Miriam found her old prayer-book and scribbled her name on the
flyleaf.... Bella de Castro writing _from mother_ under her name in her
bible ... _feeling_ something, privately, not knowing that anyone
would see it.... The sunlight pouring in on the thin bible page; the
words written plumply with one of Bella's blunt uncared-for pencils. Her
thick ropy black plait, brilliant oily Italian eyes in her long fat
handsome face; staring out of the window sullenly waiting for schooldays
to be at an end; her handsome horrible brother on horseback; just the
same; the high-water marks above her wrists when she washed her hands,
and then, from mother, stubbed carefully, _meaning_.
The pencilled _Miriam_ gave a false meaning to the prayer-book. There
was no indiarubber, she would have to take it down as it was. It was a
letter, written to Dr. von Heber, supposed to be written when she was a
girl.... She carried the book downstairs. The Baileys were still
sitting by the fire with their backs to Dr. von Heber standing alone in
the twilight in the middle of the room. She came forward, handing the
book stiffly and sat busily down to the piano again, angrily recording
his quiet formal thanks and silent swift departure. She began playing
where she had left off; telling Dr. von Heber as he went downstairs that
he had come up and made a scene and interrupted her; that her chosen
evening was to sit, with the Baileys, playing the piano; that she was
not a church-goer.
He had come so suddenly; after so long; if she had not been so lost in
the disappointing evening she would have been ready. If she had not
suddenly been so prepared, so rushing forward and feeling after he had
spoken as if the words had been long ago and they had been to church
together and come back before all the world there would not have been in
his voice the reproachful affronted anticipation of her stupidity.
* * * * *
Perhaps he had really suddenly thought downstairs that it would be nice
to go to church, not knowing that that was one of the real effects of
falling in love ... just thinking in the course of his worldly studies
that there was church and he was in himself a church-goer and ought to
go more often and coming up to borrow a prayer-book from the _Baileys_.
No. Suddenly in the room, standing in the unknown drawing-room for the
first time in his steady urbane confident way, waiting, a little turned
towards the piano. The Baileys had neither spoken nor moved; they were
afraid of him; but Mrs. Bailey would have made herself say, Well,
doctor, to the amazing apparition. They simply waited, held off by his
waiting manner. "_I think this is a good evening to go to church._" What
have you been doing all this time? Where do you go, going out so often?
What are you doing sitting here playing? We ought to be going to church;
we two. Here I am professing church-going and idiotically confessing
myself come all the way from Canada without a prayer-book and making a
pretence of borrowing your prayer-book because we _must_ be in church
together. Dr. Hurd's impressions had had no effect upon him.... But
now he had gone back into his own life not only thinking that she was
not a church-goer, but feeling sure that her own private life of coming
and going had no thoughts of him in it.
Dr. Hurd sitting on the omnibus with _amusement_ carving deep lines on
his brick-red face and splintering out of his eyes into the hot
afternoon glare; the neat new bowler with the red hair coming down
underneath it, the well-cut Montreal clothes on his tough neat figure;
immovable, there for the afternoon. Forced to go on and on isolated with
the brick-red grin and the splintering green eyes through the afternoon
heat, in the midst of a glare of omnibus people, on their way to a brass
band in the Albert Hall, thinking they were going to a _concert_. He did
not know what made a concert. Sitting with the remains of his grin,
waiting for the things he had been taught to admire, unable to find
anything without his mother and sisters; missing Canadian ladies with
opinions about everything; waiting all the time to be managed in the
Canadian women's way.... He must have told the others about it
afterwards, his face crinkling at them and they listening and agreeing.
* * * * *
It had begun the moment after he had suggested the concert. I'll get a
new top hat before then. The awful demand for a jest. His way of waiting
as if one were some queer being he was waiting to see say or do
something anyone could understand was the same as the English way only
more open. But English people like that did not care for music and did
not have books read to them. Perhaps his parents belonged to the other
sort of English and he had the stamp of it, promising seriousness and a
love of beautiful things, and forced by life into the jesting way of
worldly people who seemed to have no sacred patches at all. Quick words,
bathed in laughter heaped up into a questioning of what the _matter_
was. Men, demanding jests and amusement; women succeeding only by
jesting satirically about everything.
Von Heber's a man who'll _carve_ his way.... My. He's _great_. Carve
his way; one of those phrases that satisfy and worry you; short, and
leaving out nearly everything; Dr. von Heber going through life with a
chisel, intent on carving; everybody envying him; the von Heber not seen
or realised; his way is carved, he _is_ his way ... going ahead further
and further away as one listened. His poverty and drudgery behind him,
at Winnipeg, amongst the ice. Hoisting himself out of it, _making_
himself into a doctor; a graduate of "McGill" ... standing out among
the graduates with even the very manner of success more marked in him
than in them with their money and ease; sailing to England steady-minded
in the awful risk of borrowed money ... it's wrong, insulting to him
to think of it while he is still in the midst of the effort ... a sort
of treachery to know the details at all ... the _impossibility_ of not
dwelling on them. But thinking disperses his general effect. In the
strength and sunshine of him there is power. The things he has done are
the power in him; no need to know the gossipy details; that was why the
facts sounded so familiar; reproachful, as Dr. Hurd brought them
out....
I knew _all_ about him when I met his sunshine. I ought to have rushed
away garlanded with hawthorn, with some woman, and waited till he came
again. Dr. Hurd looks like an old woman; an old gossip. Old men are
worse gossips than old women. They can't keep their hands off. They make
phrases. Dr. Hurd is a dead, dead old woman. Handling things like an old
man. It was so natural to listen. 'Natural' things get you lost and
astray ... kiss-in-the-ring 'just a little harmless nonsense ...
there's no harm in a little gay nonsense chickie.' There's no such thing
as harmless nonsense: Dissipation makes you forget everything. Secret
sacred places. George and John faithful and steady can't make those.
They smile _personally_ and the room or the landscape is immediately
silly and tame....
* * * * *
"I never met a chap who could make so much of what he knows ... pick up
... and bring them out better than the chap could himself." The four
figures sitting in the little room round the lamp. Dr. Hurd talking his
gynæcology simply; a relief, a clear clean place in the world of
women's doctors.... Dr. Winchester talking for Dr. von Heber, his brown
beard and his frock-coat just for the time he was talking before Dr.
von Heber had grasped it all, looking like a part of the professional
world. Dr. Wayneflete's white criminal face his little white mouth
controlledly mouthing ... Wayneflete's brilliant; but he's not got von
Heber's strength nor his manner. He's quiet though that chap ... he'd do
well over here ... that spreads your thoughts about, painfully and
wholesomely. Dr. Hurd spreads his thoughts about quite simply....
* * * * *
The moment was so surprising that I forgot it. I always forget the
things that surprise me. She was hating me and hating everything. I must
have told her I was going away. When I said you can have Bunnikin back
she suddenly grew older than I. "Oh _Bunn_ikin." Their beloved Bunnikin,
as smartly dressed as Mrs. Corrie, in the smart country house way and
knowing how to gush and behave.... "Bunnikin's too _simple_." Sybil in
her blue cotton overall in the amber light in the Louis Quinze
drawing-room, one with me, wanting me because I was not simple.... I
thought she hated me all the time because I was not worldly. I should
not have known I was not simple unless she had told me; that child.
* * * * *
... Dear Mr. Bowdoin ... and I think I can promise you an audience....
I regret that I cannot come on Thursday and I am sincerely sorry
that you should think I desired an audience ... the extraordinary
pompous touchiness of men ... why didn't he see I did not dream of
suggesting he should come again just to see me. I've forgotten Mr.
Bowdoin ... and the Museum ... everything.... I sit here ... playing
to hide myself from the Baileys and he is away somewhere making people
happy. "They do not care ... they see me, they shout Ah! Don
_Clement_! I amuse them, I laugh, they think I am happy. Voilà tout,
mademoiselle.... Il n'y a qu'une chose qui m'amuse."