2
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.”
3
“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?”