Pointed Roofs

To
Winifred Ray

Introduction

I have read Pointed Roofs three times.

The first time it came to me with its original wardrobe, a different dress for every mood; and in some places the handwriting of the manuscript clothed the thought with the ragged urgency of haste; and in others it wore an aspect incredibly delicate and neat, as if the writer had caressed each word before setting it down. I decided then that Pointed Roofs was realism, was objective. The influence of the varying moods I inferred from the vagaries of the holograph, inclined me to believe that the book presented the picture of a conscious artist, outside her material, judging, balancing, selecting.

The second time the novel came to me in typescript, in the formal, respectable dress of the applicant for a clerkship. It was there to answer questions; willing to be examined but replying always in a single manner. I changed my opinion after that interview. I thought that I had a clearer sight of the method and I swung round to a flat contradiction of my earlier judgment. This, I thought, is the most subjective thing I have ever read. The writer of this has gone through life with eyes that looked inward; she has known every person and experience solely by her own sensations and reactions.

And, now, I have read Pointed Roofs a third time in the form of a printed book; suddenly ranged alongside all the other books, little and great, and challenging comparison with them. I am no longer prejudiced by the guise in which it comes; I have been able, within my limits, to judge it as I would judge any other novel. …

That final judgment I hesitate to set down in any detail. I do not wish to annoy either critic or public by a superabundant eulogy. I have too great faith in the worth of Miss Richardson’s work to fall into that extravagant praise which might well be understood as the easy escape of the bored friend taking the line of least resistance—mainly in clichés.

But there is another side to the question due to the fact that Pointed Roofs cannot be ranged either with its contemporaries or with the classics in this kind. And I have volunteered to prepare the mind of the reader for something that he or she might fail otherwise properly to understand, even as I, myself, twice failed.

This statement need not provoke alarm. The possible failure to understand will not arise from any turgid obscurity of style, but only from a peculiar difference which is, perhaps, the mark of a new form in fiction. In the past, we have attempted a separation of two main categories in fiction, and in most cases the description of realist or romantic has been applicable enough. Neither can be applied in their ordinary usage to Miss Richardson. The romantic floats on the surface of his imaginings, observing life from an intellectual distance through glasses specially adapted to his own idiosyncrasies of taste. The realist wades waist-deep into the flood of humanity, and goes his way peering and choosing, expressing himself in the material of his choice and not in any distortion of its form.

Miss Richardson is, I think, the first novelist who has taken the final plunge; who has neither floated nor waded, but gone head under and become a very part of the human element she has described.

The “Miriam” of this book may be defined as a keen observer, even as I defined her after reading that holograph. Or she may figure, as I saw her in typescript, as a blind creature feeling her way with sensitive fingers and reading the unseen by the emotions of her mind. The very contradiction implies that the truth will be found in neither verdict. Miriam is, indeed, one with life; and the unexpectedness, the unanalysable quality of that fact may annoy the superficial critic and prejudice him to the point of forcing Pointed Roofs into some hard-and-fast category.

And it is only that one peculiarity for which I wish to prepare the readers of this book. It is a new attitude towards fiction, and one that I could not hope to explain in an introduction—even if I could explain it at all; for explanation in this connection would seem to imply a knowledge that only the mystics can faintly realise.

Pointed Roofs is, I hope, but the first of many volumes which will express the passage of Miriam through life; and I leave all further praise of it to those who may have the insight to comprehend it.

For myself, as I have said, I have read it three times; and presently I shall certainly read it again.

I

Miriam left the gaslit hall and went slowly upstairs. The March twilight lay upon the landings, but the staircase was almost dark. The top landing was quite dark and silent. There was no one about. It would be quiet in her room. She could sit by the fire and be quiet and think things over until Eve and Harriett came back with the parcels. She would have time to think about the journey and decide what she was going to say to the Fräulein.

Her new Saratoga trunk stood solid and gleaming in the firelight. Tomorrow it would be taken away and she would be gone. The room would be altogether Harriett’s. It would never have its old look again. She evaded the thought and moved clumsily to the nearest window. The outline of the round bed and the shapes of the may trees on either side of the bend of the drive were just visible. There was no escape for her thoughts in this direction. The sense of all she was leaving stirred uncontrollably as she stood looking down into the well-known garden.

Out in the road beyond the invisible lime trees came the rumble of wheels. The gate creaked and the wheels crunched up the drive, slurring and stopping under the dining room window.

It was the Thursday afternoon piano-organ, the one that was always in tune. It was early today.

She drew back from the window as the bass chords began thumping gently in the darkness. It was better that it should come now than later on, at dinnertime. She could get over it alone up here.

She went down the length of the room and knelt by the fireside with one hand on the mantelshelf so that she could get up noiselessly and be lighting the gas if anyone came in.

The organ was playing “The Wearin’ o’ the Green.”

It had begun that tune during the last term at school, in the summer. It made her think of rounders in the hot school garden, singing classes in the large green room, all the class shouting “Gather roses while ye may,” hot afternoons in the shady north room, the sound of turning pages, the hum of the garden beyond the sunblinds, meetings in the sixth form study. … Lilla, with her black hair and the specks of bright amber in the brown of her eyes, talking about free will.

She stirred the fire. The windows were quite dark. The flames shot up and shadows darted.

That summer, which still seemed near to her, was going to fade and desert her, leaving nothing behind. Tomorrow it would belong to a world which would go on without her, taking no heed. There would still be blissful days. But she would not be in them.

There would be no more silent sunny mornings with all the day ahead and nothing to do and no end anywhere to anything; no more sitting at the open window in the dining room, reading Lecky and Darwin and bound Contemporary Reviews with roses waiting in the garden to be worn in the afternoon, and Eve and Harriett somewhere about, washing blouses or copying waltzes from the library packet … no more Harriett looking in at the end of the morning, rushing her off to the new grand piano to play the “Mikado” and the “Holy Family” duets. The tennis club would go on, but she would not be there. It would begin in May. Again there would be a white twinkling figure coming quickly along the pathway between the rows of hollyhocks every Saturday afternoon.

Why had he come to tea every Sunday—never missing a single Sunday—all the winter? Why did he say, “Play ‘Abide with Me,’ ” “Play ‘Abide with Me’ ” yesterday, if he didn’t care? What was the good of being so quiet and saying nothing? Why didn’t he say “Don’t go” or “When are you coming back?” Eve said he looked perfectly miserable.

There was nothing to look forward to now but governessing and old age. Perhaps Miss Gilkes was right. … Get rid of men and muddles and have things just ordinary and be happy. “Make up your mind to be happy. You can be perfectly happy without anyone to think about. …” Wearing that large cameo brooch—long, white, flat-fingered hands and that quiet little laugh. … The piano-organ had reached its last tune. In the midst of the final flourish of notes the door flew open. Miriam got quickly to her feet and felt for matches.

Harriett came in waggling a thin brown paper parcel.

“Did you hear the Intermezzo? What a dim religious! We got your old collars.”

Miriam took the parcel and subsided on to the hearthrug, looking with a new curiosity at Harriett’s little, round, firelit face, smiling tightly between the rim of her hard felt hat and the bright silk bow beneath her chin.

A footstep sounded on the landing and there was a gentle tap on the open door.

“Oh, come in, Eve—bring some matches. Are the collars piquet, Harry?”