“Oh,” said Miriam provisionally with a smile.
Mrs. Orly closed the door quietly and advanced confidently with deprecating bright wheedling eyes. “Isn’t it tahsome,” she said conversationally. “Ro’s asleep and the carriage is comin’ round at half past. Isn’t it tahsome?”
“Can’t you send it back?”
“I want him to go out; I think the drive will do him good. I say, d’you mind just lookin’—at the books?”
“No, I will; but how shall I know what to keep? Is there a list?”
Mrs. Orly looked embarrassed. “I’ve got a list somewhere,” she said hurriedly, “but I can’t find it.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Miriam.
“You know—anythin’ historical … there’s one I put down, The Sorrows of a Young Queen. Keep that if they send it and anything else you think.”
“Is there anything to go back?”
“Yes, I’ll bring them out. We’ve been reading an awful one—awful.”
Miriam began fingering her gold foil. Mrs. Orly was going to expect her to be shocked. …
“By that awful man Zola. …”
“Oh yes,” said Miriam, dryly.
“Have you read any of his?”
“Yes,” said Miriam carefully.
“Have you? Aren’t they shockin’?”
“Well I don’t know. I thought ‘Lourdes’ was simply wonderful.”
“Is that a nice one—what’s it about?”
“Oh you know—it’s about the Madonna of Lourdes, the miracles, in the south of France. It begins with a crowded trainload of sick people going down through France on a very hot day … it’s simply stupendous … you feel you’re in the train, you go through it all”—she turned away and looked through the window overcome … “and there’s a thing called ‘La Rêve’ ” she went on incoherently with a break in her voice “about an embroideress and a man called Felicien—it’s simply the most lovely thing.”
Mrs. Orly came near to the table.
“You understand about books, don’t you,” she said wistfully.
“Oh no,” said Miriam. “I’ve hardly read anything.”
“I wish you’d put those two down.”
“I don’t know the names of the translations,” announced Miriam with conceited solicitude.
A long loud yawn resounded through the door.
“Better, boysie?” asked Mrs. Orly turning anxiously towards the open door.
“Yes, my love,” said Mr. Orly cheerfully.
“I am glad, boy—I’ll get my things on—the carriage’ll be here in a minute.”
She departed at a run and Mr. Orly came in and sat heavily down in a chair set against the slope of the wall close by and facing Miriam.
“Phoo,” he puffed, “I’ve been taking phenacetin all day; you don’t get heads do you?”
Miriam smiled and began preparing a reply.
“How’s it coming in? Totting up, eh?”
“I think so,” said Miriam uneasily.
“What’s it totting up to this month? Any idea?”
“No; I can see if you like.”
“Never mind, never mind. … Mrs. O’s been reading … phew! You’re a lit’ry young lady—d’you know that French chap—Zola—Emmil Zola—” Mr. Orly glanced suspiciously.
“Yes,” said Miriam.
“Like ’im?”
“Yes,” said Miriam firmly.
“Well—it’s a matter of taste and fancy,” sighed Mr. Orly heavily. “Chacun à son goût—shake an ass and go, as they say. One’s enough for me. I can’t think why they do it myself—sheer well to call a spade a spade sheer bestiality those French writers—don’t ye think so, eh?”
“Well no. I don’t think I can accept that as a summary of French literature.”
“Eh well, it’s beyond me. I suppose I’m not up to it. Behind the times. Not cultured enough. Not cultured enough I guess. Ready dearest?” he said addressing his wife and getting to his feet with a groan. “Miss Hens’n’s a great admirer of Emmil Zola.”
“She says some of his books are pretty, didn’t you, Miss Hens’n. It isn’t fair to judge from one book, Ro.”
“No my love no. Quite right. Quite right. I’m wrong—no doubt. Getting old and soft. Things go on too fast for me.”
“Don’t be so silly, Ro.”
Drowsily and automatically Miriam went on rolling tin and gold—sliding a crisp thick foil of tin from the pink tissue paper leaved book on to the serviette … a firm metallic crackle … then a silent layer of thin gold … then more tin … adjusting the three slippery leaves in perfect superposition without touching them with her hands, cutting the final square into three strips, with the long sharp straight bladed scissors—the edges of the metal adhering to each other as the scissors went along—thinking again with vague distant dreamy amusement of the boy who cut the rubber tyre to mend it—rolling the flat strips with a fold of the serviette, deftly until they turned into neat little twisted crinkled rolls—wondering how she had acquired the knack. She went on and on lazily, unable to stop, sitting back in her chair and working with outstretched arms, until a small fancy soap box was filled with the twists—enough to last the practice for a month or two. The sight filled her with a sense of achievement and zeal. Putting on its lid she placed the soap box on the second chair. Lazily, stupidly, longing for tea—all the important clerical work left undone, Mr. Orly’s surgery to clear up for the day—still she was working in the practice. She glanced approvingly at the soap box … but there were ages to pass before tea. She did not dare to look at her clock. Had the hall clock struck three? Bending to a drawer she drew out a strip of amadou—offended at the sight of her red wrist coming out of the harsh cheap black sleeve and the fingers bloated by cold. They looked lifeless; no one else’s hands looked so lifeless. Part of the amadou was soft and warm to her touch, part hard and stringy. Cutting out a soft square she cut it rapidly into tiny cubes collecting them in a pleasant flummery heap on the blotting paper—Mr. Hancock should have those; they belonged to his perfect treatment of his patients; it was quite just. Cutting a strip of the harsher part, she pulled and teased it into comparative softness and cut it up into a second pile of fragments. Amadou, gold and tin … Japanese paper? A horrible torpor possessed her. Why did one’s head
