ingle, the pine-scented bedrooms with sloping floors, the sandy high-banked lanes and pine-clad hills, the strange talk with the connoisseur, the kind stupid boyish mind of the London doctor who had seen myopic astigmatism across the lunch table and admitted being beaten in argument without resentment; the long dewy morning ride to Guildford; the happy thorns in her hands keeping the weekend still going on at Wimpole Street; her renewed sense of the simplicity of imposing looking people, their personal helplessness on the surface of wealthy social life; the glow of wealthy social life lighting the little wooden window-room, gleaming from the sheeny flecks of light on the well-shaped green teapot.
Mrs. Bailey advanced to the middle of the floor and stood looking towards the window. My word aren’t we smart she breathed.
“I like the teapot and the lantern, don’t you?” said Miriam.
“Very pretty, mts, very pretty, young lady.”
“It reminds me of weekends. It is a weekend. That is my drawing-room.”
“That’s it. It’s a weekend,” beamed Mrs. Bailey. But she had come for something. The effect was not spoiled by giving a wrong, social impression of it, because Mrs. Bailey was busily thinking behind her voice. When she had gone the silent effect would be there, more strongly. Perhaps she had some new suggestion to make about Sissie.
“Well, young lady, I want to talk to you.” Mrs. Bailey propped one elbow on the mantelpiece and brushed at her skirt. Miriam waited, watching her impatiently. The Tansley Street life was fading into the glow of the oncoming holiday season. Rain was cooling the July weather, skirmishy sunlit April rain and wind drawing her forward. There was leisure in cool uncrowded streets and restaurants and in the two cool houses, no pressure of work, the gay easy August that was almost as good as a holiday, and the certainty beyond the rain, of September brilliance.