Miriam looked into the fire and thought. Joey, too, liked talking to Mr. Corrie in his room when he was not there. He must be one of those charming sort of men, rather weak, who went on liking people. Joey was evidently an old friend of the family and still liked him. She evidently liked even to mention his name. He couldn’t be really anything much … or perhaps Joey didn’t really know him at all. Joey did not live there. She came and went.
“Of course you haven’t seen Felix yet, have you?”
“No.”
Joey straightened her head on her pillow.
“It’s not the least use me tryin’ to describe him to you,” she breathed in broken tones.
Miriam struggled uneasily with her thoughts … a leading Q.C.—about forty. … “Oh, do try,” she said, a little fearfully … how vulgar … just like a housemaid … no; Wiggerson would never have said such a thing, nor asked at all. It was treachery to Mr. Corrie. If Joey said anything more about him she would never be able to speak to him freely.
“He’s divine,” said Joey, smiling into the fire.
How nice of Joey to be so free with her and want her to like him too … the gong. They both rose and peered into the little strip of mirror in the small overmantel … divine might mean anything … divine … oh, quite too utterly too-too … greenery-yellery—Grosvenor-gallery—foot-in-the-grave young man.
III
The next day the ground was powdered with snow. Large snowflakes were hurrying through the air driving to and fro on a harsh wind. The wind snored round the house like a flame and bellowed in the chimneys. An opened window let in the cold air and the smell of the snow. No sound came from the woods. The singing of the birds and the faint sound of the woods had gone.
But when Miriam left her room to go across to the schoolroom and wait for the children she found the spring in the house. The landing was bright with the light streaming through many open doors. Rooms were being prepared. On a large tray on the landing table lay a mass of spring flowers and little flowered bowls of many shapes and sizes filled with fresh water. Stokes and Wiggerson were fluttering in and out of the rooms carrying frilled bed-linen, lace-edged towels and flowered bedspreads.
People with money could make the spring come as soon as the days lengthened. Clear bright rooms, bright clean paint, soft coloured hangings, spring flowers in the bright light on landings. The warmth from stoves and fires seemed as if it came from the sun. Its glow changed suddenly to the glow of sunlight. It drew the scent of the flowers into the air. And with the new scent of the new flowers something was moving and leaping and dancing in the air. Outside the wintry weather might go on and on as though the spring would never come.
In a dull cheap villa there might be a bunch of violets in a bowl on a whatnot. Snuffing very close you could feel the tide of spring wash through your brain. But only in the corner where the violets were. In cold rooms upstairs you could remember the violets and the spring; but the spring did not get into the house.
There was an extraordinary noise going on downstairs. Standing inside the schoolroom door Miriam listened. Joey’s contralto laugh coming up in gusts, the sound of dancing feet, the children shouting names, Mrs. Corrie repeating them in her laughing wavering chalky voice. Joey; certainly Joey was not dancing about. She was probably sitting on the sofa watching them, and thinking. Fancy their being so excited about people coming. Just like any ordinary people. She went into the schoolroom saying over the names to herself. “Mélie today … Dad and Mr. Staple-Craven tomorrow … the Bean-pole for Sunday” … someone they knew very well. It might be either a tall man or a tall woman. … They made the house springlike because people were coming. Would the people notice that the house was springlike? Would they realise? People did not seem to realise anything. They would patronise the flowers … they ought to feel wild with joy; join hands and dance round the flowers.
At lunch time the door at the far end of the dining-room stood open showing the shrouded length of a billiard-table, and beyond it at the far end in the gloom a squat oak chimneypiece littered with pipes and other small objects. The light, even from the overcast sky, came in so brilliantly that the holland cover looked almost white. There must be several windows; perhaps three. What a room to have, just for a billiard-room. A quiet, mannish room, waiting until it was wanted, the pockets of the table bulging excitingly under the cover, the green glass supports under the squat round stoutly spindling legs, a bit of a huge armchair showing near the fireplace, the end of a sofa, the green shaded lamps low over the table, the dark untidy mantelpiece, tobacco, books, talks, billiards. In there too the spring flowers stood ready on the table. They would be put somewhere on the wide dark mantel, probably on a corner out of the way. “We used to play table billiards at home,” said Miriam at random, longing to know what part the billiard-room played in the weekend.
“Billy-billy,” said Mrs. Corrie, “oh, we’ll have some fun. We’ll all play.”
“It was such a bore stretching the webbing,” said Miriam critically, avoiding Sybil’s eager eyes.
“It must have been—but how awfully jolly to have billiards. I simply adaw billiards,” said Joey fervently.
“Such a fearful business getting them absolutely taut,” pursued Miriam, feeling how much the cream caramel was enhanced by the sight of the length, beyond the length of the dining-room, of that bright long heavy room. She imagined it lit and people walking about amongst the curious lights and shadows with cues—and cigarettes; quiet intent faces. Englishmen. Did the English invent billiards?
“Poor old Joey. Wish you
