“Beastly? Oh, of course, I do,” said Eve in a rather loud embarrassed tone. How dreadfully self-conscious they all were. Somebody seemed to be speaking. “What sticks my family are—I had no idea,” muttered Miriam furiously into Eve’s face. Eve’s eyes filled with tears, but she stood perfectly still, saying nothing. Miriam wheeled round and stared into the empty concert room. It was filled with a faint bluish light and beyond the rows of waiting chairs and the empty platform a huge organ stood piled up towards the roof. The party were moving on. What a queer place the Crystal Palace is … what a perfectly horrible place for a concert … pianissimo passages and those feet on those boards tramping about outside. … What a silly muddle. Mr. Parrow was waiting for her to join the others. They straggled along past booths and stalls, meeting groups of people, silent and lost like themselves. Now they were passing some kind of stonework things, reliefs, antique, roped off like the seats in a church. Just in front of them a short man holding the red cord in his hands was looking at a group with some ladies. “Why,” he said suddenly in a loud cheerful voice, stretching an arm out across the rope and pointing to one of the reliefs, “it’s Auntie and Grandma!” Miriam stared at him as they passed, he was so short, shorter than any of the ladies he was with. “It’s the only way to see these things,” he said in the same loud harsh cheerful voice. Miriam laughed aloud. What a clever man.
“Do you like statues?” said Mr. Parrow in a low gentle tone.
“I don’t know anything about them,” said Miriam.
“I can’t bear fireworks,” she said hurriedly.
They were in the open at last. In the deepening twilight many people were going to and fro. In the distance soft dark masses of trees stood out against the sky in every direction. Not far away the ghostly frames of the set pieces reared against the sky made the open evening seem as prison-like as the enclosure they had just left. Round about the scaffolding of these pieces dense little crowds were collecting.
“Don’t you want to see the fireworks?”
“I want to get away from them.”
“All right, we’ll get lost at once.”
“It isn’t,” she explained a little breathlessly, in relief, suddenly respecting him, allowing him to thread a way for her through the increasing crowd towards the open evening, “that I don’t want to see the fireworks, but I simply can’t stand the noise.”
“I see,” laughed Mr. Parrow gently. They were making towards the open evening along a narrow gravel pathway, like a garden pathway. Miriam hurried a little, fearing that the fireworks might begin before they got to a safe distance.
“I never have been able to stand a sudden noise. It’s torture to me to walk along a platform where a train may suddenly shriek.”
“I see. You’re afraid of the noise.”
“It isn’t fear—I can’t describe it. It’s agony. It’s like pain. But much much worse than pain. It’s—it’s—annihilating.”
“I see; that’s very peculiar.”
Their long pathway was leading them towards a sweet-scented density, dim bowers and leafy arches appeared just ahead.
“It was much worse even than it is now when I was a little thing. When we went to the seaside I used to sit in the train nearly dead until it had screamed and started. And there was a teacher who sneezed—a noise like a hard scream—at school. She used to go on sneezing—twenty times or so. I was only six and I dreaded going to school just for that. Once I cried and they took me out of the room. I’ve never told anyone. Nobody knows.”
“You’ve told me.”
“Yes.”
“It’s very interesting. You shan’t go anywhere near the fireworks.”
A large rosy flare, wavering steadily against the distant trees showed up for a moment the shapes and traceries of climbing plants surrounding their retreat. A moment afterwards with a dull boom a group of white stars shot up into the air and hovered, melting one by one as the crowd below moaned and crackled its applause.
Miriam laughed abruptly. “That’s jolly. How clever people are. But it’s much better up here. It’s like not being too near at the theatre.”
“I think we’ve got the best view certainly.”
“But we shall miss the set pieces.”
“The people down there won’t see the rosary.”
“What’s that black thing on our left down there?”
“That’s the toboggan run. We ought to go on that.”
“What is it like?”
“It’s fine; you just rush down. We must try it.”
“Not for worlds.”
Mr. Parrow laughed. “Oh you must try the toboggan; there’s no noise about that.”
“I really couldn’t.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. I mean it. Nothing under the sun would induce me to go on a toboggan.”
They sat watching the fireworks until they were tired of the whistling rockets, showers of stars and golden rain, the flaming bolts that
