Backwater · Chapter 4 (1/3)

IV

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-crack of a rain-cloak smartly shaken out was followed by a gentle scrabbling in a shoebox⁠—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 timetable, 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 figure flung 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 manoeuvred 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 of the 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 things that 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’t it 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 flicked carelessly 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, bones and et 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 shut up. Oh you do make 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.”