“Well you see it’s like this. I must tell you my little difficulty. The folks at thirty-three don’t know I’m here and I don’t want to go back there just at present. I was wondering if when I leave here you’d mind my having my box sent to your lodgings. I shan’t want my reserve things down there.”
“Well—there isn’t much room in my room.”
“It’s a flat box. I got it to go to the Colonies with a patient.”
“Oh, did you go? …” Nurses did see life; though they were never free to see it in their own way. Perhaps some of them … but then they would not be good nurses.
“Well I didn’t go. It was a chance of a lifetime. Such a de‑er old gentleman—one of the Fitz-Duff family. It would have been nurse companion. He didn’t want me in uniform. My word. He gave me a complete outfit, took me round, coats and skirts at Peters, gloves at Penberthy’s, a lovely gold-mounted umbrella, everything the heart could desire. He treated me just like a daughter.” During the whole of this speech she redeemed her words by little delicate bridling movements and adjustments, her averted eyes resting in indulgent approval on the old gentleman.
“Why didn’t you go?”
“He died, dear.”
“Oh I see.”
“It could go under your bed, out of the way.”
“I’ve got hatboxes and things. My room is full of things I’m afraid.”
“P’raps your landlady would let it stand somewhere.”
“I might ask her—won’t they let you leave things here?”
“They would I daresay,” frowned Miss Dear, “but I have special reasons. I don’t wish to be beholden to the people here.” She patted the tendrils of her hair, looking about the cubicle with cold disapproval.
“I daresay Mrs. Bailey wouldn’t mind. But I hardly like to ask her, you know. There seems to be luggage piled up everywhere.”
“Of course I should be prepared to pay a fee.”
… What a wonderful way of living … dropping a trunk full of things and going off with a portmanteau; starting life afresh in a new strange place. Miriam regarded the limber capable form outstretched on the narrow bed. This dark little enclosure, the forced companionship of the crowd of competing adventuresses, the sounds of them in the near cubicles, the perpetual sound filling the house like a sea of their busy calculations … all this was only a single passing incident … beyond it were the wide well-placed lives of wealthy patients.
“Miss Younger is a sweet woman.”
Miriam’s eyes awoke to affronted surprise.
“You know de‑er; the wan yow was sitting by at teatime. I told you just now.”
“Oh,” said Miriam guiltily.
Miss Dear dropped her voice; “she’s told me her whole story. She’s a dear sweet Christian woman. She’s working in a settlement. She’s privately engaged to the Bishop. It’s not to be published yet. She’s a sweet woman.”
Miriam rose. “I’ve got to get back, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t hurry away, dear. I hoped you would stay and have some supper.”
“I really can’t,” said Miriam wearily.
“Well, perhaps we shall meet again before Thursday. You’ll ask Mrs. Bailey about my box,” said Miss Dear getting to her feet.
“Fancy your remembering her name,” said Miriam with loud cheerfulness, fumbling with the curtains.
Miss Dear stood beaming indulgently.
All the way down the unlit stone staircase they rallied each other about the country garden with the deck chairs.
“Well,” said Miriam from the street, “I’ll let you know about Mrs. Bailey.”
“All right dear, I shall expect to hear from you; au revoir,” cried Miss Dear from the door. In the joy of her escape into the twilight Miriam waved her hand towards the indulgently smiling form and flung away, singing.
XXX
“Regular field-day, eh Miss Hens’n? Look here—” Mr. Orly turned towards the light coming in above the front door to exhibit his torn waistcoat and broken watch-chain. “Came for me like a fury. They’ve got double strength y’know when they’re under. Ever seen anything like it?”
Miriam glanced incredulously at the portly frontage.
“Fancy breaking the chain,” she said, sickened by the vision of small white desperately fighting hands. He gathered up the hanging strings of bright links, his powerful padded musicianly hands finding the edges of the broken links and holding them adjusted with the discoloured ravaged fingers of an artisan. “A good tug would do it,” he said kindly. “A chain’s no stronger than the weakest link,” he added with a note of dreamy sadness, drawing a sharp sigh.
“Did you get the tooth out,” clutched Miriam automatically making a mental note of the remark that flashed through the world with a sad light, a lamp brought into a hopeless sickroom … keeping up her attitude of response to show that she was accepting the apology for the extremities of rage over the getting of the anaesthetist. Mrs. Orly appearing in the hall at the moment, still flushed from the storm, joined the group and outdid Miriam’s admiring amazement, brilliant smiles of relief garlanding her gentle outcry. “Hancock busy?” said Mr. Orly in farewell as he turned and swung away to the den followed by Mrs. Orly, her unseen face busy with an interrupted errand. He would not hear that her voice was divided. … No one seemed to be aware of the divided voices … no men. Life went on and on, a great oblivious awfulness, sliding over everything. Every moment things went that could never be recovered … on and on, and it was always too late, there was always some new thing obliterating everything, something that looked new, but always turned out to be the same as everything else, grinning with its sameness in an awful blank where one tried to remember the killed things … if only everyone would stop for a moment and let the thing that was always hovering be there, let it settle and intensify. But the whole of life was a conspiracy to prevent it. Was there something wrong in it? It could not be a coincidence the way life always did that …
