1
There was a strong soft grey light standing at the side of the blind ...
smiling and touching her as it had promised. She leaped to the floor and
stood looking at it swaying with sleep. Ships sailing along with masts
growing on them, poplars streaming up from the ships, all in a steam of
gold.... Last night's soapy water poured away and the fresh poured out
ready standing there all night, everything ready.... I must not forget
the extra piece of string.... Je-ru-sa-_lem_ the Gol-den,
with-milk-and-hun-ney--blest.... Sh, not so much noise ... beneath thy
con, tem, pla, tion, sink, heart, and, voice, o, ppressed.
I _know_ not, oh, I, _know_, not.
Sh--Sh ... hark hark my soul angelic songs are swelling O'er earth's
green fields, and ocean's wave-beat shore ... damn--blast where are my
bally knickers? sing us sweet fragments of the songs above.
* * * * *
The green world everywhere, inside and out ... all along the dim
staircase, waiting in the dim cold kitchen.
* * * * *
No blind, brighter. Cool grey light, a misty windless morning. Shut the
door.
_They_ STAND _those_ HALLS _of_ ZI-ON
ALL JUBILANT _with_ SONG.
2
As she neared Colnbrook the road grew heavier and a closer mist lay over
the fields. It was too soon for fatigue but her knees already seemed
heavy with effort. Getting off at the level crossing she found that her
skirt was sodden and her zouave spangled all over with beads of
moisture. She walked shivering across the rails and remounted rapidly,
hoisting into the saddle a draggled person that was not her own and
riding doggedly on beating back all thoughts but the thought of sunrise.
3
"Is this Reading?"
The cyclist smiled as he shouted back. He knew she knew. But he liked
shouting too. If she had yelled Have you got a _soul_, it would have
been just the same. If everyone were on bicycles all the time you could
talk to everybody, all the time, about anything ... sailing so steadily
along with two free legs ... how much easier it must be with your knees
going so slowly up and down ... how _funny_ I must look with my knees
racing up and down in lumps of skirt. But I'm here, at the midday rest.
It must be nearly twelve.
Drawing into the curb near a confectioner's she thought of buying two
bars of plain chocolate. There _was_ some sort of truth in the Swiss
Family Robinson. If you went on, it was all right. There was only death.
People frightened you about things that were not there. I will never
listen to anybody again; or be frightened. That cyclist knew, as long as
he was on his bicycle. Perhaps he has people who make him not himself.
He can always get away again. Men can always get away. I am going to
lead a man's life always getting away....
Wheeling her machine back to the open road she sat down on a bank and
ate the cold sausage and bread and half of the chocolate and lay down to
rest on a level stretch of grass in front of a gate. Light throbbed
round the edges of the little high white fleecy clouds. She swung
triumphantly up. The earth throbbed beneath her with the throbbing of
her heart ... the sky steadied and stood further off, clear peaceful
blue with light neat soft bunches of cloud drifting slowly across it.
She closed her eyes upon the dazzling growing distances of blue and
white and felt the horizon folding down in a firm clear sweep round her
green cradle. Within her eyelids fields swung past green, cornfields
gold and black, fields with coned clumps of harvested corn, dusty gold,
and black, on either side of the bone-white grass trimmed road. The road
ran on and on lined by low hedges and the strange everlasting
back-flowing fields. Thrilling hedges and outstretched fields of distant
light, coming on mile after mile, winding off, left behind ... "it's the
Bath Road I shall be riding on; I'm going down to Chiswick to see which
way the wind is on the Bath Road...." Trees appeared golden and green
and shadowy with warm cool strong shaded trunks coming nearer and
larger. They swept by, their shadowy heads sweeping the lower sky.
Poplars shot up drawing her eyes to run up their feathered slimness and
sweep to the top of the pointed plumes piercing the sky. Trees clumped
in masses round houses leading to villages that shut her into little
corridors of hard hot light ... the little bright sienna form of the hen
she had nearly run over; the land stretching serenely out again, rolling
along, rolling along in the hot sunshine with the morning and evening
freshness at either end ... sweeping it slowly in and out of the deeps
of the country night ... eyelids were transparent. It was _light_ coming
through one's eyelids that made that clear soft buff; soft buff light
filtering through one's body ... little sounds, insects creeping and
humming in the hedge, sounds from the grass. Sudden single quiet sounds
going up from distant fields and farms, lost in the sky.
4
I've got my sea-legs ... this is _riding_--not just straining along
trying to forget the wobbly bicycle, but feeling it wobble and being
able to control it ... being able to look about easily ... there will be
a harvest moon this month, rolling up huge and hot, suddenly over the
edge of a field; the last moon. I shall see that anyhow whatever the
holiday is like. It will be cold again in the winter. Perhaps I shan't
feel so cold this winter.
5
She recognised the figure the instant she saw it. It was as if she had
been riding the whole day to meet it. Completely forgotten it had been
all the time at the edge of the zest of her ride. It had been everywhere
all the time and there it was at last dim and distant and unmistakable
... coming horribly along, a murk in the long empty road. She slowed up
looking furtively about. The road had been empty for so long. It
stretched invisibly away behind, empty. There was no sound of anything
coming along; nothing but the squeak squeak of her gear-case; bitter
empty fields on either side, greying away to the twilight, the hedges
sharp and dark, enemies; nothing ahead but the bare road, carrying the
murky figure; there all the time; and bound to come. She rode on at her
usual pace struggling for an absorption so complete as to make her
invisible, but was held back by her hatred of herself for having
wondered whether he had seen her. The figure was growing more distinct.
Murky. Murk from head to foot. Wearing openly like a coat the expression
that could be seen hidden inside everybody. She had made an enemy of
him. It was too late. The voice in her declaring sympathy, claiming
kinship faded faint and far away within her ... hullo old boy, isn't it
a bloody world ... he would know it had come too late. He came walking
along, slowly walking like someone in a procession or a quickly moving
funeral; like someone in a procession, who must go on. He was surrounded
by people, pressed in and down by them, wanting to kill everyone with a
look and run, madly, to root up trees and tear down the landscape and
get outside ... he is myself.... He stood still. Her staring eyes made
him so clear that she saw his arrested face just before he threw out an
arm and came on, stumbling. Measuring the width of the roadway she rode
on slowly along the middle of it, pressing steadily and thoughtlessly
forward, her eyes fixed on the far-off spaces of the world she used to
know, towards a barrier of swirling twilight. He was quite near,
slouching and thinking and silently talking, on and on. He was all right
poor thing. She put forth all her strength and shot past him in a sharp
curve, her eye just seeing that he turned and stood, swaying.
What a blessing he was drunk what a blessing he was drunk she chattered
busily, trying to ignore her trembling limbs. Again and again as she
steadied and rode sturdily and blissfully on came the picture of herself
saying with confidential eagerness as she dismounted "I _say_--make
haste--there's a madman coming down the road--get behind the hedge till
he's gone--I'm going for the police." A man would not have been afraid.
Then men _are_ more independent than women. Women can never go very far
from the protection of men--because they are physically inferior. But
men are afraid of mad bulls.... They have to resort to tricks. What was
that I was just thinking? Something I ought to remember. Women have to
be protected. But men explain it the wrong way. It was the same
thing.... The polite protective man was the same; if he relied on his
strength. The world is the most sickening hash.... I'm so sorry for you.
I hate humanity too. _Isn't_ it a lovely day? _Isn't_ it? Just look.
6
The dim road led on into the darkness of what appeared to be a private
estate. The light from the lamp fell upon wide gates fastened back. The
road glimmered on ahead with dense darkness on either side. There had
been no turning. The road evidently passed through the estate. She rode
on and on between the two darknesses, her light casting a wobbling
radiance along her path. Rustling sounded close at hand, and quick
thuddings startled her making her heart leap. The hooting of an owl
echoed through the hollows amongst the trees. Stronger than fear was the
comfort of the dense darkness. Her own darkness by right of riding
through the day. Leaning upon the velvety blackness she pushed on, her
eyes upon the little circle of light, steady on the centre of the
pathway, wobbling upon the feet of the trees emerging in slow procession
on either side of the way.
7
The road began to slope gently downwards. Wearily back-pedalling she
crept down the incline her hand on the brake, her eyes straining
forward. Hard points of gold light--of course. She had put them there
herself. Marlborough ... the prim polite lights of Marlborough; little
gliding moving lights, welcoming, coming safely up as she descended.
They disappeared. There must have been a gap in the trees. Presently she
would be down among them.
8
"_Goode_ Lord--it's a woman."
She passed through the open gate into the glimmer of a descending road.
Yes. Why not? Why that amazed stupefaction? Trying to rob her of the
darkness and the wonderful coming out into the light. The man's voice
went on with her down the dull safe road. A young lady, taking a bicycle
ride in a daylit suburb. That was what she was. That was all he would
allow. It's something in men.
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.
10
Someone brought in the meal and clattered it quietly down, going away
and shutting the door without a word. A door opened and the sound of
departing footsteps ceased. She was shut in with the meal and the lamp
in the little crowded world. The musty silence was so complete that the
window hidden behind the buff and white blinds and curtains must be
shut. The silence throbbed. The throbbing of her heart shook the room.
Something was telling the room that she was the happiest thing in
existence. She stood up, the beloved little room moving as she moved,
and gathered her hands gently against her breast, to ... get through,
through into the soul of the musty little room.... "Oh...." She felt
herself beating from head to foot with a radiance, but her body within
it was weak and heavy with fever. The little scene rocked, crowding
furniture, antimacassars, ornaments, wool mats. She looked from thing to
thing with a beaming, feverish, frozen smile. Her eyes blinked wearily
at the hot crimson flush of the mat under the lamp. She sank back again
her heavy light limbs glowing with fever. "By Jove, I'm tired....
I've had nothing since breakfast m--but a m-bath bun and an
acidulatudd _drop_." ... She laughed and sat whistling softly ...
Jehoshophat--Manchester--Mesopotamia--beloved--you sweet sweet
thing--Veilchen, unter Gras versteckt--out of it all--here I am. I shall
always stay in hotels.... Glancing towards the food spread out on a
white cloth near the globed lamp she saw beyond the table a little stack
of books. Ham and tea and bread and butter.... Leaning unsteadily across
the table ... battered and ribbed green binding and then a short moral
story or natural history--blue, large and fat, a 'story-book' of some
kind ... she drew out one of the undermost volumes.... "Robert Elsmere"!
Here, after all these years in this little outlandish place. She poured
out some tea and hurriedly slid a slice of ham between two pieces of
bread and butter and sat back with the food drawn near, the lamplight
glaring into her eyes, the printed page in exciting shadow. Everything
in the room was distinct and sharp,--morning strength descended upon
her.
11
How he must have liked and admired. It must have amazed him; a woman
setting forth and putting straight the muddles of his own mind.
"Powerful" he probably said. It was a half jealous keeping to himself of
a fine, good thing. If he could have known that it would have been, just
at that very moment, the answer to my worry about Christ he would have
been jealous and angry quite as much as surprised and pleased and
sympathetic ... he was afraid _himself_ of the idea that anyone can give
up the idea of the divinity of Christ and still remain religious and
good. He ought to have let me read it.... If he could have stated it
himself as well, that day by the gate he would have done so ... "a very
reasonable dilemma my dear." He knew I was thinking about things. But he
had not read Robert Elsmere then. He was jealous of a thunderbolt flung
by a woman....
12
And now I've got beyond _Robert Elsmere_.... That's Mrs. Humphry Ward
and Robert Elsmere; that's gone. There's no answering science. One must
choose. Either science or religion. They can't both be true. This is the
same as Literature and Dogma.... Only in Literature and Dogma there is
that thing that is perfectly true--that thing--what is it? What was that
idea in Literature and Dogma?
13
I wonder if I've strained my heart. This funny feeling of sinking
through the bed. Never mind. I've done the ride. I'm alive and alone in
a strange place. Everything's alive all round me in a new way. Nearer.
As the flame of the candle had swelled and gone out under her blowing
she had noticed the bareness of everything in the room--a room for
chance travellers, nothing that anyone could carry away. She could still
see it as it was when she moved and blew out the candle, a whole room
swaying sideways into darkness. The more she relinquished the idea of
harm and danger, the nearer and more intimate the room became.... No one
can prevent my being alone in a strange place, near to things and loving
them. It's more than worth half killing yourself. It makes you ready to
die. I'm not going to die, even if I have strained my heart. 'Damaged
myself for life.' I am going to sleep. The dawn will come, no one
knowing where I am. Because I have no money I must go on and stay with
these people. But I have been alive here. There's hardly any time. I
_must_ go to sleep.