“Were they all alike?” that was half sarcastic. …
“Absolutely. They were all cats, simply.”
“Isn’t she extraordinary?”
“It’s the cats who are extraordinary. Why do they do it, girls! Why do they do it?” She flushed, feeling insincere. At this moment she felt that she knew that Mag, in social life, would conform and be a cat. She had never thought of her in social life; here in poverty and freedom she was herself.
“Do phwatt me dear?”
“Oh let them go. It makes me tired, even to think of them. The thought of the sound of their voices absolutely wears me out.”
“I’m not laaazy—I’m tie‑erd—I was born tie‑erd.”
“I say girls, I want to ask you something.”
“Well?”
“Why don’t you two write?”
“Write?”
“Write what?”
“Us?”
“Just as we are, without one”—
“Flea—I know. No. Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly serious. I mean it. Why don’t you write things—both of you. I thought of it this morning.”
Both girls sat thoughtful. It was evident that the idea was not altogether unfamiliar to them.
“Someone kept telling me the other day I ought to write and it suddenly struck me that if anyone ought it’s you two. Why don’t you Mag?”
“Why should I? Have I not already enough on my fair young shoulders?”
“Jan, why don’t you?”
“I, my dear? For a most excellent reason.”
“What reason?” demanded Miriam in a shaking voice. Her heart was beating; she felt that a personal decision was going to be affected by Jan’s reason, if she could be got to express it. Jan did not reply instantly and she found herself hoping that nothing more would be said about writing, that she might be free to go on cherishing the idea, alone and unbiased.
“I do not write,” said Jan slowly, “because I am perfectly convinced that anything I might write would be mediocre.”
Miriam’s heart sank. If Jan, with all her German knowledge and her wit and experience of two countries felt this, it was probably much truer of herself. To think about it, to dwell upon the things Mr. Wilson had said was simply vanity. He had said anyone could learn to write. But he was clever and ready to believe her clever in the same way, and ready to take ideas from him. It was true she had material, “stuff” as he called it, but she would not have known it, if she had not been told. She could see it now, as he saw it, but if she wrote at his suggestion, a borrowed suggestion, there would be something false in it, clever and false.
“Yes—I think Jan’s right,” said Mag cheerfully. “That is an excellent reason and the true one.”
It was true. But how could they speak so lightly and cheerfully about writing … the thing one had always wanted to do, that everyone probably secretly wanted to do, and the girls could give up the idea without a sigh. They were right. It would be wrong to write mediocre stuff. Why was she feeling so miserable? Of course because neither of them had suggested that she should write. They knew her better than Mr. Wilson and it never occurred to them that she should write. That settled it. But something moved despairingly in the void.
“Do you think it would be wrong to write mediocre stuff?” she asked huskily.
“It would be worse than wrong child—it would be foolish; it wouldn’t sell.”
XI
Everything was ready for the two o’clock patient. There was no excuse for lingering any longer. Half past one. Why did they not come up? On her way to the door she opened the corner cupboard and stood near the open door hungry, listening for footsteps on the basement stairs, dusting and ranging the neat rows of bottles. At the end of five minutes she went guiltily down. If he had finished his lunch they would wonder why she had lingered so long. If she had hurried down as soon as she could no one would have known that she hoped to have lunch alone. Now because she had waited deliberately someone would read her guilt. She wished she were one of those people who never tried to avoid anything. The lunchroom door opened and closed as she reached the basement stairs. James’s cheerful footsteps clacked along—neat high-heeled shoes—towards the kitchen. She had taken something in. They were still at lunch, unconsciously, just in the same way. No. She was glad she was not one of those people who just went on—not avoiding things. …
Mr. Hancock was only just beginning his second course. He must have lingered in the workshop. … He was helping himself to condiments; Mr. Orly proffered the wooden pepper mill; “oh—thank you;” he screwed it with an air of embarrassed appreciativeness. There was a curious fresh lively air of embarrassment in the room making a stirring warmth in its cellar-like coolness. Miriam slipped quietly into her place hoping she was not an interloper. At any rate everyone was too much engrossed to ponder over her lateness. Mr. Orly was sitting with his elbows on the table and his serviette crumpled in his hands, ready to rise from the table, beaming mildness and waiting. Mrs. Orly sat waiting and smiling with her elbows on the table.
“Ah,” said Mr. Orly gently as Miriam sat down, “here comes the clerical staff.”
Miriam beamed and began her soup. It was James waiting today too, with her singing manner; a happy day.
Mrs. Orly asked a question in her happiest voice. They were fixing a date. … They were going … to a theatre … together. Her astonished mind tried to make them coalesce … she saw them sitting in a row, two different worlds confronted by one spectacle … there was not a scrap of any kind of performance that would strike them both
