Backwater · Chapter 6 (1/3)

VI

Piecemeal statements 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 halfway 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 young teacher 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 same box? 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’s late.”

“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 there was 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 spare time 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 that evening. 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 what anyone 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 one ought to 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’s they, I think, goodness knows, I don’t know; it’s so perfectly extraordinary.”

“You’re a very funny young lady.”

“Well, I shan’t marry now anyhow.”

“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. Ye do seem 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.”

“Well really, 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.⁠ ⁠… Things happen 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.

The strengthening of her intimacy with Miss Haddie was the first of the many changes brought to Miriam by Julia Doyle. At the beginning of the spring term her two roommates were transferred to Julia’s care. The two back rooms became a little hive of girls over which Julia seemed to preside. She handled them all easily. There was rollicking and laughter in the back bedrooms, but never any sign that the girls were “going too far,” and their escapades were not allowed to reach across the landing. Her large front room was, Miriam realised as the term went on, being secretly and fiercely guarded by Julia.

The fabric of the days too had changed. All day⁠—during the midday constitutional when she often found Julia at her side walking in her curious springy lounging way and took the walk in a comforting silence resting her weary throat, during the evenings of study and the unemployed intervals of the long Sundays⁠—Julia seemed to come between her and the girls. She mastered them all with her speech and laughter. Miriam felt that when they were all together she was always in some hidden way on the alert. She never jested with Miriam but when they were alone, and rarely then. Usually she addressed her in a low tone and as if half beside herself with some overpowering emotion. It was owing too to Julia’s presence in the school that an unexpected freedom came to Miriam every day during the hour between afternoon school and teatime.

Persuaded by the rapid increase towards the end of the winter term of the half-feverish exhaustion visiting her at the end of each day she had confided in her mother, who had wept at this suggestion of an attack on her health and called in the family doctor. “More air,” he said testily, “air and movement.” Miriam repeated this to Miss Perne, who at once arranged that she should be free if she chose to go out every afternoon between school and teatime.

At first she went into the park every day. It was almost empty during the week at that hour. The cricket green was sparsely decked with children and their maids. A few strollers were left along the poplar avenue and round the asphalt-circled lake; but away on the further slopes usually avoided in the midday walks because the girls found them oppressive, Miriam discovered the solitary spring air. Day by day she went as if by appointment to meet it. It was the same wandering eloquent air she had known from the beginning of things. Whilst she walked along the little gravel pathways winding about over the clear green slopes in the flood of afternoon light it stayed with her. The day she had just passed through was touched by it; it added a warm promise to the hours that lay ahead⁠—teatime, the evening’s reading, the possible visit of Miss Haddie, the quiet of her solitary room, the coming of sleep.