Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers

by William Hale White

If she had been asked this at first she would have hesitated, but she now boldly said "Yes."

"Very well; I do not see what more I can do now. I will think over the matter," and Miriam departed.

The lawyer had his suspicions, and determined, after some inquiries in Cowfold, that Miss Miriam should not be called. He told the story to his partner, who laughed, and said he did not see anything extraordinary in it. It was a common case of perjury. Mr. Mortimer was not sure that it was common perjury. Externally it might be so, and yet there seemed to be a difference. Moreover, he could not find out anything in Cowfold to make him believe that there was any motive for it.

"Perfectly motiveless," he replied. "A noteworthy instance," for he was a bit of a philosopher, "of an action performed without any motive whatever. I have always maintained the possibility of such actions."

As to Miriam, she went back to Cowfold without any self-accusation or self-applause. She did not know that there was anything criminal or generous in her attempt on behalf of Cutts. We may say in parting that he was acquitted, to her great delight; and Mr. Cattle, with the pride of a British citizen who has served on a jury and knows the law, did not cease to preach to his wife, whenever the opportunity offered, that you should never pronounce the verdict till you've heard the evidence.

Soon after Mr. Cutts's return to Cowfold Mr. Tacchi one day surprised his household by telling them he meant to take another wife. Andrew was silent, but Miriam at once flew into a violent passion, and thereby greatly incensed her father. There was no cause for her anger. Mrs. Brooks, whom Giacomo had chosen, was, as the second choice often is, just the woman who was necessary to him. She was about forty, a good manager, with an equable temper, a widow, with no children, not in the least degree rigid, but, on the contrary, affectionate. She had seen some trouble with her first husband, who was a little farmer and drank, and consequently, although she was a churchwoman, had been driven to the Bible, and had found much comfort therein. "Although she was a churchwoman" may sound rather strange, but still it is a fact that in those days in Cowfold the church people, and for that matter the Dissenters too, did not read their Bibles; but amongst the Dissenters there was here and there a remnant of the ancient type to whom the Bible was everything. Amongst the church people there were very few or none.

Why Miriam should be so wrathful with her father it is extremely difficult to say. It is certain she did not object to her deposition as housekeeper. She never cared for her duties as mistress. Perhaps one reason was that she chose to resent the apparent displacement of her own mother. She never knew her, and owed her nothing except her birth; but she was her mother, and she took sides with her, and considered her insulted, and became her partisan with perfect fury. Perhaps, too, Miriam was slightly jealous that her father, who was now nearing his half century, should show himself not altogether dead to love. She would have liked to find him insensible, leaving all love affairs to his children, and she once even went so far as to use the word "disgusting" in conversing with Andrew on the subject.

Giacomo, however, was very determined, notwithstanding his affection for his daughter, and disagreeable scenes took place between them. She showed her displeasure in a thousand ways, and was positively rude to Mrs. Brooks when she invited Miriam to her house.

Giacomo had a sister, a Mrs. Dabb, who lived in London. She had married a provision dealer in the Borough, and he employed not only a staff of assistants, but a couple of clerks. Mrs. Dabb, oddly enough, was a fair-haired woman, with blue eyes and a rosy complexion. She had rather a wide, plump face, and wore her hair in ringlets. She lived at the shop, but she had a drawing-room over it with a circular table in the middle, and round it lay the "Keepsake" and "Friendship's Offering," in red silk, with Mrs. Hemans' and Mr. Montgomery's poetry. Into these she occasionally looked, and refreshed herself by comparing her intellect with that of the female kind generally. She desired above everything not to be considered commonplace, believed in love at first sight, was not altogether unfavourable to elopements, carefully repressed any tendency to unnecessary order, wore a loose dressing-gown all the morning, had her breakfast in bed, let her hair stray a little over her face, cultivated a habit of shaking it off and pushing it back with her fingers, and generally went as far to be thought a little "wild" as was possible for the wife of a respectable, solid, eminently British, close-fisted Borough tradesman. Nevertheless she had a huge appetite, and always had ham or sausages for tea. Giacomo she despised, on the ground that his occupation was so limited, that it contracted the imagination, and that he did not "live in the metropolis, but vegetated in a country town." She consequently very seldom visited Cowfold, and very seldom wrote to her brother. Giacomo, however, thought it his duty to tell his sister of his approaching marriage; and Mrs. Dabb, who was endowed with great curiosity, replied that, if it was quite agreeable, she would come to Cowfold for two or three days to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Brooks and obtain a change of air, as she had suffered somewhat from feelings of languor of late and a little fever on the nerves. Accordingly she came, and in a short time saw what was the state of affairs between Miriam and her father. She rather liked Miriam, chiefly for her defects; and as Giacomo had been a little freer than usual with his sister one evening, and had expressed his fears that Miriam and Mrs. Brooks would not agree, Mrs. Dabb gave him some advice.

"Miriam, my dear Giacomo, is a bit of a genius, untamed and irregular, reminding me something of myself."