The only way was to give up your family and stay at your work, like Flora, and have a box of half-crowns in your drawer.... Spend and always be afraid of “rainy days”—or save and never enjoy life at all.
But going out now and again in the holidays, feeling stiff and governessy and just beginning to learn to be oneself again when it was time to go back was not enjoying life ... your money was spent and people forgot you and you forgot them and went back to your convent to begin again.
Save, save. Sooner or later saving must begin. Why not at once. Harry, it’s no good. I’m old already. I’ve got to be one of those who have to give everything up.
I wonder if Flora is asleep?
That’s settled. Go to sleep. Get thee behind me. Sleep ... the dark cool room. Air; we breathe it in and it keeps us alive. Everybody has air. Manna. As much as you want, full measure, pressed down and running over.... Wonderful. There is somebody giving things, whatever goes ... something left.... Somebody seeing that things are not quite unbearable, ... but the pain, the pain all the time, mysterious black pain....
Into thy hands I commit my spirit. In manus something.... You understand if nobody else does. But why must I be one of the ones to give everything up? Why do you make me suffer so?
CHAPTER VI
1
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 half-way 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.