Pointed Roofs: Pilgrimage Part 29

"Next term?"

"We want to know about your plans."

"But I remain now with my parents till my marriage."

"Pet.i.te!!! Fancy never telling us."

Exclamations cl.u.s.tered round from all over the room.

"Why should I tell?"

"We didn't even know you were engaged!"

"But of course. Certainly I marry. I know quite well who is to marry me."

The room was taking leave of Mademoiselle almost in silence. The English were standing together. Miriam heard their voices. "'Dieu, m'selle, 'dieu, m'selle," one after the other and saw hands and wrists move vigorously up and down. The Germans were commenting, "Ah, she is engaged--ah, what--_en-gaged._ Ah, the rascal! Hor mal--"

Miriam dreaded her turn. Mademoiselle was coming near... so cheap and common-looking with her hard grey dress and her cheap jacket with the hat hiding her hair and making her look skinny and old. She was a more dreadful stranger than she had been at first... Miriam wished she could stay. She could not let anyone go away like this. They would not meet again and Mademoiselle was going away detesting her and them all, going away in disgrace and not minding and going to be married. All the time there had been that waiting for her. She was smiling now and showing her babyish teeth. How could Jimmie hold her by the shoulders?

"Venez mon enfant, venez a l'instant," called Fraulein from the hall.

Mademoiselle made her hard little sound with her throat.

"Why doesn't she go?" thought Miriam as Mademoiselle ran down the room.

"Adieu, adieu evaireeboddie--alla----"

11

"Are all here?"

Jimmie answered and Fraulein came to the table and stood leaning for a moment upon one hand.

The door opened and the housekeeper shone hard and bright in the doorway.

"Wasche angekommen!"

"Na, gut," responded Fraulein quietly.

The housekeeper disappeared.

"Fraulein looks like a dead body," thought Miriam.

Apprehension overtook her... "there's going to be some silly fuss."

"I shall speak in English, because the most that I shall say concerns the English members of this household and its heavy seriousness will be by those who are not English, sufficiently understood."

Miriam flushed, struggling for self-possession. She determined not to listen.... "d.a.m.n... Devil..." she exhorted herself... "humbugging creature..." She felt the blood throbbing in her face and her eyes and looked at no one. She was conscious that little movements and sounds came from the Germans, but she heard nothing but Fraulein's voice which had ceased. It had been the clear-cut low-breathing tone she used at prayers. "Oh, Lord, bother, d.a.m.nation," she reiterated in her discomfiture. The words echoing through her mind seemed to cut a way of escape....

"That dear child," smiled Fraulein's voice, "who has just left us, came under this roof... nearly a year ago.

"She came, a tender girl (Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle, oh, goodness!) from the house of her pious parents, fromme Eltern, fromme Eltern."

Fraulein breathed these words slowly out and a deep sigh came from one of the Germans, "to reside with us. She came in the most perfect confidence with the aim to complete her own simple education, the pious and simple nurture of a Protestant French girl, and with the aim also to remove for a period something of the burden lying upon the shoulders of those dear parents in the upbringing of herself and her brothers and sisters" (And then to leave home and be married--how easy, how easy!)

"Honourably--honourably she has fulfilled each and every duty laid upon her as inst.i.tutrice in this establishment.

"Sufficient to indicate this fulfilment of duty is the fact that she was happy and that she made happy others----"

Fraulein's voice dropped to its lowest note and grew fuller in tone.

"Would that I could here complete what I have to say of the sojourn of little Aline Ducorroy under this roof.... But that I cannot do.

"That I cannot do.

"It has been the experience of this pure and gentle soul to come, under this roof, in contact with things not pure."

Fraulein's voice had become breathless and shaking. Both her hands sought the support of the table.

"This poor child has had unwillingly to suffer the fact of a.s.sociating with those not pure."

"Ach, Fraulein! What you say!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Clara.

In the silence the leaves of the chestnut tree tapped one against the other. Miriam listened to them... there must be a little breeze blowing across the garden. Why had she not noticed it before? Were they all hearing it?

"With--those--not pure."

"Here, in this my school."

Miriam's heart began to beat angrily.

"She has been forced, here, in this school, to hear talking"--Fraulein's voice thickened--"of men...."

_"Manner--geschichten... here!"_

_"Manner--geschichten."_ Fraulein's voice rang out down the table. She bent forward so that the light from both the windows behind her fell sharply across her grey-clad shoulders and along the top of her head. There was no condemnation Miriam felt in those broad grey shoulders--they were innocent. But the head shining and flat, the wide parting, the sleekness of the hair falling thinly and flatly away from it--angry, dreadful skull. She writhed away from it. She would not look any more. She felt her neck was swelling her collar-band.

Fraulein whispered low.

"Here in my school, here standing round this table are those who talk of--men.

"Young girls... who talk... of men."

While Fraulein waited, trembling, several of the girls began to snuffle and sob.

"Is there, can there be in the world anything that is more base, more vile, more impure? Is there? Is there?"

Miriam wished she knew who was crying. She tried to fix her thoughts on a hole in the table-cover. "It could be darned.... It could he darned."