get into such a hot fearful state before tea? … grey stone wall and the side of the projecting glass roofed peak of
Mr. Leyton’s surgery … grey stone wall … wall … railings at the top of it … cold—a cold sky … it was their time—nine to six—no doubt those people did best who thought of nothing during hours but the work—cheerfully—but they were always pretending—in and
out of work hours they pretended. There was something wrong in them and something wrong in the people who shirked. La—te—ta—te—te—ta, she hummed searching her table for relief.
Mr. Hancock’s bell sounded and she fled up to the warmth of his room. In a moment Mudie’s cart came and the maid summoned her. There was a pile of books in the hall. … She glanced curiously at the titles worried with the responsibility—
The Sorrows—that was all right.
Secrets of a Stormy Court … that was the sort of thing … “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” … one day she must explain to
Mr. Orly that that was really “sousière” a thing to hold halfpence.
My Reminiscences by Count de Something. Perhaps that was one they had put down. The maid presented the volumes to be returned. Taking them Miriam asked her to ask
Mr. Hancock if he had anything to change.
Cock Lane and Common Sense she read … there was some sort of argument in that … the “facts” of some case … it would sneer at something, some popular idea … it was probably by some doctor or scientific man … but that was not the book. …
The Earth … Emile Zola. She flapped the book open and hurriedly read a few phrases. The hall pulsated curiously. She flushed all over her body. “There’s nothing for
Mr. Hancock, miss.” “All right; these can go and these are to be kept,” she said indistinctly. Wandering back to her room she repeated the phrases in her mind in French. They seemed to clear up and take shelter—somehow they were terse and acceptable and they were secret and secure—but English people ought not to read them; in English. It was—outrageous. English men. The French man had written them simply … French logic … English men were shy and suggestive about these things—either that or breezy … “filth” which was almost worse. The Orlys ought not to read them at all … it was a good thing the book was out of the house … they would forget. But she would not forget. Her empty room glanced with a strange confused sadness; the clearing up upstairs was not quite done; but she could not go upstairs again yet. Three-fifteen; the afternoon had turned; her clock was a little slow too. The warm quiet empty den was waiting for the tea-tray. Clearing the remnants from her table she sat down again. The heavy stillness of the house closed in. … She opened the drawer of stationery. Various kinds of notepaper lay slid together in confusion; someone had been fumbling there. The correspondence cards propped against the side of the drawer would never stay in their proper places. With comatose meticulousness she put the whole drawer in order, replenishing it from a drawer of reserve packets, until it was so full that nothing could slide. She surveyed the result with satisfaction; and shut the drawer. She would tidy one drawer every afternoon. … She opened the drawer once more and looked again. To keep it like that would mean never using the undermost cards and notepaper. That would not do … change them all round sometimes. She sat for a while inertly and presently lazily roused herself with the idea of going upstairs. Pausing in front of a long three-shelved whatnot filling the space between the door and the narrow many drawered specimen case that stood next her table she idly surveyed its contents. Nothing but piles of British Dental Journals, Proceedings of the Odontological Society, circulars from the Dental Manufacturing Companies. Propping her elbows on the upper shelf of the whatnot she stood turning leaves.
“Tea up?”
“Don’t know,” said Miriam irritably, passing the open door. He could see she had only just come down and could not possibly know. The soft jingling of the cups shaken together on a tray by labouring footsteps came from the basement stairs. Mr. Leyton’s hurried clattering increased. Miriam waited impatiently by her table. The maid padded heavily through swinging the door of the den wide with her elbow. When she had retired, Miriam sauntered warm and happy almost before she was inside the door into the den. With her eyes on the tea-tray she felt the afternoon expand. … “There’s a Burma girl a settin’ and I know she thinks of me.” … “Come you back you British soldier, come you back to Mandalay.” Godfrey’s tune was much the best; stiff, like the words, the other was only singsong. Pushing off the distraction she sat down near the gently roaring blaze of the gas fire in a low little chair, upholstered in cretonne almost patternless with age. The glow of the fire went through and through her. If she had tea at once, everything would be richer and richer, but things would move on, and if they came back she would have finished and would have to go. The face of the railway clock fixed against the frontage of the gallery at the far end of the room said four-fifteen. They had evidently ordered tea to be a quarter of an hour late and might be in any minute … this curious feeling that the room belonged to her more than to the people who owned it, so that they were always intruders. … Leaving with difficulty the little feast untouched … a Dundee cake from Buszards … she browsed rapidly, her eyes roaming from thing to thing … the shields and assegais grouped upon the raised dull gold papering of the high opposite wall, the bright beautiful coloured bead skirts spread out amongst curious carved tusks and weapons, the large cool placid gold Buddha reclining below them with
