Wheezing,cook had spread a plaster of dampened ashy cinders upon the basement schoolroom fire and gone bonily away across the oilcloth in her heelless boots. As the door closed Miriam’s eye went up from her book to the little slope of grass showing above the concrete wall of the area. The grass gleamed along the edge of a bank of mist. In the mist the area railings stood hard and solid against the edge of empty space. Several times she glanced at the rich green, feeling that neither ‘emerald,’ ‘emerald velvet,’ nor ‘velvety enamel’ quite expressed it. She had not noticed that there was a mist shutting in and making brilliant the half-darkness of the room at breakfast-time, only feeling that for some reason it was a good day. “It’s fog—there’s a sort of fog,” she said, glowing. The fog made the room with the strange brilliant brown light on the table, on the horsehair chairs,on the shabby length of brown and yellow oilcloth running out to the bay of the low window, seem to be rushing through space, alone. It was quite safe, going on its journey—towards some great good.
The back door, just across the little basement hall, scrooped inwards across the oilcloth, jingling its little bell, and was banged to. The flounter-crackof a rain-cloak smartly shaken out was followed by a gentle scrabbling in a shoe-box,—the earliest girl, peaceful and calm, a wonderful sort of girl, coming into the empty basement quietly getting off her things, with all the rabble of the school coming along the roads, behind. The jingling door was pushed open again just as her slippered feet ran upstairs. “Khoo—what a filthy day!” said a vibrating hard mature voice. Miriam glanced at her time-table, history—dictation—geography—sums—writing—and shrank to her utmost air of preoccupation lest either of the elder girls should look in.
Sounds increased in the little hall, loud abrupt voices, short rallying laughs, the stubbing and stamping of feet on the oilcloth. At the expected rattling of the handle of her own door she crouched over her book. The door opened and was quietly closed again. A small figureflung itself forward. Miriam was clutched by harsh serge-clad arms. As she moved, startled, firm cracked lips were pressed against her cheekbone. “Good morning, Burra,” she said, turning to put an arm round the child. She caught a glimpse of broad cheeks bulging firmly against a dark bush of short hair. Large fierce bloodshot eyes glared close to her own. “Hoo—angel.” The little gasping body stiffened against her shoulder, pinning down her arm. The crimson face tried to reach her breast. “Have you changed your boots,” said Miriam coldly. “Hoo—hoo.” The short hard fingers hurt her. “Go and get them off at once.” Head down Burra rushed at the door, colliding with the incoming figure of a neat little girl dressed in velvet-trimmed red merino, with a rose and white face and short gentle gold hair. She put a little pile of books on the table and stood still near to Miriam, with her hands behind her. They both looked down the room out of the window, with quiet unsmiling faces. “What have you been doing since Friday, Gertie?” Miriam said presently. “We went for a walk,” said Gertie in a neat liquid little voice, dimpling and faintly raising her eyebrows.
The eight little girls who made up the upper class of the junior school stood in a close row as near as possible to Miriam’s chair at the head of the table. They were silent and fresh and eagerly crowded, waiting for her to begin. She kept them silent for a few moments for the pleasure of having them there with her. She knew that Miss Perne, sitting in the window space with the youngest class drawn up in a half-circle for their Scripture lesson, was an approving presence, keeping her own little class at a level of quiet question and answer that made a background rather than a disturbance for the adventure of the elder girls. “Not too close together,” said Miriam at last, gathering herself with a deep breath; “throw back your shoulders and stand straight. Don’t lump down on your heels. Let your weight come on the ball of your feet. Are you all all right? Don’t poke your heads forward.” As the girls eagerly manœuvred themselves, wilfully carrying out her instructions even to turning their heads to face the opposite wall, she caught most of the eyes in turn smiling their eager affectionate conspiracy, and restraining her desire to get up then and there and clasp the little figures one by one, began the lesson. Four ofthe girls, two square-built Quakeresses with straight brown frocks, deep slow voices and dreamy eyes, a white-faced, tawny-haired, thin child with an eager stammer, and a brilliant little Jewess knew the “principal facts and dates” of the reign of Edward I by rote backwards and forwards in response to any form of question. Burra hung her head and knew nothing. Beadie Featherwell, dreadfully tall, a head taller, with her twelve years, than the tallest child in the lower school, knew no more than Burra and stood staring at the wall and biting her lips. A stout child with open mouth and snoring breath answered with perfect exactitude from the book, but her answers bore no relationship to the questions, and Gertie could only pipe replies if the questions were so put as to contain part of the answer. The white-faced girl was beginning to gnaw her fingers by the time the questioning was at an end.
“Well now, what is the difficulty,” said Miriam, “of getting hold of the events of this queer little reign?” Everybody laughed and was silent again at once because Miriam’s voice went on, trying to interest both herself and the successful girls in inventing ways of remembering all the thingsthat had to be “hooked on to the word Edward.” In less than ten minutes even the stout snoring girl could repeat the reign successfully, and for the remainder of their time they talked aimlessly.
The children standing at ease, saying whatever occurred to them, even the snoring girl secured from ridicule by Miriam’s consideration of whatever was offered. Their adventure took them away from their subject into what Miriam knew “clever” people would call “side issues.” “Nothing is a side issue,” she told herself passionately with her eyes on the green glare beyond the window. The breaking up of Miss Perne’s class left the whole of the lower school on her hands for the rest of the morning.
By half-past twelve she was sitting alone and exhausted with aching throat at her place at the head of the table.
“Khoo,isn’tit a filthy day!” Polly Allen, a short heavy girl with a sallow pitted face, thin ill-nourished hair and kind swiftly moving grey eyes, marched in out of the dark hall with flapping bootlaces. In the bay she sat down and began to lace up her boots. The laces flickedcarelessly upon the linoleum as she threaded, profaning the little sanctuary of the window space. “Oh me bones, me poor old bones,” she muttered. “Eunice!” her hard mature voice vibrated through the room. “Eunice Dupont!”
“What’s the jolly row?” said a slow voice at the door. “Wot’s the bally shindy, beloved?”
“Like a really beautiful Cheshire cat,” Miriam repeated to herself, propped studiously on her elbows shrinking, and hoping that if she did not look round, Eunice’s carved brown curls, her gleaming slithering opaque oval eyes and her short upper lip, the strange evil carriage of her head, the wicked lines of her figure, would be withdrawn. “Cheshire, Cheshire,” she scolded inwardly, feeling the pain in her throat increase.
“Nothing. Wait for me. That’s all. Oh, my lungs, bonesandet ceteras. It’s old age, I suppose, Uncle William.”
“Well, hurry your old age up, that’s all. I’m ready.”
“Well, don’t go away, you funny cuckoo, you can wait, can’t you?”
A party of girls straggled in one by one and drifted towards Polly in the window space.
“It’s the parties I look forward to.”
“Oh, look at her tie!”
“My tie? Six-three at Crisp’s.”
The sounds of Polly’s bootlacing came to an end. She sat holding a court. “Doesn’t look forward to parties? She must be a funny cuckoo!”
“Dancing’s divine,” said a smooth deep smiling voice. “Reversing. Khoo! with a fella. Khooo!”
“You surprise me, Edie. You do indeed. Hoh. Shocking.”
“Shocking? Why? What do you mean, Poll?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Riang doo too.”
“I don’t think dancing’s shocking. How can it be? You’re barmy, my son.”
“Ever heard of Lottie Collins?”
“Ssh. Don’t be silly.”
“I don’t see what Lottie Collins has got to do with it. My mother thinks dancing’s all right. That’s good enough for me.”
“Well—I’m not your mother.”
“Nor anyone else’s.”
“Khoo,Mabel.”
“Who wants to be anyone’s mother?”
“Not me. Ug. Beastly little brats.”
“Oh shutup. Oh youdomake me tired.”
“Kids are jolly. A1. I hope I have lots.”
Surprised into amazement, Miriam looked up to consult the face of Jessie Wheeler, the last speaker—a tall flat-figured girl with a strong squarish pale face, hollow cheeks, and firm colourless lips. Was it being a Baptist that made her have such an extraordinary idea? Miriam’s eyes sought refuge from the defiant beam of her sea-blue eyes in the shimmering cloud of her hair. The strangest hair in the school; negroid in its intensity of fuzziness, but saved by its fine mesh.
“Don’t you adore kiddies, Miss Henderson?”
“I think they’re rather nice,” said Miriam quickly, and returned to her book.
“I should jolly well think they were,” said Jessie fervently.
“Hope your husband’ll think so too, my dear,” said Polly, getting up.
“Oh, of course, I should only have them if the fellow wanted me to.”
“You haven’t got a fella yet, madam.”
“Of course not, cuckoo. But I shall.”
“Plenty of time to think about that.”
“Hoo. Fancy never having a fellow. I should go off my nut.”
When they had all disappeared Miriam opened the windows. There was still someone moving about in the hall, and as she stood in the instreaming current of damp air looking wearily at the concrete—a girl came into the room. “Can I come in a minute?” she said, advancing to the window. “I want to speak to you,” she pursued when she reached the bay. She stood at Miriam’s side and looked out of the window. Half-turning, Miriam had recognized Grace Broom, one of the elder first-class girls who attended only for a few subjects. She was a dark short-necked girl with thick shoulders; a receding mouth and boldly drawn nose and chin gave her a look of shrewd elderliness. The heavy mass of hair above the broad sweep of her forehead, her heavy frame and flat-footed walk added to this appearance. She wore a high-waisted black serge pinafore dress with black crape vest and sleeves.
“Do you mind me speaking to you?” she said in a hot voice. Her black-fringed brown eyes were fixed on the garden railings where people passed by and Miriam never looked.
“No,” said Miriam shyly.
“You know why we’re in mourning?”
Miriam stood silent with beating heart, trying to cope with the increasing invasion.
“Our father’s dead.”
Hurriedly Miriam noted the superstitious tone in the voice.... This is a family that revels in plumes and hearses. She glanced at the stiff rather full crape sleeve nearest to her and sought about in her mind for help as she said with a blush, “Oh, I see.”
“We’ve just moved.”
“Oh yes, I see,” said Miriam, glancing fearfully at the heavy scroll of profile and finding it expressive and confused.
“We’ve got a house about a quarter as big as where we used to live.”
Miriam found it impossible to respond to this confession and still tried desperately to sweep away the sense of the figure so solidly planted at her side.
“I’ve asked our aunt if we can ask you to come to tea with us.”
“Thank you very much,” said Miriam in one word.
“When could you come?”
“Oh, I’m afraid I couldn’t come. It would be impossible.”
“Oh no. You must come. I shall ask Aunt Lucy to write to Miss Perne.”
“I really couldn’t come. I shouldn’t be able to ask you back.”
“That doesn’t matter,” panted the relentless voice. “I’ve wanted to speak to you ever since you came.”
When next Miriam saw the black-robed Brooms and their aunt file past the transept where were the Wordsworth House sittings, she felt that to visit them might perhaps not be the ordeal she had not dared to picture. It would be strange. Those three heavy black-dressed women. Their small new house. She imagined them sitting at tea in a little room. Why was Grace so determined that she should sit there too? Grace had a life and a home and was real. She did not know that things were awful. Nor did Florrie Broom, nor the aunt. But yet they did not look like ‘social’ people. They were a little different. Not worldly. Not pious either. Nor intellectual. What could they want with her? She had soon forgotten them and the congregation assumed its normal look. As the service went on the thoughts came that came every Sunday. An oldwoman with a girl at her side were the only people whose faces were within Miriam’s line of vision from her place at the wall end of the Wordsworth House pew. The people in front of them were not even in profile, and those behind were hidden from her by the angle of the transept wall. To her right she could just see rising above the heads in the rows of pews in front of her the far end of the chancel screen. The faces grouped in the transept on the opposite side of the church were a blur. The two figures sat or knelt or stood in a heavy silence. They neither sang nor prayed. Their faces remained unaltered during the whole service. To Miriam they were its most intimate part. During the sermon she rarely raised her eyes from the circle they filled for her as they sat thrown into relief by the great white pillar. Their faces were turned towards the chancel. They could see its high dim roof and distant altar, the light on the altar, flowers, shining metal, embroideries, the maze of the east window, the white choir. They showed no sign of seeing these things. The old woman’s heavy face with its heavy jaw-bone seemed to have been dead for years under its coffin-shaped black bonnet. Her large body was covered by a mantleof thickly ribbed black material trimmed with braid and bugles. That bright yellow colour meant liver. Whatever she had she was dying of it. People were always dying when they looked like that. But it was a bad way to die. The real way was the way of that lady trailing about over the Heath near Roehampton, dying by inches of an internal complaint, with her face looking fragile—like the little alabaster chapelle in the nursery with a candle alight inside. She was going to die, walking about alone on the Heath in the afternoons. Her family going on as usual at home; the greengrocer calling. She knew that everybody was alone and that all the fuss and noise people made all day was a pretence.... What todo? To be walking about with a quiet face meeting death. Nothing could be so alone as that. The pain, and struggle, and darkness.... That was what the old woman feared. She did not think about death. She was afraid and sullen all the time. Stunned, sitting there with her cold common daughter. She had been common herself as a girl, but more noisy, and she had married and never thought about dying, and now she was dying and hating her cold daughter. The daughter, sitting there with her stiff slatey-bluecoat and skirt, her indistinct hat tied with a thin harsh veil to her small flat head—what a home with her in it all the time. She would never laugh. Her poor-looking cheeks were yellowish, her fringe dry, without gloss. She would move her mouth when she spoke, sideways with a snarling curl of one-half of the upper lip and have that resentful way of speaking that all North Londoners have, and the maddening North London accent. The old woman’s voice would be deep and hollow.... The girl moving heavily about the house wearing boots and stiff dresses and stiff stays showing their outline through her clothes. They would be bitter to their servant and would not trust her. What was the good of their being alive ... a house and a water system and drains and cooking, and they would take all these things for granted and grumble and snarl ... the gas meter man would call there. Did men like that resent calling at houses like that? No. They’d just say, “The ole party she sez to me.” How good they were, these men. Good and kind and cheerful. Someone ought to prevent the extravagance of keeping whole houses and fires going for women like that. They ought to be in an institution. But they never thought about that.They were satisfied with themselves. They were self-satisfied because they did not know what they were like....Whyshould you have a house, and tradesmen calling?
“Jehoiakin!” The rush of indistinct expostulating sound coming from the pulpit was accompanied for a moment by reverberations of the one clearly bawled word. The sense of the large cold church, the great stone pillars, the long narrow windows faintly stained with yellowish green, the harsh North London congregation stirred and seemed to settle down more securely. She saw the form of the vicar in the light grey stone pulpit standing up short and neat against the cold grey stone wall, enveloped in fine soft folds, his small puckered hands beautifully cuffed, his plump crumpled little face, his small bald head fringed with little saffron-white curls, his pink pouched busy mouth. What was it all about? Pompous pottering, going on and on and on—in the Old Testament. The whole church was in the Old Testament....Honourthy father and thy mother. How horribly the words would echo through the great cold church.Whyhonour thy father and thy mother? What had they done that was so honourable? Everybody wasdying in cold secret fear. Christ, the son of God, was part of it all, the same family ... vindictive. Christmas and Easter, hard white cold flowers, no real explanation. “I came not to destroy but to fulfil.” The stagnant blood flushed in her face and tingled in her ears as the words occurred to her. Why didn’t everybody die at once and stop it all?
Miss Haddie paused at the door of her room and wheeled suddenly round to face Miriam who had just reached the landing.
“You’ve not seen my little corner,” she tweedled breathlessly, throwing open her door.
Miriam went in. “Oh how nice,” she said fearfully, breathing in the freshness of a little square sun-filled muslin-draped, blue-papered room. Taking refuge at the white-skirted window, she found a narrow view of the park, greener than the one she knew. The wide yellow pathway going up through the cricket ground had shifted away to the right.
“It’s really a—a—a dressing-room from your room.”
“Oh,” said Miriam vivaciously.
“There’s a door, a—a—a door. I daresay you’ve noticed.”
“Oh!That’sthe door in our cupboard!” The dim door behind the hanging garments led to nothing but to Miss Haddie’s room. She began unbuttoning her gloves.
Miss Haddie was hesitating near a cupboard, making little sounds.
“I suppose we must all make ourselves tidy now,” said Miriam.
“I thought you didn’t look very happy in church this morning,” cluttered Miss Haddie rapidly.
Miriam felt heavy with anger. “Oh,” she said clumsily, “I had the most frightful headache.”
“Poor child. I thought ye didn’t look yerself.”
The window was shut. But the room was mysteriously fresh, far away from the school. A fly was hovering about the muslin window blind with little reedy loops of song. The oboe ... in the quintet, thought Miriam suddenly. “I don’t know,” she said, listening. The flies sang like this at home. She had heard them without knowing it. She moved in her place by the window. The fly swept up to the ceiling, wavering on a deep note like a tiny gong.... Hot sunny refined lawns, roses in bowls on summerhousetea-tables, refined voices far away from the Caledonian Road.
“Flies don’tbuzz,” she said passionately. “They don’tbuzz. Why do people say they buzz?” The pain pressing behind her temples slackened. In a moment it would be only a glow.
Miss Haddie stood with bent head, her face turning from side to side, with its sour hesitating smile, her large eyes darting their strange glances about the room.
“Won’t you sit down a minute? They haven’t sounded the first bell yet.” Miriam sat down on the one little white-painted, cane-seated chair near the dressing-table. “Eh—eh,” said Miss Haddie, beginning to unfasten her veil. “She doesn’t approve of general conversation,” thought Miriam. “She’s a female. Oh well, she’ll have to see I’m not.”
“What gave you yer headache?”
“Oh well, I don’t know. I suppose I was wondering what it was all about.”
“I don’t think I quite understand ye.”
“Well, I mean—what that old gentleman was in such a state of mind about.”
“D’ye mean Mr. La Trobe!”
“Yes. Why do you laugh?”
“I don’t understand what ye mean.”
Miriam watched Miss Haddie’s thin fingers feeling for the pins in her black toque. “Of course not,” she thought, looking at the unveiled shrivelled cheek.... “thirty-five years of being a lady.”
“Oh well,” she sighed fiercely.
“What is it ye mean, my dear?”
—‘couldn’t make head or tail of a thing the old dodderer said’—no ‘old boy,’ no—these phrases would not do for Miss Haddie.
“I couldn’t agree withanythinghe said.”
Miss Haddie sat down on the edge of the little white bed burying her face in her hands and smoothing them up and down with a wiping movement.
“One can always criticise a sermon,” she said reproachfully.
“Well, why not?”
“I mean to say yecan,” said Miss Haddie from behind her fingers, “but, but ye shouldn’t.”
“You can’t help it.”
“Oh yes, ye can. If ye listen in the right spirit,” gargled Miss Haddie hurriedly.
“Oh, it isn’t only the sermon, it’s the whole thing,” said Miriam crimsoning.
“Ye mustn’t think about the speaker,” went on Miss Haddie in faint hurried rebuke. “That’s wrong. That sets people running from church to church. You must attend your own parish church in the right spirit, let the preacher be who—who—what he may.”
“Oh, but I think that’s positivelydangerous,” said Miriam gravely. “It simply means leaving your mind open for whatever they choose to say. Like Rome.”
“Eh, no—o—o,” flared Miss Haddie dropping her hands, “nonsense. Not like Rome at all.”
“But itis. It’s giving up your conscience.”
“You’re very determined,” laughed Miss Haddie bitterly.
“I’m certainly not going to give my mind up to a parson for him to do what he likes with. That’s what it is. That’s what they do. I’ve seen it again and again. I’ve heard people talking about sermons,” finished Miriam with vivacious intentness.
Miss Haddie sat very still with her hands once more pressed tightly against her face.
“Oh, my dear. This is a dreadful state of affairs. I’m afraid you’re all wrong. That’s notit at all. If you listen only for the good, the good will come to you.”
“But these men don’t know. How should they? They don’t agree amongst themselves.”
“Oh, my dear, that is a very wrong attitude. How long have ye felt like this?”
“Oh, all my life,” responded Miriam proudly.
“I’m very sorry, my dear.”
“Ever since I can remember. Always.”
There were ivory-backed brushes on the dressing-table. Miriam stared at them and let her eyes wander on to a framed picture of an agonised thorn-crowned head.
“Were you—have ye—eh—have ye been confirmed?”
“Oh yes.”
“Did ye discuss any of your difficulties with yer vicar?”
“Not I. I knew his mind too well. Had heard him preach for years. He would have run round my questions. He wasn’t capable of answering them. For instance, supposing I had asked him what I’vealwayswanted to know. How can people, ordinary people, be expected to be like Christ, as they say, when they think Christ was supernatural? Of course, if he wassupernatural it was easy enough for him to be as he was; if he was not supernatural, then there’s nothing in the whole thing.”
“Mydearchild! I’m dreadfully sorry ye feel like that. I’d no idea ye felt like that, poor child. I knew ye weren’t quite happy always; I mean I’ve thought ye weren’t quite happy in yer mind sometimes, but I’d no idea—eh, eh, have ye ever consulted anybody—anybody able to give ye advice?”
“There you are. That’s exactly the whole thing!Whocan one consult? There isn’t anybody. The people who are qualified are the people who have the thing called faith, which means that they beg the whole question from the beginning.”
“Eh—dear—me—Miriam—child!”
“Well, I’m made that way. How can I help it if faith seems to me just an abnormal condition of the mind with fanaticism at one end and agnosticism at the other?”
“My dear, ye believe in God?”
“Well, you see, I see things like this. On one side a prime cause with a certain object unknown to me, bringing humanity into being; on the other side humanity, all more or less miserable,never having been consulted as to whether they wanted to come to life. If that is belief, a South Sea Islander could have it. But good people, people with faith, want me to believe that one day God sent a saviour to rescue the world from sin and that the world can never be grateful enough and must become as Christ. Well. If God made people he is responsible and ought to save them.”
“What do yer parents think about yer ideas?”
“They don’t know.”
“Ye’ve never mentioned yer trouble to them?”
“I did ask Pater once when we were coming home from the Stabat Mater that question I’ve told you about.”
“What did he say?”
“He couldn’t answer. We were just by the gate. He said he thought it was a remarkably reasonable dilemma. He laughed.”
“And ye’ve never had any discussion of these things with him?”
“No.”
“Ye’re an independent young woman,” said Miss Haddie.
Miriam looked up. Miss Haddie was sitting on the edge of her bed. A faint pink flush on hercheeks made her eyes look almost blue. She was no longer frowning. ‘I’m something new—a kind of different world. She is wondering. I must stick to my guns,’ mused Miriam.
“I’ll not ask ye,” said Miss Haddie quietly and cheerfully, “to expect any help from yer fellow creatures since ye’ve such a poor opinion of them. But ye’re not happy. Why not go straight to the source?”
Miriam waited. For a moment the sheen on Miss Haddie’s silk sleeves had distracted her by becoming as gentle and unchallenging as the light on her mother’s dresses when there were other people in the room. She had feared the leaping out of some emotional appeal. But Miss Haddie had a plan. Strange secret knowledge.
“I should like to ask ye a question.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I’ll put it in this way. While ye’ve watched the doings of yer fellow creatures ye’ve forgotten that the truth ye’re seeking is a—a Person.”
Miriam pondered.
“That’s where ye ought to begin. And how about—what—what about—I fancy ye’ve been neglecting the—the means of grace.... I thinkye have.” Miss Haddie rose and crossed the room to a little bookshelf at the head of her bed, talking happily on. ‘Upright as a dart,’ commented Miriam mentally, waiting for the fulfilment of the promise of Miss Haddie’s cheerfulness. Against the straight lines of the wall-paper Miss Haddie showed as swaying slightly backwards from the waist as she moved.
The first bell rang and Miriam got up to go. Miss Haddie came forward with a small volume in her hands and held it out, standing close by her and keeping her own hold on the volume. “Ye’ll find no argument in it. Not but I think a few sound arguments would do ye good. Give it a try. Don’t be stiff-necked. Just read it and see.” The smooth soft leather slipped altogether into Miriam’s hands and she felt the passing contact of a cool small hand and noted a faint fine scent coming to her from Miss Haddie’s person.
In her own room she found that the soft binding of the book had rounded corners and nothing on the cover but a small plain gold cross in the right-hand corner. She feasted her eyes on it as she took off her things. When the second bell rang she glanced inside the cover. “Preparation for Holy Communion.” Hurriedlyhiding it in her long drawer under a pile of linen, she ran to the door. Running back again she took it out and put it, together with her prayer book and hymn book, in the small top drawer.
The opportunity to use Miss Haddie’s book came with Nancie’s departure for a week-end visit. Beadie was in the deeps of her first sleep and the room seemed empty. The book lay open on her bed. She noted as she placed it there when she began preparing for bed that it was written by a bishop, a man she knew by name as being still alive. It struck her as extraordinary that a book should be printed and read while the author was alive, and she turned away with a feeling of shame from the idea of the bishop, still going about in his lawn sleeves and talking, while people read a book that he had written in his study. But it was very interesting to have the book to look at, because he probably knew about modern people with doubts and would not think about them as ‘infidels’—‘an honest agnostic has my sympathy,’ he might say, and it was possible he did not believe in eternal punishment. If he did he would not have had his bookprinted with rounded edges and that beautiful little cross.... “Line upon Line” and the “Pilgrim’s Progress” were not meant for modern minds. Archbishop Whateley had a “chaste and eloquent wit” and was a “great gardener.” A witty archbishop fond of gardening was simply aggravating and silly.
Restraining her desire to hurry, Miriam completed her toilet and at last knelt down in her dressing-gown. Its pinked neck-frill fell heavily against her face as she leant over the bed. Tucking it into her neck she clasped her outstretched hands, leaving the book within the circle of her arms. The attitude seemed a little lacking in respect for the beautifully printed gilt-edged pages. Flattening her entwined hands between herself and the edge of the bed, she read very slowly that just as for worldly communion men cleanse and deck their bodies so for attendance at the Holy Feast must there be a cleansing and decking of the spirit. She knelt upright, feeling herself grow very grave. The cold air of the bedroom flowed round her carrying conviction. Then that dreadful feeling at early service, kneeling like a lump in the pew, too late to begin to be good, the exhausted moments by the altar rail—thechallenging light on the shining brass rod, on the priest’s ring and the golden lining of the cup, the curious bite of the wine in the throat—the sullen disappointed home-coming; all the strange failure was due to lack of preparation. She knelt for some moments, without thoughts, breathing in the cleansing air, sighing heavily at intervals. What she ought to do was clear. A certain time for preparation could be taken every night, kneeling up in bed with the gas out if Nancie were awake, and a specially long time on Saturday night. The decision took her back to her book. She read that no man can cleanse himself, but it is his part to examine his conscience and confess his sins with a prayer for cleansing grace.
The list of questions for self-examination as to sins past and present in thought, word, and deed brought back the sense of her body with its load of well-known memories. Could they be got rid of? She could cast them off, feel them sliding away like Christian’s Burden. But was that all? Was it being reconciled with your brother to throw off ill-feeling without letting him know and telling him you were sorry for unkind deeds and words? Those you met would find out the change;but all the others—those you had offended from your youth up—all your family? Write to them. A sense of a checking of the tide that had seemed to flow through her finger-tips came with this suggestion, and Miriam knelt heavily on the hard floor, feeling the weight of her well-known body. The wall-paper attracted her attention and the honeycomb pattern of the thick fringed white counterpane. She shut the little book and rose from her knees. Moving quickly about the room, she turned at random to her washhand basin and vigorously rewashed her hands in its soapy water. The Englishman, she reflected as she wasted the soap, puts a dirty shirt on a clean body, and the Frenchman a clean shirt on a dirty body.
Miriamfelt very proud of tall Miss Perne when she met her in the hall at the beginning of her second term. Miss Perne had kissed her and held one of her hands in two small welcoming ones, talking in a gleeful voice. “Well, my dear,” she said at the end of a little pause, “you’ll have a clear evening. The gels do not return until to-morrow, so you’ll be able to unpack and settle yerself in comfortably. Come and sit with us when ye’ve done. We’ll have supper in the sitting-room. M’yes.” Smiling and laughing she turned eagerly away. “Of course, Miss Perne,” said Miriam in a loud wavering voice, arresting her, “I enjoyed my holidays; but I want to tell you how glad I am to be back here.”
“Yes, yes,” said Miss Perne hilariously, “we’re all glad.”
There was a little break in her voice, andMiriam saw that she would have once more taken her in her arms.
“I like being here,” she said hoarsely, looking down, and supported herself by putting two trembling fingers on the hall table. She was holding back from the gnawing of the despair that had made her sick with pain when she heard once more the jingle-jingle, plock-plock of the North London trams. This strong feeling of pride in Miss Perne was beating it down. “I’m very glad, my dear,” responded Miss Perne in a quivering gleeful falsetto. ‘If you can’t have what you like you must like what you have,’ said Miriam over and over to herself as she went with heavy feet up the four flights of stairs.
A candle was already burning in the empty bedroom. “I’m back. I’m back. It’s all over,” she gasped as she shut the door. “And a jolly good thing too. This is my place. I can keep myself here and cost nothing and not interfere with anybody. It’s just as if I’d never been away. It’ll always be like that now. Short holidays, gone in a minute, and then the long term. Getting out of touch with everything,things happening, knowing nothing about them, going home like a visitor, and people talking to you about things that are only theirs, now and not wanting to hear about yours ... not about the little real everyday things that give you an idea of anything but only the startling things that are not important. You have to think of them though to make people interested—awful, awful, awful, really only putting people further away afterwards when you’ve told the thing and their interest dies down and you can’t think of anything else to say. ‘Miss Perne’s hair isperfectlyblack—as black as coal, and she’s the eldest, justfancy.’ Then everybody looks up. ‘My room’s downstairs, the room where I teach, is in the basement. Directly breakfast is over——’
“‘Basement? What a pity! Basement rooms are awfully bad,’ and by the time you have stopped them exclaiming and are just going to begin, you see that they are fidgetting and thinking about something else.” ... Eve had listened a little; because she wanted to tell everything about her own place and had agreed that nobody really wanted to hear the details.... The landscapes from the windows of the big country house, alllike pictures by Leader, the stables and laundry, a “laundry-maid” who was sixty-five, the eldest pupil with seven muslin dresses in the summer and being scolded because she swelled out after two helpings of meat and two of pie and cream, and the youngest almost square in her little covert coat and with a square face and large blue eyes and the puppies who went out in a boat in Weston-super-Mare and were sea-sick.... Eve did not seem to mind the family being common. Eve was changing. “They are so jolly and strong. They enjoy life. They’re like other people.” ... “D’you think that’s jolly? Would you like to be like that—like other people?” “Rather. I mean to be.” “Do you?” “Of course it can’t be done all at once. But it’s good for me to be there. It’s awfully jolly to be in a house with no worry about money and plenty of jolly food. Mrs. Green is so strong and clever. She can do anything. She’s good for me, she keeps me going.” “Would you like to be like her?” “Of course. They’re all so jolly—even when they’re old. Her sister’s forty and she’s still pretty; not given up hope a bit.” “Eve!”
Eve had listened; but not agreed about the teaching, about making the girls see how easy itwas to get hold of the things and then letting them talk about other things. “I see how you do it, and I see why the girls obey you, of course.” Funny. Eve thought it was hard and inhuman. That’s what she really thought.
Two newly purchased lengths of spotted net veiling were lying at the top of her lightly packed trunk partly folded in uncrumpled tissue paper. She took the crisp dye-scented net very gently into her hands, getting, sitting alone on the floor by her trunk, the full satisfaction that had failed her in the shop with Harriett’s surprise at her sudden desire flowing over the counter and infecting the charm of baskets full of cheap stockings and common bright-bordered handkerchiefs some of which had borders so narrow and faint as really hardly to show when they were scrumpled up. “Veiling, moddom? Yes, moddom,” the assistant had retorted when she had asked for a veil. “Wot onearthfower?” ... Without answering Harriett she had bought two. There was no need to have bought two. One could go back in the trunk as a store. They would be the beginning of gradually getting a ‘suitable outfit,’ ‘things convenient for you.’ She got up to put a veil in the little top drawer very carefully;trying it across her face first. It almost obliterated her features in the dim candle-light. It would be the greatest comfort on winter walks, warm and like a rampart. ‘You’ve no idea how warm it keeps you,’ she could say if anybody said anything. She arranged her clothes very slowly and exactly in her half of the chest of drawers. “My appointments ought to be an influence in the room—until all my things are perfectly refined I shan’t be able to influence the girls as I ought. I must begin it from now. At the end of the term I shall be stronger. From strength to strength.” She wished she could go to bed at once and prepare for to-morrow lying alone in the dark with the trams going up and down outside as they would do night by night for the rest of her life.
The nine o’clock post brought a letter from Harriett. Miriam carried it upstairs after supper. Placing it unopened on a chair by the head of her bed under the gas bracket she tried to put away the warm dizzy feeling it brought her in an elaborate toilet that included the placing in readiness of everything she would need for themorning. When all was complete she was filled with a peace that promised to remain indefinitely as long as everything she had to do should be carried out with unhurried exactitude. It could be made to become the atmosphere of her life. It would come nearer and nearer and she would live more and more richly into it until she had grown like those women who were called blessed.... She looked about her. The plain room gave her encouragement. It became the scene of adventure. She tip-toed about it in her night-gown. All the world would come to her there. Flora knew. Flora was the same, sweeping the floors and going to bed in an ugly room with two other servants; but she was in it alone sometimes and knew....
“One verse to-night will be enough.” Opening her Bible at random she read, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience.” Eagerly closing the volume she knelt down smiling. “Oh do let tribulation work patience in me,” she murmured, blushing, and got up staring gladly at the wall behind her bed. Shaking her pillow lengthwise against the ironwork head of the bed, she established herself with the bed-clothes neatlyarranged, sitting up to read Harriett’s letter before turning out the gas:
“Toosday morning—You’ve not gone yet, old tooral-ooral, but I’m writing this because I know you’ll feel blue this evening, to tell you not to. Becos, it’snotime to Easter and becos here’s a great piece of news. The last of the Neville Subscription Dances comes in the Easter holidays andyou’re to come. D’ye ’ear, Liza? Gerald says if you can’t stump up he’s going to get you a ticket, and anyhow you’ve got to come. You’ll enjoy it just as much as you did the first and probably more, because most of the same people will be there. So Goodni’. Mind the lamp-post. Harry. P.S.—Heaps of love, old silly. You’re just the same. It’s no bally good pretending you’re not.”
Miriam felt her heart writhe in her breast. “Get thee behind me, Harry,” she said, pushing the letter under the pillow and kneeling up to turn out the gas. When she lay down again her mind was rushing on by itself....
Harry doesn’t realise a bit how short holidays are. Easter—nothing. Just one dance and neverseeing the people again. I was right just now. I was on the right track then. I must get back to that. It’s no good giving way right or left; I must make a beginning of my own life.... I wish I had been called “Patience” and had thin features.... Adam Street, Adelphi.... “Now do you want to be dancing out there with one of those young fellows, my dear girl—No? That’s a very good thing for me. I’m an old buffer who can’t manage more than every other dance or so. But if you do me the honour of sitting here while those young barbarians romp their Lancers?... Ah, that is excellent—I want you to talk to me. You needn’t mind me. Hey? What? I’ve known that young would-be brother-in-law of yours for many years and this evening I’ve been watching your face. Do you mind that, dear girl, that I’ve watched your face? In all homage. I’m a staunch worshipper of womanhood. I’ve seen rough life as well as suave. I’m an old gold-digger—Ustralia took many years of my life; but it never robbed me of my homage for women....
“That’s a mystery to me. How you’ve allowed your young sister to overhaul you. Perhaps you have a Corydon hidden away somewhere—ordon’t think favourably of the bonds of matrimony? Is that it?
“You are not one to be easily happy. But that is no reason why you should say you pity anyone undertaking to pass through life at your side. Don’t let your thoughts and ideas allow you to miss happiness. Women are made to find and dispense happiness. Even intense women like yourself. But you won’t find it an easy matter to discover your mate.
“Have you ever thought of committing your ideas to paper? There’s a book called ‘The Confessions of a Woman.’ It had a great sale and its composition occupied the authoress for only six weeks. You could write in your holidays.
“Think over what I’ve told you, my dear, dear girl. And don’t forget old Bob Greville’s address. You’re eighteen. He’s only eight; eight Adam Street. The old Adam. Waiting to hear from the new Eve—whenever she’s unhappy.”
He would be there again, old flatterer, with his steely blue eyes and that strong little Dr. Conelly—Conelly who held you like a vice and swung you round and kept putting you back from him to say things. “If onlyyou knew the refreshment it is to dance with a girl who can talk sense and doesn’tgiggle.... Yes yes yes, women arephysicallyincapable of keeping a secret.... Meredith, he’s the man. He understands woman as no other writer——” And the little dark man—De Vigne—who danced like a snake.... Tired? Divinely drowsy? That’s what I like. Don’t talk. Let yourself go. Little snail, Harriett called him. And that giant, Conelly’s friend, whirling you round the room like a gust, with his eyes fixed far away in the distance and dropping you with the chaperones at the end of the dance. Ifhehad suddenly said “Let yourself go” ... He too would have become a snail. God has made life ugly.
Dear Mr. Greville, dearBob. Do you know anything about a writer called Meredith? If you have one of his books I should like to read it. No. Dear Bob, I’m simply wretched. I want to talk to you.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs—the servants, coming upstairs to bed. No dancing for them. Work, caps and aprons. And those strangerooms upstairs to sleep in that nobody ever saw. Probably Miss Perne went up occasionally to look at them and see that they were all right; clean and tidy.... They had to go up every night, carrying little jugs of water and making no noise on the stairs, and come down every morning. They were the servants—and there would never be any dancing. Nobody thought about them.... They could not get away from each other, and cook....
To be a general servant would be very hard work. Perhaps impossible. But there would be two rooms, the kitchen at the bottom of the house, and a bedroom at the top, your own. It would not matter what the family was like. You would look after them, like children, and be alone to read and sleep.... Toothache. Cheap dentists; a red lamp “painless extractions” ... having to go there before nine in the morning, and be alone in a cold room, the dentist doing what he thought best and coming back to your work crying with pain, your head wrapped up in a black shawl. Hospitals; being quite helpless and grateful for wrong treatment; coming back to work, ill. Sinks and slops ... quinsey, all alone ... growths ... consumption.
Go to sleep. It would be better to think in the morning. But then this clear first impression would be gone and school would begin and go on from hour to hour through the term, mornings and afternoons and evenings, dragging you along further and further and changing you, months and months and years until it was too late to get back and there was nothing ahead.
The thing to remember, to keep in mind all the time was to save money—not to spend a single penny that could be saved, to be determined about that so that when the temptation came you could just hang on until it was past.
No fun in the holidays, no money spent on flowers and gloves and blouses. Keeping stiff and sensible all the time. The family of the two little Quaker girls had a home library, with lists, an inventory, lending each other their books and talking about them, and albums of pressed leaves and flowers with the Latin names, and went on wearing the same plain clothes.... You had to be a certain sort of person to do that.
It would spoil the holidays to be like that at home. Every penny must be spent, if only on things for other people. Not spending wouldbring a nice strong secret feeling and a horrid expression into one’s eyes.
The only way was to give up your family and stay at your work, like Flora, and have a box of half-crowns in your drawer.... Spend and always be afraid of “rainy days”—or save and never enjoy life at all.
But going out now and again in the holidays, feeling stiff and governessy and just beginning to learn to be oneself again when it was time to go back was not enjoying life ... your money was spent and people forgot you and you forgot them and went back to your convent to begin again.
Save, save. Sooner or later saving must begin. Why not at once. Harry, it’s no good. I’m old already. I’ve got to be one of those who have to give everything up.
I wonder if Flora is asleep?
That’s settled. Go to sleep. Get thee behind me. Sleep ... the dark cool room. Air; we breathe it in and it keeps us alive. Everybody has air. Manna. As much as you want, full measure, pressed down and running over.... Wonderful. There is somebody giving things, whatever goes ... something left.... Somebodyseeing that things are not quite unbearable, ... but the pain, the pain all the time, mysterious black pain....
Into thy hands I commit my spirit.In manussomething.... You understand if nobody else does. Butwhymust I be one of the ones to give everything up?Whydo you make me suffer so?
Piecemealstatements in her letter home brought Miriam now and again a momentary sense of developing activities, but she did not recognise the completeness of the change in her position at the school until half-way through her second term she found herself talking to the new pupil teacher. She had heard apathetically of her existence during supper-table conversations with the Misses Perne at the beginning of the term. She was an Irish girl of sixteen, one of a large family living on the outskirts of Dublin, and would be a boarder, attending the first class for English and earning pocket money by helping with the lower school. As the weeks went on and Miriam grew accustomed to hearing her name—Julia Doyle—she began to associate it with an idea of charm that brought her a sinking of heart. She knew her position in the esteem of the Pernes was secure. But this new youngteacher would work strange miracles with the girls. She would do it quite easily and unconsciously. The girls would be easy with her and would laugh and one would have to hear them.
However, when at last her arrival was near and the three ladies discussed the difficulty of having her met, Miriam plied them until they reluctantly gave her permission to go, taking a workman’s train that would bring her to Euston station at seven o’clock in the morning.
At the end of an hour spent pacing the half-dark platform exhausted with cold and excitement and the monotonously reiterated effort to imagine the arrival of one of Mrs. Hungerford’s heroines from a train journey, Miriam, whose costume had been described in a letter to the girl’s mother, was startled wandering amidst the vociferous passengers at the luggage end of the newly arrived train by a liquid colourless intimate voice at her elbow. “I think I’ll be right to say how d’you do.”
She turned and saw a slender girl in a middle-aged toque and an ill-cut old-fashioned coat and skirt. What were they to say to each other, two dowdy struggling women both in the samebox? She must get her to Banbury Park as quickly as possible. It was dreadful that they should be seen together there on the platform in their ragbag clothes. At any rate they must not talk. “Oh, I’m very pleased to see you. I’m glad you’ve come. I suppose the train must have been late,” she said eagerly.
“Ah, we’ll be late I dare venture. Haven’t an idea of the hour.”
“Oh, yes,” said Miriam emphatically, “I’m sure the train’slate.”
“Where’ll we find a core?”
“What?”
“We’ll need a core for the luggage.”
“Oh yes, a cab. We must get a cab. We’d better find a porter.”
“Ah, I’ve a man here seeking out my things.”
Inside the cab Julia’s face shone chalky white, and Miriam found that her eyes looked like Weymouth Bay—the sea in general, on days when clouds keep sweeping across the sun. When she laughed she had dimples and the thick white rims of her eyelids looked like piping cord round her eyes. But she was not pretty. There were lines in her cheeks as well as dimples, and therewas something apologetic in her little gusty laugh. She laughed a good deal as they started off, saying things, little quiet remarks that Miriam could not understand and that did not seem to be answers to her efforts to make conversation. Perhaps she was not going the right way to make her talk. Perhaps she had not said any of the things she thought she had said.
She cleared her throat and looked out of the window thinking over a possible opening.
“I’ve never been so glad over anything in my life as hearing you’re one of the teachers,” said Julia presently.
“The Pernes call me by my name, so I suppose you will too as you’re a teacher,” said Miriam headlong.
“That’s awfully sweet of you,” replied Julia laughing and blushing a clear deep rose. “It makes anyone feel at home. I’ll be looking out till I hear it.”
“It’s——” Miriam laughed. “Isn’t it funny that people don’t like saying their own names.”
“I wish you’d tell me about your teaching. I’m sure you’re awf’ly clever.”
Miriam gave her a list of the subjects she taught in the lower school.
“You know all there is to know.”
“Oh well, and then I take the top girls now for German and the second class for French reading, and two arithmetic classes in the upper school, and a ‘shell’ of two very stupid girls to help with their College of Preceptors.”
“You’re frightening me.”
Miriam looked out of the cab window, hardly hearing Julia’s next remark. The drab brick walls of King’s Cross station were coming towards them. When they had got themselves and Julia’s luggage out of the cab and into the train for Banbury Park she was still pondering uneasily over her own dislike of appearing as a successful teacher. This stranger saw her only as a teacher. That was what she had become. If she was really a teacher now, just that in life, it meant that she must decide at once whether she really meant to teach always. Everyone now would think of her as a teacher; as someone who was never going to do anything else, when really she had not even begun to think about doing any of the things that professional teachers had to do. She was not qualifying herself for examinations in her sparetime as her predecessor had done. Supposing she did. This girl Julia would certainly expect her to be doing so. What then? If she were to work very hard and also develop her character, when she was fifty she would be like Miss Cramp; good enough to be a special visiting teacher, giving just a few lectures a week at several schools, talking in a sad voice, feeling ill and sad, having a yellow face and faded hair and not enough saved to live on when she was too old to work. Prospect, said the noisy train. That was it, there was no prospect in it. There was no prospect in teaching. What was there a prospect in, going along in this North London train with this girl who took her at her word?
She turned eagerly to Julia who was saying something and laughing unconcernedly as she said it. “If you’d like to know what it is I’ve come over for I’ll tell you at once. I’ve come over to learn Chopang’s Funeral March. It’s all I think about. When I can play Chopang’s Funeral March I’ll not call the Queen me aunt.”
“Well, my dear child, I’m sure I wish I could arrange your life for ye,” said Miss Haddie thatevening. She was sitting on the edge of the schoolroom table, having come in at ten o’clock to turn out the gas and found Miriam sitting unoccupied. The room was cold and close with the long-burning gas, and Miriam had turned upon her with a scornful half laugh when she had playfully exclaimed at finding her there so late. Miss Haddie was obviously still a little excited. She had presided at schoolroom tea and Julia had filled the room with Dublin—the bay, the streets, the jarveys and their outside cars, her journey, the channel boat, her surprise at England.
“Eh, what’s the matter, Miriam, my dear?” For some time Miriam had parried her questions, fiercely demanding that her mood should be understood without a clue. Presently they had slid into an irritated discussion of the respective values of sleep before and sleep after midnight, in the midst of which Miriam had said savagely, “I wish to goodness I knew what to do about things.”
Miss Haddie’s kindly desire gave her no relief. What did she mean but the hopelessness of imagining that anybody could do anything about anything. Nobody could ever understand whatanyone else really wanted. Only some people were fortunate. Miss Haddie was one of the fortunate ones. She had her share in the school and many wealthy relatives and the very best kind of good clothes and a good deal of strange old-fashioned jewelry. And whatever happened there was money and her sisters and relatives to look after her without feeling it a burden because of the expense. And there she sat at the table looking at what she thought she could see in another person’s life.
“If only one knew in the least what oneoughtto do,” said Miriam crossly.
Miss Haddie began speaking in a halting murmur, and Miriam rushed on with flaming face. “I suppose I shall have to go on teaching all my life, and I can’t think how on earth I’m going to do it. I don’t see how I can work in the evenings, my eyes get so tired. If you don’t get certificates there’s no prospect. And even if I did my throat is simply agonies at the end of each morning.”
“Eh! my dear child! I’m sorry to hear that. Why have ye taken to that? Is it something fresh?”
“Oh no, my throat always used to get tired.Mother’s is the same. We can’t either of us talk for ten minutes without feeling it. It’s perfectly awful.”
“But, my dear, oughtn’t ye to see someone—have some advice? I mean ye ought to see a doctor.”
Miriam glanced at Miss Haddie’s concerned face and glanced away with a flash of hatred. “Oh no. I s’pose I shall manage.”
“D’ye think yer wise—letting it go on?”
Miriam made no reply.
“Well now, my dear,” said Miss Haddie, getting down off the table, “I think it’s time ye went to bed.”
“Phm,” said Miriam impatiently, “I suppose it is.”
Miss Haddie sat down again. “I wish I could help ye, my dear,” she said gently.
“Oh, no one can do that,” said Miriam in a hard voice.
“Oh yes,” murmured Miss Haddie cheerfully, “there’s One who can.”
“Oh yes,” said Miriam, tugging a thread out of the fraying edge of the table cover. “But it’s practically impossible to discover what on earth they mean you to do.”
“N—aiche, my dear,” she said in an angry guttural, “ye’re always led.”
Miriam tugged at the thread and bit her lips.
“Why do ye suppose ye’ll go on teaching all yer life? Perhaps ye’ll marry.”
“Oh no.”
“Ye can’t tell.”
“Oh, I never shall—in any case now.”
“Have ye quarrelled with him?”
“Oh, well,him,” said Miriam roundly, digging a pencil point between the grainings of the table-cover. “It’sthey, I think, goodness knows, I don’t know; it’s so perfectly extraordinary.”
“You’re a very funny young lady.”
“Well, I shan’t marrynowanyhow.”
“Have ye refused somebody?”
“Oh well—there was someone—who went away—went to America—who was coming back to see me when he came back——”
“Yes, my dear?”
“Well, you see, he’s handed in his checks.”
“Eh, my dear—I don’t understand,” said Miss Haddie thwarted and frowning.
“Aw,” said Miriam, jabbing the table, “kicked the bucket.”
“My dear child, you use such strange language—I can’t follow ye.”
“Oh well, you see, he went to America. It was in New York. I heard about it in January. He caught that funny illness. You know. Influenza—and died.”
“Eh, my poor dear child, I’m very sorry for ye. Yedoseem to have troubles.”
“Ah well, yes, and then the queer thing is that he was really only the friend of my real friend. And it was my real friend who told me about it and gave me a message he sent me and didn’t like it, of course. Naturally.”
“Wellreally, Miriam,” said Miss Haddie, blushing, with a little laugh half choked by a cough.
“Oh yes, then of course one meets people—at dances. It’s appalling.”
“I wish I understood ye, my dear.”
“Oh well, it doesn’t make any difference now. I shall hardly ever meet anybody now.”
Miss Haddie pondered over the table with features that worked slightly as she made little murmuring sounds. “Eh no. Ye needn’t think that. Ye shouldn’t think like that.... Thingshappen sometimes ... just when ye least expect it.”
“Not to me.”
“Oh, things will happen to ye—never fear.... Now, my dear child, trot along with ye off to bed.”
Miriam braced herself against Miss Haddie’s gentle shaking of her shoulders and the quiet kiss on her forehead that followed it.