“Won’t you come in here?” said a soft staccato bass voice, a woman’s voice, but deep and rounded like the voice of a deep-chested watchdog barking single soft notes after a furious outbreak.
Miriam looked round. Wiggerson was lighting the big lamp in the dining-room, peering up under the rose-coloured shade. “In here,” repeated the deep voice, smiling, and Miriam’s eyes discovered that the small door set back between the dining-room and the window on the left side of the hall door was open, showing part of a curious soft brown room; a solid brown leather covered secretaire, with a revolving chair between its pillars of drawers, set back in the bow of a small window, a little bronze lamp with a plain buff-coloured shade standing near a pile of large volumes on the secretaire, a piece of wall covered with a dark silky-looking brown paper shining in the glow of an invisible fire. She went forward across the hall into the room with a polite pleased hesitating smile. There was a faint rich exciting odour in the warm little room … cigars … leather … a sort of deep freedom. The rest of the house seemed suddenly far away. Coloured drawings of houses on the little brown walls, two enormous deep low leather armchairs drawn up on either side of an enormous fire, a littered mantelshelf. “I saw you froo the crack,” said a lady, fitted deeply into one of the large chairs. She held out a small hand when Miriam was near enough to take it and said softly and lazily, “You’re the new guvnis, aren’t you? I’m Joey Banks.”
“Yes, I came yesterday,” said Miriam serenely.
Sinking into the second armchair she crossed her knees and beamed into the fire. What perfect security. … She turned to Mr. Corrie, unknown and mysteriously away somewhere in London to thank him for setting her here, protected from the whole world in the deeps of his study chair—all the worry and the noise and the fussing people shut away. If suddenly he came in she would not thank him, but he would know. He would be sitting in the other armchair, and she would say, “What do you think about everything?” Not so much to hear what he thought, but because some of his thoughts would be her thoughts. Thought was the same in everybody who thought at all. She would sit back and rest and hear an understanding voice. He might be heavy and fat. But a leading Q.C. must have thoughts … and he had been thin once … and there were those books … and he would read newspapers; perhaps too many newspapers. He would know almost at once that she thought he read too many newspapers. She would have to conceal that to hear the voice going on and leaving her undisturbed.
Of course people like this wore evening dress every day. You could only rest and think and talk and be happy without collars and sleeves—with the cool beaded leather against one’s neck and arms in the firelight. …
She gazed familiarly into her companion’s eyes taking in her soft crimson silk evening dress with its wide folded belt of black velvet and the little knots of black about the square sleeves, as the eyes smiled long and easily into hers … the smile of one of the girls at the Putney school, the same dark fringed caressing smiling eyes set in delicately bulging pale brown cheeks, the same little frizz of dark hair. She felt for the name, but could only recall the sense of the girl as she had sat, glints of fear and hard watchfulness in the beautiful eyes, trying to copy her neighbour’s exercise. This girl’s dull hair was fluffed cloudily, and there was no uneasiness in the eyes. Probably she too had been a duffer at school and had had to crib things. But she had left all that behind and her smile was—perfect.
“You look like an Oriental princess,” said Miriam, gazing.
Joey flushed and smiled more deeply, but without making the smallest movement.
“Do I, weally?”
“Exactly,” said Miriam, keeping her own pose with difficulty. She knew she had flung up her head and spoken emphatically. But the girl was such a wonderful effect—she wanted her to be able to see herself … she was not quite of the same class as the Corries, or different, somehow. Miriam gazed on. Raising the large black cushion a little, turning her head and pressing her cheek into it, her eyes still on Miriam’s, Joey laughed a short contralto gurgle, bringing the sharp dimples and making her cheeks bulge slightly on either side of the chin.
“I brought it in from Rollo’s room,” she said. “I like bein’ in here. Rollo never comes in; but she always has a fire in here when she’s got people stoppin’. You can pop in here whenever you like when Felix isn’t at home. It’s jolly.
