Pointed Roofs: Pilgrimage Part 9

ich abscheulich! I find it disgusting!"

So that was it. It was the new girl. Lily, was Fraulein Pfaff. So the new girl wore her hair in a cla.s.sic knot. How lovely. Without her hat she had "a charming little head," Minna had said. And that face. Minna had seen how lovely she was and had not minded. Clara was jealous. Her head with a cla.s.sic knot and no fringe, her worn-looking sallow face....

She would look like a "prisoner at the bar" in some newspaper. How they hated Fraulein Pfaff. The Germans at least. Fancy calling her Lily--Miriam did not like it, she had known at once. None of the teachers at school had been called by their Christian names--there had been old Quagmire, the Elfkin, and dear Donnikin, Stroodie, and good old Kingie and all of them--but no Christian names. Oh yes--Sally--so there had--Sally--but then Sally was--couldn't have been anything else--never could have held a position of any sort. They ought not to call Fraulein Pfaff that. It was, somehow, nasty. Did the English girls do it? Ought she to have said anything? Mademoiselle did not seem at all shocked.

Where was Fraulein Pfaff all this time? Perhaps somewhere hidden away, in her rooms, being "done" by Frau Krause. Fancy telling them all to alter the way they did their hair.

21

Everyone was writing Sat.u.r.day letters--Mademoiselle and the Germans with compressed lips and fine careful evenly moving pen-points; the English scrawling and sc.r.a.ping and das.h.i.+ng, their pens at all angles and careless, eager faces. An almost unbroken silence seemed the order of the earlier part of a Sat.u.r.day afternoon. To-day the room was very still, save for the slight movements of the writers. At intervals nothing was to be heard but the little chorus of pens. Clara, still smouldering, sitting at the window end of the room looked now and again gloomily out into the garden. Miriam did not want to write letters. She sat, pen in hand, and note-paper in front of her, feeling that she loved the atmosphere of these Sat.u.r.day afternoons. This was her second. She had been in the school a fortnight--the first Sat.u.r.day she had spent writing to her mother--a long letter for everyone to read, full of first impressions and enclosing a slangy almost affectionate little note for Harriett. In her general letter she had said, "If you want to think of something jolly, think of me, here." She had hesitated over that sentence when she considered meal-times, especially the midday meal, but on the whole she had decided to let it stand--this afternoon she felt it was truer. She was beginning to belong to the house--she did not want to write letters--but just to sit revelling in the sense of this room full of quietly occupied girls--in the first hours of the weekly holiday. She thought of strange Ulrica somewhere upstairs and felt quite one of the old gang. "Ages" she had known all these girls. She was not afraid of them at all. She would not be afraid of them any more. Emma Bergmann across the table raised a careworn face from her two lines of large neat lettering and caught her eye. She put up her hands on either side of her mouth as if for shouting.

"_Hendchen,_" she articulated silently, in her curious lipless way, "mein liebes, liebes, Hendchen."

Miriam smiled timidly and sternly began fumbling at her week's letters--one from Eve, full of congratulations and recommendations--"Keep up your music, my dear," said the conclusion, "and don't mind that little German girl being fond of you. It is impossible to be too fond of people if you keep it all on a high level,"

and a scrawl from Harriett, pure slang from beginning to end. Both these letters and an earlier one from her mother had moved her to tears and longing when they came. She re-read them now unmoved and felt aloof from the things they suggested. It did not seem imperative to respond to them at once. She folded them together. If only she could bring them all for a minute into this room, the wonderful Germany that she had achieved. If they could even come to the door and look in. She did not in the least want to go back. She wanted them to come to her and taste Germany--to see all that went on in this wonderful house, to see pretty, German Emma, adoring her--to hear the music that was everywhere all the week, that went, like a garland, in and out of everything, to hear her play, by accident, and acknowledge the difference in her playing. Oh yes, besides seeing them all she wanted them to hear her play.... She must stay... she glanced round the room. It was here, somehow, somewhere, in this roomful of girls, centring in the Germans at her end of the table, reflected on to the English group, something of that influence that had made her play. It was in the sheen on Minna's hair, in Emma's long-plaited schoolgirlishness, somehow in Clara's anger. It was here, here, and she was in it.... She must pretend to be writing letters or someone might speak to her. She would hate anyone who challenged her at this moment. Jimmie might. It was just the kind of thing Jimmie would do. Her eyes were always roving round.... There were a lot of people like that.... It was all right when you wanted anything or to--to--"create a diversion"--when everybody was quarrelling. But at the wrong times it was awful.... The Radnors and Pooles were like that. She could have killed them often. "Hullo, Mim," they would say. "Wake up!"

or "What's the row!" and if you asked why, they would laugh and tell you you looked like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.... It was all right.

No one had noticed her--or if either of the Germans had they would not think like that--they would understand--she believed in a way, they would understand. At the worst they would look at you as if they were somehow with you and say something sentimental. "Sie hat Heimweh" or something like that. Minna would. Minna's forget-me-not blue eyes behind her pink nose would be quite real and alive.... Ein Blatt--she dipped her pen and wrote Ein Blatt... aus... Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen that thing they had begun last Sat.u.r.day afternoon and gone on and on with until she had hated the sound of the words. How did it go on? "Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen," she breathed in a half whisper. Minna heard--and without looking up from her writing quietly repeated the verse. Her voice rose and trembled slightly on the last line.

"Oh, chuck it, Minna," groaned Bertha Martin.

"Tchookitt," repeated Minna absently, and went on with her writing.

Miriam was scribbling down the words as quickly as she could--

"Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen Ich nahm es so im Wandern mit Auf da.s.s es einst mir moge sagen Wie laut die Nachtigall geschlagen Wie grun der Wald den ich--durchtritt--" durchtritt--durchschritt--she was not sure.

It was perfectly lovely--she read it through translating stumblingly--

"A leaf from summery days I took it with me on my way, So that it might remind me How loud the nightingale had sung, How green the wood I had pa.s.sed through."

With a pang she felt it was true that summer ended in dead leaves.

But she had no leaf, nothing to remind her of her summer days. They were all past and she had nothing--not the smallest thing. The two little bunches of flowers she had put away in her desk had all crumbled together, and she could not tell which was which.... There was nothing else but the things she had told Eve--and perhaps Eve had forgotten...

there was nothing. There were the names in her birthday book! She had forgotten them. She would look at them. She flushed. She would look at them to-morrow, sometime when Mademoiselle was not there.... The room was waking up from its letter-writing. People were moving about. She would not write to-day. It was not worth while beginning. She took a fresh sheet of note-paper and copied her verse, s.p.a.cing it carefully with a wide margin all round so that it came exactly in the middle of the page. It would soon be tea-time. "Wie grun der Wald." She remembered one wood--the only one she could remember--there were no woods at Barnes or at the seaside--only that wood, at the very beginning, someone carrying Harriett--and green green, the brightest she had ever seen, and anemones everywhere, she could see them distinctly at this moment--she wanted to put her face down into the green among the anemones. She could not remember how she got there or the going home, but just standing there--the green and the flowers and something in her ear buzzing and frightening her and making her cry, and somebody poking a large finger into the buzzing ear and making it very hot and sore.

The afternoon sitting had broken up. The table was empty.

Emma, in raptures--near the window, was calling to the other Germans.

Minna came and chirruped too--there was a sound of dull scratching on the window--then a little burst of admiration from Emma and Minna together. Miriam looked round--in Emma's hand shone a small antique watch encrusted with jewels; at her side was the new girl. Miriam saw a filmy black dress, and above it a pallid face. What was it like? It was like--like--like jasmine--that was it--jasmine--and out of the jasmine face the great gaze she had met in the morning turned half-puzzled, half-disappointed upon the growing group of girls examining the watch.

CHAPTER IV

1

Miriam paid her first visit to a German church the next day, her third Sunday. Of the first Sunday, now so far off, she could remember nothing but sitting in a low-backed chair in the saal trying to read "Les Travailleurs de la Mer"... seas... and a sunburnt youth striding down a desolate lane in a storm... and the beginning of tea-time. They had been kept indoors all day by the rain.

The second Sunday they had all gone in the evening to the English church with Fraulein Pfaff... rush-seated chairs with a ledge for books, placed very close together and scrooping on the stone floor with the movements of the congregation... a little gathering of English people. They seemed very dear for a moment... what was it about them that was so attractive... that gave them their air of "refinement"?...

Then as she watched their faces as they sang she felt that she knew all these women, the way, with little personal differences, they would talk, the way they would smile and take things for granted.

And the men, standing there in their overcoats.... Why were they there?

What were they doing? What were their thoughts?

She pressed as against a barrier. Nothing came to her from these unconscious forms.

They seemed so untroubled.... Probably they were all Conservatives....

That was part of their "refinement." They would all disapprove of Mr.

Gladstone.... Get up into the pulpit and say "Gladstone" very loud...

and watch the result. Gladstone was a Radical... "pull everything up by the roots."... Pater was always angry and sneery about him....

Where were the Radicals? Somewhere very far away... tub-thumping... the Conservatives made them thump tubs... no wonder.

She decided she must be a Radical. Certainly she did not belong to these "refined" English--women or men. She was quite sure of that, seeing them gathered together, English Church-people in this foreign town.

But then Radicals were probably chapel?

It would be best to stay with the Germans. Yes.... she would stay. There was a woman sitting in the endmost chair just across the aisle in line with them. She had a pale face and looked worn and middle-aged. The effect of "refinement" made on Miriam by the congregation seemed to radiate from her. There was a large ostrich feather fastened by a gleaming buckle against the side of her silky beaver hat. It swept, Miriam found the word during the Psalms, back over her hair. Miriam glancing at her again and again felt that she would like to be near her, watch her and touch her and find out the secret of her effect. But not talk to her, never talk to her.

She, too, sad and alone though Miriam knew her to be, would have her way of smiling and taking things for granted. The sermon came. Miriam sat, chafing, through it. One angry glance towards the pulpit had shown her a pale, black-moustached face. She checked her thoughts. She felt they would be too savage; would rend her unendurably. She tried not to listen. She felt the preacher was dealing out "pastoral plat.i.tudes."

She tried to give her mind elsewhere; but the sound of the voice, unconvinced and unconvincing threatened her again and again with a tide of furious resentment. She fidgeted and felt for thoughts and tried to compose her face to a semblance of serenity. It would not do to sit scowling here amongst her pupils with Fraulein Pfaff's eye commanding her profile from the end of the pew just behind.... The air was ga.s.sy and close, her feet were cold. The gentle figure across the aisle was sitting very still, with folded hands and grave eyes fixed in the direction of the pulpit. Of course. Miriam had known it. She would "think over" the sermon afterwards.... The voice in the pulpit had dropped. Miriam glanced up. The figure faced about and intoned rapidly, the congregation rose for a moment rustling, and rustling subsided again. A hymn was given out. They rose again and sang. It was "Lead, Kindly Light." Chilly and feverish and weary Miriam listened ... "the encircling glooo--om"... Cardinal Newman coming back from Italy in a s.h.i.+p... in the end he had gone over to Rome... high altars... candles...

incense... safety and warmth.

From far away a radiance seemed to approach and to send out a breath that touched and stirred the stuffy air... the imploring voices sang on... poor cold English things... Miriam suddenly became aware of Emma Bergmann standing at her side with open hymn-book shaking with laughter.

She glanced sternly at her, mastering a sympathetic convulsion.

2

Emma looked so sweet standing there shaking and suffused. Her blue eyes were full of tears. Miriam wanted to giggle too. She longed to know what had amused her... just the fact of their all standing suddenly there together. She dared not join her... no more giggling as she and Harriett had giggled. She would not even be able afterwards to ask her what it was.

3

Sitting on this third Sunday morning in the dim Schloss Kirche--the Waldstra.s.se pew was in one of its darkest s.p.a.ces and immediately under the shadow of a deeply overhanging gallery--Miriam understood poor Emma's confessed hysteria over the abruptly alternating kneelings and standings, risings and sittings of an Anglican congregation. Here, there was no need to be on the watch for the next move. The service droned quietly and slowly on. Miriam paid no heed to it. She sat in the comforting darkness. The un.o.bserving Germans were all round her, the English girls tailed away invisibly into the distant obscurity. Fraulein Pfaff was not there, nor Mademoiselle. She was alone with the school.

She felt safe for a while and derived solace from the reflection that there would always be church. If she were a governess all her life there would be church. There was a little sting of guilt in the thought.

It would be practising deception.... To despise it all, to hate the minister and the choir and the congregation and yet to come--running--she could imagine herself all her life running, at least in her mind, weekly to some church--working her fingers into their gloves and pretending to take everything for granted and to be just like everybody else and really thinking only of getting into a quiet pew and ceasing to pretend. It was wrong to use church like that. She was wrong--all wrong. It couldn't be helped. Who was there who could help her? She imagined herself going to a clergyman and saying she was bad and wanted to be good--even crying. He would be kind and would pray and smile--and she would be told to listen to sermons in the right spirit.

She could never do that.... There she felt she was on solid ground.

Listening to sermons was wrong... people ought to refuse to be preached at by these men. Trying to listen to them made her more furious than anything she could think of, more base in submitting... those men's sermons were worse than women's smiles... just as insincere at any rate... and you could get away from the smiles, make it plain you did not agree and that things were not simple and settled... but you could not stop a sermon. It was so unfair. The service might be lovely, if you did not listen to the words; and then the man got up and went on and on from unsound premises until your brain was sick... droning on and on and getting more and more pleased with himself and emphatic... and nothing behind it. As often as not you could pick out the logical fallacy if you took the trouble.... Preachers knew no more than anyone else... you could see by their faces... sheeps' faces.... What a terrible life...

and wives and children in the homes taking them for granted....