1
Walking 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 and in the little wooden garden room off the saal had
taken the place of walks for the summer.
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.
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 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:--
"In der Ecke steht er
Seinen Schnurbart dreht er
Siehst du wohl, da steht er schon
Der versoff'ne Schwiegersohn."
Miriam felt very near the end of endurance.
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.
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.
"Do you like milk, Elsa?" she said cheerfully.
Elsa began swinging her lace-covered parasol.
"If I like milk?" she repeated presently, and flashed mocking eyes in
Miriam's direction.
Despair touched Miriam's heart.
"Some people don't," she said.
Elsa hummed and swung her parasol.
"Why should I like milk?" she stated.
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.
2
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
indicated that Clara's third of the large room would now be Miriam's.
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 _raccommodage_. She flung one ecstatic
glance at Miriam as she went away with these.
"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.
"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.
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.
She was tired and very warm by the time everything was arranged in her
new quarters.
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.
Evidently Fräulein approved of her, after all.
3
In the schoolroom she found the _raccommodage_ party gathered round the
table. At its head sat Mademoiselle, her arms flung out upon the table
and her face buried against them.
"Cheer up, Mademoiselle," said Jimmie as Miriam took an empty chair
between Gertrude and the Martins.
Timidly meeting Gertrude's eye Miriam received her half-smile, watched
her eyebrows flicker faintly up and the little despairing shrug she gave
as she went on with her mending.
"Ah, mammaz_ell_chen c'est pas mal, ne soyez triste, mein Gott
mammazellchen es ist aber nichts!" chided Emma consolingly from her
place near the window.
"Oh! je ne veux pas, je ne veux pas," sobbed Mademoiselle.
No one spoke; Mademoiselle lay snuffling and shuddering. Solomon's
scissors fell on to the floor. "Mais pour_quoi_ pas, Mademoiselle?" she
interrogated as she recovered them.
"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.
"Probably a widder, Mademoiselle," ventured Bertha Martin, "oon voove."
"_Verve_, 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, 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.
"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."
"Why can't the servant sleep in one of the back attics?" asked Solomon.
"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."
"Will she have meals with us?"
"Gewiss Jimmie, meals."
"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.
"Armes, armes, Momzell," wailed Ulrica gently gazing out of the window.
"Som one should go, go you, Henchen," urged Emma.
"Don't, for goodness' sake, Hendy," begged Jimmie, "not you, she's wild
about you going downstairs," she whispered.
Miriam struggled with her gratification. "Oh go, som one; go you,
Clara!"
"Better leave her alone," ruled Gertrude.
"We miss old Minna, don't we?" concluded Bertha.
4
The heat grew intense.
The air was more and more oppressive as the day went on.
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.
"Certainly, Miss Henderson, you are quite free," said Fräulein instantly
as the girls trooped upstairs.
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 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....
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.
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, 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.
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, 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 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.
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.
5
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....
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 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....
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 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.
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.
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 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 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.
6
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 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.
7
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.
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 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.
Clara was at the piano. Tall behind her stood Millie's gracious
shapeless baby-form.
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 ... tragic muse.... It was not
_her_ 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 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.
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.
"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."
8
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?"
Answering voices came from the bedrooms. She entered each room, shifting
screens, opening each window for a few moments, leaving each door wide.
"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."
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 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.
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.
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."
9
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 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.
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....
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! _Clara!_" she
screamed. Cries came from the next room. A match was struck across the
landing and voices sounded. Gertrude 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.
10
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
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 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!"
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.
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 _Jé_-sus! Ach du _lie_-ber, _lie_-ber
Gott!"
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 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.
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 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.
Fräulein had said something in German in a panting voice, and Bertha had
stood up and said, "_I'll_ get the Bible, Fräulein."
"Ei! Bewahre! Ber_tha_!" shouted Clara. "Stay only here! Stay only
here!"
"Nein, Bertha, nein, mein kind," moaned Fräulein sadly.
"It's really perfectly all right, Fräulein," said Bertha, getting
quietly to the door.
As Fräulein opened the great book on her knees the rain hissed down into
the garden.
"Gott sei Dank," she said, in a clear child-like voice. "It dot besser
wenn da regnet?" enquired the housekeeper, looking round the room. She
began vigorously wiping her face and neck with the skirt of the short
cotton jacket she wore over her red petticoat.
Ulrica broke into steady weeping.
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.
As the storm began to abate a little party of English went to the
kitchen and brought back milk and biscuits and jam.
11
"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.
"No; what is it?"
"Oh, most wonderful. Ich bin so empfindlich. I am so sensible."
"Sensitive?"
"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."
"Yes."
"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."
"Oh, yes," whispered Miriam.
"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."
Miriam felt as if she were being robbed.... This was Ulrica.... "You
remember the Konfirmation, miss?"
"Oh, yes, I remember."
"Have you weeped?"
"We say _cry_, not weep, except in poetry--weinen, to cry."
"Have you cry?"
"No, I didn't cry. But we mustn't talk. We must go to sleep. Good
night."
"Gute Nacht. Ach, wie empfindlich bin ich, wie empfindlich...."
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.
12
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, 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.
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 seat round the trunk of a large old tree and a group of
white cottages.
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.
"Look here, you'd better get up, my dear," she murmured.
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.
"Get up."
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.
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 the houses were staringly bright. They were absolutely stiff,
nothing was moving, there were no shadows.
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 _am_ 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 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,
_do_ 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
_me_."
13
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.
"Yes ... yes," came a sad low voice at her side.
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.
Then Fräulein said sadly, "You like the storm-weather, Miss Henderson."
"Yes."
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.
14
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 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.
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 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.
"O _Sonn_enschein! O _Sonn_enschein!"
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.
"Wie scheinst du mir in's Herz hinein,
Weck'st drinnen lauter Liebeslust,
Dass mir so enge wird die Brust
O _Sonn_enschein! O _Sonn_--enschein!"
When the voices ceased there was a faint distant sound of crackling
twigs and the echo of talking and laughter.
"Ach Studenten!"
"Irgend ein Männergesangverein."
"I think we ought to get back, Gertrude. Fräulein _said_ only an hour
altogether and it's church to-night."
"We'll get back, Millenium mine--never fear."
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.
"Ho-lah!" A mighty answering shout rang through the wood. It was like a
word of command.
"Oh, come along home; Clara, what are you dreaming of?"
"Taisez-vous, taisez-vous, Clarah! C'est honteux mon Dieu!"