Pointed Roofs: Pilgrimage Part 27

"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 gus.h.i.+ng 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 peacemaking, 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 cafes and gardens, the masters in the school, photographs in the girls' alb.u.ms. 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, Fraulein'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 s.p.a.ce 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 biscuit-box and the large epergne made her feel guilty and s.h.i.+fting, 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 Schonberg-Cotta family. She held to the memory of these two books. Something was coming from them to her. She handled the s.h.i.+ny 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 pa.s.sed 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... Kathe... Kathe... happy Kathe....

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 G.o.d... saying you couldn't get away from your sins by paying money... standing out in the world and Kathe 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 Kathe to smile.... She had been a nun... and then making a lamplit meal for Lather 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 G.o.d. No Creation. The struggle for existence. Fighting....

Fighting.... Fighting.... Everybody groping and fighting....

Fraulein.... Some said it was true... some not. They could not both be right. It was probably true... only old-fas.h.i.+oned people thought it was not. It was true. Just that--monkeys fighting. But who began it? Who made Fraulein? Tough leathery monkey....

7

Then nothing matters. Just one little short life....

"A few more years shall roll... A few more seasons pa.s.s...."

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 _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...