Pointed Roofs · Chapter 8 (1/3)

VIII

Walking along a narrow muddy causeway by a little river overhung with willows, girls ahead of her in single file and girls in single file behind, Miriam drearily recognised that it was June. The month of roses, she thought, and looked out across the flat green fields. It was not easy to walk along the slippery pathway. On one side was the little grey river, on the other long wet grass repelling and depressing. Not far ahead was the roadway which led, she supposed to the farm where they were to drink new milk. She would have to walk with someone when they came to the road, and talk. She wondered whether this early morning walk would come, now, every day. Her heart sank at the thought. It had been too hot during the last few days for any going out at midday, and she had hoped that the strolling in the garden, sitting about under the chestnut tree and in the little wooden garden room off the Saal had taken the place of walks for the summer.

She had got up reluctantly, at the surprise of the very early gonging. Mademoiselle had guessed it would be a “milk walk.” Pausing in the bright light of the top landing as Mademoiselle ran downstairs she had seen through the landing window the deep peak of a distant gable casting an unfamiliar shadow⁠—a shadow sloping the wrong way, a morning shadow. She remembered the first time, the only time, she had noticed such a shadow⁠—getting up very early one morning while Harriett and all the household were still asleep⁠—and how she had stopped dressing and gazed at it as it stood there cool and quiet and alone across the mellow face of a neighbouring stone porch⁠—had suddenly been glad that she was alone and had wondered why that shadowed porch peak was more beautiful than all the summer things she knew and felt at that moment that nothing could touch or trouble her again.

She could not find anything of that feeling in the early day outside Hanover. She was hemmed in, and the fields were so sad she could not bear to look at them. The sun had disappeared since they came out. The sky was grey and low and it seemed warmer already than it had been in the midday sun during the last few days. One of the girls on ahead hummed the refrain of a student song:⁠—

“In der Ecke steht er

Seinen Schnurrbart dreht er

Siehst du wohl, da steht er schon

Der versoff’ne Schwiegersohn.”

Miriam felt very near the end of endurance.

Elsa Speier who was just behind her, became her inevitable companion when they reached the roadway. A farmhouse appeared about a quarter of a mile away.

Miriam’s sense of her duties closed in on her. Trying not to see Elsa’s elaborate clothes and the profile in which she could find no meaning, no hope, no rest, she spoke to her.

“Do you like milk, Elsa?” she said cheerfully.

Elsa began swinging her lace-covered parasol.

“If I like milk?” she repeated presently, and flashed mocking eyes in Miriam’s direction.

Despair touched Miriam’s heart.

“Some people don’t,” she said.

Elsa hummed and swung her parasol.

“Why should I like milk?” she stated.

The muddy farmyard, lying back from the roadway and below it, was steamy and choking with odours. Miriam who had imagined a cool dairy and cold milk frothing in pans, felt a loathing as warmth came to her fingers from the glass she held. Most of the girls were busily sipping. She raised her glass once towards her lips, snuffed a warm reek, and turned away towards the edge of the group, to pour out the contents of her glass, unseen, upon the filth-sodden earth.

Passing languidly up through the house after breakfast, unable to decide to spend her Saturday morning as usual at a piano in one of the bedrooms, Miriam went, wondering in response to a quiet call from Fräulein Pfaff into the large room shared by the Bergmanns and Ulrica Hesse. Explaining that Clara was now to take possession of the half of Elsa Speier’s room that had been left empty by Minna⁠—“poor Minna now with her good parents seeking health in the Swiss mountains, schooldays at an end, at an end, at an end,” she repeated mournfully. Fräulein indicated that Clara’s third of the large room would now be Miriam’s.

Miriam stood incredulous at her side as she indicated a large empty chest of drawers, a white covered bed in a deep corner away from the window, a small drawer in the dressing table and five pegs in a large French wardrobe. Emma was going very gravely about the room collecting her workbasket and things for raccommodage. She flung one ecstatic glance at Miriam as she went away with these.

“I shall hold you responsible here amongst these dear children, Miss Henderson,” fluted Fräulein, quietly gathering up a few last things of Minna’s collected on the bed, “our dear Ulrica and our little Emma,” she smiled, passing out, leaving Miriam standing in the wonderful room.

“My goodney,” she breathed, gathering gently clenched fists close to her person. She stood for a few moments; she felt like a visitor⁠ ⁠… embroidered toilet covers, polished furniture, gold and cream crockery, lace curtains, white beds, the large screen cutting off her third of the room⁠ ⁠… then she rushed headlong upstairs, a member of the downstairs landing, to collect her belongings.

On the landing just outside the door of the garret bedroom stood a huge wicker travelling basket; a clumsy umbrella with a large knobby handle, like a man’s umbrella, lay on the top of it partly covering a large pair of goloshes.

She was tired and very warm by the time everything was arranged in her new quarters.

Taking a last look round she caught the eye of Eve’s photograph gazing steadily at her from the chest of drawers.⁠ ⁠… It would be quite easy now that this had happened to write and tell them that the Pomerania plan had come to nothing.

Evidently Fräulein approved of her, after all.

In the schoolroom she found the raccommodage party gathered round the table. At its head sat Mademoiselle, her arms flung out upon the table and her face buried against them.

“Cheer up, Mademoiselle,” said Jimmie as Miriam took an empty chair between Gertrude and the Martins.

Timidly meeting Gertrude’s eye Miriam received her half smile, watched her eyebrows flicker faintly up and the little despairing shrug she gave as she went on with her mending.

“Ah, mammazellchen c’est pas mal, ne soyez triste, mein Gott mammazellchen es ist aber nichts!” chided Emma consolingly from her place near the window.

“Oh! je ne veux pas, je ne veux pas,” sobbed Mademoiselle.

No one spoke; Mademoiselle lay snuffling and shuddering. Solomon’s scissors fell on to the floor. “Mais pourquoi pas, Mademoiselle?” she interrogated as she recovered them.

“Pourquoi, pourquoi!” choked Mademoiselle. Her suffused little face came up for a moment towards Solomon. She met Miriam’s gaze as if she did not see her. “Vous me demandez pourquoi je ne veux pas partager ma chambre avec une femme mariée?” Her head sank again and her little grey form jerked sharply as she sobbed.

“Probably a widder, Mademoiselle,” ventured Bertha Martin, “oon voove.”

“Verve, Bertha,” came Millie’s correcting voice and Miriam’s interest changed to excited thoughts of Fräulein⁠—not hating her, and choosing Mademoiselle to sleep with the servant, a new servant⁠—the things on the landing⁠—Mademoiselle refusing to share a room with a married woman⁠ ⁠… she felt about round this idea as Millie’s prim, clear voice went on⁠ ⁠… her eyes clutched at Mademoiselle, begging to understand⁠ ⁠… she gazed at the little down-flung head, fine little tendrils frilling along the edge of her hair, her little hard grey shape, all miserable and ashamed. It was dreadful. Miriam felt she could not bear it. She turned away. It was a strange new thought that anyone should object to being with a married woman⁠ ⁠… would she object? or Harriett? Not unless it were suggested to them.⁠ ⁠… Was there some special refinement in this French girl that none of them understood? Why should it be refined to object to share a room with a married woman? A cold shadow closed in on Miriam’s mind.

“I don’t care,” said Millie almost quickly, with a crimson face. “It’s a special occasion. I think Mademoiselle ought to complain. If I were in her place I should write home. It’s not right. Fräulein has no right to make her sleep with a servant.”

“Why can’t the servant sleep in one of the back attics?” asked Solomon.

“Not furnished, my sweetheart,” said Gertrude, “and you know Kinder you’re all running on very fast about servants⁠—the good Frau is our housekeeper.”

“Will she have meals with us?”

“Gewiss Jimmie, meals.”

“Mon Dieu, vous êtes terribles, toutes!” came Mademoiselle’s voice. It seemed to bite into the table. “Oh, c’est grossière!” She gathered herself up and escaped into the little schoolroom.

“Armes, armes, Momzell,” wailed Ulrica gently gazing out of the window.

“Som one should go, go you, Henchen,” urged Emma.

“Don’t, for goodness’ sake, Hendy,” begged Jimmie, “not you, she’s wild about you going downstairs,” she whispered.

Miriam struggled with her gratification. “Oh go, som one; go you, Clara!”

“Better leave her alone,” ruled Gertrude.

“We miss old Minna, don’t we?” concluded Bertha.

The heat grew intense.

The air was more and more oppressive as the day went on.

Clara fainted suddenly just after dinner, and Fräulein, holding a little discourse on clothing and an enquiry into wardrobes, gave a general permission for the reduction of garments to the minimum and sent everyone to rest uncorseted until teatime, promising a walk to the woods in the cool of the evening. There was a sense of adventure in the house. It was as if it were being besieged. It gave Miriam confidence to approach Fräulein for permission to rearrange her trunk in the basement. She let Fräulein understand that her removal was not complete, that there were things to do before she could be properly settled in her new room.

“Certainly, Miss Henderson, you are quite free,” said Fräulein instantly as the girls trooped upstairs.

Miriam knew she wanted to avoid an afternoon shut up with Emma and Ulrica and she did not in the least want to lie down. It seemed to her a very extraordinary thing to do. It surprised and disturbed her. It suggested illness and weakness. She could not remember having lain down in the daytime. There had been that fortnight in the old room at home with Harriett⁠ ⁠… chickenpox and new books coming and games, and Sarah reading the Song of Hiawatha and their being allowed to choose their pudding. She could not remember feeling ill. Had she ever felt ill?⁠ ⁠… Colds and bilious attacks.⁠ ⁠…

She remembered with triumph a group of days of pain two years ago. She had forgotten.⁠ ⁠… Bewilderment and pain⁠ ⁠… her mother’s constant presence⁠ ⁠… everything, the light everywhere, the leaves standing out along the tops of hedgerows as she drove with her mother, telling her of pain and she alone in the midst of it⁠ ⁠… for always⁠ ⁠… pride, long moments of deep pride.⁠ ⁠… Eve and Sarah congratulating her, Eve stupid and laughing⁠ ⁠… the new bearing of the servants⁠ ⁠… Lilla Belton’s horrible talks fading away to nothing.

Fräulein had left her and gone to her room. Every door and window on the ground floor stood wide excepting that leading to Fräulein’s little double rooms. She wondered what the rooms were like and felt sorry for Fräulein, tall and gaunt, moving about in them alone, alone with her own dark eyes, curtains hanging motionless at the windows⁠ ⁠… was it really bad to tight-lace? The English girls, except Millie and Solomon all had small waists. She wished she knew. She placed her large hands round her waist. Drawing in her breath she could almost make them meet. It was easier to play tennis with stays⁠ ⁠… how dusty the garden looked, baked. She wanted to go out with two heavy watering cans, to feel them pulling her arms from their sockets, dragging her shoulders down, throwing out her chest, to spray canful after canful through a great wide rose, sprinkling her ankles sometimes, and to grow so warm that she would not feel the heat. Bella Lyndon had never worn stays; playing rounders so splendidly, lying on the grass between the games with her arms under her head⁠ ⁠… simply disgusting, someone had said⁠ ⁠… who⁠ ⁠… a disgusted face⁠ ⁠… nearly all the girls detested Bella.

Going through the hall on her way down to the basement she heard the English voices sounding quietly out into the afternoon from the rooms above. Flat and tranquil they sounded, Bertha and Jimmie she heard, Gertrude’s undertones, quiet words from Millie. She felt she would like a corner in the English room for the afternoon, a book and an occasional remark⁠—“Mr. Barnes of New York”⁠—she would not be able to read her three yellowbacks in the German bedroom. She felt at the moment glad to be robbed of them. It would be much better, of course. There was no sound from the German rooms. She pictured sleeping faces. It was cooler in the basement⁠—but even there the air seemed stiff and dusty with the heat.

Why did the hanging garments remind her of All Saints’ Church and Mr. Brough?⁠ ⁠… she must tell Harriett that in her letter⁠ ⁠… that day they suddenly decided to help in the church decorations⁠ ⁠… she remembered the smell of the soot on the holly as they had cut and hacked at it in the cold garden, and Harriett overturning the heavy wheelbarrow on the way to church, and how they had not laughed because they both felt solemn, and then there had just been the three Anwyl girls and Mrs. Anwyl and Mrs. Scarr and Mr. Brough in the church room all being silly about Birdy Anwyl roasting chestnuts, and how silly and affected they were when a piece of holly stuck in her skirt.

Coming up the basement stairs in response to the tea gong, Miriam thought there were visitors in the hall and hesitated; then there was Pastor Lahmann’s profile disappearing towards the door and Fräulein patting and dismissing two of his boys. His face looked white and clear and firm and undisturbed, Miriam wanted to arrest him and ask him something⁠—what he thought of the weather⁠—he looked so different from her memory of him in the Saal two Saturdays ago⁠—two weeks⁠—four classes she must have missed. Why? Why was she missing Pastor Lahmann’s classes? How had it happened? Perhaps she would see him in class again. Perhaps next week.⁠ ⁠…

The other visitors proved to be the Bergmanns in new dresses. Miriam gazed at Clara as she went down the schoolroom to her corner of the table. She looked like⁠ ⁠… a hostess. It seemed absurd to see her sit down to tea as a schoolgirl. The dress was a fine black muslin stamped all over with tiny fish-shaped patches of mauve. It was cut to the base of the neck and came to a point in front where the soft white ruching was fastened with a large cameo brooch. Clara’s pallid worried face had grown more placid during the hot inactive days, and today her hard mouth looked patient and determined and responsible. She seemed quite independent of her surroundings. Miriam found herself again and again consulting her calm face. Her presence haunted Miriam throughout teatime. Emma was sweet, pink and bright after her rest in a bright light brown muslin dress dotted with white spots.⁠ ⁠…