1
They had walked swiftly and silently along through the bright evening
daylight of the Finchley Road. Miriam held her knowledge suspended,
looking forward to the enclosure at the end of the few minutes' walk.
But the conservatoire was not enclosed. The clear bright light flooding
the rows and rows of seated summer clad Hampstead people and lighting up
every corner of the level square hall was like the outside evening
daylight. The air seemed as pure as the outside air. She followed Mr.
Hancock to their seats at the gangway end of the fourth row passing
between the sounds echoing thinly from the platform and the wave of
attention sweeping towards the platform from the massed rows of
intelligent faces. As they sat down the chairman's voice ceased and the
lights were lowered; but so slightly that the hall was still perfectly
exposed and clear. The people still looked as though they were out of
doors or in their large houses. This was modern improvement--hard clear
light. Their minds and their thoughts and their lives and their clothes
were always in it. She stared at the screen. A large slide was showing,
lit from behind. It made a sort of stage scenery for the rest of the
scene, all in one light. She fixed her attention. An enormous vessel
with its side stove in, yes, "stove in"; in a dock. They got
_information_ at any rate and then perhaps got free and thought their
own thoughts. No. They would follow and think and talk intelligently
about the information. Rattling their cultured voices. Mad with
pretences.... In _dry_ dock, going to be repaired. Gazing sternly at the
short man with the long pointer talking in an anxious high thin voice,
his head with its upstanding crest of hair half-turned towards the
audience, she suppressed a giggle. Folding her hands she gazed, shaking
in every limb, not daring to follow what he said for fear of laughing
aloud. Shreds of his first long sentence caught in her thoughts and gave
her his meaning, shaking her into giggles. Her features quivered under
her skin as she held them in forcing her eyes towards the distances of
sky beyond the ship. Her customary expletives shot through her mind in
rapid succession with each one the scarves and silk and velvet of the
audience grew brighter about the edge of her circle of vision.
2
She was an upstart and an alien and here she was. It was more
extraordinary in this Hampstead clarity than at a theatre or concert in
town. It was a part of his world ... and theirs; one might get the
manner and still keep alive.... Was he out of humour because he had
realised what he had done or because she had been late for dinner? Was
he thinking what his behaviour amounted to in the eyes of his aunt and
cousins; even supposing they did not know that the invitation to dinner
and the lecture had been given only this afternoon? He must have known
it was necessary to go home and tidy up. When he said the conservatoire
was so near that there would be plenty of time was not that as good as
saying she might be a little late? Why had he not said they were staying
with him? Next week was full of appointments for their teeth. So he knew
they were coming ... and then to go marching in to the midst of them
three quarters of an hour late and to be so dumbfounded as to be unable
to apologise ... my dear I shall _never_ forget the faces of those
women. I could not imagine at first what was wrong. He was looking so
strange. The women barely noticed me--barely noticed me. "I'm afraid
dinner will be spoiled" he said, in his way. "They had all been sitting
round the fire three mortal quarters of an hour waiting for _me_!" How
they would talk. Their thoughts and feelings about employees could be
seen at a glance. It was bad enough for them to have a secretary
appearing at dinner the first evening of their great visit. And now they
were sitting alone round the fire and she was at the lecture alone,
unchaperoned, with him, "she had the effrontery to come to dinner three
quarters of an hour late ..." feathery hair and periwinkle eyes and
white noses; gentle die-away voices. Perhaps the thought of his
favourite cousins coming next week buoyed him up. No wonder he wanted to
get away to the lecture. He had come, reasonably; not seeing why he
should not; just as he would have gone if they had not been there. Now
he saw it as they saw it. There he sat. She gazed at the shifting scenes
... ports and strange islands in distant seas, sunlit coloured mountains
tops peaking up from forests. The lecturing voice was far away,
irrelevant and unintelligible. Peace flooded her.