… “Dr. Ryman is giving her bromide … she can’t sleep without it.” Sleeplessness, insomnia … she can’t see the spring … why not; and forget about herself.
“It’s nerves. He says we must behave as if there was nothing wrong with her. There is nothing wrong but nerves.”
That fevered frame, the burning hands and burning eyes looking at everything in the wrong way, the brain seeking about, thinking first this and then that … nerves; and fat Dr. Ryman giving bromide … awful little bottles of bromide coming to the house wrapped up in white paper. And everyone satisfied. “She’s in Dr. Ryman’s hands. Dr. Ryman is treating her.” Mrs. Poole said Dr. Ryman was a very able man. What did she mean? How did she know? Suburban faces; satisfied. “In the doctor’s hands.” A large square house, a square garden, high walls, a delicate wife always being ill, always going to that place in Germany—how did he know, going about in a brougham—and he had gout … how did he know more than anyone else? … bottles of bromide, visits, bills, and mother going patiently on, trusting and feeling unhelped. Going on. People went … mad. If she could not sleep she would go … mad. … And everyone behaving as if nothing were wrong.
And the vicar! Praying in the dining-room. Sarah had heard. … The vicar, kneeling on the Turkey carpet … praying. Couldn’t God see her, on the carpet, praying and trying? And the vicar went away. And things were the same and that night she would not sleep, just the same. Of course not. Nothing was changed. It was all going on for her in some hot wrong, shut-up way. Bromide and prayers.
And she blamed herself. If only she would not blame herself. “He’s one in a thousand … if only I could be as calm and cool as he is.” Why not be calm and cool? She had gone too far … “the end of my tether” … mother, a clever phrase like that, where had she got it? It was true. Her suffering had taught her to find that awful phrase. She feared her room, “loathed” it. She, always gently scolding exaggeration, used and meant that violent word.
Money. That was why nothing had been done. “The doctor” had to be afforded as she was so ill, but nothing had been done. Borrow from the boys to take her away. “A bright place and a cool breeze.” She dreamed of things—faraway impossible things. Had she told the others she wanted them? They must be told. Tomorrow she should know she was going away. Nothing else in life mattered. Someone must pay, anyone. Newlands must go. Tomorrow and every day till they went away she should come round to Harriett’s new house. Something for her to do every day.
The little bonneted figure … happy, shocked, smiling. To go about with her, telling her everything, dreadful things. The two of them going about and talking and not talking, and going about.
Miriam moved uneasily to the mantelpiece. An unlit fire was laid neatly in the grate. A ray of sunlight struck the black bars of the grate; false uneasy sunlight. Two strange round-bowled long-necked vases stood on the mantelpiece amongst the litter of Bob’s belongings. Dull blue and green enamellings moving on a dark almost black background … strange fine little threads of gold. … She peered at them.
“My dear girl, do you like my vases?” Bob came and stood at her side.
“Yes—they’re funny and queer. I like them.”
“They’re clawzonny—Japanese clawzonny.” He took one of them up and tapped it with his nail. It gave out a curious dull metallic ring. Miriam passed her finger over the enamelled surface. It was softly smooth and with no chill about it; as if the enamel were alive. She marvelled at the workmanship, wondering how the gold wires were introduced. They gleamed, veining over the curves of the vase.
Her uneasiness had gone. While they were looking at the vases it did not seem to matter that she had consented, defying the whole world, to come and see Bob’s bachelor chambers. She did not like them and wanted to be gone. The curious dingy dustiness oppressed her, and there was an emptiness. Fancy having breakfast in a room like this. Who looked after a man’s washing when he lived alone? There must be some dreadful sort of charwoman who came, and Bob had to speak kindly to her in his weary old voice and go on
