Harry too; and she used to be so fond of open windows. But it was not a snub. She would say to Gerald she’s got her window bang open, isn’t she an old Cure? She got out singing into the fresh golden air leaving the window wide. The London temptation to shirk her swift shampoo and huddle on a garment did not come. The sense of summer was so strong in the bright air that she felt sure, if only she could have always bright screened light in her room, summer warmth and summer happiness would last the whole year round.
Gerald was pouring out coffee. In the kitchen the voices of Harriett and Mrs. Thimm were railing cheerfully together. Harriett came in with a rush, slamming the door. “Is it too warm for you in here Miss Henderson?” she asked as she drove Gerald to his own end of the table.
“It’s glorious,” said Miriam subsiding into indefinite anticipation. The room was very warm with sunlight and a blazing fire. But there was no pressure anywhere. It was their youth and the way being with them made things go backwards as far as one could see and confidently forward from any room they happened to be in. A meal with them always seemed as if it might go on forever. She glanced affectionately from one to the other, longing to convey to them in some form of words the thing they did not seem to know, the effect they made, together, through having been together from such early beginnings, how it gave and must always give a confidence to the very expression of their hair, making them always about to start life together. It came from Harriett, and was reflected by Gerald, a light that played about him, decking him in his most unconscious, busy, man’s moments with the credit of having found Harriett. They seemed more suitably arranged, confronted here together in this bright eventful house, meeting adventures together, mutually efficient towards a common end, than with Gerald in business and Harry silken and leisurely in a suburban house. …
“We’ll be more glorious in a minute,” said Gerald sweeping actively about. “I’ll just move that old fern.”
“Oh of course” mocked Harriett, “look at the importance …”
Whistling softly Gerald placed a small square box on the table amongst the breakfast things.
“Oh dear me,” moaned Harriett from behind the coffee pot, smirking coyly backwards over her shoulder, “hoh, ar’n’t we grand.” “It’s the new toy” she rapped avertedly towards Miriam, in a despairing whisper. Gerald interrupted his whistling to fix on to the box a sort of trumpet, a thing that looked like a wide-open green nasturtium.
“Is it a musical box?” asked Miriam.
“D’you mean to say you’ve never seen a gramophone yet?” murmured Gerald, frowning and flicking away dust with his handkerchief. They did not mean as much as they appeared to do when they said life was not worth living … they had not discovered life. Gerald did not know the meaning of his interest in things. “People grieve and bemoan themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say.” …
“I haven’t. I’ve heard them squeaking inside public houses of course.”
“Now’s your chance then. Woa Jemima! That’s the ticket. Now she’s off—”
Miriam waited, breathless; eagerly prepared to accept the coming wonder. A sound like the crackling of burning twigs came out into the silence. She remembered her first attempt to use a telephone, the need for concentrating calmly through the preliminary tumult, on the certainty that intelligible sounds would presently emerge, and listened encouragingly for a voice. The crackling changed to a metallic scraping, labouring steadily round and round, as if it would go on forever; it ceased and an angry stentorian voice seemed to be struggling, half-smothered, in the neck of the trumpet. Miriam gazed, startled, at the yawning orifice, as the voice suddenly escaped and leapt out across the table with a “Edison-Bell Record!” Lightly struck chords tinkled far away, fairy music, sounding clear and distinct on empty space remote from the steady scraping of the machine. Then a song began. The whole machine seemed to sing it; vibrating with effort, sending forth the notes in a jerky staccato, the scarcely touched words clipped and broken to fit the jingling tune; the sustained upper notes at the end of the verse wavered chromatically, as if the machine were using its last efforts to reach the true pitch; it ceased and the far away chords came again, fainter and further away. In the second verse the machine struggled more feebly and slackened its speed, flattened suddenly to a lower key, wavered on, flattening from key to key and collapsed, choking, on a single downward-slurring squeak—
“Oh, but that’s absolutely perfect” gasped Miriam.
“You want to set it slower silly; it all began too high.”
“I know, la reine, he knows, he’ll set it slower all right.”
This time the voice marched lugubriously forth, with a threatening emphasis on each word; the sustained notes blared wide through their mufflings; yawned out by an angry lion.
“My word,” said Harriett, “it’s a funeral this time.”
“But it’s glorious! Can you make it go as slowly as you like?”
“We’ll get it right presently, never fear.”
Miriam felt that no correct performance could be better than what she had heard, and listened carelessly to the beginning of the third performance. If it succeeded the blissful light flowing from the room out over her distant world must either be shattered by her tacit repudiation of the cheaply devised ditty, or treacherously preserved at the price of simulated satisfaction. The prelude sounded nearer this time, revealing a piano and an accompanist, and the song came steadily out, a pleasant kindly baritone, beating along on a middle key; a nice unimaginative brown-haired young man, who happened to have a voice. She ceased to attend; the bright breakfast-table, the cheerfully decorated square room bathed in the brilliant morning light that was flooding the upward slope of
