It was quite a long letter—signed with a large “Bob” set crosswise. It began by asking her advice about a wedding present for Harriett and ended with the suggestion that she should meet him and help him to make a suitable selection. It was written from the British Chess Club, to her, because Bob Greville wanted to see her. Harriett’s wedding present was only an excuse. She flung the envelope and the two sheets of notepaper, spread loose, on her blue coverlet and smiled into her cup as she finished her coffee. Old Bob did not know that he had clad her in armour. He wanted to meet her alone. They two people were to meet and talk, without any reason, because they wanted to. But what could she have to say to anyone who thought that Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures, even a nice edition bound in calf, or How to be Happy though Married, suitable for a wedding present for Harriett, or for anybody? Still, they might write to each other. It was right that letters, secret letters, should be brought into her blue room in the morning with her breakfast. She dropped out of bed smiling and sniffed at the roses she had worn the day before, standing in a glass on her washstand, freshened, half faded, half fresh, intoxicating as she bent over them. She dressed, without drawing back her curtains, in the soft rose-blue light, singing Mrs. Kronen’s song in an undertone.
2
At eleven o’clock Mrs. Corrie swept into the schoolroom. Miriam looked easily up at her from the dreamy thicket where she and the children had spent their hour, united and content, speaking in undertones, getting easily through books that had seemed tiresome and indifferent the day before. She had felt the play of her mind on theirs and their steady adult response. They had joined as conspirators in this mad contemptible business of mastering the trick of the text-book, each dreaming the while his own dream.
“You darlings,” cried Mrs. Corrie, “how sweet you all look!” They raised drunken eyes and beamed drowsily at her. “Give them a holiday,” said Mrs. Corrie, raising her hands over the table like a conductor about to start an orchestra. “Give them a holiday—a picnic—and come and buy hats!”
In a moment the room was in an uproar of capering figures. “Hats! A new hat for Rollo! Heaps of cash! I’ve got heaps of cash!”
Miriam blinked from her thicket. This was anarchy; she felt herself sliding. But they were so old. All so old and experienced. She so young, by so far the youngest of the four.
3
Mrs. Corrie sat back in the victoria, her face alight under the cream lace veil she had twisted round her soft winter hat, and talked in quiet clipped phrases: soft shouts. They were driving swiftly through the fresh warmth of the April midday.
They were off for the afternoon. The commons gleamed a prelude. Miriam saw that Mrs. Corrie did not notice them nor think of sweeping back across them later on through the afternoon air and seeing them move and gleam in the afternoon light. She did not think of the bright shops, the strangely dyed artificial flowers with their curious fascinating smell interwoven with the strange warm smell of velvet and chenille and straw.... Miriam had once bought a hat in a shop in Kensington. As long as it lasted it had kept for her whenever she looked at its softly dyed curiously plaited straw something of the exciting fascination of the shop, the curious faint flat odours of millinery, the peculiar dim warm smell of silks and velvets—silk, China and Japan, silkworms weaving shining threads in the dark. Even when it had become associated with outings and events and shabby with exposure it remained each time she took it afresh from its box of wrappings, a mysterious sacred thing; and the soft blending of its colours, the coiled restraint of its shape, the texture of its snuggled trimmings were a support, refreshing her thoughts. She had never known anyone who went regularly to good hatshops; the sense of them as a part of life was linked only with Mrs. Kronen—Mrs. Kronen’s little close toque made of delicately shaded velvet violets and lined with satin, her silky peacock blue straw shining with rich filmy tones, its mass of dull shot blue-green ribbon and the soft rose pink of its velvet roses. These hats had excited Mrs. Corrie; the hats and the sand-coloured silk dust cloak explained her cheque and her sudden happiness. But they only made her want to buy hats. The going and the shops were nothing to her. She talked about the Kronens as they drove, speaking as though she wanted Miriam to hear without answering. “She knows Mrs. Kronen fascinates me,” thought Miriam.
“Ain’t they a pair, lordy ... him divorced and her divorced and then marryin’ each other. Ain’t it scandalous, eh?”
People like the Corries disapproved of people like the Kronens, but had them to stay with them and were excited about their clothes. Miriam returned to listen to the singing of her body; it would sing until they got to the station. As she listened she held firmly clasped the letter she had addressed to the British Chess Club to say she would be nowhere near London until the weddings. “She doesn’t care a rap about him—not a teeny rap ... she’s a wise lady ... dollars—that’s the thing,” whispered Mrs. Corrie gaily. What does she want me to say? thought Miriam. What would she say if I pretended to agree?
Should she tell her about the weddings? Perhaps not. It would be time enough, she reflected rapidly, when she had to ask permission to go home for them. Mrs. Corrie had not asked her a single question about things at home, and if she were to say, “We used to live in a big house and my father lost nearly all his money and we live now in a tiny villa and two of my sisters are to be married,” it would break into this strange easy new life. It would break the charm and not bring her any nearer to Mrs. Corrie. And Mrs. Corrie would not really understand about the home troubles. Mrs. Corrie had always been lonely and sad, inside. She had been an orphan, but brought up by a wealthy uncle and always living in wealth and now she seemed to think about nothing but the children and the house and the garden—hating theatres and dances and never going to them or paying visits or seeing the wonder of anything. She would only say, “Don’t you marry yourself off, young lady, marriage is a fraud. You wait for a wealthy one.” Whatever one said to her, whatever joy one showed her would lead to that.
But the two weddings hovered about the commons. They were a great possession. Nothing to worry about in them. Gerald and Bennett who had managed everything since the smash would manage them. Sarah and Harriet would be married from the little villa and would be Mrs. Brodie and Mrs. Ducayne just like anybody else. So safe. And she herself, free, getting interesting letters, going up to town with Mrs. Corrie, no worry, spring hats and the commons and garden waiting for them. She was sure she did not want to see the commons overburdened by the idea of her own wedding. Two was enough for the present. Of course, some day—someone, somewhere, wonderful and different from everyone else. Cash—no, not business and cigars and offices ... the city, horrible bloated men with shapeless figures, horrible chemists’ shops advertising pick-me-ups ... a cottage—a cottage. Why did people laugh at love in a cottage? The outsides of cottages were the best part, everyone said. They were dark inside; but why not? A lamp; and outside the garden and the light.
“She’s had all kinds of operations,” mused Mrs. Corrie.
“Really?”
“Deadly awful. In nursing homes. She’ll never have any kiddies.” Were there cold shadows on everything, everywhere?
She turned a pleading face to Mrs. Corrie. They were driving into the station yard.
“It’s true, true, true,” laughed Mrs. Corrie. “She doesn’t care, she doesn’t want any. They’re all like that, that sort.”
Miriam mused intensely. She felt Mrs. Kronen ought to be there to answer. She had some secret Mrs. Corrie did not possess. Mrs. Corrie looked suddenly small and mild and funny. Why did she think it dreadful that Mrs. Kronen should have no children? There was nothing wonderful in having children. It was better to sing. She was perfectly sure that she herself did not want children.... “Superior women don’t marry,” she said, “sir she said, sir she said, su, per, i, or women”—but that meant blue stockings.
4
“I don’t want a silly hat,” said Mrs. Corrie, as their hansom drew up in bright sunlight outside a milliner’s at the southern end of Regent Street. “Let’s buy a real lovely teapot or a Bartolozzi or somethin’. What fun to go home with somethin’ real nice. Eh? A real real beauty Dresden teapot,” she chanted, floating into the dimness of the shop where large hats standing on long straight stands flared softly like blossoms in the twilight.
She swept about in her flowing lace-trimmed twine-coloured overcoat on the green velvet carpet, or stood ruthlessly trying on a hat, pressing its wire frame to fit her head, crushing her fingers into tucked tulle, talking and trying, and discarding until the collection was exhausted. Miriam sat angry and admiring, wondering at the subdued helplessness of the satin-clad assistant, sorry for the discarded hats lying carelessly about, their glory dimmed. All the hats, whatever their shape or colour seemed to her to decorate the bronze head and the twine-coloured coat. The little toques gave slenderness and willowy height, and the large flowered ribboned hats, the moment a veil draped the boniness of the face made, Miriam felt, an entrancing picturesqueness. With each hat Mrs. Corrie addressed the large mirror calling herself a freak, a sketch, a nightmare, a real real fogey.
5
The process seemed endless and Miriam sat at last scourging herself with angry questions. “Why doesn’t she decide,” she found herself repeating almost aloud, her hot tired eyes turning for relief to the soft guipure-edged tussore curtain screening the lower part of the window, “what kind of hat she really wants and then look at the few most like it and perhaps have one altered?...” “It’s so awfully silly not to have a plan. She’ll go on simply for ever.” But the soft curtain running so evenly along its smooth clean brass rod was restful, and plan or no plan the trouble would presently come to an end and there would be no discomforts to face when it was over—no vulgar bun shops, no struggling on to a penny ’bus with your ride perhaps spoiled by a dreadful neighbour, but Regent Street in the bright sun, a hansom, a smart obliging driver with a buttonhole, skimming along to tea somewhere, the first-class journey home, the carriage at the station, the green commons.
“Perhaps,” said the assistant at last in a cheerful suggestive furious voice, flinging aside with just Mrs. Corrie’s cheerful abandon, a large cream lace hat with a soft fresh mass of tiny banksia roses under its left brim, “Perhaps moddom will allow me to make her a shape and trim it to her own design.”
Mrs. Corrie stood arrested in the middle of the green velvet floor. Wearily Miriam faced the possibility of the development of this fresh opportunity for going on for ever.
“Wouldn’t that be lovely?” said Mrs. Corrie, turning to her enthusiastically.
“Yes,” said Miriam eagerly. Both women were facing her and she felt that anything would be better than their united contemplation of her brown stuff dress with its square sleeves and her brown straw hat with black ribbon and its yellow paper buttercups.
“Can’t be did though,” said Mrs. Corrie in a cold level voice, turning swiftly back to the hats massed in a confused heap on the mahogany slab. Standing over them and tweaking at one and another as she spoke she made a quiet little speech, indicating that such and such might do for the garden and such others for driving, some dozen altogether she finally ordered to be sent at once to an address in Brook Street where she would make her final selection whilst the messenger waited. “Have you got the address all right?” she wound up; “so kind of you.” “Come along, you poor thing you look worn out,” she cried to Miriam, without looking at her as she swept from the shop. She waved her sunshade at a passing hansom and as it drew sharply up with an exciting clatter near the curb she grasped Miriam’s arm, “Shall we try Perrin’s? It’s only three doors up.” Miriam glanced along and caught a glimpse of another hat shop. “Do you really want to?” she suggested reluctantly. “No! No! not a bit old spoil sport. Chum yong, jump in,” laughed Mrs. Corrie.
“Oh, if you really want to,” began Miriam, but Mrs. Corrie, singing out the address to the driver was putting her into the cab and showing her how to make an easy passage for the one who gets last into a hansom by slipping into the near corner. Her appreciation of this little manoeuvre helped her over her contrition and she responded with gay insincerity to Mrs. Corrie’s assurance of the fun they would have over the hats at Mrs. Kronen’s.... Tea at Mrs. Kronen’s then. How strange and alarming ... but she felt too tired to sustain a tÊte-À-tÊte at a smart tea shop. “After tea we’ll drop into a china shop and get somethin’ real nice,” said Mrs. Corrie excitedly, as they bowled up Regent Street.
They found Mrs. Kronen in a mauve and white drawing-room, reclining on a mauve and white striped settee in a pale mauve tea gown. On a large low table a frail mauve tea service stood ready, and Mrs. Kronen rose tall to welcome them dropping on to the mauve carpet a little volume bound in pale green velvet. On a second low table were strawberries in a shallow wide bowl, a squat jug brimming with cream, dark wedding cake hiding a pewter plate, a silken bag unloosed, showing marvellous large various sweetmeats heavy against its silk lining. As Mrs. Kronen slurred her fingers across Miriam’s hand she ordered the manservant who had dipped and gathered up the green velvet volume to ask for the tea-cakes.
7
Then this was “Society.” To come so easily up from the Corries’ beautiful home, via the West End hat shop to this wonderful West End flat and eat strawberries in April.... If only the home people could see. Her fatigue vanished. Secure from Mrs. Kronen’s notice she sat in a mauve and white striped chair and contemplated her surroundings.
While they were waiting for the tea-cakes, Mrs. Kronen trailed about the mauve floor reciting her impressions of the weather. “So lovely,” she intoned in her curious half-Cockney. “I almost—went—out. But I haven’t. I—haven’t—stirred. It is lovely inside on this sort of spring day—the light.”
She paused and swept about. There is something about her, thought Miriam. It’s true, the light inside on a clear spring day.... I never thought of that. It is somehow spring in here in the middle of London in some real way. Her blood leaped and sang as it had done driving across the commons; but even more sweetly and keenly. It wouldn’t be, in a dingy room, even in the country.... It’s an essence—something you feel in the right surroundings.... What chances these people have. They get the most out of everything. Get everything in advance and over and over again. They can go into the country any minute as well as have clear light rooms. Nothing is ever grubby. And London there, all round; London ... London was a soft, sea-like sound; a sound shutting in the spring. The spring gleamed and thrilled through everything in the pure bright room.... She hoped Mrs. Kronen would say no more about the light. Light, light, light. As the manservant brewed the tea and the silver teapot shone in the light as he moved it—silver and strange black splashes of light—caught and moving in the room. Drawing off her gloves she felt as if she could touch the flowing light.... Flowing in out of the dawn, moving and flowing and brooding and changing all day, in rooms. Mrs. Kronen was back on her settee sitting upright in her mauve gown, all strong soft curves. “That play of Wilde’s ...” she said. Miriam shook at the name. “You ought not to miss it. He—has—such—genius.” Wilde ... Wilde ... a play in the spring—someone named Wilde. Wild spring. That was genius. There was something in the name.... “Never go to the theatre; never, never, never,” Mrs. Corrie was saying, “too much of a bore.” Genius ... genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. Capacity. A silly definition; like a proverb—made up by somebody who wanted to explain.... Wylde, Wilde.... Spring.... Genius.
8
The little feast was over and Mrs. Kronen was puffing at a cigarette when the hats were announced. As the fine incense reached her Miriam regretted that she had not confessed to being a smoker. The suggestion of tobacco brought the charm of the afternoon to its height. When the magic of the scented cloud drew her eyes to Mrs. Kronen’s face it was almost intolerable in its keenness. She gazed wondering whether Mrs. Kronen felt so nearly wild with happiness as she did herself.... Life what are you—what is life? she almost said aloud. The face was uplifted as it had been in the photograph, but with all the colour, the firm bows of gold hair, the colour in the face and strong white pillar of neck, the eyes closed instead of staring upwards and the rather full mouth flattened and drooping with its weight into a sort of tragic shapeliness—like some martyr ... that picture by Rossetti, Beata Beatrix, thought Miriam ... perfect reality. She liked Mrs. Kronen for smoking like that. She was not doing it for show. She would have smoked in the same way if she had been alone. She probably wished she was, as Mrs. Corrie did not smoke. How she must have hated missing her smokes at Newlands, unless she had smoked in her room.
“It’s—a—mis-take,” said Mrs. Kronen incredulously, in response to the man’s announcement of the arrival of the hats. She waved her cigarette “imperiously,” thought Miriam, “how she enjoys showing off” ... to and fro in time with her words. Mrs. Corrie rose laughing and explaining and apologising. Waving her cigarette about once more Mrs. Kronen ordered the hats to be brought in and her maid to be summoned, but retained her expression of vexed incredulity. She’s simply longing for us to be off now, thought Miriam, and changed her opinion a few moments later when Mrs. Kronen, assuming on the settee the reclining position in which they had found her when they came in, disposed one by one of the hats as Mrs. Corrie and the maid freed them from their boxes and wrappings, with a little flourish of the cigarette and a few slow words.... “Im-poss-i-ble; not-in-key-with-your-lines; slightly too ingÉnue,” etc.: to three or four she gave a grudging approval, whereupon Mrs. Corrie who was laughing and pouncing from box to box would stand upright and pace holding the favoured hat rakishly on her head. The selection was soon made and Miriam, whose weariness had returned with the millinery, was sent off to instruct the messenger that three hats had been selected and a bill might be sent to Brook Street in the morning.
As she was treating with the messenger in the little mauve and white hall, Mrs. Corrie came out and tapped her on the shoulder. Turning, Miriam found her smiling and mysterious. “We’re going by the 5.30,” she whispered. “Would you like to go for a walk for half an hour and come back here?”
“Rather!” said Miriam heartily, with a break in her voice and feeling utterly crushed. The beautiful clear room. She loved it and belonged to it. She was turned out. “All right,” smiled Mrs. Corrie encouragingly and disappeared. Under the eyes of the messenger and the servants who were coming out of the boudoir laden with hat boxes, she got herself out through the door.
