“Do you know Thomas’s?” he said colourlessly.
“Do you know Thomas’s—the chemist—in Baker Street?” he said casting a half-glance in her direction as he wrote on.
“I do,” said Miriam coldly.
“Would you be afraid to go round there now?”
“What is it you want?” said Miriam acidly.
“Well, if you’re not afraid, go to Thomas’s, get this made up, give Miss Dear a dose and if it does not take effect, another in two hours’ time.”
“You may leave it with me.”
“All right. I’ll be off. I’ll try to look in sometime tomorrow,” he said turning to Miss Dear. “Bye-bye,” and he was gone.
When the grey of morning began to show behind the blind Miriam’s thoughts came back to the figure on the bed. Miss Dear was peacefully asleep lying on her back with her head thrown back upon the pillow. Her face looked stonily pure and stern; and colourless in the grey light. There was a sheen on her forehead like the sheen on the foreheads of old people. She had probably been asleep ever since the beginning of the stillness. Everybody was getting up. “London was getting up.” That man in the Referee knew what it was, that feeling when you live right in London, of being a Londoner, the thing that made it enough to be a Londoner, getting up, in London; the thing that made real Londoners different to everyone else, going about with a sense that made them alive. The very idea of living anywhere but in London, when one thought about it, produced a blank sensation in the heart. What was it I said the other day? “London’s got me. It’s taking my health and eating up my youth. It may as well have what remains. …” Something stirred powerfully, unable to get to her through her torpid body. Her weary brain spent its last strength on the words, she had only half meant them when they were spoken. Now, once she was free again, to be just a Londoner, she would ask nothing more of life. It would be the answer to all questions; the perfect unfailing thing, guiding all one’s decisions. And an ill-paid clerkship was its best possible protection; keeping one at a quiet centre, alone in a little room, untouched by human relationships, undisturbed by the necessity of being anything. Nurses and teachers and doctors and all the people who were doing special things surrounded by people and talk were not Londoners. Clerks were, unless they lived in suburbs, the people who lived in St. Pancras and Bloomsbury and in Seven Dials and all round Soho and in all the slums and back streets everywhere were. She would be again soon … not a woman … a Londoner.
She rose from her chair feeling hardly able to stand. The long endurance in the cold room had led to nothing but the beginning of a day without strength—no one knowing what she had gone through. Three days and nights of nursing Eve had produced only a feverish gaiety. It was London that killed you.
“I will come in at lunchtime,” she scribbled on the back of an envelope, and left it near one of the hands outstretched on the coverlet.
Outdoors it was quite light, a soft grey morning, about eight o’clock. People were moving about the streets. The day would be got through somehow. Tomorrow she would be herself again.
“Has she applied to the Association to which she belongs?”
“I think she wishes for some reason to keep away from them just now. She suggested that I should come to you when I asked her if there was anyone to whom she could turn. She told me you had helped her to have a holiday in a convalescent home.” These were the right people. The quiet grey house, the high church room, the delicate outlines of the woman, clear and fine in spite of all the comfort. … The All Souls Nursing Sisters. … They were different … emotional and unhygienic … cushions and hot water bottles … good food … early service—Lent—stuffy churches—fasting. But they would not pass by on the other side … she sat waiting … the atmosphere of the room made much of her weeks of charity and her long night of watching, the quiet presence in it knew of these things without being told. The weariness of her voice had poured out its burden, meeting and flowing into the patient weariness of the other women and changing. There was no longer any anger or impatience. Together, consulting as accomplices, they would see what was the best thing to do—whatever it was would be something done on a long long road going on forever; nobody outside, nobody left behind. When they had decided they would leave it, happy and serene, and glance at the invisible sun and make little confident jests together. She was like Mrs. Bailey—and someone farther back—mother. This was the secret life of women. They smiled at God. But they all flattered men. All these women. …
“They ought to be informed. Will you call on them—today? Or would you prefer that I should do so?”
“I will go—at lunchtime,” said Miriam promptly.
“Meanwhile I shall inform the clergy. It is a case for the parish. You must not bear the responsibility a moment longer.”
Miriam relaxed in her capacious chair, a dimness before her eyes. The voice was going on, unnoticing, the figure had turned towards a bureau. There were little straggles about the fine hair—Miss Jenny Perne—the Pernes. She was a lonely old maid. … One must listen … but London had sprung back … in full open midday roar; brilliant and fresh; dim,
