miss three days the public
notices it."
"La vie est dure; pour les femmes."
"You don't want to be a man Jan."
"Oh I do, sometimes. They have the best of everything all round."
"_I_ don't. I wouldn't be a man for anything. I wouldn't have a
man's--_consciousness_, for anything."
"Why not asthore?"
"They're too absolutely pig-headed and silly...."
"_Isn't_ she intolerant?"
Miriam sat flaring. That was not the right answer. There was something;
and they must know it; but they would not admit it.
"Then you can both really ride?"
"We do nothing else; we've given up walking; we no longer walk up and
downstairs; we ride."
Miriam laughed her delight. "I can quite understand; it alters
everything. I realised that this afternoon at the school. To be able to
bicycle would make life utterly different; on a bicycle you feel a
different person; nothing can come near you, you forget who you are.
Aren't you glad you are alive to-day, when all these things are
happening?"
"What things little one?"
"Well cycling and things. You know girls when I'm thirty I'm going to
cut my hair short and wear divided skirts."
Both faces came up.
"Why on earth?"
"I can't face doing my hair and brushing skirts and keeping more or less
in the fashion, that means about two years behind because I never
realise fashions till they're just going, even if I could afford
to,--all my life."
"Then why not do it now?"
"Because all my friends and relatives would object. It would worry them
too--they would feel quite sure then I should never marry--and they
still entertain hopes, secretly."
"Don't you want to marry--ever; ever?"
"Well--it would mean giving up this life."
"Yes, I know. I agree there. That can't be faced."
"I should think _not_. Aren't you going to have any pudding?"
"But why thirty? Why not thirty-one?"
"Because nobody cares what you do when you're thirty; they've all given
up hope by that time. Aren't you two going to have any pudding?"
"No. But that is no reason why you should not."
"What a good idea--to have just one dish and coffee."
"That's what we think; and it's cheap."
"Well, I couldn't have had any dinner at all only I'm cadging dinner
with you to-morrow."
"What would you have done?"
"An egg, at an A.B.C."
"How fond you are of A.B.C's."
"I love them."
"What is it that you love about them."
"Chiefly I think their dowdiness. The food is honest; not showy, and
they are so blissfully dowdy."
Both girls laughed.
"It's no good. I have come to the conclusion I like dowdiness. I'm not
smart. You are."
"This is the first we have heard of it."
"Well you know you are. You keep in the fashion. It may be quite right,
perhaps you are more sociable than I am."
"One is so conspicuous if one is not dressed more or less like other
people."
"That's what I hate; dressing like other people. If I could afford it I
should be stylish--not smart. Perfect coats and skirts and a few good
evening dresses. But you must be awfully well off for that. If I can't
be stylish I'd rather be dowdy and in a way I like dowdiness even better
than stylishness."
The girls laughed.
"But aren't clothes awful, anyhow? I've spent four and eleven on my
knickers and I can't possibly get a skirt till next year if then, or
afford to hire a machine."
"Why don't you ask them to raise your salary?"
"After four months? Besides any fool could do the work."
"If I were you I should tell them. I should say 'Gentlemen--I wish for a
skirt and a bicycle.'"
"Mag, don't be so silly."
"I _can't_ see it. _They_ would benefit by your improved health and
spirits. Jan and I are new women since we have learned riding. _I_ am
thinking of telling the governor I must have a rise to meet the
increased demands of my appetite. Our housekeeping expenses I shall say
are doubled. What _will_ you? Que faire?"
"You see the work I'm doing is not worth more than a pound a week--my
languages are no good there. I suppose I ought to learn typing and
shorthand; but where could I find the money for the training?"
"Will you teach her shorthand if I teach her typing?"
"Certainly if the child wants to learn. I don't advise her."
"Why not Jan. _You_ did. How long would it take me in evenings?"
"A year at least, to be marketable. It's a vile thing to learn, unless
you are thoroughly stupid."
"That's true. Jan was a perfect fool. The more intelligent you are the
longer you take."
"You see it isn't a language. It is an arbitrary system of signs."
"With your intelligence you'd probably grow grey at the school. Wouldn't
she, Jan?"
"Probably."
"Besides I can't imagine Mistress Miriam in an office."
"Nobody would have me. I'm not business-like enough. I am learning
book-keeping at their expense. And don't forget they give me lunch and
tea. I say are we going to read 'The Evolution Idea of God' to-night?"
"Yes. Let's get back and get our clothes off. If I don't have a
cigarette within half an hour I shall die."
"Oh, so shall I. I had forgotten the existence of cigarettes."
Out in the street Miriam felt embarrassed. The sunset glow broke through
wherever there was a gap towards the north-west, and flooded a strip of
the street and struck a building. The presence of the girls added a
sharpness to its beauty, especially the presence of Mag who felt the
spring even in London. But both of them seemed entirely oblivious. They
marched along at a great rate, very upright and swift--like
grenadiers--why grenadiers? Like grenadiers, making her hurry in a way
that increased the discomfort of her hard cheap down-at-heel shoes.
Their high-heeled shoes were in perfect condition and they went on and
on laughing and jesting as if there were no spring evening all round
them. She wanted to stroll, and stop at every turn of the road. She grew
to dislike them both long before Kennett Street was reached, their brisk
gait as they walked together in step, leaving her to manoeuvre the
passing of pedestrians on the narrow pavements of the side streets, the
self-confident set of their this-season's clothes, "line" clothes, like
everyone else was wearing, everyone this side of the west-end; Oxford
Street clothes ... and to long to be wandering home alone through the
leafy squares. Were people who lived together always like this, always
brisk and joking and keeping it up? They got on so well together ... and
she got on so well too with them. "No one ever feels a third" Mag had
said. I am tired, too tired. They are stronger than I am. I feel dead;
and they are perfectly fresh.
"D'you know I believe I feel too played out to read" she said at their
door.
"Then come in and smoke" said Mag taking her arm. "The night is yet
young."