Pointed Roofs: Pilgrimage Part 31

"You never told us you had any sisters, Hendy," said Jimmie, tapping her on the wrist.

"What a pity you're going just as we're getting to know you," Judy smiled shyly and looked on the floor.

"Well--I'm off with my bundle," announced Gertrude. "To be continued in our next. Think it over, Hendy. Don't desert us. Hurry up, my room.

It'll be tea-time before we're straight. Come on, Jim."

Miriam moved, with Judy following at her elbow, across the room to Millie. She looked up with her little plaintive frown. Miriam could not remember what her plans were. "Let's see," she said, "you're going to Norderney, aren't you?"

"I'm not going to Norderney," said Nellie almost tearfully. "I only wish I were. I don't even know I'm coming back next term."

"Aren't you looking forward to the holidays?"

"I don't know. I'd rather be staying here if I'm not coming back after."

"To stay in Germany? You'd rather do that than anything?"

"Rather."

"Here, with Fraulein Pfaff?"

"Of course, here with Fraulein Pfaff. I'd rather be in Germany than anything."

Millie stood staring with her pout and her slightly raised eyebrows at the frosted window.

"Would you stay here in the school for the holidays if Fraulein were staying?"

"I'd do anything," said Millie, "to stay in Germany."

"You know," said Miriam gazing at her, "so would I--any mortal thing."

Millie's eyes had filled with tears.

"Then why don't ye stay?" said Judy, with gentle gruffness.

13

The house was shut up for the night.

Miriam looked up at the clock dizzily as she drank the last of her coffee. It marked half-past eleven. Fraulein had told her to be ready at a quarter to twelve. Her hands felt large and shaky and her feet were cold. The room was stifling--bare and brown in the gaslight. She left it and crept through the hall where her trunk stood and up the creaking stairs. She turned up the gas. Emma lay asleep with red eyelids and cheeks. Miriam did not look at Ulrica. Hurriedly and desolately she packed her bag. She was going home empty-handed. She had achieved nothing. Fraulein had made not the slightest effort to keep her. She was just nothing again--with her Saratoga trunk and her hand-bag. Harriett had achieved. Harriett. She was just going home with nothing to say for herself.

"The carriage is here, my child. Make haste."

Miriam pushed things hurriedly into her bag. Fraulein had gone downstairs.

She was ready. She looked numbly round the room. Emma looked very far away. She turned out the gas. The dim light from the landing shone into the room. She stood for a moment in the doorway looking back. The room seemed to be empty. There seemed to be nothing in it but the black screen standing round the bed that was no longer hers.

"Good-bye," she murmured and hurried downstairs.

In the hall Fraulein began to talk at once, talking until they were seated side by side in the dark cab.

Then Miriam gazed freely at the pale profile shining at her side. Poor Fraulein Pfaff, getting old.

Fraulein began to ask about Miriam's plans for the future. Miriam answered as to an equal, elaborating a little account of circ.u.mstances at home, and the doings of her sisters. As she spoke she felt that Fraulein envied her her youth and her family at home in England--and she raised her voice a little and laughed easily and moved, crossing her knees in the cab.

She used sentimental German words about Harriett--a description of her that might have applied to Emma--little emphatic tender epithets came to her from the conversations of the girls. Fraulein praised her German warmly and asked question after question about the house and garden at Barnes and presently of her mother.

"I can't talk about her," said Miriam shortly.

"That is English," murmured Fraulein.

"She's such a little thing," said Miriam, "smaller than any of us."

Presently Fraulein laid her gloved hand on Miriam's gloved one. "You and I have, I think, much in common."

Miriam froze--and looked at the gas-lamps slowly swinging by along the boulevard. "Much will have happened in England whilst you have been here with us," said Fraulein eagerly.

They reached a street--shuttered darkness where the shops were, and here and there the yellow flare of a cafe. She strained her eyes to see the faces and forms of men and women--breathing more quickly as she watched the characteristic German gait.

There was the station.

Her trunk was weighed and registered. There was something to pay.

She handed her purse to Fraulein and stood gazing at the uniformed man--ruddy and clear-eyed--clear hard blue eyes and hard clean clear yellow moustaches--decisive untroubled movements. Pa.s.sengers were walking briskly about and laughing and shouting remarks to each other.

The train stood waiting for her. The ringing of an enormous bell brought her hands to her ears. Fraulein gently propelled her up the three steps into a compartment marked Damen--Coupe. It smelt of biscuits and wine.

A man with a booming voice came to examine her ticket. He stood bending under the central light, uttering st.u.r.dy German words. Miriam drank them in without understanding. He left the carriage very empty. The great bell was ringing again. Fraulein standing on the top step pressed both her hands and murmured words of farewell.

"Leb' wohl, mein Kind, Gott segne dich."

"Good-bye, Fraulein," she said stiffly, shaking hands.

The door was shut with a slam--the light seemed to go down. Miriam glanced at it--half the dull green muslin shade had slipped over the gas-globe. The carriage seemed dark. The platform outside was very bright. Fraulein had disappeared. The train was high above the platform.

Politely smiling Miriam scrambled to the window. The platform was moving, the large bright station moving away. Fraulein's wide smile was creasing and caverning under her hat from which the veil was thrown back.

Standing at the window Miriam smiled sharply. Fraulein's form flowed slowly away with the platform.

Groups pa.s.sed by smiling and waving.

Miriam sat down.

She leaped up to lean from the window.

The platform had disappeared.

NOTE.

The next instalment of "Pilgrimage," is ent.i.tled "Backwater."