Interim

“That’s what I say. I can’t forgive him for that. They’re all alike. Selfish.”

“All old men like Dr. Winchester are selfish. Selfish and weak. They get to think of nothing but their comforts. And keep out of everything by talk.”

“It’s not him I mean. It’s the other one.”

“Which?” What was Mrs. Bailey going to say? What? Miriam gazed angrily.

“That’s what I must tell you. That’s why I asked you if you was under a fascination.”

“Oh well, they’ve gone. What does it matter?”

“I feel I ought to tell you. He, von Heber, had made up his mind to speak. He was one in a thousand, Winchester said. She’s lost von Heber he said. He thought the world of her, ’e sez,” gasped Mrs. Bailey. “My word, I wish I’d known what was going on.”

Miriam flinched. Mrs. Bailey must be made to go now.

“Oh really,” she said in trembling tones. “He was an awfully nice man.”

“My word. Isn’t it a pity,” said Mrs. Bailey with tears in her eyes. “It worries me something shocking.”

“Oh well, if he was so stupid.”

“Well, you can’t blame him after what Mendizzable said.”

“You haven’t told me.”

“He said he’d only to raise his finger. Oh Lawk. Well there you are, now you’ve got it all.”

Mrs. Bailey must go. Mr. Mendizabal’s mind was a French novel. He’d said French thoughts in English to the doctors. They had believed. Even Canadian men can have French minds.

“Yes. Well I see it all now. Mr. Mendizabal’s vanity is his own affair.... I’m sure I hope they’ve all had an interesting summer. I’m awfully glad you’ve told me. It’s most interesting.”

“Well, I felt it was my duty to come up and tell you. I felt you ought to know.”

“Yes ... I’m awfully glad you’ve told me. It’s like, er, a storm in a teacup.”

“It’s not them I’m thinking of. Lot of low-minded gossips. That’s my opinion. It’s the harm they do I’m thinking of.”

“They can’t do any harm. As for the doctors they’re quite able to take care of themselves.” Miriam moved impatiently about the room. But she could not let herself look at her thoughts with Mrs. Bailey there.

“Well young lady,” murmured Mrs. Bailey dolorously at last, “I felt I couldn’t do less than come up, for my own satisfaction.”

She thinks I have made a scandal, without consulting her ... her mind flew, flaming, over the gossiping household, over Mrs. Bailey’s thoughts as she pondered the evidence. Wrenching away from the spectacle she entrenched herself far off; clutching out towards the oblivion of the coming holidays; a clamour came up from the street, the swaying tumult of a fire-engine, the thunder of galloping horses, the hoarse shouts of the firemen; the outside life to which she went indifferent to any grouped faces either of approval or of condemnation.

“Don’t think about anything. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well I’ve got it off my mind now I’ve spoken.”

“It is abominable isn’t it. Never mind. I don’t care. People are perfectly welcome to talk about me if it gives them any satisfaction.”

“That is so. It’s von Heber I’m so mad about.”

“They’re all alike as you say.”

“He might have given you a chance.”

Dr. von Heber; suddenly nearer than anyone. Her own man. By his own conviction. Found away here, at Mrs. Bailey’s; Mrs. Bailey’s regret measuring his absolute genuineness. Gone away....

She steadied herself to say “Oh, if he’s selfish.”

“They’re all that, every one of them. But we’ve all got to settle in life, sooner or later.”

That was all, for Mrs. Bailey. She rallied woefully in the thought that Mrs. Bailey knew she could have settled in life if she had chosen.

Flickering faintly far away was something to be found behind all this, some silent thing she would find by herself if only Mrs. Bailey would go.

Fascinated. How did they find the word? It was true; and false. This was the way people talked. These were the true-false phrases used to sum up things for which there were no words.

They had no time. They were too busy. That was in the scheme. They were somehow prevented from doing anything. Dr. von Heber had been saved. The fascinating eyes and snorting smile had saved him; coming out of space to tell him she was a flirt. He had boasted. She adore me; hah! I tell you she adore me, he would say. It was history repeating itself. Max and Ted. Again after all these years. A Jew.

2

The unconscious, inexorable ship ... gliding across the Atlantic. They would take up their bright Canadian life again. England, a silent picture, fading.... Dear Dr. von Heber. I owe it to myself just to inform you that the legend you heard about me was untrue. Wishing you a happy and prosperous career yours truly. That would be saying I, fool, have discovered too late that I was not clever enough to let you imagine that you were the only kind of man in the world ... discreet women are sly. To get on in the world it is necessary to be sly. Von Heber is sly. Careful and prudent and sly. What did genius Wayneflete think? Genius understands everything. Discreet proper clever women are open books to him. He will never marry. Whimsical old failure, Winchester, disappearing into British Columbia; failure; decorated in his evening conversations by having been to England.... My dear von Heber, what the devil do you mean? When will you meet me? Choose your own weapons ... that would be admitting not having the right to be as free and indiscreet as one chooses ... “a woman must march with her regiment; if she is wise she does”; something like that. If a woman is sly she marches with her regiment ... all in agreement, being sly and discreet, helping each other. What for? What was the plot for? ... there’s a word ... coercion, that’s the word. Better any sort of free life.

If he could have seen. But then he would have seen those other moments too. Von Heber. Power and success. Never any moments like that. Divided life all the time always. So much for his profession, so much for her, outside it with the regiment of women. Proper men can’t bring the wild, gleaming ... channel of flowers, pulling dragging to fling yourself headlong down it and awake, dead. Dead if you do. Dead if you don’t. Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost.

3

“You’re just in time.” They had come back? He had come back for something?

“There’s a surprise waiting for you upstairs”; what surprise Mrs. Bailey; how can you be happy and mysterious; cajoling to rush on into nothing, sweeping on, talking; “a friend of yorse; Dr. Winchester’s room; she’s longing to see you.”

“Good heavens.”

Miriam fled upstairs and tapped at the door of the room below her own. A smooth fluting thoughtful voice answered tranquilly from within the spaces of the room behind the closed door. There was no one with a voice like that to speak to intimately. It was a stranger, someone she had met somewhere and given the address to; a superior worldly person serenely answering the knock of a housemaid. She went in. Tall figure, tall skirt and blouse standing at the dressing-table. The grime-screened saffron light fell on white hands pinning a skein of bright gold hair round the back of a small head. How do you do, Miriam announced, coming forward with obedient reluctance. The figure turned; a bent flushed face laughed from tumbled hair.

“’Ere I am dear; turned up like a bad penny. I’ll shake ’ands in a minute.” With compressed lips and bent frowning brow Miss Dear went on busily pinning. “Bother my silly hair,” she went on with deepening flush, “I shall be able to talk to you in a minute.”

Miriam clutched at the amazed resentment that flamed from her up and down the sudden calm unconscious facade reared between her and the demolished house, spread across the very room that had held the key to its destruction. She fought for annihilating words, but her voice had spoken ahead of her.

“Eleanor!”

With the word a soft beauty ran flickering, an edge of light about the form searched by her gazing eyes. Their shared past flowed in the room ... the skirt was a shabby thin blue serge, rubbed shiny, the skimpy cotton blouse had an ugly greyish stripe and badly cut shoulders, one and eleven at an awful shop, but she was just going to speak.

“There that’s better,” she said lowering her hands to tweak at the blouse, her blue eyes set judiciously on the face of the important Duchesse mirror, her passing servant. “’Ow are you, dear?”

“I’m all right;” thrilled Miriam, “you’re just in time for dinner.”

“I am afraid I don’t look very dinnery,” frowned Miss Dear, fingering the loose unshapely collar of her blouse. “I wonder if you could let me have a tie, just for to-day, dear.”

“I’ve got a lace one, but it’s crumply,” hazarded Miriam.

“I can manage it I daresay if you’d let me avit.”

The gong sounded. “I shan’t be a second,” Miriam promised and fled. The little stair-flight and her landing, the sunset gilded spaces of her room flung her song out into the world. The tie was worse than she had thought, its middle length crushed and grubby. She hesitated over a card of small pearl-headed lace pins, newly bought and forgotten. For fourpence three farthings the twelve smooth filmy pearl heads, their bright sharp-pointed gilt shanks pinned in a perfect even row through the neat oblong of the sheeny glazed card, lit up her drawer, bringing back the lace-hung aisles of the west-end shop, its counters spread with the fascinating details of the worldly life. The pins were the forefront of her armoury, still too blissfully new to be used.... However Eleanor arranged the tie she could not use more than three.

“Thank you dear,” she said indifferently, as if they were her own things obligingly brought in, and swiftly pinned one end of the unexamined tie to her blouse collar. With lifted chin she deftly bound the lace round and round close to her neck each swathe firmly pinned, making a column wider than the width of the lace. Above her blouse, transformed by the disappearance of its ugly collar, her graceful neck went up, a column of filmy lace. Miriam watched, learning and amazed.

“That’s better than nothing anyhow,” said Miss Dear from her sideways movements of contemplation. Three or four small pearly heads gleamed mistily from the shapely column of lace. The glazed card lay on the dressing-table crumpled and rent and empty of all its pins.

4

The dining-room was a buzz of conversation. The table was packed save for two chairs on Mrs. Bailey’s right hand. Mrs. Bailey was wearing a black satin blouse cut in a V and a piece of black ribbon-velvet tied round her neck! She was in conversation, preening and arching as she ladled out the soup, with a little lady and a big old gentleman with a patriarch beard sitting on her right bowing and smiling, personally, towards Miriam and Miss Dear as they took their seats. Miriam bowed and gazed as they went on talking. The old gentleman had a large oblong head above a large expensive spread of smooth well-cut black coat; a huge figure, sitting tall, with easily moving head reared high, massy grey hair; unspectacled smiling glistening eyes and oblong fresh cheeked face wreathed in smiles revealing gleaming squares of gold stopping in his front teeth. His voice was vast and silky, like the beard that moved as he spoke, shifting about on the serviette tucked by one corner into his neck. His little wife was like a kind bird, soft curtains of greying black hair crimping down from a beautifully twisted top-knot on either side of a clear gentle forehead. Softly gleaming eyes shone through rimless pince-nez perched delicately on her delicate nose, no ugly straight bar, a little half-hoop to join them together and at the side a delicate gold chain tucked over one ear ... she was about as old as mother had been ... she was exactly like her ... girlishly young, but untroubled; the little white ringed left hand with strange unfamiliarly expressive finger-tips and curiously mobile turned-back thumb-tip was herself in miniature. It held a little piece of bread, peaked, expressively, as she ate her soup. She was utterly familiar, no stranger; always known. Miriam adored, seeking her eyes till she looked, and meeting a gentle enveloping welcome, making no break in her continuous soft animation. The only strange thing was a curious circular sweep of her delicate jaw as she spoke; a sort of wide mouthing on some of her many quiet words, thrown in through and between and together with the louder easily audible silky tones of her husband. Mrs. Bailey sat unafraid, expanding in happiness. You will have a number of things to see she was saying. We are counting on this laddie to be our guide, said the old gentleman turning hugely to his further neighbour. Miriam’s eyes followed and met the face of Dr. Hurd ... grinning; his intensest brick-red grin. He had not gone! These were his parents. He needs a holiday too, the dear lad, said the old gentleman laying a hand on his shoulder. Dr. Hurd grinned a rueful disclaimer with his eyes still on Miriam’s and said I shan’t be sorry, his face crinkling with his unexploded hysterically leaping laugh. Mrs. Hurd’s smiling little face flickered with quickly smothered sadness. They had come all the way from Canada to share his triumph and were here smoothing his defeat.... Canadian old people. A Canadian woman ... that circular jaw movement was made by the Canadian vowels. They disturbed a woman’s small mouth more than a man’s. It must affect her thoughts, the held-open mouth; airing them; making them circular, sympathetically balanced, easier to go on from than the more narrowly mouthed English speech.... Mr. Gunner, sitting beside your son is a violinist.... Ah. We shall hope to hear him. Mr. Gunner, small and shyly smiling, next to him an enormous woman with a large school-girl face, fair straight and school-girl hair lifted in a flat wave from her broad forehead into an angry peak, angrily eating with quickly moving brawny arms coming out of elbow sleeves with cheap cream lace frilling, reluctantly forced to flop against the brawny arms. Sallow good-looking husband, olive, furious, cocksure, bilious type, clubby and knowing, flat ignorance on the top of his unconscious shiny round black skull, both snatching at scraps of Scott and Sissie and Gunner chaff, trying to smile their way in to hide their fury with each other. Too poor to get further away from each other, accustomed to boarding house life, eating rapidly and looking for more. She had several brothers; a short aristocratic upper lip and shapely scornful nostrils, brothers in the diplomatic service or the army. There was someone this side of the table they recognised as different and were watching; a tall man beyond Mrs. Barrow, a strange fine voice with wandering protesting inflections; speaking out into the world, with practised polished wandering inflections, like a tired pebble worn by the sea, going on and on, presenting the same worn wandering curves wherever it was, always a stranger everywhere, always anew presenting the strange wandering inflections; indiscriminately. That end of the table was not aware of the Hurds. Its group was wandering outside the warm glow of Canadian society. Eleanor Dear was feeling at its doors, pathetic-looking with delicate appealing head and thoughtful baby brow downcast. Us’ll wander out this evening shall us, murmured Miriam in a lover-like undertone. It was a grimace at the wide-open door of Canadian life; an ironic kick à la Harriet. Her heart beat recklessly round the certainty of writing and posting her letter. If he cared he would understand. Mrs. Hurd had come to show her Canadian society, brushing away the tangles and stains of accidental contacts; putting everything right. Of course we will, bridled Miss Dear rebuking her vulgarity. Nothing mattered now but filling up the time.

The table was breaking up; the Hurds retiring in a backward-turning group talking to Mrs. Bailey, towards the door. The others were standing about the room. The Hurds had gone. Oh-no, that’s all right, Mrs. Bailey; I’ll be all right. It was the wandering voice.... It went on, up and down, the most curious different singing tones, the sentences beginning high and dropping low and ending on an even middle tone that sounded as if it were going on. It had a meaning without the meaning of the words. Mrs. Bailey went on with some explanation and again the voice sent out its singing shape; up and down and ending on a waiting tone. Miriam looked at the speaker; a tall grey clad man, a thin pale absent-minded face, standing towards Mrs. Bailey, in a drooping lounge, giving her all his attention, several people were drifting out of the room, down-bent towards her small form; Eleanor Dear was waiting, sitting docile, making no suggestion, just right, like a sister; but his eyes never met Mrs. Bailey’s; they were fixed, burning, on something far away; his thoughts were far away, on something that never moved. There was a loud rat-tat on the front door, more than a telegram and less than a caller; a claim, familiar and peremptory. Mrs. Bailey looked sharply up. Sissie was ambling hurriedly out of the room. Oh dear, chirruped Eleanor softly, someone wants to come in. Well; I’ll say goodnight, said the grey figure and turned easily with a curious waiting halting lounge, exactly like the voice, towards the door. It could stop easily, if anyone were coming in, and wander on again in an unbroken movement. The grey shoulders passing out through the door with the gaslight on them had no look of going out of the room, desolate, they looked desolate. The room was almost empty. Mrs. Bailey was listening undisguisedly towards the hall. Sissie came in looking watchfully about. It’s Mr. Rodkin, mother dear she said sullenly. Rodkin? ’Im? gasped Mrs. Bailey, transfigured. Can I come in? asked a deep hollow insinuating voice at the door, how do you do Mrs. Bailey? Mrs. Bailey had flung the door wide and was laughing and shaking hands heartily up and down with a small swarthy black moustached little man with an armful of newspapers and a top hat pushed back on his head. Well, he said uncovering a small bony sleek black head and sliding into a chair, his hat sticking out from the hand of the arm clasping the great bundle of newspapers. How grand you are. Moy word. What’s the meaning of it? His teeth gleamed brilliantly. He had small high prominent cheek-bones, yellow beaten-in temples and a yellow hollow face; yet something almost dimpling about his smile. Aren’t we? chuckled Mrs. Bailey taking his hat. Mr. Rodkin drew his hand over his face, yawning Well I’ve been everywhere since I left; Moscow, Petersburg, Batoom, Harr-bin, everywhere. Moy wort. Miss Sissie you are a grown-up grand foine young lady. What is it all about? No joke; tell me I say. Mrs. Bailey sat at ease smiling triumphantly. A grand foine dinner.... Well you wouldn’t have me starve my boarduz. Boarders murmured Mr. Rodkin, My God. He jerked his head back with a laugh and jerked it down again. Well it’s good business anyhow. Bless my heart! They talked familiarly on, two tired worn people in a little blaze of mutual congratulation. Mr. Rodkin had come to stay at once without going away. He noticed no one but the Baileys and questioned on and on yawning and laughing with sudden jerks of his head.

Coming back from sitting flirting with Eleanor at Donizetti’s, Miriam wandered impatiently into the dark dining-room. Eleanor was not her guest. Why didn’t she go up to her room and leave her to the dim street-lit dining-room and the nightly journey up through the darkness to her garret in freedom. Bed-time she hinted irritably, tugging at the tether. Bed-time echoed Eleanor, her smooth humouring nurse’s voice bringing in her world of watchful diplomatic manœuvring, scattering the waiting population of the familiar dim room. I’m going to bed stated Miriam advancing towards the windows. On the table under the window that was the most brightly lit by the street-lamps was a paper, a pamphlet ... coloured; blue. She took it up. It hung limply in her hand, the paper felt pitted and poor, like very thin blotting paper. Young Ireland she read printed in thick heavy black lettering across the top of the page. The words stirred her profoundly, calling to something far away within her, long ago. Underneath the thick words two short columns side by side began immediately. They went on for several pages and were followed by short paragraphs with headings; she pressed close to the lit window, peering; there were blotchy badly printed asterisks between small groups of lines. Heavy black headings further on, like the title, but smaller, and followed by thick exclamation signs. It was a sort of little newspaper, the angry print too heavy for the thin paper. Green. It was green all through ... Ireland; home-rule. I say she exclaimed eagerly. That was the grey man. Irish. That’s all going on still she said solicitously to a large audience. What dear asked Eleanor’s figure close to her side. Ireland, breathed Miriam. We’ve got a home-ruler in the house. Look at this; green all through. It’s some propaganda, in London, very angry. I ’ope the home-ruler isn’t green all through chuckled Eleanor smoothly. It’s the wearin’ o’ the green scolded Miriam. The Emerald Isle. We’re so stupid. An Irish girl I knew told me she ‘just couldn’t bear to face thinking’ of the way we treat our children.

Leaving Eleanor abruptly in darkness in her bedroom she shut the door and stepped into freedom. The cistern gurgled from the upper dark freshness. Her world was uninvaded. Klah-rah Buck, in reverent unctuousness, waiting for responsive awe from those sitting round. He meant Clara Butt. Then she had been to Canada. He had expected.... Little Mrs. Hurd had sat birdlike at a Morning Musical hearing the sweep of the tremendous voice. I have never heard it, but I know how it rolls tremendously out and sweeps. I can hear it by its effect on them. They would not believe that. Rounding the sweep of the little staircase she was surprised by a light under the box-room door. Mrs. Bailey, at midnight, busy in the little box-room? How could she find room to have the door shut? Her garret felt fresh and free. Summer rain pattering on the roof in the darkness. The Colonisation of Ulster. Her mind turned the pages of a school essay, page after page, no red-ink corrections, the last page galloping along one long sentence; “until England shall have recognised her cruel folly.” 10; excellent, E.B.R. A fraud and yet not a fraud. Never having thought of Ireland before reading it up in Green, and then some strange indignation and certainty, coming suddenly while writing; there for always. I had forgotten about it. A man’s throat was cleared in the box-room. The tone of the wandering voice.... Mrs. Bailey had screwed him into that tiny hole. I’ll be all right.... What a shame. He must not know anyone knew he was there. He did not know he was the first to disturb the top landing.... He did not disturb it. There were no English thoughts in there, nothing of the downstairs house. Julia Doyle, Dublin Bay, Clontarf; fury underneath, despairing of understanding, showing how the English understood nothing, themselves nor anyone else. But the Irish were not people ... they did not care for anything. Meredith was partly Celtic. That was why his writing always felt to be pointing in some invisible direction. He wrote so much because he did not care about anything. Novelists were angry men lost in a fog. But how did they find out how to do it? Brain. Frontal development. But it was not certain that that was not just the extra piece wanted to control the bigger muscular system. Sacrificed to muscle. Going about with more muscles and a bit more brain, if size means more, doing all kinds of different set pieces of work in the world, each in a space full of problems none of them could agree about.

5

“Gracious. You’ll ave to be up early in the morning to say all those names dear.”

CHAPTER X

Eleanor’s cab rumbled away round the corner. Mrs. Bailey was still standing at the top of the steps. Miriam ran up the steps looking busily ahead. It’s going to be a lovely evening she said as she passed Mrs. Bailey. She was safely in the hall. But the front door was closed and Mrs. Bailey was in the hall just behind her. She turned abruptly, almost colliding with her, into the dining-room. Mrs. Bailey’s presence was there waiting for her in the empty room. Behind her just inside the door was Mrs. Bailey, blocking the way to the untrammelled house. There’s quite a lot of August left she quoted from the thoughts that had poured down to meet her as she stood facing the stairs. The clock on the mantelpiece was telling the time of Mrs. Bailey’s day. The empty room was waiting for the next event, a spread meal, voices sounding towards a centre, distracting attention from its increasing shabbiness ... there was never long for it to remain sounding its shabbiness, the sound of dust, into the empty space. Events going on and on, giving no time to get in, behind the dusty shabbiness to the sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing....

“What a jolly big room this is, isn’t it?” she demanded, turning towards Mrs. Bailey’s shapely skimpy form. Mrs. Bailey knew she was chafing in the airless shabby room. The windows closed to keep the dust out made the dust smell.

“Isn’t it?” agreed Mrs. Bailey cordially.

“You must have been glad to get rid of the lodgers and have possession of the whole house.”

“Yes” said Mrs. Bailey straightening the sideboard cloth.

Hearty agreement about the advantages and disadvantages of boarders and then, I think it’s very plucky of you and away upstairs. A few words about the interest of having boarders to begin getting to the door with.

“The Irishman’s an interesting specimen of humanity.”

“Isn’t he interesting,” laughed Mrs. Bailey moving further into the room.

“It’s much more interesting to have boarders than lodgers” said Miriam moving along the pathway of freedom towards the open door. Mrs. Bailey stood silent, watching politely. There was no way out. Mrs. Bailey’s presence would be waiting in the hall, and upstairs, unappeased. Miriam glanced towards her without meeting her eyes and sat limply down on the nearest chair.

“Phoo—it’s rather a relief,” she murmured.

Mrs. Bailey went briskly to the door and closed it and came freely back into the room, a little exacting figure who had seen all her selfish rejoicing. She would get up now and walk about the room, talking easily and eloquently about Eleanor’s charm and go away leaving Mrs. Bailey mystified and disposed of.

“My word” declared Mrs. Bailey tweaking the window curtains. Then Mrs. Bailey was ready and anxious to talk her over and impart her opinion. After seeming to like her so much and being so attentive and sending her off so gaily and kindly, she had some grievance. It was not the bill. It was a matter of opinion. Mrs. Bailey had been charmed and had yet seen through her. Seen what? What was the everlasting secret of Eleanor? She imagined them standing talking together, politely, and joking and laughing. Mrs. Bailey would like Eleanor’s jokes; they would be in agreement with her own opinions about things. But she had formed some idea of her and was ready to express it. If it explained anything one would have to accept it, from Mrs. Bailey. To make nice general remarks about her and enquire insincerely about the bill would be never to get Mrs. Bailey’s uninfluenced opinion. She would not give it unless she were asked.

“I’m awfully sorry for her,” she said in Eve’s voice. That would mean just her poverty and her few clothes and delicate health. There could be an insincere discussion. It might end in nothing and the mean selfish joy would still be waiting upstairs as soon as one had forgotten that it was mean and selfish.

“So am I” said Mrs. Bailey heartily. There was anger in her face. There really was something, some really bad opinion about Eleanor. Mrs. Bailey thought these things more important than joyful freedom. She was one of those people who would do things; then there were other people too; then one need not trouble about what it was or warn people against Eleanor. The world would find out and protect itself, passing her on. If Mrs. Bailey felt there was something wrong, no one need feel blamed for thinking so. There was. What was it?

“I’m the last to be down on anyone in difficulties” said Mrs. Bailey.

“Oh yes.” It was coming.

“It’s the way of people I look to.” She stopped. If she were not pressed she would say no more.

“Well you know I told you at once that you must have her here at your own risk after the first week, and that I hardly knew anything about her.” If she had paid the two weeks so easily perhaps Mr. Taunton was still looking after her needs. No. She would have mentioned him. He had dropped her entirely; after all he had said.

“I’m not blaming you, young lady.” Perhaps Mrs. Bailey had offered advice and been rebuffed in some way. There would be some mysterious description of character; like the Norwegian ... ‘selfish in a way I couldn’t describe to you’....

“If I’d known what it was going to be I’d not have had her in the house two days.”

... some man ... who? ... but they were out all day and Eleanor had been with her every evening. Besides Mrs. Bailey would sympathise with that.... She was furiously angry; “not two days.” But she had been charmed. Charmed and admiring.

“Did she flirt with some one?”

“That” said Mrs. Bailey gravely, “I can’t tell you. She may have; that’s her own affair. I wouldn’t necessary blame her. Everyone’s free to do as they like provided they behave theirselves.” Mrs. Bailey was brushing at her skirt with downcast eyes.

... This woman had opened Dr. von Heber’s letter; knew he was coming next year; knew that he “would not have permitted” any talk at all, and that all her interference was meaningless. He was coming, carrying his suitcase out of the hospital, no need for the smart educated Canadian nurses to think about him ... taking ship ... coming back. Perhaps she resented having been in the wrong.

“It was funny how she found a case so suddenly,” said Miriam drawing herself upright, careless, like a tree in the wind. She had already forgotten she would always feel like that, her bearing altered for ever, held up by him, like a tree in the wind, everyone powerless to embarrass her. Poor Mrs. Bailey....

“You see I feel I drove her to it, in a way.”

Mrs. Bailey listened smiling keenly.

“Yes you see” pursued Miriam cheerfully, “I told her she would be all right for a week. I blamed you for that, said you were flourishing and she could pay when her ship came home.”

“That’s what you told her eh?”

“Well and then when she admitted she had no money and I knew I couldn’t manage more than a week, I advised her to apply to the C.O.S. She said she would and seemed delighted and when I asked her about it later she cried and said she hadn’t been. I said she must do something and then suddenly this case appeared. Where I don’t know.”

“I don’t blame her for not wanting to go there.”

“Why?”

“My word. I’d as soon go straight to the parish.”

“Wilberforce believes in them. He says if you really want to help the helpless you will not flaunt your name in subscription lists but hand your money over to the C.O.S. They are the only charitable organization that does not pauperise.”

“Him? Wilberforce? He has a right to his own opinions I don’t deny. But if he’d ever been in difficulties he might change them. Insulting, that’s my opinion. My word the questions they ask. You can’t call your soul your own.”

“I didn’t know that. That friend my sister brought here was being helped by them.”

“How is Miss Henderson?”

“Perfectly happy. Being with the Greens again seems Paradise she says, after London. She’s satisfied now.”

“Mts. She’s a sweet young lady; them’s fortunate as have her.”

“Well now she’s tried something else she appreciates the beautiful home. I don’t think she wants to be free.”

“Quite so. Persons differ. But she’s her own mistress; free to leave.”

“Of course it’s nicer now. The children are at school. She’s confidential companion. They all like her so much. They invented it for her.”

“Quite right. That’s as it should be.”

“And she is absolutely in Mrs. Green’s confidence now. I don’t know what poor Mrs. Green would do without her. She went back just in time for a most fearful tragedy.”

“Tss; dear—dear” murmured Mrs. Bailey waiting with frowning calm eagerness. Miriam hesitated. It would be a long difficult story to make Mrs. Bailey see stupid commercial wealth. She would see wealthy “people,” a “gentleman” living in a large country house, and not understand Mr. Green at all; but Eve, getting the bunch of keys from the ironmonger’s and writing to Bennett to find out about Rupert Street ... and the detective. She would have it in her mind like a novel and never let it go. It would be a breach of confidence.... She paused, not knowing what to do with her sudden animation. It was too late to get back into being an impartial listener, on the verge of going away. She had told everything, without the interesting details. Mrs. Bailey was waiting for them. They were still safe. She might think it was an illness or something about a relative. The only thing to do now was to stay and work off the unexplained animation on anything Mrs. Bailey might choose to say. “Well” said Mrs. Bailey presently, “to return to our friend. What I say is, why doesn’t she go to the clergy, in her own parish?”

“Go on the parish, m’m.”

“Not necessarily on the parish. The clergy’s most helpful and sympathetic. They might tell her of those who would help her.”

“They might. But it’s most awfully difficult. Nobody knows what ought to be done about these things.”

“That is so. But there’s a right and a wrong in everything. There’s plenty of people willing to help those that will help theirselves. But that’s very different to coming into a person’s house to try and get money out of strangers.”

“I say.”

“It is I say. I never felt so ashamed in my life.”

“I say.... Did they tell you?”

“Mrs. Hurd came to me herself.”

“Mrs. Hurd. Of course, it would be.”

“My word. I was wild. And them only just come into my house.”

“Yes, of course; I say.”

“Tellin’ them she was ill.”

“She is ill you know.”

“There’s some imagines theirselves ill. If she was anything like as ill as I am she might have something to complain about.”

“I think she’s rather plucky. She doesn’t want to give in. It’s a kind of illness that doesn’t show much. I know her doctor. He’s a Harley Street man. He says that her kind of disorder makes it absolutely impossible for the patient to tell the truth. I don’t believe that. It’s just one of those doctory things they all repeat.”... What is truth said jesting Pilate and did not wait for an answer. Their idea of truth—

“Well if she is ill why doesn’t she act according?”

“Look after herself a bit. Yes. That’s what she wants to do. But not give in.”

“Quite so. That’s a thing a person can understand. But that doesn’t make it right to come to private people and behave in the way she has done. Strangers. I never met such conduct, nor heard of it.”

“No.”

“She’s got relatives I suppose; or friends.”

“Well, that’s just it. I don’t think she has. I suppose the truth is all her friends are tired of helping her.”

“Well, I’m not judging her there. There’s none can be so cruel as relatives, as I know, my word.”

“Yes.”

“They’ll turn from you when you’re struggling to the utmost to help yourself, going on ill, left with four young children, your husband cut off and not a penny.”

“Yes.”

“I agree with her there. I owe all I have, under Providence, to my own hands and the help coming from strangers I had no claim on. But why doesn’t she act open? That’s what I say and I know it. There’s always those ready to help you if you’ll do your part. It’s all take and no give with some.”

“Vampires. People are extraordinary.”

“You’d say so if you had this house to manage.”

“I suppose so.”

“You get your eyes open. With one and another.”

“I’d no idea she’d even been talking to the Hurds.”

“Talk? Well I don’t mind telling you now she’s gone.”

“Well, she won’t come back again. If she ever does Mrs. Bailey I hereby refuse all responsibility. On your head be it if you take her in. I can’t keep her.”

“Well, as I say, I’m free to tell you. They used to go upstairs into the drawn-room, mornings, after breakfast. I could hear that woman’s voice going on and on. I was up and down the stairs. What’s more she used to stop dead the minute I came in.”

“Well I am sorry you’ve had all this.”

“I’m not blaming you, young lady.”

“What about all the others?”

“Rodkin and Helsing and Gunner’s out all day.”

“She’d be clever to get anything out of any of them.”

“I wonder she didn’t try Mrs. Barrow. She’s kind I’m sure and gullible.”

“She’s very kind no doubt in her way. Anyway she’s not one of those who live on a widow woman and pay nothing.”

The old sense of the house was crumbling. To Mrs. Bailey it was worry and things she could not talk about to anyone, and a few nice people here and there. And all the time she was polite; as if she liked them all, equally. And they were polite. Everyone was polite. And behind it was all this. Shifts and secrets and strange characters. When they were all together at Mrs. Bailey’s dinner, they were all carrying things off, politely. Perhaps already she regretted having sent away the lodgers.

“The doctors were nice people to have in the house.”

“Wasn’t they dear boys? Very nice gentlemen. Canadians are the ones to my mind, though I believe as much as any in standing by your own. But you’ve got to consider your interests.”

“Of course.”

“That’s why I mean to advertiss. My word those Hurds are good friends if you like. I couldn’t tell you. The old man’s put an advert for me in the Canadian place in the city.”

“Then you’ll have a houseful of Canadians.”

“That’s what I hope. The more the better of their kind.”

“We shall all be speaking Canadian.”

“Well, since we’re on the subject, Mrs. Hurd advises me to go to Canada. Says it’s all work and no pay over here. Everybody expects too much for too little.”

How could she rejoice in the idea of a house full of Canadians? All the same. Canadian. It would change the house more and more. Mrs. Bailey would not mind that. The house meant nothing to her just as it was with its effect. She had to make it pay. If another house would pay better she would just as soon have another house. “You wouldn’t like to leave London; there’s no place like London.” The Hurds thought everyone in the house selfish, living on Mrs. Bailey’s work, enjoying the house for nothing, forgetting her. It was true ... uneasy in her presence....

CHAPTER XI

Miriam got up early the next morning and went to her window in her night-gown. There was a thick August haze in the square. The air smelt moist. She leaned out into the chill of it. Her body was full of sleep and strength; all one strength from head to feet. She heard life in the silence, and went through her getting up as quickly as possible, listening all the time to the fresh silence.

She went downstairs feeling like a balloon on a string; her feet touching the stairs lightly as if there were no weight in her body. At the end of the long journey came the smiling familiar surprise of the hall. The hall table was clear, a stretch of grey marble in the morning light. The letters had been taken into the dining-room. There was something, a package, on the far corner, a book package, with a note, Silurian blue, Eleanor. Small straggly round handwriting, yes, Eleanor’s, R. Rodkin, Esq: Ah. Mr. Rodkin. How had she done it? When? Carrying off a book. Pretending she had forgotten, and writing. Sly cleverness. What a blessing she had gone.... Booming through her uneasiness came a great voice from the dining-room. Through the misty corridors of the Dawn it bellowed. She went gladly in towards poetry. Mrs. Bailey was presiding over an early breakfast. The Irishman, sitting back mirthfully in his chair on the far side of the table and at his side a big stout man with a bushy black beard, brilliant laughing eyes staring at nothing from a flushed face. Mrs. Bailey was watching him with a polite smile; he looked as though he were at supper; making the room seem hot, obliterating the time of day. I expect you had a rough crossing, she said politely. I saw her, he bellowed flinging back his head and roaring out words and laughter together. She walks in Beauty. I saw her sandalled feet; upon the Hills.

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