10
Miriam was the last to reach the schoolroom. The girls were drawn up on either side of the gaslit room—leaving the shuttered windows clear. She moved to take a chair at the end of the table in front of the saal doors. “Na!” said Fräulein sharply from the sofa-corner. “Not there! In full current!” Her voice shook. Miriam drew the chair to the end of the row of figures and sat down next to Solomon Martin. The wind rushed through the garden, the thunder rattled across the sky. “Oh, Clara! Fräulein! Nein!” gasped Emma. She was sitting opposite, between Clara and Jimmie with flushed face and eyes strained wide, twisting her linked hands against her knees. Jimmie patted her wrist, “It’s all right, Emmchen,” she muttered cheerfully. “Nein, Christina!” jerked Fräulein sharply. “I will not have that! To touch the flesh! You understand, all! That you know. All! Such immodesty!”
Miriam leaned forward and glanced. Fräulein was sitting very upright on the sofa in a shapeless black cloak with her hands clasped on her breast. Near her was Ulrica in her trailing white dressing-gown, her face pressed against the back of the sofa. In the far corner, the other side of Fräulein sat Gertrude in her grey ulster, her knees comfortably crossed, a quilted scarlet silk bedroom-slipper sticking out under the hem of her ulster.
The thunder crashed and pounded just above them. Everyone started and exclaimed. Emma flung her arms up across her face and sat back in her chair with a hooting cry. From the sofa came a hidden sobbing and gasping. “Ach Himmel! Ach Herr Jé-sus! Ach du lie-ber, lie-ber Gott!”
Miriam wished they could see the lightning and be prepared for the crashes. If she were alone she would watch for the flashes and put her fingers in her ears after each flash. The shock of the sound was intolerable to her. Once it had broken, she drank in the tumult joyfully. She sat tense and miserable longing to get to bed. She wondered whether it would be of any use to explain to Fräulein that they would be safer in their iron bedsteads than anywhere in the house. She tried to distract her thoughts.... Fancy Jimmie’s name being Christina.... It suited her exactly sitting there in her little striped dressing-gown with its “toby” frill. How Harriett would scream if she could see them all sitting round. But she and Harriett had once lain very quiet and frightened in a storm by the sea—the thunder and lightning had come together and someone had looked in and said, “There won’t be another like that, children.” “My boots, I should hope not,” Harriett had said.
For a while it seemed as though cannon balls were being thumped down and rumbled about on the floor above; then came another deafening crash. Jimmie laughed and put up her hand to her loosely-pinned top-knot as if to see whether it was still there. Outcries came from all over the room. After the first shock which had made her sit up sharply and draw herself convulsively together, Miriam found herself turning towards Solomon Martin who had also stirred and sat forward. Their eyes met full and consulted. Solomon’s lips were compressed, her perspiring face was alight and determined. Miriam felt that she looked for long into those steady, oily half-smiling brown eyes. When they both relaxed she sat back, catching a sympathetic challenging flash from Gertrude. She drew a deep breath and felt proud and easy. Let it bang, she said to herself. I must think of doors suddenly banging—that never makes me jumpy—and she sat easily breathing.
Fräulein had said something in German in a panting voice, and Bertha had stood up and said, “I’ll get the Bible, Fräulein.”
“Ei! Bewahre! Bertha!” shouted Clara. “Stay only here! Stay only here!”
“Nein, Bertha, nein, mein kind,” moaned Fräulein sadly.
“It’s really perfectly all right, Fräulein,” said Bertha, getting quietly to the door.
As Fräulein opened the great book on her knees the rain hissed down into the garden.
“Gott sei Dank,” she said, in a clear child-like voice. “It dot besser wenn da regnet?” enquired the housekeeper, looking round the room. She began vigorously wiping her face and neck with the skirt of the short cotton jacket she wore over her red petticoat.
Ulrica broke into steady weeping.
Fräulein read Psalms, ejaculating the short phrases as if they were petitions, with a pause between each. When the thunder came she raised her voice against it and read more rapidly.
As the storm began to abate a little party of English went to the kitchen and brought back milk and biscuits and jam.