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 ... goodness!”

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.