Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers Part 7

Mr. Montgomery was puzzled. He did not quite know what to make out of this girl. There was something in her way of speaking and in her frankness which offered itself to him, and yet again there was something which stopped him from attempting any liberties. She did not cla.s.sify herself in any of the species with which he was familiar.

At last he said--"You object, then, to all roundaboutness in such matters."

"Well, yes; but perhaps I might be misunderstood. I should like people to be plain both ways, about their dislikes as well as their likes."

"Good gracious me, Miss Tacchi, what a pretty world you would live in.

There would be no fun in it. Half the amus.e.m.e.nt of life consists in trying to find out what we really think of one another underneath all our fine speeches."

"I would rather amuse myself in some other way. I have often dreamt of an island in which everybody should say exactly what was in his mind.

Of course it would be very shocking, but I do really believe that in the end we should be happier. It would be delightful to me if my cousins were to tell me, 'We hate you--you are dirty, disagreeable, and ugly; and we do not intend to call upon you any more.' For mind, people would then believe in expressions of affection. They do not believe in them now."

"Yes; your island would be all very well for attractive young women, but what would it be for poor devils such as I am. I _know_ that n.o.body can care twopence for me, but the illusion of politeness is pleasant. It is a wonderful thing how we enjoy being cheated, though we know we are cheated. A man will give a cabman sixpence more than his fare for the humbug of a compliment, and I confess that if people were to say to my face what I am certain they say behind my back, I should hang myself. Illusion, delusion--delusion, illusion," he hummed it as if it were the refrain of a ballad; "it is nothing but that from the day we are born till the day we die, and the older we become the more preposterously are we deluded, until at last--but the Lord--to think of preaching," and he laughed--"you must have made me do it;" and he rose and played with his favourite toys, the wax apples, pitching them up to the ceiling alternately and catching them in one hand. "I must be off."

Miriam did not appear to take any notice,

"Pray," said he, "if you lived in this island of which you dream, would you tell me you hated me? I am beginning to be rather nervous."

"We are not living in it just yet."

"But in one just as disagreeable, for it is pouring with rain."

Miriam gave a sudden start. She unconsciously looked that the conversation would prolong itself in the same interior strain.

Reference to the outside world was impossible to her just then, and that Mr. Montgomery was capable of it was a shock like that of cold water. She came to herself, and went to the window.

"Must you go out in this storm?"

"Must; and what is more, I haven't got a minute to spare. I may take it for granted, then, you and Andrew will come."

"Yes, certainly."

He hastily put on his coat; shook hands--nothing more--and was off.

Miriam ran upstairs into her bedroom, went to the little box in which she kept her treasures, unlocked it, took out the little note--the only note she had ever had from him--read it again and again, and then tore it into twenty pieces, each one of which she picked up and tried to put together. She then threw herself on the bed, and for the first time in her life was overcome with hysterical tears. She dared not confess to herself what she wanted. She would have liked to cast herself at his feet; but notwithstanding her disbelief in form and ceremony, she could not do it. She cursed the check which had held her so straitly while she was talking with him, and cursed him that he dealt with her so lightly. The continued sobbing at last took the heat out of her, and she rose from her bed, collected the pieces of the note, went downstairs, and put them one by one deliberately in the fire.

It was time now that they should seriously consider how they stood.

Andrew had nothing to do, and the wages paid him in advance were nearly exhausted. They decided that they would move into cheaper lodgings.

They had some difficulty in finding any that were decent but they obtained three miserable rooms at the top of a house occupied by a man who sold firewood and potatoes in one of the streets running out of the Blackfriars Road. They left Miss Tippit without bidding her good-bye, for she was still unwell, and in bed. They actually began to know what poverty was, but Miriam as yet did not feel its approach. There were thoughts and hopes in her which protected her against all apprehension of the future, although the cloud into which they must almost inevitably enter was so immediately in front of her.

The evening came on which she and Andrew were to go to the hall, but Andrew had gone out early to look for some employment, and had not returned. Miriam's hatred rose again, and again a.s.sumed an outward garb of the purest virtue. She sat for some time in rapid debate with herself as to what she dare do. Even she recoiled a little from going to a music hall without her brother, but pa.s.sion prevailed. She did not simply determine to go knowing it to be wrong, but with great earnestness demonstrated to herself that she was right; and then, as a kind of sop to any lingering suspicions, left a note on the mantelpiece for Andrew, upbraiding him for delay, and directing him to follow. No Andrew appeared. She now began to feel how strange her position was.

She might easily before she started have conjectured that Andrew might fail, and might have pictured to herself how difficult and awkward it would be to sit there throughout the evening alone and return alone; but she did not possess the faculty of picturing uncertainties any distance ahead, although the present was generally so vivid. She could never say to herself: "Probably this arrangement now proposed will break down, and if it does; I shall stand in such and such a situation; what, in that situation, ought I to do?" She had, in fact, no strategical faculty--certainly none when temptation was strong. She dreaded turning out into the street with the rough crowd, and she wondered if Montgomery would come to her a.s.sistance. The audience gradually departed; she was nearly the last, and she determined that she would walk round to the door by which she knew Montgomery usually left, and try to encounter him casually. She paced up and down a few moments, and he met her. He was much surprised, and she, with some excitement, explained to him that she had left home a little before Andrew, expecting him to overtake her, but that she had seen nothing of him.

"Of course you will let me accompany you to your lodgings?"

"Thank you; it is very kind of you."

She took the arm he offered her. She thought she detected he was a little unsteady, and after a word or two he became silent.

She was not particularly well acquainted with the district round the hall, but she soon perceived that they were not on the straight road for her house.

"Is this our nearest way?" she asked.

"No, I can't say it is; but I thought you would not object to just a turn round. It's a lovely night--a lovely night!"

Presently they came into a very shabby street, and he stopped. The cold air had begun to upset him a little.

"These are my quarters," he stammered. "I'm rather tired, and I should think you must be tired too. Just come in for a moment and have something, and then we will go on."

"Oh no, thank you," said Miriam, who was becoming alarmed. "I must go back at once."

"Won't you come? Do come; just a moment."

But Miriam steadfastly refused.

"Nonsense, come in just for a second till I----" and he used some little force to compel her. She looked round, and without any mental process of which she was conscious determining her to action, instantly slipped from him, and ran with furious haste. She inquired her way of a policeman, but otherwise she saw nothing, thought nothing, and heard nothing till she was at her own door. She opened it softly--it was late; she went into their little parlour, and there lay Andrew on the floor. He had fallen against the fender, his head was cut open, and he was senseless. A half empty whisky bottle told the rest of the story.

There was n.o.body stirring--her landlord and landlady were strangers; if she called them, and they saw what was the matter, she might have summary notice to quit. What was she to do? She took some cold water, washed his face, unfastened his neckcloth, and sat down. She imagined it was nothing but intoxication, and that in a few hours at most he would recover. So she remained through the dreadful night hearing every quarter strike, hearing chance noises in the general quietude, a drunken man, a belated cart, and worse than anything, the slow awakening between four and five, the whistle of some early workman who has to light the engine fire or get the factory ready for starting at six--sounds which remind the sleepless watcher that happiness after rest is abroad.

She hid the whisky bottle and gla.s.s; and as her brother showed no signs of recovery, she went to seek advice and help as soon as she heard somebody stirring. The woman of the house, not a bad kind of woman, although Miriam had feared her so much, came upstairs instantly.

Andrew was lifted on the bed, and a messenger was despatched for the doctor. Miriam recognised him at once: he was the doctor who had asked her to stay with Miss Tippit. He said there was concussion of the brain--that the patient must be kept quiet, and watched night and day.

To her surprise, her landlady instantly offered to share the duty with her. A rude, stout, hard person she was, who stood in the shop all day long, winter and summer, amidst the potatoes and firewood, with a woollen shawl round her neck and over her shoulders. A rude, stout, hard person, we say, was Mrs. Joll, fond of her beer, rather grimy, given to quarrel a little with her husband, could use strong language at times, had the defects which might be supposed to arise from constant traffic with the inhabitants of the Borough, and was utterly unintelligent so far as book learning went. Nevertheless she was well read in departments more important perhaps than books in the conduct of human life, and in her there was the one thing needful--the one thing which, if ever there is to be a Judgment Day, will put her on the right hand; when all sorts of scientific people, religious people, students of poetry, people with exquisite emotions, will go on the left and be d.a.m.ned everlastingly. Miriam was at once sent to bed, and it was arranged that she should take charge during the following night.

Afterwards the night duty was to fall equally between them. She was so shut up in herself that she did not recognise the full value of Mrs.

Joll's self-sacrifice, but she did manage to express her thanks, and ask how Mrs. Joll could leave the business.

"That's nothing to you, Miss; my gal Maud has a head on her shoulders, and can keep an eye on the place downstairs. Besides, I've allus found that at a pinch things will bear a lot of squeezing. I remember when my good man were laid up with the low fever for six weeks, and I had a baby a month old, I thought to myself as I should be beaten; but Lord, I was young then, and didn't know how much squeezing things will take, and I just squeezed through somehow."

"He ain't very strong, is he?" continued Mrs. Joll. "I don't mean in his const.i.tution, but here," and she tapped her head. "Likes a drop or two now and then?"

Miriam was silent.

"Ah! well, as I said about Joll's brother when I was a-nussing of him--he was rather a bad lot--it's nothing to me when people are ill what they are. Besides; there ain't so much difference 'twixt any of us."

The night came. Miriam rose and went down to her brother's room. She tried to read, but she could not, and her thoughts were incessantly occupied with her own troubles. Andrew lay stretched before her--he might be dying for aught she knew; and yet the prospect of his death disturbed her only so far as it interfered with herself. Montgomery was for ever in her mind. What was he that he should set the soul of this girl alight! He was nothing, but she was something, and he had by some curious and altogether unaccountable quality managed to wake her slumbering forces.

She was in love with him, but it was not desire alone which had tired her, and made her pace up and down Andrew's sick chamber. Thousands of men with the blackest hair, the most piercing eyes, might have pa.s.sed before her, and she would have remained unmoved. Neither was it love as some select souls understand it. She did not know what it was which stirred her; she was hungry, mad, she could not tell why. n.o.body could have predicted beforehand that Montgomery was the man to act upon this girl so miraculously--n.o.body could tell, seeing the two together, what it was in him which specially excited her--n.o.body who has made men and women, his study would have wasted much time in the inquiry, knowing that the affinities, attractions, and repulsions of men and women are beyond all our science.

Brutally selfish is love, although so heroically self-sacrificing.

Miriam thought that if Andrew had not been such an idiot, the relationship with Montgomery might have remained undisturbed. He might still have continued to call, but how could she see him now? The sufferer lay there unconscious, pleading for pity, as everything lifeless or unconscious seems to plead--no dead dog in a kennel fails to be tragic; but Miriam actually hated her brother, and cursed him in her heart as a stone over which she had stumbled in the pursuit; of something madly coveted but flying before her.

It was midnight. She went to the window and looked out. The public-houses were being closed, and intoxicated or half-intoxicated persons were groping their way homewards. Suddenly she caught sight of one man whom she thought she recognised. He was with a woman, and his arm was round her waist. Softly she opened the window, and as it was only one story high, she caught a full view of him as he came under the gaslight. It was Montgomery beyond a doubt. He reeled just a trifle, and slowly disappeared in the gloom. The moment he had pa.s.sed she was not quite sure it was he. She went downstairs in the dark, having taken off her shoes to prevent any noise. She put on her shoes again, drew back the bolts softly, left the door upon the latch, and crept out into the street. Swiftly she walked, and in a few moments she was within half-a-dozen yards of those whom she followed. She could not help being sure now. She continued on their track, her whole existence absorbed in one single burning point, until she saw the pair disappear into a house which she did not know. She stood stock still, till a policeman was close upon her, and roused her from her reverie; and then hardly knowing what she was doing, she went home, and returned to her room. Every interest which she had in life had been allowed to die under the shadow of this one. Every thought had taken one direction--everything had been bitter or sweet by reference to one object alone; and this gone, there followed utter collapse. She had no friends, and probably if she had known any they would have been of little use to her, for hers was a nature requiring comfort of a stronger kind than that which most friends can supply. It was unfortunate, and yet she was spared that aggravation of torture which is inflicted by people who offer vague commonplaces, or what they call "hopes;" she was spared also that savage disappointment to which many are doomed who in their trouble find that all philosophy fails them, and the books on their shelves look so impotent, so beside the mark, that they narrowly escape being pitched into the fire.

Andrew began to recover slowly, but he could do no work, and Miriam had to think about some employment for herself in order to prevent deeper immersion in debt. It was very difficult to find anything for a girl who had been brought up to no trade; but at last, through the kindness of her landlady, she obtained second-hand an introduction to the manager of an immense drapery firm which did a large business through circulars sent all over the country. Miriam was employed in addressing the circulars. It was work which she could do at home, and by writing incessantly for about seven hours a day she could earn twelve shillings a week. The occupation was detestable, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could persevere with it; but after some time it ceased to be quite so repulsive.

Her relief, however, was the relief of stupefaction and not of reconciliation. Sorrow took the form of revolt. It had always been so with her whenever anything was the matter with her: it was the sense of wrong which made it so intolerable. What had she done, she said to herself a hundred times a day, that she should have been betrayed into wretched poverty, that she should have been deserted, and that her fortunes should have been linked with those of an imbecile brother.

Andrew was still very weak--he could hardly speak; and as he lay there impa.s.sive, Miriam's hatred of his silent white face increased. She had too much self-control to express herself; but at times she was almost on the point of breaking out, of storming at him, and asking him whether he had no pity for her. One night, as she sat brooding at the window, and her trouble seemed almost too much for her, and she thought she must give way under it, a barrel organ stopped and began playing a melody from an opera by Verdi. The lovely air wound its way into Miriam's heart; but it did not console her. It only increased her self-sympathy. She listened till she could listen no longer, and putting her hands over her ears she rested her head upon the table, and was overcome with unconquerable emotion. Poor Andrew stared at her, utterly incapable of comprehending the scene. When she had recovered, he quietly asked her what was the matter.

"Matter!" she cried. "I don't believe you understand or care any more than the bedstead on which you lie," and she rose and flung herself out of the house. In those days there was, perhaps there is now, a path--it could not be called a road--from the southern end of London Bridge to Bankside. It went past St. Saviour's Church, and then trending towards the river, dived, scarcely four feet wide, underneath some mill or mill offices, skirting a little dock which, ran up between the mill walls. Barges sometimes lay moored in this dock, and discharged into the warehouses which towered above it. The path then emerged into a dark trench between lofty buildings connected overhead with bridges, and finally appeared in Bankside amidst heaps of old iron and broken gla.s.s, the two princ.i.p.al articles of merchandise in those parts. A dismal, most depressing region, one on which the sun never shone, gloomy on the brightest day. It was impossible to enter it without feeling an instantaneous check to all lightness of heart. The spirits were smitten as if with paralysis directly St. Saviour's was pa.s.sed. Thither went Miriam aimlessly that night; and when she reached the dock, the temptation presented itself to her with fearful force to throw herself in it and be at rest. Usually in our troubles there is a prospect of an untried resource which may afford relief, or a glimmer of a distance which we may possibly reach, and where we may find peace, but for Miriam there was no distance, no reserve: this was her first acquaintance with an experience not rare, alas! but below it humanity cannot go, when all life ebbs from us, when we stretch out our arms in vain, when there is no G.o.d--nothing but a brazen Moloch, worse than the Satan of theology ten thousand times, because it is dead. A Satan we might conquer, or at least we should feel the delight of combat in resisting him; but what can we do against this leaden "order of things"

which makes our nerves ministers of madness? Miriam did not know that her misery was partly a London misery, due to the change from fresh air and wholesome living to foul air and unnatural living. If she had known it, it would not have helped her. She could not have believed it, for it is the peculiarity of certain physical disorders that their physical character does not appear, and that they disguise themselves under purely mental shapes. Montgomery, her brother, the desperate outlook in the future, it is true, were real; but her lack of health was the lens which magnified her suffering into hideous dimensions.

The desire to get rid of it by one sudden plunge was strong upon her, and the friendly hand which at the nick of time intervenes in romances did not rescue her. Nevertheless, she held back and pa.s.sed on.