Pointed Roofs: Pilgrimage Part 23

Ulrica broke into steady weeping.

Fraulein read Psalms, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. the short phrases as if they were pet.i.tions, with a pause between each. When the thunder came she raised her voice against it and read more rapidly.

As the storm began to abate a little party of English went to the kitchen and brought back milk and biscuits and jam.

11

"You will be asleep, Miss Hendershon." Miriam started at the sound of Ulrica's wailing whisper. Fraulein had only just gone. She had been sitting on the end of Emma's bed talking quietly of self-control and now Emma was asleep. Ulrica's corner had been perfectly quiet. Miriam had been lying listening to the steady swis.h.i.+ng of the rain against the chestnut leaves.

"No; what is it?"

"Oh, most wonderful. Ich bin so empfindlich. I am so sensible."

"Sensitive?"

"Oh, it was most wonderful. Only hear and I shall tell you. This evening when the storm leave himself down it was exactly as my Konfirmation."

"Yes."

"It was as my Konfirmation. I think of that wonderful day, my white dress, the flower-bouquet and how I weeped always. Oh, it was all of most beautifullest. I am so sensible."

"Oh, yes," whispered Miriam.

"I weeped so! All day I have weeped! The all whole day! And my mozzer she console me I shall not weep. And I weep. Ach! It was of most beautifullest."

Miriam felt as if she were being robbed.... This was Ulrica. "You remember the Konfirmation, miss?"

"Oh, I remember."

"Have you weeped?"

"We say _cry,_ not weep, except in poetry--weinen, to cry."

"Have you cry?"

"No, I didn't cry. But we mustn't talk. We must go to sleep. Good night."

"Gute Nacht. Ach, wie empfindlich bin ich, wie empfindlich...."

Miriam lay thinking of how she and Harriett on their confirmation morning had met the vicar in the Upper Richmond Road, having gone out, contrary to the desire expressed by him at his last preparation cla.s.s, and how he had stopped and greeted them. She had tried to look vague and sad and to murmur something in spite of the bull's-eye in her cheek and had suddenly noticed as they stood grouped that Harriett's little sugar-loaf hat was askew and her brown eye underneath it was glaring fixedly at the vicar above the little k.n.o.b in her cheek--and how they somehow got away and went, gently reeling and colliding, moaning and gasping down the road out of hearing.

12

Early next morning Judy came in to tell Emma and Ulrica to get up at once and come and help the housekeeper make the rooms tidy and prepare breakfast. Miriam lay motionless while Emma unfolded and arranged the screens. Then she gazed at the ceiling. It was pleasant to lie tranquil, open-eyed and unchallenged while others moved busily about. Two separate, sudden and resounding garglings almost startled her to thought, but she resisted, and presently she was alone in the strange room. She supposed it must be cooler after the storm. She felt strong and languid. She could feel the shape and weight of each limb; sounds came to her with perfect distinctness; the sounds downstairs and a low-voiced conversation across the landing, little faint marks that human beings were making on the great wide stillness, the stillness that brooded along her white ceiling and all round her and right out through the world; the faint scent of her soap-tablet reached her from the distant wash-stand. She felt that her short sleep must have been perfect, that it had carried her down and down into the heart of tranquillity where she still lay awake, and drinking as if at a source.

Cool streams seemed to be flowing in her brain, through her heart, through every vein, her breath was like a live cool stream flowing through her.

She remembered that she had dreamed her favourite dream--floating through clouds and above treetops and villages. She had almost brushed the treetops, that had been the happiest moment, and had caught sight of a circular seat round the trunk of a large old tree and a group of white cottages.

She stirred; her hands seemed warm on her cool chest and the warmth of her body sent up a faint pleasant sense of personality. "It's me," she said, and smiled.

"Look here, you'd better get up, my dear," she murmured.

She wanted to have the whole world in and be reconciled. But she knew that if anyone came, she would contract and the expression of her face would change and they would hate her or be indifferent. She knew that if she even moved she would be changed.

"Get up."

She listened for a while to two voices across the landing. Millie's thick and plaintive with her hay-fever and Bertha's thin and cold and level and rea.s.suring.... Bertha's voice was like the morning, clean and cool.... Then she got up and shut the door.

The sky was a vivid grey--against its dark background the tops of heavy ma.s.ses of cloud were standing up just above the roof-line of the houses beyond the neighbouring gardens. The trees and the grey roofs and the faces of the houses were staringly bright. They were absolutely stiff, nothing was moving, there were no shadows.

A soft distant rumble of thunder came as she was dressing.... The storm was still going on... what an extraordinary time of day for thunder...

the excitement was not over... they were still a besieged party... all staying at the Bienenkorb together.... How beautiful it sounded rumbling away over the country in the morning. When she had finished struggling with her long thick hair and put the hairpins into the solid coil on the top of her head and tied the stout doubled door-knocker plait at her neck, she put on the rose-madder blouse. The mirror was lower and twice as large as the one in the garret, larger than the one she had shared with Harriett. "How jolly I look," she thought, "jolly and big somehow.

Mother would like me this morning. I _am_ German-looking to-day, pinky red and yellow hair. But I haven't got a German expression and I don't smile like a German.... She smiled.... Silly, baby-face! Doll! Never mind! I look jolly. She looked gravely into her eyes.... There's something about my expression." Her face grew wistful. "It isn't vain to like it. It's something. It isn't me. It's something I am, somehow. Oh, _do_ stay," she said, "do be like that always." She sighed and turned away saying in Harriett's voice, "Oo--crumbs! This is no place for _me."_

13

The sky seen from the summer-house was darker still. There were no ma.s.sed clouds, nothing but a hard even dark copper-grey, and away through the gap the distant country was bright like a little painted scene. On the horizon the hard dark sky shut down. At intervals thunder rumbled evenly, far away. Miriam stood still in the middle of the summer-house floor. It was half-dark; the morning saal lay in a hot sultry twilight. The air in the summer-house was heavy and damp. She stood with her half-closed hands gathered against her. "How perfectly magnificent," she murmured, gazing out through the hard half-darkness to where the brightly coloured world lay in a strip and ended on the hard sky.

"Yes... yes," came a sad low voice at her side.

For a second Miriam did not turn. She drank in the quiet "yes, yes," the hard fixed scene seemed to move. Who loved it too, the dark sky and the storm? Then she focussed her companion who was standing a little behind her, and gazed at Fraulein; she hardly saw her, she seemed still to see the outdoor picture. Fraulein made a movement towards her; and then she saw for a moment the strange grave young look in her eyes. Fraulein had looked at her in that moment as an equal. It was as if they had embraced each other.

Then Fraulein said sadly, "You like the storm-weather, Miss Henderson."

"Yes."

Fraulein sighed, looking out across the country. "We are in the hollow of His Hand," she murmured. "Come to your breakfast, my child," she chided, smiling.

14

There was no church. Late in the afternoon when the sky lifted they all went to the woods in their summer dresses and hats. They had permission to carry their gloves and Elsa Speier's parasol and lace scarf hung from her wrist. The sky was growing higher and lighter, but there was no sun.

They entered the dark woods by a little well-swept pathway and for a while there was a strip of sky above their heads; but presently the trees grew tall and dense, the sky was shut out and their footsteps and voices began to echo about them as they straggled along, grouping and regrouping as the pathway widened and narrowed, gathering their skirts clear of the wet undergrowth. They crossed a roadway and two carriage loads of men and women talking and laughing and shouting with s.h.i.+ning red faces pa.s.sed swiftly by, one close behind the other. Beyond the roadway the great trees towered up in a sort of twilight. There were no flowers here, but bright fungi shone here and there about the roots of the trees and they all stood for a moment to listen to the tinkling of a little stream.

Pathways led away in all directions. It was growing lighter. There were faint chequers of light and shade about them as they walked. The forest was growing golden all round them, lifting and opening, gold and green, clearer and clearer. There were bright jewelled patches in amongst the trees; the boles of the trees shone out sharp grey and silver and flaked with sharp green leaves away and away until they melted into a mist of leaf.a.ge. Singing sounded suddenly away in the wood; a sudden strong shouting of men's voices singing together like one voice in four parts, four shouts in one sound.

"O _Sonn_enschein! O _Sonn_enschein!"