The Tunnel

if they did not feel it, if they looked, it would be enough. They don’t look at the thing they are doing.” It was not the acting. Nor the play. The characters of the story were always tiresome. The ideas, the wonderful quotations if you looked closely at them were everyone’s ideas; things that everybody knew. To read Shakespeare carefully all through would only be to find all the general things somewhere or other. But that did not matter. Being ignorant of him and of history did not matter, as long as you heard him. Poetry! The poetry of Shakespeare⁠ ⁠… ? Primers of literature told one that. It did not explain the charm. Just the sound. Music. Like Beethoven. Bad acting cannot spoil Shakespeare. Bad playing cannot destroy Beethoven. It was the sound of Shakespeare that made the scenes real⁠—that made Winter’s Tale, so long ago and so bewildering, remain in beauty.⁠ ⁠… “Dear Eve, Shakespeare is a sound⁠ ⁠…” She tore up the letter. The next time she wrote to Eve she must remember to say that. The garret was stifling. Away from the brilliant window the room was just as hot; the close thick smell of dust sickened her. She came back to the table, sitting as near as possible to the open. The afternoon had been wasted trying to express her evening and nothing had been expressed. The thought of last night was painful now. She had spoiled it in some way. Her heart beat heavily in the stifling room. Her head ached and her eyes were tired. She was too tired to walk; and there was no money; barely enough for next week’s A.B.C. suppers. There was no comfort. It was May⁠ ⁠… in a stuffy dusty room. May. Her face quivered and her head sank upon the hot table.

XV

Nearly all the roses were half-opened buds; firm and stiff. Larger ones put in here and there gave the effect of mass. Closest contemplation enhanced the beauty of the whole. Each rose was perfect. The radiant mass was lovely throughout. The body of the basket curved firmly away to its slender hidden base; the smooth sweep of the rim and the delicate high arch of the handle held the roses perfectly framed. It was a perfect gift.⁠ ⁠… It had been quite enough to have the opportunity of doing little things for Mrs. Berwick⁠ ⁠… the surprise of the roses. The surprise of them. Roses, roses, roses⁠ ⁠… all the morning they had stood, making the morning’s work happy; visible all over the room. Everyone in the house had had the beautiful shock of them. And they were still as they had been when they had been gathered in the dew. If they were in water by the end of the afternoon the buds would revive and expand⁠ ⁠… even after the hours in the Lyceum. If they were thrown now into the waste-paper basket it would not matter. They would go on being perfect⁠—to the end of life. “And as long; as my heart is beat‑ing; as long; as my eyes; have; tears.”

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Winthrop came up punctually at one o’clock as he had promised. “It would save you comin’ down if I was to ph‑come up.” It would go on then. He had thought about it and meant to do it. She opened the cash box quickly and deftly in her gratitude and handed him his four sovereigns and the money for the second mechanic and the apprentices. He waited gently while she counted it out. Next Saturday she would have it ready for him. “Thank you Miss⁠—; ph‑ph Good afternoop,” he said cheerfully. “Good afternoon Mr. Winthrop,” she responded busily with all her heart and listened as he clattered away downstairs. A load was lifted from Saturday mornings, for good. No more going down to run the gauntlet of the row of eyes and get herself along the bench, depositing the various sums. Nothing in future but the letters, the overhauling of Mr. Hancock’s empty surgery, the easy lunch with Mr. Leyton, and the weekend. She entered the sums in the petty cash book. There was that. They would always be that week after week. But today the worrying challenge of it disappeared in the joy of the last entry. “Self,” she wrote, the light across the outspread prospect of her life steadying and deepening as she wrote, “one pound, five.” The five, written down, sent a thrill from the contemplated page. Taking the customary sovereign from the cashbox she placed it carefully in the middle pocket of her purse and closed the clip. The five shillings she distributed about the side-pockets; half a crown, a shilling, two sixpenny bits and six coppers. The purse was full of money. By September she would have about four pounds five in hand and two pounds ten of her month’s holiday money still unspent; six pounds fifteen; she could go to a matinée every week and still have about half the four pounds five; about four pounds fifteen altogether; enough to hire a bicycle for the month and buy some summer blouses for the holiday.⁠ ⁠… She pocketed the heavy purse. Why was there always a feeling of guilt about a salary? It was the same every week. The life at Wimpole Street was so full and so interesting; she was learning so much and seeing so much. Salary was out of place⁠—a payment for leading a glorious life, half of which was entirely her own. The extra five shillings was a present from the Orlys and Mr. Hancock. She could manage on the pound. The new sum was wealth, superfluity. They would expect more of her in future. Surely it would be possible to give more; with so much money; to find the spirit to come punctually at nine; always to have everything in complete readiness in all three surgeries; to keep all the books up to date.⁠ ⁠… But they would not have given her the rise at the end