1
When May came life lay round Miriam without a flaw. She seemed to have
reached the summit of a hill up which she had been climbing ever since
she came to Newlands. The weeks had been green lanes of experience,
fresh and scented and balmy and free from lurking fears. Now the
landscape lay open before her eyes, clear from horizon to horizon,
sunlit and flawless, past and future. The present, within her hands,
brought her, whenever she paused to consider it, to the tips of her
toes, as if its pressure lifted her. She would push it off,
smiling--turning and shutting herself away from it, with laughter and
closed eyes, she found herself deeper in the airy flood and drawing
breath swam forward.
* * * * *
The old troubles, the things she had known from the beginning, the
general shadow that lay over the family life and closed punctually in
whenever the sun began to shine, her own personal thoughts, the
impossibility of living with people, poverty, disease, death in a dark
corner, had moved and changed, melted and flowed away.
The family shadow had shrunk long ago, back in the winter months they
had spent in Bennett’s little bachelor villa, to a small black cloud of
disgrace hanging over her father. At the time of its appearance, when
the extent of his embarrassment was exactly known, she had sunk for a
while under the conviction that the rest of her life must be spent in a
vain attempt to pay off his debts. Her mind revolved round the problem
hopelessly.... Even if she went on the stage she could not make enough
to pay off one of his creditors. Most women who went on the stage,
Gerald had said, made practically nothing, and the successful ones had
to spend enormous sums in bribery whilst they were making their
way--even the orchestra expected to be flattered and bribed. She would
have to go on being a resident governess, keeping ten pounds a year for
dress and paying over the rest of her salary. Her bitter rebellion
against this prospect was reinforced by the creditors’ refusal to make
her father a bankrupt. The refusal brought her a picture of the
creditors, men “on the Stock Exchange,” sitting in a circle, in
frock-coats, talking over her father’s affairs. She winced, her blood
came scorching against her skin. She confronted them, “Stop!” she
shouted, “stop _talking_--you smug ugly men! You shall be paid. Stop! Go
away....” But Gerald had said, “They _like_ the old boy ... it won’t
hurt _them_ ... they’re all made of money.” They liked him. They would
be kind. What right had they to be “kind”? They would be kind to her
too. They would smile at her plan of restitution and put it on one side.
And yet secretly she knew that each one of them would like to be paid
and was vexed and angry at losing money just as she was angry at having
to sacrifice her life to them. She would not sacrifice her life, but if
ever she found herself wealthy she would find out their names and pay
them secretly. Probably that would be never.
* * * * *
Disgrace closed round her, stifling. “It’s _us_--we’re doomed,” she
thought, feeling the stigma of her family in her flesh. “If I go on
after this, holding up my head, I shall be a liar and a cheat. It will
show in my face and in my walk, always.” She bowed her head. “I want to
live,” murmured something. “I want to live, even if I slink through
life. I will. I don’t care inside. I shall always have myself to be
with.”
* * * * *
Something that was not touched, that sang far away down inside the
gloom, that cared nothing for the creditors and could get away down and
down into the twilight far away from the everlasting accusations of
humanity.... The disgrace sat only in the muscles of her face, in her
muscles, the stuff of her that had defied and fought and been laughed at
and beaten. It would not get deeper. Deeper down was something cool and
fresh--endless--an endless garden. In happiness it came up and made
everything in the world into a garden. Sorrow blotted it over, but it
was always there, waiting and looking on. It had looked on in Germany
and had loved the music and the words and the happiness of the German
girls and at Banbury Park, giving her no peace until she got away.
* * * * *
And now it had come to the surface and was with her all the time. Away
in the distance filling in the horizon was the home life. Beyond the
horizon, gone away for ever into some outer darkness were her old ideas
of trouble, disease and death. Once they had been always quite near at
hand, always ready to strike, laying cold hands on everything. They
would return, but they would be changed. No need to fear them any more.
She had seen them change. And when at last they came back, when there
was nothing else left in front of her they would still be changing. “Get
along, old ghosts,” she said, and they seemed friendly and smiling. Her
father and mother, whose failure and death she had foreseen as a child
with sudden bitter tears, were going on now step by step towards these
ghostly things in the small bright lamplit villa in Gunnersbury. She had
watched them there during the winter months before she came to Newlands.
They had some secret together and did not feel the darkness. Their eyes
were careless and bright. Startled, she had heard them laugh together as
they talked in their room. Often their eyes were preoccupied, as if they
were looking at a picture. She had laughed aloud at the thought whenever
there had been any excuse, and they had always looked at her when she
laughed her loud laugh. Had they understood? Did they know that it was
themselves laughing in her? Families ought to laugh together whenever
there was any excuse. She felt that her own grown-up laughter was the
end of all the dreadful years. And three weeks ahead were the two
weddings. The letters from home gleamed with descriptions of the
increasing store of presents and new-made clothing. Miriam felt that
they were her own; she would see them all at the last best moment when
they were complete. She would have all that and all her pride in the
outgoing lives of Sarah and Harriett that were like two sunlit streams.
And meanwhile here within her hands was Newlands. Three weeks of days
and nights of untroubled beauty. Interminable.
2
The roses were in bud. Every day she managed to visit them at least
once, running out alone into the garden at twilight and coming back rich
with the sense of the twilit green garden and the increasing stripes of
colour between the tight shining green sheaths.
3
There had been no more talk of painting lessons. The idea had died in
Mrs. Corrie’s mind the day after it had been born and a strange
interest, something dreadful that was happening in London had taken its
place. It seemed to absorb her completely and to spread a strange
curious excitement throughout the house. She sent a servant every
afternoon up to the station for an evening newspaper. The pink papers
disappeared, but she was perpetually making allusions to their strange
secret in a way that told Miriam she wanted to impart it and that
irritated without really arousing her interest. She felt that anything
that was being fussed over in pink evening papers was probably really
nothing at all. She could not believe that anything that had such a
strange effect on Mrs. Corrie could really interest her. But she longed
to know exactly what the mysterious thing was. If it was simply a
divorce case Mrs. Corrie would have told her about it, dropping out the
whole story abstractedly in one of her little shocked sentences and
immediately going on to speak of something else. She did not want to
hear anything more about divorce; all her interested curiosity in
divorced people had been dispersed by her contact with the Kronens. They
had both been divorced and their lives were broken and muddly and they
were not sure of themselves. Mrs. Kronen was strong and alone. But she
was alone and would always be. If it were a murder everybody would talk
about it openly. It must be something worse than a murder or a divorce.
She felt she must know, must make Mrs. Corrie tell her and knew at the
same time that she did not want to be distracted from the pure solid
glory of the weeks by sharing a horrible secret. The thing kept Mrs.
Corrie occupied and interested and left her free to live undisturbed. It
was a barrier between them. And yet ... something that a human being had
done that was worse than a murder or a divorce.
“Is it a divorce?” she said suddenly and insincerely one afternoon
coming upon Mrs. Corrie scanning the newly arrived newspaper in the
garden.
“Lordy no,” laughed Mrs. Corrie self-consciously, scrumpling the paper
under her arm.
“What is it?” said Miriam, shaking and flushing. “Don’t tell me, don’t
tell me,” cried her mind, “don’t mention it, you don’t know yourself
what it is. Nobody knows what anything is.”
“I couldn’t tell you!” cried Mrs. Corrie.
“Why _not_?” laughed Miriam.
“It’s too awful,” giggled Mrs. Corrie.
“Oh, you must tell me now you’ve begun.”
“It’s the most awful thing there is. It’s like the Bible,” said Mrs.
Corrie, and fled into the house.
4
Little cities burning and flaring in a great plain until everything was
consumed. Everything beginning again--clean. Would London be visited by
destruction? Humanity was as bad now as in Bible days. It made one feel
cold and sick. In the midst of the beauty and happiness of
England--awful things, the worst things there were. What awful faces
those people must have. It would be dreadful to see them.
5
At the week-end the house seemed full of little groups of conspirators,
talking in corners, full of secret glee ... someone describing a room,
drawn curtains and candlelight at midday ... wonderful ... and laughing.
Why did they laugh? A candle-lit room in the midst of bright day ...
wonderful, like a shrine.
The low-toned talk went on, in Mr. Corrie’s little study behind the
half-closed door, in corners of the hall. Names were mentioned--the name
of the man who wrote the plays, Mrs. Kronen’s “genius.” Miriam could
only recall when she was alone that it was a woodland springtime name.
It comforted her to think that this name was concerned in the horrible
mystery. Her sympathies veered vaguely out towards the patch of disgrace
in London and her interest died down.
6
The general preoccupation and excitement seemed to destroy her link with
the household. As soon as the children’s tea was over she felt herself
free. A strange tall woman came to stay in the house, trailing about in
long jewelled dresses with a slight limp; Miss Tower, Mrs. Corrie called
her Jin. But the name did not belong to her. Miriam could not think of
any name that would belong to her ... talking to Mrs. Corrie at lunch
with amused eyes and expressionless, small fine features of some illness
that was going to kill her in eight or ten years, of her friends,
talking about her men friends as if they were boys to be cried over.
“Why don’t you marry him?” Mrs. Corrie would say of one or another. How
happy the man would be, thought Miriam, gazing into the strange eyes and
daring her to marry anyone and alter the eyes. Miss Tower spoke to her
now and again as if she had known her all her life. One day after lunch
she suddenly said, “You ought to smile more often--you’ve got pretty
teeth; but you forget about them. Don’t forget about them”; and one
evening she came into her room just as she was beginning to undress and
stood by the fire and said, “Your evening dresses are all wrong. You
should have them cut higher, above the collar-bone--or much lower--don’t
forget. Don’t forget, you could be charming.”
Mrs. Corrie came in herself the next evening and gave Miriam a
full-length cabinet photograph of herself, suddenly. Afterwards she
heard her saying to Kate on the landing, “Let the poor thing rest when
she can,” and they both went into Kate’s room.
7
Every day as soon as the children’s tea was over she fled to her room.
The memory of Mrs. Corrie’s little sketch-book had haunted her for days.
She had bought a block and brushes, a small box of paints and a book on
painting in water colours. For days she painted, secure in the feeling
of Mrs. Corrie and Kate occupied with each other. She filled sheet after
sheet with swift efforts to recall Brighton skies--sunset, the red mass
of the sun, the profile of the cliffs, the sky clear or full of heavy
cloud, the darkness of the afternoon sea streaked by a path of gold,
bird-specks, above the cliffs, above the sea. The painting was thick and
confused, the objects blurred and ran into each other, the image of each
recalled object came close before her eyes, shaking her with its sharp
reality, her heart and hand shook as she contemplated it, and her body
thrilled as she swept her brushes about. She found herself breathing
heavily and deeply, sure each time of registering what she saw, sweeping
rapidly on until the filled paper confronted her, a confused mass of
shapeless images, leaving her angry and cold. Each day what she had done
the day before thrilled her afresh and drove her on, and the time she
spent in contemplation and hope became the heart of the days as April
wore on.
8
On the last day of Jin Tower’s visit, Miriam came in from the garden
upon Mrs. Corrie sitting in the hall with her guest. Jin was going and
was sorry that she was going. But Miriam saw that her gladness was as
great as her sorrow. It always would be. Whatever happened to her. Mrs.
Corrie was sitting at her side bent from the waist with her arms
stretched out and hands clasped beyond her knees. Miriam was amazed to
see how much Mrs. Corrie had been talking, and that she was treating
Jin’s departure as if it were a small crisis. There was a touch of soft
heat and fussiness in the air. Mrs. Corrie’s features were discomposed.
They both glanced at her as she came across the hall and she smiled,
awkwardly and half paused. Her mind was turned towards her vision of a
great cliff in profile against a still sky with a deep sea brimming to
its feet in a placid afterglow; the garden with its lawn and trees, its
bushiness and its buttons of bright rosebuds had seemed small and
troubled and talkative in comparison. In her slight pause she offered
them her vision, but knew as she went on upstairs that her attitude had
said, “I am the paid governess. You must not talk to me as you would to
each other; I am an inferior and can never be an intimate.” She was glad
that Jin had left off coming to her room. She did not want intimacy with
anyone if it meant that strained fussiness in the hall. Meeting Mrs.
Corrie later on the landing she asked with a sudden sense of inspiration
whether she might have her meal in her room, adding in an insincere
effort at explanation that she wanted to do some reading up for the
children. Mrs. Corrie agreed with an alacrity that gave her a vision of
possible freedom ahead and a shock of apprehension. Perhaps she had not
succeeded even so far as she thought in living the Newlands social life.
She spent the evening writing to Eve, asking her if she remembered sea
scenes at Weymouth and Brighton, pushing on and on weighed down by a
sense of the urgency of finding out whether to Eve the registration and
the recalling of her impressions was a thing that she must either do or
lose hold of some essential thing ... she felt that Eve would somehow
admire her own stormy emphasis but would not really understand how much
it meant to her. She remembered Eve’s comparison of the country round
the Greens’ house to Leader landscapes--pictures, and how delightful it
had seemed to her that she had such things all round her to look at. But
her thoughts of the great brow and downward sweep of cliff and the sea
coming up to it was not a picture, it was a thing; her cheeks flared as
she searched for a word--it was an experience, perhaps the most
important thing in life--far in away from any “glad mask,” a thing
belonging to that strange inner life and independent of everybody.
Perhaps it was a betrayal, a sort of fat noisy gossiping to speak of it
even to Eve. “You’ll think I’m _mad_,” she concluded, “but I’m not.”
When the letter was finished the Newlands life seemed very remote. She
was alone in a strange, luxurious room that did not belong to her, lit
by a hard electric light that had been put there by some hardworking
mechanic to whom the house was just a house with electric fittings. She
felt a touch of the half-numb half-feverish stupor that had been her
daily mood at Banbury Park. She would go on teaching the Corrie
children, but her evenings in future would be divided between
unsuccessful efforts to put down her flaming or peaceful sunset scenes
and to explain their importance to Eve.