The Tunnel · Chapter 4 (1/3)

IV

When she came to herself she was in the Strand. She walked on a little and turned aside to look at a jeweller’s window and consider being in the Strand at night. Most of the shops were still open. The traffic was still in full tide. The jeweller’s window repelled her. It was very yellow with gold, all the objects close together and each one bearing a tiny label with the price. There was a sort of commonness about the Strand, not like the cheerful commonness of Oxford Street, more like the City with its many sudden restaurants. She walked on. But there were theatres also, linking it up with the west-end and streets leading off it where people like Bob Greville had chambers. It was the tailing off of the west-end and the beginning of a deep dark richness that began about Holywell. Mysterious important churches crowded in amongst little brown lanes⁠ ⁠… the little dark brown lane.⁠ ⁠… She wondered what she had been thinking since she left Wimpole Street and whether she had come across Trafalgar Square without seeing it or round by some other way. They were fighting; sending out suffocation and misery into the surrounding air⁠ ⁠… she stopped close to the two upright balanced threatening bodies, almost touching them. The men looked at her. “Don’t,” she said imploringly and hurried on trembling.⁠ ⁠… It occurred to her that she had not seen fighting since a day in her childhood when she had wondered at the swaying bodies and sickened at the thud of a fist against a cheek. The feeling was the same today, the longing to explain somehow to the men that they could not fight.⁠ ⁠… Half-past seven. Perhaps there would not be an A.B.C. so far down. It would be impossible to get a meal. Perhaps the girls would have some coffee. An A.B.C. appeared suddenly at her side, its panes misty in the cold air. She went confidently in. It seemed nearly full of men. Never mind, city men; with a wisdom of their own which kept them going and did not affect anything, all alike and thinking the same thoughts; far away from anything she thought or knew. She walked confidently down the centre, her plaid-lined golf-cape thrown back her small brown boat-shaped felt hat suddenly hot on her head in the warmth. The shop turned at a right angle showing a large open fire with a fireguard, and a cat sitting on the hearthrug in front of it. She chose a chair at a small table in front of the fire. The velvet settees at the sides of the room were more comfortable. But it was for such a little while tonight and it was not one of her own A.B.C.s. She felt as she sat down as if she were the guest of the city men and ate her boiled egg and roll and butter and drank her small coffee in that spirit-gazing into the fire and thinking her own thoughts unresentful of the uncongenial scraps of talk that now and again penetrated her thoughts; the complacent laughter of the men amazed her; their amazing unconsciousness of the things that were written all over them.

The fire blazed into her face. She dropped her cape over the back of her chair and sat in the glow; the small pat of butter was not enough for the large roll. Pictures came out of the fire, the strange moment in her room, the smashing of the plaque, the lamplit den; Mr. Orly’s song, the strange rich difficult day and now her untouched self here, free, unseen and strong, the strong world of London all round her, strong free untouched people, in a dark lit wilderness happy and miserable in their own way, going about the streets looking at nothing, thinking about no special person or thing, as long as they were there, being in London.

Even the business people who went about intent, going to definite places were in the secret of London and looked free. The expression of the collar and hair of many of them said they had homes. But they got away from them. No one who had never been alone in London was quite alive.⁠ ⁠… I’m free⁠—I’ve got free⁠—nothing can ever alter that she thought, gazing wide-eyed into the fire, between fear and joy. The strange familiar pang gave the place a sort of consecration. A strength was piling up within her. She would go out unregretfully at closing time and up through wonderful unknown streets, not her own streets till she found Holborn and then up and round through the Squares.

On the hall table lay a letter⁠ ⁠… from Alma; under the shadow of the bronze soldier leaning on his gun. Miriam gathered it up swiftly. No one knew her here⁠ ⁠… no past and no future⁠ ⁠… coming in and out unknown, in the present secret wonder. Pausing for a moment near the smeary dimly-lit marble slab the letter out of sight she held this consciousness. There was no sound in the house⁠ ⁠… its huge high thick walls held all the lodgers secure and apart, fixed in richly enclosed rooms in the heart of London; secure from all the world that was not London, flying through space, swinging along on a planet spread with continents⁠—Londoners. Alma’s handwriting, the same as it had been at school only a little larger and firmer, broke into that. Of course Alma had answered the postcard⁠ ⁠… it had been an impulse, a cry of triumph after years of groping about. But it was like pulling a string. Silly. And now this had happened. But it was only a touch, only a finger laid on the secret hall table that no one had seen. The letter need not be answered. Out of sight it seemed to have gone away⁠ ⁠… destroyed unopened it would be as if it had never come and everything would be as before.⁠ ⁠… Enough, more than enough without writing to Alma. An evening paper boy was shouting raucously in the distance. The letter-box brought his voice into the hall as he passed the door. Miriam moved on up the many flights.

Upstairs she found herself eagerly tearing open the letter.⁠ ⁠… “I’ve just heard from an old schoolfellow,” she heard herself saying to the girls in Kennett Street. There was something exciting in the letter⁠ ⁠… at the end Alma Wilson (officially Mrs. G. Wilson)⁠ ⁠… strange people in the room⁠ ⁠… Alma amongst them; looking out from amongst dreadfulness. Married. She had gone in amongst the crowd already⁠—forever. How clever of her⁠ ⁠… deceitful⁠ ⁠… that little spark of Alma in her must have been deceitful⁠ ⁠… sly, at some moment. Alma’s eyes glanced at her with a new more preoccupied and covered look⁠ ⁠… she used to go sometimes to theatres with large parties of people with money and the usual dresses who never thought anything about anything⁠ ⁠… perhaps that was part of the reason, perhaps Alma was more that than she had thought⁠ ⁠… marrying in the sort of way she went to theatre-parties⁠—clever. The letter was full of excitement⁠ ⁠… Alma leaping up from her marriage and clutching at her⁠ ⁠… not really married; dancing to some tune in some usual way like all those women and jumping up in a way that fizzled and could not be kept up.⁠ ⁠…

“You dear old thing!⁠ ⁠… fell out of the sky this morning⁠ ⁠… to fill pages with ‘you dear old thing!’⁠ ⁠… see you at once! Immediately!⁠ ⁠… come up to town and meet you⁠ ⁠… some sequestered teashop⁠ ⁠… our ancient heads together⁠ ⁠… tell you all that has happened to me since those days⁠ ⁠… next Thursday⁠ ⁠… let you know how really really rejoiced I am⁠ ⁠… break the very elderly fact that I am married⁠ ⁠… but that makes no difference.⁠ ⁠…” That would not be so bad⁠—seeing Alma alone in a tea shop in the west end; in a part of the new life, that would be all right; nothing need happen, nothing would be touched, “all I have had the temerity to do⁠ ⁠…” what did that mean?

Unpinning the buckram-stiffened black velvet band from her neck, she felt again with a rush of joy that her day was beginning and moved eagerly about amongst the strange angles and shadows of her room, the rich day all about her. Somebody had put up her little varnished oak bookshelf just in the right place, the lower shelf in a line with the little mantelpiece. When the gas bracket was swung out from the wall the naked flame shone on the backs of the indiscriminately arranged books⁠ ⁠… the calf-bound Shakespeare could be read now comfortably in the immense fresh dark night under the gas flame; the Perne’s memorial edition of Tennyson.⁠ ⁠… She washed her face and hands in hard cold water at the little rickety washstand, yellow-grained rich beloved, drying them on the thin holey face towel hurriedly. Lying neatly folded amongst the confusion of oddments in a top drawer was her lace tie. Holding it out to its full length she spread it against her neck, crossed the ends at the back bringing them back round her neck to spread in a narrow flat plastron to her waist, kept in place by a brooch at the top and a pin fastened invisibly halfway down. Her face shone fresh and young above the creamy lace⁠ ⁠… the tie was still fairly new and crisp⁠ ⁠… when it had to be washed it would be limp⁠ ⁠… but it would go on some time just for evenings transforming her harsh black John Doble half guinea costume into evening dress. For some moments she contemplated its pleasant continuous pattern and the way the rounded patterned ends fell just below the belt.⁠ ⁠…

The top-floor bell would not ring. After some hesitation Miriam rang the house bell. The door was opened by a woman in a silk petticoat and a dressing jacket. Miriam gazed dumbly into large clear blue eyes gazing at her from a large clean clear fresh face feathered with little soft natural curls, cut out sharply against the dark passage.

“Are you for the top?” enquired the woman in a smooth serene sleepy voice.

“Yes,” announced Miriam eagerly coming in and closing the door, her ears straining to catch the placid words spoken by the woman as she disappeared softly into a softly-lit room. She went tremulously up the dark stairs into a thick stale odour of rancid fried grease and on towards a light that glimmered from the topmost short flight of steep uncarpeted winding stairs. “They’re in,” said her thoughts with a quick warm leap. “Hullo,” she asserted, ascending the stairs.

“Hullo,” came in response a quick challenging voice⁠ ⁠… a soft clear reed-like happy ring that Miriam felt to her knees while her happy feet stumbled on.

“Is that the Henderson?”

“It’s me,” said Miriam emerging on a tiny landing and going through the open door of a low-ceiled lamplit room. “It’s me, it’s me,” she repeated from the middle of the floor. An eager face was turned towards her from a thicket of soft dull wavy hair. She gazed vaguely. The small slippered feet planted firmly high up against the lintel the sweep of the red dressing-gown, the black patch of the Mudie book with its yellow label, the small ringed hand upon it, the outflung arm and hand, the little wreath of smoke about the end of the freshly lit cigarette, the cup of coffee on the little table under the lamp, the dim shapes about the room lit by the flickering blaze.⁠ ⁠…

Miriam smiled into the smiling steel blue of the eyes turned towards her and waited smiling for the silver reed of tone to break again. “I’m so glad you’ve come. I wanted you. Sit down and shut the door my child.⁠ ⁠… I don’t mind which you do first, but⁠—do⁠—them⁠—both,” she tinkled, stretching luxuriously and bringing her feet to the ground with a swing. Miriam closed the door. “Can I take off my things?”

“Of course child⁠ ⁠… take them all off; you know I admire you most draped in a towel.”

“I’ve got such awful feet,” said Miriam hugging the compliment as she dropped her things in a distant armchair.

“It’s not your feet, it’s your extraordinary shoes.”

“M.”

“How beautiful you look. You put on ties better than anyone I know. I wish I could wear things draped round my neck.”

Miriam sat down in the opposite wicker chair.

“Isn’t it cold⁠—my feet are freezing; it’s raining.”

“Take off your shoes.”

Miriam got off her shoes and propped them in the fender to dry.

“What is that book?”

“Eden Philpotts’s Children of the Mist,” fluted the voice reverently. “Read it?”

“No,” said Miriam expectantly.

The eager face turned to an eager profile with eyes brooding into the fire. “He’s so wonderful,” mused the voice and Miriam watched eagerly. Mag read books⁠—for their own sake; and could judge them and compare them with other books by the same author⁠ ⁠… but all this wonderful knowledge made her seem wistful; knowing all about books and plays and strangely wistful and regretful; the things that made her eyes blaze and made her talk reverently or in indignant defence always seemed sad in the end⁠ ⁠… wistful hero worship⁠ ⁠… raving about certain writers and actors as if she did not know they were people.

“He’s so wonderful,” went on the voice with its perpetual modulations “he gets all the atmosphere of the west country⁠—perfectly. You live there while you’re reading him.”

With a little chill sense of Mag in this wonderful room alone, living in the west country and herself coming in as an interruption, Miriam noted the name of the novelist in her mind⁠ ⁠… there was something about it, she knew she would not forget it; soft and numb with a slight clatter and hiss at the end, a rainstorm, the atmosphere of Devonshire and the mill-wheel.

“Devonshire people are all consumptive,” she said decisively.

“Are they?”

“Yes, it’s the mild damp air. They have lovely complexions; like the Irish. There must be any amount of consumption in Ireland.”

“I suppose there is.”

Miriam sat silent and still watching Mag’s movements as she sipped and puffed, so strangely easy and so strangely wistful in her wonderful rich Bloomsbury life⁠—and waiting for her next remark.

“You look very happy tonight child; what have you been doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You look as happy as a bird.”

“Are birds happy?”

“Of course birds are happy.”

“Well⁠—they prey on each other⁠—and they’re often frightened.”

“How wise we are.”

Brisk steps sounded on the little stairs.

“Tell me what you have been doing.”

“Oh. I don’t know. Weird things have been happening.⁠ ⁠… Oh, weird things.”

“Tell your aunt at once.” Mag gathered herself together as the brisk footsteps came into the room. “Hoh,” said a strong resonant voice, “it’s the Henderson. I thought as much.”

“Yes. Doesn’t she look pretty?”

“Yes⁠—she has a beautiful lace tie.”

“I wish I could wear things like that round my neck, don’t you von Bohlen?”

“I do. She can stick anything round her neck⁠—and look nice.”

“Anything; a garter or a⁠—a kipper.⁠ ⁠…”

“Don’t be so cracked.”

“She says weird things have been happening to her. I say I didn’t make any coffee for you and the spirit lamp wants filling.”

“Damn you⁠—Schweinhund⁠—verfluchte Schweinhund.”

Miriam had been gazing at the strong square figure in the short round fur-lined cloak and sweeping velvet hat, the firm decisive movements and imagining the delicate pointed high-heeled shoes. Presently those things would be off and the door closed on the three of them.

“There’s some Bass.”

“I’m going to have some suppe. Have some suppe, Henderson.”

“Non, merci.”

“She’s proud. Bring her some. What did you have for supper, child?”

“Oh, we had an enormous lunch. They’d had a dinner-party.”

“What did you have for supper?”

“Oh lots of things.”

“Bring her some suppe. I’m not sure I won’t have a basin myself.”

“All right. I’ll put some on.” The brisk steps went off and a voice hummed in and out of the other rooms.

Watching Mag stirring the fire, giving a last pull at her cigarette end and pushing back the hair from her face⁠ ⁠… silent and old and ravaged, and young and animated and powerful, Miriam blushed and beamed silently at her reiterated demands for an account of herself.

“I say I saw an extraordinary woman downstairs.”

Mag turned sharply and put down the poker.

“Yes?”

“In a petticoat.”

“Frederika Elizabeth! She’s seen the Pierson!”