The garden and pathway was thronged with bright-coloured guests. Miriam found herself standing with Gerald on the curb, waiting for Harriett to finish her farewells. He crushed her arm against his side. “Good Lord, Mirry, ain’t I glad it’s all over.”
Sarah was stepping into the shelter of the first of the two waiting carriages. Her face was clear with relief. Bennett followed, dressed like her in dark blue. On the step he spoke abruptly, something about a small portmanteau. Sarah’s voice sounded from inside. Miriam had never heard her speak with such cool unconcern. Perhaps she had never known Sarah. Sarah was herself now, for the first time free and unconcerned. What freedom. Cool and unconcerned. The door shut with a bang. They had forgotten everyone. They were going to forget to wave. Everyone had watched them. But they did not think of that. They saw green Devonshire ahead and their little house waiting in the Upper Richmond Road with work for them both, work they could both do well, with all their might when they came back. Someone shouted. Rice was being showered. People were running down the road showering rice. The road and pathway were bright with happy marriage, all the world linked in happy marriages.
The second carriage swept round the bend of the road with a yellow silk slipper swinging in the rear. Miriam struggled for breath through tears. Gerald and Harriett had taken the old life away with them in their carriage. Harriett had taken it, and gone. But she knew. She would bring it back with her. They would come back. Harriett would never forget. Nothing could change or frighten her. She would come back the same, in her new dresses, laughing.
A fat voice … Mrs. Bywater … “proud of your gails, Mrs. Henderson” … fat flattering voice. The brightness had gone from the houses and the roadway … unreal people were moving about with absurd things on their heads. Bridesmaids in cold white dresses, moving in pounces, as people spoke to them … the Hendon girls. … What bad complexions Harriett’s school friends had. Why were they all dark? Why did Harriett like them? Who was Harriett? Why did she have dark, sallow friends? Oh … this dark face, near and familiar … saying something—eyes looking at nothing; haunted eyes looking at nothing, very dear and familiar … relief … the sky seems to lift again; kind harmless bitter features, coming near and speaking.
“I am obliged to go—” rasping voice, curious sawing breath. …
“Oh yes. …” Perhaps there will be a thunderstorm or something—something will happen.
“We shall meet again.”
“Yes—oh, yes.”
There was no reason to feel nervous, at any rate for a night or two. Burglars who wanted the presents would take some time to find out that there was only one young lady in the house and a little servant sleeping in a top room. It was all right. No need to put the dinner-bell on the dressing-table. Next week the middle-aged servant would have arrived. Would she mind being alone with the presents and the little maid? The only way to feel quite secure at night would be to marry … how awful … either you marry and are never alone or you risk being alone and afraid … to marry for safety … perhaps some women did. No wonder … and not to turn into a silly scared nervous old maid … how tiresome, one thing or the other … no choice.
She laid her head on the pillow. Thank Heaven I’m here and not at home … out of it. … “I’ll come round, first thing, to cut up the cake”—that would be jolly too. But here … with all these new things, magical and easy, secure with Gerald and Harriett, chosen to embark on their new life with them. … “You chuck your job, my dear, and stay with us for a bit.” They would like it. That was so jolly. Absurd free days with Harriett; tea in the garden, theatres; people coming, Mr. Tremayne and Mr. Grove. …
But there was something, some thought sweeping round all these things, something else, sweeping round outside the weddings and the joy of being at home, making all these things extra, like things thrown in, jolly and perfect and surprising, but thrown in with something else that was her own, something hovering around and above, in and out the whole day keeping her apart. This morning the weddings had seemed the end of everything. They were over, Harriett’s and Sarah’s lives going forward and her own share in them, and home still there too, three things instead of one, easily hers. And yet they did not concern her. It would be a sham to pretend they did, with this other thing haunting—to go on from thing to thing, living with people and for them as if there were nothing else, as people seemed to do, one thing happening after another all the time. Sham.
Harriett and Sarah had rushed out into life. They had changed everything. Things did not seem to matter now that they had achieved all that. Harriett would take the first shock of life for her. Curiosities could come to an end. It did not seem to matter. That was all at peace, through Harriett. Life had come into the family, leaving her free. …
Was she free? That strange, dark priestliness. If he called to her, if he really called. … But he called in a dark dreadful way … and yet mysteriously linked to something in her. She could not give the help he needed. She would fail. Over their lives would shine, far away, visible to both of them the radiance of heaven. They both wanted to be good; redemption from sin. They both believed these things. But he was weak, weak … and she not strong enough to help. And there was that other thing beckoning far from this suburban life and quite as far from him, away, up in London, down at Newlands, a brightness. …
She looked through the darkness at the harmony of soft tones and
