1
Miriam had no choice but to settle herself on the cane-seated chair.
When Miss Dear had drawn the four drab coloured curtains into place the
small cubicle was in semi-darkness.
"I hope the next time you come to tea with me it will be under rather
more comfortable circumstances."
"This is all right," said Miriam in abstracted impatient continuation of
her abounding manner. Miss Dear was arranging herself on the bed as if
for a long sitting. The small matter of business would come now. Having
had tea it would be impossible to depart the moment the discussion was
over. How much did the tea cost here? That basement tea-room, those
excited young women and middle-aged women watchful and stealthy and ugly
with poverty and shifts, those tea-pots and shabby trays and thick bread
and butter were like the Y.W.C.A. public restaurant at the other end of
the street--fourpence at the outside; but Miss Dear would have to pay
it. She felt trapped ... "a few moments of your time to advise me" and
now half the summer twilight had gone and she was pinned in this prison
face to face with anything Miss Dear might choose to present; forced by
the presences audible in the other cubicles to a continuation of her
triumphant tea-room manner.
"You must excuse my dolly." She arranged her skirt neatly about the
ankle of the slippered bandaged foot.
Anyone else would say what is the matter with your foot.... It stuck
out, a dreadfully padded mass, dark in the darkness of the dreadful
little enclosure in the dreadful dark hive of women, collected together
only by poverty.
"Have you _left_ your association?"
"Oh _no_, de-er; not _permanently_ of course," said Miss Dear pausing in
her tweakings and adjustments of draperies to glance watchfully through
the gloom.
"I'm still a member there."
"Oh yes."
"But I've got to look _after_ myself. They don't give you a chance."
"No----"
"It's rush in and rush out and rush in and rush out."
"What are you going to do? ... what do you want with me...."
"What do you mean de-er."
"Well I mean, are you going on nursing."
"Of _course_ de-er. I was going to tell you."
Miriam's restive anger would not allow her to attend fully to the long
story. She wandered off with the dreadful idea of nursing a
"semi-mental" sitting in a deck-chair in a country garden, the hopeless
patient, the nurse half intent on a healthy life and fees for herself,
and recalled the sprinkling of uniformed figures amongst the women
crowded at the table, all in this dilemma, all eagerly intent; all
overworked by associations claiming part of their fees or taking the
risks of private nursing, all getting older; all anyhow as long as they
went on nursing bound to live on illness; to live with illness knowing
that they were living on it. Yet Mr. Leyton had said that no hospital
run by a religious sisterhood was any good ... these women were run by
doctors....
"You see de-er it's the best thing any sensible nurse can do as soon as
she knows a sufficient number of influenchoo peopoo--physicians and
others."
"Yes, I see." ... But what has all this to do with me....
"I shall keep in correspondence with my doctors and friends and look
_after_ myself a bit."
"Yes, I see," said Miriam eagerly. "It's a _splendid_ plan. What did you
want to consult me about?"
"Well you see it's like this. I must tell you my little difficulty. The
folks at thirty-three don't know I'm here and I don't want to go back
there just at present. I was wondering if when I leave here you'd mind
my having my box sent to your lodgings. I shan't want my reserve things
down there."
"Well--there isn't much _room_ in my room."
"It's a flat box. I got it to go to the Colonies with a patient."
"_Oh_, did you go?..." Nurses did see life; though they were never free
to see it in their own way. Perhaps some of them ... but then they would
not be good nurses.
"Well I didn't _go_. It was a chance of a life-time. Such a de-er old
gentleman--one of the Fitz-Duff family. It would have been nurse
companion. He didn't want me in uniform. My word. He gave me a complete
outfit, _took_ me round, coats and skirts at Peters, gloves at
Penberthy's, a _lovely_ gold-mounted umbrella, everything the heart
could desire. He treated me just like a daughter." During the whole of
this speech she redeemed her words by little delicate bridling movements
and adjustments, her averted eyes resting in indulgent approval on the
old gentleman.
"Why didn't you go?"
"He _died_ dear."
"Oh I see."
"It could go under your bed, out of the way."
"I've got hat-boxes and things. My room is full of things I'm afraid."
"P'raps your landlady would let it stand somewhere."
"I might ask her--won't they let you leave things here?"
"They _would_ I daresay," frowned Miss Dear "but I have special reasons.
I don't wish to be beholden to the people here." She patted the tendrils
of her hair, looking about the cubicle with cold disapproval.
"I daresay Mrs. Bailey wouldn't mind. But I hardly like to ask her you
know. There seems to be luggage piled up everywhere."
"Of course I should be prepared to pay a fee."
... What a wonderful way of living ... dropping a trunk full of things
and going off with a portmanteau; starting life afresh in a new strange
place. Miriam regarded the limber capable form outstretched on the
narrow bed. This dark little enclosure, the forced companionship of the
crowd of competing adventuresses, the sounds of them in the near
cubicles, the perpetual sound filling the house like a sea of their busy
calculations ... all this was only a single passing incident ... beyond
it were the wide well-placed lives of wealthy patients.
"Miss Younger is a sweet woman."
Miriam's eyes awoke to affronted surprise.
"You know de-er; the wan yow was sitting by at tea-time. I told you just
now."
"Oh" said Miriam guiltily.
Miss Dear dropped her voice; "she's told me her whole story. She's a
dear sweet Christian woman. She's working in a settlement. She's
privately engaged to the Bishop. It's not to be published yet. She's a
sweet woman."
Miriam rose. "I've got to get back, I'm afraid."
"Don't hurry away, dear. I hoped you would stay and have some supper."
"I really can't" said Miriam wearily.
"Well, perhaps we shall meet again before Thursday. You'll ask Mrs.
Bailey about my box," said Miss Dear getting to her feet.
"Fancy your remembering her name" said Miriam with loud cheerfulness,
fumbling with the curtains.
Miss Dear stood beaming indulgently.
All the way down the unlit stone staircase they rallied each other about
the country garden with the deck chairs.
"Well" said Miriam from the street, "I'll let you know about Mrs.
Bailey."
"All right dear, I shall expect to hear from you; au revoir" cried Miss
Dear from the door. In the joy of her escape into the twilight Miriam
waved her hand towards the indulgently smiling form and flung away,
singing.