“Is that the Henderson?”
“It’s me,” said Miriam emerging on a tiny landing and going through the open door of a low-ceiled lamplit room. “It’s me, it’s me,” she repeated from the middle of the floor. An eager face was turned towards her from a thicket of soft dull wavy hair. She gazed vaguely. The small slippered feet planted firmly high up against the lintel the sweep of the red dressing-gown, the black patch of the Mudie book with its yellow label, the small ringed hand upon it, the outflung arm and hand, the little wreath of smoke about the end of the freshly lit cigarette, the cup of coffee on the little table under the lamp, the dim shapes about the room lit by the flickering blaze. …
Miriam smiled into the smiling steel blue of the eyes turned towards her and waited smiling for the silver reed of tone to break again. “I’m so glad you’ve come. I wanted you. Sit down and shut the door my child. … I don’t mind which you do first, but—do—them—both,” she tinkled, stretching luxuriously and bringing her feet to the ground with a swing. Miriam closed the door. “Can I take off my things?”
“Of course child … take them all off; you know I admire you most draped in a towel.”
“I’ve got such awful feet,” said Miriam hugging the compliment as she dropped her things in a distant armchair.
“It’s not your feet, it’s your extraordinary shoes.”
“M.”
“How beautiful you look. You put on ties better than anyone I know. I wish I could wear things draped round my neck.”
Miriam sat down in the opposite wicker chair.
“Isn’t it cold—my feet are freezing; it’s raining.”
“Take off your shoes.”
Miriam got off her shoes and propped them in the fender to dry.
“What is that book?”
“Eden Philpotts’s Children of the Mist,” fluted the voice reverently. “Read it?”
“No,” said Miriam expectantly.
The eager face turned to an eager profile with eyes brooding into the fire. “He’s so wonderful,” mused the voice and Miriam watched eagerly. Mag read books—for their own sake; and could judge them and compare them with other books by the same author … but all this wonderful knowledge made her seem wistful; knowing all about books and plays and strangely wistful and regretful; the things that made her eyes blaze and made her talk reverently or in indignant defence always seemed sad in the end … wistful hero worship … raving about certain writers and actors as if she did not know they were people.
“He’s so wonderful,” went on the voice with its perpetual modulations “he gets all the atmosphere of the west country—perfectly. You live there while you’re reading him.”
With a little chill sense of Mag in this wonderful room alone, living in the west country and herself coming in as an interruption, Miriam noted the name of the novelist in her mind … there was something about it, she knew she would not forget it; soft and numb with a slight clatter and hiss at the end, a rainstorm, the atmosphere of Devonshire and the mill-wheel.
“Devonshire people are all consumptive,” she said decisively.
“Are they?”
“Yes, it’s the mild damp air. They have lovely complexions; like the Irish. There must be any amount of consumption in Ireland.”
“I suppose there is.”
Miriam sat silent and still watching Mag’s movements as she sipped and puffed, so strangely easy and so strangely wistful in her wonderful rich Bloomsbury life—and waiting for her next remark.
“You look very happy tonight child; what have you been doing?”
“Nothing.”
“You look as happy as a bird.”
“Are birds happy?”
“Of course birds are happy.”
“Well—they prey on each other—and they’re often frightened.”
“How wise we are.”
Brisk steps sounded on the little stairs.
“Tell me what you have been doing.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Weird things have been happening. … Oh, weird things.”
“Tell your aunt at once.” Mag gathered herself together as the brisk footsteps came into the room. “Hoh,” said a strong resonant voice “it’s the Henderson. I thought as much.”
“Yes. Doesn’t she look pretty?”
“Yes—she has a beautiful lace tie.”
“I wish I could wear things like that round my neck, don’t you von Bohlen?”
“I do. She can stick anything round her neck—and look nice.”
“Anything; a garter or a—a kipper. …”
“Don’t be so cracked.”
“She says weird things have been happening to her. I say I didn’t make any coffee for you and the spirit lamp wants filling.”
“Damn you—Schweinhund—verfluchte Schweinhund.”
Miriam had been gazing at the strong square figure in the short round fur-lined cloak and sweeping velvet hat, the firm decisive movements and imagining the delicate pointed high-heeled shoes. Presently those things would be off and the door closed on the three of them.
“There’s some Bass.”
“I’m going to have some suppe. Have some suppe, Henderson.”
“Non, merci.”
“She’s proud. Bring her some. What did you have for supper, child?”
“Oh, we had an enormous lunch. They’d had a dinner-party.”
“What did you have for supper?”
“Oh lots of things.”
“Bring her some suppe. I’m not sure I won’t have a basin myself.”
“All right. I’ll put some on.” The brisk steps went off and a voice hummed in and out of the other rooms.
Watching Mag stirring the fire, giving a last pull at her cigarette end and pushing back the hair from her face … silent and old and ravaged, and young and animated and powerful, Miriam blushed and beamed silently at her reiterated demands for an account of herself.
“I say I saw an extraordinary woman downstairs.”
Mag turned sharply and put down the poker.
“Yes?”
“In a petticoat.”
“Frederika Elizabeth! She’s seen the Pierson!”
“Hoh! Has she?” The brisk footsteps approached and the door was closed. The dimly shining mysteries of the room moved about Miriam, the outside darkness flowing up to the windows moved away as the tall dressing-gowned figure lowered the thin drab loosely rattling Venetian blinds; the light seemed to go up and distant objects became more visible; the crowded bookshelf, the dark littered table under it, the empty table pushed against the wall near the window—the bamboo bookshelf between the windows above a square mystery draped to the ground with
