3
“You shall write and enquire of your good parents what they would have you do. You shall tell them that the German pupils return all to their homes; that the English pupils go for a happy holiday to the sea.”
“Oh yes,” said Miriam conversationally, with trembling breath.
“It is of course evident that since you will have no duties to perform, I cannot support the expense of your travelling and your maintenance.”
“Oh no, of course not,” said Miriam, her hands pressed against her knee.
She sat shivering in the warm dim saal shaded by the close sun-blinds. It looked as she had seen it with her father for the first time and Fräulein sitting near seemed to be once more in the heavy panniered blue velvet dress.
She waited stiff and ugly till Fräulein, secure and summer-clad, spoke softly again.
“You think, my child, you shall like the profession of a teacher?”
“Oh yes,” said Miriam, from the midst of a tingling flush.
“I think you have many qualities that make the teacher.... You are earnest and serious-minded.... Grave.... Sometimes perhaps overgrave for your years.... But you have a serious fault—which must be corrected if you wish to succeed in your calling.”
Miriam tried to pull her features into an easy enquiring seriousness. A darkness was threatening her. “You have a most unfortunate manner.”
Without relaxing, Miriam quivered. She felt the blood mount to her head.
“You must adopt a quite, quite different manner. Your influence is, I think, good, a good English influence in its most general effect. But it is too slightly so and of too much indirection. You must exert it yourself, in a manner more alive, you must make it your aim that you shall have a responsible influence, a direct personal influence. You have too much of chill and formality. It makes a stiffness that I am willing to believe you do not intend.”
Miriam felt a faint dizziness.
“If you should fail to become more genial, more simple and natural as to your bearing, you will neither make yourself understood nor will you be loved by your pupils.”
“No——” responded Miriam, assuming an air of puzzled and interested consideration of Fräulein’s words. She was recovering. She must get to the end of the interview and get away and find the answer. Far away beneath her fear and indignation, Fräulein was answered. She must get away and say the answer to herself.
“To truly fulfil the most serious rôle of the teacher you must enter into the personality of each pupil and must sympathise with the struggles of each one upon the path on which our feet are set. Efforts to good kindliness and thought for others must be encouraged. The teacher shall be sunshine, human sunshine, encouraging all effort and all lovely things in the personality of the pupil.”
Fräulein rose and stood, tall. Then her half-tottering decorous footsteps began. Miriam had hardly listened to her last words. She felt tears of anger rising and tried to smile.
“I shall say now no more. But when you shall hear from your good parents, we can further discuss our plans.” Fräulein was at the door.
Fräulein left the saal by the small door and Miriam felt her way to the schoolroom. The girls were gathering there ready for a walk. Some were in the hall and Fräulein’s voice was giving instructions: “Machen Sie schnell, Miss Henderson,” she called.
Fräulein had never before called to her like that. It had always been as if she did not see her but assumed her ready to fall in with the general movements.
Now it was Fräulein calling to her as she might do to Gertrude or Solomon. There was no hurried whisper from Jimmie telling her to “fly for her life.”
“Ja, Fräulein,” she cried gaily and blundered towards the basement stairs. Mademoiselle was standing averted at the head of them; Miriam glanced at her. Her face was red and swollen with crying.
The sight amazed Miriam. She considered the swollen suffusion under the large black hat as she ran downstairs. She hoped Mademoiselle did not see her glance.... Mademoiselle, standing there all disfigured and blotchy about something ... it was nothing ... it couldn’t be anything.... If anyone were dead she would not be standing there ... it was just some silly prim French quirk ... her dignity ... someone had been “grossière” ... and there she stood in her black hat and black cotton gloves.... Hurriedly putting on her hat and long lace scarf she decided that she would not change her shoes. Somewhere out in the sunshine a hurdy-gurdy piped out the air of “Dass du mich liebst das wusst ich.” She glanced at the frosted barred window through which the dim light came into the dressing-room. The piping notes, out of tune, wrongly emphasised, slurring one into the other, followed her across the dark basement hall and came faintly to her as she went slowly upstairs. There was no hurry. Everyone was talking busily in the hall, drowning the sound of her footsteps. She had forgotten her gloves. She went back into the cool grey musty rooms. A little crack in an upper pane shone like a gold thread. The barrel-organ piped. As she stooped to gather up her gloves from the floor she felt the cold stone firm and secure under her hand. And the house stood up all round her with its rooms and the light lying along stairways and passages, and outside the bright hot sunshine and the roadways leading in all directions, out into Germany.
How could Fräulein possibly think she could afford to go to Norderney? They would all go. Things would go on. She could not go there—nor back to England. It was cruel ... just torture and worry again ... with the bright house all round her—the high rooms, the dark old pianos, strange old garret, the unopened door beyond it. No help anywhere.
4
As they walked she laughed and talked with the girls, responding excitedly to all that was said. They walked along a broad and almost empty boulevard in two rows of four and five abreast, with Mademoiselle and Judy bringing up the rear. The talk was general and there was much laughter. It was the kind of interchange that arose when they were all together and there was anything “in the air,” the kind that Miriam most disliked. She joined in it feverishly. It’s perfectly natural that they should all be excited about the holidays she told herself, stifling her thoughts. But it must not go too far. They wanted to be jolly.... If I could be jolly too they would like me. I must not be a wet blanket.... Mademoiselle’s voice was not heard. Miriam felt that the steering of the conversation might fall to anyone. Mademoiselle was extinguished. She must exert her influence. Presently she forgot Mademoiselle’s presence altogether. They were all walking along very quickly.... If she were going to Norderney with the English girls she must be on easy terms with them.
“Ah, ha!” somebody was saying.
“Oh—ho!” said Miriam in response.
“Ih—hi!” came another voice.
“Tre-la-la,” trilled Bertha Martin gently.
“You mean Turrah-lahee-tee,” said Miriam.
“Good for you, Hendy,” blared Gertrude, in a swinging middle tone.
“Chalk it up. Chalk it up, children,” giggled Jimmie.
Millie looked pensively about her with vague disapproval. Her eyebrows were up. It seemed as if anything might happen; as if at any moment they might all begin running in different directions.
“Cave, my dear brats, be artig,” came Bertha’s cool even tones.
“Ah! we are observed.”
“No, we are not observed. The observer observeth not.”
Miriam saw her companions looking across the boulevard.
Following their eyes she found the figure of Pastor Lahmann walking swiftly bag in hand in the direction of an opening into a side street.
“Ah!” she cried gaily. “Voilà Monsieur; courrez, Mademoiselle!”
At once she felt that it was cruel to draw attention to Mademoiselle when she was dumpy and upset.
“What a fool I am,” she moaned in her mind. “Why can’t I say the right thing?”
“Ce n’est pas moi,” said Mademoiselle, “qui fait les avances.”
The group walked on for a moment or two in silence. Bertha Martin was swinging her left foot out across the curb with each step, giving her right heel a little twirl to keep her balance.
“You are very clever Bair-ta,” said Mademoiselle, still in French, “but you will never make a prima ballerina.”
“Hulloh!” breathed Jimmie, “she’s perking up.”
“Isn’t she,” said Miriam, feeling that she was throwing away the last shred of her dignity.
“What was the matter?” she continued, trying to escape from her confusion.
Mademoiselle’s instant response to her cry at the sight of Pastor Lahmann rang in her ears. She blushed to the soles of her feet.... How could Mademoiselle misunderstand her insane remark? What did she mean? What did she really think of her? Just kind old Lahmann—walking along there in the outside world.... She did not want to stop him.... He was a sort of kinsman for Mademoiselle ... that was what she had meant. Oh, why couldn’t she get away from all these girls? ... indeed—and again she saw the hurrying figure which had disappeared leaving the boulevard with its usual effect of a great strange ocean—he could have brought help and comfort to all of them if he had seen them and stopped. Pastor Lahmann—Lahmann—perhaps she would not see him again. Perhaps he could tell her what she ought to do.
“Oh, my dear,” Jimmie was saying, “didn’t you know?—a fearful row.”
Mademoiselle’s laughter tinkled out from the rear.
“A row?”
“Fearful!” Jimmie’s face came round, round-eyed under her white sailor hat that sat slightly tilted on the peak of her hair.
“What about?”
“Something about a letter or something, or some letters or something—I don’t know. Something she took out of the letter-box, it was unlocked or something and Ulrica saw her and told Lily!”
“Goodness!” breathed Miriam.
“Yes, and Lily had her in her room and Ulrica and poor little Petite couldn’t deny it. Ulrica said she did nothing but cry and cry. She’s been crying all the morning, poor little pig.”
“Why did she want to take anything out of the box?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There was a fearful row anyhow. Ulrica said Lily talked like a clergyman—wie ein Pfarrer.... I don’t know. Ulrica said she was opening a letter. I don’t know.”
“But she can’t read German or English....”
“I don’t know. Ask me another.”
“It is extraordinary.”
“What’s extraordinary?” asked Bertha from the far side of Jimmie.
“Petite and that letter.”
“Oh.”
“What did the Kiddy want?”
“Oh, my dear, don’t ask me to explain the peculiarities of the French temperament.”
“Yes, but all the letters in the letter-box would be English or German, as Hendy says.”
Bertha glanced at Miriam. Miriam flushed. She could not discuss Mademoiselle with two of the girls at once.
“Rum go,” said Bertha.
“You’re right, my son. It’s rum. It’s all over now, anyhow. There’s no accounting for tastes. Poor old Petite.”