The violent beating of her heart died down. The sun was behind her; the commons glowed. She must have been looking at them for some time because she could close her eyes and see exactly how they looked, all alive in steady colour, gleaming and fresh. The thumping and trilling of the distant piano-organ offered itself equally to everybody. It knew the secret and twirled and swept all the fussing away into a tune. Quietly the clock of the church in the little town struck four. She would be late for tea. The children would have tea with Mrs. Corrie. Wiggerson would make a fresh pot for her when she got in. There would be a little tray in her quiet room, a cup and saucer, the little sprigged silk tea-cosy, the Human Document. It would be the beginning of the weekend. It would link her up again with the early afternoon, the rose-filled drawing-room, the excited dining-room, the smell of varnish from the billiard-room floor.
Mrs. Corrie and the children were dancing in a lingering patch of sunlight at the far end of the lawn as Miriam came up the drive with her chocolates. They waved and shouted to her, trumpeting questions through their hands. She held up the bag. “Go and have tea, you poor soul,” sang Mrs. Corrie. How excited they were. In the flower-filled hall Stokes, muttering excitedly to herself, was lighting the fire. The crackling of wood came from the dining-room.
Wiggerson was swishing about in the dining-room clearing away tea.
Sitting in her low basket chair with her dismantled tea-tray at her side and a picture in her mind of the new Mrs. Kronen coming down from London in the train in bright new clothes and a dust-cloak, Miriam was startled by hearing frightened footsteps rush across the landing and a frightened voice calling for Wiggerson.
“Something’s happened,” she told herself angrily, “it always does when everybody’s so excited—‘tel qui rit vendredi dimanche pleurera.’ ”
Opening the door she found the landing empty and quiet, the setting sun streamed across its coloured spaces, the flowers blazed as if they were standing in a garden. … Joey always went for walks if she were feeling thick and fat, she always went for a long walk; in coats with skirts to match; a costume; never a jacket with a different skirt … the long cool passage leading away to the invisible door of Mr. Corrie’s room was full of wreathing smoke. Wiggerson rushed across the landing along the passage, followed by Mrs. Corrie, with her head up and her handkerchief to her nose and all her figure tense and angular and strong. Both had passed silently; but there were shriekings on the stairs and the children came at Miriam with cries and screams. “Rollo’ll be killed”; “Go to her”; “Go and save vem”; the children shrieked and leaped up and down in front of her. The boy’s white features worked as if they must dislocate; his eyes were black with terror; he wrung his hands. Sybil’s face, scarlet and shapeless and streaming with tears, blazed wrath at Miriam through her green eyes. “Be quiet,” Miriam said in loud tones. “I shall do nothing till you are quiet.” With a shriek the girl lashed at her with the dog-whip. “Save vem, save vem,” shrieked the boy, twisting his arms in the air. “Will you both be quiet instantly?” shouted Miriam, as the blood rose to her head, catching and holding the boy. Both children howled and choked; Sybil flung herself forward howling, and Miriam felt her teeth in her wrist. The smoke came pouring out of the little hidden room, coiling itself against the air of the passage like some fascinating silent inevitable grimace. Wiggerson’s figure flying through it stirred it strangely, but it closed behind her and billowed horribly out towards Mrs. Corrie standing just clear of its advance with her handkerchief pressed to her face, quiet, not calling to Wiggerson, waiting where she had disappeared. Miriam could not move. Sybil’s body hung fastened to her own with entwining limbs … “a fight in the jungle,” a tiger flung fixed like a leech against the breast of a screaming elephant … the boy had the whip and was slashing at her legs through her thin dress and uttering piercing shrieks.
“Stokes is an idjut,” said Mrs. Corrie, going gaily downstairs with the two exhausted white-faced children followed by Wiggerson flitting along with bloodshot blinking eyes.
Stokes, sullenly brooding, lighting Mr. Corrie’s fire without putting back the register. What was it that made Stokes sullen and brooding so that the accident had happened and the smoke had come? Stokes had seen something, someone, like the fearful oncoming curving stare of the smoke. Mrs. Corrie and Wiggerson did not brood like that. They laughed and wept and snatched things out of danger.
