1
Towards the end of June there were frequent excursions.
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.
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 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.
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.
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, 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.
2
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."
"Going to Norderney, Hendy?" Jimmie said suddenly.
"Ah!" she responded mysteriously. For the rest of that day she sat
contracted and fearful.
3
"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."
"Oh yes," said Miriam conversationally, with trembling breath.
"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."
"Oh no, of course not," said Miriam, her hands pressed against her knee.
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.
She waited stiff and ugly till Fräulein, secure and summer-clad, spoke
softly again.
"You think, my child, you shall like the profession of a teacher?"
"Oh yes," said Miriam, from the midst of a tingling flush.
"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."
Miriam tried to pull her features into an easy enquiring seriousness. A
darkness was threatening her. "You have a most unfortunate manner."
Without relaxing, Miriam quivered. She felt the blood mount to her head.
"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."
Miriam felt a faint dizziness.
"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."
"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.
"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."
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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."
"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.
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
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.
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.
4
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 _were_
going to Norderney with the English girls she must be on easy terms with
them.
"Ah, ha!" somebody was saying.
"Oh--ho!" said Miriam in response.
"Ih--hi!" came another voice.
"Tre-la-la," trilled Bertha Martin gently.
"You mean Turrah-lahee-tee," said Miriam.
"Good for you, Hendy," blared Gertrude, in a swinging middle tone.
"Chalk it up. Chalk it up, children," giggled Jimmie.
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.
"_Cave_, my dear brats, be artig," came Bertha's cool even tones.
"Ah! we are observed."
"No, we are not observed. The observer observeth not."
Miriam saw her companions looking across the boulevard.
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.
"Ah!" she cried gaily. "Voilà Monsieur; courrez, Mademoiselle!"
At once she felt that it was cruel to draw attention to Mademoiselle
when she was dumpy and upset.
"What a fool I am," she moaned in her mind. "Why can't I say the right
thing?"
"Ce n'est pas moi," said Mademoiselle, "qui fait les avances."
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.
"You are very clever Bair-ta," said Mademoiselle, still in French, "but
you will never make a prima ballerina."
"Hulloh!" breathed Jimmie, "she's perking up."
"Isn't she," said Miriam, feeling that she was throwing away the last
shred of her dignity.
"What was the matter?" she continued, trying to escape from her
confusion.
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 insane remark? What did she mean?
What did she really think of her? Just kind old Lahmann--walking along
there in the outside world.... _She_ 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.
"Oh, my dear," Jimmie was saying, "didn't you know?--a _fearful_ row."
Mademoiselle's laughter tinkled out from the rear.
"A row?"
"Fearful!" Jimmie's face came round, round-eyed under her white sailor
hat that sat slightly tilted on the peak of her hair.
"What about?"
"Something about a letter or something, or some letters or something--I
don't know. Something she took out of the letter-box, it was unlocked or
something and Ulrica saw her _and told Lily_!"
"Goodness!" breathed Miriam.
"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."
"Why did she want to take anything out of the box?"
"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 _opening_ a letter. _I_ don't know."
"But she can't read German or English...."
"_I_ don't know. Ask me another."
"It is _extraordinary_."
"What's extraordinary?" asked Bertha from the far side of Jimmie.
"Petite and that letter."
"Oh."
"What did the Kiddy _want_?"
"Oh, my dear, don't ask me to explain the peculiarities of the French
temperament."
"Yes, but all the letters in the letter-box would be English or German,
as Hendy says."
Bertha glanced at Miriam. Miriam flushed. She could not discuss
Mademoiselle with two of the girls at once.
"Rum go," said Bertha.
"You're right, my son. It's rum. It's all over now, anyhow. There's no
accounting for tastes. Poor old Petite."
5
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?
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.
"You _see_ 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, _simply_. _You_ know--be like other
people."
Eve laughed. "Yes, I know."
"You see? _Simply._"
"Well, if you wanted to stay, why couldn't you?"
"I simply couldn't; you know how people are."
"But you can act so splendidly."
"But you can't keep it up."
"Why not?"
"_Eve._ There you are, you see, you always go back."
"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.'"
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 fault. But you could have begun all over
again in Germany and been quite different."
"Yes, I know I thought about that.... But if you knew as much of the
world as I do...."
Eve stared, showing a faint resentment.
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.
"Yes, but I mean if you had been about."
"I know," smiled Eve confidently. "You mean if I were you. Go on. I
know. Explain, old thing."
"Well, I mean of course if you are a governess in a school you _can't_
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 _so_ absurd--'you
shall marry my bruzzer--he is mairchant--very welty'--absurd."
"_Not_ absurd--you probably _would_ have, away from that school."
"D'you think so?"
"Yes, you would have been a regular German, fat and jolly and laughing."
"I know. My dear I thought about it. You may imagine. I wondered if I
ought."
"Why didn't you try?"
Why not? Why was she not going to try? Eve would, she was sure in her
place....
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
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.
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.
"Seit ich ihn gesehen
Glaub' ich blind zu sein."
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.
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.
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.
"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."
6
She turned about in bed; her head was growing fevered.
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 ... Kinglake's Crimea ...
Palgrave's Arabia ... Crimea.... The Crimea.... 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 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 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.
Darwin had come since then. There were people ... distinguished minds,
who thought Darwin was true.
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....
7
Then nothing matters. Just one little short life....
"A few more years shall roll ...
A few more seasons pass...."
There was a better one than that ... not so organ-grindery.
"Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories fade away;
Change and decay in all around I see."
Wow-wow-wow-whiney-caterwauley....
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....
O ... Strengthen and _Stay_--up-- ... Holding--all
Cre--ay--ay--tion.... Who ... ever Dost
Thy ... self--un ... Moved--a--Bide....
Thyself unmoved abide ... Thyself unmoved
abide ... Unmoved abide....
Unmoved abide.... Unmoved Abide ...
... 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 come now ... instead of waiting until the end....
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....
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....
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 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! _Hang!_ DAMN....
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....
8
"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 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.
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.
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 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.
9
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.
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.
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 _raccommodage_ party sitting in judgment and the
whole roomful waiting for cancer.
Very gently at the end of half an hour Fräulein dismissed the Germans to
practise.
Herr Schraub was coming at eleven. Miriam supposed she was free until
then and went upstairs.
On the landing she met Mademoiselle coming downstairs with mending.
"Bossy coming?" she said feverishly in French; "are you going to the
saal?"
Mademoiselle stood contemplating her.
"I've just been giving an English lesson, oh, Mon Dieu," she proceeded.
Mademoiselle still looked gravely and quietly.
Miriam was passing on. Mademoiselle turned and said hurriedly in a low
voice. "Elsa says you are a fool at lessons."
"Oh," smiled Miriam.
"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."
"I dare say," said Miriam heavily, moving on.
"Everyone, all say things, I tell you," whispered Mademoiselle turning
her head as she went on downstairs.
10
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.
"Come and say good-bye to Mademoiselle, Hendy."
"Is she _going_?"
"Umph."
"Little Mademoiselle?"
"Poor little beast!"
"Leaving!"
"Seems like it--she's been packing all the morning."
"Because of that letter business?"
"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."
Mademoiselle, radiantly rosy under her large black French hat, wearing
her stockinette jacket and grey dress, was standing at the end of the
schoolroom table--the girls were all assembled and the door into the
hall was open.
The housekeeper was laughing and shouting and imitating the puffing of a
train. Mademoiselle stood smiling beside her with downcast eyes.
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.
She must have an appalling headache thought Miriam. Mademoiselle began
shaking hands.
"I say, Mademoiselle," began Jimmie quietly and hurriedly in her lame
French, as she took her hand. "Have you got another place?"
"A place?"
"I mean what are you going to do next term, petite?"
"Next term?"
"We want to know about your plans."
"But I remain now with my parents till my marriage!"
"Petite!!! Fancy never telling us."
Exclamations clustered round from all over the room.
"Why should I tell?"
"We didn't even know you were engaged!"
"But of course. Certainly I marry. I know quite well who is to marry
me."
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--_en-gaged_. Ah, the rascal! Hör mal----"
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?
"Venez mon enfant, venez à l'instant," called Fräulein from the hall.
Mademoiselle made her hard little sound with her throat.
"Why doesn't she go?" thought Miriam as Mademoiselle ran down the room.
"Adieu, adieu evaireeboddie--alla----"
11
"Are all here?"
Jimmie answered and Fräulein came to the table and stood leaning for a
moment upon one hand.
The door opened and the housekeeper shone hard and bright in the
doorway.
"Wäsche angekommen!"
"Na, gut," responded Fräulein quietly.
The housekeeper disappeared.
"Fräulein looks like a dead body," thought Miriam.
Apprehension overtook her ... "there's going to be some silly fuss."
"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."
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....
"That dear child," smiled Fräulein's voice, "who has just left us, came
under this roof ... nearly a year ago.
"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 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!)
"Honourably--honourably she has fulfilled each and every duty laid upon
her as institutrice in this establishment.
"Sufficient to indicate this fulfilment of duty is the fact that she was
happy and that she made happy others----"
Fräulein's voice dropped to its lowest note and grew fuller in tone.
"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.
"That I cannot do.
"It has been the experience of this pure and gentle soul to come, under
this roof, in contact with things not pure."
Fräulein's voice had become breathless and shaking. Both her hands
sought the support of the table.
"This poor child has had unwillingly to suffer the fact of associating
with those not pure."
"Ach, Fräulein! What you say!" ejaculated Clara.
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?
"With--those--not pure."
"Here, in this my school."
Miriam's heart began to beat angrily.
"She has been forced, here, in this school, to hear talking"--Fräulein's
voice thickened--"of men...."
"_Männer--geschichten ... here!_"
"_Männer--geschichten._" 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.
Fräulein whispered low.
"Here in my school, here standing round this table are those who talk
of--men.
"Young girls ... who talk ... of men."
While Fräulein waited, trembling, several of the girls began to snuffle
and sob.
"Is there, can there be in the world anything that is more base, more
vile, more impure? Is there? Is there?"
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."
"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."
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 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?
_Shame, shame_," whispered Fräulein amidst the sobbing of the girls.
"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.
"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?"
She struck the table with both fists and brandished them in mid-air.
"Eh-h," she sneered. "I know, _I_ 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 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."
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, _go_
in a sort of disgrace.
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.
12
"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."
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--_admirably_
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 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."
Miriam got up and swung the half-read letter above her head like a
dumb-bell.
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 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 in a pocket-book. Judy was at her
side. The others were grouped about the piano. Gertrude sat on the
keyboard her legs dangling.
Miriam plumped down on a full basket.
"Hullo, Hendy, old chap, _you_ look all right!"
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.
They stood waiting for some word from her. She dropped her eyes and
caught the flash of Gertrude's swinging steel buckles.
"Wasn't Fräulein angry?" she said carelessly.
Someone pushed the door to.
"Sly old bird."
"Fancy imagining we shouldn't see through Mademoiselle leaving."
"H'm," said Miriam.
"I knew Mademoiselle _would_ sneak if she had half a chance."
"Yes, ever since she got so thick with Elsa."
"Oh!--Elsa."
"You bet Fräulein looks down on the two of them in her heart of hearts."
"M'm--she's fairly sick, Jemima, with the lot of us this time."
"Mademoiselle told her some pretty things," laughed Gertrude. "Lily
thinks we're lost souls--nearly all of us."
"Onny swaw, my dears, onny swaw."
"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."
"H'm," said Miriam, "I can imagine----"
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 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.
"Oh, well it's all over now. Let's be thankful and think no more about
it."
"All very fine, Jemima. You're going home."
"Thank goodness."
"And not coming back. Lucky Pigleinchen."
"Well, so am I," said Miriam, "and I'm not coming back."
"I say! Aren't you coming to Norderney?" Gertrude flashed dark eyes at
her.
"Can't you come to Norderney?" said Judy thickly, at her elbow.
"Well, you see there are all sorts of things happening at home. I _must_
go. One of my sisters is engaged and another going away. I must go home
for a while. Of course I _might_ come back."
"Think it over, Henderson, and see if you can't decide in our favour."
"We shall have another Miss Owen."
Miriam struggled up out of her basket. "But I thought you all _liked_
Miss Owen!"
"Ho! Goodness! Too simple for words."
"You never told us you had any sisters, Hendy," said Jimmie, tapping her
on the wrist.
"What a pity you're going just as we're getting to know you," Judy
smiled shyly and looked on the floor.
"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."
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?"
"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."
"Aren't you looking forward to the holidays?"
"I don't know. I'd rather be staying here if I'm not coming back after."
"To stay in Germany? You'd rather do that than anything?"
"_Rather._"
"Here, with Fräulein Pfaff?"
"Of course, here with Fräulein Pfaff. I'd rather be in Germany than
anything."
Millie stood staring with her pout and her slightly raised eyebrows at
the frosted window.
"Would you stay here in the school for the holidays if Fräulein were
staying?"
"I'd do anything," said Millie, "to stay in Germany."
"You know," said Miriam gazing at her, "so would I--any mortal thing."
Millie's eyes had filled with tears.
"Then why don't ye stay?" said Judy, with gentle gruffness.
13
The house was shut up for the night.
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 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.
"The carriage is here, my child. Make haste."
Miriam pushed things hurriedly into her bag. Fräulein had gone
downstairs.
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.
"Good-bye," she murmured and hurried downstairs.
In the hall Fräulein began to talk at once, talking until they were
seated side by side in the dark cab.
Then Miriam gazed freely at the pale profile shining at her side. Poor
Fräulein Pfaff, getting old.
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.
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.
"I can't talk about her," said Miriam shortly.
"That is English," murmured Fräulein.
"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."
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.
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.
There was the station.
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 propelled her up the three steps
into a compartment marked Damen-Coupé. It smelt of biscuits and wine.
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.
"Leb' wohl, mein Kind, Gott segne dich."
"Good-bye, Fräulein," she said stiffly, shaking hands.
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.
Standing at the window Miriam smiled sharply. Fräulein's form flowed
slowly away with the platform.
Groups passed by smiling and waving.
Miriam sat down.
She leaped up to lean from the window.
The platform had disappeared.
_The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, England._
William Brendon & Son, Ltd.
Transcriber's Notes
On page 113, "Marie" was changed into "Clara" in later editions but
preserved here.
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. 66]:
... "Wie gefällt's Innen?" with an upturned smile ...
... "Wie gefällt's Ihnen?" with an upturned smile ...
[p. 119]:
... thank, all, God!" ... Emma and Marie was ...
... thank, all, God!" ... Emma and Marie were ...
[p. 162]:
... flashing hatred at her, caught Fräulein's fascinating ...
... flashing hatred at her, caught Fräulein's fascinated ...
[p. 171]:
... Kom!" ...
... Komm!" ...
[p. 180]:
... wincey skirt bellowing out all round her. Their ...
... wincey skirt billowing out all round her. Their ...
[p. 183]:
... up there. Now she saw then dangling in corners, ...
... up there. Now she saw them dangling in corners, ...
[p. 200]:
... counted the rich green copper cupolas and sighted ...
... counted the rich green copper cupolas and sighed ...
[p. 212]:
... and his comforting black mannerishness so near ...
... and his comforting black mannishness so near ...
[p. 232]:
... to read her three yellow books in the German ...
... to read her three yellow-backs in the German ...
[p. 245]:
... room of figures and sat down next to Solomon ...
... row of figures and sat down next to Solomon ...
[p. 277]:
... fait les avanses." ...
... fait les avances." ...
[p. 286]:
... Rossetti ... Kingslake's Crimea ... Palgrave's ...
... Rossetti ... Kinglake's Crimea ... Palgrave's ...
[p. 288]:
... Wörms did not agree with him) ... and then ...
... Worms did not agree with him) ... and then ...
[p. 290]:
... O ... Strengthen Stay--up-- ... Holding--all ...
... O ... Strengthen and Stay--up-- ... Holding--all ...
[p. 309]:
... on a pocket-book. Judy was at her side. The ...
... in a pocket-book. Judy was at her side. The ...
[p. 311]:
... eyes--les yeux brunes foncées. Why ...
... eyes--les yeux brunes foncés. Why ...