<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<div class="frontmatter">
<p class="halftitle">
POINTED ROOFS</p>
</div>
<div class="frontmatter">
<h1 class="title"> POINTED ROOFS </h1>
<p class="aut">
<span class="line1">BY</span><br/>
<span class="line2">DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON</span></p>
<div class="centerpic logo">
<ANTIMG src="images/logo.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<p class="pub">
<span class="line1">LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO.</span><br/>
<span class="line2">3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN</span></p>
</div>
<div class="frontmatter">
<p class="ded">
<span class="line1">TO</span><br/>
<span class="line2">WINIFRED RAY</span></p>
<p class="cop">
All rights reserved<br/>
Second Impression, 1921</p>
</div>
<h2 class="intro" id="chapter-0-1"> <SPAN name="page-v" class="pagenum" title="v"></SPAN> INTRODUCTION </h2>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">I</span> have read “Pointed Roofs” three times.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<SPAN name="page-vi" class="pagenum" title="vi"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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....</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-vii" class="pagenum" title="vii"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.
<SPAN name="page-viii" class="pagenum" title="viii"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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 connexion would seem to imply a
knowledge that only the mystics can faintly
realise.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>For myself, as I have said, I have read it three
times; and presently I shall certainly read it
again.</p>
<p class="sign">
J. D. BERESFORD.</p>
<p class="tit">
<SPAN name="page-1" class="pagenum" title="1"></SPAN>
POINTED ROOFS</p>
<h2 class="chapter1" id="chapter-0-2"> CHAPTER I </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-2-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">M</span><span class="postfirstchar">iriam</span> 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.</p>
<p>Her new Saratoga trunk stood solid and gleaming
in the firelight. To-morrow it would be
taken away and she would be gone. The room
would be altogether Harriett’s. It would never
<SPAN name="page-2" class="pagenum" title="2"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It was the Thursday afternoon piano-organ,
the one that was always in tune. It was early
to-day.</p>
<p>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 dinner-time. She could get over it alone
up here.</p>
<p>She went down the length of the room and
knelt by the fireside with one hand on the mantel-shelf
so that she could get up noiselessly and be
lighting the gas if anyone came in.</p>
<p>The organ was playing “The Wearin’ o’ the
Green.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-3" class="pagenum" title="3"></SPAN>
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 <em>ro</em>ses while ye may,” hot
afternoons in the shady north room, the sound
of turning pages, the hum of the garden beyond
the sun-blinds, 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.</p>
<p>She stirred the fire. The windows were quite
dark. The flames shot up and shadows darted.</p>
<p>That summer, which still seemed near to
her, was going to fade and desert her, leaving
nothing behind. To-morrow 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.</p>
<p>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
<SPAN name="page-4" class="pagenum" title="4"></SPAN>
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 holly-hocks
every Saturday afternoon.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>perfectly</em>
happy without anyone to think about....”
Wearing that large cameo brooch—long, white,
flat-fingered hands and that quiet little laugh....
<SPAN name="page-5" class="pagenum" title="5"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-2-2"> 2 </h3>
<p>Harriett came in waggling a thin brown
paper parcel.</p>
<p>“Did you hear the Intermezzo? What a
dim religious! We got your old collars.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>A footstep sounded on the landing and there
was a gentle tap on the open door.</p>
<p>“Oh, come in, Eve—bring some matches.
Are the collars piquet, Harry?”</p>
<p>“No, they hadn’t got piquet, but they’re
the plain shape you like. You may thank us they
didn’t send you things with little rujabiba
frills.”</p>
<p>Eve came slenderly down the room and Miriam
saw with relief that her outdoor things were
<SPAN name="page-6" class="pagenum" title="6"></SPAN>
off. As the gas flared up she drew comfort
from her scarlet serge dress, and the soft crimson
cheek and white brow of the profile raised
towards the flaring jet.</p>
<p>“What are things like downstairs?” she said,
staring into the fire.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” said Eve. She sighed thoughtfully
and sank into a carpet chair under the
gas bracket. Miriam glanced at her troubled
eyes.</p>
<p>“Pater’s only just come in. I think things
are pretty rotten,” declared Harriett from the
hearthrug.</p>
<p>“Isn’t it ghastly—for all of us?” Miriam
felt treacherously outspoken. It was a relief
to be going away. She knew that this sense of
relief made her able to speak. “It’s never
knowing that’s so awful. Perhaps he’ll get some
more money presently and things’ll go on again.
Fancy mother having it always, ever since we
were babies.”</p>
<p>“Don’t, Mim.”</p>
<p>“All right. I won’t tell you the words he
said, how he put it about the difficulty of getting
the money for my things.”</p>
<p>“<em>Don’t</em>, Mim.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-7" class="pagenum" title="7"></SPAN>
Miriam’s mind went back to the phrase and
her mother’s agonised face. She felt utterly
desolate in the warm room.</p>
<p>“I wish <em>I’d</em> got brains,” chirped Harriett,
poking the fire with the toe of her boot.</p>
<p>“So you have—more than me.”</p>
<p>“Oh—reely.”</p>
<p>“You know, I <em>know</em> girls, that things are as
absolutely ghastly this time as they can possibly
be and that something must be done.... But
you know it’s perfectly fearful to face that old
school when it comes to the point.”</p>
<p>“Oh, my dear, it’ll be lovely,” said Eve; “all
new and jolly, and think how you will enjoy
those lectures, you’ll simply love them.”</p>
<p>“It’s all very well to say that. You know
you’d feel ill with fright.”</p>
<p>“It’ll be all right—for <em>you</em>—once you’re
there.”</p>
<p>Miriam stared into the fire and began to murmur
shamefacedly.</p>
<p>“No more all day bézique.... No more
days in the West End.... No more matinées
... no more exhibitions ... no more A.B.C.
teas ... no more insane times ... no more
anything.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-8" class="pagenum" title="8"></SPAN>
“What about holidays? You’ll enjoy them
all the more.”</p>
<p>“I shall be staid and governessy.”</p>
<p>“You mustn’t. You must be frivolous.”</p>
<p>Two deeply-burrowing dimples fastened the
clean skin tightly over the bulge of Miriam’s
smile.</p>
<p>“And marry a German professor,” she intoned
blithely.</p>
<p>“Don’t—don’t for <em>goodney</em> say that before
mother, Miriam.”</p>
<p>“D’you mean she minds me going?”</p>
<p>“My <em>dear</em>!”</p>
<p>Why did Eve use her cross voice?—stupid
... “for goodness’ sake,” not “for goodney.”
Silly of Eve to talk slang....</p>
<p>“All right. I won’t.”</p>
<p>“Won’t marry a German professor, or won’t
tell mother, do you mean?... Oo—Crumbs!
My old cake in the oven!” Harriett hopped to
the door.</p>
<p>“Funny Harriett taking to cookery. It
doesn’t seem a bit like her.”</p>
<p>“She’ll have to do something—so shall I, I
s’pose.”</p>
<p>“It seems awful.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-9" class="pagenum" title="9"></SPAN>
“We shall simply have to.”</p>
<p>“It’s awful,” said Miriam, shivering.</p>
<p>“Poor old girl. I expect you feel horrid
because you’re tired with all the packing and
excitement.”</p>
<p>“Oh well, anyhow, it’s simply ghastly.”</p>
<p>“You’ll feel better to-morrow.”</p>
<p>“D’you think I shall?”</p>
<p>“Yes—you’re so strong,” said Eve, flushing
and examining her nails.</p>
<p>“How d’you mean?”</p>
<p>“Oh—all sorts of ways.”</p>
<p>“What way?”</p>
<p>“Oh—well—you arranging all this—I mean
answering the advertisement and settling it all.”</p>
<p>“Oh well, you know you backed me up.”</p>
<p>“Oh yes, but other things....”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I was thinking about you having no
religion.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“You must have such splendid principles to
keep you straight,” said Eve, and cleared her
throat, “I mean, you must have such a lot in
you.”</p>
<p>“Me?”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-10" class="pagenum" title="10"></SPAN>
“Yes, of course.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know where it comes in. What have
I done?”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, it isn’t so much what you’ve done—you
have such a good time.... Everybody
admires you and all that ... you know what
I mean—you’re so clever.... You’re always
in the right.”</p>
<p>“That’s just what everybody hates!”</p>
<p>“Well, my dear, I wish I had your mind.”</p>
<p>“You needn’t,” said Miriam.</p>
<p>“You’re all right—you’ll come out all right.
You’re one of those strong-minded people who
have to go through a period of doubt.”</p>
<p>“But, my <em>dear</em>,” said Miriam grateful and
proud, “I feel such a humbug. You know when
I wrote that letter to the Fräulein I said I was a
member of the Church. I know what it will be,
I shall have to take the English girls to church.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, you won’t mind that.”</p>
<p>“It will make me simply ill—I could <em>never</em>
describe to you,” said Miriam, with her face
aglow, “what it is to me to hear some silly
man drone away with an undistributed middle
term.”</p>
<p>“They’re not all like that.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-11" class="pagenum" title="11"></SPAN>
“Oh, well, then it will be ignoratio elenchi or
argumentum ad hominem——”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, but they’re not the <em>service</em>.”</p>
<p>“The service I can’t make head or tail of—think
of the Athanasian.”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Eve stirred uneasily and began to
execute a gentle scale with her tiny tightly-knit
blue and white hand upon her knee.</p>
<p>“It’ll be ghastly,” continued Miriam, “not
having anyone to pour out to—I’ve told you
such a lot these last few days.”</p>
<p>“Yes, hasn’t it been funny? I seem to know
you all at once so much better.”</p>
<p>“Well—don’t you think I’m perfectly hateful?”</p>
<p>“No. I admire you more than ever. I think
you’re simply splendid.”</p>
<p>“Then you simply don’t know me.”</p>
<p>“Yes I do. And you’ll be able to write to
me.”</p>
<p>Eve, easily weeping, hugged her and whispered,
“You mustn’t. I can’t see you break down—don’t—don’t—don’t.
We can’t be blue your
last night.... Think of nice things.... There
<em>will</em> be nice things again ... there will, will,
will, <em>will</em>.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-12" class="pagenum" title="12"></SPAN>
Miriam pursed her lips to a tight bunch and
sat twisting her long thickish fingers. Eve stood
up in her tears. Her smile and the curves of her
mouth were unchanged by her weeping, and
the crimson had spread and deepened a little in
the long oval of her face. Miriam watched the
changing crimson. Her eyes went to and fro
between it and the neatly pinned masses of
brown hair.</p>
<p>“I’m going to get some hot water,” said Eve,
“and we’ll make ourselves glorious.”</p>
<p>Miriam watched her as she went down the
long room—the great oval of dark hair, the
narrow neck, the narrow back, tight, plump
little hands hanging in profile, white, with a
purple pad near the wrist.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-2-3"> 3 </h3>
<p>When Miriam woke the next morning she
lay still with closed eyes. She had dreamed that
she had been standing in a room in the German
school and the staff had crowded round her,
looking at her. They had dreadful eyes—eyes
like the eyes of hostesses she remembered, eyes
she had seen in trains and ’buses, eyes from the
<SPAN name="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></SPAN>
old school. They came and stood and looked
at her, and saw her as she was, without courage,
without funds or good clothes or beauty, without
charm or interest, without even the skill to
play a part. They looked at her with loathing.
“Board and lodging—privilege to attend
Masters’ lectures and laundry (body-linen only).”
That was all she had thought of and clutched
at—all along, since first she read the Fräulein’s
letter. Her keep and the chance of learning ...
and Germany—Germany, das deutsche Vaterland—Germany,
all woods and mountains and
tenderness—Hermann and Dorothea in the dusk
of a happy village.</p>
<p>And it would really be those women, expecting
things of her. They would be so affable at first.
She had been through it a million times—all her
life—all eternity. They would smile those hateful
women’s smiles—smirks—self-satisfied smiles
as if everybody were agreed about everything.
She loathed women. They always smiled. All
the teachers had at school, all the girls, but
Lilla. Eve did ... maddeningly sometimes
... Mother ... it was the only funny horrid
thing about her. Harriett didn’t.... Harriett
laughed. She was strong and hard somehow....</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></SPAN>
Pater knew how hateful all the world of women
were and despised them.</p>
<p>He never included her with them; or only
sometimes when she pretended, or he didn’t
understand....</p>
<p>Someone was saying “Hi!” a gurgling muffled
shout, a long way off.</p>
<p>She opened her eyes. It was bright morning.
She saw the twist of Harriett’s body lying across
the edge of the bed. With a gasp she flung
herself over her own side. Harry, old Harry,
jolly old Harry had remembered the Grand
Ceremonial. In a moment her own head hung,
her long hair flinging back on to the floor, her
eyes gazing across under the bed at the reversed
snub of Harriett’s face. It was flushed in the
midst of the wiry hair which stuck out all round
it but did not reach the floor. “Hi!” they
gurgled solemnly, “Hi.... Hi!” shaking their
heads from side to side. Then their four frilled
hands came down and they flumped out of the
high bed.</p>
<p>They performed an uproarious toilet. It
seemed so safe up there in the bright bare room.
Miriam’s luggage had been removed. It was
away somewhere in the house; far away and
<SPAN name="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></SPAN>
unreal and unfelt as her parents somewhere
downstairs, and the servants away in the basement
getting breakfast and Sarah and Eve
always incredible, getting quietly up in the next
room. Nothing was real but getting up with
old Harriett in this old room.</p>
<p>She revelled in Harriett’s delicate buffoonery
(“voluntary incongruity” she quoted to herself
as she watched her)—the titles of some of the
books on Harriett’s shelf, “Ungava; a Tale of
the North,” “Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” “John
Halifax,” “Swiss Family Robinson” made her
laugh. The curtained recesses of the long room
stretched away into space.</p>
<p>She went about dimpling and responding,
singing and masquerading as her large hands
did their work.</p>
<p>She intoned the titles on her own shelf—as a
response to the quiet swearing and jesting accompanying
Harriett’s occupations. “The Voyage
of the Beeeeeeagle,” she sang “Scott’s Poetical
<em>Works</em>.” Villette—Longfellow—Holy Bible <em>with</em>
Apocrypha—Egmont——</p>
<p>“Binks!” squealed Harriett daintily. “Yink
grink binks.”</p>
<p>“Books!” she responded in a low tone, and
<SPAN name="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></SPAN>
flushed as if she had given Harriett an affectionate
hug. “My rotten books....” She would
come back, and read all her books more carefully.
She had packed some. She could not
remember which and why.</p>
<p>“Binks,” she said, and it was quite easy for
them to crowd together at the little dressing-table.
Harriett was standing in her little faded
red moirette petticoat and a blue flannelette
dressing-jacket brushing her wiry hair. Miriam
reflected that she need no longer hate her for
the set of her clothes round her hips. She caught
sight of her own faded jersey and stiff, shapeless
black petticoat in the mirror. Harriett’s
“Hinde’s” lay on the dressing-table, her own
still lifted the skin of her forehead in suffused
puckerings against the shank of each pin.</p>
<p>Unperceived, she eyed the tiny stiff plait of
hair which stuck out almost horizontally from
the nape of Harriett’s neck, and watched her
combing out the tightly-curled fringe standing
stubbily out along her forehead and extending
like a thickset hedge midway across the crown
of her head, where it stopped abruptly against
the sleekly-brushed longer strands which strained
over her poll and disappeared into the plait.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></SPAN>
“Your old wool’ll be just right in Germany,”
remarked Harriett.</p>
<p>“Mm.”</p>
<p>“You ought to do it in basket plaits like
Sarah.”</p>
<p>“I wish I could. I can’t think how she does
it.”</p>
<p>“Ike spect it’s easy enough.”</p>
<p>“Mm.”</p>
<p>“But you’re all right, anyhow.”</p>
<p>“Anyhow, it’s no good bothering when you’re
plain.”</p>
<p>“You’re <em>not</em> plain.”</p>
<p>Miriam looked sharply round.</p>
<p>“Go on, Gooby.”</p>
<p>“You’re not. You don’t know. Granny said
you’ll be a bonny woman, and Sarah thinks
you’ve got the best shape face and the best
complexion of any of us, and cook was simply
crying her eyes out last night and said you were
the light of the house with your happy, pretty
face, and mother said you’re much too attractive
to go about alone, and that’s partly why Pater’s
going with you to Hanover, silly.... You’re
not plain,” she gasped.</p>
<p>Miriam’s amazement silenced her. She stood
<SPAN name="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></SPAN>
back from the mirror. She could not look into
it until Harriett had gone. The phrases she had
just heard rang in her head without meaning.
But she knew she would remember all of them.
She went on doing her hair with downcast eyes.
She had seen Harriett vividly, and had longed
to crush her in her arms and kiss her little round
cheeks and the snub of her nose. Then she
wanted her to be gone.</p>
<p>Presently Harriett took up a brooch and
skated down the room, “Ta-ra-ra-la-eee-tee!”
she carolled, “don’t be long,” and disappeared.</p>
<p>“I’m pretty,” murmured Miriam, planting
herself in front of the dressing-table. “I’m
pretty—they like me—they <em>like</em> me. Why
didn’t I know?” She did not look into the
mirror. “They all like me, <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>The sound of the breakfast-bell came clanging
up through the house. She hurried to her side
of the curtained recess. Hanging there were her
old red stockinette jersey and her blue skirt ...
never again ... just once more ... she
could change afterwards. Her brown, heavy
best dress with puffed and gauged sleeves and
thick gauged and gathered boned bodice was in
her hand. She hung it once more on its peg and
<SPAN name="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></SPAN>
quickly put on her old things. The jersey was
shiny with wear. “You darling old things,” she
muttered as her arms slipped down the sleeves.</p>
<p>The door of the next room opened quietly
and she heard Sarah and Eve go decorously
downstairs. She waited until their footsteps
had died away and then went very slowly down
the first flight, fastening her belt. She stopped
at the landing window, tucking the frayed end
of the petersham under the frame of the buckle
... they were all downstairs, liking her. She
could not face them. She was too excited and
too shy.... She had never once thought of
their “feeling” her going away ... saying
good-bye to each one ... all minding and
sorry—even the servants. She glanced fearfully
out into the garden, seeing nothing. Someone
called up from the breakfast-room doorway,
“Mim—my!” How surprised Mr. Bart had
been when he discovered that they themselves
never knew whose voice it was of all four of
them unless you saw the person, “but yours is
really richer” ... it was cheek to say that.</p>
<p>“Mim—my!”</p>
<p>Suddenly she longed to be gone—to have it
all over and be gone.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></SPAN>
She heard the kak-kak of Harriett’s wooden
heeled slippers across the tiled hall. She glanced
down the well of the staircase. Harriett was
mightily swinging the bell, scattering a little
spray of notes at each end of her swing.</p>
<p>With a frightened face Miriam crept back up
the stairs. Violently slamming the bedroom
door, “I’m a-comin’—I’m a-comin’,” she
shouted and ran downstairs.</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-3"> <SPAN name="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></SPAN> CHAPTER II </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-3-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> crossing was over. They were arriving.
The movement of the little steamer that
had collected the passengers from the packet-boat
drove the raw air against Miriam’s face. In
her tired brain the grey river and the flat misty
shores slid constantly into a vision of the gaslit
dining-room at home ... the large clear glowing
fire, the sounds of the family voices. Every
effort to obliterate the picture brought back again
the moment that had come at the dinner-table
as they all sat silent for an instant with downcast
eyes and she had suddenly longed to go on for
ever just sitting there with them all.</p>
<p>Now, in the boat she wanted to be free for the
strange grey river and the grey shores. But the
home scenes recurred relentlessly. Again and
again she went through the last moments ...
the good-byes, the unexpected convulsive force
of her mother’s arms, her own dreadful inability
<SPAN name="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></SPAN>
to give any answering embrace. She could not
remember saying a single word. There had been
a feeling that came like a tide carrying her away.
Eager and dumb and remorseful she had gone
out of the house and into the cab with Sarah,
and then had come the long sitting in the loop-line
train ... “talk about something” ...
Sarah sitting opposite and her unchanged voice
saying “What shall we talk about?” And then
a long waiting, and the brown leather strap
swinging against the yellow grained door, the
smell of dust and the dirty wooden flooring, with
the noise of the wheels underneath going to the
swinging tune of one of Heller’s “Sleepless
Nights.” The train had made her sway with
its movements. How still Sarah seemed to sit,
fixed in the old life. Nothing had come but
strange cruel emotions.</p>
<p>After the suburban train nothing was distinct
until the warm snowflakes were drifting against
her face through the cold darkness on Harwich
quay. Then, after what seemed like a great loop
of time spent going helplessly up a gangway towards
“the world” she had stood, face to face
with the pale polite stewardess in her cabin. “I
had better have a lemon, cut in two,” she had
<SPAN name="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></SPAN>
said, feeling suddenly stifled with fear. For
hours she had lain despairing, watching the slowly
swaying walls of her cabin or sinking with closed
eyes through invertebrate dipping spaces. Before
each releasing paroxysm she told herself “this
is like death; one day I shall die, it will be like
this.”</p>
<p>She supposed there would be breakfast soon on
shore, a firm room and a teapot and cups and
saucers. Cold and exhaustion would come to an
end. She would be talking to her father.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-3-2"> 2 </h3>
<p>He was standing near her with the Dutchman
who had helped her off the boat and looked after
her luggage. The Dutchman was listening,
deferentially. Miriam saw the strong dark blue
beam of his eyes.</p>
<p>“Very good, very good,” she heard him say,
“fine education in German schools.”</p>
<p>Both men were smoking cigars.</p>
<p>She wanted to draw herself upright and shake
out her clothes.</p>
<p>“Select,” she heard, “excellent staff of masters
... daughters of gentlemen.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></SPAN>
“Pater is trying to make the Dutchman think
I am being taken as a pupil to a finishing school
in Germany.” She thought of her lonely pilgrimage
to the West End agency, of her humiliating
interview, of her heart-sinking acceptance
of the post, the excitements and misgivings she
had had, of her sudden challenge of them all that
evening after dinner, and their dismay and remonstrance
and reproaches—of her fear and determination
in insisting and carrying her point and
making them begin to be interested in her plan.</p>
<p>But she shared her father’s satisfaction in impressing
the Dutchman. She knew that she was
at one with him in that. She glanced at him.
There could be no doubt that he was playing the
rôle of the English gentleman. Poor dear. It
was what he had always wanted to be. He had
sacrificed everything to the idea of being a
“person of leisure and cultivation.” Well, after
all, it was true in a way. He was—and he had, she
knew, always wanted her to be the same and she
<em>was</em> going to finish her education abroad ... in
Germany.... They were nearing a little low
quay backed by a tremendous saffron-coloured
hoarding announcing in black letters “Sunlight
Zeep.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-3-3"> <SPAN name="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></SPAN> 3 </h3>
<p>“Did you see, Pater; did you <em>see</em>?”</p>
<p>They were walking rapidly along the quay.</p>
<p>“Did you see? Sunlight <em>Zeep</em>!”</p>
<p>She listened to his slightly scuffling stride at her
side.</p>
<p>Glancing up she saw his face excited and important.
He was not listening. He was being an
English gentleman, “emerging” from the Dutch
railway station.</p>
<p>“Sunlight <em>Zeep</em>,” she shouted. “<em>Zeep</em>, Pater!”</p>
<p>He glanced down at her and smiled condescendingly.</p>
<p>“Ah, yes,” he admitted with a laugh.</p>
<p>There were Dutch faces for Miriam—men,
women and children coming towards her with
sturdy gait.</p>
<p>“They’re talking Dutch! They’re all talking
<em>Dutch</em>!”</p>
<p>The foreign voices, the echoes in the little
narrow street, the flat waterside effect of the
sounds, the bright clearness she had read of,
brought tears to her eyes.</p>
<p>“The others <em>must</em> come here,” she told herself,
pitying them all.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></SPAN>
They had an English breakfast at the Victoria
Hotel and went out and hurried about the little
streets. They bought cigars and rode through the
town on a little tramway. Presently they were
in a train watching the Dutch landscape go by.
One level stretch succeeded another. Miriam
wanted to go out alone under the grey sky and
walk over the flat fields shut in by poplars.</p>
<p>She looked at the dykes and the windmills
with indifferent eyes, but her desire for the flat
meadows grew.</p>
<p>Late at night, seated wide-awake opposite her
sleeping companion, rushing towards the German
city, she began to think.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-3-4"> 4 </h3>
<p>It was a fool’s errand.... To undertake to
go to the German school and teach ... to be
going there ... with nothing to give. The
moment would come when there would be a
class sitting round a table waiting for her to
speak. She imagined one of the rooms at the
old school, full of scornful girls.... How was
English taught? How did you begin? English
grammar ... in German? Her heart beat in
<SPAN name="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></SPAN>
her throat. She had never thought of that ...
the rules of English grammar? Parsing and
analysis.... Anglo-Saxon prefixes and suffixes
... gerundial infinitive.... It was too late
to look anything up. Perhaps there would be a
class to-morrow.... The German lessons at
school had been dreadfully good.... Fräulein’s
grave face ... her perfect knowledge of every
rule ... her clear explanations in English ...
her examples.... All these things were there,
in English grammar.... And she had undertaken
to teach them and could not even speak
German.</p>
<p>Monsieur ... had talked French all the time
... dictées ... lectures ... Le Conscrit
... Waterloo ... La Maison Déserte ... his
careful voice reading on and on ... until the
room disappeared.... She must do that for
her German girls. Read English to them and
make them happy.... But first there must be
verbs ... there had been cahiers of them ...
first, second, third conjugation.... It was impudence,
an impudent invasion ... the dreadful
clever, foreign school.... They would laugh at
her.... She began to repeat the English alphabet....
She doubted whether, faced with a
<SPAN name="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></SPAN>
class, she could reach the end without a mistake....
She reached Z and went on to the parts of
speech.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-3-5"> 5 </h3>
<p>There would be a moment when she must
have an explanation with the Fräulein. Perhaps
she could tell her that she found the teaching
was beyond her scope and then find a place somewhere
as a servant. She remembered things she
had heard about German servants—that whenever
they even dusted a room they cleaned the windows
and on Sundays they waited at lunch in muslin
dresses and afterwards went to balls. She feared
even the German servants would despise her.
They had never been allowed into the kitchen at
home except when there was jam-making ...
she had never made a bed in her life.... A
shop? But that would mean knowing German
and being quick at giving change. Impossible.
Perhaps she could find some English people in
Hanover who would help her. There was an
English colony she knew, and an English church.
But that would be like going back. That must
not happen. She would rather stay abroad on
any terms—away from England—English people.
<SPAN name="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></SPAN>
She had scented something, a sort of confidence,
everywhere, in her hours in Holland, the brisk
manner of the German railway officials and the
serene assurance of the travelling Germans she
had seen, confirmed her impression. Away out
here, the sense of imminent catastrophe that had
shadowed all her life so far, had disappeared.
Even here in this dim carriage, with disgrace ahead
she felt that there was freedom somewhere at
hand. Whatever happened she would hold to
that.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-3-6"> 6 </h3>
<p>She glanced up at her small leather hand-bag
lying in the rack and thought of the solid money
in her purse. Twenty-five shillings. It was a
large sum and she was to have more as she needed.</p>
<p>She glanced across at the pale face with its
point of reddish beard, the long white hands laid
one upon the other on the crossed knees. He had
given her twenty-five shillings and there was her
fare and his, and his return fare and her new
trunk and all the things she had needed. It
must be the end of taking money from him. She
was grown up. She was the strong-minded one.
She must manage. With a false position ahead
<SPAN name="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></SPAN>
and after a short space, disaster, she must get
along.</p>
<p>The peaceful Dutch fields came to her mind.
They looked so secure. They had passed by too
soon. We have always been in a false position,
she pondered. Always lying and pretending and
keeping up a show—never daring to tell anybody....
Did she want to tell anybody? To come
out into the open and be helped and have things
arranged for her and do things like other people?
No.... No.... “Miriam always likes to be
different”—“Society is no boon to those not
sociable.” Dreadful things ... and the girls
laughing together about them. What did they
really mean?</p>
<p>“Society is no boon to those not sociable”—on
her birthday-page in Ellen Sharpe’s birthday-book.
Ellen handed it to her going upstairs and
had chanted the words out to the others and
smiled her smile ... she had not asked her to
write her name ... was it unsociable to dislike
so many of the girls.... Ellen’s people were in
the Indian ... her thoughts hesitated....
Sivvle ... something grand—All the grand girls
were horrid ... somehow mean and sly ... Sivvle
... <em>Sivvle</em> ... <em>Civil!</em> Of course! Civil <em>what</em>?</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></SPAN>
Miriam groaned. She was a governess now.
Someone would ask her that question. She would
ask Pater before he went.... No, she would
not.... If only he would answer a question
simply, and not with a superior air as if he had
invented the thing he was telling about. She
felt she had a right to all the knowledge there
was, without fuss ... oh, without fuss—without
fuss and—emotion.... I <em>am</em> unsociable, I
suppose—she mused. She could not think of
anyone who did not offend her. I don’t like
men and I loathe women. I am a misanthrope.
So’s Pater. He despises women and can’t get on
with men. We are different—it’s us, him and
me. He’s failed us because he’s different and if
he weren’t we should be like other people. Everything
in the railway responded and agreed. Like
other people ... horrible.... She thought of
the fathers of girls she knew—the Poole girls, for
instance, they were to be “independent” trained
and certificated—she envied that—but her envy
vanished when she remembered how heartily she
had agreed when Sarah called them “sharp” and
“knowing.”</p>
<p>Mr. Poole was a business man ... common
... trade.... If Pater had kept to Grandpa’s
<SPAN name="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></SPAN>
business they would be trade, too—well-off, now—all
married. Perhaps as it was he had thought
they would marry.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-3-7"> 7 </h3>
<p>She thought sleepily of her Wesleyan grandparents,
gravely reading the “Wesleyan Methodist
Recorder,” the shop at Babington, her father’s
discontent, his solitary fishing and reading, his
discovery of music ... science ... classical music
in the first Novello editions ... Faraday ...
speaking to Faraday after lectures. Marriage ...
the new house ... the red brick wall at the end
of the garden where young peach-trees were
planted ... running up and downstairs and
singing ... both of them singing in the rooms
and the garden ... she sometimes with her hair
down and then when visitors were expected
pinned in coils under a little cap and wearing a
small hoop ... the garden and lawns and shrubbery
and the long kitchen-garden and the summer-house
under the oaks beyond and the pretty old
gabled “town” on the river and the woods all
along the river valley and the hills shining up out
of the mist. The snow man they both made in
the winter—the birth of Sarah and then Eve ...
<SPAN name="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></SPAN>
his studies and book-buying—and after five years
her own disappointing birth as the third girl,
and the coming of Harriett just over a year later
... her mother’s illness, money troubles—their
two years at the sea to retrieve ... the disappearance
of the sunlit red-walled garden always in
full summer sunshine with the sound of bees in
it or dark from windows ... the narrowing of
the house-life down to the Marine Villa—with
the sea creeping in—wading out through the
green shallows, out and out till you were more
than waist deep—shrimping and prawning hour
after hour for weeks together ... poking in the
rock pools, watching the sun and the colours in
the strange afternoons ... then the sudden large
house at Barnes with the “drive” winding to
the door.... He used to come home from the
City and the Constitutional Club and sometimes
instead of reading “The Times” or the “Globe”
or the “Proceedings of the British Association”
or Herbert Spencer, play Pope Joan or Jacoby
with them all, or Table Billiards and laugh and
be “silly” and take his turn at being “bumped”
by Timmy going the round of the long dining-room
table, tail in the air; he had taken Sarah
and Eve to see “Don Giovanni” and “Winter’s
<SPAN name="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></SPAN>
Tale” and the new piece, “Lohengrin.” No one
at the tennis-club had seen that. He had good
taste. No one else had been to Madame Schumann’s
Farewell ... sitting at the piano with her
curtains of hair and her dreamy smile ... and the
Philharmonic Concerts. No one else knew about
the lectures at the Royal Institution, beginning
at nine on Fridays.... No one else’s father
went with a party of scientific men “for the
advancement of science” to Norway or America,
seeing the Falls and the Yosemite Valley. No
one else took his children as far as Dawlish for
the holidays, travelling all day, from eight until
seven ... no esplanade, the old stone jetty and
coves and cowrie shells....</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-4"> <SPAN name="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></SPAN> CHAPTER III </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">M</span><span class="postfirstchar">iriam</span> was practising on the piano in
the larger of the two English bedrooms.
Two other pianos were sounding in the house,
one across the landing and the other in the saal
where Herr Kapellmeister Bossenberger was
giving a music-lesson. The rest of the girls were
gathered in the large schoolroom under the care
of Mademoiselle for Saturday’s <em>raccommodage</em>. It
was the last hour of the week’s work. Presently
there would be a great gonging, the pianos would
cease, Fräulein’s voice would sound up through
the house “Anziehen zum Aus—geh—hen!”</p>
<p>There would be the walk, dinner, the Saturday
afternoon home-letters to be written and then,
until Monday, holiday, freedom to read and to
talk English and idle. And there was a new
arrival in the house. Ulrica Hesse had come.
Miriam had seen her. There had been three
large leather trunks in the hall and a girl with a
<SPAN name="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></SPAN>
smooth pure oval of pale face standing wrapped
in dark furs, gazing about her with eyes for which
Miriam had no word, liquid—limpid—great-saucers,
no—pools ... great round deeps....
She had felt about for something to express them
as she went upstairs with her roll of music.
Fräulein Pfaff who had seemed to hover and
smile about the girl as if half afraid to speak to
her, had put out a hand for Miriam and said
almost deprecatingly, “Ach, mm, dies’ ist unser
Ulrica.”</p>
<p>The girl’s thin fingers had come out of her
furs and fastened convulsively—like cold, throbbing
claws on to the breadth of Miriam’s hand.</p>
<p>“Unsere englische Lehrerin—our teacher from
England,” smiled Fräulein.</p>
<p>“Lehrerin!” breathed the girl. Something
flinched behind her great eyes. The fingers
relaxed, and Miriam feeling within her a beginning
of response, had gone upstairs.</p>
<p>As she reached the upper landing she began to
distinguish against the clangour of chromatic
passages assailing the house from the echoing
saal, the gentle tones of the nearer piano, the one
in the larger German bedroom opposite the front
room for which she was bound. She paused for
<SPAN name="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></SPAN>
a moment at the top of the stairs and listened.
A little swaying melody came out to her, muted
by the closed door. Her grasp on the roll of
music slackened. A radiance came for a moment
behind the gravity of her face. Then the careful
unstumbling repetition of a difficult passage drew
her attention to the performer, her arms dropped
to her sides and she passed on. It was little
Bergmann, the youngest girl in the school. Her
playing, on the bad old piano in the dark dressing-room
in the basement, had prepared Miriam for
the difference between the performance of these
German girls and nearly all the piano-playing she
had heard. It was the morning after her arrival.
She had been unpacking and had taken, on the
advice of Mademoiselle, her heavy boots and
outdoor things down to the basement room. She
had opened the door on Emma sitting at the
piano in her blue and buff check ribbon-knotted
stuff dress. Miriam had expected her to turn her
head and stop playing. But as, arms full, she closed
the door with her shoulders, the child’s profile
remained unconcerned. She noticed the firmly-poised
head, the thick creamy neck that seemed
bare with its absence of collar-band and the soft
frill of tucker stitched right on to the dress, the
<SPAN name="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></SPAN>
thick cable of string-coloured hair reaching just
beyond the rim of the leather-covered music
stool, the steel-beaded points of the little slippers
gleaming as they worked the pedals, the serene
eyes steadily following the music. She played
on and Miriam recognised a quality she had only
heard occasionally at concerts, and in the playing
of one of the music teachers at school.</p>
<p>She had stood amazed, pretending to be
fumbling for empty pegs as this round-faced
child of fourteen went her way to the end of her
page. Then Miriam had ventured to interrupt
and to ask her about the hanging arrangements,
and the child had risen and speaking soft South
German had suggested and poked tip-toeing
about amongst the thickly-hung garments and
shown a motherly solicitude over the disposal of
Miriam’s things. Miriam noted the easy range
of the child’s voice, how smoothly it slid from
bird-like queries and chirpings to the consoling
tones of the lower register. It seemed to leave
undisturbed the softly-rounded, faintly-mottled
chin and cheeks and the full unpouting lips that
lay quietly one upon the other before she spoke,
and opened flexibly but somehow hardly moved
to her speech and afterwards closed again
<SPAN name="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></SPAN>
gradually until they lay softly blossoming as
before.</p>
<p>Emma had gathered up her music when the
clothes were arranged, sighing and lamenting
gently, “Wäre ich nur zu Hause”—how happy
one was at home—her little voice filled with
tears and her cheeks flushed, “haypie, haypie to
home,” she complained as she slid her music into
its case, “where all so good, so nice, so beautiful,”
and they had gone, side by side, up the dark uncarpeted
stone stairs leading from the basement to
the hall. Half-way up, Emma had given Miriam
a shy firm hug and then gone decorously up the
remainder of the flight.</p>
<p>The sense of that sudden little embrace
recurred often to Miriam during the course of
the first day.</p>
<p>It was unlike any contact she had known—more
motherly than her mother’s. Neither of
her sisters could have embraced her like that.
She did not know that a human form could
bring such a sense of warm nearness, that human
contours could be eloquent—or anyone so sweetly
daring.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-2"> <SPAN name="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></SPAN> 2 </h3>
<p>That first evening at Waldstrasse there had
been a performance that had completed the
transformation of Miriam’s English ideas of
“music.” She had caught the word “Vorspielen”
being bandied about the long tea-table, and had
gathered that there was to be an informal
playing of “pieces” before Fräulein Pfaff.
She welcomed the event. It relieved her from
the burden of being in high focus—the relief
had come as soon as she took her place at the
gaslit table. No eye seemed to notice her.
The English girls having sat out two meal-times
with her, had ceased the hard-eyed observation
which had made the long silence of the earlier
repasts only less embarrassing than Fräulein’s
questions about England. The four Germans
who had neither stared nor even appeared aware
of her existence, talked cheerfully across the
table in a general exchange that included tall
Fräulein Pfaff smiling her horse-smile—Miriam
provisionally called it—behind the tea-urn, as
chairman. The six English-speaking girls,
grouped as it were towards their chief, a dark-skinned,
athletic looking Australian with hot,
<SPAN name="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></SPAN>
brown, slightly blood-shot eyes sitting as vice-president
opposite Fräulein, joined occasionally,
in solo and chorus, and Miriam noted with relief
a unanimous atrocity of accent in their enviable
fluency. Rapid <em>sotto voce</em> commentary and half-suppressed
wordless by-play located still more
clearly the English quarter. Animation flowed
and flowed. Miriam safely ignored, scarcely
heeding, but warmed and almost happy, basked.
She munched her black bread and butter,
liberally smeared with the rich savoury paste of
liver sausage, and drank her sweet weak tea and
knew that she was very tired, sleepy and tired.
She glanced, from her place next to Emma
Bergmann and on Fräulein’s left hand, down
the table to where Mademoiselle sat next the
Martins in similar relation to the vice-president.
Mademoiselle, preceding her up through the
quiet house carrying the jugs of hot water, had
been her first impression on her arrival the
previous night. She had turned when they
reached the candle-lit attic with its high uncurtained
windows and red-covered box beds,
and standing on the one strip of matting in her
full-skirted grey wincey dress with its neat
triple row of black ribbon velvet near the hem,
<SPAN name="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></SPAN>
had shown Miriam steel-blue eyes smiling from
a little triangular sprite-like face under a high-standing
pouf of soft dark hair, and said,
“Voilà!” Miriam had never imagined anything
in the least like her. She had said, “Oh,
thank you,” and taken the jug and had hurriedly
and silently got to bed, weighed down by wonders.
They had begun to talk in the dark. Miriam
had reaped sweet comfort in learning that this
seemingly unreal creature who was, she soon
perceived, not educated—as she understood
education—was the resident French governess,
was seventeen years old and a Protestant. Such
close quarters with a French girl was bewildering
enough—had she been a Roman Catholic, Miriam
felt she could not have endured her proximity.
She was evidently a special kind of French girl—a
Protestant from East France—Besançon—Besançon—Miriam
had tried the pretty word
over until unexpectedly she had fallen asleep.</p>
<p>They had risen hurriedly in the cold March
gloom and Miriam had not spoken to her since.
There she sat, dainty and quiet and fresh. White
frillings shone now at the neck and sleeves of
her little grey dress. She looked a clean and
clear miniature against the general dauby effect
<SPAN name="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></SPAN>
of the English girls—poor though, Miriam was
sure; perhaps as poor as she. She felt glad as
she watched her gentle sprite-like wistfulness
that she would be upstairs in that great bare
attic again to-night. In repose her face looked
pinched. There was something about the nose
and mouth—Miriam mused ... <em>frugal</em>—John
Gilpin’s wife—how sleepy she was.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-3"> 3 </h3>
<p>The conversation was growing boisterous.
She took courage to raise her head towards the
range of girls opposite to her. Those quite near
to her she could not scrutinise. Some influence
coming to her from these German girls prevented
her risking with them any meeting of the eyes
that was not brought about by direct speech.
But she felt them. She felt Emma Bergmann’s
warm plump presence close at her side and liked
to take food handed by her. She was conscious
of the pink bulb of Minna Blum’s nose shining
just opposite to her, and of the way the light
caught the blond sheen of her exquisitely coiled
hair as she turned her always smiling face and
responded to the louder remarks with, “Oh,
<SPAN name="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></SPAN>
thou <em>dear</em> God!” or “Is it possible!” “How
charming, <em>charming</em>,” or “What in life dost
thou say, rascal!”</p>
<p>Next to her was the faint glare of Elsa Speier’s
silent sallowness. Her clear-threaded nimbus of
pallid hair was the lowest point in the range of
figures across the table. She darted quick glances
at one and another without moving her head,
and Miriam felt that her pale eyes fully met
would be cunning and malicious.</p>
<p>After Elsa the “English” began with Judy.
Miriam guessed when she heard her ask for
Brödchen that she was Scotch. She sat slightly
askew and ate eagerly, stooping over her plate
with smiling mouth and downcast heavily-freckled
face. Unless spoken to she did not
speak, but she laughed often, a harsh involuntary
laugh immediately followed by a drowning
flush. When she was not flushed her eyelashes
shone bright black against the unstained white
above her cheek-bones. She had coarse fuzzy
red-brown hair.</p>
<p>Miriam decided that she was negligible.</p>
<p>Next to Judy were the Martins. They were
as English as they could be. She felt she must
have noticed them a good deal at breakfast and
<SPAN name="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></SPAN>
dinner-time without knowing it. Her eyes after
one glance at the claret-coloured merino dresses
with hard white collars and cuffs, came back to
her plate as from a familiar picture. She still
saw them sitting very upright, side by side, with
the front strands of their hair strained smoothly
back, tied just on the crest of the head with
brown ribbon and going down in “rats’-tails”
to join the rest of their hair which hung straight
and flat half-way down their backs. The elder
was dark with thick shoulders and heavy features.
Her large expressionless rich brown eyes flashed
slowly and reflected the light. They gave Miriam
a slight feeling of nausea. She felt she knew
what her hands were like without looking at
them. The younger was thin and pale and
slightly hollow-cheeked. She had pale eyes,
cold, like a fish, thought Miriam. They both
had deep hollow voices.</p>
<p>When she glanced again they were watching
the Australian with their four strange eyes and
laughing German phrases at her, “Go on,
Gertrude!” “Are you <em>sure</em>, Gertrude?”
“How do you <em>know</em>, Gertrude!”</p>
<p>Miriam had not yet dared to glance in the
direction of the Australian. Her eyes at dinner-time
<SPAN name="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></SPAN>
had cut like sharp steel. Turning, however,
towards the danger zone, without risking the
coming of its presiding genius within the focus
of her glasses she caught a glimpse of “Jimmie”
sitting back in her chair tall and plump and neat,
and shaking with wide-mouthed giggles. Miriam
wondered at the high neat peak of hair on the
top of her head and stared at her pearly little
teeth. There was something funny about her
mouth. Even when she strained it wide it was
narrow and tiny—rabbity. She raised a short
arm and began patting her peak of hair with a
tiny hand which showed a small onyx seal ring
on the little finger. “Ask Judy!” she giggled,
in a fruity squeak.</p>
<p>“Ask Judy!” they all chorused, laughing.</p>
<p>Judy cast an appealing flash of her eyes sideways
at nothing, flushed furiously and mumbled,
“Ik weiss nik—I don’t know.”</p>
<p>In the outcries and laughter which followed,
Miriam noticed only the hoarse hacking laugh
of the Australian. Her eyes flew up the table
and fixed her as she sat laughing, her chair
drawn back, her knees crossed—tea was drawing
to an end. The detail of her terrifyingly stylish
ruddy-brown frieze dress with its Norfolk jacket
<SPAN name="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></SPAN>
bodice and its shiny black leather belt was hardly
distinguishable from the dark background made
by the folding doors. But the dreadful outline
of her shoulders was visible, the squarish oval
of her face shone out—the wide forehead from
which the wiry black hair was combed to a high
puff, the red eyes, black now, the long straight
nose, the wide laughing mouth with the enormous
teeth.</p>
<p>Her voice conquered easily.</p>
<p>“Nein,” she tromboned, through the din.</p>
<p>Mademoiselle’s little finger stuck up sharply
like a steeple, her mouth said, “Oh—Oh——”</p>
<p>Fräulein’s smile was at its widest, waiting the
issue.</p>
<p>“Nein,” triumphed the Australian, causing a
lull.</p>
<p>“Leise, kinder, leise, doucement, gentlay,”
chided Fräulein, still smiling.</p>
<p>“Hermann, <em>yes</em>,” proceeded the Australian,
“aber Hugo—<em>né</em>!”</p>
<p>Miriam heard it agreed in the end that someone
named Hugo did not wear a moustache,
though someone named Hermann did. She
was vaguely shocked and interested.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-4"> <SPAN name="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></SPAN> 4 </h3>
<p>After tea the great doors were thrown open
and the girls filed into the saal. It was a large
high room furnished like a drawing-room—enough
settees and easy chairs to accommodate
more than all the girls. The polished floor was
uncarpeted save for an archipelago of mats and
rugs in the wide circle of light thrown by the
four-armed chandelier. A grand piano was
pushed against the wall in the far corner of the
room, between the farthest of the three high
French windows and the shining pillar of porcelain
stove.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-5"> 5 </h3>
<p>The high room, the bright light, the plentiful
mirrors, the long sweep of lace curtains, the
many faces—the girls seemed so much more
numerous scattered here than they had when
collected in the schoolroom—brought Miriam
the sense of the misery of social occasions. She
wondered whether the girls were nervous. She
was glad that music lessons were no part of her
remuneration. She thought of dreadful experiences
of playing before people. The very
<SPAN name="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></SPAN>
first time, at home, when she had played a duet
with Eve—Eve playing a little running melody
in the treble—her own part a page of minims.
The minims had swollen until she could not see
whether they were lines or spaces, and her fingers
had been so weak after the first unexpectedly
loud note that she could hardly make any sound.
Eve had said “louder” and her fingers had
suddenly stiffened and she had worked them
from her elbows like sticks at the end of her
trembling wrists and hands. Eve had noticed
her dreadful movements and resented being
elbowed. She had heard nothing then but her
hard loud minims till the end, and then as she
stood dizzily up someone had said she had a
nice firm touch, and she had pushed her angry
way from the piano across the hearthrug. She
should always remember the clear red-hot mass
of the fire and the bottle of green Chartreuse
warming on the blue and cream tiles. There
were probably only two or three guests, but the
room had seemed full of people, stupid people
who had made her play. How angry she had
been with Eve for noticing her discomfiture and
with the forgotten guest for her silly remark.
She knew she had simply poked the piano. Then
<SPAN name="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></SPAN>
there had been the annual school concert, all
the girls almost unrecognisable with fear. She had
learnt her pieces by heart for those occasions and
played them through with trembling limbs
and burning eyes—alternately thumping with
stiff fingers and feeling her whole hand faint
from the wrist on to the notes which fumbled
and slurred into each other almost soundlessly
until the thumping began again. At the musical
evenings, organised by Eve as a winter set-off
to the tennis-club, she had both played and sung,
hoping each time afresh to be able to reproduce
the effects which came so easily when she was
alone or only with Eve. But she could not
discover the secret of getting rid of her nervousness.
Only twice had she succeeded—at
the last school concert when she had been too
miserable to be nervous and Mr. Strood had
told her she did him credit and, once she had
sung “Chanson de Florian” in a way that had
astonished her own listening ear—the notes
had laughed and thrilled out into the air and
come back to her from the wall behind the
piano.... The day before the tennis tournament.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-6"> <SPAN name="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></SPAN> 6 </h3>
<p>The girls were all settling down to fancy
work, the white-cuffed hands of the Martins
were already jerking crochet needles, faces were
bending over fine embroideries and Minna
Blum had trundled a mounted lace-pillow into
the brighter light.</p>
<p>Miriam went to the schoolroom and fetched
from her work-basket the piece of canvas partly
covered with red and black wool in diamond
pattern that was her utmost experience of fancy
work.</p>
<p>As she returned she half saw Fräulein Pfaff,
sitting as if enthroned on a high-backed chair
in front of the centremost of the mirrors filling
the wall spaces between the long French
windows, signal to her, to come to that side of
the room.</p>
<p>Timorously ignoring the signal she got herself
into a little low chair in the shadow of the half-closed
swing door and was spreading out her
woolwork on her knee when the Vorspielen
began.</p>
<p>Emma Bergmann was playing. The single
notes of the opening <em>motif</em> of Chopin’s Fifteenth
<SPAN name="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></SPAN>
Nocturne fell pensively into the waitingroom.
Miriam, her fatigue forgotten, slid to a featureless
freedom. It seemed to her that the light
with which the room was filled grew brighter
and clearer. She felt that she was looking at
nothing and yet was aware of the whole room
like a picture in a dream. Fear left her. The
human forms all round her lost their power.
They grew suffused and dim.... The pensive
swing of the music changed to urgency and
emphasis.... It came nearer and nearer. It
did not come from the candle-lit corner where
the piano was.... It came from everywhere.
It carried her out of the house, out of the
world.</p>
<p>It hastened with her, on and on towards
great brightness.... Everything was growing
brighter and brighter....</p>
<p>Gertrude Goldring, the Australian, was making
noises with her hands like inflated paper bags
being popped. Miriam clutched her wool-needle
and threaded it. She drew the wool
through her canvas, one, three, five, three, one
and longed for the piano to begin again.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-7"> <SPAN name="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></SPAN> 7 </h3>
<p>Clara Bergmann followed. Miriam watched
her as she took her place at the piano—how square
and stout she looked and old, careworn, like a
woman of forty. She had high square shoulders
and high square hips—her brow was low and
her face thin broad and flat. Her eyes were
like the eyes of a dog and her thin-lipped mouth
long and straight until it went steadily down
at the corners. She wore a large fringe like
Harriett’s—and a thin coil of hair filled the nape
of her neck. She played, without music, her
face lifted boldly. The notes rang out in a
prelude of unfinished phrases—the kind, Miriam
noted, that had so annoyed her father in what
he called new-fangled music—she felt it was
going to be a brilliant piece—fireworks—execution—style—and
sat up self-consciously and
fixed her eyes on Clara’s hands. “Can you see
the hands?” she remembered having heard
someone say at a concert. How easily they
moved. Clara still sat back, her face raised to
the light. The notes rang out like trumpet-calls
as her hands dropped with an easy fling and
sprang back and dropped again. What loose
<SPAN name="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></SPAN>
wrists she must have, thought Miriam. The
clarion notes ceased. There was a pause. Clara
threw back her head, a faint smile flickered over
her face, her hands fell gently and the music
came again, pianissimo, swinging in an even
rhythm. It flowed from those clever hands, a
half-indicated theme with a gentle, steady,
throbbing undertow. Miriam dropped her eyes—she
seemed to have been listening long—that
wonderful light was coming again—she had
forgotten her sewing—when presently she saw,
slowly circling, fading and clearing, first its
edge, and then, for a moment the whole thing,
dripping, dripping as it circled, a weed-grown
mill-wheel.... She recognised it instantly. She
had seen it somewhere as a child—in Devonshire—and
never thought of it since—and there it
was. She heard the soft swish and drip of the
water and the low humming of the wheel. How
beautiful ... it was fading.... She held it—it
returned—clearer this time and she could feel
the cool breeze it made, and sniff the fresh
earthy scent of it, the scent of the moss and the
weeds shining and dripping on its huge rim.
Her heart filled. She felt a little tremor in her
throat. All at once she knew that if she went on
<SPAN name="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></SPAN>
listening to that humming wheel and feeling
the freshness of the air, she would cry. She
pulled herself together, and for a while saw only
a vague radiance in the room and the dim forms
grouped about. She could not remember which
was which. All seemed good and dear to her.
The trumpet notes had come back, and in a
few moments the music ceased.... Someone
was closing the great doors from inside the
schoolroom. As the side behind which she was
sitting swung slowly to, she caught a glimpse,
through the crack, of four boys with close-cropped
heads, sitting at the long table. The gas was out
and the room was dim, but a reading-lamp in
the centre of the table cast its light on their
bowed heads.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-8"> 8 </h3>
<p>The playing of the two Martins brought
back the familiar feeling of English self-consciousness.
Solomon, the elder one, sat at her
Beethoven sonata, an adagio movement, with a
patch of dull crimson on the pallor of the cheek
she presented to the room, but she played with
a heavy fervour, preserving throughout the
characteristic marching staccato of the bass, and
<SPAN name="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></SPAN>
gave unstinted value to the shading of each
phrase. She made Miriam feel nervous at first
and then—as she went triumphantly forward
and let herself go so tremendously—traction-engine,
thought Miriam—in the heavy fortissimos,—a
little ashamed of such expression coming
from English hands. The feeling of shame
lingered as the younger sister followed with a
spirited vivace. Her hollow-cheeked pallor remained
unstained, but her thin lips were set
and her hard eyes were harder. She played with
determined nonchalance and an extraordinarily
facile rapidity, and Miriam’s uneasiness changed
insensibly to the conviction that these girls
were learning in Germany not to be ashamed of
“playing with expression.” All the things she
had heard Mr. Strood—who had, as the school
prospectus declared, been “educated in Leipzig”—preach
and implore, “style,” “expression,”
“phrasing,” “light and shade,” these girls were
learning, picking up from these wonderful
Germans. They did not do it quite like them
though. They did not think only about the
music, they thought about themselves too.
Miriam believed she could do it as the Germans
did. She wanted to get her own music and play
<SPAN name="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></SPAN>
it as she had always dimly known it ought to be
played and hardly ever dared. Perhaps that
was how it was with the English. They knew,
but they did not dare. No. The two she had
just heard playing were, she felt sure, imitating
something—but hers would be no imitation.
She would play as she wanted to one day in this
German atmosphere. She wished now she were
going to have lessons. She had in fact had a
lesson. But she wanted to be alone and to play—or
perhaps with someone in the next room
listening. Perhaps she would not have even the
chance of practising.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-9"> 9 </h3>
<p>Minna rippled through a Chopin valse that
made Miriam think of an apple orchard in bloom
against a blue sky, and was followed by Jimmie
who played the Spring Song with slightly swaying
body and little hands that rose and fell one
against the other, and reminded Miriam of the
finger game of her childhood—“Fly away Jack,
fly away Jill.” She played very sweetly and
surely except that now and again it was as if the
music caught its breath.</p>
<p>Jimmie’s Lied brought the piano solos to an
<SPAN name="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></SPAN>
end, and Fräulein Pfaff after a little speech of
criticism and general encouragement asked, to
Miriam’s intense delight, for the singing.
“Millie” was called for. Millie came out of a
corner. She was out of Miriam’s range at meal-times
and appeared to her now for the first
time as a tall child-girl in a high-waisted, blue
serge frock, plainly made with long plain sleeves,
at the end of which appeared two large hands
shining red and shapeless with chilblains. She
attracted Miriam at once with the shell-white
and shell-pink of her complexion, her firm chubby
baby-mouth and her wide gaze. Her face
shone in the room, even her hair—done just
like the Martins’, but fluffy where theirs was
flat and shiny—seemed to give out light, shadowy-dark
though it was. Her figure was straight
and flat, and she moved, thought Miriam, as
though she had no feet.</p>
<p>She sang, with careful precision as to the
accents of her German, in a high breathy
effortless soprano, a little song about a child
and a bouquet of garden flowers.</p>
<p>The younger Martin in a strong hard jolting
voice sang of a love-sick Linden tree, her pale
thin cheeks pink-flushed.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></SPAN>
“Herr Kapellmeister chooses well,” smiled
Fräulein at the end of this performance.</p>
<p>The Vorspielen was brought to an end by
Gertrude Goldring’s song. Clara Bergmann sat
down to accompany her, and Miriam roused
herself for a double listening. There would be
Clara’s opening and Clara’s accompaniment and
some wonderful song. The Australian stood
well away from the piano, her shoulders thrown
back and her eyes upon the wall opposite her.
There was no prelude. Piano and voice rang
out together—single notes which the voice took
and sustained with an expressive power which
was beyond anything in Miriam’s experience.
Not a note was quite true.... The unerring
falseness of pitch was as startling as the quality of
the voice. The great wavering shouts slurring
now above, now below the mark amazed Miriam
out of all shyness. She sat up, frankly gazing—“How
dare she? She hasn’t an atom
of ear—how ghastly”—her thoughts exclaimed
as the shouts went on. The longer
sustained notes presently reminded her of
something. It was like something she had
heard—in the interval between the verses—while
the sounds echoed in the mind she remembered
<SPAN name="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></SPAN>
the cry, hand to mouth, of a London
dustman.</p>
<p>Then she lost everything in the story of the
Sultan’s daughter and the young Asra, and when
the fullest applause of the evening was going to
Gertrude’s song, she did not withhold her share.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-10"> 10 </h3>
<p>Anna, the only servant Miriam had seen so
far—an enormous woman whose face, apart
from the small eyes, seemed all “bony structure,”
Miriam noted in a phrase borrowed from some
unremembered reading—brought in a tray filled
with cups of milk, a basket of white rolls and a
pile of little plates. Gertrude took the tray
and handed it about the room. As Miriam took
her cup, chose a roll, deposited it on a plate and
succeeded in abstracting the plate from the
pile neatly, without fumbling, she felt that for
the moment Gertrude was prepared to tolerate
her. She did not desire this in the least, but
when the deep harsh voice fell against her from
the bending Australian, she responded to the
“Wie gefällt’s <SPAN name="corr-2"></SPAN>Ihnen?” with an upturned smile
and a warm “sehr gut!” It gratified her to
<SPAN name="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></SPAN>
discover that she could, at the end of this one
day, understand or at the worst gather the drift
of, all she heard, both of German and French.
Mademoiselle had exclaimed at her French—les
mots si bien choisis—un accent sans faute—it
must be ear. She must have a very good ear.
And her English was all right—at least, if she
chose.... Pater had always been worrying
about slang and careless pronunciation. None
of them ever said “cut in half” or “very
unique” or “ho’sale” or “phodygraff.” She
was awfully slangy herself—she and Harriett
were, in their thoughts as well as their words—but
she had no provincialisms, no Londonisms—she
could be the purest Oxford English. There
was something at any rate to give her German
girls.... She could say, “There are no rules
for English pronunciation, but what is usual at
the University of Oxford is decisive for cultured
people”—“decisive for cultured people.” She
must remember that for the class.</p>
<p>“Na, was sticken Sie da Miss Henderson?”</p>
<p>It was Fräulein Pfaff.</p>
<p>Miriam who had as yet hardly spoken to her,
did not know whether to stand or to remain
seated. She half rose and then Fräulein Pfaff
<SPAN name="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></SPAN>
took the chair near her and Miriam sat down,
stiff with fear. She could not remember the
name of the thing she was making. She flushed
and fumbled—thought of dressing-tables and
the little objects of which she had made so
many hanging to the mirror by ribbons; “toilet-tidies”
haunted her—but that was not it—she
smoothed out her work as if to show it to
Fräulein—“Na, na,” came the delicate caustic
voice. “Was wird das wohl sein?” Then she
remembered. “It’s for a pin-cushion,” she
said. Surely she need not venture on German
with Fräulein yet.</p>
<p>“Ein Nadelkissen,” corrected Fräulein, “das
wird niedlich aussehen,” she remarked quietly,
and then in English, “You like music, Miss
Henderson?”</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>yes</em>,” said Miriam, with a pounce in her
voice.</p>
<p>“You play the piano?”</p>
<p>“A little.”</p>
<p>“You must keep up your practice then, while
you are with us—you must have time for practice.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-11"> <SPAN name="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></SPAN> 11 </h3>
<p>Fräulein Pfaff rose and moved away. The
girls were arranging the chairs in two rows—plates
and cups were collected and carried away.
It dawned on Miriam that they were going to
have prayers. What a wet-blanket on her
evening. Everything had been so bright and
exciting so far. Obviously they had prayers
every night. She felt exceedingly uncomfortable.
She had never seen prayers in a sitting-room. It
had been nothing at school—all the girls standing
in the drill-room, rows of voices saying “adsum,”
then a Collect and the Lord’s Prayer.</p>
<p>A huge Bible appeared on a table in front of
Fräulein’s high-backed chair. Miriam found
herself ranged with the girls, sitting in an attentive
hush. There was a quiet, slow turning of
pages, and then a long indrawn sigh and
Fräulein’s clear, low, even voice, very gentle,
not caustic now but with something child-like
about it, “Und da kamen die Apostel zu Ihm....”
Miriam had a moment of revolt. She would not
sit there and let a woman read the Bible at her
... and in that “smarmy” way.... In
spirit she rose and marched out of the room.
<SPAN name="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></SPAN>
As the English pupil-teacher bound to suffer all
things or go home, she sat on. Presently her
ear was charmed by Fräulein’s slow clear enunciation,
her pure unaspirated North German.
It seemed to suit the narrative—and the narrative
was new, vivid and real in this new tongue. She
saw presently the little group of figures talking
by the lake and was sorry when Fräulein’s voice
ceased.</p>
<p>Solomon Martin was at the piano. Someone
handed Miriam a shabby little paper-backed
hymn-book. She fluttered the leaves. All the
hymns appeared to have a little short-lined verse,
under each ordinary verse, in small print. It
was in English—she read. She fumbled for the
title-page and then her cheeks flamed with
shame, “Moody and Sankey.” She was incredulous,
but there it was, clearly enough. What
was such a thing doing here?... Finishing
school for the daughters of gentlemen.... She
had never had such a thing in her hands before....
Fräulein could not know.... She glanced
at her, but Fräulein’s cavernous mouth was
serenely open and the voices of the girls sang
heartily, “Whenhy—<em>com</em>eth. Whenhy—<em>com</em>eth,
to <em>make</em>-up his <em>jew</em>els——” These girls, Germany,
<SPAN name="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></SPAN>
that piano.... What did the English girls
think? Had anyone said anything? Were
they chapel? Fearfully, she told them over.
No. Judy might be, and the Martins perhaps,
but not Gertrude, nor Jimmie, nor Millie. How
did it happen? What was the German Church?
Luther—Lutheran.</p>
<p>She longed for the end.</p>
<p>She glanced through the book—frightful,
frightful words and choruses.</p>
<p>The girls were getting on to their knees.</p>
<p>Oh dear, every night. Her elbows sank into
soft red plush.</p>
<p>She was to have time for practising—and that
English lesson—the first—Oxford, decisive for—educated
people....</p>
<p>Fräulein’s calm voice came almost in a whisper,
“Vater unser ... der Du bist im Himmel,”
and the murmuring voices of the girls followed
her.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-12"> 12 </h3>
<p>Miriam went to bed content, wrapped in
music. The theme of Clara’s solo recurred
again and again; and every time it brought
something of the wonderful light—the sense of
<SPAN name="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></SPAN>
going forward and forward through space. She
fell asleep somewhere outside the world. No
sooner was she asleep than a voice was saying,
“Bonjour, Meece,” and her eyes opened on daylight
and Mademoiselle’s little night-gowned form
minuetting towards her down the single strip of
matting. Her hair, hanging in short ringlets
when released, fell forward round her neck as
she bowed—the slightest dainty inclination, from
side to side against the swaying of her dance.
She was smiling her down-glancing, little sprite
smile. Miriam loved her....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-13"> 13 </h3>
<p>A great plaque of sunlight lay across the breakfast-table.
Miriam was too happy to trouble
about her imminent trial. She reflected that it
was quite possible to-day and to-morrow would
be free. None of the visiting masters came,
except, sometimes, Herr Bossenberger for music-lessons—that
much she had learned from
Mademoiselle. And, after all, the class she had
so dreaded had dwindled to just these four
girls, little Emma and the three grown-up girls.
They probably knew all the rules and beginnings.
<SPAN name="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></SPAN>
It would be just reading and so on. It
would not be so terrible—four sensible girls;
and besides they had accepted her. It did not
seem anything extraordinary to them that she
should teach them; and they did not dislike
her. Of that she felt sure. She could not say
this for even one of the English girls. But the
German girls did not dislike her. She felt at
ease sitting amongst them and was glad she was
there and not at the English end of the table.
Down here, hemmed in by the Bergmanns with
Emma’s little form, her sounds, movements and
warmth, her little quiet friendliness planted
between herself and the English, with the
apparently unobservant Minna and Elsa across
the way she felt safe. She felt fairly sure those
German eyes did not criticise her. Perhaps, she
suggested to herself, they thought a good deal of
English people in general; and then they were
in the minority, only four of them; it was
evidently a school for English girls as much as
anything ... strange—what an adventure for
all those English girls—to be just boarders—Miriam
wondered how she would feel sitting
there as an English boarder among the Martins
and Gertrude, Millie, Jimmie and Judy? It
<SPAN name="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></SPAN>
would mean being friendly with them. Finally
she ensconced herself amongst her Germans,
feeling additionally secure.... Fräulein had
spent many years in England. Perhaps that
explained the breakfast of oatmeal porridge—piled
plates of thick stirabout thickly sprinkled
with pale, very sweet powdery brown sugar—and
the eggs to follow with rolls and butter.</p>
<p>Miriam wondered how Fräulein felt towards
the English girls.</p>
<p>She wondered whether Fräulein liked the
English girls best.... She paid no attention
to the little spurts of conversation that came at
intervals as the table grew more and more
dismantled. She was there, safely there—what
a perfectly stupendous thing—“weird and
stupendous” she told herself. The sunlight
poured over her and her companions from the
great windows behind Fräulein Pfaff....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-14"> 14 </h3>
<p>When breakfast was over and the girls were
clearing the table, Fräulein went to one of the
great windows and stood for a moment with
her hands on the hasp of the innermost of the
<SPAN name="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></SPAN>
double frames. “Balde, balde,” Miriam heard
her murmur, “werden wir öffnen können.”
Soon, soon we may open. Obviously then they
had had the windows shut all the winter. Miriam,
standing in the corner near the companion
window, wondering what she was supposed to
do and watching the girls with an air—as nearly
as she could manage—of indulgent condescension—saw,
without turning, the figure at the window,
gracefully tall, with a curious dignified pannier-like
effect about the skirt that swept from the
small tightly-fitting pointed bodice, reminding
her of illustrations of heroines of serials in old
numbers of the “Girls’ Own Paper.” The dress
was of dark blue velvet—very much rubbed and
faded. Miriam liked the effect, liked something
about the clear profile, the sallow, hollow cheeks,
the same heavy bonyness that Anna the servant
had, but finer and redeemed by the wide eye
that was so strange. She glanced fearfully,
at its unconsciousness, and tried to find words
for the quick youthfulness of those steady
eyes.</p>
<p>Fräulein moved away into the little room
opening from the schoolroom, and some of the
girls joined her there. Miriam turned to the
<SPAN name="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></SPAN>
window. She looked down into a little square
of high-walled garden. It was gravelled nearly
all over. Not a blade of grass was to be seen. A
narrow little border of bare brown mould joined
the gravel to the high walls. In the centre was a
little domed patch of earth and there a chestnut
tree stood. Great bulging brown-varnished buds
were shining whitely from each twig. The
girls seemed to be gathering in the room behind
her—settling down round the table—Mademoiselle’s
voice sounded from the head of the
table where Fräulein had lately been. It must
be <em>raccommodage</em> thought Miriam—the weekly
mending Mademoiselle had told her of. Mademoiselle
was superintending. Miriam listened.
This was a sort of French lesson. They all sat
round and did their mending together—in
French—darning must be quite different done
like that, she reflected.</p>
<p>Jimmie’s voice came, rounded and giggling,
“Oh, Mademoiselle! j’ai une <em>potato</em>, pardong,
pum de terre, je mean.” She poked three
fingers through the toe of her stocking. “Veux
dire, veux dire—Qu’est-ce-que vous me racontez
là?” scolded Mademoiselle. Miriam envied
her air of authority.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></SPAN>
“Ah-ho! Là-là—Boum—Bong!” came Gertrude’s
great voice from the door.</p>
<p>“Taisez-vous, taisez-vous, Jair-trude,” rebuked
Mademoiselle.</p>
<p>“How dare she?” thought Miriam, with a
picture before her eyes of the little grey-gowned
thing with the wistful, frugal mouth and nose.</p>
<p>“Na—Miss Henderson?”</p>
<p>It was Fräulein’s voice from within the little
room. Minna was holding the door open.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-15"> 15 </h3>
<p>At the end of twenty minutes, dismissed by
Fräulein with a smiling recommendation to go
and practise in the saal, Miriam had run upstairs
for her music.</p>
<p>“It’s all right. I’m all right. I shall be able
to do it,” she said to herself as she ran. The
ordeal was past. She was, she had learned, to
talk English with the German girls, at table,
during walks, whenever she found herself with
them, excepting on Saturdays and Sundays—and
she was to read with the four—for an hour,
three times a week. There had been no mention
of grammar or study in any sense she understood.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></SPAN>
She had had a moment of tremor when
Fräulein had said in her slow clear English, “I
leave you to your pupils, Miss Henderson,” and
with that had gone out and shut the door. The
moment she had dreaded had come. This was
Germany. There was no escape. Her desperate
eyes caught sight of a solid-looking volume on
the table, bound in brilliant blue cloth. She
got it into her shaking hands. It was “Misunderstood.”
She felt she could have shouted
in her relief. A treatise on the Morse code
would not have surprised her. She had heard
that such things were studied at school abroad
and that German children knew the names and,
worse than that, the meaning of the names of
the streets in the city of London. But this book
that she and Harriett had banished and wanted
to burn in their early teens together with “Sandford
and Merton.” ...</p>
<p>“You are reading ‘Misunderstood’?” she
faltered, glancing at the four politely waiting girls.</p>
<p>It was Minna who answered her in her husky,
eager voice.</p>
<p>“D’ja, d’ja,” she responded, “na, ich meine,
<em>yace, yace</em> we read—so sweet and beautiful book—not?”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></SPAN>
“Oh,” said Miriam, “yes ...” and then
eagerly, “you all like it, do you?”</p>
<p>Clara and Elsa agreed unenthusiastically.
Emma, at her elbow, made a little despairing
gesture, “I can’t English,” she moaned gently,
“too deeficult.”</p>
<p>Miriam tested their reading. The class had
begun. Nothing had happened. It was all
right. They each, dutifully and with extreme
carefulness read a short passage. Miriam sat
blissfully back. It was incredible. The class
was going on. The chestnut tree budded approval
from the garden. She gravely corrected their
accents. The girls were respectful. They
appeared to be interested. They vied with each
other to get exact sounds; and they presently
delighted Miriam by telling her they could
understand her English much better than that
of her predecessor. “So cleare, so cleare,” they
chimed, “Voonderfoll.” And then they all
five seemed to be talking at once. The little
room was full of broken English, of Miriam’s
interpolated corrections. It was going—succeeding.
This was her class. She hoped Fräulein
was listening outside. She probably was. Heads
of foreign schools did. She remembered Madame
<SPAN name="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></SPAN>
Beck in “Villette.” But if she was not, she hoped
they would tell her about being able to understand
the new English teacher so well. “Oh,
I am haypie,” Emma was saying, with adoring
eyes on Miriam and her two arms outflung on
the table. Miriam recoiled. This would not
do—they must not all talk at once and go on
like this. Minna’s whole face was aflame. She
sat up stiffly—adjusted her pince-nez—and desperately
ordered the reading to begin again—at
Minna. They all subsided and Minna’s
careful husky voice came from her still blissfully-smiling
face. The others sat back and
attended. Miriam watched Minna judicially,
and hoped she looked like a teacher. She knew
her pince-nez disguised her and none of these
girls knew she was only seventeen and a half.
“Sorrowg,” Minna was saying, hesitating.
Miriam had not heard the preceding word.
“Once more the whole sentence,” she said,
with quiet gravity, and then as Minna reached
the word “<em>thorough</em>” she corrected and spent
five minutes showing her how to get over the
redoubtable “th.” They all experimented and
exclaimed. They had never been shown that
it was just a matter of getting the tongue between
<SPAN name="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></SPAN>
the teeth. Miriam herself had only just discovered
it. She speculated as to how long it
would take for her to deliver them up to Fräulein
Pfaff with this notorious stumbling-block removed.
She was astonished herself at the
mechanical simplicity of the cure. How stupid
people must be not to discover these things.
Minna’s voice went on. She would let her read
a page. She began to wonder rather blankly
what she was to do to fill up the hour after they
had all read a page. She had just reached the
conclusion that they must do some sort of writing
when Fräulein Pfaff came, and still affable and
smiling had ushered the girls to their mending
and sent Miriam off to the saal.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-16"> 16 </h3>
<p>As she flew upstairs for her music, saying,
“I’m all right. I can do it all right,” she was
half-conscious that her provisional success with
her class had very little to do with her bounding
joy. That success had not so much given her
anything to be glad about—it had rather removed
an obstacle of gladness which was waiting
to break forth. She was going to stay on. That
<SPAN name="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></SPAN>
was the point. She would stay in this wonderful
place.... She came singing down through
the quiet house—the sunlight poured from
bedroom windows through open doors. She
reached the quiet saal. Here stood the great
piano, its keyboard open under the light of the
French window opposite the door through which
she came. Behind the great closed swing doors
the girls were talking over their <em>raccommodage</em>.
Miriam paid no attention to them. She would
ignore them all. She did not even need to try
to ignore them. She felt strong and independent.
She would play, to herself. She would play
something she knew perfectly, a Grieg lyric
or a movement from a Beethoven Sonata ...
on this gorgeous piano ... and let herself go,
and listen. That was music ... not playing
things, but listening to Beethoven.... It must
be Beethoven ... Grieg was different ... acquired
... like those strange green figs Pater
had brought from Tarring ... Beethoven had
always been real.</p>
<p>It was all growing clearer and clearer....
She chose the first part of the first movement
of the Sonata Pathétique. That she knew she
could play faultlessly. It was the last thing she
<SPAN name="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></SPAN>
had learned, and she had never grown weary of
practising slowly through its long bars of chords.
She had played it at her last music-lesson ...
dear old Stroodie walking up and down the long
drilling-room.... “Steady the bass”; “grip
the chords,” then standing at her side and saying
in the thin light sneery part of his voice, “You
can ... you’ve got hands like umbrellas” ...
and showing her how easily she could stretch
two notes beyond his own span. And then
marching away as she played and crying out to
her standing under the high windows at the
far end of the room, “Let it go! Let it go!”</p>
<p>And she had almost forgotten her wretched
self, almost heard the music....</p>
<p>She felt for the pedals, lifted her hands a span
above the piano as Clara had done and came
down, true and clean, on to the opening chord.
The full rich tones of the piano echoed from
all over the room; and some metal object far
away from her hummed the dominant. She
held the chord for its full term.... Should
she play any more?... She had confessed
herself ... just that minor chord ... anyone
hearing it would know more than she could ever
tell them ... her whole being beat out the
<SPAN name="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></SPAN>
rhythm as she waited for the end of the phrase
to insist on what already had been said. As it
came, she found herself sitting back, slackening
the muscles of her arms and of her whole body,
and ready to swing forward into the rising
storm of her page. She did not need to follow
the notes on the music stand. Her fingers knew
them. Grave and happy she sat with unseeing
eyes, listening, for the first time.</p>
<p>At the end of the page she was sitting with her
eyes full of tears, aware of Fräulein standing
between the open swing doors with Gertrude’s
face showing over her shoulder—its amazement
changing to a large-toothed smile as Fräulein’s
quietly repeated “Prachtvoll, prachtvoll” came
across the room. Miriam, after a hasty smile,
sat straining her eyes as widely as possible, so that
the tears should not fall. She glared at the
volume in front of her, turning the pages. She
was glad that the heavy sun-blinds cast a deep
shadow over the room. She blinked. She
thought they would not notice. Only one tear
fell and that was from the left eye, towards the
wall. “You are a real musician, Miss Henderson,”
said Fräulein, advancing.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-17"> <SPAN name="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></SPAN> 17 </h3>
<p>Every other day or so Miriam found she could
get an hour on a bedroom piano; and always
on a Saturday morning during <em>raccommodage</em>.
She rediscovered all the pieces she had already
learned. She went through them one by one,
eagerly, slurring over difficulties, pressing on,
getting their effect, listening and discovering.
“It’s <em>technique</em> I want,” she told herself, when
she had reached the end of her collection,
beginning to attach a meaning to the familiar
word. Then she set to work. She restricted
herself to the Pathétique, always omitting the
first page, which she knew so well and practised
mechanically, slowly, meaninglessly, with neither
pedalling nor expression, page by page until a
movement was perfect. Then when the mood
came, she played ... and listened. She soon
discovered she could not always “play”—even
the things she knew perfectly—and she began
to understand the fury that had seized her when
her mother and a woman here and there had taken
for granted one should “play when asked,”
and coldly treated her refusal as showing lack
<SPAN name="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></SPAN>
of courtesy. “Ah!” she said aloud, as this
realisation came, “Women.”</p>
<p>“Of course you can only ‘play when you
<em>can</em>,’” said she to herself, “like a bird singing.”</p>
<p>She sang once or twice, very quietly, in those
early weeks. But she gave that up. She had a
whole sheaf of songs with her. But after that
first Vorspielen they seemed to have lost their
meaning. One by one she looked them through.
Her dear old Venetian song, “Beauty’s Eyes,”
“An Old Garden”—she hesitated over that,
and hummed it through—“Best of All”—“In
Old Madrid”—the vocal score of the “Mikado”—her
little “Chanson de Florian,” and a score
of others. She blushed at her collection. The
“Chanson de Florian” might perhaps hold its
own at a Vorspielen—sung by Bertha Martin—perhaps....
The remainder of her songs,
excepting a little bound volume of Sterndale
Bennett, she put away at the bottom of her
Saratoga trunk. Meanwhile, there were songs
being learned by Herr Bossenberger’s pupils for
which she listened hungrily; Schubert, Grieg,
Brahms. She would always, during those early
weeks, sacrifice her practising to listen from
the schoolroom to a pupil singing in the saal.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-18"> <SPAN name="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></SPAN> 18 </h3>
<p>The morning of Ulrica Hesse’s arrival was one
of the mornings when she could “play.” She
was sitting, happy, in the large English bedroom,
listening. It was late. She was beginning to
wonder why the gonging did not come when the
door opened. It was Millie in her dressing-gown,
with her hair loose and a towel over her arm.</p>
<p>“Oh, bitte, Miss Henderson, will you please
go down to Frau Krause, Fräulein Pfaff says,”
she said, her baby face full of responsibility.</p>
<p>Miriam rose uneasily. What might this be?
“Frau Krause?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Oh yes, it’s Haarwaschen,” said Millie
anxiously, evidently determined to wait until
Miriam recognised her duty.</p>
<p>“Where?” said Miriam aghast.</p>
<p>“Oh, in the basement. I <em>must</em> go. Frau
Krause’s waiting. Will you come?”</p>
<p>“Oh well, I suppose so,” mumbled Miriam,
coming to the door as the child turned to go.</p>
<p>“All right,” said Millie, “I’m going down.
Do make haste, Miss Henderson, will you?”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Miriam, going back into the
room.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></SPAN>
Collecting her music she went incredulously
upstairs. This was school with a vengeance.
This was boarding-school. It was abominable.
Fräulein Pfaff indeed! Ordering her, Miriam,
to go downstairs and have her hair washed ...
by Frau Krause ... off-hand, without any
warning ... someone should have told her—and
let her choose. Her hair was clean. Sarah
had always done it. Miriam’s throat contracted.
She would not go down. Frau Krause should
not touch her. She reached the attics. Their
door was open and there was Mademoiselle in her
little alpaca dressing-jacket, towelling her head.</p>
<p>Her face came up, flushed and gay. Miriam
was too angry to note till afterwards how pretty
she had looked with her hair like that.</p>
<p>“Ah! ... c’est le grand lavage!” sang Mademoiselle.</p>
<p>“Oui,” said Miriam surlily.</p>
<p>What could she do? She imagined the whole
school waiting downstairs to see her come down
to be done. Should she go down and decline,
explain to Fräulein Pfaff. She hated her vindictively—her
“calm” message—“treating me
like a child.” She saw the horse smile and heard
the caustic voice.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></SPAN>
“It’s sickening,” she muttered, whisking her
dressing-gown from its nail and seizing a towel.
Mademoiselle was piling up her damp hair before
the little mirror.</p>
<p>Slowly Miriam made her journey to the basement.</p>
<p>Minna and Elsa were brushing out their long
hair with their door open. A strong sweet
perfume came from the room.</p>
<p>The basement hall was dark save for the
patch of light coming from the open kitchen
door. In the patch stood a low table and a
kitchen chair. On the table which was shining
wet and smeary with soap, stood a huge basin.
Out over the basin flew a long tail of hair and
Miriam’s anxious eyes found Millie standing in
the further gloom twisting and wringing.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-19"> 19 </h3>
<p>No one else was to be seen. Perhaps it was
all over. She was too late. Then a second basin
held in coarse red hands appeared round the
kitchen door and in a moment a woman, large
and coarse, with the sleeves of her large-checked
blue and white cotton dress rolled back and a
<SPAN name="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></SPAN>
great “teapot” of pale nasturtium coloured
hair shining above the third of Miriam’s “bony”
German faces had emerged and plumped her
steaming basin down upon the table.</p>
<p>Soap? and horrid pudding basins of steaming
water. Miriam’s hair had never been washed
with anything but cantharides and rose-water
on a tiny special sponge.</p>
<p>In full horror, “Oh,” she said, in a low vague
voice, “it doesn’t matter about me.”</p>
<p>“Gun’ Tak’ Fr’n,” snapped the woman
briskly.</p>
<p>Miriam gave herself up.</p>
<p>“Gooten Mawgen, Frau Krause,” said Millie’s
polite departing voice.</p>
<p>Miriam’s outraged head hung over the steaming
basin—her hair spread round it like a tent
frilling out over the table.</p>
<p>For a moment she thought that the nausea
which had seized her as she surrendered would,
the next instant, make flight imperative. Then
her amazed ears caught the sharp bump—crack—of
an eggshell against the rim of the basin,
followed by a further brisk crackling just above
her. She shuddered from head to foot as the
egg descended with a cold slither upon her
<SPAN name="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></SPAN>
incredulous skull. Tears came to her eyes as
she gave beneath the onslaught of two hugely
enveloping, vigorously drubbing hands—“sh—ham—poo”
gasped her mind.</p>
<p>The drubbing went relentlessly on. Miriam
steadied her head against it and gradually warmth
and ease began to return to her shivering,
clenched body. Her hair was gathered into the
steaming basin—dipped and rinsed and spread,
a comforting compress, warm with the water,
over her egg-sodden head. There was more
drubbing, more dipping and rinsing. The
second basin was re-filled from the kitchen, and
after a final rinse in its fresh warm water, Miriam
found herself standing up—with a twisted tail
of wet hair hanging down over her cape of
damp towel—glowing and hungry.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” she said timidly to Frau
Krause’s bustling presence.</p>
<p>“Gun’ Tak’ Fr’n,” said Frau Krause, disappearing
into the kitchen.</p>
<p>Miriam gave her hair a preliminary drying,
gathered her dressing-gown together and went
upstairs. From the schoolroom came unmistakable
sounds. They were evidently at dinner.
She hurried to her attic. What <em>was</em> she to do
<SPAN name="page-86" class="pagenum" title="86"></SPAN>
with her hair? She rubbed it desperately—fancy
being landed with hair like that, in the
middle of the day! She could not possibly
go down.... She must. Fräulein Pfaff would
expect her to—and would be disgusted if she
were not quick—she towelled frantically at the
short strands round her forehead, despairingly
screwed them into Hinde’s and towelled at the
rest. What had the other girls done? If only
she could look into the schoolroom before going
down—it was awful—what should she do?...
She caught sight of a sodden-looking brush on
Mademoiselle’s bed. Mademoiselle had put
hers up—she had seen her ... of course ...
easy enough for her little fluffy clouds—she
could do nothing with her straight, wet lumps—she
began to brush it out—it separated into thin
tails which flipped tiny drops of moisture against
her hands as she brushed. Her arms ached;
her face flared with her exertions. She was
ravenous—she must manage somehow and go
down. She braided the long strands and
fastened their cold mass with extra hairpins.
Then she unfastened the Hinde’s—two tendrils
flopped limply against her forehead. She combed
them out. They fell in a curtain of streaks to
<SPAN name="page-87" class="pagenum" title="87"></SPAN>
her nose. Feverishly she divided them, draped
them somehow back into the rest of her hair and
fastened them.</p>
<p>“Oh,” she breathed, “my <em>ghastly</em> forehead.”</p>
<p>It was all she could do—short of gas and
curling tongs. Even the candle was taken away
in the day-time.</p>
<p>It was cold and bleak upstairs. Her wet hair
lay in a heavy mass against her burning head.
She was painfully hungry. She went down.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-20"> 20 </h3>
<p>The snarling rattle of the coffee mill sounded
out into the hall. Several voices were speaking
together as she entered. Fräulein Pfaff was not
there. Gertrude Goldring was grinding the
coffee. The girls were sitting round the table
in easy attitudes and had the effect of holding a
council. Emma, her elbows on the table, her
little face bunched with scorn, put out a motherly
arm and set a chair for Miriam. Jimmie had
flung some friendly remark as she came in.
Miriam did not hear what she said, but smiled
responsively. She wanted to get quietly to her
place and look round. There was evidently
<SPAN name="page-88" class="pagenum" title="88"></SPAN>
something in the air. They all seemed preoccupied.
Perhaps no one would notice how
awful she looked. “You’re not the only one,
my dear,” she said to herself in her mother’s
voice. “No,” she replied in person, “but no
one will be looking so perfectly frightful as me.”</p>
<p>“I say, do they know you’re down?” said
Gertrude hospitably, as the boiling water snored
on to the coffee.</p>
<p>Emma rushed to the lift and rattled the panel.</p>
<p>“Anna!” she ordered, “Meece Hendshon!
Suppe!”</p>
<p>“Oh, thanks,” said Miriam, in general. She
could not meet anyone’s eye. The coffee cups
were being slid up to Gertrude’s end of the table
and rapidly filled by her. Gertrude, of course,
she noticed had contrived to look dashing and
smart. Her hair, with the exception of some
wild ends that hung round her face was screwed
loosely on the top of her head and transfixed
with a dagger-like tortoise-shell hair ornament—like
a Japanese—Indian—no, Maori—that was it,
she looked like a New Zealander. Clara and
Minna had fastened up theirs with combs and
ribbons and looked decent—frauish though,
thought Miriam. Judy wore a plait. Without
<SPAN name="page-89" class="pagenum" title="89"></SPAN>
her fuzzy cloud she looked exactly like a country
servant, a farmhouse servant. She drank her
coffee noisily and furtively—she looked extraordinary,
thought Miriam, and took comfort.
The Martins’ brown bows appeared on their
necks instead of cresting their heads—it improved
them, Miriam thought. What regular features
they had. Bertha looked like a youth—like a
musician. Her hair was loosened a little at the
sides, shading the corners of her forehead and
adding to its height. It shone like marble, high
and straight. Emma’s hair hung round her like a
shawl. ’Lisbeth, Gretchen ... what was that
lovely German name ... hild ... Brunhilde....</p>
<p>Talk had begun again. Miriam hoped they had
not noticed her. Her “Braten” shot up the lift.</p>
<p>“Lauter Unsinn!” announced Clara.</p>
<p>“We’ve all got to do our hair in clash ...
clashishsher Knoten, Hendy, all of us,” said
Jimmie judicially, sitting forward with her
plump hands clasped on the table. Her pinnacle
of hair looked exactly as usual.</p>
<p>“Oh, really.” Miriam tried to make a picture
of a classic knot in her mind.</p>
<p>“If one have classic head one can have classic
knot,” scolded Clara.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-90" class="pagenum" title="90"></SPAN>
“Who have classic head?”</p>
<p>“How many classic head in the school of
Waldstrasse?”</p>
<p>Elsa gave a little neighing laugh. “Classisch
head, classisch Knote.”</p>
<p>“That is true what you say, Clarah.”</p>
<p>The table paused.</p>
<p>“Dîtes-moi—qu’est-ce-que ce terrible classique
notte? Dîtes!”</p>
<p>No one seemed prepared to answer Mademoiselle’s
challenge.</p>
<p>Miriam’s mind groped ... classic—Greece
and Rome—Greek knot.... Grecian key ...
a Grecian key pattern on the dresses for the
sixth form tableau—reading Ruskin ... the
strip of glass all along the window space on
the floor in the large room—edged with mosses
and grass—the mirror of Venus....</p>
<p>“Eh bien? Eh bien!”</p>
<p>... Only the eldest pretty girls ... all on
their hands and knees looking into the mirror....</p>
<p>“Classische Form—Griechisch,” explained
Clara.</p>
<p>“Like a statue, Mademoiselle.”</p>
<p>“Comment! Une statue! Je dois arranger
mes cheveux comme une statue? Oh, ciel!”
<SPAN name="page-91" class="pagenum" title="91"></SPAN>
mocked Mademoiselle, collapsing into tinkles of
her sprite laughter.... “Oh-là-là! Et quelle
statue par exemple?” she trilled, with ironic
eyebrows, “la statue de votre Kaisère Wilhelm
der Grosse peut-être?”</p>
<p>The Martins’ guffaws led the laughter.</p>
<p>“Mademoisellekin with her hair done like the
Kaiser Wilhelm,” pealed Jimmie.</p>
<p>Only Clara remained grave in wrath.</p>
<p>“Einfach,” she quoted bitterly, “Simple—says
Lily, so simple!”</p>
<p>“Simple—simpler—simplicissimusko!”</p>
<p>“I make no change, not at all,” smiled Minna
from behind her nose. “For this Ulrica it is
quite something other.... She has yes truly
so charming a little head.”</p>
<p>She spoke quietly and unenviously.</p>
<p>“I too, indeed. Lily may go and play the flute.”</p>
<p>“Brave girls,” said Gertrude, getting up.
“Come on, Kinder, clearing time. You’ll
excuse us, Miss Henderson? There’s your
pudding in the lift. Do you mind having your
coffee <em>mit</em>?”</p>
<p>The girls began to clear up.</p>
<p>“<em>Leely, Leely</em>, Leely Pfaff,” muttered Clara
as she helped, “so einfach und niedlich,” she
<SPAN name="page-92" class="pagenum" title="92"></SPAN>
mimicked, “ach <em>was</em>! Schwärmerei—das find’
ich abscheulich! I find it disgusting!”</p>
<p>So that was it. It was the new girl. Lily,
was Fräulein Pfaff. So the new girl wore her
hair in a classic knot. How lovely. Without
her hat she had “a charming little head,” Minna
had said. And that face. Minna had seen how
lovely she was and had not minded. Clara was
jealous. Her head with a classic knot and no
fringe, her worn-looking sallow face.... She
would look like a “prisoner at the bar” in some
newspaper. How they hated Fräulein Pfaff.
The Germans at least. Fancy calling her Lily—Miriam
did not like it, she had known at once.
None of the teachers at school had been called
by their Christian names—there had been old
Quagmire, the Elfkin, and dear Donnikin,
Stroodie, and good old Kingie and all of them—but
no Christian names. Oh yes—Sally—so
there had—Sally—but then Sally <em>was</em>—couldn’t
have been anything else—never could have
held a position of any sort. They ought not to
call Fräulein Pfaff that. It was, somehow, nasty.
Did the English girls do it? Ought she to have
said anything? Mademoiselle did not seem at
all shocked. Where was Fräulein Pfaff all this
<SPAN name="page-93" class="pagenum" title="93"></SPAN>
time? Perhaps somewhere hidden away, in her
rooms, being “done” by Frau Krause. Fancy
telling them all to alter the way they did their
hair.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-4-21"> 21 </h3>
<p>Everyone was writing Saturday letters—Mademoiselle
and the Germans with compressed lips
and fine careful evenly moving pen-points;
the English scrawling and scraping and dashing,
their pens at all angles and careless, eager faces.
An almost unbroken silence seemed the order
of the earlier part of a Saturday afternoon.
To-day the room was very still, save for the
slight movements of the writers. At intervals
nothing was to be heard but the little chorus
of pens. Clara, still smouldering, sitting at the
window end of the room looked now and again
gloomily out into the garden. Miriam did not
want to write letters. She sat, pen in hand, and
note-paper in front of her, feeling that she
loved the atmosphere of these Saturday afternoons.
This was her second. She had been
in the school a fortnight—the first Saturday
she had spent writing to her mother—a long
<SPAN name="page-94" class="pagenum" title="94"></SPAN>
letter for everyone to read, full of first impressions
and enclosing a slangy almost affectionate
little note for Harriett. In her general letter
she had said, “If you want to think of something
jolly, think of me, here.” She had hesitated
over that sentence when she considered meal-times,
especially the midday meal, but on the
whole she had decided to let it stand—this
afternoon she felt it was truer. She was beginning
to belong to the house—she did not want
to write letters—but just to sit revelling in the
sense of this room full of quietly occupied girls—in
the first hours of the weekly holiday. She
thought of strange Ulrica somewhere upstairs
and felt quite one of the old gang. “Ages” she
had known all these girls. She was not afraid
of them at all. She would not be afraid of them
any more. Emma Bergmann across the table
raised a careworn face from her two lines of
large neat lettering and caught her eye. She put
up her hands on either side of her mouth as if
for shouting.</p>
<p>“<em>Hendchen</em>,” she articulated silently, in her curious
lipless way, “mein liebes, liebes, Hendchen.”</p>
<p>Miriam smiled timidly and sternly began
fumbling at her week’s letters—one from Eve,
<SPAN name="page-95" class="pagenum" title="95"></SPAN>
full of congratulations and recommendations—“Keep
up your music, my dear,” said the conclusion,
“and don’t mind that little German
girl being fond of you. It is impossible to be too
fond of people if you keep it all on a high level,”
and a scrawl from Harriett, pure slang from
beginning to end. Both these letters and an
earlier one from her mother had moved her to
tears and longing when they came. She re-read
them now unmoved and felt aloof from the
things they suggested. It did not seem imperative
to respond to them at once. She folded
them together. If only she could bring them all
for a minute into this room, the wonderful
Germany that she had achieved. If they could
even come to the door and look in. She did not
in the least want to go back. She wanted them
to come to her and taste Germany—to see all
that went on in this wonderful house, to see
pretty, German Emma, adoring her—to hear the
music that was everywhere all the week, that went,
like a garland, in and out of everything, to hear
her play, by accident, and acknowledge the
difference in her playing. Oh yes, besides seeing
them all she wanted them to hear her play....
She must stay ... she glanced round the room.
<SPAN name="page-96" class="pagenum" title="96"></SPAN>
It was here, somehow, somewhere, in this roomful
of girls, centring in the Germans at her end
of the table, reflected on to the English group,
something of that influence that had made her
play. It was in the sheen on Minna’s hair, in
Emma’s long-plaited schoolgirlishness, somehow
in Clara’s anger. It was here, here, and she was in
it.... She must pretend to be writing letters
or someone might speak to her. She would hate
anyone who challenged her at this moment.
Jimmie might. It was just the kind of thing
Jimmie would do. Her eyes were always roving
round.... There were a lot of people like
that.... It was all right when you wanted anything
or to—to—“create a diversion” when
everybody was quarrelling. But at the wrong
times it was awful.... The Radnors and
Pooles were like that. She could have killed
them often. “Hullo, Mim,” they would say,
“Wake up!” or “What’s the row!” and if
you asked why, they would laugh and tell you
you looked like a dying duck in a thunderstorm....
It was all right. No one had noticed her—or
if either of the Germans had they would
not think like that—they would understand—she
believed in a way, they would understand.
<SPAN name="page-97" class="pagenum" title="97"></SPAN>
At the worst they would look at you as if they
were somehow with you and say something
sentimental. “Sie hat Heimweh” or something
like that. Minna would. Minna’s forget-me-not
blue eyes behind her pink nose would be
quite real and alive.... Ein Blatt—she dipped
her pen and wrote Ein Blatt ... aus ... Ein
Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen ... that thing
they had begun last Saturday afternoon and gone
on and on with until she had hated the sound of
the words. How did it go on? “Ein Blatt aus
sommerlichen Tagen,” she breathed in a half
whisper. Minna heard—and without looking up
from her writing quietly repeated the verse. Her
voice rose and trembled slightly on the last
line.</p>
<p>“Oh, chuck it, Minna,” groaned Bertha
Martin.</p>
<p>“Tchookitt,” repeated Minna absently, and
went on with her writing.</p>
<p>Miriam was scribbling down the words as
quickly as she could—</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen</p>
<p class="verse">Ich nahm es so im Wandern mit</p>
<p class="verse">Auf dass es einst mir möge sagen</p>
<p class="verse">Wie laut die Nachtigall geschlagen</p>
<p class="verse">Wie grün der Wald den ich—durchtritt—”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p><SPAN name="page-98" class="pagenum" title="98"></SPAN>
durchtritt—durchschritt—she was not sure. It
was perfectly lovely—she read it through translating
stumblingly—</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“A leaf from summery days</p>
<p class="verse">I took it with me on my way,</p>
<p class="verse">So that it might remind me</p>
<p class="verse">How loud the nightingale had sung,</p>
<p class="verse">How green the wood I had passed through.”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>With a pang she felt it was true that summer
ended in dead leaves.</p>
<p>But she had no leaf, nothing to remind her of
her summer days. They were all past and she
had nothing—not the smallest thing. The two
little bunches of flowers she had put away in her
desk had all crumbled together, and she could
not tell which was which.... There was
nothing else—but the things she had told Eve—and
perhaps Eve had forgotten ... there
was nothing. There were the names in her
birthday book! She had forgotten them. She
would look at them. She flushed. She would
look at them to-morrow, sometime when
Mademoiselle was not there.... The room
was waking up from its letter-writing. People
were moving about. She would not write to-day.
It was not worth while beginning. She took a
<SPAN name="page-99" class="pagenum" title="99"></SPAN>
fresh sheet of note-paper and copied her verse,
spacing it carefully with a wide margin all round
so that it came exactly in the middle of the page.
It would soon be tea-time. “Wie grün der
Wald.” She remembered one wood—the only
one she could remember—there were no woods
at Barnes or at the seaside—only that wood, at
the very beginning, someone carrying Harriett—and
green green, the brightest she had ever
seen, and anemones everywhere, she could see
them distinctly at this moment—she wanted to
put her face down into the green among the
anemones. She could not remember how she
got there or the going home, but just standing
there—the green and the flowers and something
in her ear buzzing and frightening her and
making her cry, and somebody poking a large
finger into the buzzing ear and making it very
hot and sore.</p>
<p>The afternoon sitting had broken up. The
table was empty.</p>
<p>Emma, in raptures—near the window, was
calling to the other Germans. Minna came and
chirruped too—there was a sound of dull
scratching on the window—then a little burst
of admiration from Emma and Minna together.
<SPAN name="page-100" class="pagenum" title="100"></SPAN>
Miriam looked round—in Emma’s hand shone a
small antique watch encrusted with jewels; at
her side was the new girl. Miriam saw a filmy
black dress, and above it a pallid face. What
was it like? It was like—like—like jasmine—that
was it—jasmine—and out of the jasmine
face the great gaze she had met in the morning
turned half-puzzled, half-disappointed upon the
growing group of girls examining the watch.</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-5"> <SPAN name="page-101" class="pagenum" title="101"></SPAN> CHAPTER IV </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-5-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">M</span><span class="postfirstchar">iriam</span> paid her first visit to a German
church the next day, her third Sunday.
Of the first Sunday, now so far off, she could
remember nothing but sitting in a low-backed
chair in the saal trying to read “Les Travailleurs
de la Mer” ... seas ... and a sunburnt youth
striding down a desolate lane in a storm ... and
the beginning of tea-time. They had been kept
indoors all day by the rain.</p>
<p>The second Sunday they had all gone in the
evening to the English church with Fräulein
Pfaff ... rush-seated chairs with a ledge for books,
placed very close together and scrooping on the
stone floor with the movements of the congregation
... a little gathering of English people.
They seemed very dear for a moment ... what
was it about them that was so attractive ... that
gave them their air of “refinement”?...</p>
<p>Then as she watched their faces as they sang
<SPAN name="page-102" class="pagenum" title="102"></SPAN>
she felt that she knew all these women, the way,
with little personal differences, they would talk,
the way they would smile and take things for
granted.</p>
<p>And the men, standing there in their overcoats....
Why were they there? What were they
doing? What were their thoughts?</p>
<p>She pressed as against a barrier. Nothing came
to her from these unconscious forms.</p>
<p>They seemed so untroubled.... Probably
they were all Conservatives.... That was part
of their “refinement.” They would all disapprove
of Mr. Gladstone.... Get up into the
pulpit and say “Gladstone” very loud ... and
watch the result. Gladstone was a Radical ...
“pull everything up by the roots.” ... Pater was
always angry and sneery about him.... Where
were the Radicals? Somewhere very far away
... tub-thumping ... the Conservatives made
them thump tubs ... no wonder.</p>
<p>She decided she must be a Radical. Certainly
she did not belong to these “refined” English—women
or men. She was quite sure of that,
seeing them gathered together, English Church-people
in this foreign town.</p>
<p>But then Radicals were probably chapel?</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-103" class="pagenum" title="103"></SPAN>
It would be best to stay with the Germans.
Yes ... she would stay. There was a woman
sitting in the endmost chair just across the aisle
in line with them. She had a pale face and looked
worn and middle-aged. The effect of “refinement”
made on Miriam by the congregation
seemed to radiate from her. There was a large
ostrich feather fastened by a gleaming buckle
against the side of her silky beaver hat. It
swept, Miriam found the word during the Psalms,
back over her hair. Miriam glancing at her again
and again felt that she would like to be near
her, watch her and touch her and find out the
secret of her effect. But not talk to her, never
talk to her.</p>
<p>She, too, sad and alone though Miriam knew
her to be, would have her way of smiling and
taking things for granted. The sermon came.
Miriam sat, chafing, through it. One angry
glance towards the pulpit had shown her a pale,
black-moustached face. She checked her thoughts.
She felt they would be too savage; would rend
her unendurably. She tried not to listen. She
felt the preacher was dealing out “pastoral
platitudes.” She tried to give her mind elsewhere;
but the sound of the voice, unconvinced
<SPAN name="page-104" class="pagenum" title="104"></SPAN>
and unconvincing threatened her again and
again with a tide of furious resentment. She
fidgeted and felt for thoughts and tried to compose
her face to a semblance of serenity. It
would not do to sit scowling here amongst her
pupils with Fräulein Pfaff’s eye commanding
her profile from the end of the pew just behind....
The air was gassy and close, her feet were
cold. The gentle figure across the aisle was
sitting very still, with folded hands and grave
eyes fixed in the direction of the pulpit. Of
course. Miriam had known it. She would
“think over” the sermon afterwards....
The voice in the pulpit had dropped. Miriam
glanced up. The figure faced about and intoned
rapidly, the congregation rose for a moment
rustling, and rustling subsided again. A hymn
was given out. They rose again and sang. It
was “Lead, Kindly Light.” Chilly and feverish
and weary Miriam listened ... “the encircling
glooo—om” ... Cardinal Newman coming back
from Italy in a ship ... in the end he had
gone over to Rome ... high altars ... candles
... incense ... safety and warmth....
From far away a radiance seemed to approach
and to send out a breath that touched and stirred
<SPAN name="page-105" class="pagenum" title="105"></SPAN>
the stuffy air ... the imploring voices sang on
... poor dears ... poor cold English things
... Miriam suddenly became aware of Emma
Bergmann standing at her side with open hymn-book
shaking with laughter. She glanced sternly
at her, mastering a sympathetic convulsion.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-5-2"> 2 </h3>
<p>Emma looked so sweet standing there shaking
and suffused. Her blue eyes were full of tears.
Miriam wanted to giggle too. She longed to
know what had amused her ... just the fact
of their all standing suddenly there together.
She dared not join her ... no more giggling
as she and Harriett had giggled. She would not
even be able afterwards to ask her what it was.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-5-3"> 3 </h3>
<p>Sitting on this third Sunday morning in the
dim Schloss Kirche—the Waldstrasse pew was
in one of its darkest spaces and immediately
under the shadow of a deeply overhanging
gallery—Miriam understood poor Emma’s confessed
hysteria over the abruptly alternating
kneelings and standings, risings and sittings of an
<SPAN name="page-106" class="pagenum" title="106"></SPAN>
Anglican congregation. Here, there was no need
to be on the watch for the next move. The service
droned quietly and slowly on. Miriam paid
no heed to it. She sat in the comforting darkness.
The unobserving Germans were all round her,
the English girls tailed away invisibly into the
distant obscurity. Fräulein Pfaff was not there,
nor Mademoiselle. She was alone with the school.
She felt safe for a while and derived solace from
the reflection that there would always be church.
If she were a governess all her life there would be
church. There was a little sting of guilt in the
thought. It would be practising deception....
To despise it all, to hate the minister and the
choir and the congregation and yet to come—running—she
could imagine herself all her life
running, at least in her mind, weekly to some
church—working her fingers into their gloves
and pretending to take everything for granted
and to be just like everybody else and really
thinking only of getting into a quiet pew and
ceasing to pretend. It was wrong to use church
like that. She was wrong—all wrong. It couldn’t
be helped. Who was there who could help her?
She imagined herself going to a clergyman and
saying she was bad and wanted to be good—even
<SPAN name="page-107" class="pagenum" title="107"></SPAN>
crying. He would be kind and would pray and
smile—and she would be told to listen to sermons
in the right spirit. She could never do that....
There she felt she was on solid ground. Listening
to sermons was wrong ... people ought to
refuse to be preached at by these men. Trying
to listen to them made her more furious than
anything she could think of, more base in submitting
... those men’s sermons were worse than
women’s smiles ... just as insincere at any rate ...
and you could get away from the smiles, make
it plain you did not agree and that things were
not simple and settled ... but you could not
stop a sermon. It was so unfair. The service
might be lovely, if you did not listen to the words;
and then the man got up and went on and on
from unsound premises until your brain was
sick ... droning on and on and getting more and
more pleased with himself and emphatic ...
and nothing behind it. As often as not you could
pick out the logical fallacy if you took the trouble....
Preachers knew no more than anyone else
... you could see by their faces ... sheeps’
faces.... What a terrible life ... and wives
and children in the homes taking them for
granted....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-5-4"> <SPAN name="page-108" class="pagenum" title="108"></SPAN> 4 </h3>
<p>Certainly it was wrong to listen to sermons ...
stultifying ... unless they were intellectual
... lectures like Mr. Brough’s ... that was
as bad, because they were not sermons....
Either kind was bad and ought not to be allowed
... a homily ... sermons ... homilies ...
a quiet homily might be something rather nice
... and have not <em>Charity</em>—sounding brass and
tinkling cymbal.... Caritas ... I have <em>none</em>
I am sure.... Fräulein Pfaff would listen.
She would smile afterwards and talk about a
“schöne Predigt”—certainly.... If she should
ask about the sermon? Everything would come
out then.</p>
<p>What would be the good? Fräulein would not
understand. It would be better to pretend. She
could not think of any woman who would understand.
And she would be obliged to live somewhere.
She must pretend to somebody. She
wanted to go on, to see the spring. But must she
always be pretending? Would it always be that
... living with exasperating women who did not
understand ... pretending ... grimacing?...
Were German women the same? She wished
<SPAN name="page-109" class="pagenum" title="109"></SPAN>
she could tell Eve the things she was beginning
to feel about women. These English girls were
just the same. Millie ... sweet lovely Millie....
How she wished she had never spoken to
her. Never said, “Are you fond of crochet?” ...
Millie saying, “You must know all my
people,” and then telling her a list of names and
describing all her family. She had been so pleased
for the first moment. It had made her feel
suddenly happy to hear an English voice talking
familiarly to her in the saal. And then at the
end of a few moments she had known she never
wanted to hear anything more of Millie and her
people. It seemed strange that this girl talking
about her brothers’ hobbies and the colour of
her sister’s hair was the Millie she had first seen
the night of the Vorspielen with the “Madonna”
face and no feet. Millie was smug. Millie
would smile when she was a little older—and
she would go respectfully to church all her life—Miriam
had felt a horror even of the work-basket
Millie had been tidying during their
conversation—and Millie had gone upstairs, she
knew, feeling that they had “begun to be friends”
and would be different the next time they met.
It was her own fault. What had made her speak
<SPAN name="page-110" class="pagenum" title="110"></SPAN>
to her? She was like that.... Eve had told
her. She got excited and interested in people
and then wanted to throw them up. It was not
true. She did not want to throw them up. She
wanted them to leave her alone.... She had
not been excited about Millie. It was Ulrica,
Ulrica ... Ulrica ... Ulrica ... sitting
up at breakfast with her lovely head and her
great eyes—her thin fingers peeling an egg....
She had made them all look so “common.”
Ulrica was different. Was she? Yes, Ulrica was
different ... Ulrica peeling an egg and she,
afterwards like a mad thing had gone into the
saal and talked to Millie in a vulgar, familiar way,
no doubt.</p>
<p>And that had led to that dreadful talk with
Gertrude. Gertrude’s voice sounding suddenly
behind her as she stood looking out of the saal
window and their talk. She wished Gertrude
had not told her about Hugo Wieland and the
skating. She was sure she would not have liked
Erica Wieland. She was glad she had left. “She
was my chum,” Gertrude had said, “and he
taught us all the outside edge and taught me
figure-skating.”</p>
<p>It was funny—improper—that these schoolgirls
<SPAN name="page-111" class="pagenum" title="111"></SPAN>
should go skating with other girls’ brothers.
She had been so afraid of Gertrude that she had
pretended to be interested and had joked with
her—she, Miss Henderson, the governess had
said—knowingly, “Let’s see, he’s the clean-shaven
one, isn’t he?”</p>
<p>“<em>Rather</em>,” Gertrude had said with a sort of
winking grimace....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-5-5"> 5 </h3>
<p>They were singing a hymn. The people near
her had not moved. Nobody had moved. The
whole church was sitting down, singing a hymn.
What wonderful people.... Like a sort of
tea-party ... everybody sitting about—not
sitting up to the table ... happy and comfortable.</p>
<p>Emma had found her place and handed her a
big hymn-book with the score.</p>
<p>There was time for Miriam to read the first
line and recognise the original of “Now thank
we all our God” before the singing had reached
the third syllable. She hung over the book.
“Nun—dank—et—Al—le—Gott.” Now—thank—all—God.
She read that first line again and
<SPAN name="page-112" class="pagenum" title="112"></SPAN>
felt how much better the thing was without
the “we” and the “our.” What a perfect
phrase.... The hymn rolled on and she recognised
that it was the tune she knew—the hard
square tune she and Eve had called it—and
Harriett used to mark time to it in jerks, a jerk to
each syllable, with a twisted glove-finger tip
just under the book ledge with her left hand,
towards Miriam. But sung as these Germans
sang it, it did not jerk at all. It did not sound
like a “proclamation” or an order. It was ...
somehow ... everyday. The notes seemed to
hold her up. This was—Luther—Germany—the
Reformation—solid and quiet. She glanced
up and then hung more closely over her book.
It was the stained-glass windows that made the
Schloss Kirche so dark. One movement of her
head showed her that all the windows within
sight were dark with rich colour, and there
was oak everywhere—great shelves and galleries
and juttings of dark wood, great carved masses
and a high dim roof and strange spaces of light;
twilight, and light like moonlight and people,
not many people, a troop, a little army under the
high roof, with the great shadows all about them.
“Nun danket alle Gott.” There was nothing
<SPAN name="page-113" class="pagenum" title="113"></SPAN>
to object to in that. Everybody could say that.
Everybody—Fräulein, Gertrude, all these little
figures in the church, the whole world. “Now
thank, all, God!” ... Emma and <SPAN name="marie"></SPAN>Marie <SPAN name="corr-7"></SPAN>were
chanting on either side of her. Immediately
behind her sounded the quavering voice of an
old woman. They all felt it. She must remember
that.... Think of it every day.</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-6"> <SPAN name="page-114" class="pagenum" title="114"></SPAN> CHAPTER V </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">D</span><span class="postfirstchar">uring</span> those early days Miriam realised
that school-routine, as she knew it—the
planned days—the regular unvarying succession
of lessons and preparations, had no place in
this new world. Even the masters’ lessons,
coming in from outside and making a kind of
framework of appointments over the otherwise
fortuitously occupied days, were, she soon found,
not always securely calculable. Herr Kapellmeister
Bossenberger would be heard booming
and intoning in the hall unexpectedly at all
hours. He could be heard all over the house.
Miriam had never seen him, but she noticed
that great haste was always made to get a pupil
to the saal and that he taught impatiently. He
shouted and corrected and mimicked. Only
Millie’s singing, apparently, he left untouched.
You could hear her lilting away through her little
high songs as serenely as she did at Vorspielen.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-115" class="pagenum" title="115"></SPAN>
Miriam was at once sure that he found his
task of teaching these girls an extremely tiresome
one.</p>
<p>Probably most teachers found teaching tiresome.
But there was something peculiar and
new to her in Herr Bossenberger’s attitude.
She tried to account for it ... German men
despised women. Why did they teach them
anything at all?</p>
<p>The same impression, the sense of a half-impatient,
half-exasperated tuition came to her
from the lectures of Herr Winter and Herr
Schraub.</p>
<p>Herr Winter, a thin tall withered-looking
man with shabby hair and bony hands whose
veins stood up in knots, drummed on the table
as he taught botany and geography. The girls
sat round bookless and politely attentive and
seemed, the Germans at least, to remember all
the facts for which he appealed during the last
few minutes of his hour. Miriam could never
recall anything but his weary withered face.</p>
<p>Herr Schraub, the teacher of history, was, she
felt, almost openly contemptuous of his class.
He would begin lecturing, almost before he was
inside the door. He taught from a book, sitting
<SPAN name="page-116" class="pagenum" title="116"></SPAN>
with downcast eyes, his round red mass of face—expressionless
save for the bristling spikes of his
tiny straw-coloured moustache and the rapid
movements of his tight rounded little lips—persistently
averted from his pupils. For the
last few minutes of his time he would, ironically,
his eyes fixed ahead of him at a point on the
table, snap questions—indicating his aim with a
tapping finger, going round the table like a
dealer at cards. Surely the girls must detest
him.... The Germans made no modification
of their polite attentiveness. Amongst the
English only Gertrude and the Martins found
any answers for him. Miriam, proud of sixth-form
history essays and the full marks she had
generally claimed for them, had no memory
for facts and dates; but she made up her mind
that were she ever so prepared with a correct
reply, nothing should drag from her any response
to these military tappings. Fräulein presided
over these lectures from the corner of the sofa
out of range of the eye of the teacher and
horrified Miriam by voicelessly prompting the
girls whenever she could. There was no kind
of preparation for these lessons.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-2"> <SPAN name="page-117" class="pagenum" title="117"></SPAN> 2 </h3>
<p>Miriam mused over the difference between the
bearing of these men and that of the masters
she remembered and tried to find words. What
was it? Had her masters been more—respectful
than these Germans were? She felt they had.
But it was not only that. She recalled the men
she remembered teaching week by week through
all the years she had known them ... the
little bolster-like literature master, an albino, a
friend of Browning, reading, reading to them as
if it were worth while, as if they were equals ...
interested friends—that had never struck her
at the time.... But it was true—she could
not remember ever having felt a schoolgirl ...
or being “talked down” to ... dear Stroodie,
the music-master, and Monsieur—old white-haired
Monsieur, dearest of all, she could hear
his gentle voice pleading with them on behalf
of his treasures ... the drilling-master with
his keen, friendly blue eye ... the briefless
barrister who had taught them arithmetic in a
baritone voice, laughing all the time but really
wanting them to get on.</p>
<p>What was it she missed? Was it that her old
<SPAN name="page-118" class="pagenum" title="118"></SPAN>
teachers were “gentlemen” and these Germans
were not? She pondered over this and came to
the conclusion that the whole attitude of the
Englishman and of Monsieur, her one Frenchman,
towards her sex was different from that of
these Germans. It occurred to her once in a
flash during these puzzled musings that the
lessons she had had at school would not have
been given more zestfully, more as if it were
worth while, had she and her schoolfellows been
boys. Here she could not feel that. The
teaching was grave enough. The masters felt
the importance of what they taught ... she
felt that they were formal, reverently formal,
“pompous” she called it, towards the facts
that they flung out down the long schoolroom
table, but that the relationship of their pupils
to these facts seemed a matter of less than
indifference to them.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-3"> 3 </h3>
<p>She began to recognise now with a glow of
gratitude that her own teachers, those who were
enthusiastic about their subjects—the albino,
her dear Monsieur with his classic French prose,
<SPAN name="page-119" class="pagenum" title="119"></SPAN>
a young woman who had taught them logic and
the beginning of psychology—that strange, new
subject—were at least as enthusiastic about
getting her and her mates awake and into relationship
with something. They cared somehow.</p>
<p>She recalled the albino, his face and voice
generally separated from his class by a book held
vertically, close to his left eye, while he blocked
the right eye with his free hand—his faintly
wheezy tones bleating triumphantly out at the
end of a passage from “The Ring and the Book,”
as he lowered his volume and bent beaming
towards them all, his right eye still blocked, for
response. Miss Donne, her skimpy skirt powdered
with chalk, explaining a syllogism from the
blackboard, turning quietly to them, her face
all aglow, her chalky hands gently pressed
together, “Do you <em>see</em>? Does anyone <em>see</em>?”
Monsieur, spoiling them, sharpening their pencils,
letting them cheat over their pages of rules,
knowing quite well that each learned only one
and directing his questioning accordingly, Monsieur
dreaming over the things he read to them,
repeating passages, wandering from his subject,
making allusions here and there—and all of
<SPAN name="page-120" class="pagenum" title="120"></SPAN>
them, she, at any rate, and Lilla—she knew,
often—in paradise. How rich and friendly
and helpful they all seemed.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-4"> 4 </h3>
<p>She began to wonder whether hers had been
in some way a specially good school. Things
<em>had</em> mattered there. Somehow the girls had
been made to feel they mattered. She remembered
even old Stroodie—the least attached
member of the staff—asking her suddenly, once,
in the middle of a music-lesson what she was
going to do with her life and a day when the
artistic vice-principal—who was a connection
by marriage of Holman Hunt’s and had met
Ruskin, Miriam knew, several times—had gone
from girl to girl round the collected fifth and
sixth forms asking them each what they would
best like to do in life. Miriam had answered at
once with a conviction born that moment that
she wanted to “write a book.” It irritated her
when she remembered during these reflections
that she had not been able to give to Fräulein
Pfaff’s public questioning any intelligible account
of the school. She might at least have told her
<SPAN name="page-121" class="pagenum" title="121"></SPAN>
of the connection with Ruskin and Browning
and Holman Hunt, whereas her muddled replies
had led Fräulein to decide that her school had
been “a kind of high school.” She knew it had
not been this. She felt there was something
questionable about a high school. She was
beginning to think that her school had been
very good. Pater had seen to that—that was
one of the things he had steered and seen to.
There had been a school they might have gone
to higher up the hill where one learned needlework
even in the “first class” as they called it
instead of the sixth form as at her school, and
“Calisthenics” instead of drilling—and something
called elocution—where the girls were
“finished.” It was an expensive school. Had
the teachers there taught the girls ... as if
they had no minds? Perhaps that school was
more like the one she found herself in now?
She wondered and wondered. What was she
going to do with her life after all these years at
the good school? She began bit by bit to
understand her agony on the day of leaving. It
was there she belonged. She ought to go back
and go on.</p>
<p>One day she lay twisted and convulsed, face
<SPAN name="page-122" class="pagenum" title="122"></SPAN>
downwards on her bed at the thought that she
could never go back and begin. If only she
could really begin now, knowing what she
wanted.... She would talk now with those
teachers.... Isn’t it all wonderful! Aren’t
things wonderful! Tell me some more....
She felt sure that if she could go back, things
would get clear. She would talk and think and
understand.... She did not linger over that. It
threatened a storm whose results would be
visible. She wondered what the other girls were
doing—Lilla? She had heard nothing of her
since that last term. She would write to her
one day, perhaps. Perhaps not.... She would
have to tell her that she was a governess. Lilla
would think that very funny and would not care
for her now that she was so old and worried....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-5"> 5 </h3>
<p>Woven through her retrospective appreciations
came a doubt. She wondered whether, after
all, her school had been right. Whether it
ought to have treated them all so seriously. If
she had gone to the other school she was sure
she would never have heard of the Æsthetic
<SPAN name="page-123" class="pagenum" title="123"></SPAN>
Movement or felt troubled about the state of
Ireland and India. Perhaps she would have
grown up a Churchwoman ... and “lady-like.”
Never.</p>
<p>She could only think that somehow she must
be “different”; that a sprinkling of the girls
collected in that school were different, too.
The school she decided was new—modern—Ruskin.
Most of the girls perhaps had not been
affected by it. But some had. She had. The
thought stirred her. She had. It was mysterious.
Was it the school or herself? Herself to begin
with. If she had been brought up differently,
it could not, she felt sure, have made her very
different—for long—nor taught her to be affable—to
smile that smile she hated so. The school
had done something to her. It had not gone
against the things she found in herself. She
wondered once or twice during these early
weeks what she would have been like if she had
been brought up with these German girls.
What they were going to do with their lives was
only too plain. All but Emma, she had been
astounded to discover, had already a complete
outfit of house-linen to which they were now
adding fine embroideries and laces. All could
<SPAN name="page-124" class="pagenum" title="124"></SPAN>
cook. Minna had startled her one day by
exclaiming with lit face, “Ach, ich koche so
<em>schrecklich</em> gern!” ... Oh, I am so frightfully
fond of cooking.... And they were placid
and serene, secure in a kind of security Miriam
had never met before. They did not seem to be
in the least afraid of the future. She envied
that. Their eyes and their hands were serene....
They would have houses and things they
could do and understand, always.... How
they must want to begin, she mused....
What a prison school must seem.</p>
<p>She thought of their comfortable German
homes, of ruling and shopping and directing
and being looked up to.... German husbands.</p>
<p>That thought she shirked. Emma in particular
she could not contemplate in relation to a German
husband.</p>
<p>In any case one day these girls would be
middle-aged ... as Clara looked now ... they
would look like the German women on the
boulevards and in the shops.</p>
<p>In the end she ceased to wonder that the
German masters dealt out their wares to these
girls so superciliously.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-125" class="pagenum" title="125"></SPAN>
And yet ... German music, a line of German
poetry, a sudden light on Clara’s face....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-6"> 6 </h3>
<p>There was one other teacher, a Swiss and some
sort of minister she supposed as everyone called
him the Herr Pastor. She wondered whether
he was in any sense the spiritual adviser of the
school and regarded him with provisional suspicion.
She had seen him once, sitting short and
very black and white at the head of the schoolroom
table. His black beard and dark eyes as
he sat with his back to the window made his face
gleam like a mask. He had spoken very rapidly
as he told the girls the life-story of some poet.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-7"> 7 </h3>
<p>The time that was not taken up by the masters
and the regular succession of rich and savoury
meals—wastefully plentiful they seemed to
Miriam—was filled in by Fräulein Pfaff with
occupations devised apparently from hour to
hour. On a master’s morning the girls collected
in the schoolroom one by one as they finished
<SPAN name="page-126" class="pagenum" title="126"></SPAN>
their bed-making and dusting. On other days
the time immediately after breakfast was full of
uncertainty and surmise. Judging from the
interchange between the four first-floor bedrooms
whose doors were always open during this
bustling interval, Miriam, listening apprehensively
as she did her share of work on the top
floor, gathered that the lack of any planned
programme was a standing annoyance to the
English girls. Millie, still imperfectly acclimatised,
carrying out her duties in a large
bibbed apron, was plaintive about it in her
conscientious German nearly every morning.
The Martins, when the sense of Fräulein as
providence was strong upon them made their
beds vindictively, rapping out sarcasms to be
alternately mocked and giggled at by Jimmie
who was generally heard, as the gusts subsided,
dispensing the comforting assurance that it
wouldn’t last for ever. Miriam once heard
even Judy grumbling to herself in a mumbling
undertone as she carried the lower landing’s
collective “wäsche” upstairs to the back attic
to await the quarterly waschfrau.</p>
<p>The German side of the landing was uncritical.
On free mornings the Germans had one preoccupation.
<SPAN name="page-127" class="pagenum" title="127"></SPAN>
It was generally betrayed by Emma
in a loud excited whisper, aimed across the
landing: “Gehen wir zu Kreipe? Do we go to
Kreipe’s?” “Kreipe, Kreipe,” Minna and
Clara would chorus devoutly from their respective
rooms. Gertrude on these occasions always
had an air of knowledge and would sometimes
prophesy. To what extent Fräulein did confide
in the girl and how much was due to her
experience of the elder woman’s habit of
mind Miriam could never determine. But her
prophecies were always fulfilled.</p>
<p>Fräulein, who generally went to the basement
kitchen from the breakfast-table, would be
heard on the landing towards the end of the
busy half-hour, rallying and criticising the housemaids
in her gentle caustic voice. She never
came to the top floor. Miriam and Mademoiselle,
who agreed in accomplishing their duties with
great despatch and spending any spare time
sitting in their jackets on their respective beds
reading or talking, would listen for her departure.
There was always a moment when they knew
that the excitement was over and the landing
stricken into certainty. Then Mademoiselle
would flit to the top of the stairs and demand,
<SPAN name="page-128" class="pagenum" title="128"></SPAN>
leaning over the balustrade, “Eh bien! Eh
bien!” and someone would retail directions.</p>
<p>Sometimes Anna would appear in her short,
chequered cotton dress, shawled and with her
market basket on her arm, and would summon
Gertrude alone or with Solomon Martin to
Fräulein’s room opposite the saal on the ground
floor. The appearance of Anna was the signal
for bounding anticipations. It nearly always
meant a holiday and an expedition.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-8"> 8 </h3>
<p>During the cold weeks after Miriam’s arrival
there were no expeditions; and very commonly
uncertainty was prolonged by a provisional
distribution of the ten girls between the kitchen
and the five pianos. In this case neither she nor
Mademoiselle received any instructions. Mademoiselle
would go to the saal with needlework,
generally the lighter household mending. The
saal piano at practising time was allotted to the
pupil to whom the next music lesson was due,
and Mademoiselle spent the greater part of her
time installed, either awaiting the possible
arrival of Herr Bossenberger or presiding over
<SPAN name="page-129" class="pagenum" title="129"></SPAN>
his lessons when he came. Miriam, unprovided
for, sitting in the schoolroom with a book,
awaiting events, would watch her disappear unconcernedly
through the folding doors, every
time with fresh wonder. She did not want to
take her place, though it would have meant
listening to Herr Bossenberger’s teaching and a
quiet alcove of freedom from the apprehensive
uncertainty that hung over so many of her
hours. It seemed to her odd, not quite the
thing, to have a third person in the room at a
music lesson. She tried to imagine a lesson
being given to herself under these conditions.
The thought was abhorrent. And Mademoiselle,
of all people. Miriam could see her sitting in
the saal, wrapped in all the coolness of her
complete insensibility to music, her eyes bent
on her work, the quick movements of her small,
thin hands, the darting gleam of her thimble,
the dry way she had of clearing her throat, a
gesture that was an accentuation of the slightly
metallic quality of her voice, and expressed, for
Miriam, in sound, that curious sense of circumspect
frugality she was growing to realise
as characteristic of Mademoiselle’s face in repose.</p>
<p>The saal doors closed, the little door leading
<SPAN name="page-130" class="pagenum" title="130"></SPAN>
into the hall became the centre of Miriam’s
attention. Before long, sometimes at the end
of ten minutes, this door would open and the
day become eventful. She had already taken
Clara, with Emma, to make a third, three times
to her masseuse, sitting for half an hour in a
room above a chemist’s shop so stuffy beyond
anything in her experience that she had carried
away nothing but the sense of its closely-interwoven
odours, a dim picture of Clara in a saffron-coloured
wrapper and the shocked impression
of the resounding thwackings undergone by her.
Emma was paying a series of visits to the dentist
and might appear at the schoolroom door with
frightened eyes, holding it open—“Hendchen!
Ich muss zum Zahnarzt.” Miriam dreaded these
excursions. The first time Miriam had accompanied
her Emma had had “gas.” Miriam,
assailed by a loud scream followed by the peremptory
voices of two white-coated, fiercely moustached
operators, one of whom seemed to be
holding Emma in the chair, had started from her
sofa in the background. “Brutes!” she had
declared and reached the chair-side voluble in
unintelligible German to find Emma serenely
emerging from unconsciousness. Once she had
<SPAN name="page-131" class="pagenum" title="131"></SPAN>
taken Gertrude to the dentist—another dentist,
an elderly man, practising in a frock-coat in a
heavily-furnished room with high sash windows,
the lower sashes filled with stained glass. There
had been a driving March wind and Gertrude
with a shawl round her face had battled gallantly
along shouting through her shawl. Miriam had
made out nothing clearly, but the fact that the
dentist’s wife had a title in her own right.
Gertrude had gone through her trial, prolonged
by some slight complication, without an
anæsthetic, in alternations of tense silence and
great gusts of her hacking laughter. Miriam,
sitting strained in the far background near a
screen covered with a mass of strange embroideries,
wondered how she really felt. That,
she realised with a vision of Gertrude going
on through life in smart costumes, one would
never know.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-9"> 9 </h3>
<p>The thing Miriam dreaded most acutely was
a visit with Minna to her aurist. She learned
with horror that Minna was obliged every few
months to submit to a series of small operations
at the hands of the tall, scholarly-looking man,
<SPAN name="page-132" class="pagenum" title="132"></SPAN>
with large, clear, impersonal eyes, who carried
on his practice high up in a great block of buildings
in a small faded room with coarse coffee-coloured
curtains at its smudgy windows. The
character of his surroundings added a great deal
to her abhorrence of his attentions to Minna.</p>
<p>The room was densely saturated with an odour
which she guessed to be that of stale cigar-smoke.
It seemed so tangible in the room that
she looked about at first for visible signs of its
presence. It was like an invisible dry fog and
seemed to affect her breathing.</p>
<p>Coming and going upon the dense staleness
of the room and pervading the immediate
premises was a strange savoury pungency. Miriam
could not at first identify it. But as the visits
multiplied and she noticed the same odour
standing in faint patches here and there about
the stairways and corridors of the block, it dawned
upon her that it must be onions—onions freshly
frying but with a quality of accumulated richness
that she could not explain. But the fact of the
dominating kitchen side by side with the consulting-room
made her speculate. She imagined
the doctor’s wife, probably in that kitchen, a
hard-browed bony North German woman. She
<SPAN name="page-133" class="pagenum" title="133"></SPAN>
saw the clear-eyed man at his meals; and imagined
his slippers. There were dingy books in the room
where Minna started and moaned.</p>
<p>She compared this entourage with her recollection
of her one visit to an oculist in Harley Street.
His stately house, the exquisite freshness of his
appointments and his person stood out now.
The English she assured herself were more refined
than the Germans. Even the local doctor at
Barnes whose effect upon her mother’s perpetual
ill-health, upon Eve’s nerves and Sarah’s mysterious
indigestion was so impermanent that the
very sound of his name exasperated her, had
something about him that she failed entirely to
find in this German—something she could respect.
She wondered whether the professional classes
in Germany were all like this specialist and living
in this way. Minna’s parents she knew were
paying large fees.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-10"> 10 </h3>
<p>These dreaded expeditions brought a compensation.</p>
<p>Her liking for Minna grew with each visit.
She wondered at her. Here she was with her
nose and her ear—she was subject to rheumatism
<SPAN name="page-134" class="pagenum" title="134"></SPAN>
too—it would always, Miriam reflected, be
doctor’s treatment for her. She wondered at her
perpetual cheerfulness. She saw her with a pang
of pity, going through life with her illnesses,
capped in defiance of all the care she bestowed
on her person, with her disconcerting nose, a nose
she reflected, that would do splendidly for
charades.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-11"> 11 </h3>
<p>On several occasions a little contingent selected
from the pianos and kitchen had appeared in the
schoolroom and settled down to read German
with Fräulein. Miriam had been despatched to
a piano. After these readings the mid-morning
lunching-plates of sweet custard-like soup or
chocolate soup or perhaps glasses of sweet syrup
and biscuits—were, if Fräulein were safely out of
earshot, voluble indignation meetings. If she
were known to be in the room beyond the little
schoolroom, lunch was taken in silence except
for Gertrude’s sallies, cheerful generalisations
from Minna or Jimmie, and grudging murmurs
of response.</p>
<p>On the mornings of Fräulein’s German readings
the school never went to Kreipe’s. Going to
<SPAN name="page-135" class="pagenum" title="135"></SPAN>
Kreipe’s Miriam perceived was a sign of fair
weather.</p>
<p>They had been twice since her coming. Sitting
at a little marble-topped table with the Bergmanns
near the window and overlooking the full
flood of the Georgstrasse Miriam felt a keen
renewal of the sense of being abroad. Here she
sat, in the little enclosure of this upper room
above a shopful of strange Delikatessen, securely
adrift. Behind her she felt, not home but the
German school where she belonged. Here they
all sat, free. Germany was all around them.
They were in the midst of it. Fräulein Pfaff
seemed far away.... How strange of her to
send them there.... She glanced towards the
two tables of English girls in the centre of the
room wondering whether they felt as she did....
They had come to Germany. They were
sharing it with her. It must be changing them.
They must be different for having come. They
would all go back she supposed. But they would
not be the same as those who had never come.
She was sure they felt something of this. They
were sitting about in easy attitudes. How English
they all looked ... for a moment she
wanted to go and sit with them—just sit with
<SPAN name="page-136" class="pagenum" title="136"></SPAN>
them, rejoice in being abroad; in having got
away. She imagined all their people looking in
and seeing them so thoroughly at home in this
little German restaurant free from home influences,
in a little world of their own. She felt
a pang of response as she heard their confidently
raised voices. She could see they were all, even
Judy, a little excited. They chaffed each other.</p>
<p>Gertrude had taken everyone’s choice between
coffee and chocolate and given an order.</p>
<p>Orders for schocolade were heard from all over
the room. There were only women there—wonderful
German women in twos and threes—ladies
out shopping, Miriam supposed. She
managed intermittently to watch three or four
of them and wondered what kind of conversation
made them so emphatic—whether it was because
they held themselves so well and “spoke out”
that everything they said seemed so important.
She had never seen women with so much decision
in their bearing. She found herself drawing
herself up.</p>
<p>She heard German laughter about the room.
The sounds excited her and she watched eagerly
for laughing faces.... They were different....
The laughter sounded differently and the laughing
<SPAN name="page-137" class="pagenum" title="137"></SPAN>
faces were different. The eyes were expressionless
as they laughed—or evil ... they had that
same knowing way of laughing as though everything
were settled—but they did not pretend to
be refined as Englishwomen did ... they had
the same horridness ... but they were ...
jolly.... They could shout if they liked.</p>
<p>Three cups of thick-looking chocolate, each
supporting a little hillock of solid cream arrived
at her table. Clara ordered cakes.</p>
<p>At the first sip, taken with lips that slid helplessly
on the surprisingly thick rim of her cup
Miriam renounced all the beverages she had
ever known as unworthy.</p>
<p>She chose a familiar-looking éclair—Clara and
Emma ate cakes that seemed to be alternate
slices of cream and very spongy coffee-coloured
cake and then followed Emma’s lead with an
open tartlet on which plump green gooseberries
stood in a thick brown syrup.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-12"> 12 </h3>
<p>During dinner Fräulein Pfaff went the round of
the table with questions as to what had been
consumed at Kreipe’s. The whole of the table
<SPAN name="page-138" class="pagenum" title="138"></SPAN>
on her right confessed to one Kuchen with their
chocolate. In each case she smiled gravely and
required the cake to be described. The meaning
of the pilgrimage of enquiry came to Miriam
when Fräulein reached Gertrude and beamed
affectionately in response to her careless “Schokolade
und ein Biskuit.” Miriam and the Bergmanns
were alone in their excesses.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-13"> 13 </h3>
<p>Even walks were incalculable excepting on
Saturdays, when at noon Anna turned out the
schoolrooms. Then—unless to Miriam’s great
satisfaction it rained and they had a little festival
shut in in holiday mood in the saal, the girls
playing and singing, Anna loudly obliterating the
week-days next door and the secure harbour of
Sunday ahead—they went methodically out and
promenaded the streets of Hanover for an hour.
These Saturday walks were a recurring humiliation.
If they had occurred daily, some crisis, she
felt sure would have arisen for her.</p>
<p>The little party would file out under the leadership
of Gertrude—Fräulein Pfaff smiling parting
directions adjuring them to come back safe and
<SPAN name="page-139" class="pagenum" title="139"></SPAN>
happy to the beehive and stabbing at them all the
while, Miriam felt, with her keen eye—through
the high doorway that pierced the high wall and
then—charge down the street. Gertrude alone,
having been in Hanover and under Fräulein
Pfaff’s care since her ninth year, was instructed as
to the detail of their tour and she swung striding
on ahead, the ends of her long fur boa flying out
in the March wind, making a flourishing scrollwork
round her bounding tailor-clad form—the
Martins, short-skirted and thick-booted, with hard
cloth jackets and hard felt hats, and short thick
pelerines almost running on either side, Jimmie,
Millie and Judy hard behind. Miriam’s ever-recurring
joyous sense of emergence and her longing
to go leisurely and alone along these wonderful
streets, to go on and on at first and presently
to look, had to give way to the necessity of
keeping Gertrude and her companions in sight.
On they went relentlessly through the Saturday
throng along the great Georgstrasse—a foreign
paradise, with its great bright cafés and the strange
promising detail of its shops—tantalisingly half
seen.</p>
<p>She hated, too, the discomfort of walking thus
at this pace through streets along pavements in
<SPAN name="page-140" class="pagenum" title="140"></SPAN>
her winter clothes. They hampered her horribly.
Her heavy three-quarter length cloth coat made
her too warm and bumped against her as she
hurried along—the little fur pelerine which
redeemed its plainness tickled her neck and she
felt the outline of her stiff hat like a board against
her uneasy forehead. Her inflexible boots soon
tired her.... But these things she could have
endured. They were not the main source of her
troubles. She could have renounced the delights
all round her, made terms with the discomforts
and looked for alleviations. But it was during
these walks that she began to perceive that she
was making, in a way she had not at all anticipated,
a complete failure of her rôle of English
teacher. The three weeks’ haphazard curriculum
had brought only one repetition of her English
lesson in the smaller schoolroom; and excepting
at meals, when whatever conversation there was
was general and polyglot, she was never, in the
house, alone with her German pupils. The
cessation of the fixed readings arranged with
her that first day by Fräulein Pfaff did not, in
face of the general absence of method, at all
disturb her. Mademoiselle’s classes had, she
discovered, except for the weekly mending long
<SPAN name="page-141" class="pagenum" title="141"></SPAN>
since lapsed altogether. These walks, she soon
realised, were supposed to be her and her pupils’
opportunity. No doubt Fräulein Pfaff believed
that they represented so many hours of English
conversation—and they did not. It was cheating,
pure and simple. She thought of fee-paying
parents, of the probable prospectus. “French and
English governesses.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-14"> 14 </h3>
<p>Her growing conviction and the distress of it
were confirmed each week by a spectacle she could
not escape and was rapidly growing to hate.
Just in front of her and considerably behind the
flying van, her full wincey skirt billowing out
beneath what seemed to Miriam a dreadfully
thin little close-fitting stockinette jacket, trotted
Mademoiselle—one hand to the plain brim of her
large French hat, and obviously conversational
with either Minna and Elsa or Clara and Emma
on either side of her. Generally it was Minna and
Elsa, Minna brisk and trim and decorous as to her
neat plaid skirt, however hurried, and Elsa showing
her distress by the frequent twisting of one or
other of her ankles which looked, to Miriam, like
sticks above her high-heeled shoes. Mademoiselle’s
<SPAN name="page-142" class="pagenum" title="142"></SPAN>
broad hat-brim flapped as her head turned
from one companion to the other. Sometimes
Miriam caught the mocking tinkle of her laughter.
That all three were interested, too, Miriam
gathered from the fact that they could not always
be relied upon to follow Gertrude. The little
party had returned one day in two separate
groups, fortunately meeting before the Waldstrasse
gate was reached, owing to Mademoiselle’s
failure to keep Gertrude in sight. There was no
doubt, too, that the medium of their intercourse
was French, for Mademoiselle’s knowledge of
German had not, for all her six months at the
school, got beyond a few simple and badly
managed words and phrases. Miriam felt that
this French girl was perfectly carrying out
Fräulein Pfaff’s design. She talked to her pupils,
made them talk; the girls were amused and happy
and were picking up French. It was admirable
and it was wonderful to Miriam because she felt
quite sure that Mademoiselle had no clear idea
in her own mind that she was carrying out any
design at all. That irritated Miriam. Mademoiselle
liked talking to her girls. Miriam was
beginning to know that she did not want to talk
to her girls. Almost from the first she had begun
<SPAN name="page-143" class="pagenum" title="143"></SPAN>
to know it. She felt sure that if Fräulein Pfaff
had been invisibly present at any one of her
solitary conversational encounters with these
German girls she would have been judged and
condemned. Elsa Speier had been the worst.
Miriam could see as she thought of her, the
angle of the high garden wall of a corner house
in Waldstrasse and above it a blossoming almond
tree. “How lovely that tree is,” she had said.
She remembered trying hard to talk and to make
her talk and making no impression upon the girl.
She remembered monosyllables and the pallid
averted face and Elsa’s dreadful ankles. She had
walked along intent and indifferent and presently
she had felt a sort of irritation rise through her
struggling. And then further on in the walk,
she could not remember how it had arisen, there
was a moment when Elsa had said with unmoved,
averted face hurriedly, “My fazzer is offitser”—and
it seemed to Miriam as if this were the answer
to everything she had tried to say, to her remark
about the almond-tree and everything else; and
then she felt that there was nothing more to be
said between them. They were both quite silent.
Everything seemed settled. Miriam’s mind
called up a picture of a middle-aged man in a
<SPAN name="page-144" class="pagenum" title="144"></SPAN>
Saxon blue uniform—all voice and no brains—and
going to take to gardening in his old age—and
longed to tell Elsa of her contempt for all
military men. Clearly she felt Elsa’s and Elsa’s
mother’s feeling towards herself. Elsa’s mother
had thin ankles, too, and was like Elsa intent and
cold and dead. She could imagine Elsa in society
now—hard and thin and glittery—she would be
stylish—military men’s women always were. The
girl had avoided being with her during walks
since then, and they never voluntarily addressed
one another. Minna and the Bergmanns had
talked to her. Minna responded to everything
she said in her eager husky voice—not because
she was interested Miriam felt, but because she
was polite, and it had tired her once or twice
dreadfully to go on “making conversation” with
Minna. She had wanted to like being with these
three. She felt she could give them something.
It made her full of solicitude to glance at either
of them at her side. She had longed to feel at
home with them and to teach them things worth
teaching; they seemed pitiful in some way, like
children in her hands. She did not know how
to begin. All her efforts and their efforts left
them just as pitiful.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-15"> <SPAN name="page-145" class="pagenum" title="145"></SPAN> 15 </h3>
<p>Each occasion left her more puzzled and helpless.
Now and again she thought there was going
to be a change. She would feel a stirring of
animation in her companions. Then she would
discover that someone was being discussed,
generally one of the girls; or perhaps they were
beginning to tell her something about Fräulein
Pfaff, or talking about food. These topics made
her feel ill at ease at once. Things were going
wrong. It was not to discuss such things that
they were together out in the air in the wonderful
streets and boulevards of Hanover. She would
grow cold and constrained, and the conversation
would drop.</p>
<p>And then, suddenly, within a day or so of each
other, dreadful things had happened.</p>
<p>The first had come on the second occasion of
her going with Minna to see Dr. Dieckel. Minna,
as they were walking quietly along together had
suddenly begun in a broken English which soon
turned to shy, fluent, animated German, to tell
about a friend, an <em>apotheker</em>, a man, Miriam
gathered—missing many links in her amazement—in
a shop, the chemist’s shop where her parents
<SPAN name="page-146" class="pagenum" title="146"></SPAN>
dealt, in the little country town in Pomerania
which was her home. Minna was so altered, looked
so radiantly happy whilst she talked about this
man that Miriam had wanted to put out a hand
and touch her. Afterwards she could recall the
sound of her voice as it was at that moment with
its yearning and its promise and its absolute confidence,
Minna was so certain of her happiness—at
the end of each hurried little phrase her voice
sounded like a chord—like three strings sounding
at once on some strange instrument.</p>
<p>And soon afterwards Emma had told her
very gravely, with Clara walking a little aloof,
her dog-like eyes shining as she gazed into the
distance, of a “most beautiful man” with a
brown moustache, with whom Clara was in love.
He was there in the town, in Hanover, a hair-specialist,
treating Clara’s thin short hair.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-16"> 16 </h3>
<p>Even Emma had a “jüngling.” He had a
very vulgar surname, too vulgar to be spoken;
it was breathed against Miriam’s shoulder in the
half-light. Miriam was begged to forget it at
once and to remember only the beautiful little
name that preceded it.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-147" class="pagenum" title="147"></SPAN>
At the time she had timidly responded to all
these stories and had felt glad that the confidences
had come to her.</p>
<p>Mademoiselle, she knew, had never received
them.</p>
<p>But after these confidences there were no more
serious attempts at general conversation.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-6-17"> 17 </h3>
<p>Miriam felt ashamed of her share in the hairdresser
and the chemist. Emma’s jüngling might
possibly be a student.... She grieved over the
things that she felt were lying neglected, “things
in general” she felt sure she ought to discuss
with the girls ... improving the world ...
leaving it better than you found it ... the importance
of life ... sleeping and dreaming that
life was beauty and waking and finding it was
duty ... making things better, reforming ...
being a reformer.... Pater always said young
people always wanted to reform the universe
... perhaps it was so ... and nothing could
be done. Clearly she was not the one to do anything.
She could do nothing even with these
girls and she was nearly eighteen.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-148" class="pagenum" title="148"></SPAN>
Once or twice she wondered whether they ever
had thoughts about things ... she felt they must;
if only she were not shy, if she had a different
manner, she would find out. She knew she
despised them as they were. She could do nothing.
Her fine ideas were no good. She did less
than silly little Mademoiselle. And all the time
Fräulein thinking she was talking and influencing
them was keeping her ... in Germany.</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-7"> <SPAN name="page-149" class="pagenum" title="149"></SPAN> CHAPTER VI </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">F</span><span class="postfirstchar">räulein</span> Pfaff came to the breakfast-table
a little late in a grey stuff dress with
a cream-coloured ruching about the collar-band
and ruchings against her long brown wrists.
The girls were already in their places, and as soon
as grace was said she began talking in a gentle
decisive voice.</p>
<p>“Martins’ sponge-bags”—her face creased for
her cavernous smile—“are both large and strong—beautiful
gummi-bags, each large enough to
contain a family of sponges.”</p>
<p>The table listened intently. Miriam tried to
remember the condition of her side of the garret.
She saw Judy’s scarlet flush across the table.</p>
<p>“Millie,” went on Fräulein, “is the owner of
a damp-proof hold-all for the bath which is a
veritable monument.”</p>
<p>“Monument?” laughed a German voice apprehensively.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-150" class="pagenum" title="150"></SPAN>
“Fancy a monument on your washstand,”
tittered Jimmie.</p>
<p>Fräulein raised her voice slightly, still smiling.
Miriam heard her own name and stiffened.
“Miss Henderson is an Englishwoman too—and
our little Ulrica joins the English party.” Fräulein’s
voice had thickened and grown caressing.
Perhaps no one was in trouble. Ulrica bowed.
Her wide-open startled eyes and the outline of
her pale face remained unchanged. Still gentle
and tender-voiced Fräulein reached Judy and the
Germans. All was well. Soaps and sponges could
go in the English bags. Judy’s downcast crimson
face began to recover its normal clear flush, and
the Germans joined in the general rejoicing.
They were to go, Miriam gathered, in the afternoon
to the baths.... She had never been to
a public baths.... She wished Fräulein could
know there were two bathrooms in the house at
Barnes, and then wondered whether in German
baths one was left to oneself or whether there,
too, there would be some woman superintending.</p>
<p>Fräulein jested softly on about her children
and their bath. Gertrude and Jimmie recalled
incidents of former bathings—the stories went
on until breakfast had prolonged itself into a
<SPAN name="page-151" class="pagenum" title="151"></SPAN>
sitting of happy adventurers. The room was
very warm, and coffee-scented. Clara at her
corner sat with an outstretched arm nearly
touching Fräulein Pfaff who was sitting forward
glowing and shedding the light of her dark
young eyes on each in turn. There were many
elbows on the table. Judy’s head was raised and
easy. Miriam noticed that the whiteness of her
neck was whiter than those strange bright
patches where her eyelashes shone. Ulrica’s
eyes went from face to face as she listened and
Miriam fed upon the outlines of her head.</p>
<p>She wished she could place her hands on either
side of its slenderness and feel the delicate skull
and gaze undisturbed into the eyes.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-2"> 2 </h3>
<p>Fräulein Pfaff rose at last from the table.</p>
<p>“Na, Kinder,” she smiled, holding her arms
out to them all.</p>
<p>She turned to the nearest window.</p>
<p>“Die Fenster auf!” she cried, in quivering
tones, “Die Herzen auf!” “Up with windows!
Up with hearts!”</p>
<p>Her hands struggled with the hasp of the long-closed
<SPAN name="page-152" class="pagenum" title="152"></SPAN>
outer frame. The girls crowded round
as the lattices swung wide. The air poured in.</p>
<p>Miriam stood in a vague crowd seeing nothing.
She felt the movement of her own breathing
and the cool streaming of the air through her
nostrils. She felt comely and strong.</p>
<p>“That’s a thrush,” she heard Bertha Martin
say as a chattering flew across a distant garden—and
Fräulein’s half-singing reply, “Know you,
children, what the thrush says? Know you?”
and Minna’s eager voice sounding out into the
open, “D’ja, d’ja, ich weiss—Ritzifizier, sagt sie,
Ritzifizier, das vierundzwanzigste Jahr!” and
voices imitating.</p>
<p>“Spring! Spring! Spring!” breathed Clara,
in a low sing-song.</p>
<p>Miriam found herself with her hands on the
doors leading into the saal, pushing them gently.
Why not? Everything had changed. Everything
was good. The great doors gave, the
sunlight streamed from behind her into the
quiet saal. She went along the pathway it made
and stood in the middle of the room. The voices
from the schoolroom came softly, far away. She
went to the centre window and pushing aside
its heavy curtains saw for the first time that it
<SPAN name="page-153" class="pagenum" title="153"></SPAN>
had no second pane like the others, but led
directly into a sort of summer-house, open in
front and leading by a wooden stairway down to
the garden plot. Up the railing of the stairway
and over the entrance of the summer-house a
creeping plant was putting out tiny leaves. It
was in shadow, but the sun caught the sharply
peaked gable of the summer-house and on the
left the tops of the high shrubs lining the pathway
leading to the wooden door and the great
balls finishing the high stone gateway shone
yellow with sunlit lichen. She heard the schoolroom
windows close and the girls clearing away
the breakfast things and escaped upstairs singing.</p>
<p>Before she had finished her duties a summons
came. Jimmie brought the message, panting
as she reached the top of the stairs.</p>
<p>“Hurry up, Hendy!” she gasped. “You’re
one of the distinguished ones, my dear!”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” Miriam began apprehensively
as she turned to go. “Oh, Jimmie——” she
tried to laugh ingratiatingly. “<em>Do</em> tell me
what you mean?” Jimmie turned and raised a
plump hand with a sharply-quirked little finger
and a dangle of lace-edged handkerchief.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-154" class="pagenum" title="154"></SPAN>
“You’re a <em>swell</em>, my dear. You’re in with the
specials and the classic knot.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“You’re going to read—Gerty, or something—no
idiots admitted. You’re going it, Hendy.
Ta-ta. Fly! Don’t stick in the mud, old slow-coach.”</p>
<p>“I’ll come in a second,” said Miriam, adjusting
hairpins.</p>
<p>She was to read Goethe ... with Fräulein
Pfaff.... Fräulein knew she would be one of
the few who would do for a Goethe reading.
She reached the little room smiling with happiness.</p>
<p>“Here she is,” was Fräulein’s greeting. The
little group—Ulrica, Minna and Solomon Martin
were sitting about informally in the sunlit
window space, Minna and Solomon had needlework—Ulrica
was gazing out into the garden.
Miriam sank into the remaining low-seated
wicker chair and gave herself up. Fräulein
began to read, as she did at prayers, slowly,
almost below her breath, but so clearly that
Miriam could distinguish each word and her
face shone as she bent over her book. It was a
poem in blank verse with long undulating lines.
<SPAN name="page-155" class="pagenum" title="155"></SPAN>
Miriam paid no heed to the sense. She heard
nothing but the even swing, the slight rising
and falling of the clear low tones. She felt
once more the opening of the schoolroom window—she
saw the little brown summer-house and
the sun shining on the woodwork of its porch.
Summer coming. Summer coming in Germany.
She drew a long breath. The poem was telling
of someone getting away out of a room, out of
“narrow conversation” to a meadow-covered
plain—of a white pathway winding through the
green.</p>
<p>Minna put down her sewing and turned her
kind blue eyes to Fräulein Pfaff’s face.</p>
<p>Ulrica sat drooping, her head bent, her great
eyes veiled, her hands entwined on her lap....
The little pathway led to a wood. The wide
landscape disappeared. Fräulein’s voice ceased.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-3"> 3 </h3>
<p>She handed the book to Ulrica, indicating the
place and Ulrica read. Her voice sounded a
higher pitch than Fräulein’s. It sounded out
rich and full and liquid, and seemed to shake
her slight body and echo against the walls of
<SPAN name="page-156" class="pagenum" title="156"></SPAN>
her face. It filled the room with a despairing
ululation. Fräulein seemed by contrast to
have been whispering piously in a corner. Listening
to the beseeching tones, hearing no words,
Miriam wished that the eyes could be raised,
when the reading ceased, to hers and that she
could go and put her hands about the beautiful
head, scarcely touching it and say, “It is all
right. I will stay with you always.”</p>
<p>She watched the little hand that was not
engaged with the book and lay abandoned,
outstretched, listless and shining on her knee.
Solomon’s needle snapped. She frowned and
roused herself heavily to secure another from
the basket on the floor at her side. Miriam,
flashing hatred at her, caught Fräulein’s <SPAN name="corr-10"></SPAN>fascinated
gaze fixed on Ulrica; and saw it hastily
turn to an indulgent smile as the eyes became
conscious, moving for a moment without reaching
her in the direction of her own low chair. A
tap came at the door and Anna’s flat tones, like
a voluble mechanical doll, announced a postal
official waiting in the hall for Ulrica—with a
package. “Ein Packet ... a-a-ach,” wailed
Ulrica, rising, her hands trembling, her great
eyes radiant. Fräulein sent her off with Solomon
<SPAN name="page-157" class="pagenum" title="157"></SPAN>
to superintend the signing and payments and
give help with the unpacking.</p>
<p>“The little heiress,” she said devoutly, with
her wide smile as she returned from the door.</p>
<p>“Oh ...” said Miriam politely.</p>
<p>“Sie, nun, Miss Henderson,” concluded Fräulein,
handing her the book and indicating the
passage Ulrica had just read. “Nun <em>Sie</em>,” she
repeated brightly, and Minna drew her chair a
little nearer making a small group.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-4"> 4 </h3>
<p>“Schiller” she saw at the top of the page and
the title of the poem “Der Spaziergang.”
Miriam laid the book on the end of her knee,
and leaning over it, read nervously. Her
tones reassured her. She noticed that she read
very slowly, breaking up the rhythm into sentences—and
authoritatively as if she were recounting
an experience of her own. She knew
at first that she was reading like a cultured
person and that Fräulein would recognise this
at once, she knew that the perfect assurance of
her pronunciation would make it seem that she
understood every word, but soon these feelings
<SPAN name="page-158" class="pagenum" title="158"></SPAN>
gave way to the sense half grasped of the serpentine
path winding and mounting through a
wood, of a glimpse of a distant valley, of flocks
and villages, and of her unity with Fräulein and
Minna seeing and feeling all these things together.
She finished the passage—Fräulein quietly commended
her reading and Minna said something
about her earnestness.</p>
<p>“Miss Henderson is always a little earnest,”
said Fräulein affectionately.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-5"> 5 </h3>
<p>“Are you dressed, Hendy?”</p>
<p>Miriam, who had sat up in her bath when the
drumming came at the door, answered sleepily,
“No, I shan’t be a minute.”</p>
<p>“Don’t you want to see the diving?”</p>
<p>All Jimmie’s fingers seemed to be playing
exercises against the panels. Miriam wished she
would restrain them and leave her alone. She did
not in the least wish to see the diving.</p>
<p>“I shan’t be a minute,” she shouted crossly,
and let her shoulders sink once more under the
comforting water. It was the first warm water
she had encountered since that night when
<SPAN name="page-159" class="pagenum" title="159"></SPAN>
Mademoiselle had carried the jugs upstairs. Her
soap, so characterless in the chilly morning
basin lathered freely in the warmth and was
fragrant in the steamy air. When Jimmie’s
knocking came she was dreaming blissfully of
baths with Harriett—the dissipated baths of
the last six months between tea and dinner with
a theatre or a dance ahead. Harriett, her hair
strained tightly into a white crocheted net,
her snub face shining through the thick steam,
tubbing and jesting at the wide end of the huge
porcelain bath, herself at the narrow end commanding
the taps under the steam-dimmed
beams of the red-globed gasjets ... sponge-fights
... and those wonderful summer bathings
when they had come in from long tennis-playing
in the sun, filled the bath with cold
water and sat in the silence of broad daylight
immersed to the neck, confronting each other.</p>
<p>Seeing no sign of anything she could recognise
as a towel, she pulled at a huge drapery hanging
like a counterpane in front of a coil of pipes
extending half-way to the ceiling. The pipes
were too hot to touch and the heavy drapery was
more than warm and obviously meant for
drying purposes. Sitting wrapped in its folds,
<SPAN name="page-160" class="pagenum" title="160"></SPAN>
dizzy and oppressed, she longed for the flourish
of a rough towel and a window open at the top.
She could see no ventilation of any kind in her
white cell. By the time her heavy outdoor
things were on she was faint with exhaustion,
and hurried down the corridor towards the
shouts and splashings echoing in the great, open,
glass-roofed swimming-bath. She was just in
time to see a figure in scarlet and white, standing
out on the high gallery at the end of a projecting
board which broke the little white
balustrade, throw up its arms and leap out and
flash—its joined hands pointed downwards towards
the water, its white feet sweeping up like
the tail of a swooping bird—cleave the green
water and disappear. The huge bath was empty
of bathers and smoothly rippling save where
the flying body had cleaved it and left wavelets
and bubbles. The girls—most of them in their
outdoor things—were gathered in a little group
near the marble steps leading down into the
water farthest from where the diver had dropped,
stirring and exclaiming. As Miriam was approaching
them a red-capped head came cleanly
up out of the water near the steps and she
recognised the strong jaw and gleaming teeth of
<SPAN name="page-161" class="pagenum" title="161"></SPAN>
Gertrude. She neither spluttered nor shook
her head. Her eyes were wide and smiling, and
her raucous laugh rang out above the applause
of the group of girls.</p>
<p>Miriam paused under the overhanging gallery.
Her eyes went, incredulously, up to the springboard.
It seemed impossible ... and all that
distance above the water.... Her gaze was
drawn to the flicking of the curtain of one of
the little compartments lining the gallery.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-6"> 6 </h3>
<p>“Hullo, Hendy, let me get into my cubicle.”
Gertrude stood before her dripping and smiling.</p>
<p>“However on earth did you do it?” said Miriam,
gazing incredulously at the ruddy wet face.</p>
<p>Gertrude’s smile broadened. “Go on,” she
said, shaking the drops from her chin, “it’s all in
the day’s work.”</p>
<p>In the hard clear light Miriam saw that the
teeth that looked so gleaming and strong in the
distance were slightly ribbed and fluted and had
serrated edges. Large stoppings showed like
shadows behind the thin shells of the upper
front ones. Even Gertrude might be ill one day;
<SPAN name="page-162" class="pagenum" title="162"></SPAN>
but she would never be ill and sad and helpless.
That was clear from the neat way she plunged in
through her curtains....</p>
<p>Miriam’s eyes went back to the row of little
curtained recesses in the gallery. The drapery
that had flapped was now half withdrawn, the
light from the glass roof fell upon the top of a
head flung back and shaking its mane of hair.
The profile was invisible, but the sheeny hair
rippled in thick gilded waves almost to the floor....
How hateful of her, thought Miriam....
How beautiful. I should be just the same if I
had hair like that ... that’s Germany....
Lohengrin.... She stood adoring. “Stay and
talk while I get on my togs,” came Gertrude’s
voice from behind her curtains.</p>
<p>Miriam glanced towards the marble steps.
The little group had disappeared. She turned
helplessly towards Gertrude’s curtains. She
could not think of anything to say to her. She
was filled with apprehension. “I wonder what
we shall do to-morrow,” she presently murmured.</p>
<p>“I don’t,” gasped Gertrude, towelling.</p>
<p>Miriam waited for the prophecy.</p>
<p>“Old Lahmann’s back from Geneva,” came
the harsh panting voice.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-163" class="pagenum" title="163"></SPAN>
“Pastor Lahmann?” repeated Miriam.</p>
<p>“None other, Madame.”</p>
<p>“Have you seen him?” went on Miriam
dimly, wishing that she might be released.</p>
<p>“Scots wha hae, no! But I saw Lily’s frills.”</p>
<p>The billows of gold hair in the gallery were
being piled up by two little hands—white and
plump like Eve’s, but with quick clever irritating
movements, and a thin sweet self-conscious voice
began singing “Du, meine <em>Seele</em>.” Miriam lost
interest in the vision.... They were all the same.
Men liked creatures like that. She could imagine
that girl married.</p>
<p>“Lily and his wife were great friends,”
Gertrude was saying. “She’s dead, you know.”</p>
<p>“<em>Is</em> she,” said Miriam emphatically.</p>
<p>“She used to be always coming when I first
came over, Scots wha—blow—got a pin, Hendy?...
We shan’t have his ... thanks, you’re a
saint ... his boys in the schoolroom any more
now.”</p>
<p>“Are those Pastor Lahmann’s boys?” said
Miriam, noticing that Gertrude’s hair was coarse,
each hair a separate thread. “She’s the wiry
plucky kind. How she must despise me,” said
her mind.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-164" class="pagenum" title="164"></SPAN>
“Well,” said Gertrude, switching back her
curtain to lace her boots. “Long may Lily
beam. I like summer weather myself.”</p>
<p>Miriam turned away. Gertrude half-dressed
behind the curtains was too clever for her. She
could not face her unveiled with vacant eyes.</p>
<p>“The summer is jolly, isn’t it?” she said uneasily.</p>
<p>“You’re right, my friend. Hullo! There’s
Emmchen looking for you. I expect the Germans
have just finished their annual. They never
come into the Schwimmbad, they’re always too
late. I should think you’d better toddle them
home, Hendy—the darlings might catch cold.”</p>
<p>“Don’t we all go together?”</p>
<p>“We go as we are ready, from this establishment,
just anyhow as long as we’re not in ones
or twos—Lily won’t have twos, as I dare say
you’ve observed. Be good, my che-hild,” she
said heartily, drawing on her second boot, “and
you’ll be happy—sehr sehr happy, I hope,
Hendy.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-7"> 7 </h3>
<p>“Thank you,” laughed Miriam. Emma’s
hands were on her muff, stroking it eagerly.
“Hendchen, Hendchen,” she cooed in her
<SPAN name="page-165" class="pagenum" title="165"></SPAN>
consoling tones, “to house to house, I am so
angry—hangry.”</p>
<p>“Hungry.”</p>
<p>“Hungry, yes, and Minna and Clara is ready.
<SPAN name="corr-11"></SPAN>Komm!”</p>
<p>The child linked arms with her and pulled
Miriam towards the corridor. Once out of
sight under the gallery she slipped her arm round
Miriam’s waist. “Oh, Hendchen, my darling
beautiful, you have so lovely teint after your
badth—oh, I am zo hangry, oh Hendchen, I
luff you zo, I am zo haypie, kiss me one small,
small kiss.”</p>
<p>“What a baby you are,” said Miriam, half
turning as the girl’s warm lips brushed the angle
of her jaw. “Yes, we’ll go home, come along.”</p>
<p>The corridor was almost airless. She longed
to get out into the open. They found Minna
at a table in the entrance hall her head propped
on her hand, snoring gently. Clara sat near her
with closed eyes.</p>
<p>As the little party of four making its way home,
cleansed and hungry, united and happy, stood for
a moment on a tree-planted island half-way across
a wide open space, Minna with her eager smile
said, gazing, “Oh, I would like a glass Bier.”
<SPAN name="page-166" class="pagenum" title="166"></SPAN>
Miriam saw very distinctly the clear sunlight
on the boles of the trees showing every ridge
and shade of colour as it had done on the peaked
summer-house porch in the morning. The
girls closed in on her during the moment of
disgust which postponed her response.</p>
<p>“Dear Hendchen! We are alone! Just we
nice four! Just only one most little small glass!
Just one! Kind best, Hendchen!” she heard.
She pushed her way through the little group
pretending to ignore their pleadings and to look
for obstacles to their passage to the opposite
curb. She felt her disgust was absurd and was
asking herself why the girls should not have their
beer. She would like to watch them, she knew;
these little German Fraus-to-be serenely happy
at their bier table on this bright afternoon.
They closed in on her again. Emma in the
gutter in front of her. She felt arms and hands,
and the pleading voices besieged her again.
Emma’s upturned tragic face, her usually motionless
lips a beseeching tunnel, her chin and throat
moving to her ardent words made Miriam
laugh. It <em>was</em> disgusting. “No, no,” she said
hastily, backing away from them to the end of
the island. “Of course not. Come along.
<SPAN name="page-167" class="pagenum" title="167"></SPAN>
Don’t be silly.” The elder girls gave in. Emma
kept up a little solo of reproach hanging on
Miriam’s arm. “Very strict. Cold English.
No bier. I want to home. I have bier to home”
until they were in sight of the high walls of
Waldstrasse.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-8"> 8 </h3>
<p>Pastor Lahmann gave a French lesson the
next afternoon.</p>
<p>“Sur l’eau, si beau!”</p>
<p>This refrain threatening for the third time,
three or four of the girls led by Bertha Martin,
supplied it in a subdued singsong without waiting
for Pastor Lahmann’s slow voice. Miriam had
scarcely attended to his discourse. He had
begun in flat easy tones, describing his visit to
Geneva, the snowclad mountains, the quiet
lake, the spring flowers. His words brought her
no vision and her mind wandered, half tethered.
But when he began reading the poem she sank
into the rhythm and turned towards him and
fixed expectant eyes upon his face. His expression
disturbed her. Why did he read with that
half-smile? She felt sure that he felt they were
“young ladies,” “demoiselles,” “jeunes filles.”
<SPAN name="page-168" class="pagenum" title="168"></SPAN>
She wanted to tell him she was nothing of the
kind and take the book from him and show him
how to read. His eyes, soft and brown, were
the eyes of a child. She noticed that the lower
portion of his flat white cheeks looked broader
than the upper without giving an effect of
squareness of jaw. Then the rhythm took her
again and with the second “sur l’eau, si beau,”
she saw a very blue lake and a little boat with
lateen sails, and during the third verse began to
forget the lifeless voice. As the murmured
refrain came from the girls there was a slight
movement in Fräulein’s sofa-corner. Miriam
did not turn her eyes from Pastor Lahmann’s
face to look at her, but half expected that at
the end of the next verse her low clear devout
tones would be heard joining in. Part way
through the verse with a startling sweep of
draperies against the leather covering of the
sofa, Fräulein stood up and towered extraordinarily
tall at Pastor Lahmann’s right hand.
Her eyes were wide. Miriam thought she had
never seen anyone look so pale. She was speaking
very quickly in German. Pastor Lahmann rose
and faced her. Miriam had just grasped the
fact that she was taking the French master
<SPAN name="page-169" class="pagenum" title="169"></SPAN>
to task for reading poetry to his pupils and heard
Pastor Lahmann slowly and politely enquire of
her whether she or he were conducting the
lesson when the two voices broke out together.
Fräulein’s fiercely voluble and the Herr Pastor’s
voluble and mocking and polite. The two
voices continued as he made his way, bowing
gravely, down the far side of the table to the
saal doors. Here he turned for a moment and
his face shone black and white against the dark
panelling. “Na, Kinder,” crooned Fräulein
gently, when he had disappeared, “a walk—a
walk in the beautiful sunshine. Make ready
quickly.”</p>
<p>“My sainted uncle,” laughed Bertha as they
trooped down the basement stairs. “Oh—my
stars!”</p>
<p>“<em>Did</em> you see her eyes?”</p>
<p>“Ja! Wüthend!”</p>
<p>“I wonder the poor little man wasn’t burnt
up.”</p>
<p>“Hurry up, mädshuns, we’ll have a ripping
walk. We’ll see if we can go Tiergartenstrasse.”</p>
<p>“Does this sort of thing often happen?”
asked Miriam, finding herself bending over a
boot-box at Gertrude’s side.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-170" class="pagenum" title="170"></SPAN>
Gertrude turned and winked at her. “Only
sometimes.”</p>
<p>“What an awful temper she must have,”
pursued Miriam.</p>
<p>Gertrude laughed.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-9"> 9 </h3>
<p>Breakfast the next morning was a gay feast.
The mood which had seized the girls at the
lavishly decked tea-table awaiting them on their
return from their momentous walk the day before,
still held them. They all had come in feeling a
little apprehensive, and Fräulein behind her tea-urn
had met them with the fullest expansion of
smiling indulgence Miriam had yet seen. After
tea she had suggested an evening’s entertainment
and had permitted the English girls to act
charades.</p>
<p>For Miriam it was an evening of pure delight.
At the end of the first charade, when the girls
were standing at a loss in the dimly-lit hall, she
made a timid suggestion. It was enthusiastically
welcomed and for the rest of the evening she
was allowed to take the lead. She found herself
making up scene after scene surrounded by eager
faces. She wondered whether her raised voice, as
<SPAN name="page-171" class="pagenum" title="171"></SPAN>
she disposed of proffered suggestions—“no, that
wouldn’t be clear, <em>this</em> is the thing we’ve got to
bring out”—could be heard by Fräulein sitting
waiting with the Germans under the lowered
lights in the saal, and she felt Fräulein’s eye on
her as she plunged from the hall into the dim
schoolroom rapidly arranging effects in the open
space in front of the long table which had been
turned round and pushed alongside the windows.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the evening, dreaming
alone in the schoolroom near the closed door of
the little room whence the scenes were lit, she
felt herself in a vast space. The ceilings and walls
seemed to disappear. She wanted a big scene,
something quiet and serious—quite different
from the fussy little absurdities they had been
rushing through all the evening. A statue ...
one of the Germans. “You think of something
this time,” she said, pushing the group of girls
out into the hall.</p>
<p>Ulrica. She must manage to bring in Ulrica
without giving her anything to do. Just to have
her to look at. The height of darkened room
above her rose to a sky. An animated discussion,
led by Bertha Martin, was going on in the hall.</p>
<p>They had chosen “beehive.” It would be a
<SPAN name="page-172" class="pagenum" title="172"></SPAN>
catch. Fräulein was always calling them her
Bienenkorb and the girls would guess Bienenkorb
and not discover that they were meant to
say the English word.</p>
<p>“The old things can’t possibly get it. It’ll be
a lark, just for the end,” said Jimmie.</p>
<p>“No.” Miriam announced radiantly. “They’d
hate a sell. We’ll have Romeo.”</p>
<p>“That’ll be awfully long. Four bits altogether,
if they don’t guess from the syllables,” objected
Solomon wearily.</p>
<p>Rapidly planning farcical scenes for the syllables
she carried her tired troupe to a vague appreciation
of the final tableau for Ulrica. Shrouding
the last syllable beyond recognition, she sent a
messenger to the audience through the hall door
of the saal to beg for Ulrica.</p>
<p>Ulrica came, serenely wondering, her great
eyes alight with her evening’s enjoyment and was
induced by Miriam.</p>
<p>“You’ve only to stand and look down—nothing
else.” To mount the schoolroom table in the
dimness and standing with her hands on the back
of a draped chair to gaze down at Romeo’s upturned
face.</p>
<p>Bertha Martin’s pale profile, with her fair hair
<SPAN name="page-173" class="pagenum" title="173"></SPAN>
drawn back and tied at the nape of her neck and
a loose cloak round her shoulders would, it was
agreed, make the best presentation of a youth
they could contrive, and Miriam arranged her,
turning her upturned face so that the audience
would catch its clear outline. But at the last
minute, urged by Solomon’s disapproval of the
scene, Bertha withdrew. Miriam put on the
cloak, lifted its collar to hide her hair and standing
with her back to the audience flung up her hands
towards Ulrica as the gas behind the little schoolroom
door was turned slowly up. Standing
motionless, gazing at the pale oval face bending
gravely towards her from the gloom, she felt for
a moment the radiance of stars above her and
heard the rustle of leaves. Then the guessing
voices broke from the saal. “Ach! ach! Wie
schön! Romeo! That is beautifoll. Romeo!
Who is our Romeo?” and Fräulein’s smiling,
singing, affectionate voice, “Who is Romeo!
The rascal!”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-10"> 10 </h3>
<p>Taking the top flight three stairs at a time
Miriam reached the garret first and began running
about the room at a quick trot with her
<SPAN name="page-174" class="pagenum" title="174"></SPAN>
fists closed, arms doubled and elbows back. The
high garret looked wonderfully friendly and
warm in the light of her single candle. It seemed
full of approving voices. Perhaps one day she
would go on the stage. Eve always said so.</p>
<p>People always liked her if she let herself go.
She would let herself go more in future at Waldstrasse.</p>
<p>It was so jolly being at Waldstrasse.</p>
<p>“Qu’est-ce que vous avez?” appealed Mademoiselle,
laughing at the door with open face.
Miriam continued her trot. Mademoiselle put
the candle down on the dressing-table and began
to run, too, in little quick dancing steps, her
wincey skirt <SPAN name="corr-13"></SPAN>billowing out all round her. Their
shadows bobbed and darted, swelling and shrinking
on the plaster walls. Soon breathless, Mademoiselle
sank down on the side of her bed,
panting and volleying raillery and broken tinkles
of laughter at Miriam standing goose-stepping on
the strip of matting with an open umbrella held
high over her head. Recovering breath, she
began to lament.... Miriam had not during
the whole evening of dressing up seen the
Martins’ summer hats.... They were wonderful.
Shutting her umbrella Miriam went to her
<SPAN name="page-175" class="pagenum" title="175"></SPAN>
dressing-table drawer.... It would be impossible,
absolutely impossible ... to imagine
hats more beautiful.... Miriam sat on her own
bed punctuating through a paper-covered comb....
Mademoiselle persisted ... non, écoutez—figurez-vous—the
hats were of a pale straw
... the colour of pepper ... “Bee ...” responded
the comb on a short low wheeze. “And
the trimming—oh, of a charm that no one could
describe.” ... “Beem!” squeaked the comb
... “stalks of barley” ... “beem-beem” ...
“of a perfect naturalness” ... “and the flowers,
poppies, of a beauty”—“bee-eeem—beeem” ...
“oh, oh, vraiment”—Mademoiselle buried her
face in her pillow and put her fingers to her
ears.</p>
<p>Miriam began playing very softly “The March
of the Men of Harlech,” and got to her feet and
went marching gently round the room near the
walls. Sitting up, Mademoiselle listened. Presently
she rounded her eyes and pointed with one
finger to the dim roof of the attic.</p>
<p>“Les toiles d’araignées auront peur!” she
whispered.</p>
<p>Miriam ceased playing and her eyes went up
to the little window frames high in the wall,
<SPAN name="page-176" class="pagenum" title="176"></SPAN>
farthest away from the island made by their two
little beds and the matting and toilet chests and
scarcely visible in the flickering candle-light, and
came back to Mademoiselle’s face.</p>
<p>“Les toiles d’araignées,” she breathed, straining
her eyes to their utmost size. They gazed at
each other. “Les toiles ...”</p>
<p>Mademoiselle’s laughter came first. They sat
holding each other’s eyes, shaken with laughter,
until Mademoiselle said, sighing brokenly, “Et
c’est la cloche qui va sonner immédiatement.”
As they undressed, she went on talking—“the
night comes ... the black night ... we must
sleep ... we must sleep in peace ... we are
safe ... we are protected ... nous craignons
Dieu, n’est ce pas?” Miriam was shocked to
find her at her elbow, in her nightgown, speaking
very gravely. She looked for a moment into the
serious eyes challenging her own. The mouth
was frugally compressed. “Oh yes,” said Miriam
stiffly.</p>
<p>They blew out the candle when the bell sounded
and got into bed. Miriam imagined the Martins’
regular features under their barley and poppy
trimmed hats. She knew exactly the kind of
English hat it would be. They were certainly
<SPAN name="page-177" class="pagenum" title="177"></SPAN>
not pretty hats—she wondered at Mademoiselle’s
French eyes being so impressed. She knew they
must be hats with very narrow brims, the trimming
coming nearly to the edge and Solomon’s
she felt sure inclined to be boat-shaped. Mademoiselle
was talking about translated English
books she had read. Miriam was glad of her
thin voice piercing the darkness—she did not
want to sleep. She loved the day that had
gone; and the one that was coming. She saw
the room again as it had been when Mademoiselle
had looked up towards the toiles d’araignées.
She had never thought of there being cobwebs
up there. Now she saw <SPAN name="corr-14"></SPAN>them dangling in corners,
high up near those mysterious windows unnoticed,
looking down on her and Mademoiselle ...
Fräulein Pfaff’s cobwebs. They were hers now,
had been hers through cold dark nights....
Mademoiselle was asking her if she knew a most
charming English book ... “La Première Prière
de Jessica”?</p>
<p>“Oh yes.”</p>
<p>“Oh, the most beautiful book it would be
possible to read.” An indrawn breath, “Le
Secret de Lady Audley.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” responded Miriam sleepily.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-11"> <SPAN name="page-178" class="pagenum" title="178"></SPAN> 11 </h3>
<p>After the gay breakfast Miriam found herself
alone in the schoolroom listening inadvertently
to a conversation going on apparently in Fräulein
Pfaff’s room beyond the little schoolroom. The
voices were low, but she knew neither of them,
nor could she distinguish words. The sound of the
voices, boxed in, filling a little space shut off from
the great empty hall made the house seem very
still. The saal was empty, the girls were upstairs
at their housework. Miriam restlessly
rising early had done her share before breakfast.
She took Harriett’s last letter from her pocket and
fumbled the disarranged leaves for the conclusion.</p>
<p>“We are sending you out two blouses. Don’t
you think you’re lucky?” Miriam glanced out at
the young chestnut leaves drooping in tight pleats
from black twigs ... “real grand proper blouses
the first you’ve ever had, and a skirt to wear them
with ... won’t you be within an inch of your
life! Mother got them at Grigg’s—one is
squashed strawberry with a sort of little catherine-wheely
design in black going over it but not too
much, awfully smart; and the other is a sort of
buffy; one zephyr, the other cotton, and the skirt
<SPAN name="page-179" class="pagenum" title="179"></SPAN>
is a sort of mixey pepper and salt with lumps in
the weaving—you know how I mean, something
like our prawn dresses only lighter and much
more refined. The duffer is going to join the
tennis-club—he was at the Pooles’ dance. I was
simply flabbergasted. He’s a duffer.”</p>
<p>The little German garden was disappearing
from Miriam’s eyes.... It was cruel, cruel
that she was not going to wear her blouses at
home, at the tennis-club ... with Harriett....
It was all beginning again, after all—the spring
and tennis and presently boating—things were
going on ... the smash had not come ... why
had she not stayed ... just one more spring?
... how silly and hurried she had been, and there
at home in the garden lilac was quietly coming
out and syringa and guelder roses and May and
laburnum and ... everything ... and she had
run away, proud of herself, despising them all,
and had turned herself into Miss Henderson,
... and no one would ever know who she was....
Perhaps the blouses would make a difference—it
must be extraordinary to have blouses....
Slommucky ... untidy and slommucky Lilla’s
mother had called them ... and perhaps they
would not fit her....</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-180" class="pagenum" title="180"></SPAN>
One of the voices rose to a sawing like the shrill
whir of wood being cut by machinery.... A
derisive laugh broke into the strange sound. It
was Fräulein Pfaff’s laughter and was followed
by her voice thinner and shriller and higher than
the other. Miriam listened. What could be
going on? ... both voices were almost screaming
... together ... one against the other ...
it was like mad women.... A door broke open
on a shriek. Miriam bounded to the schoolroom
door and opened it in time to see Anna lurch,
shouting and screaming, part way down the
basement stairs. She turned, leaning with her
back against the wall, her eyes half-closed,
sawing with fists in the direction of Fräulein,
who stood laughing in her doorway. After
one glance Miriam recoiled. They had not seen
her.</p>
<p>“Ja,” screamed Fräulein—“Sie können ihre
paar Groschen haben!—Ihre paar Groschen!
Ihre paar Groschen!” and then the two
voices shrieked incoherently together until Fräulein’s
door slammed to and Anna’s voice,
shouting and swearing, died away towards the
basement.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-12"> <SPAN name="page-181" class="pagenum" title="181"></SPAN> 12 </h3>
<p>Miriam had crept back to the schoolroom
window. She stood shivering, trying to forget
the taunting words, and the cruel laughter.
“You can have your ha’pence!” Poor Anna.
Her poor wages. Her bony face....</p>
<p>Gertrude looked in.</p>
<p>“I say, Henderson, come on down and help
me pack up lunch. We’re all going to Hoddenheim
for the day, the whole family, come on.”</p>
<p>“For the day?”</p>
<p>“The day, ja. Lily’s restless.”</p>
<p>Miriam stood looking at her laughing face
and listening to her hoarse, whispering voice.
Gertrude turned and went downstairs.</p>
<p>Miriam followed her, cold and sick and shivering,
and presently glad to be her assistant as she
bustled about the empty kitchen.</p>
<p>Upstairs the other girls were getting ready for
the outing.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-13"> 13 </h3>
<p>Starting out along the dusty field-girt roadway
leading from the railway station to the little
town of Hoddenheim through the hot sunshine,
<SPAN name="page-182" class="pagenum" title="182"></SPAN>
Miriam was already weary and fearful of the
hours that lay ahead. They would bring tests;
and opportunities for Fräulein to see all her
incapability. Fräulein had thrown her thick
gauze veil back over her large hat and was walking
with short footsteps, quickly along the centre of
the roadway throwing out exclamations of delight,
calling to the girls in a singing voice to cast away
the winter, to fill their lungs, fill their hearts
with spring.</p>
<p>She rallied them to observation.</p>
<p>Miriam could not remember having seen men
working in fields. They troubled her. They
looked up with strange eyes. She wished they
were not there. She wanted the fields to be
still—and smaller. Still green fields and orchards
... woods....</p>
<p>They passed a farmyard and stopped in a
cluster at the gate.</p>
<p>There was a moment of relief for her here. She
could look easily at the scatter of poultry and
the little pigs trotting and grunting about the
yard. She talked to the nearest German girl,
of these and of the calves standing in the shelter
of a rick, carefully repeating the English names.
As her eyes reached the rick she found that she
<SPAN name="page-183" class="pagenum" title="183"></SPAN>
did not know what to say. Was it hay or straw?
What was the difference? She dreaded the day
more and more.</p>
<p>Fräulein passed on leading the way, down the
road hand-in-hand with Emma. The girls
straggled after her.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-14"> 14 </h3>
<p>Making some remark to Minna, Miriam
secured her companionship and dropped a little
behind the group. Minna gave her one eager
beam from behind her nose, which was shining
rosily in the clear air, and they walked silently
along side by side bringing up the rear.</p>
<p>Voices and the scrabble of feet along the roadway
sounded ahead.</p>
<p>Miriam noticed large rounded puffs of white
cloud standing up sharp and still upon the
horizon. Cottages began to appear at the roadside.</p>
<p>Standing and moving in the soft air was
the strong sour smell of baking schwarzbrot.
A big bony-browed woman came from
a dark cottage and stood motionless in the
low doorway, watching them with kindly body.
Miriam glanced at her face—her eyes were
<SPAN name="page-184" class="pagenum" title="184"></SPAN>
small and expressionless, like Anna’s ... evil-looking.</p>
<p>Presently they were in a narrow street.
Miriam’s footsteps hurried. She almost cried
aloud. The façades of the dwellings passing
slowly on either hand were higher, here and
there one rose to a high peak, pierced geometrically
with tiny windows. The street widening
out ahead showed an open cobbled space and
cross-roads. At every angle stood high quiet
peaked houses, their faces shining warm cream
and milk-white, patterned with windows.</p>
<p>They overtook the others drawn up in the
roadway before a long low wooden house. Miriam
had time to see little gilded figures standing out
in niches in rows all along the façade and rows
of scrollwork dimly painted, as she stood still a
moment with beating heart behind the group.
She heard Fräulein talking in English of councillors
and centuries and assumed for a moment
as Fräulein’s eye passed her a look of intelligence;
then they had all moved on together
deeper into the town. She clung to Minna,
talking at random ... did she like Hoddenheim
... and Minna responded to the full, helping
her, talking earnestly and emphatically about
<SPAN name="page-185" class="pagenum" title="185"></SPAN>
food and the sunshine, isolating the two of them;
and they all reached the cobbled open space and
stood still and the peaked houses stood all round
them.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-15"> 15 </h3>
<p>“You like old-time Germany, Miss Henderson?”</p>
<p>Miriam turned a radiant face to Fräulein
Pfaff’s table and made some movement with her
lips.</p>
<p>“I think you have something of the German
in you.”</p>
<p>“She has, she has,” said Minna from the
little arbour where she sat with Millie. “She
is not English.”</p>
<p>They had eaten their lunch at a little group of
arboured tables at the back of an old wooden
inn. Fräulein had talked history to those nearest
to her and sat back at last with her gauze veil
in place, tall and still in her arbour, sighing
happily now and again and making her little
sounds of affectionate raillery as the girls
finished their coffee and jested and giggled
together across their worm-eaten, green-painted
tables.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-186" class="pagenum" title="186"></SPAN>
“You have beautiful old towns and villages
in England,” said Fräulein, yawning slightly.</p>
<p>“Yes—but not anything like this.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Gertrude, that isn’t true. We <em>have</em>.”</p>
<p>“Then they’re hidden from view, my dear
Mill, not visible to the naked eye,” laughed
Gertrude.</p>
<p>“Tell us, my Millie,” encouraged Fräulein,
“say what you have in mind. Perhaps Gairtrud
does not know the English towns and villages
as well as you do.”</p>
<p>The German girls attended eagerly.</p>
<p>“I can’t tell you the names of the places,”
said Millie, “but I have seen pictures.”</p>
<p>There was a pause. Gertrude smiled, but
made no further response.</p>
<p>“Peectures,” murmured Minna. “Peectures
always are beautiful. All towns are beautiful,
perhaps. Not?”</p>
<p>“There may be bits, perhaps,” blurted
Miriam, “but not whole towns and nothing
anywhere a bit like Hoddenheim, I’m perfectly
certain.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, not the <em>same</em>,” complained Millie,
“but just as beautiful—more beautiful.”</p>
<p>“Oh-ho, Millississimo.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-187" class="pagenum" title="187"></SPAN>
“Of course there are, Bertha, there must
be.”</p>
<p>“Well, Millicent,” pressed Fräulein, “‘more
beautiful’ and why? Beauty is what you see
and is not for everyone the same. It is an
<em>affaire de goût</em>. So you must tell us why to you
the old towns of England are more beautiful
than the old towns of Germany. It is because
you prefair them? They are your towns, it
is quite natural you should prefair them.”</p>
<p>“It isn’t only that, Fräulein.”</p>
<p>“Well?”</p>
<p>“Our country is older than Germany, besides——”</p>
<p>“It <em>isn’t</em>, my blessed child.”</p>
<p>“It is, Gertrude—our civilisation.”</p>
<p>“Oh, civilisation.”</p>
<p>“Engländerin, Engländerin,” mocked Bertha.</p>
<p>“Englishwooman, very Englishwooman,” echoed
Elsa Speier.</p>
<p>“Well, I <em>am</em> Engländerin,” said Millie, blushing
crimson.</p>
<p>“Would you rather the street-boys called
Engländerin after you or they didn’t?”</p>
<p>“Oh, Jimmie,” said Solomon impatiently.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t asking you, Solomon.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-188" class="pagenum" title="188"></SPAN>
“What means Solomon, with her ‘Oh,
Djimmee,’ ‘oh, Djim<em>mee</em>’?”</p>
<p>Solomon stirred heavily and looked up, flushing,
her eyes avoiding the German arbours.</p>
<p>“Na, Solemn,” laughed Fräulein Pfaff.</p>
<p>“Oh well, of course, Fräulein.” Solomon sat
in a crimson tide, bridling.</p>
<p>“Solomon likes not Germans.”</p>
<p>“Go on, Elsa,” rattled Bertha. “Germans
are all right, me dear. I think it’s rather a lark
when they sing out Engländerin. I always want
to yell ‘Ya!’”</p>
<p>“Likewise ‘Boo!’ Come on, Mill, we’re all
waiting.”</p>
<p>“Well, you <em>know</em> I don’t like it, Jimmie.”</p>
<p>“<em>Why?</em>”</p>
<p>“Because it makes me forget I’m in Germany
and only remember I’ve got to go back.”</p>
<p>“My hat, Mill, you’re a queer mixture!”</p>
<p>“But, Millie, best child, it’s just the very
thing that makes you know you’re here.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t me, Gertrude.”</p>
<p>“What is English towns looking like,” said
Elsa Speier.</p>
<p>No one seemed ready to take up this challenge.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-189" class="pagenum" title="189"></SPAN>
“Like other towns I suppose,” laughed Jimmie.</p>
<p>“Our Millie is glad to be in Germany,” ruled
Fräulein, rising. “She and I agree—I go most
gladly to England. Gairtrud is neither English
nor German. Perhaps she looks down upon us
all.”</p>
<p>“Of course I do,” roared Gertrude, crossing
her knees and tilting her chair. “What do you
think. Was denkt ihr? I am a barbarian.”</p>
<p>“A stranger.”</p>
<p>“Still we of the wild are the better men.”</p>
<p>“Ah. We end then with a quotation from
our dear Schiller. Come, children.”</p>
<p>“What’s that from?” Miriam asked of Gertrude
as they wandered up the garden.</p>
<p>“‘The Räuber.’ Magnificent thing. Play.
We saw it last winter.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe she really cares for it a bit,”
was Miriam’s mental comment. Her heart was
warm towards Millie, looking so outlandish
with her English vicarage air in this little German
beer-garden, with her strange love of Germany.
Of course there wasn’t anything a bit like Germany
in England.... So silly to make comparisons.
“Comparisons are odious.” Perfectly
true.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-16"> <SPAN name="page-190" class="pagenum" title="190"></SPAN> 16 </h3>
<p>They made their way back to the street
through a long low roomful of men drinking
at little tables. Heavy clouds of smoke hung
and moved in the air and mingled with the
steady odour of German food, braten, onion
and butter-sodden, beer and rich sour bread.
A tinkling melody supported by rhythmic time-marking
bass notes that seemed to thump the
wooden floor came from a large glass-framed
musical-box. The dark rafters ran low, just
above them. Faces glanced towards them as
they all filed avertedly through the room. There
were two or three guttural greetings—“N’
Morgen, meine Damen....” A large limber
woman met them in the front room with their
bill and stood talking to Fräulein as the girls
straggled out into the sunshine. She was wearing
a neat short-skirted crimson-and-brown check
dress and a large blue apron and her haggard
face was lit with radiantly kind strong dark
eyes. Miriam envied her. She would like to
pour out beer for those simple men and dispense
their food ... quietly and busily.... No need
<SPAN name="page-191" class="pagenum" title="191"></SPAN>
to speak to them, or be clever. They would
like her care and would understand. “Meine
Damen” hurt her. She was not Dame—Was
Fräulein? Elsa? Millie was. Millie would
condescend to these men without feeling uncomfortable.
She could see Millie at village
teas.... The girls looked very small as they
stood in groups about the roadway.... Their
clothes ... their funny confidence ... being
so sure of themselves ... what was it ...
what were they so sure of? There was nothing
... and she was afraid of them all, even of
Minna and Emma sometimes.</p>
<p>They trailed, Minna once more safely at
her side, slowly on through the streets of the
close-built peaked and gabled, carved and cobbled
town. It came nearer to her than Barnes,
nearer even than the old first house she had
kissed the morning they came away—the flower-filled
garden, the river, the woods.</p>
<p>They turned aside and up a little mounting
street and filed into a churchyard. Fräulein
tried and opened the great carved doorway of the
church ... incense.... They were going
into a Roman Catholic church. How easy it
was; just to walk in. Why had one never done
<SPAN name="page-192" class="pagenum" title="192"></SPAN>
it before? There was one at Roehampton.
But it would be different in England.</p>
<p>“Pas convenable,” she heard Mademoiselle
say just behind her, “non, je connais ces gens-là,
je vous promets ... vraiment j’en ai peur....”
Elsa responded with excited enquiries. They
all trooped quietly in and the great doors closed
behind them.</p>
<p>“Vraiment j’ai peur,” whispered Mademoiselle.</p>
<p>Miriam saw a point of red light shining like a
ruby far ahead in the gloom. She went round
the church with Fräulein Pfaff and Minna, and
was shown stations and chapels, altars hung
with offerings, a dusty tinsel-decked, gaily-painted
Madonna, an alcove railed off and
fitted with an iron chandelier furnished with
spikes—filled half-way up its height by a solid
mass of waxen drippings, banners and paintings
and artificial flowers, rich dark carvings.
She looked at everything and spoke once or
twice.</p>
<p>“This is the first time I have seen a Roman
Catholic church,” she said, and “how superstitious”
when they came upon crutches and
staves hanging behind a reredos—and all the time
she breathed the incense and felt the dimness
<SPAN name="page-193" class="pagenum" title="193"></SPAN>
around her and going up and up and brooding,
high up.</p>
<p>Presently they were joined by a priest. He
took them into a little room, unlocking a heavy
door which clanged to after them, opening
out behind one of the chapels. One side of the
room was lined with an oaken cupboard.</p>
<p>“Je frissonne.”</p>
<p>Miriam escaped Mademoiselle’s neighbourhood
and got into an angle between the frosted
window and the plaster wall. The air was still
and musty—the floor was of stone, the ceiling
low and white. There was nothing in the room
but the oaken cupboard. The priest was showing
a cross so crusted with jewels that the mounting
was invisible. Miriam saw it as he lifted it from
its wrappings in the cupboard. It seemed
familiar to her. She did not wish to see it more
closely, to touch it. She stood as thing after
thing was taken from the cupboard, waiting in
her corner for the moment when they must
leave. Now and again she stepped forward
and appeared to look, smiled and murmured.
Faint sounds from the town came up now and
again.</p>
<p>The minutes were passing; soon they must
<SPAN name="page-194" class="pagenum" title="194"></SPAN>
go. She wanted to stay ... more than she
had ever wanted anything in her life she wanted
to stay in this little musty room behind the
quiet dim church in this little town.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-17"> 17 </h3>
<p>At sunset they stood on a hill outside the
town and looked across at it lying up its own hillside,
its buildings peaking against the sky. They
counted the rich green copper cupolas and <SPAN name="corr-18"></SPAN>sighed
and exulted over the whole picture, the coloured
sky, the coloured town, the shimmering of the trees.</p>
<p>Making their way along the outskirts of the
town towards the station in the fading light they
met a little troop of men and women coming
quietly along the roadway. They were all
dressed in black. They looked at the girls with
strange mild eyes and filled Miriam with fear.</p>
<p>Presently the girls crossed a little high bridge
over a stream, and from the crest of the bridge
beyond a high-walled garden a terraced building
came into sight. It was dotted with women
dressed in black. One of the figures rose and
waved a handkerchief. “Wave, children,” said
Fräulein’s trembling voice, “wave”—and the
<SPAN name="page-195" class="pagenum" title="195"></SPAN>
girls collected in a little group on the crest of the
bridge and waved with raised arms.</p>
<p>“Ghastly, isn’t it?” said Gertrude, glancing
at Miriam as they moved on. Miriam was cold
with apprehension. “Are they mad?” she
whispered.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-18"> 18 </h3>
<p>For a week the whole of the housework and
cooking was done by the girls under the superintendence
of Gertrude, who seemed to be all
over the house acting as forewoman to little
gangs of workers. Miriam took but a small part
in the work—Minna was paying long visits to
the aurist every day—but she shared the depleted
table and knew that the whole school was taking
part in weathering the storm of Fräulein’s ill-humour
that had broken first upon Anna. She
once caught a glimpse of Gertrude flushed and
downcast, confronting Fräulein’s reproachful
voice upon the stairs; and one day in the basement
she heard Ulrica tearfully refuse to clean
her own boots and saw Fräulein stand before
her bowing and smiling, and with the girls
gathered round, herself brush and polish the
slender boots.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-196" class="pagenum" title="196"></SPAN>
She was glad to get away with Minna.</p>
<p>Her blouses came at the beginning of the week.
She carried them upstairs. Her hands took
them incredulously from their wrappages. The
“squashed strawberry” lay at the top, soft
warm clear madder-rose, covered with a black
arabesque of tiny leaves and tendrils. It was
compactly folded, showing only its turned-down
collar, shoulders and breast. She laid it on her
bed side by side with its buff companion and
shook out the underlying skirt.... How sweet of
them to send her the things ... she felt tears in
her eyes as she stood at her small looking-glass
with the skirt against her body and the blouses
held in turn above it ... they both went perfectly
with the light skirt.... She unfolded them
and shook them out and held them up at arms’
length by the shoulder seams. Her heart sank.
They were not in the least like anything she had
ever worn. They had no shape. They were
square and the sleeves were like bags. She turned
them about and remembered the shapeliness of
the stockinette jerseys smocked and small and
clinging that she had worn at school. If these
were blouses then she would never be able to
wear blouses.... “They’re so flountery!” she
<SPAN name="page-197" class="pagenum" title="197"></SPAN>
said, frowning at them. She tried on the rose-coloured
one. It startled her with its brightness....
“It’s no good, it’s no good,” she said, as her
hands fumbled for the fastenings. There was a
hook at the neck; that was all. Frightful ...
she fastened it, and the collar set in a soft roll
but came down in front to the base of her neck.
The rest of the blouse stuck out all round her
... “it’s got no cut ... they couldn’t have
looked at it.” ... She turned helplessly about,
using her hand-glass, frowning and despairing.
Presently she saw Harriett’s quizzical eyes and
laughed woefully, tweaking at the outstanding
margin of the material. “It’s all very well,” she
murmured angrily, “but it’s all I’ve <em>got</em>.” ... She
wished Sarah were there. Sarah would do something,
alter it or something. She heard her
encouraging voice saying, “You haven’t half
got it on yet. It’ll be all right.” She unfastened
her black skirt, crammed the flapping margin
within its band and put on the beaded black
stuff belt.</p>
<p>The blouse bulged back and front shapelessly
and seemed to be one with the shapeless sleeves
which ended in hard loose bands riding untrimmed
about her wrists with the movements of her
<SPAN name="page-198" class="pagenum" title="198"></SPAN>
hands.... “It’s like a nightdress,” she said
wrathfully and dragged the fulnesses down all
round under her skirt. It looked better so in
front; but as she turned with raised hand-glass
it came riding up at the side and back with
the movement of her arm.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-19"> 19 </h3>
<p>Minna was calling to her from the stairs. She
went on to the landing to answer her and found
her on the top flight dressed to go out.</p>
<p>“Ach!” she whispered as Miriam drew back.
“Jetzt mag’ ich Sie leiden. <em>Now</em> I like you.”</p>
<p>She ran back to her room. There was no time
to change. She fixed a brooch in the collar to
make it come a little higher at the join.</p>
<p>Going downstairs she saw Pastor Lahmann
hanging up his hat in the hall. His childish eyes
came up as her step sounded on the lower
flight.</p>
<p>Miriam was amazed to see him standing there
as though nothing had happened. She did not
know that she was smiling at him until his face
lit up with an answering smile.</p>
<p>“Bonjour, mademoiselle.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-199" class="pagenum" title="199"></SPAN>
Miriam did not answer and he disappeared into
the saal.</p>
<p>She went on downstairs listening to his voice,
repeating his words over and over in her mind.</p>
<p>Jimmie was sweeping the basement floor with
a duster tied round her hair.</p>
<p>“Hullo, Mother Bunch,” she laughed.</p>
<p>“It <em>is</em> weird, isn’t it? Not a bit the kind I
meant to have.”</p>
<p>“The blouse is all right, my dear, but it’s all
round your ears and you’ve got all the fulness in
the wrong place. There.... Bless the woman,
you’ve got no drawstring! And you must pin
it at the back! And haven’t you got a proper
leather belt?”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-20"> 20 </h3>
<p>Minna and Miriam ambled gently along together.
Miriam had discarded her little fur
pelerine and her double-breasted jacket bulged
loosely over the thin fabric of her blouse. She
breathed in the leaf-scented air and felt it playing
over her breast and neck. She drew deep breaths as
they went slowly along under the Waldstrasse lime-trees
and looked up again and again at the leaves
brilliant opaque green against white plaster with
<SPAN name="page-200" class="pagenum" title="200"></SPAN>
sharp black shadows behind them, or brilliant
transparent green on the hard blue sky. She felt
that the scent of them must be visible. Every
breath she drew was like a long yawning sigh. She
felt the easy expansion of her body under her
heavy jacket.... “Perhaps I won’t have any
more fitted bodices,” she mused and was back
for a moment in the stale little sitting-room of
the Barnes dressmaker. She remembered deeply
breathing in the odour of fabrics and dust and
dankness and cracking her newly fitted lining at
the pinholes and saying, “It is too tight there”—crack-crack.
“I can’t go like that.” ...</p>
<p>“But you never want to go like that, my dear
child,” old Miss Ottridge had laughed, readjusting
the pins; “just breathe in your ordinary
way—there, see? That’s right.”</p>
<p>Perhaps Lilla’s mother was right about blouses
... perhaps they were “slommucky.” She remembered
phrases she had heard about people’s
figures ... “falling abroad” ... “the middle-aged
sprawl” ... that would come early to her
as she was so old and worried ... perhaps that
was why one had to wear boned bodices ... and
never breathe in gulps of air like this?... It
was as if all the worry were being taken out of
<SPAN name="page-201" class="pagenum" title="201"></SPAN>
her temples. She felt her eyes grow strong and
clear; a coolness flowed through her—obstructed
only where she felt the heavy pad of hair pinned
to the back of her head, the line of her hat, the
hot line of compression round her waist and the
confinement of her inflexible boots.</p>
<p>They were approaching the Georgstrasse with
its long-vistaed width and its shops and cafés
and pedestrians. An officer in pale blue Prussian
uniform passed by flashing a single hard preoccupied
glance at each of them in turn. His
eyes seemed to Miriam like opaque blue glass.
She could not remember such eyes in England.
They began to walk more quickly. Miriam
listened abstractedly to Minna’s anticipations of
three days at a friend’s house when she would
visit her parents at the end of the week. Minna’s
parents, her far-away home on the outskirts of
a little town, its garden, their little carriage, the
spring, the beautiful country seemed unreal and
her efforts to respond and be interested felt
like a sort of treachery to her present bliss....
Everybody, even docile Minna, always seemed
to want to talk about something else....</p>
<p>Suddenly she was aware that Minna was asking
her whether, if it was decided that she should
<SPAN name="page-202" class="pagenum" title="202"></SPAN>
leave school at the end of the term, she, Miriam,
would come and live with her.</p>
<p>Miriam beamed incredulously. Minna, crimson-faced,
with her eyes on the pavement and
hurrying along explained that she was alone at
home, that she had never made friends—her
mother always wanted her to make friends—but
she could not—that her parents would be so
delighted—that she, she wanted Miriam, “You,
you are so different, so reasonable—I could live
with you.”</p>
<p>Minna’s garden, her secure country house, her
rich parents, no worries, nothing particular to
do, seemed for a moment to Miriam the solution
and continuation of all the gay day. There would
be the rest of the term—increasing spring and
summer—Fräulein divested of all mystery and
fear and then freedom—with Minna.</p>
<p>She glanced at Minna—the cheerful pink face
and the pink bulb of nose came round to her
and in an excited undertone she murmured
something about the apotheker.</p>
<p>“I should love to come—simply love it,” said
Miriam enthusiastically, feeling that she would
not entirely give up the idea yet. She would
not shut off the offered refuge. It would be a
<SPAN name="page-203" class="pagenum" title="203"></SPAN>
plan to have in reserve. She had been daunted
as Minna murmured by a picture of Minna and
herself in that remote garden—she receiving
confidences about the apotheker—no one else
there—the Waldstrasse household blotted out—herself
and Minna finding pretexts day after day
to visit the chemist’s in the little town.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-21"> 21 </h3>
<p>Miriam almost ran home from seeing Minna
into the three o’clock train ... dear beautiful,
beautiful Hanover ... the sunlight blazed from
the rain-sprinkled streets. Everything shone.
Bright confident shops, happy German cafés
moved quickly by as she fled along. Sympathetic
eyes answered hers. She almost laughed once or
twice when she met an eye and thought how
funny she must look “tearing along” with her
long, thick, black jacket bumping against her....
She would leave it off to-morrow and go out
in a blouse and her long black lace scarf....
She imagined Harriett at her side—Harriett’s long
scarf and longed to do the “crab walk” for a
moment or the halfpenny dip, hippety-hop. She
did them in her mind.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-204" class="pagenum" title="204"></SPAN>
She heard the sound of her boot soles tapping
the shining pavement as she hurried along ...
she would write a short note to her mother “a
girl about my own age with very wealthy parents
who wants a companion” and enclose a note for
Eve or Harriett ... Eve, “Imagine me in
Pomerania, my dear” ... and tell her about
the coffee parties and the skating and the sleighing
and Minna’s German Christmasses....</p>
<p>She saw Minna’s departing face leaning from
the carriage window, its new gay boldness: “I
shall no more when we are at home call you Miss
Henderson.”</p>
<p>When she got back to Waldstrasse she found
Anna’s successor newly arrived cleaning the
neglected front doorstep. Her lean yellow face
looked a vacant response to Miriam’s enquiry for
Fräulein Pfaff.</p>
<p>“Ist Fräulein zu Hause,” she repeated. The
girl shook her head vaguely.</p>
<p>How quiet the house seemed. The girls, after
a morning spent in turning out the kitchen for
the reception of the new <em>magd</em> were out for a
long ramble, including <em>Schocolade mit Schlagsahne</em>
until tea-time.</p>
<p>The empty house spread round her and towered
<SPAN name="page-205" class="pagenum" title="205"></SPAN>
above her as she took off her things in the basement
and the schoolroom yawned bright and
empty as she reached the upper hall. She
hesitated by the door. There was no sound anywhere....
She would play ... on the saal
piano.</p>
<p>“I’m not a Lehrerin—I’m not—I’m—not,”
she hummed as she collected her music ... she
would bring her songs too.... “I’m going to
Pom—pom—pom—Pom-erain—eeya.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-7-22"> 22 </h3>
<p>“Pom—erain—eeya,” she hummed, swinging
herself round the great door into the saal.
Pastor Lahmann was standing near one of the
windows. The rush of her entry carried her to
the middle of the room and he met her there
smiling quietly. She stared easily and comfortably
up into his great mild eyes, went into them
as they remained quietly and gently there,
receiving her. Presently he said in a soft low
tone, “You are vairy happy, mademoiselle.”</p>
<p>Miriam moved her eyes from his face and gazed
out of the window into the little sunlit summer-house.
The sense of the outline of his shoulders
<SPAN name="page-206" class="pagenum" title="206"></SPAN>
and his comforting black <SPAN name="corr-21"></SPAN>mannishness so near
to her brought her almost to tears. Fiercely she
fixed the sunlit summer-house, “Oh, I’m <em>not</em>,”
she said.</p>
<p>“Not? Is it possible?”</p>
<p>“I think life is perfectly appalling.”</p>
<p>She moved awkwardly to a little chiffonier and
put down her music on its marble top.</p>
<p>He came safely following her and stood near
again.</p>
<p>“You do not like the life of the school?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“You are from the country, mademoiselle.”</p>
<p>Miriam fumbled with her music.... Was she?</p>
<p>“One sees that at once. You come from the
land.”</p>
<p>Miriam glanced at his solid white profile as he
stood with hands clasped, near her music, on the
chiffonier. She noticed again that strange flatness
of the lower part of the face.</p>
<p>“I, too, am from the land. I grew up on a
farm. I love the land and think to return to it—to
have my little strip when I am free—when
my boys have done their schooling. I shall go
back.”</p>
<p>He turned towards her and Miriam smiled
<SPAN name="page-207" class="pagenum" title="207"></SPAN>
into the soft brown eyes and tried to think of
something to say.</p>
<p>“My grandfather was a gentleman-farmer.”</p>
<p>“Ah—that does not surprise me—but what a
very English expression!”</p>
<p>“Is it?”</p>
<p>“Well, it sounds so to us. We Swiss are very
democratic.”</p>
<p>“I think I’m a radical.”</p>
<p>Pastor Lahmann lifted his chin and laughed
softly.</p>
<p>“You are a vairy ambitious young lady.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Pastor Lahmann laughed again.</p>
<p>“I, too, am ambitious. I have a good Swiss
ambition.”</p>
<p>Miriam smiled into the mild face.</p>
<p>“You have a beautiful English provairb which
expresses my ambition.”</p>
<p>Miriam looked, eagerly listening, into the brown
eyes that came round to meet hers, smiling:</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“A little land, well-tilled,</p>
<p class="verse">A little wife, well-willed,</p>
<p class="verse2">Are great riches.”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>Miriam seemed to gaze long at a pallid, rounded
man with smiling eyes. She saw a garden and
<SPAN name="page-208" class="pagenum" title="208"></SPAN>
fields, a firelit interior, a little woman smiling and
busy and agreeable moving quickly about ...
and Pastor Lahmann—presiding. It filled her
with fury to be regarded as one of a world of
little tame things to be summoned by little men
to be well-willed wives. She must make him
see that she did not even recognise such a thing
as “a well-willed wife.” She felt her gaze
growing fixed and moved to withdraw it and
herself.</p>
<p>“Why do you wear glasses, mademoiselle?”</p>
<p>The voice was full of sympathetic wistfulness.</p>
<p>“I have a severe myopic astigmatism,” she
announced, gathering up her music and feeling
the words as little hammers on the newly seen,
pallid, rounded face.</p>
<p>“Dear me ... I wonder whether the glasses
are really necessary.... May I look at them?...
I know something of eye-work.”</p>
<p>Miriam detached her tightly fitting pince-nez
and having given them up stood with her music
in hand anxiously watching. Half her vision gone
with her glasses, she saw only a dim black-coated
knowledge, near at hand, going perhaps to help
her.</p>
<p>“You wear them always—for how long?</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-209" class="pagenum" title="209"></SPAN>
“Poor child, poor child, and you must have
passed through all your schooling with those
lame, lame eyes ... let me see the eyes ...
turn a little to the light ... so.”</p>
<p>Standing near and large he scrutinised her
vague gaze.</p>
<p>“And sensitive to light, too. You were vairy,
vairy blonde, even more blonde than you are
now, as a child, mademoiselle?”</p>
<p>“Na guten Tag, Herr Pastor.”</p>
<p>Fräulein Pfaff’s smiling voice sounded from the
little door.</p>
<p>Pastor Lahmann stepped back.</p>
<p>Miriam was pleased at the thought of being
grouped with him in the eyes of Fräulein Pfaff.
As she took her glasses from his outstretched
hand she felt that Fräulein would recognise that
they had established a kind of friendliness. She
halted for a moment at the door, adjusting her
glasses, amiably uncertain, feeling for something
to say.</p>
<p>Pastor Lahmann was standing in the middle
of the room examining his nails. Fräulein, at
the window, was twitching a curtain into place.
She turned and drove Miriam from the room
with speechless waiting eyes.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-210" class="pagenum" title="210"></SPAN>
The sunlight was streaming across the hall. It
seemed gay and home-like. Pastor Lahmann had
made her forget she was a governess. He had
treated her as a girl. Fräulein’s eyes had spoiled
it. Fräulein was angry about it for some extraordinary
reason.</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-8"> <SPAN name="page-211" class="pagenum" title="211"></SPAN> CHAPTER VII </h2>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar"><span class="prefirstchar">“</span>D</span><span class="postfirstchar">on’t</span> let her <em>do</em> it, Miss Henderson.”</p>
<p>Fräulein Pfaff’s words broke the silence
accompanying the servant’s progress from Gertrude
whose soup-plate she had first seized, to
Miriam more than half-way down the table.</p>
<p>Startled into observation Miriam saw the
soup-spoon of her neighbour whisked, dripping,
from its plate to the uppermost of Marie’s
pile and Emma shrinking back with a horrified
face against Jimmie who was leaning forward
entranced with watching.... The whole table
was watching. Marie, having secured Emma’s
plate to the base of her pile clutched Miriam’s
spoon. Miriam moved sideways as the spoon
swept up, saw the desperate hard, lean face
bend towards her for a moment as her plate was
seized, heard an exclamation of annoyance from
Fräulein and little sounds from all round the
table. Marie had passed on to Clara. Clara
received her with plate and spoon held firmly
together and motioned her before she would
<SPAN name="page-212" class="pagenum" title="212"></SPAN>
relinquish them, to place her load upon the
shelf of the lift.</p>
<p>Miriam felt she was in disgrace with the whole
table.... She sat, flaring, rapidly framing
phrase after phrase for the lips of her judges ...
“slow and awkward” ... “never has her wits
about her....”</p>
<p>“Don’t let her do it, Miss Henderson....”
Why should Fräulein fix upon <em>her</em> to teach her
common servants? Struggling through her
resentment was pride in the fact that she did
not know how to handle soup-plates. Presently
she sat refusing absolutely to accept the judgment
silently assailing her on all hands.</p>
<p>“You are not very domesticated, Miss Henderson.”</p>
<p>“No,” responded Miriam quietly, in joy and
fear.</p>
<p>Fräulein gave a short laugh.</p>
<p>Goaded, Miriam plunged forward.</p>
<p>“We were never even allowed in the kitchen
at home.”</p>
<p>“I see. You and your sisters were brought
up like Countesses, wie Gräfinnen,” observed
Fräulein Pfaff drily.</p>
<p>Miriam’s whole body was on fire ... “and
<SPAN name="page-213" class="pagenum" title="213"></SPAN>
your sisters and your sisters,” echoed through
and through her. Holding back her tears she
looked full at Fräulein and met the brown eyes.
She met them until they turned away and
Fräulein broke into smiling generalities. Conversation
was released all round the table.
Emphatic undertones reached her from the
English side. “Fool” ... “simply idiotic.”</p>
<p>“I’ve done it now,” mused Miriam calmly,
on the declining tide of her wrath.</p>
<p>Pretending to be occupied with those about
her she sat examining the look Fräulein had
given her ... she hates me.... Perhaps she
did from the first.... She did from the first....
I shall have to go ... and suddenly,
lately, she has grown worse....</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-9"> <SPAN name="page-214" class="pagenum" title="214"></SPAN> CHAPTER VIII </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">W</span><span class="postfirstchar">alking</span> along a narrow muddy causeway
by a little river overhung with
willows, girls ahead of her in single file and
girls in single file behind, Miriam drearily recognised
that it was June. The month of roses,
she thought, and looked out across the flat green
fields. It was not easy to walk along the slippery
pathway. On one side was the little grey river,
on the other long wet grass repelling and depressing.
Not far ahead was the roadway which led,
she supposed to the farm where they were to
drink new milk. She would have to walk with
someone when they came to the road, and talk.
She wondered whether this early morning walk
would come, now, every day. Her heart sank
at the thought. It had been too hot during
the last few days for any going out at midday,
and she had hoped that the strolling in the
garden, sitting about under the chestnut tree
<SPAN name="page-215" class="pagenum" title="215"></SPAN>
and in the little wooden garden room off the
saal had taken the place of walks for the summer.</p>
<p>She had got up reluctantly, at the surprise
of the very early gonging. Mademoiselle had
guessed it would be a “milk-walk.” Pausing
in the bright light of the top landing as Mademoiselle
ran downstairs she had seen through
the landing window the deep peak of a distant
gable casting an unfamiliar shadow—a shadow
sloping the wrong way, a morning shadow. She
remembered the first time, the only time, she
had noticed such a shadow—getting up very
early one morning while Harriett and all the
household were still asleep—and how she had
stopped dressing and gazed at it as it stood there
cool and quiet and alone across the mellow face
of a neighbouring stone porch—had suddenly
been glad that she was alone and had wondered
why that shadowed porch-peak was more beautiful
than all the summer things she knew and
felt at that moment that nothing could touch
or trouble her again.</p>
<p>She could not find anything of that feeling
in the early day outside Hanover. She was
hemmed in, and the fields were so sad she could
not bear to look at them. The sun had disappeared
<SPAN name="page-216" class="pagenum" title="216"></SPAN>
since they came out. The sky was grey
and low and it seemed warmer already than it
had been in the midday sun during the last few
days. One of the girls on ahead hummed the
refrain of a student-song:—</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“In der Ecke steht er</p>
<p class="verse">Seinen Schnurbart dreht er</p>
<p class="verse">Siehst du wohl, da steht er schon</p>
<p class="verse">Der versoff’ne Schwiegersohn.”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>Miriam felt very near the end of endurance.</p>
<p>Elsa Speier who was just behind her, became
her inevitable companion when they reached
the roadway. A farmhouse appeared about a
quarter of a mile away.</p>
<p>Miriam’s sense of her duties closed in on her.
Trying not to see Elsa’s elaborate clothes and
the profile in which she could find no meaning,
no hope, no rest, she spoke to her.</p>
<p>“Do you like milk, Elsa?” she said cheerfully.</p>
<p>Elsa began swinging her lace-covered parasol.</p>
<p>“If I like milk?” she repeated presently, and
flashed mocking eyes in Miriam’s direction.</p>
<p>Despair touched Miriam’s heart.</p>
<p>“Some people don’t,” she said.</p>
<p>Elsa hummed and swung her parasol.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-217" class="pagenum" title="217"></SPAN>
“Why should I like milk?” she stated.</p>
<p>The muddy farmyard, lying back from the
roadway and below it, was steamy and choking
with odours. Miriam who had imagined a cool
dairy and cold milk frothing in pans, felt a
loathing as warmth came to her fingers from the
glass she held. Most of the girls were busily
sipping. She raised her glass once towards her
lips, snuffed a warm reek, and turned away
towards the edge of the group, to pour out the
contents of her glass, unseen, upon the filth-sodden
earth.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-2"> 2 </h3>
<p>Passing languidly up through the house after
breakfast, unable to decide to spend her Saturday
morning as usual at a piano in one of the bedrooms,
Miriam went, wondering in response
to a quiet call from Fräulein Pfaff into the large
room shared by the Bergmanns and Ulrica Hesse.
Explaining that Clara was now to take possession
of the half of Elsa Speier’s room that had been
left empty by Minna—“poor Minna now with
her good parents seeking health in the Swiss
mountains, schooldays at an end, at an end,
at an end,” she repeated mournfully. Fräulein
<SPAN name="page-218" class="pagenum" title="218"></SPAN>
indicated that Clara’s third of the large room
would now be Miriam’s.</p>
<p>Miriam stood incredulous at her side as she
indicated a large empty chest of drawers, a
white covered bed in a deep corner away from
the window, a small drawer in the dressing-table
and five pegs in a large French wardrobe. Emma
was going very gravely about the room collecting
her work-basket and things for <em>raccommodage</em>.
She flung one ecstatic glance at Miriam as she
went away with these.</p>
<p>“I shall hold you responsible here amongst
these dear children, Miss Henderson,” fluted
Fräulein, quietly gathering up a few last things
of Minna’s collected on the bed, “our dear Ulrica
and our little Emma,” she smiled, passing out,
leaving Miriam standing in the wonderful room.</p>
<p>“My goodney,” she breathed, gathering gently
clenched fists close to her person. She stood
for a few moments; she felt like a visitor ...
embroidered toilet covers, polished furniture,
gold and cream crockery, lace curtains, white
beds, the large screen cutting off her third of
the room ... then she rushed headlong upstairs,
a member of the downstairs landing, to
collect her belongings.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-219" class="pagenum" title="219"></SPAN>
On the landing just outside the door of the
garret bedroom stood a huge wicker travelling
basket; a clumsy umbrella with a large knobby
handle, like a man’s umbrella, lay on the top of
it partly covering a large pair of goloshes.</p>
<p>She was tired and very warm by the time
everything was arranged in her new quarters.</p>
<p>Taking a last look round she caught the eye of
Eve’s photograph gazing steadily at her from
the chest of drawers.... It would be quite
easy now that this had happened to write and
tell them that the Pomerania plan had come to
nothing.</p>
<p>Evidently Fräulein approved of her, after all.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-3"> 3 </h3>
<p>In the schoolroom she found the <em>raccommodage</em>
party gathered round the table. At its head sat
Mademoiselle, her arms flung out upon the
table and her face buried against them.</p>
<p>“Cheer up, Mademoiselle,” said Jimmie as
Miriam took an empty chair between Gertrude
and the Martins.</p>
<p>Timidly meeting Gertrude’s eye Miriam received
her half-smile, watched her eyebrows
<SPAN name="page-220" class="pagenum" title="220"></SPAN>
flicker faintly up and the little despairing shrug
she gave as she went on with her mending.</p>
<p>“Ah, mammaz<em>ell</em>chen c’est pas mal, ne soyez
triste, mein Gott mammazellchen es ist aber
nichts!” chided Emma consolingly from her
place near the window.</p>
<p>“Oh! je ne veux pas, je ne veux pas,” sobbed
Mademoiselle.</p>
<p>No one spoke; Mademoiselle lay snuffling
and shuddering. Solomon’s scissors fell on to
the floor. “Mais pour<em>quoi</em> pas, Mademoiselle?”
she interrogated as she recovered them.</p>
<p>“Pourquoi, pourquoi!” choked Mademoiselle.
Her suffused little face came up for a moment
towards Solomon. She met Miriam’s gaze as if
she did not see her. “Vous me demandez
pourquoi je ne veux pas partager ma chambre
avec une femme mariée?” Her head sank
again and her little grey form jerked sharply
as she sobbed.</p>
<p>“Probably a widder, Mademoiselle,” ventured
Bertha Martin, “oon voove.”</p>
<p>“<em>Verve</em>, Bertha,” came Millie’s correcting
voice and Miriam’s interest changed to excited
thoughts of Fräulein—not hating her, and
choosing Mademoiselle to sleep with the servant,
<SPAN name="page-221" class="pagenum" title="221"></SPAN>
a new servant—the things on the landing—Mademoiselle
refusing to share a room with a
married woman ... she felt about round this
idea as Millie’s prim, clear voice went on ... her
eyes clutched at Mademoiselle, begging to
understand ... she gazed at the little down-flung
head, fine little tendrils frilling along the
edge of her hair, her little hard grey shape,
all miserable and ashamed. It was dreadful.
Miriam felt she could not bear it. She turned
away. It was a strange new thought that anyone
should object to being with a married woman ... would
she object? or Harriett? Not unless
it were suggested to them.... Was there some
special refinement in this French girl that none
of them understood? Why should it be refined
to object to share a room with a married woman?
A cold shadow closed in on Miriam’s mind.</p>
<p>“I don’t care,” said Millie almost quickly,
with a crimson face. “It’s a special occasion.
I think Mademoiselle ought to complain. If
I were in her place I should write home. It’s
not right. Fräulein has no right to make her
sleep with a servant.”</p>
<p>“Why can’t the servant sleep in one of the
back attics?” asked Solomon.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-222" class="pagenum" title="222"></SPAN>
“Not furnished, my sweetheart,” said Gertrude,
“and you know Kinder you’re all running
on very fast about servants—the good Frau is
our housekeeper.”</p>
<p>“Will she have meals with us?”</p>
<p>“Gewiss Jimmie, meals.”</p>
<p>“Mon Dieu, vous êtes terribles, toutes!”
came Mademoiselle’s voice. It seemed to bite
into the table. “Oh, c’est grossière!” She
gathered herself up and escaped into the little
schoolroom.</p>
<p>“Armes, armes, Momzell,” wailed Ulrica
gently gazing out of the window.</p>
<p>“Som one should go, go you, Henchen,”
urged Emma.</p>
<p>“Don’t, for goodness’ sake, Hendy,” begged
Jimmie, “not you, she’s wild about you going
downstairs,” she whispered.</p>
<p>Miriam struggled with her gratification. “Oh
go, som one; go you, Clara!”</p>
<p>“Better leave her alone,” ruled Gertrude.</p>
<p>“We miss old Minna, don’t we?” concluded
Bertha.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-4"> <SPAN name="page-223" class="pagenum" title="223"></SPAN> 4 </h3>
<p>The heat grew intense.</p>
<p>The air was more and more oppressive as the
day went on.</p>
<p>Clara fainted suddenly just after dinner, and
Fräulein, holding a little discourse on clothing
and an enquiry into wardrobes, gave a general
permission for the reduction of garments to the
minimum and sent everyone to rest uncorseted
until tea-time, promising a walk to the woods in
the cool of the evening. There was a sense of
adventure in the house. It was as if it were
being besieged. It gave Miriam confidence to
approach Fräulein for permission to rearrange
her trunk in the basement. She let Fräulein
understand that her removal was not complete,
that there were things to do before she could
be properly settled in her new room.</p>
<p>“Certainly, Miss Henderson, you are quite
free,” said Fräulein instantly as the girls trooped
upstairs.</p>
<p>Miriam knew she wanted to avoid an afternoon
shut up with Emma and Ulrica and she did not
in the least want to lie down. It seemed to her a
very extraordinary thing to do. It surprised and
<SPAN name="page-224" class="pagenum" title="224"></SPAN>
disturbed her. It suggested illness and weakness.
She could not remember having lain down in the
day-time. There had been that fortnight in the
old room at home with Harriett ... chicken-pox
and new books coming and games, and Sarah reading
the Song of Hiawatha and their being allowed
to choose their pudding. She could not remember
feeling ill. Had she ever felt ill?... Colds
and bilious attacks....</p>
<p>She remembered with triumph a group of
days of pain two years ago. She had forgotten....
Bewilderment and pain ... her mother’s
constant presence ... everything, the light
everywhere, the leaves standing out along the
tops of hedgerows as she drove with her mother,
telling her of pain and she alone in the midst of
it ... for always ... pride, long moments of
deep pride.... Eve and Sarah congratulating
her, Eve stupid and laughing ... the new bearing
of the servants ... Lilla Belton’s horrible
talks fading away to nothing.</p>
<p>Fräulein had left her and gone to her room.
Every door and window on the ground floor
stood wide excepting that leading to Fräulein’s
little double rooms. She wondered what
the rooms were like and felt sorry for Fräulein,
<SPAN name="page-225" class="pagenum" title="225"></SPAN>
tall and gaunt, moving about in them alone,
alone with her own dark eyes, curtains hanging
motionless at the windows ... was it really
bad to tight-lace? The English girls, except
Millie and Solomon all had small waists. She
wished she knew. She placed her large hands
round her waist. Drawing in her breath she
could almost make them meet. It was easier to
play tennis with stays ... how dusty the garden
looked, baked. She wanted to go out with two
heavy watering-cans, to feel them pulling her
arms from their sockets, dragging her shoulders
down, throwing out her chest, to spray canful
after canful through a great wide rose, sprinkling
her ankles sometimes, and to grow so warm that
she would not feel the heat. Bella Lyndon had
never worn stays; playing rounders so splendidly,
lying on the grass between the games with her
arms under her head ... simply disgusting, someone
had said ... who ... a disgusted face ...
nearly all the girls detested Bella.</p>
<p>Going through the hall on her way down to
the basement she heard the English voices sounding
quietly out into the afternoon from the rooms
above. Flat and tranquil they sounded, Bertha
and Jimmie she heard, Gertrude’s undertones,
<SPAN name="page-226" class="pagenum" title="226"></SPAN>
quiet words from Millie. She felt she would
like a corner in the English room for the afternoon,
a book and an occasional remark—“Mr.
Barnes of New York”—she would not be able
to read her three <SPAN name="corr-24"></SPAN>yellow-backs in the German
bedroom. She felt at the moment glad to be
robbed of them. It would be much better, of
course. There was no sound from the German
rooms. She pictured sleeping faces. It was
cooler in the basement—but even there the air
seemed stiff and dusty with the heat.</p>
<p>Why did the hanging garments remind her of
All Saints’ Church and Mr. Brough? ... she
must tell Harriett that in her letter ... that
day they suddenly decided to help in the church
decorations ... she remembered the smell of
the soot on the holly as they had cut and hacked
at it in the cold garden, and Harriett overturning
the heavy wheelbarrow on the way to church,
and how they had not laughed because they both
felt solemn, and then there had just been the
three Anwyl girls and Mrs. Anwyl and Mrs.
Scarr and Mr. Brough in the church-room all
being silly about Birdy Anwyl roasting chestnuts,
and how silly and affected they were when a
piece of holly stuck in her skirt.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-5"> <SPAN name="page-227" class="pagenum" title="227"></SPAN> 5 </h3>
<p>Coming up the basement stairs in response to
the tea-gong, Miriam thought there were visitors
in the hall and hesitated; then there was Pastor
Lahmann’s profile disappearing towards the door
and Fräulein patting and dismissing two of his
boys. His face looked white and clear and firm
and undisturbed, Miriam wanted to arrest him
and ask him something—what he thought of the
weather—he looked so different from her memory
of him in the saal two Saturdays ago—two weeks—four
classes she must have missed. Why?
Why was she missing Pastor Lahmann’s classes?
How had it happened? Perhaps she would see
him in class again. Perhaps next week....</p>
<p>The other visitors proved to be the Bergmanns
in new dresses. Miriam gazed at Clara as she went
down the schoolroom to her corner of the table.
She looked like ... a hostess. It seemed absurd
to see her sit down to tea as a schoolgirl. The
dress was a fine black muslin stamped all over
with tiny fish-shaped patches of mauve. It was
cut to the base of the neck and came to a point
in front where the soft white ruching was fastened
with a large cameo brooch. Clara’s pallid
<SPAN name="page-228" class="pagenum" title="228"></SPAN>
worried face had grown more placid during the
hot inactive days, and to-day her hard mouth
looked patient and determined and responsible.
She seemed quite independent of her surroundings.
Miriam found herself again and again consulting
her calm face. Her presence haunted Miriam
throughout tea-time. Emma was sweet, pink and
bright after her rest in a bright light brown
muslin dress dotted with white spots....</p>
<p>Funny German dresses, thought Miriam, funny
... and old. Her mind hovered and wondered
over these German dresses—did she like them or
not—something about them—she glanced at
Elsa, sitting opposite in the dull faint electric
blue with black lace sleeves she had worn since
the warm weather set in. Even Ulrica, thin and
straight now ... like a pole ... in a tight flat
dress of saffron muslin sprigged with brown
leaves, seemed to be included in something that
made all these German dresses utterly different
from anything the English girls could have worn.
What was it? It was crowned by the Bergmanns’
dresses. It had begun in a summer dress of
Minna’s, black with a tiny sky-blue spot and a
heavy ruche round the hem. She thought she
liked it. It seemed to set the full tide of summer
<SPAN name="page-229" class="pagenum" title="229"></SPAN>
round the table more than the things of the
English girls—and yet the dresses were ugly—and
the English girls’ dresses were not that ...
they were nothing ... plain cottons and zephyrs
with lace tuckers—no ruches. It was something
... somehow in the ruches—the ruches and the
little peaks of neck.</p>
<p>A faint scent of camphor came from the
Martins across the way, sitting in their cool
creased black-and-white check cotton dresses.
They still kept to their hard white collars and
cuffs. As tea went on Miriam found her eyes
drawn back and back again to these newly unpacked
camphor-scented dresses ... and when
conversation broke after moments of stillness
... shadowy foliage ... the still hot garden
... the sunbaked wooden room beyond the
sunny saal, the light pouring through three
rooms and bright along the table ... it was to
the Martins’ check dresses that she glanced.</p>
<p>It was intensely hot, but the strain had gone
out of the day; the feeling of just bearing up
against the heat and getting through the day had
gone; they all sat round ... which was which?...
Miriam met eye after eye—how beautiful
they all were looking out from faces and meeting
<SPAN name="page-230" class="pagenum" title="230"></SPAN>
hers—and her eyes came back unembarrassed to
her cup, her solid butter-brot and the sunlit
angle of the garden-wall and the bit of tree just
over Fräulein Pfaff’s shoulder. She tried to
meet Mademoiselle’s eyes, she felt sure their eyes
could meet. She wondered intensely what was
in Elsa’s mind behind her faint hard blue dress.
She wanted to hear Mademoiselle’s voice; Mademoiselle
was almost invisible in her corner near
the door, the new housekeeper was sitting at her
side very upright and close to the table. Once
or twice she felt Fräulein’s look; she sustained it,
and glowed happily under it without meeting it;
she referred back contentedly to it after hearing
herself laugh out once—just as she would do at
home; once or twice she forgot for a moment
where she was. The way the light shone on the
housekeeper’s hair, bright brown and plastered
flatly down on either side of her bright white-and-crimson
face, and the curves of her chocolate
and white striped cotton bodice, reminded her
sharply of something she had seen once, something
that had charmed her ... it was in the hair
against the hard white of the forehead and the
flat broad cheeks with the hard, clear crimson
colouring nearly covering them ... something in
<SPAN name="page-231" class="pagenum" title="231"></SPAN>
the way she sat, standing out against the others....
Judy on her left hand with almost the same
colouring looked small and gentle and refined.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-6"> 6 </h3>
<p>Tea was over. Fräulein decided against a walk
and they all trooped into the saal. No programme
was suggested; they all sat about unoccupied.
There was no centre; Fräulein Pfaff
was one of them. The little group near her in the
shady half of the sunlit summer-house was as
quietly easy as those who sat far back in the saal.
Miriam had got into a low chair near the saal
doors whence she could see across the room
through the summer-house window through the
gap between the houses across the way to the
far-off afternoon country. Its colours gleamed,
a soft confusion of tones, under the heat-haze.
For a while she sat with her eyes on Fräulein’s
thin profile, clean and cool and dry in the intense
heat ... “she must be looking out towards the
lime-trees.” ... Ulrica sat drooped on a low
chair near her knees ... “sweet beautiful head”
... the weight of her soft curved mouth seemed
too much for the delicate angles of her face and
<SPAN name="page-232" class="pagenum" title="232"></SPAN>
it drooped faintly, breaking their sharp lines.
Miriam wished all the world could see her....
Presently Ulrica raised her head, as Elsa and
Clara broke into words and laughter near her,
and her drooping lips flattened gently back into
their place in the curve of her face. She gazed
out through the doorway of the summer-house
with her great despairing eyes ... the housekeeper
was rather like a Dutch doll ... but that
was not it.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-7"> 7 </h3>
<p>The sun had set. Miriam had found a little
thin volume of German poetry in her pocket.
She sat fumbling the leaves. She felt the
touch of her limp straightening hair upon
her forehead. It did not matter. Twilight
would soon come, and bed-time. But it must
have been beginning to get like that at tea-time.
Perhaps the weather would get even hotter. She
must do something about her hair ... if only
she could wear it turned straight back.</p>
<p>There was a stirring in the room; beautiful
forms rose and stood and spoke and moved about.
Someone went to the door. It opened gently
with a peaceful sound on to the quiet hall and
<SPAN name="page-233" class="pagenum" title="233"></SPAN>
footsteps ran upstairs. Two figures going out
from the saal passed in front of the two still
sitting quietly grouped in the light of the summer-house.
They were challenged as they passed and
turned soft profiles and stood talking. Behind
the voices,—flutings, single notes, broken phrases,
long undisturbed warblings came from the
garden.</p>
<p>Clara was at the piano. Tall behind her stood
Millie’s gracious shapeless baby-form.</p>
<p>As Millie’s voice climbing carefully up and
down the even stages of Solveig’s song reached
the second verse, Miriam tried to separate the
music from the words. The words were wrong.
She half saw a fair woman with a great crown of
plaited hair and very broad shoulders singing
the song in the Hanover concert-room in Norwegian.
She remembered the moment of taking
her eyes away from the singer and the platform,
and feeling the crowded room and the airlessness,
and then the song going steadily on from
note to note as she listened ... no trills and no
tune ... saying something. It stood in the air.
All the audience were saying it. And then the
fair-haired woman had sung the second verse as
though it was something about herself—tragically
<SPAN name="page-234" class="pagenum" title="234"></SPAN>
... tragic muse.... It was not <em>her</em> song,
standing there in the velvet dress.... She
stopped it from going on. There was nothing
but the movement of the lace round her shoulders
and chest, her expanded neck, quivering, and the
pressure in her voice.... And then there had
been Herr Bossenberger, hammering and shouting
it out in the saal with Millie, and everything
in the schoolroom, even the dust on the paper-rack,
standing out clearer and clearer as he
bellowed slowly along. And then she had got to
know that everybody knew about it; it was a
famous song. There were people singing it
everywhere in German and French and English—a
girl singing about her lover.... It was not
that; even if people sang it like that, if a real
girl had ever sung something like that, that was
not what she meant ... “the winter may
pass” ... yes, that was all right—and mountains
with green slopes and narrow torrents—and a
voice going strongly out and ceasing, and all the
sky filled with the sound—and the song going on,
walking along, thinking to itself.... She looked
about as Millie’s voice ceased trembling on the
last high note. She hoped no one would hum the
refrain. There was no one there who knew
<SPAN name="page-235" class="pagenum" title="235"></SPAN>
anything about it.... Judy? Judy knew, perhaps.
Judy would never hum or sing anything. If
she did, it would be terrible. She knew so much.
Perhaps Judy knew everything. She was sitting
on the low sill of the window behind the piano
sewing steel beads on to a shot silk waistband
held very close to her eyes. Minna could.
Minna might be sitting in her plaid dress on the
window-seat with her embroidery, her smooth hair
polished with bay-rum humming Solveig’s song.</p>
<p>The housekeeper brought in the milk and rolls
and went away downstairs again. The cold milk
was very refreshing but the room grew stifling
as they all sat round near the little centre table
with the French window nearly closed, shutting
off the summer-house and garden. Everybody
in turn seemed to be saying “Ik kenne meine
Tasse sie ist svatz.” Bertha had begun it, holding
up her white glass of milk as she took it from
the tray and exactly imitating the housekeeper’s
voice.</p>
<p>“Platt Deutsch spricht-sie, ja?” Clara had
said. It seemed as if there were no more to be
said about the housekeeper. At prayers when
they were all saying “Vater unser,” she heard
Jimmie murmur, “Ik kenne meine Tasse.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-8"> <SPAN name="page-236" class="pagenum" title="236"></SPAN> 8 </h3>
<p>Fräulein Pfaff came upstairs behind the girls
and ordered silence as they went to their rooms.
“Hear, all, children,” she said in German in the
quiet clear even tone with which she had just
read prayers, “no one to speak to her neighbour,
no one to whisper or bustle, nor to-night to brush
her hair, but each to compose her mind and go
quietly to her rest. Thus acting the so great
heat shall injure none of us and peaceful sleep
will come. Do you hear, children?”</p>
<p>Answering voices came from the bedrooms. She
entered each room, shifting screens, opening
each window for a few moments, leaving each
door wide.</p>
<p>“Each her little corner,” she said in Miriam’s
room, “fresh water set for the morning. The
heavens are all round us, my little ones; have
no fear.”</p>
<p>Gently sighing and moaning Ulrica moved
about in her corner. Emma dropped a slipper
and muttered consolingly. Thankfully Miriam
listened to Fräulein’s short, deprecating footsteps
pacing up and down the landing. She was
safe from the dreadful challenge of conversation
<SPAN name="page-237" class="pagenum" title="237"></SPAN>
with her pupils. She felt hemmed in in the
stifling room with the landing full of girls all
round her. She wanted to push away her screen,
push up the hot white ceiling. She wished she
could be safely upstairs with Mademoiselle and
the height of the candle-lit garret above her head.
It could not possibly be hotter up there than in
this stifling room with its draperies and furniture
and gas.</p>
<p>Fräulein came in very soon and turned out
the light with a formal good-night greeting.
For a while after all the lights were out, she
continued pacing up and down.</p>
<p>Across the landing someone began to sneeze
rapidly sneeze after sneeze. “Ach, die Millie!”
muttered Emma sleepily. For several minutes
the sneezing went on. Sighs and impatient
movements sounded here and there. “Ruhig,
Kinder, ruhig. Millie shall soon sleep peacefully
as all.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-9"> 9 </h3>
<p>Miriam could not remember hearing Fräulein
Pfaff go away when she woke in the darkness
feeling unendurably oppressed. She flung her
sheet aside and turned her pillow over and
<SPAN name="page-238" class="pagenum" title="238"></SPAN>
pushed her frilled sleeves to her elbows. How
energetic I am, she thought and lay tranquil.
There was not a sound. “I shall never be able
to sleep down here, it’s too awful,” she murmured,
and puffed and shifted her head on the pillow.</p>
<p>The win-ter may—pass.... The win-ter ...
may pass. The winter may ... pass. The
Academy ... a picture in very bright colours
... a woman sitting by the roadside with a
shawl round her shoulders and a red skirt and
red cheeks and bright green country behind
her ... people moving about on the shiny
floor, someone just behind saying, “that is
plein-air, these are the plein-airistes”—the
woman in the picture was like the housekeeper....</p>
<p>A brilliant light flashed into the room ...
lightning—how strange the room looked—the
screens had been moved—the walls and corners
and little beds had looked like daylight. Someone
was talking across the landing. Emma was awake.
Another flash came and movements and cries.
Emma screamed aloud, sitting up in bed. “Ach
Gott! Clara! <em>Clara!</em>” she screamed. Cries
came from the next room. A match was struck
across the landing and voices sounded. Gertrude
<SPAN name="page-239" class="pagenum" title="239"></SPAN>
was in the room lighting the gas and Clara
tugging down the blind. Emma was sitting
with her hands pressed to her eyes, quickly
gasping, “Ach Clara! Mein Gott! Ach Gott!”
On Ulrica’s bed nothing was visible but a mound
of bedclothes. The whole landing was astir.
Fräulein’s voice called up urgently from below.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-10"> 10 </h3>
<p>Miriam was the last to reach the schoolroom.
The girls were drawn up on either side of the
gaslit room—leaving the shuttered windows
clear. She moved to take a chair at the end of
the table in front of the saal doors. “Na!”
said Fräulein sharply from the sofa-corner.
“Not there! In full current!” Her voice
shook. Miriam drew the chair to the end of the
<SPAN name="corr-27"></SPAN>row of figures and sat down next to Solomon
Martin. The wind rushed through the garden,
the thunder rattled across the sky. “Oh, Clara!
Fräulein! Nein!” gasped Emma. She was
sitting opposite, between Clara and Jimmie with
flushed face and eyes strained wide, twisting
her linked hands against her knees. Jimmie
patted her wrist, “It’s all right, Emmchen,” she
<SPAN name="page-240" class="pagenum" title="240"></SPAN>
muttered cheerfully. “Nein, Christina!” jerked
Fräulein sharply. “I will not have that! To
touch the flesh! You understand, all! That
you know. All! Such immodesty!”</p>
<p>Miriam leaned forward and glanced. Fräulein
was sitting very upright on the sofa in a shapeless
black cloak with her hands clasped on her
breast. Near her was Ulrica in her trailing white
dressing-gown, her face pressed against the
back of the sofa. In the far corner, the other
side of Fräulein sat Gertrude in her grey ulster,
her knees comfortably crossed, a quilted scarlet
silk bedroom-slipper sticking out under the hem
of her ulster.</p>
<p>The thunder crashed and pounded just above
them. Everyone started and exclaimed. Emma
flung her arms up across her face and sat back in
her chair with a hooting cry. From the sofa
came a hidden sobbing and gasping. “Ach
Himmel! Ach Herr <em>Jé</em>-sus! Ach du <em>lie</em>-ber,
<em>lie</em>-ber Gott!”</p>
<p>Miriam wished they could see the lightning
and be prepared for the crashes. If she were
alone she would watch for the flashes and put
her fingers in her ears after each flash. The
shock of the sound was intolerable to her. Once
<SPAN name="page-241" class="pagenum" title="241"></SPAN>
it had broken, she drank in the tumult joyfully.
She sat tense and miserable longing to get to
bed. She wondered whether it would be of
any use to explain to Fräulein that they would
be safer in their iron bedsteads than anywhere in
the house. She tried to distract her thoughts....
Fancy Jimmie’s name being Christina.... It
suited her exactly sitting there in her little
striped dressing-gown with its “toby” frill.
How Harriett would scream if she could see
them all sitting round. But she and Harriett
had once lain very quiet and frightened in a
storm by the sea—the thunder and lightning
had come together and someone had looked in
and said, “There won’t be another like that,
children.” “My boots, I should hope not,”
Harriett had said.</p>
<p>For a while it seemed as though cannon balls were
being thumped down and rumbled about on the
floor above; then came another deafening crash.
Jimmie laughed and put up her hand to her
loosely-pinned top-knot as if to see whether it
was still there. Outcries came from all over the
room. After the first shock which had made
her sit up sharply and draw herself convulsively
together, Miriam found herself turning towards
<SPAN name="page-242" class="pagenum" title="242"></SPAN>
Solomon Martin who had also stirred and sat
forward. Their eyes met full and consulted.
Solomon’s lips were compressed, her perspiring
face was alight and determined. Miriam felt
that she looked for long into those steady, oily
half-smiling brown eyes. When they both
relaxed she sat back, catching a sympathetic
challenging flash from Gertrude. She drew a
deep breath and felt proud and easy. Let it
bang, she said to herself. I must think of doors
suddenly banging—that never makes me jumpy—and
she sat easily breathing.</p>
<p>Fräulein had said something in German in a
panting voice, and Bertha had stood up and said,
“<em>I’ll</em> get the Bible, Fräulein.”</p>
<p>“Ei! Bewahre! Ber<em>tha</em>!” shouted Clara.
“Stay only here! Stay only here!”</p>
<p>“Nein, Bertha, nein, mein kind,” moaned
Fräulein sadly.</p>
<p>“It’s really perfectly all right, Fräulein,” said
Bertha, getting quietly to the door.</p>
<p>As Fräulein opened the great book on her
knees the rain hissed down into the garden.</p>
<p>“Gott sei Dank,” she said, in a clear child-like
voice. “It dot besser wenn da regnet?”
enquired the housekeeper, looking round the
<SPAN name="page-243" class="pagenum" title="243"></SPAN>
room. She began vigorously wiping her face
and neck with the skirt of the short cotton
jacket she wore over her red petticoat.</p>
<p>Ulrica broke into steady weeping.</p>
<p>Fräulein read Psalms, ejaculating the short
phrases as if they were petitions, with a pause
between each. When the thunder came she
raised her voice against it and read more rapidly.</p>
<p>As the storm began to abate a little party of
English went to the kitchen and brought back
milk and biscuits and jam.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-11"> 11 </h3>
<p>“You will be asleep, Miss Hendershon.” Miriam
started at the sound of Ulrica’s wailing whisper.
Fräulein had only just gone. She had been
sitting on the end of Emma’s bed talking quietly
of self-control and now Emma was asleep.
Ulrica’s corner had been perfectly quiet. Miriam
had been lying listening to the steady swishing
of the rain against the chestnut leaves.</p>
<p>“No; what is it?”</p>
<p>“Oh, most wonderful. Ich bin so empfindlich.
I am so sensible.”</p>
<p>“Sensitive?”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-244" class="pagenum" title="244"></SPAN>
“Oh, it was most wonderful. Only hear and
I shall tell you. This evening when the storm
leave himself down it was exactly as my Konfirmation.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“It was as my Konfirmation. I think of that
wonderful day, my white dress, the flower-bouquet
and how I weeped always. Oh, it was
all of most beautifullest. I am so sensible.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes,” whispered Miriam.</p>
<p>“I weeped so! All day I have weeped!
The all whole day! And my mozzer she console
me I shall not weep. And I weep. Ach!
It was of most beautifullest.”</p>
<p>Miriam felt as if she were being robbed....
This was Ulrica.... “You remember the Konfirmation,
miss?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, I remember.”</p>
<p>“Have you weeped?”</p>
<p>“We say <em>cry</em>, not weep, except in poetry—weinen,
to cry.”</p>
<p>“Have you cry?”</p>
<p>“No, I didn’t cry. But we mustn’t talk. We
must go to sleep. Good night.”</p>
<p>“Gute Nacht. Ach, wie empfindlich bin
ich, wie empfindlich....”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-245" class="pagenum" title="245"></SPAN>
Miriam lay thinking of how she and Harriett
on their confirmation morning had met the
vicar in the Upper Richmond Road, having
gone out, contrary to the desire expressed by
him at his last preparation class, and how he
had stopped and greeted them. She had tried
to look vague and sad and to murmur something
in spite of the bull’s-eye in her cheek and had
suddenly noticed as they stood grouped that
Harriett’s little sugar-loaf hat was askew and her
brown eye underneath it was glaring fixedly at
the vicar above the little knob in her cheek—and
how they somehow got away and went,
gently reeling and colliding, moaning and gasping
down the road out of hearing.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-12"> 12 </h3>
<p>Early next morning Judy came in to tell
Emma and Ulrica to get up at once and come
and help the housekeeper make the rooms tidy
and prepare breakfast. Miriam lay motionless
while Emma unfolded and arranged the screens.
Then she gazed at the ceiling. It was pleasant
to lie tranquil, open-eyed and unchallenged
while others moved busily about. Two separate,
<SPAN name="page-246" class="pagenum" title="246"></SPAN>
sudden and resounding garglings almost startled
her to thought, but she resisted, and presently
she was alone in the strange room. She supposed
it must be cooler after the storm. She felt
strong and languid. She could feel the shape
and weight of each limb; sounds came to her
with perfect distinctness; the sounds downstairs
and a low-voiced conversation across the
landing, little faint marks that human beings
were making on the great wide stillness, the
stillness that brooded along her white ceiling
and all round her and right out through the
world; the faint scent of her soap-tablet reached
her from the distant wash-stand. She felt
that her short sleep must have been perfect,
that it had carried her down and down into
the heart of tranquillity where she still lay awake,
and drinking as if at a source. Cool streams
seemed to be flowing in her brain, through her
heart, through every vein, her breath was like
a live cool stream flowing through her.</p>
<p>She remembered that she had dreamed her
favourite dream—floating through clouds and
above tree-tops and villages. She had almost
brushed the tree-tops, that had been the happiest
moment, and had caught sight of a circular
<SPAN name="page-247" class="pagenum" title="247"></SPAN>
seat round the trunk of a large old tree and a
group of white cottages.</p>
<p>She stirred; her hands seemed warm on her
cool chest and the warmth of her body sent
up a faint pleasant sense of personality. “It’s
me,” she said, and smiled.</p>
<p>“Look here, you’d better get up, my dear,”
she murmured.</p>
<p>She wanted to have the whole world in and
be reconciled. But she knew that if anyone
came, she would contract and the expression of
her face would change and they would hate her
or be indifferent. She knew that if she even
moved she would be changed.</p>
<p>“Get up.”</p>
<p>She listened for a while to two voices across
the landing. Millie’s thick and plaintive with
her hay-fever and Bertha’s thin and cold and
level and reassuring.... Bertha’s voice was
like the morning, clean and cool.... Then
she got up and shut the door.</p>
<p>The sky was a vivid grey—against its dark
background the top of heavy masses of cloud
were standing up just above the roof-line of
the houses beyond the neighbouring gardens.
The trees and the grey roofs and the faces of
<SPAN name="page-248" class="pagenum" title="248"></SPAN>
the houses were staringly bright. They were
absolutely stiff, nothing was moving, there were
no shadows.</p>
<p>A soft distant rumble of thunder came as
she was dressing.... The storm was still
going on ... what an extraordinary time of
day for thunder ... the excitement was not
over ... they were still a besieged party ...
all staying at the Bienenkorb together....
How beautiful it sounded rumbling away over
the country in the morning. When she had
finished struggling with her long thick hair and
put the hairpins into the solid coil on the top
of her head and tied the stout doubled door-knocker
plait at her neck, she put on the rose-madder
blouse. The mirror was lower and twice
as large as the one in the garret, larger than the
one she had shared with Harriett. “How jolly
I look,” she thought, “jolly and big somehow.
Mother would like me this morning. I <em>am</em>
German-looking to-day, pinky red and yellow
hair. But I haven’t got a German expression
and I don’t smile like a German.... She
smiled.... Silly, baby-face! Doll! Never
mind. I look jolly. She looked gravely into
her eyes.... There’s something about my
<SPAN name="page-249" class="pagenum" title="249"></SPAN>
expression.” Her face grew wistful. “It isn’t
vain to like it. It’s something. It isn’t me.
It’s something I am, somehow. Oh, <em>do</em> stay,”
she said, “do be like that always.” She sighed
and turned away saying in Harriett’s voice,
“Oo—crumbs! This is no place for <em>me</em>.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-13"> 13 </h3>
<p>The sky seen from the summer-house was
darker still. There were no massed clouds,
nothing but a hard even dark copper-grey, and
away through the gap the distant country was
bright like a little painted scene. On the horizon
the hard dark sky shut down. At intervals
thunder rumbled evenly, far away. Miriam
stood still in the middle of the summer-house
floor. It was half-dark; the morning saal lay
in a hot sultry twilight. The air in the summer-house
was heavy and damp. She stood with her
half-closed hands gathered against her. “How
perfectly magnificent,” she murmured, gazing
out through the hard half-darkness to where the
brightly coloured world lay in a strip and ended
on the hard sky.</p>
<p>“Yes ... yes,” came a sad low voice at her side.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-250" class="pagenum" title="250"></SPAN>
For a second Miriam did not turn. She drank in
the quiet “yes, yes,” the hard fixed scene seemed
to move. Who loved it too, the dark sky and
the storm? Then she focussed her companion
who was standing a little behind her, and gazed
at Fräulein; she hardly saw her, she seemed
still to see the outdoor picture. Fräulein made
a movement towards her; and then she saw for
a moment the strange grave young look in her
eyes. Fräulein had looked at her in that moment
as an equal. It was as if they had embraced
each other.</p>
<p>Then Fräulein said sadly, “You like the
storm-weather, Miss Henderson.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Fräulein sighed, looking out across the country.
“We are in the hollow of His hand,” she murmured.
“Come to your breakfast, my child,”
she chided, smiling.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-9-14"> 14 </h3>
<p>There was no church. Late in the afternoon
when the sky lifted they all went to the woods
in their summer dresses and hats. They had
permission to carry their gloves and Elsa Speier’s
parasol and lace scarf hung from her wrist. The
<SPAN name="page-251" class="pagenum" title="251"></SPAN>
sky was growing higher and lighter, but there
was no sun. They entered the dark woods by a
little well-swept pathway and for a while there
was a strip of sky above their heads; but
presently the trees grew tall and dense, the sky
was shut out and their footsteps and voices
began to echo about them as they straggled
along, grouping and regrouping as the pathway
widened and narrowed, gathering their skirts
clear of the wet undergrowth. They crossed a
roadway and two carriage loads of men and
women talking and laughing and shouting with
shining red faces passed swiftly by, one close
behind the other. Beyond the roadway the
great trees towered up in a sort of twilight.
There were no flowers here, but bright fungi
shone here and there about the roots of the
trees and they all stood for a moment to
listen to the tinkling of a little stream.</p>
<p>Pathways led away in all directions. It was
growing lighter. There were faint chequers of
light and shade about them as they walked.
The forest was growing golden all round them,
lifting and opening, gold and green, clearer and
clearer. There were bright jewelled patches
in amongst the trees; the boles of the trees
<SPAN name="page-252" class="pagenum" title="252"></SPAN>
shone out sharp grey and silver and flaked
with sharp green leaves away and away until
they melted into a mist of leafage. Singing
sounded suddenly away in the wood; a sudden
strong shouting of men’s voices singing together
like one voice in four parts, four shouts in one
sound.</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“O <em>Sonn</em>enschein! O <em>Sonn</em>enschein!”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>Between the two exclamatory shouts, the echo
rang through the woods and the listening girls
heard the sharp drip, drip and murmur of the
little stream near by, then the voices swung
on into the song, strongly interwoven, swelling
and lifting; dropping to a soft even staccato
and swelling strongly out again.</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“Wie scheinst du mir in’s Herz hinein,</p>
<p class="verse">Weck’st drinnen lauter Liebeslust,</p>
<p class="verse">Dass mir so enge wird die Brust</p>
<p class="verse">O <em>Sonn</em>enschein! O <em>Sonn</em>—enschein!”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>When the voices ceased there was a faint distant
sound of crackling twigs and the echo of talking
and laughter.</p>
<p>“Ach Studenten!”</p>
<p>“Irgend ein Männergesangverein.”</p>
<p>“I think we ought to get back, Gertrude.
<SPAN name="page-253" class="pagenum" title="253"></SPAN>
Fräulein <em>said</em> only an hour altogether and it’s
church to-night.”</p>
<p>“We’ll get back, Millenium mine—never
fear.”</p>
<p>As they began to retrace their steps Clara
softly sang the last line of the song, the highest
note ringing, faint and clear, away into the wood.</p>
<p>“Ho-lah!” A mighty answering shout rang
through the wood. It was like a word of command.</p>
<p>“Oh, come along home; Clara, what are you
dreaming of?”</p>
<p>“Taisez-vous, taisez-vous, Clarah! C’est
honteux mon Dieu!”</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-10"> <SPAN name="page-254" class="pagenum" title="254"></SPAN> CHAPTER IX </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-10-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> next afternoon they all drove in a high,
wide brake with an awning, five miles
out into the country to have tea at a forest-inn.
The inn appeared at last standing back from the
wide roadway along which they had come,
creamy-white and grey-roofed, long and low
and with overhanging eaves, close against the
forest. They pulled up and Pastor Lahmann
dropped the steps and got out. Miriam who was
sitting next to the door felt that the long sitting
in two rows confronted in the hard afternoon
light, bumped and shaken and teased with the
crunchings and slitherings of the wheels the
grinding and squeaking of the brake, had made
them all enemies. She had sat tense and averted,
seeing the general greenery, feeling that the cool
flowing air might be great happiness, conscious
of each form and each voice, of the insincerity
of the exclamations and the babble of conversation
<SPAN name="page-255" class="pagenum" title="255"></SPAN>
that struggled above the noise of their
going, half seeing Pastor Lahmann opposite
to her, a little insincerely smiling man in an
alpaca suit and a soft felt hat. She got down
the steps without his assistance. With whom
should she take refuge? ... no Minna. There
were long tables and little round tables standing
about under the trees in front of the inn. Some
students in Polytechnik uniform were leaning
out of an upper window.</p>
<p>The landlord came out. Everyone was out
of the brake and standing about. Tall Fräulein
was taking short padding steps towards the inn-door.
A strong grip came on Miriam’s arm and
she was propelled rapidly along towards the
farther greenery. Gertrude was talking to her
in loud rallying tones, asking questions in German
and answering them herself. Miriam glanced
round at her face. It was crimson and quivering
with laughter. The strong laughter and her
strong features seemed to hide the peculiar
roughness of her skin and coarseness of her hair.
They made the round of one of the long tables.
When they were on the far side Gertrude said,
“I think you’ll see a friend of mine to-day,
Henderson.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-256" class="pagenum" title="256"></SPAN>
“D’you mean Erica’s brother?”</p>
<p>“There’s his chum anyhow at yondah window.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I say.”</p>
<p>“Hah! Spree, eh? Happy thought of
Lily’s to bring us here.”</p>
<p>Miriam pondered, distressed. “You must
tell me which it is if we see him.”</p>
<p>Their party was taking possession of a long
table near by. Returning to her voluble talk,
Gertrude steered Miriam towards them.</p>
<p>As they settled round the table under the
quiet trees the first part of the waltz movement
of Weber’s “Invitation” sounded out through
the upper window. The brilliant tuneless passages
bounding singly up the piano, flowing
down entwined, were shaped by an iron rhythm.</p>
<p>Everyone stirred. Smiles broke. Fräulein
lifted her head until her chin was high, smiled
slowly until the fullest width was reached and
made a little chiding sound in her throat.</p>
<p>Pastor Lahmann laughed with raised eyebrows.
“Ah! la valse ... les étudiants.”</p>
<p>The window was empty. The assault settled
into a gently-leaping, heavily-thudding waltz.</p>
<p>As the waiter finished clattering down a circle
of cups and saucers in front of Fräulein, the
<SPAN name="page-257" class="pagenum" title="257"></SPAN>
unseen iron hands dropped tenderly into the
central melody of the waltz. The notes no
longer bounded and leaped but went dreaming
along in an even slow swinging movement.</p>
<p>It seemed to Miriam that the sound of a
far-off sea was in them, and the wind and the
movement of distant trees and the shedding and
pouring of far-away moonlight. One by one,
delicately and quietly the young men’s voices
dropped in, and the sea and the wind and the
trees and the pouring moonlight came near.</p>
<p>When the music ceased Miriam hoped she had
not been gazing at the window. It frightened
and disgusted her to see that all the girls seemed
to be sitting up and ... being bright ... affected.
She could hardly believe it. She flushed with
shame.... Fast, horrid ... perfect strangers ...
it was terrible ... it spoilt everything. Sitting
up like that and grimacing.... It was different
for Gertrude. How happy Gertrude must be.
She was sitting with her elbows on the table
laughing out across the table about something....
Millie was not being horrid. She looked just
as usual, pudgy and babyish and surprised and
half resentful ... it was her eyebrows. Miriam
began looking at eyebrows.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-258" class="pagenum" title="258"></SPAN>
There was a sudden silence all round the table.
Standing at Fräulein’s side was a young student
holding his peaked cap in his hand and bowing
with downcast eyes. Above his pallid scarred
face his hair stood upright. He bowed at the
end of each phrase. Miriam’s heart bounded in
anticipation. Would Fräulein let them dance
after tea, on the grass?</p>
<p>But Fräulein with many smiles and kind words
denied the young man’s formally repeated pleadings.
They finished tea to the strains of a funeral
march.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-10-2"> 2 </h3>
<p>They were driving swiftly along through the
twilight. The warm scents of the woods stood
across the roadway. They breathed them in.
Sitting at the forward end of the brake, Miriam
could turn and see the shining of the road and
the edges of the high woods.</p>
<p>Underneath the awning, faces were growing
dim. Warm at her side was Emma. Emma’s
hand was on her arm under a mass of fern and
grasses. Voices quivered and laughed. Miriam
looked again and again at Pastor Lahmann sitting
almost opposite to her, next to Fräulein Pfaff.
<SPAN name="page-259" class="pagenum" title="259"></SPAN>
She could look at him more easily than at either
of the girls. She felt that only he could feel the
beauty of the evening exactly as she did. Several
times she met and quietly contemplated his dark
eyes. She felt that there was someone in those
eyes who was neither tiresome nor tame. She
was looking at someone to whom those boys and
that dead wife were nothing. At first he had
met her eyes formally, then with obvious embarrassment,
and at last simply and gravely. She
felt easy and happy in this communion. Dimly
she was conscious that it sustained her, it gave
her dignity and poise. She thought that its
meaning must, if she observed it at all, be quite
obvious to Fräulein and must reveal her to her.
Presently her eyes were drawn to meet Fräulein’s
and she read there a disgust and a loathing such
as she had never seen. The woods receded, the
beauty dropped out of them. The crunching
of the wheels sounded out suddenly. What was
the good of the brake-load of grimacing people?
Miriam wanted to stop it and get out and stroll
home along the edge of the wood with the quiet
man.</p>
<p>“Haben die Damen vielleicht ein Rad verloren?”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-260" class="pagenum" title="260"></SPAN>
A deep voice on the steps of the brake....
“Have the ladies lost a wheel, perhaps?” Miriam
translated helplessly to herself during a general
outbreak of laughter....</p>
<p>In a moment a brake overtook them and drove
alongside in the twilight. The drivers whipped
up their horses. The two vehicles raced and
rumbled along keeping close together. Fräulein
called to their driver to desist. The students
slackened down too and began singing at random,
one against the other; those on the near
side standing up and bowing and laughing.
A bouquet of fern fronds came in over Judy’s
head, missing the awning and falling against
Clara’s knees. She rose and flung it back and
then everyone seemed to be standing up and
laughing and throwing.</p>
<p>They drove home, slowly, side by side, shouting
and singing and throwing. Warm, blinding
masses of fragrant grass came from the students’
brake and were thrown to and fro through the
darkness lit by the lamps of the two carriages.</p>
<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-11"> <SPAN name="page-261" class="pagenum" title="261"></SPAN> CHAPTER X </h2>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-1"> 1 </h3>
<p class="first">
<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">owards</span> the end of June there were
frequent excursions.</p>
<p>Into all the gatherings at Waldstrasse the
outside world came like a presence. It removed
the sense of pressure, of being confronted and
challenged. Everything that was said seemed
to be incidental to it, like remarks dropped in
a low tone between individuals at a great conference.</p>
<p>Miriam wondered again and again whether her
companions shared this sense with her. Sometimes
when they were all sitting together she
longed to ask, to find out, to get some public
acknowledgment of the magic that lay over
everything. At times it seemed as if could they
all be still for a moment—it must take shape.
It was everywhere, in the food, in the fragrance
rising from the opened lid of the tea-urn, in
all the needful unquestioned movements, the
<SPAN name="page-262" class="pagenum" title="262"></SPAN>
requests, the handings and thanks, the going
from room to room, the partings and assemblings.
It hung about the fabrics and fittings of the
house. Overwhelmingly it came in through
oblongs of window giving on to stairways.
Going upstairs in the light pouring in from some
uncurtained window, she would cease for a
moment to breathe.</p>
<p>Whenever she found herself alone she began
to sing, softly. When she was with others a
head drooped or lifted, the movement of a hand,
the light falling along the detail of a profile
could fill her with happiness.</p>
<p>It made companionship a perpetual question.
At rare moments there would come a tingling
from head to foot, a faint buzzing at her lips
and at the tip of each finger. At these moments
she could raise her eyes calmly to those about
her and drink in the fact of their presence, see
them all with perfect distinctness, but without
distinguishing one from the other. She
wanted to say, “Isn’t it extraordinary? Do you
realise?” She felt that if only she could make
her meaning clear all difficulties must vanish.
Outside in the open, going forward to some
goal through sunny mornings, gathering at inns,
<SPAN name="page-263" class="pagenum" title="263"></SPAN>
wading through the scented undergrowth of
the woods, she would dream of the secure
return to Waldstrasse, their own beleaguered
place. She saw it opening out warm and familiar
back and back to the strange beginning in the
winter. They would be there again to-night,
singing.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-2"> 2 </h3>
<p>One morning she knew that there was going
to be a change. The term was coming to an
end. There was to be a going away. The girls
were talking about “Norderney.”</p>
<p>“Going to Norderney, Hendy?” Jimmie said
suddenly.</p>
<p>“Ah!” she responded mysteriously. For the
rest of that day she sat contracted and fearful.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-3"> 3 </h3>
<p>“You shall write and enquire of your good
parents what they would have you do. You shall
tell them that the German pupils return all to
their homes; that the English pupils go for a
happy holiday to the sea.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-264" class="pagenum" title="264"></SPAN>
“Oh yes,” said Miriam conversationally, with
trembling breath.</p>
<p>“It is of course evident that since you will
have no duties to perform, I cannot support
the expense of your travelling and your maintenance.”</p>
<p>“Oh no, of course not,” said Miriam, her hands
pressed against her knee.</p>
<p>She sat shivering in the warm dim saal shaded
by the close sun-blinds. It looked as she had
seen it with her father for the first time and
Fräulein sitting near seemed to be once more
in the heavy panniered blue velvet dress.</p>
<p>She waited stiff and ugly till Fräulein, secure
and summer-clad, spoke softly again.</p>
<p>“You think, my child, you shall like the profession
of a teacher?”</p>
<p>“Oh yes,” said Miriam, from the midst of a
tingling flush.</p>
<p>“I think you have many qualities that make
the teacher.... You are earnest and serious-minded....
Grave.... Sometimes perhaps
overgrave for your years.... But you have a
serious fault—which must be corrected if you
wish to succeed in your calling.”</p>
<p>Miriam tried to pull her features into an easy
<SPAN name="page-265" class="pagenum" title="265"></SPAN>
enquiring seriousness. A darkness was threatening
her. “You have a most unfortunate manner.”</p>
<p>Without relaxing, Miriam quivered. She felt
the blood mount to her head.</p>
<p>“You must adopt a quite, quite different
manner. Your influence is, I think, good, a good
English influence in its most general effect.
But it is too slightly so and of too much indirection.
You must exert it yourself, in a
manner more alive, you must make it your aim
that you shall have a responsible influence, a
direct personal influence. You have too much
of chill and formality. It makes a stiffness that
I am willing to believe you do not intend.”</p>
<p>Miriam felt a faint dizziness.</p>
<p>“If you should fail to become more genial,
more simple and natural as to your bearing,
you will neither make yourself understood nor
will you be loved by your pupils.”</p>
<p>“No——” responded Miriam, assuming an
air of puzzled and interested consideration of
Fräulein’s words. She was recovering. She
must get to the end of the interview and get
away and find the answer. Far away beneath
her fear and indignation, Fräulein was answered.
She must get away and say the answer to herself.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-266" class="pagenum" title="266"></SPAN>
“To truly fulfil the most serious rôle of the
teacher you must enter into the personality
of each pupil and must sympathise with the
struggles of each one upon the path on which
our feet are set. Efforts to good kindliness and
thought for others must be encouraged. The
teacher shall be sunshine, human sunshine,
encouraging all effort and all lovely things in
the personality of the pupil.”</p>
<p>Fräulein rose and stood, tall. Then her half-tottering
decorous footsteps began. Miriam
had hardly listened to her last words. She felt
tears of anger rising and tried to smile.</p>
<p>“I shall say now no more. But when you shall
hear from your good parents, we can further
discuss our plans.” Fräulein was at the door.</p>
<p>Fräulein left the saal by the small door and
Miriam felt her way to the schoolroom. The
girls were gathering there ready for a walk.
Some were in the hall and Fräulein’s voice
was giving instructions: “Machen Sie schnell,
Miss Henderson,” she called.</p>
<p>Fräulein had never before called to her like
that. It had always been as if she did not see
her but assumed her ready to fall in with the
general movements.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-267" class="pagenum" title="267"></SPAN>
Now it was Fräulein calling to her as she
might do to Gertrude or Solomon. There was
no hurried whisper from Jimmie telling her to
“fly for her life.”</p>
<p>“Ja, Fräulein,” she cried gaily and blundered
towards the basement stairs. Mademoiselle was
standing averted at the head of them; Miriam
glanced at her. Her face was red and swollen
with crying.</p>
<p>The sight amazed Miriam. She considered the
swollen suffusion under the large black hat as
she ran downstairs. She hoped Mademoiselle
did not see her glance.... Mademoiselle,
standing there all disfigured and blotchy about
something ... it was nothing ... it couldn’t
be anything.... If anyone were dead she would
not be standing there ... it was just some
silly prim French quirk ... her dignity ...
someone had been “grossière” ... and there
she stood in her black hat and black cotton
gloves.... Hurriedly putting on her hat and
long lace scarf she decided that she would not
change her shoes. Somewhere out in the sunshine
a hurdy-gurdy piped out the air of “Dass
du mich liebst das wusst ich.” She glanced at
the frosted barred window through which the
<SPAN name="page-268" class="pagenum" title="268"></SPAN>
dim light came into the dressing-room. The
piping notes, out of tune, wrongly emphasised,
slurring one into the other, followed her across
the dark basement hall and came faintly to her
as she went slowly upstairs. There was no hurry.
Everyone was talking busily in the hall, drowning
the sound of her footsteps. She had forgotten
her gloves. She went back into the cool grey
musty rooms. A little crack in an upper pane
shone like a gold thread. The barrel-organ
piped. As she stooped to gather up her gloves
from the floor she felt the cold stone firm and
secure under her hand. And the house stood
up all round her with its rooms and the light
lying along stairways and passages, and outside
the bright hot sunshine and the roadways
leading in all directions, out into Germany.</p>
<p>How could Fräulein possibly think she could
afford to go to Norderney? They would all go.
Things would go on. She could not go there—nor
back to England. It was cruel ... just
torture and worry again ... with the bright
house all round her—the high rooms, the dark
old pianos, strange old garret, the unopened
door beyond it. No help anywhere.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-4"> <SPAN name="page-269" class="pagenum" title="269"></SPAN> 4 </h3>
<p>As they walked she laughed and talked with
the girls, responding excitedly to all that was
said. They walked along a broad and almost
empty boulevard in two rows of four and five
abreast, with Mademoiselle and Judy bringing
up the rear. The talk was general and there
was much laughter. It was the kind of interchange
that arose when they were all together
and there was anything “in the air,” the kind
that Miriam most disliked. She joined in it
feverishly. It’s perfectly natural that they
should all be excited about the holidays she told
herself, stifling her thoughts. But it must not
go too far. They wanted to be jolly.... If I
could be jolly too they would like me. I must
not be a wet blanket.... Mademoiselle’s voice
was not heard. Miriam felt that the steering
of the conversation might fall to anyone. Mademoiselle
was extinguished. She must exert her
influence. Presently she forgot Mademoiselle’s
presence altogether. They were all walking
along very quickly.... If she <em>were</em> going to
Norderney with the English girls she must be
on easy terms with them.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-270" class="pagenum" title="270"></SPAN>
“Ah, ha!” somebody was saying.</p>
<p>“Oh—ho!” said Miriam in response.</p>
<p>“Ih—hi!” came another voice.</p>
<p>“Tre-la-la,” trilled Bertha Martin gently.</p>
<p>“You mean Turrah-lahee-tee,” said Miriam.</p>
<p>“Good for you, Hendy,” blared Gertrude, in
a swinging middle tone.</p>
<p>“Chalk it up. Chalk it up, children,” giggled
Jimmie.</p>
<p>Millie looked pensively about her with vague
disapproval. Her eyebrows were up. It seemed
as if anything might happen; as if at any moment
they might all begin running in different directions.</p>
<p>“<em>Cave</em>, my dear brats, be artig,” came Bertha’s
cool even tones.</p>
<p>“Ah! we are observed.”</p>
<p>“No, we are not observed. The observer
observeth not.”</p>
<p>Miriam saw her companions looking across
the boulevard.</p>
<p>Following their eyes she found the figure of
Pastor Lahmann walking swiftly bag in hand in
the direction of an opening into a side street.</p>
<p>“Ah!” she cried gaily. “Voilà Monsieur;
courrez, Mademoiselle!”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-271" class="pagenum" title="271"></SPAN>
At once she felt that it was cruel to draw
attention to Mademoiselle when she was dumpy
and upset.</p>
<p>“What a fool I am,” she moaned in her mind.
“Why can’t I say the right thing?”</p>
<p>“Ce n’est pas moi,” said Mademoiselle, “qui
fait les <SPAN name="corr-31"></SPAN>avances.”</p>
<p>The group walked on for a moment or two in
silence. Bertha Martin was swinging her left
foot out across the curb with each step, giving
her right heel a little twirl to keep her
balance.</p>
<p>“You are very clever Bair-ta,” said Mademoiselle,
still in French, “but you will never
make a prima ballerina.”</p>
<p>“Hulloh!” breathed Jimmie, “she’s perking
up.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t she,” said Miriam, feeling that she
was throwing away the last shred of her dignity.</p>
<p>“What was the matter?” she continued,
trying to escape from her confusion.</p>
<p>Mademoiselle’s instant response to her cry
at the sight of Pastor Lahmann rang in her
ears. She blushed to the soles of her feet....
How could Mademoiselle misunderstand her
<SPAN name="page-272" class="pagenum" title="272"></SPAN>
insane remark? What did she mean? What
did she really think of her? Just kind old
Lahmann—walking along there in the outside
world.... <em>She</em> did not want to stop him....
He was a sort of kinsman for Mademoiselle ...
that was what she had meant. Oh, why couldn’t
she get away from all these girls? ... indeed—and
again she saw the hurrying figure which had
disappeared leaving the boulevard with its usual
effect of a great strange ocean—he could have
brought help and comfort to all of them if he
had seen them and stopped. Pastor Lahmann—Lahmann—perhaps
she would not see him
again. Perhaps he could tell her what she
ought to do.</p>
<p>“Oh, my dear,” Jimmie was saying, “didn’t
you know?—a <em>fearful</em> row.”</p>
<p>Mademoiselle’s laughter tinkled out from the
rear.</p>
<p>“A row?”</p>
<p>“Fearful!” Jimmie’s face came round, round-eyed
under her white sailor hat that sat slightly
tilted on the peak of her hair.</p>
<p>“What about?”</p>
<p>“Something about a letter or something, or
some letters or something—I don’t know. Something
<SPAN name="page-273" class="pagenum" title="273"></SPAN>
she took out of the letter-box, it was unlocked
or something and Ulrica saw her <em>and told
Lily</em>!”</p>
<p>“Goodness!” breathed Miriam.</p>
<p>“Yes, and Lily had her in her room and
Ulrica and poor little Petite couldn’t deny it.
Ulrica said she did nothing but cry and cry.
She’s been crying all the morning, poor little
pig.”</p>
<p>“Why did she want to take anything out of
the box?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t know. There was a fearful
row anyhow. Ulrica said Lily talked like a
clergyman—wie ein Pfarrer.... I don’t know.
Ulrica said she was <em>opening</em> a letter. <em>I</em> don’t
know.”</p>
<p>“But she can’t read German or English....”</p>
<p>“<em>I</em> don’t know. Ask me another.”</p>
<p>“It is <em>extraordinary</em>.”</p>
<p>“What’s extraordinary?” asked Bertha from
the far side of Jimmie.</p>
<p>“Petite and that letter.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“What did the Kiddy <em>want</em>?”</p>
<p>“Oh, my dear, don’t ask me to explain the
peculiarities of the French temperament.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-274" class="pagenum" title="274"></SPAN>
“Yes, but all the letters in the letter-box
would be English or German, as Hendy says.”</p>
<p>Bertha glanced at Miriam. Miriam flushed.
She could not discuss Mademoiselle with two
of the girls at once.</p>
<p>“Rum go,” said Bertha.</p>
<p>“You’re right, my son. It’s rum. It’s all
over now, anyhow. There’s no accounting for
tastes. Poor old Petite.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-5"> 5 </h3>
<p>Miriam woke in the moonlight. She saw
Mademoiselle’s face as it had looked at tea-time,
pale and cruel, silent and very old. Someone
had said she had been in Fräulein’s room again
all the afternoon.... Fräulein had spoken to
her once or twice during tea. She had answered
coolly and eagerly ... disgusting ... like
a child that had been whipped and forgiven....
How could Fräulein dare to forgive anybody?</p>
<p>She lay motionless. The night was cool. The
screens had not been moved. She felt that the
door was shut. After a while she began in
imagination a conversation with Eve.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-275" class="pagenum" title="275"></SPAN>
“You <em>see</em> the trouble was,” she said and saw
Eve’s downcast believing admiring sympathetic
face, “Fräulein talked to me about manner,
she simply wanted me to grimace, <em>simply</em>. <em>You</em>
know—be like other people.”</p>
<p>Eve laughed. “Yes, I know.”</p>
<p>“You see? <em>Simply.</em>”</p>
<p>“Well, if you wanted to stay, why couldn’t
you?”</p>
<p>“I simply couldn’t; you know how people
are.”</p>
<p>“But you can act so splendidly.”</p>
<p>“But you can’t keep it up.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>“<em>Eve.</em> There you are, you see, you always go
back.”</p>
<p>“I mean I think it would be simply lovely.
If I were clever like you I should do it all the
time, be simply always gushing and ‘charming.’”</p>
<p>Then she reminded Eve of the day they had
walked up the lane to the Heath talking over
all the manners they would like to have—and
how Sarah suddenly in the middle of supper
had caricatured the one they had chosen. “Of
course you overdid it,” she concluded, and Eve
crimsoned and said, “Oh yes, I know it was my
<SPAN name="page-276" class="pagenum" title="276"></SPAN>
fault. But you could have begun all over again
in Germany and been quite different.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I know I thought about that.... But
if you knew as much of the world as I do....”</p>
<p>Eve stared, showing a faint resentment.</p>
<p>Miriam thought of Eve’s many suitors, of
her six months’ betrothal, of her lifelong peace-making,
her experiment in being governess to
the two children of an artist—a little green-robed
boy threatening her with a knife.</p>
<p>“Yes, but I mean if you had been about.”</p>
<p>“I know,” smiled Eve confidently. “You
mean if I were you. Go on. I know. Explain,
old thing.”</p>
<p>“Well, I mean of course if you are a governess
in a school you <em>can’t</em> be jolly and charming. You
can’t be idiotic or anything.... I did think
about it. Don’t tell anybody. But I thought
for a little while I might go into a family—one
of the girls’ families—the German girls, and
begin having a German manner. Two of the
girls asked me. One of them was ill and went
away—that Pomeranian one I told you about.
Well, then, I didn’t tell you about that little
one and her sister—they asked me to go to them
for the holidays. The youngest said—it was <em>so</em>
<SPAN name="page-277" class="pagenum" title="277"></SPAN>
absurd—‘you shall marry my bruzzer—he is
mairchant—very welty’—absurd.”</p>
<p>“<em>Not</em> absurd—you probably <em>would</em> have, away
from that school.”</p>
<p>“D’you think so?”</p>
<p>“Yes, you would have been a regular German,
fat and jolly and laughing.”</p>
<p>“I know. My dear I thought about it. You
may imagine. I wondered if I ought.”</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you try?”</p>
<p>Why not? Why was she not going to try?
Eve would, she was sure in her place....</p>
<p>Why not grimace and be very “bright” and
“animated” until the end of the term and then
go and stay with the Bergmanns for two months
and be as charming as she could?... Her heart
sank.... She imagined a house, everyone kind
and blond and smiling. Emma’s big tall brother
smiling and joking and liking her. She would
laugh and pretend and flirt like the Pooles and
make up to him—and it would be lovely for a
little while. Then she would offend someone.
She would offend everyone but Emma—and
get tired and cross and lose her temper. Stare
at them all as they said the things everybody
said, the things she hated; and she would sit
<SPAN name="page-278" class="pagenum" title="278"></SPAN>
glowering, and suddenly refuse to allow the
women to be familiar with her.... She tried
to see the brother more clearly. She looked at
the screen. The Bergmanns’ house would be
full of German furniture.... At the end of a
week every bit of it would reproach her.</p>
<p>She tried to imagine him without the house
and the family, not talking or joking or pretending
... alone and sad ... despising his family
... needing her. He loved forests and music.
He had a great strong solid voice and was strong
and sure about everything and she need never
worry any more.</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“Seit ich ihn gesehen</p>
<p class="verse">Glaub’ ich blind zu sein.”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>There would be a garden and German springs
and summers and sunsets and strong kind arms
and a shoulder. She would grow so happy.
No one would recognise her as the same person.
She would wear a band of turquoise-blue velvet
ribbon round her hair and look at the mountains....
No good. She could never get out to that.
Never. She could not pretend long enough.
Everything would be at an end long before
there was any chance of her turning into a happy
German woman.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-279" class="pagenum" title="279"></SPAN>
Certainly with a German man she would be
angry at once. She thought of the men she had
seen—in the streets, in cafés and gardens, the
masters in the school, photographs in the girls’
albums. They had all offended her at once.
Something in their bearing and manner....
Blind and impudent.... She thought of the
interview she had witnessed between Ulrica and
her cousin—the cousin coming up from the estate
in Erfurth, arriving in a carriage, Fräulein’s
manner, her smiles and hints; Ulrica standing
in the saal in her sprigged saffron muslin dress
curtseying ... with bent head, the cousin’s
condescending laughing voice. It would never
do for her to go into a German home. She must
not say anything about the chance of going to
the Bergmanns’—even to Eve.</p>
<p>She imagined Eve sitting listening in the
window space in the bow that was carpeted
with linoleum to look like parquet flooring.
Beyond them lay the length of the Turkey carpet
darkening away under the long table. She could
see each object on the shining sideboard. The
silver biscuit-box and the large épergne made her
feel guilty and shifting, guilty from the beginning
of things.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-280" class="pagenum" title="280"></SPAN>
“You see, Eve, I thought counting it all up
that if I came home it would cost less than
going to Norderney and that all the expense of
my going to Germany and coming back is less
than what it would have cost to keep me at home
for the five months I’ve been there—I wish
you’d tell everybody that.”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-6"> 6 </h3>
<p>She turned about in bed; her head was growing
fevered.</p>
<p>She conjured up a vision of the backs of the
books in the bookcase in the dining-room at
home.... Iliad and Odyssey ... people going
over the sea in boats and someone doing embroidery
... that little picture of Hector and
Andromache in the corner of a page ... he in
armour ... she, in a trailing dress, holding
up her baby. Both, silly.... She wished she
had read more carefully. She could not remember
anything in Lecky or Darwin that would tell
her what to do ... Hudibras ... The
Atomic Theory ... Ballads and Poems, D. G.
Rossetti ... <SPAN name="corr-32"></SPAN>Kinglake’s Crimea ... Palgrave’s
Arabia ... Crimea.... The Crimea....
<SPAN name="page-281" class="pagenum" title="281"></SPAN>
Florence Nightingale; a picture somewhere;
a refined face, with cap and strings.... She
must have smiled.... Motley’s Rise of ...
Rise of ... Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic....
Motley’s Rise of the Dutch
Republic and the Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta
family. She held to the memory of these
two books. Something was coming from them
to her. She handled the shiny brown gold-tooled
back of Motley’s Rise and felt the hard
graining of the red-bound Chronicles.... There
were green trees outside in the moonlight
... in Luther’s Germany ... trees and fields
and German towns and then Holland. She
breathed more easily. Her eyes opened serenely.
Tranquil moonlight lay across the room. It
surprised her like a sudden hand stroking her
brow. It seemed to feel for her heart. If she
gave way to it her thoughts would go. Perhaps
she ought to watch it and let her thoughts go.
It passed over her trouble like her mother did
when she said, “Don’t go so deeply into everything,
chickie. You must learn to take life as
it comes. Ah-eh if I were strong I could show
you how to enjoy life....” Delicate little
mother, running quickly downstairs clearing her
<SPAN name="page-282" class="pagenum" title="282"></SPAN>
throat to sing. But mother did not know. She
had no reasoning power. She could not help
because she did not know. The moonlight was
sad and hesitating. Miriam closed her eyes
again. Luther ... pinning up that notice on
a church door.... (Why is Luther like a
dyspeptic blackbird? Because the Diet of
<SPAN name="corr-33"></SPAN>Worms did not agree with him) ... and then
leaving the notice on the church door and
going home to tea ... coffee ... some evening
meal ... Käthe ... Käthe ... happy
Käthe.... They pinned up that notice on a
Roman Catholic church ... and all the priests
looked at them ... and behind the priests
were torture and dark places ... Luther
looking up to God ... saying you couldn’t
get away from your sins by paying money
... standing out in the world and Käthe
making the meal at home ... Luther was fat
and German. Perhaps his face perspired ...
Eine feste Burg; a firm fortress ... a round
tower made of old brown bricks and no windows....
No need for Käthe to smile.... She had
been a nun ... and then making a lamplit
meal for Luther in a wooden German house ...
and Rome waiting to kill them.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-283" class="pagenum" title="283"></SPAN>
Darwin had come since then. There were
people ... distinguished minds, who thought
Darwin was true.</p>
<p>No God. No Creation. The struggle for
existence. Fighting.... Fighting.... Fighting....
Everybody groping and fighting....
Fräulein.... Some said it was true ... some
not. They could not both be right. It was
probably true ... only old-fashioned people
thought it was not. It was true. Just that—monkeys
fighting. But who began it? Who
made Fräulein? Tough leathery monkey....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-7"> 7 </h3>
<p>Then nothing matters. Just one little short
life....</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“A few more years shall roll ...</p>
<p class="verse">A few more seasons pass....”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>There was a better one than that ... not so
organ-grindery.</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">“Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;</p>
<p class="verse">Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories fade away;</p>
<p class="verse">Change and decay in all around I see.”</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>Wow-wow-wow-whiney-caterwauley....</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-284" class="pagenum" title="284"></SPAN>
Mr. Brough quoted Milton in a sermon and
said he was a materialist.... Pater said it was
a bold thing to say.... Mr. Brough was a
clear-headed man. She couldn’t imagine how
he stayed in the Church.... She hoped he
hated that sickening, sickening, idiot humbug,
Eve ... meek ... with silly long hair ...
“divinely smiling” ... Adam was like a German
... English too.... Impudent bombastic creature
... a sort of man who would call his wife “my
dear.” There was a hymn that even Pater liked
... the tune was like a garden in the autumn....</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="verse">O ... Strengthen<SPAN name="corr-34"></SPAN> and <em>Stay</em>—up— ... Holding—all</p>
<p class="verse">Cre—ay—ay—tion.... Who ... ever Dost</p>
<p class="verse">Thy ... self—un ... Moved—a—Bide....</p>
<p class="verse">Thyself unmoved abide ... Thyself unmoved</p>
<p class="verse">abide ... Unmoved abide....</p>
<p class="verse">Unmoved abide.... Unmoved Abide ...</p>
</div>
</div></div>
<p>... Flights of shining steps, shallow and very
wide—going up and up and growing fainter and
fainter, and far away at the top a faint old face
with great rays shooting out all round it ...
the picture in the large “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
... God in heaven.... I belong to Apollyon
... a horror with expressionless eyes ... darting
out little spiky flames ... if only it would
<SPAN name="page-285" class="pagenum" title="285"></SPAN>
come now ... instead of waiting until the
end....</p>
<p>She clasped her hands closely one in the other.
They felt large and strong. She stopped her
thoughts and stared for a long while at the faint
light in the room.... “It’s physically impossible”
someone had said ... the only hell
thinkable is remorse ... remorse....</p>
<p>Sighing impatiently she turned about ... and
sighed again, breathing deeply and rattling and
feeling very hungry.... There will be breakfast,
even for me.... If they knew me they would
not give me breakfast.... No one would ... I
should be in a little room and one after another
would come and be reproachful and shocked ...
and then they would go away and be happy and
forget....</p>
<p>Sarah would come. Whatever it was, Sarah
would come. She read the Bible and marked
pieces.... But she would rush in without saying
anything, with a red face and bang down a plate
of melon.... What did God do about people
like Sarah? Perhaps Apollyon could be made
to come at once—sweeping in like a large bat—be
torn to bits—those men at that college said
he had come to them. They swore—one after
<SPAN name="page-286" class="pagenum" title="286"></SPAN>
the other and the devil came in through one of
the carved windows and carried one of them
away.... I have my doubts ... Pater’s face
laughing—I have my doubts, ooof—P-ooof.
She flung off the outer covering and felt the
strong movements of her limbs. Hang! Hang!
<em>Hang!</em> <span class="sc">Damn</span>....</p>
<p>If there’s no God, there’s no Devil ... and
everything goes on.... Fräulein goes on having
her school.... What does she really think?...
Out in the world people don’t think.... They
grimace.... Is there anywhere where there are
no people? ... be a gipsy.... There are always
people....</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-8"> 8 </h3>
<p>“What a perfect morning ... what a perfect
morning,” Miriam kept telling herself, trying to
see into the garden. There was a bowl of irises
on the breakfast-table—it made everything seem
strange. There had never been flowers on the
table before. There was also a great dish of
pumpernickel besides the usual food. Fräulein
had enjoined silence. The silence made the
impression of the irises stay. She hoped it might
be a new rule. She glanced at Fräulein two or
<SPAN name="page-287" class="pagenum" title="287"></SPAN>
three times. She was pallid white. Her face
looked thinner than usual and her eyes larger
and keener. She did not seem to notice anyone.
Miriam wondered whether she were thinking
about cancer. Her face looked as it had done
when once or twice she had said, “Ich bin so
bange vor Krebs.” She hoped not. Perhaps it
was the problem of evil. Perhaps she had thought
of it when she put the irises on the table.</p>
<p>She gazed at them, half-feeling the flummery
petals against the palm of her hand. Fräulein
seemed cancelled. There was no need to feel
self-conscious. She was not thinking of any of
them. Miriam found herself looking at high
grey stone basins, with ornamental stems like
wine-glasses and large square fluted pedestals,
filled with geraniums and calceolarias. They had
stood in the sunshine at the corners of the lawn
in her grandmother’s garden. She could remember
nothing else but the scent of a greenhouse
and its steamy panes over her head ...
lemon thyme and scented geranium.</p>
<p>How lovely it would be to-day at the end of
the day. Fräulein would feel happy then ...
or did elderly people fear cancer all the time....
It was a great mistake. You should leave
<SPAN name="page-288" class="pagenum" title="288"></SPAN>
things to Nature.... You were more likely to
have things if you thought about them. But
Fräulein would think and worry ... alone with
herself ... with her great dark eyes and bony
forehead and thin pale cheeks ... always alone,
and just cancer coming ... I shall be like that
one day ... an old teacher and cancer coming.
It was silly to forget all about it and see Granny’s
calceolarias in the sun ... all that had to come
to an end.... To forget was like putting off
repentance. Those who did not put it off saw
when the great waters came, a shining figure
coming to them through the flood.... If they
did not they were like the man in a night-cap,
his mouth hanging open—no teeth—and skinny
hands, playing cards on his death-bed.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-9"> 9 </h3>
<p>After bed-making, Fräulein settled a mending
party at the window-end of the schoolroom
table. She sent no emissary but was waiting
herself in the schoolroom when they came down.
She hovered about putting them into their
places and enquiring about the work of each
one.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-289" class="pagenum" title="289"></SPAN>
She arranged Miriam and the Germans at the
saal end of the table for an English lesson.
Mademoiselle was not there. Fräulein herself
took the head of the table. Once more she
enjoined silence—the whole table seemed waiting
for Miriam to begin her lesson.</p>
<p>The three or four readings they had done
during the term alone in the little room had
brought them through about a third of the
blue-bound volume. Hoarsely whispering, then
violently clearing her throat and speaking suddenly
in a very loud tone Miriam bade them
resume the story. They read and she corrected
them in hoarse whispers. No one appeared to
be noticing. A steady breeze coming through
the open door of the summer-house flowed past
them and along the table, but Miriam sat
stifling, with beating temples. She had no
thoughts. Now and again in correcting a simple
word she was not sure that she had given the
right English rendering. Behind her distress
two impressions went to and fro—Fräulein and
the <em>raccommodage</em> party sitting in judgment and
the whole roomful waiting for cancer.</p>
<p>Very gently at the end of half an hour Fräulein
dismissed the Germans to practise.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-290" class="pagenum" title="290"></SPAN>
Herr Schraub was coming at eleven. Miriam
supposed she was free until then and went
upstairs.</p>
<p>On the landing she met Mademoiselle coming
downstairs with mending.</p>
<p>“Bossy coming?” she said feverishly in
French; “are you going to the saal?”</p>
<p>Mademoiselle stood contemplating her.</p>
<p>“I’ve just been giving an English lesson, oh,
Mon Dieu,” she proceeded.</p>
<p>Mademoiselle still looked gravely and quietly.</p>
<p>Miriam was passing on. Mademoiselle turned
and said hurriedly in a low voice. “Elsa says
you are a fool at lessons.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” smiled Miriam.</p>
<p>“You think they do not speak of you, hein?
Well, I tell you they speak of you. Jimmie says
you are as fat as any German. She laughed in
saying that. Gertrude, too, thinks you are a fool.
Oh, they say things. If I should tell you all the
things they say you would not believe.”</p>
<p>“I dare say,” said Miriam heavily, moving on.</p>
<p>“Everyone, all say things, I tell you,” whispered
Mademoiselle turning her head as she
went on downstairs.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-10"> <SPAN name="page-291" class="pagenum" title="291"></SPAN> 10 </h3>
<p>Miriam ran into the empty summer-house
tearing open a well-filled envelope. There was
a long letter from Eve, a folded half-sheet from
mother. Her heart beat rapidly. Thick straight
rain was seething down into the garden.</p>
<p>“Come and say good-bye to Mademoiselle,
Hendy.”</p>
<p>“Is she <em>going</em>?”</p>
<p>“Umph.”</p>
<p>“Little Mademoiselle?”</p>
<p>“Poor little beast!”</p>
<p>“Leaving!”</p>
<p>“Seems like it—she’s been packing all the
morning.”</p>
<p>“Because of that letter business?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I dunno. Anyhow there’s some story of
some friend of Fräulein’s travelling through to
Besançon to-day and Mademoiselle’s going with
her and we’re all to take solemn leave and she’s
not coming back next term. Come on.”</p>
<p>Mademoiselle, radiantly rosy under her large
black French hat, wearing her stockinette jacket
and grey dress, was standing at the end of the
<SPAN name="page-292" class="pagenum" title="292"></SPAN>
schoolroom table—the girls were all assembled
and the door into the hall was open.</p>
<p>The housekeeper was laughing and shouting
and imitating the puffing of a train. Mademoiselle
stood smiling beside her with downcast eyes.</p>
<p>Opposite them was Gertrude with thin white
face, blue lips and hotly blazing eyes fixed on
Mademoiselle. She stood easily with her hands
clasped behind her.</p>
<p>She must have an appalling headache thought
Miriam. Mademoiselle began shaking hands.</p>
<p>“I say, Mademoiselle,” began Jimmie quietly
and hurriedly in her lame French, as she took her
hand. “Have you got another place?”</p>
<p>“A place?”</p>
<p>“I mean what are you going to do next term,
petite?”</p>
<p>“Next term?”</p>
<p>“We want to know about your plans.”</p>
<p>“But I remain now with my parents till my
marriage!”</p>
<p>“Petite!!! Fancy never telling us.”</p>
<p>Exclamations clustered round from all over
the room.</p>
<p>“Why should I tell?”</p>
<p>“We didn’t even know you were engaged!”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-293" class="pagenum" title="293"></SPAN>
“But of course. Certainly I marry. I know
quite well who is to marry me.”</p>
<p>The room was taking leave of Mademoiselle
almost in silence. The English were standing
together. Miriam heard their voices. “’Dieu,
m’selle, ’dieu, m’selle,” one after the other
and saw hands and wrists move vigorously up
and down. The Germans were commenting,
“Ah, she is engaged—ah, what—<em>en-gaged</em>. Ah,
the rascal! Hör mal——”</p>
<p>Miriam dreaded her turn. Mademoiselle was
coming near ... so cheap and common-looking
with her hard grey dress and her cheap jacket
with the hat hiding her hair and making her
look skinny and old. She was a more dreadful
stranger than she had been at first ... Miriam
wished she could stay. She could not let anyone
go away like this. They would not meet again
and Mademoiselle was going away detesting her
and them all, going away in disgrace and not
minding and going to be married. All the time
there had been that waiting for her. She was
smiling now and showing her babyish teeth.
How could Jimmie hold her by the shoulders?</p>
<p>“Venez mon enfant, venez à l’instant,” called
Fräulein from the hall.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-294" class="pagenum" title="294"></SPAN>
Mademoiselle made her hard little sound with
her throat.</p>
<p>“Why doesn’t she go?” thought Miriam as
Mademoiselle ran down the room. “Adieu,
adieu evaireeboddie—alla——”</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-11"> 11 </h3>
<p>“Are all here?”</p>
<p>Jimmie answered and Fräulein came to the
table and stood leaning for a moment upon one
hand.</p>
<p>The door opened and the housekeeper shone
hard and bright in the doorway.</p>
<p>“Wäsche angekommen!”</p>
<p>“Na, gut,” responded Fräulein quietly.</p>
<p>The housekeeper disappeared.</p>
<p>“Fräulein looks like a dead body,” thought
Miriam.</p>
<p>Apprehension overtook her ... “there’s going
to be some silly fuss.”</p>
<p>“I shall speak in English, because the most
that I shall say concerns the English members of
this household and its heavy seriousness will be
by those who are not English, sufficiently understood.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-295" class="pagenum" title="295"></SPAN>
Miriam flushed, struggling for self-possession.
She determined not to listen.... “Damn ...
Devil ...” she exhorted herself ... “humbugging
creature ...” She felt the blood throbbing in
her face and her eyes and looked at no one. She
was conscious that little movements and sounds
came from the Germans, but she heard nothing
but Fräulein’s voice which had ceased. It had
been the clear-cut low-breathing tone she used
at prayers. “Oh, Lord, bother, damnation,” she
reiterated in her discomfiture. The words echoing
through her mind seemed to cut a way of
escape....</p>
<p>“That dear child,” smiled Fräulein’s voice,
“who has just left us, came under this roof ...
nearly a year ago.</p>
<p>“She came, a tender girl (Mademoiselle—Mademoiselle,
oh, goodness!) from the house of
her pious parents, fromme Eltern, fromme
Eltern.” Fräulein breathed these words slowly
out and a deep sigh came from one of the Germans,
“to reside with us. She came in the most
perfect confidence with the aim to complete her
own simple education, the pious and simple
nurture of a Protestant French girl, and with
the aim also to remove for a period something of
<SPAN name="page-296" class="pagenum" title="296"></SPAN>
the burden lying upon the shoulders of those
dear parents in the upbringing of herself and her
brothers and sisters.” (And then to leave home
and be married—how easy, how easy!)</p>
<p>“Honourably—honourably she has fulfilled
each and every duty laid upon her as institutrice
in this establishment.</p>
<p>“Sufficient to indicate this fulfilment of duty
is the fact that she was happy and that she made
happy others——”</p>
<p>Fräulein’s voice dropped to its lowest note
and grew fuller in tone.</p>
<p>“Would that I could here complete what I
have to say of the sojourn of little Aline Ducorroy
under this roof.... But that I cannot do.</p>
<p>“That I cannot do.</p>
<p>“It has been the experience of this pure and
gentle soul to come, under this roof, in contact
with things not pure.”</p>
<p>Fräulein’s voice had become breathless and
shaking. Both her hands sought the support
of the table.</p>
<p>“This poor child has had unwillingly to suffer
the fact of associating with those not pure.”</p>
<p>“Ach, Fräulein! What you say!” ejaculated
Clara.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-297" class="pagenum" title="297"></SPAN>
In the silence the leaves of the chestnut tree
tapped one against the other. Miriam listened
to them ... there must be a little breeze
blowing across the garden. Why had she not
noticed it before? Were they all hearing it?</p>
<p>“With—those—not pure.”</p>
<p>“Here, in this my school.”</p>
<p>Miriam’s heart began to beat angrily.</p>
<p>“She has been forced, here, in this school, to
hear talking”—Fräulein’s voice thickened—“of
men....”</p>
<p>“<em>Männer—geschichten ... here!</em>”</p>
<p>“<em>Männer—geschichten.</em>” Fräulein’s voice rang
out down the table. She bent forward so that
the light from both the windows behind her
fell sharply across her grey-clad shoulders and
along the top of her head. There was no condemnation
Miriam felt in those broad grey
shoulders—they were innocent. But the head
shining and flat, the wide parting, the sleekness
of the hair falling thinly and flatly away
from it—angry, dreadful skull. She writhed
away from it. She would not look any more.
She felt her neck was swelling inside her collar-band.</p>
<p>Fräulein whispered low.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-298" class="pagenum" title="298"></SPAN>
“Here in my school, here standing round this
table are those who talk of—men.</p>
<p>“Young girls ... who talk ... of men.”</p>
<p>While Fräulein waited, trembling, several of
the girls began to snuffle and sob.</p>
<p>“Is there, can there be in the world anything
that is more base, more vile, more impure? Is
there? Is there?”</p>
<p>Miriam wished she knew who was crying. She
tried to fix her thoughts on a hole in the table-cover.
“It could be darned.... It could
be darned.”</p>
<p>“You are brought here together, each and all
of you here together in the time of your youth.
It is, it should be for you the most beautiful
occasion. Can you find anything more terrible
than that such occasion where all may work
and influence each other—for all life—in purity
and goodness—that such occasion should be
used—impurely? Like a dawn, like a dawn for
purity should be the life of a maiden. Calm,
and pure and with holy prayer.”</p>
<p>Miriam repeated these words in her mind
trying to dwell on the beauty of Fräulein’s
middle tones. “And the day shall come, I shall
wish, for all of you, that the sanctity of a home
<SPAN name="page-299" class="pagenum" title="299"></SPAN>
shall be within your hands. What then shall be
the shame, what the regret of those who before
the coming of that sacred time did think thoughts
of men, did speak of them? <em>Shame, shame</em>,”
whispered Fräulein amidst the sobbing of the
girls.</p>
<p>“With the thoughts of those who have this
impure nature I can do nothing. For them it is
freely to acknowledge this evil in the heart
and to pray that the heart may be changed and
made clean.</p>
<p>“But a thing I can do and I do.... I will
have no more of this talking. In my school I
will have no more.... Do you hear, all? Do
you hear?”</p>
<p>She struck the table with both fists and
brandished them in mid-air.</p>
<p>“Eh-h,” she sneered. “I know, <em>I</em> know who
are the culprits. I have always known.” She
gasped. “It shall cease—these talks—this vile
talk of men. Do you understand? It shall
cease. I—will—not—have—it.... The school
shall be clean ... from pupil to pupil ...
from room to room.... Every day ... every
hour.... Shameless!” she screamed. “Shameless.
Ah! I know. I know you.” She stood with
<SPAN name="page-300" class="pagenum" title="300"></SPAN>
her arms folded, swaying, and gave a little laugh.
“You think to deceive me. You do not deceive
me. I know. I have known and I shall know.
This school is mine. Mine! My place! I will
have it as I will have it. That is clear and plain,
and you all shall help me. I shall say no more.
But I shall know what to do.”</p>
<p>Mechanically Miriam went downstairs with
the rest of the party. With the full force of her
nerves she resisted the echoes of Fräulein’s
onslaught, refusing to think of anything she had
said and blotting out her image every time it
rose. The essential was that she would be dismissed
as Mademoiselle had been dismissed.
That was the upshot of it all for her. Fräulein
was a mad, silly, pious female who would send her
away and go on glowering over the Bible. She
would have to go, go, <em>go</em> in a sort of disgrace.</p>
<p>The girls were talking all round her, excitedly.
She despised them for showing that they were
disturbed by Fräulein’s despotic nonsense. As
they reached the basement she remembered
the letter crushed in her hand and sat down on
the last step to glance through it.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-12"> <SPAN name="page-301" class="pagenum" title="301"></SPAN> 12 </h3>
<p>“Dearest Mim. I have a wonderful piece
of news for you. I wonder what you will say?
It is about Harriett. She has asked me to tell
you as she does not like to write about it herself.”</p>
<p>With steady hands Miriam turned the closely-written
sheets reading a phrase here and there
... “regularly in the seat behind us at All
Saints’ for months—saw her with the Pooles at
a concert at the Assembly Rooms and made up
his mind then—the moment he saw her—joined
the tennis-club—they won the double handicap—a
beautiful Slazenger racquet—only just over
sixteen—for years—of course Mother says it’s
just a little foolish nonsense—but I am not
sure that she really thinks so—Gerald took
me into his confidence—made a solemn call—<em>admirably</em>
suited to each other—rather a long
melancholy good-looking face—they look such a
contrast—the big Canadian Railway—not exactly
a clerk—something rather above that, to do with
making drafts of things and so on. Very sweet
and charming—my own young days—that I
have reached the great age of twenty-three—resident
post in the country—two little girls—we
<SPAN name="page-302" class="pagenum" title="302"></SPAN>
think it very good pay—I shall go in September—plenty
of time—that you should come home
for the long holidays. We are all looking forward
to it—the tennis-club—your name as a holiday
member—the American tournament in August—Harry
was the youngest lady member like you—of
course Harry could not let you come without
knowing—find somebody travelling through—Fräulein
Pfaff—expect to see you looking like
a flour-sack with a string tied round its waist—all
the dwarf roses in bloom—hardly any
strawberries—we shall see you soon—everybody
sends.”</p>
<p>Miriam got up and swung the half-read
letter above her head like a dumb-bell.</p>
<p>She looked about her like a stranger—everything
was as it had been the day she came—the
little cramped basement hall—the strange German
girls—small and old looking, poking about
amongst the baskets. She hardly knew them.
She passed half-blindly amongst them with her
eyes wide. The little dressing-room seemed full
of bright light. She saw everyone at once clearly.
All the English girls were there. She knew every
line of each of them. They were her old friends.
They knew her. Looking at none of them she
<SPAN name="page-303" class="pagenum" title="303"></SPAN>
felt she embraced them all, closely, and that
they knew it. They shone. They were beautiful.
She wanted to cry aloud. She was English
and free. She had nothing to do with this
German school. Baskets at her feet made her
pick her way. Solomon was kneeling at one,
sorting and handing out. At a little table under
the window Millie stood jotting pencil notes
<SPAN name="corr-37"></SPAN>in a pocket-book. Judy was at her side. The
others were grouped about the piano. Gertrude
sat on the keyboard her legs dangling.</p>
<p>Miriam plumped down on a full basket.</p>
<p>“Hullo, Hendy, old chap, <em>you</em> look all right!”</p>
<p>Miriam looked fearlessly up at the faces that
were turned towards her. Again she seemed to
see all of them at once. The circle of her vision
seemed huge. It was as if the confining rim of
her glasses were gone and she saw equally from
eyes that seemed to fill her face. She drew all
their eyes to her. They were waiting for her
to speak. For a moment it seemed as if they
stood there lifeless. She had drawn all their
meaning and all their happiness into herself.
She could do as she wished with them—their
poor little lives.</p>
<p>They stood waiting for some word from her.
<SPAN name="page-304" class="pagenum" title="304"></SPAN>
She dropped her eyes and caught the flash of
Gertrude’s swinging steel buckles.</p>
<p>“Wasn’t Fräulein angry?” she said carelessly.</p>
<p>Someone pushed the door to.</p>
<p>“Sly old bird.”</p>
<p>“Fancy imagining we shouldn’t see through
Mademoiselle leaving.”</p>
<p>“H’m,” said Miriam.</p>
<p>“I knew Mademoiselle <em>would</em> sneak if she had
half a chance.”</p>
<p>“Yes, ever since she got so thick with
Elsa.”</p>
<p>“Oh!—Elsa.”</p>
<p>“You bet Fräulein looks down on the two of
them in her heart of hearts.”</p>
<p>“M’m—she’s fairly sick, Jemima, with the
lot of us this time.”</p>
<p>“Mademoiselle told her some pretty things,”
laughed Gertrude. “Lily thinks we’re lost
souls—nearly all of us.”</p>
<p>“Onny swaw, my dears, onny swaw.”</p>
<p>“It’s all very well. But there’s no knowing
what Mademoiselle would make her believe.
She’d got reams about you, Hendy—nothing
bad enough.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-305" class="pagenum" title="305"></SPAN>
“H’m,” said Miriam, “I can imagine——”</p>
<p>Her thoughts brought back a day when she
had shown Mademoiselle the names in her
birthday-book and dwelt on one page and let
Mademoiselle understand that it was the page—brown
eyes—les yeux brunes <SPAN name="corr-38"></SPAN>foncés. Why
did Mademoiselle and Fräulein think that bad—want
to spoil it for her? She had said nothing
about the confidences of the German girls to
anyone. Elsa must have found that out from
Clara.</p>
<p>“Oh, well it’s all over now. Let’s be thankful
and think no more about it.”</p>
<p>“All very fine, Jemima. You’re going home.”</p>
<p>“Thank goodness.”</p>
<p>“And not coming back. Lucky Pigleinchen.”</p>
<p>“Well, so am I,” said Miriam, “and I’m not
coming back.”</p>
<p>“I say! Aren’t you coming to Norderney?”
Gertrude flashed dark eyes at her.</p>
<p>“Can’t you come to Norderney?” said Judy
thickly, at her elbow.</p>
<p>“Well, you see there are all sorts of things happening
at home. I <em>must</em> go. One of my sisters
is engaged and another going away. I must go
home for a while. Of course I <em>might</em> come back.”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-306" class="pagenum" title="306"></SPAN>
“Think it over, Henderson, and see if you
can’t decide in our favour.”</p>
<p>“We shall have another Miss Owen.”</p>
<p>Miriam struggled up out of her basket. “But
I thought you all <em>liked</em> Miss Owen!”</p>
<p>“Ho! Goodness! Too simple for words.”</p>
<p>“You never told us you had any sisters,
Hendy,” said Jimmie, tapping her on the wrist.</p>
<p>“What a pity you’re going just as we’re getting
to know you,” Judy smiled shyly and looked
on the floor.</p>
<p>“Well—I’m off with my bundle,” announced
Gertrude. “To be continued in our next.
Think it over, Hendy. Don’t desert us. Hurry
up, my room. It’ll be tea-time before we’re
straight. Come on, Jim.”</p>
<p>Miriam moved, with Judy following at her
elbow, across the room to Millie. She looked
up with her little plaintive frown. Miriam could
not remember what her plans were. “Let’s
see,” she said, “you’re going to Norderney,
aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“I’m not going to Norderney,” said Millie
almost tearfully. “I only wish I were. I don’t
even know I’m coming back next term.”</p>
<p>“Aren’t you looking forward to the holidays?”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-307" class="pagenum" title="307"></SPAN>
“I don’t know. I’d rather be staying here if
I’m not coming back after.”</p>
<p>“To stay in Germany? You’d rather do that
than anything?”</p>
<p>“<em>Rather.</em>”</p>
<p>“Here, with Fräulein Pfaff?”</p>
<p>“Of course, here with Fräulein Pfaff. I’d
rather be in Germany than anything.”</p>
<p>Millie stood staring with her pout and her
slightly raised eyebrows at the frosted window.</p>
<p>“Would you stay here in the school for the
holidays if Fräulein were staying?”</p>
<p>“I’d do anything,” said Millie, “to stay in
Germany.”</p>
<p>“You know,” said Miriam gazing at her, “so
would I—any mortal thing.”</p>
<p>Millie’s eyes had filled with tears.</p>
<p>“Then why don’t ye stay?” said Judy, with
gentle gruffness.</p>
<h3 class="no" id="subchap-0-11-13"> 13 </h3>
<p>The house was shut up for the night.</p>
<p>Miriam looked up at the clock dizzily as she
drank the last of her coffee. It marked half-past
eleven. Fräulein had told her to be ready at a
quarter to twelve. Her hands felt large and
<SPAN name="page-308" class="pagenum" title="308"></SPAN>
shaky and her feet were cold. The room was
stifling—bare and brown in the gaslight. She
left it and crept through the hall where her
trunk stood and up the creaking stairs. She
turned up the gas. Emma lay asleep with red
eyelids and cheeks. Miriam did not look at
Ulrica. Hurriedly and desolately she packed her
bag. She was going home empty-handed. She
had achieved nothing. Fräulein had made not
the slightest effort to keep her. She was just
nothing again—with her Saratoga trunk and her
hand-bag. Harriett had achieved. Harriett.
She was just going home with nothing to say
for herself.</p>
<p>“The carriage is here, my child. Make
haste.”</p>
<p>Miriam pushed things hurriedly into her bag.
Fräulein had gone downstairs.</p>
<p>She was ready. She looked numbly round the
room. Emma looked very far away. She turned
out the gas. The dim light from the landing
shone into the room. She stood for a moment
in the doorway looking back. The room seemed
to be empty. There seemed to be nothing in it
but the black screen standing round the bed
that was no longer hers.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-309" class="pagenum" title="309"></SPAN>
“Good-bye,” she murmured and hurried
downstairs.</p>
<p>In the hall Fräulein began to talk at once,
talking until they were seated side by side in the
dark cab.</p>
<p>Then Miriam gazed freely at the pale profile
shining at her side. Poor Fräulein Pfaff, getting
old.</p>
<p>Fräulein began to ask about Miriam’s plans
for the future. Miriam answered as to an equal,
elaborating a little account of circumstances at
home, and the doings of her sisters. As she spoke
she felt that Fräulein envied her her youth and
her family at home in England—and she raised
her voice a little and laughed easily and moved,
crossing her knees in the cab.</p>
<p>She used sentimental German words about
Harriett—a description of her that might have
applied to Emma—little emphatic tender epithets
came to her from the conversations of
the girls. Fräulein praised her German warmly
and asked question after question about the
house and garden at Barnes and presently of
her mother.</p>
<p>“I can’t talk about her,” said Miriam shortly.</p>
<p>“That is English,” murmured Fräulein.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page-310" class="pagenum" title="310"></SPAN>
“She’s such a little thing,” said Miriam,
“smaller than any of us.” Presently Fräulein
laid her gloved hand on Miriam’s gloved
one. “You and I have, I think, much in
common.”</p>
<p>Miriam froze—and looked at the gas-lamps
slowly swinging by along the boulevard. “Much
will have happened in England whilst you have
been here with us,” said Fräulein eagerly.</p>
<p>They reached a street—shuttered darkness
where the shops were, and here and there the
yellow flare of a café. She strained her eyes to
see the faces and forms of men and women—breathing
more quickly as she watched the
characteristic German gait.</p>
<p>There was the station.</p>
<p>Her trunk was weighed and registered. There
was something to pay. She handed her purse to
Fräulein and stood gazing at the uniformed
man—ruddy and clear-eyed—clear hard blue
eyes and hard clean clear yellow moustaches—decisive
untroubled movements. Passengers were
walking briskly about and laughing and shouting
remarks to each other. The train stood waiting
for her. The ringing of an enormous bell
brought her hands to her ears. Fräulein gently
<SPAN name="page-311" class="pagenum" title="311"></SPAN>
propelled her up the three steps into a compartment
marked Damen-Coupé. It smelt of biscuits
and wine.</p>
<p>A man with a booming voice came to examine
her ticket. He stood bending under the central
light, uttering sturdy German words. Miriam
drank them in without understanding. He
left the carriage very empty. The great bell
was ringing again. Fräulein standing on the
top step pressed both her hands and murmured
words of farewell.</p>
<p>“Leb’ wohl, mein Kind, Gott segne dich.”</p>
<p>“Good-bye, Fräulein,” she said stiffly, shaking
hands.</p>
<p>The door was shut with a slam—the light
seemed to go down. Miriam glanced at it—half
the dull green muslin shade had slipped over
the gas-globe. The carriage seemed dark. The
platform outside was very bright. Fräulein
had disappeared. The train was high above
the platform. Politely smiling Miriam scrambled
to the window. The platform was moving, the
large bright station moving away. Fräulein’s
wide smile was creasing and caverning under her
hat from which the veil was thrown back.</p>
<p>Standing at the window Miriam smiled
<SPAN name="page-312" class="pagenum" title="312"></SPAN>
sharply. Fräulein’s form flowed slowly away
with the platform.</p>
<p>Groups passed by smiling and waving.</p>
<p>Miriam sat down.</p>
<p>She leaped up to lean from the window.</p>
<p>The platform had disappeared.</p>
<p class="printer">
<em>The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, England.</em><br/>
William Brendon & Son, Ltd.</p>
<div class="trnote">
<p class="transnote">
Transcriber’s Notes</p>
<p>On <SPAN href="#page-113">page 113</SPAN>, <SPAN href="#marie">“Marie”</SPAN> was changed into “Clara” in later editions
but preserved here.</p>
<p>The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved.
A few obvious typographical errors
were silently corrected. Further careful corrections, some after consulting
other editions, are listed here (before/after):</p>
<ul>
<li>
... “Wie gefällt’s <span class="underline">Innen</span>?” with an upturned smile ...<br/>
... “Wie gefällt’s <SPAN href="#corr-2"><span class="underline">Ihnen</span></SPAN>?” with an upturned smile ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... thank, all, God!” ... Emma and Marie <span class="underline">was</span> ...<br/>
... thank, all, God!” ... Emma and Marie <SPAN href="#corr-7"><span class="underline">were</span></SPAN> ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... flashing hatred at her, caught Fräulein’s <span class="underline">fascinating</span> ...<br/>
... flashing hatred at her, caught Fräulein’s <SPAN href="#corr-10"><span class="underline">fascinated</span></SPAN> ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... <span class="underline">Kom</span>!” ...<br/>
... <SPAN href="#corr-11"><span class="underline">Komm</span></SPAN>!” ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... wincey skirt <span class="underline">bellowing</span> out all round her. Their ...<br/>
... wincey skirt <SPAN href="#corr-13"><span class="underline">billowing</span></SPAN> out all round her. Their ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... up there. Now she saw <span class="underline">then</span> dangling in corners, ...<br/>
... up there. Now she saw <SPAN href="#corr-14"><span class="underline">them</span></SPAN> dangling in corners, ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... counted the rich green copper cupolas and <span class="underline">sighted</span> ...<br/>
... counted the rich green copper cupolas and <SPAN href="#corr-18"><span class="underline">sighed</span></SPAN> ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... and his comforting black <span class="underline">mannerishness</span> so near ...<br/>
... and his comforting black <SPAN href="#corr-21"><span class="underline">mannishness</span></SPAN> so near ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... to read her three <span class="underline">yellow books</span> in the German ...<br/>
... to read her three <SPAN href="#corr-24"><span class="underline">yellow-backs</span></SPAN> in the German ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... <span class="underline">room</span> of figures and sat down next to Solomon ...<br/>
... <SPAN href="#corr-27"><span class="underline">row</span></SPAN> of figures and sat down next to Solomon ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... fait les <span class="underline">avanses</span>.” ...<br/>
... fait les <SPAN href="#corr-31"><span class="underline">avances</span></SPAN>.” ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... Rossetti ... <span class="underline">Kingslake’s</span> Crimea ... Palgrave’s ...<br/>
... Rossetti ... <SPAN href="#corr-32"><span class="underline">Kinglake’s</span></SPAN> Crimea ... Palgrave’s ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... <span class="underline">Wörms</span> did not agree with him) ... and then ...<br/>
... <SPAN href="#corr-33"><span class="underline">Worms</span></SPAN> did not agree with him) ... and then ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... O ... Strengthen Stay—up— ... Holding—all ...<br/>
... O ... Strengthen<SPAN href="#corr-34"><span class="underline"> and</span></SPAN> Stay—up— ... Holding—all ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... <span class="underline">on</span> a pocket-book. Judy was at her side. The ...<br/>
... <SPAN href="#corr-37"><span class="underline">in</span></SPAN> a pocket-book. Judy was at her side. The ...<br/>
</li>
<li>
... eyes—les yeux brunes <span class="underline">foncées</span>. Why ...<br/>
... eyes—les yeux brunes <SPAN href="#corr-38"><span class="underline">foncés</span></SPAN>. Why ...<br/>
</li>
</ul></div>
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
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