1
It was ... jolly; to have something one was obliged to do every
evening--but it could not go on. Next week-end, the Brooms, that would
be an excuse for making a break. She must have other friends she could
turn to ... she must _know_ one could not go on. But bustling off every
evening regularly to the same place with things to get for somebody was
evidently good in some way ... health-giving and strength-giving....
* * * * *
She found Miss Dear in bed; sitting up, more pink and gold than ever.
There was a deep lace frill on the pink jacket. She smiled deeply, a
curious deep smile that looked like "a smile of perfect love and
confidence" ... it _was_ partly that. She was grateful, and admiring.
That was all right. But it could not go on; and now illness. Miriam was
aghast. Miss Dear seemed more herself than ever, sitting up in bed, just
as she had been at the hospital.
"Are you ill?"
"Not really ill, de-er. I've had a touch of my epileptiform neuralgia."
Miriam sat staring angrily at the floor.
"It's enough to _make_ anyone ill."
"_What_ is?"
"To be sitoowated as I am."
"You haven't been able to hear of a case?"
"How can I take a case dear when I haven't got my uniforms?"
"Did you sell them?"
"_No_ de-er. They're with all the rest of my things at the hostel. Just
because there's a small balance owing they refuse to give up my box.
I've told them I'll settle it as soon as my pecuniary affairs are in
order."
"I see. That was why you didn't send your box on to me? You know I could
pay that off if you like, if it isn't too much."
"No dear I couldn't hear of such a thing."
"But you _must_ get work, or something. Do your friends know how things
are?"
"There is no one I should care to turn to at the moment."
"But the people at the Nursing Association?"
Miss Dear flushed and frowned. "Don't think of _them_ dear. I've told
you my opinion of the superintendent and the nurses are in pretty much
the same box as I am. More than one of them owes me money."
"But surely if they knew----"
"I tell you I don't _wish_ to apply to Baker Street at the present
time."
"But you _must_ apply to _someone_. _Something_ must be done. You see I
can't, I shan't be able to go on indefinitely."
Miss Dear's face broke into weeping. Miriam sat smarting under her own
brutality ... poverty is brutalising, she reflected miserably, excusing
herself. It makes you helpless and makes sick people fearful and
hateful. It ought not to be like that. One can't even give way to one's
natural feelings. What ought she to have done? To have spoken gently ...
you see dear ... she could hear women's voices saying it ... my
resources are not unlimited, we must try and think what is the best
thing to be done ... humbug ... they would be feeling just as frightened
just as self-protecting, inside. There were people in books who
shouldered things and got into debt, just for any casual, helpless,
person. But it would have to come on somebody, in the end. What then?
Bustling people with plans ... 'it's no good sitting still waiting for
Providence' ... but that was just what one wanted to avoid ... it had
been wonderful, sometimes in the little room. It was _that_ that had
been outraged. It was as if she had struck a blow.
"I _have_ done something dear."
"_What?_"
"I've sent for Dr. Ashley-Densley."
2
"There is our gentleman," said Miss Dear tranquilly just before
midnight. Miriam moved away and stood by the window as the door split
wide and a tall grey-clad figure plunged lightly into the room. Miriam
missed his first questions in her observations of his well-controlled
fatigue and annoyance, his astonishing height and slenderness and the
curious wise softness of his voice. Suddenly she realised that he was
going. He was not going to take anything in hand or do anything. He had
got up from the chair by the bedside and was scribbling something on an
envelope ... no sleep for two nights he said evenly in the soft musical
girlish tones. A prescription ... then he'd be off.
"Do you know Thomas's?" he said colourlessly.
"Do you know Thomas's--the chemist--in Baker Street?" he said casting a
half-glance in her direction as he wrote on.
"I do," said Miriam coldly.
"Would you be afraid to go round there now?"
"What is it you want?" said Miriam acidly.
"Well, if you're not afraid, go to Thomas's, get this made up, give Miss
Dear a dose and if it does not take effect, another in two hours' time."
"You may leave it with me."
"All right. I'll be off. I'll try to look in sometime to-morrow," he
said turning to Miss Dear. "Bye-bye" and he was gone.
3
When the grey of morning began to show behind the blind Miriam's
thoughts came back to the figure on the bed. Miss Dear was peacefully
asleep lying on her back with her head thrown back upon the pillow. Her
face looked stonily pure and stern; and colourless in the grey light.
There was a sheen on her forehead like the sheen on the foreheads of old
people. She had probably been asleep ever since the beginning of the
stillness. Everybody was getting up. "London was getting up." That man
in the _Referee_ knew what it was, that feeling when you live right _in_
London, of being a Londoner, the thing that made it _enough_ to be a
Londoner, getting up, in London; the thing that made real Londoners
different to everyone else, going about with a sense that made them
_alive_. The very idea of living anywhere but in London, when one
thought about it, produced a blank sensation in the heart. What was it I
said the other day? "London's got me. It's taking my health and eating
up my youth. It may as well have what remains...." Something stirred
powerfully, unable to get to her through her torpid body. Her weary
brain spent its last strength on the words, she had only half meant them
when they were spoken. _Now_, once she was free again, to be just a
Londoner she would ask nothing more of life. It would be the answer to
all questions; the perfect unfailing thing, guiding all one's decisions.
And an ill-paid clerkship was its best possible protection; keeping one
at a quiet centre, alone in a little room, untouched by human
relationships, undisturbed by the necessity of being anything. Nurses
and teachers and doctors and all the people who were doing special
things surrounded by people and talk were not Londoners. Clerks were,
unless they lived in suburbs, the people who lived in St. Pancras and
Bloomsbury and in Seven Dials and all round Soho and in all the slums
and back streets everywhere were. She would be again soon ... not a
woman ... a Londoner.
She rose from her chair feeling hardly able to stand. The long endurance
in the cold room had led to nothing but the beginning of a day without
strength--no one knowing what she had gone through. Three days and
nights of nursing Eve had produced only a feverish gaiety. It _was_
London that killed you.
"I will come in at lunch-time" she scribbled on the back of an envelope,
and left it near one of the hands outstretched on the coverlet.
Outdoors it was quite light, a soft grey morning, about eight o'clock.
People were moving about the streets. The day would be got through
somehow. Tomorrow she would be herself again.
4
"Has she applied to the Association to which she belongs?"
"I think she wishes for some reason to keep away from them just now. She
suggested that I should come to you when I asked her if there was anyone
to whom she could turn. She told me you had helped her to have a holiday
in a convalescent home." These were the right people. The quiet grey
house, the high church room, the delicate outlines of the woman, clear
and fine in spite of all the comfort.... The All Souls Nursing
Sisters.... They _were_ different ... emotional and unhygienic
... cushions and hot water bottles ... good food ... early
service--Lent--stuffy churches--fasting. But they would not pass by on
the other side ... she sat waiting ... the atmosphere of the room made
much of her weeks of charity and her long night of watching, the quiet
presence in it knew of these things without being told. The weariness of
her voice had poured out its burden, meeting and flowing into the
patient weariness of the other women and changing. There was no longer
any anger or impatience. Together, consulting as accomplices, they would
see what was the best thing to do--whatever it was would be something
done on a long long road going on forever; nobody outside, nobody left
behind. When they had decided they would leave it, happy and serene and
glance at the invisible sun and make little confident jests together.
She was like Mrs. Bailey--and someone farther back--mother. This was the
secret life of women. They smiled at God. But they all flattered men.
All these women....
"They ought to be informed. Will you call on them--to-day? Or would you
prefer that I should do so?"
"I will go--at lunch-time" said Miriam promptly.
"Meanwhile I shall inform the clergy. It is a case for the parish. You
must not bear the responsibility a moment longer."
Miriam relaxed in her capacious chair, a dimness before her eyes. The
voice was going on, unnoticing, the figure had turned towards a bureau.
There were little straggles about the fine hair--Miss Jenny Perne--the
Pernes. She was a lonely old maid.... One must listen ... but London had
sprung back ... in full open midday roar; brilliant and fresh; dim,
intimate, vast, from the darkness. This woman preferred some provincial
town ... Wolverhampton ... Wolverhampton ... in the little room in
Marylebone Road Miss Dear was unconsciously sleeping--a pauper.
5
There was a large bunch of black grapes on the little table by the
bedside and a book.
"Hullo you literary female" said Miriam seizing it ... Red Pottage ... a
curious novelish name, difficult to understand. Miss Dear sat up,
straight and brisk, blooming smiles. What an easy life. The light
changing in the room and people bringing novels and grapes, smart new
novels that people were reading.
"What did you do at lunch time dear?"
"Oh I had to go and see a female unexpectedly."
"I found your note and thought perhaps you had called in at Baker
Street."
"At your Association, d'you mean? Oh my dear lady."
Miriam shook her thoughts about, pushing back. "She owes money to almost
every nurse in this house and seems to have given in in every way" and
bringing forward "one of our very best nurses for five years."
"Oh I went to see the woman in Queen Square this morning."
"I know you did dear." Miss Dear bridled in her secret way, averted, and
preparing to speak. It was over. She did not seem to mind. "I liked her"
said Miriam hastily, leaping across the gap, longing to know what had
been done, beating out anywhere to rid her face of the lines of shame.
She was sitting before a judge ... being looked through and through....
Noo, Tonalt, suggest a tow-pic....
"She's a sweet woman" said Miss Dear patronisingly.
"She's brought you some nice things" ... poverty was worse if you were
not poor enough....
"Oh no dear. The curate brought these. He called twice this morning. You
did me a good turn. He's a real friend."
"Oh--oh, I'm so glad."
"Yes--he's a nice little man. He was most dreadfully upset."
"What can he do?"
"How do you mean dear?"
"Well in general?"
"He's going to do everything dear. I'm not to worry."
"How splendid!"
"He came in first thing and saw how things stood and came in again at
the end of the morning with these things. He's sending me some wine,
from his own cellar."
Miriam gazed, her thoughts tumbling incoherently.
"He was most dreadfully upset. He could not write his sermon. He kept
thinking it might be one of his own _sisters_ in the same sitawation. He
couldn't rest till he came back."
Standing back ... all the time ... delicately preparing to speak ...
presiding over them all ... over herself too....
"He's a real friend."
"Have you looked at the book?" There was nothing more to do.
"No dear. He said it had interested him very much. He reads them for his
sermons you see" ... she put out her hand and touched the volume ...
John's books ... Henry is so interested in photography ... unknowing
patronising respectful gestures.... "Poor little man. He was dreadfully
upset."
"We'd better read it."
"What time are you coming dear?"
"Oh--well."
"I'm to have my meals regular. Mr. Taunton has seen the landlady. I wish
I could ask you to join me. But he's been so generous. I mustn't run
expenses up you see dear."
"Of course not. I'll come in after supper. I'm not quite sure about
to-night."
"Well--I hope I shall see you on Saturday. I can give you tea."
"I'm going away for the week-end. I've put it off and off. I must go
this week."
Miss Dear frowned. "Well dear, come in and see me on your way."
6
Miss Dear sat down with an indrawn breath.
Miriam drew her Gladstone bag a little closer. "I have only a second."
"All _right_ dear. You've only just come."
It was as if nothing had happened the whole week. She was not going to
say anything. She was ill again just in time for the week-end. She
looked fearfully ill. Was she ill? The room was horrible--desolate and
angry....
Miriam sat listening to the indrawn breathings.
"What is the matter?"
"It's my epileptiform neuralgia again. I thought Dr. Ashley-Densley
would have been in. I suppose he's off for the week-end."
She lay back pale and lifeless looking with her eyes closed.
"All right, I won't go, that's about it," said Miriam angrily.
7
"Have another cup dear. He said the picture was like me and like my
name. He thinks it's the right name for me--'you'll always be able to
inspire affection' he said."
"Yes that's true."
"He wants me to change my first name. He thought Eleanor would be
pretty."
"I _say_; look here."
"Of course I can't make any decision until I know certain things."
"D'you mean to say ... _good_ness!"
Miss Dear chuckled indulgently, making little brisk movements about the
tea-tray.
"So I'm to be called Eleanor Dear. He's a dear little man. I'm very fond
of him. But there is an earlier friend."
"Oh----"
"I thought you'd help me out."
"_I?_"
"Well dear, I thought you wouldn't mind calling and finding out for me
how the land lies."
Miriam's eyes fixed the inexorable shapely outlines of the tall figure.
That dignity would never go; but there was something, that would never
come ... there would be nothing but fuss and mystification for the man.
She would have a house and a dignified life. He, at home, would have
death. But these were the women. But she had liked the book. There was
something in it she had felt. But a man reading, seeing only bits and
points of view would never find that far-away something. She would hold
the man by being everlastingly mysteriously up to something or other
behind a smile. He would grow sick to death of mysterious nothings; of
things always centering in her, leaving everything else outside her
dignity. Appalling. What _was_ she doing all the time, bringing one's
eyes back and back each time after one had angrily given in, to question
the ruffles of her hair and the way she stood and walked and prepared to
speak.
"Oh...! of _course_ I will--you wicked woman."
"It's very puzzling. You see he's the earlier friend."
"You think if he knew he had a rival. Of course. Quite right."
"Well dear, I think he ought to _know_."
"So I'm to be your mamma. What a _lark_."
Miss Dear shed a fond look. "I want you to meet my little man. He's
longing to meet you?"
"Have you mentioned me to him."
"Well dear who should I mention if not you?"
8
"So I thought the best thing to do would be to come and ask you what
would be the best thing to do for her."
"There's nothing to be done for her." He turned away and moved things
about on the mantelpiece. Miriam's heart beat rebelliously in the
silence of the consulting-room. She sat waiting stifled with
apprehension, her thoughts on Miss Dear's familiar mysterious figure. In
an unendurable impatience she waited for more, her eye smiting the tall
averted figure on the hearthrug, following his movements ... small
framed coloured pictures--very brilliant--photographs?--of dark and fair
women, all the same, their shoulders draped like the Soul's Awakening,
their chests bare, all of them with horrible masses of combed out waving
hair like the woman in the Harlene shop only waving naturally. The most
awful minxes ... his ideals. What a man. What a ghastly world. "If she
were to go to the south of France, at once, she might live for years"
... this is hearing about death, in a consulting-room ... no escape ...
everything in the room holding you in. The Death Sentence.... People
would not die if they did not go to consulting-rooms ... doctors make
you die ... they watch and threaten.
"What is the matter with her?" Out with it, don't be so important and
mysterious.
"Don't you know, my dear girl?" Dr. Densley wheeled round with searching
observant eyes.
"Hasn't she told you?" he added quietly with his eyes on his nails.
"She's phthisical. She's in the first stages of pulmonary tuberculosis."
The things in the dark room darkled with a curious dull flash along all
their edges and settled in a stifling dusky gloom. Everything in the
room dingy and dirty and decaying, but the long lean upright figure. In
time he would die of something. Phthisis ... that curious terrible damp
mouldering smell, damp warm faint human fungus ... in Aunt Henderson's
bedroom.... But she had got better.... But the curate ought to know. But
perhaps he too, perhaps she had _imagined_ that....
"It seems strange she has not told such an old friend."
"I'm not an old friend. I've only known her about two months. I'm hardly
a friend at all."
Dr. Densley was roaming about the room. "You've been a friend in need to
that poor girl" he murmured contemplating the window curtains. "I
recognised that when I saw you in her room last week." How
superficial....
"Where did you meet her?" he said, a curious gentle high tone on the
where and a low one on the meet as if he were questioning a very
delicate patient.
"My sister picked her up at a convalescent home."
He turned very sharply and came and sat down in a low chair opposite
Miriam's low chair.
"Tell me all about it my dear girl" he said sitting forward so that his
clasped hands almost touched Miriam's knees.
9
"And she told you I was her oldest friend," he said, getting up and
going back to the mantelpiece.
"I first met Miss Dear" he resumed after a pause, speaking like a
witness "last Christmas. I called in at Baker Street and found the
superintendent had four of her disengaged nurses down with influenza. At
her request I ran up to see them. Miss Dear was one of the number. Since
that date she has summoned me at all hours on any and every pretext.
What I can, I have done for her. She knows perfectly well her condition.
She has her back against the wall. She's making a splendid fight. But
the one thing that would give her a chance she obstinately refuses to
do. Last summer I found for her employment in a nursing home in the
South of France. She refused to go, though I told her plainly what would
be the result of another winter in England."
"Ought she to marry?" said Miriam suddenly, closely watching him.
"Is she thinking of marrying, my dear girl" he answered, looking at his
nails.
"Well of course she _might_----"
"Is there a sweetheart on the horizon?"
"Well she inspires a great deal of affection. I think she is inspiring
affection _now_."
Dr. Densley threw back his head with a laugh that caught his breath and
gasped in and out on a high tone, leaving his silent mouth wide open
when he again faced Miriam with the laughter still in his eyes.
"Tell me my dear girl" he said smiting her knee with gentle affection,
"is there someone who would like to marry her?"
"What I want to _know_" said Miriam very briskly "is whether such a
person ought to know about the state of her health." She found herself
cold and trembling as she asked. Miss Dear's eyes seemed fixed upon her.
"The chance of a tuberculous woman in marriage" recited Dr. Densley "is
a holding up of the disease with the first child; after the second she
usually fails."
Why children? A doctor could see nothing in marriage but children. This
man saw women with a sort of admiring pity. He probably estimated all
those women on the mantelpiece according to their child-bearing
capacity.
"Personally, I do not believe in forbidding the marriage of
consumptives; provided both parties know what they are doing; and if
they are quite sure they cannot do without each other. We know so little
about heredity and disease, we do not know always what life is about.
Personally I would not divide two people who are thoroughly devoted to
each other."
"No" said Miriam coldly.
"Is the young man in a position to take her abroad?"
"I can't tell you more than I know" said Miriam impatiently getting up.
Dr. Densley laughed again and rose.
"I'm very glad you came my dear girl. Come again soon and report
progress. You're so near you can run in any time when you're free."
"Thank you" said Miriam politely, scrutinising him calmly as he waved
and patted her out into the hall.
10
Impelled by an uncontrollable urgency she made her way along the
Marylebone Road. Miss Dear was not expecting her till late. But the
responsibility, the urgency. She must go abroad. About Dr. Densley. That
was easy enough. There was a phrase ready about that somewhere. Three
things. But she could not go abroad to-night. Why not go to the Lyons at
Portland Road station and have a meal and get calm and think out a plan?
But there was no time to lose. There was not a moment to lose. She
arrived at the dark gate breathless and incoherent. A man was opening
the gate from the inside. He stood short and compact in the gloom
holding it open for her.
"Is it Miss Henderson?" he said nervously as she passed.
"Yes" said Miriam stopping dead, flooded with sadness.
"I have been hoping to see you for the last ten days" he said hurriedly
and as if afraid of being overheard. In the impenetrable gloom darker
than the darkness his voice was a thread of comfort.
"Oh yes."
"Could you come and see me?"
"Oh yes of course."
"If you will give me your number in Wimpole Street I will send you a
note."
11
"My _dear_!"
The tall figure, radiant, lit from head to foot, "as the light on a
falling wave" ... "as the light on a falling wave." ...
Everything stood still as they gazed at each other. Her own self gazed
at her out of Miss Dear's eyes.
"Well I'm _bothered_" said Miriam at last, sinking into a chair.
"No need to be bothered any more dear" laughed Miss Dear.
"It's extraordinary." She tried to recover the glory of the first moment
in speechless contemplation of the radiant figure now moving chairs near
to the lamp. The disappearance of the gas, the shaded lamp, the rector's
wife's manner, the rector's wife's quiet stylish costume; it was like a
prepared scene. How funny it would be to know a rector's wife.
"He's longing to meet you. I shall have a second room to-morrow. We will
have a tea party."
"It was to-day, of course."
"Just before you came" said Miss Dear her glowing face bent, her hands
brushing at the new costume. "You'll be our greatest friend."
"But how grand you are."
"He made my future his care some days ago dear. As long as I live you
shall want for nothing he said."
"And to-day it all came out."
"Of course he'll have to get a _living_ dear. But we've decided to
ignore the world."
What did she mean by that.... "You won't have to."
"Well dear I mean let the world go by."
"I see. He's a jewel. I think you've made a very good choice. You can
make your mind easy about that. I saw the great medicine man to-day."
"It was all settled without that dear. I never even thought about him."
"You needn't. No woman need. He's a man who doesn't know his own mind
and never will. I doubt very much whether he has a mind to know. If he
ever marries he will marry a _wife_, not any particular woman; a smart
worldly woman for his profession, or a thoroughly healthy female who'll
keep a home in the country for him and have children and pour out his
tea and grow things in the garden, while he flirts with patients in
town. He's most awfully susceptible."
"I expect we shan't live in London."
"Well that'll be better for you won't it?"
"How do you mean de-er?"
"Well. I ought to tell you Dr. Densley told me you ought to go abroad."
"There's no need for me to go abroad dear, I shall be all right if I can
look _after_ myself and get into the air."
"I expect you will. Everything's happened just right hasn't it?"
"It's all been in the hands of an 'igher power, dear."
Miriam found herself chafing again. It had all rushed on, in a few
minutes. It was out of her hands completely now. She did not want to
know Mr. and Mrs. Taunton. There was nothing to hold her any longer. She
had seen Miss Dear in the new part. To watch the working out of it, to
hear about the parish, sudden details about people she did not
know--intolerable.