Pointed Roofs

Miriam left the gaslit hall and went slowly upstairs. The March twilight lay upon the landings, but the staircase was almost dark. The top landing was quite dark and silent. There was no one about. It would be quiet in her room. She could sit by the fire and be quiet and think things over until Eve and Harriett came back with the parcels. She would have time to think about the journey and decide what she was going to say to the Fraulein.

Her new Saratoga trunk stood solid and gleaming in the firelight. To-morrow it would be taken away and she would be gone. The room would be altogether Harriett's. It would never have its old look again. She evaded the thought and moved clumsily to the nearest window. The outline of the round bed and the shapes of the may-trees on either side of the bend of the drive were just visible. There was no escape for her thoughts in this direction. The sense of all she was leaving stirred uncontrollably as she stood looking down into the well-known garden.

Out in the road beyond the invisible lime-trees came the rumble of wheels. The gate creaked and the wheels crunched up the drive, slurring and stopping under the dining-room window.

It was the Thursday afternoon piano-organ, the one that was always in tune. It was early to-day.

She drew back from the window as the bass chords began thumping gently in the darkness. It was better that it should come now than later on, at dinnertime. She could get over it alone up here.

She went down the length of the room and knelt by the fireside with one hand on the mantel-shelf so that she could get up noiselessly and be lighting the gas if anyone came in.

The organ was playing "The Wearin' o' the Green."

It had begun that tune during the last term at school, in the summer. It made her think of rounders in the hot school garden, singing-classes in the large green room, all the class shouting "Gather roses while ye may," hot afternoons in the shady north room, the sound of turning pages, the hum of the garden beyond the sun-blinds, meetings in the sixth form study.... Lilla, with her black hair and the specks of bright amber in the brown of her eyes, talking about free-will.

She stirred the fire. The windows were quite dark. The flames shot up and shadows darted.

That summer, which still seemed near to her, was going to fade and desert her, leaving nothing behind. To-morrow it would belong to a world which would go on without her, taking no heed. There would still be blissful days. But she would not be in them.

There would be no more silent sunny mornings with all the day ahead and nothing to do and no end anywhere to anything; no more sitting at the open window in the dining-room, reading Lecky and Darwin and bound "Contemporary Reviews" with roses waiting in the garden to be worn in the afternoon, and Eve and Harriett somewhere about, washing blouses or copying waltzes from the library packet... no more Harriett looking in at the end of the morning, rushing her off to the new grand piano to play the "Mikado" and the "Holy Family" duets. The tennis-club would go on, but she would not be there. It would begin in May. Again there would be a white twinkling figure coming quickly along the pathway between the rows of holly-hocks every Saturday afternoon.

Why had he come to tea every Sunday-never missing a single Sunday-all the winter? Why did he say, "Play 'Abide with me,'" "Play 'Abide with me'" yesterday, if he didn't care? What was the good of being so quiet and saying nothing? Why didn't he say "Don't go" or "When are you coming back?" Eve said he looked perfectly miserable.

There was nothing to look forward to now but governessing and old age. Perhaps Miss Gilkes was right.... Get rid of men and muddles and have things just ordinary and be happy. "Make up your mind to be happy. You can be perfectly happy without anyone to think about...." Wearing that large cameo brooch-long, white, flat-fingered hands and that quiet little laugh.... The piano-organ had reached its last tune. In the midst of the final flourish of notes the door flew open. Miriam got quickly to her feet and felt for matches.

Harriett came in waggling a thin brown paper parcel.

"Did you hear the Intermezzo? What a dim religious! We got your old collars."

Miriam took the parcel and subsided on to the hearthrug, looking with a new curiosity at Harriett's little, round, firelit face, smiling tightly beneath the rim of her hard felt hat and the bright silk bow beneath her chin.

A footstep sounded on the landing and there was a gentle tap on the open door.

"Oh, come in, Eve-bring some matches. Are the collars piquet, Harry?"

"No, they hadn't got piquet, but they're the plain shape you like. You may thank us they didn't send you things with little rujabiba frills."

Eve came slenderly down the room and Miriam saw with relief that her outdoor things were off. As the gas flared up she drew comfort from her scarlet serge dress, and the soft crimson cheek and white brow of the profile raised towards the flaring jet.

"What are things like downstairs?" she said, staring into the fire.

"I don't know," said Eve. She sighed thoughtfully and sank into a carpet chair under the gas bracket. Miriam glanced at her troubled eyes.

"Pater's only just come in. I think things are pretty rotten," declared Harriett from the hearthrug.

"Isn't it ghastly-for all of us?" Miriam felt treacherously outspoken. It was a relief to be going away. She knew that this sense of relief made her able to speak. "It's never knowing that's so awful. Perhaps he'll get some more money presently and things'll go on again. Fancy mother having it always, ever since we were babies."

"Don't, Mim."

"All right. I won't tell you the words he said, how he put it about the difficulty of getting the money for my things."

"Don't, Mim."

Miriam's mind went back to the phrase and her mother's agonised face. She felt utterly desolate in the warm room.

"I wish I'd got brains," chirped Harriett, poking the fire with the toe of her boot.

"So you have-more than me."

"Oh-reely."

"You know, I know girls, that things are as absolutely ghastly this time as they can possibly be and that something must be done.... But you know it's perfectly fearful to face that old school when it comes to the point."

"Oh, my dear, it'll be lovely," said Eve; "all new and jolly, and think how you will enjoy those lectures, you'll simply love them."

"It's all very well to say that. You know you'd feel ill with fright."

"It'll be all right-for you-once you're there."

Miriam stared into the fire and began to murmur shamefacedly.

"No more all day bezique.... No more days in the West End.... No more matinees... no more exhibitions... no more A.B.C. teas... no more insane times... no more anything."

"What about holidays? You'll enjoy them all the more."

"I shall be staid and governessy."

"You mustn't. You must be frivolous."

Two deeply-burrowing dimples fastened the clean skin tightly over the bulge of Miriam's smile.

"And marry a German professor," she intoned blithely.

"Don't-don't for goodney say that before mother, Miriam."

"D'you mean she minds me going?"

"My dear!"

Why did Eve use her cross voice?-stupid... "for goodness' sake," not "for goodney." Silly of Eve to talk slang....

"All right. I won't."

"Won't marry a German professor, or won't tell mother, do you mean?... Oo-Crumbs! My old cake in the oven!" Harriett hopped to the door.

"Funny Harriett taking to cookery. It doesn't seem a bit like her."

"She'll have to do something-so shall I, I s'pose."

"It seems awful."

"We shall simply have to."

"It's awful," said Miriam, shivering.

"Poor old girl. I expect you feel horrid because you're tired with all the packing and excitement."

"Oh well, anyhow, it's simply ghastly."

"You'll feel better to-morrow."

"D'you think I shall?"

"Yes-you're so strong," said Eve, flushing and examining her nails.

"How d'you mean?"

"Oh-all sorts of ways."

"What way?"

"Oh-well-you arranging all this-I mean answering the advertisement and settling it all."

"Oh well, you know you backed me up."

"Oh yes, but other things...."

"What?"

"Oh, I was thinking about you having no religion."

"Oh."

"You must have such splendid principles to keep you straight," said Eve, and cleared her throat, "I mean, you must have such a lot in you."

"Me?"

"Yes, of course."

"I don't know where it comes in. What have I done?"

"Oh, well, it isn't so much what you've done-you have such a good time. ... Everybody admires you and all that... you know what I mean-you're so clever.... You're always in the right."

"That's just what everybody hates!"

"Well, my dear, I wish I had your mind."

"You needn't," said Miriam.

"You're all right-you'll come out all right. You're one of those strong-minded people who have to go through a period of doubt."

"But, my dear," said Miriam grateful and proud, "I feel such a humbug. You know when I wrote that letter to the Fraulein I said I was a member of the Church. I know what it will be, I shall have to take the English girls to church."

"Oh, well, you won't mind that."

"It will make me simply ill-I could never describe to you," said Miriam, with her face aglow, "what it is to me to hear some silly man drone away with an undistributed middle term."

"They're not all like that."

"Oh, well, then it will be ignoratio elenchi or argumentum ad hominem-"

"Oh, yes, but they're not the service."

"The service I can't make head or tail of-think of the Athanasian."

"Yes." Eve stirred uneasily and began to execute a gentle scale with her tiny tightly-knit blue and white hand upon her knee.

"It'll be ghastly," continued Miriam, "not having anyone to pour out to-I've told you such a lot these last few days."

"Yes, hasn't it been funny? I seem to know you all at once so much better."

"Well-don't you think I'm perfectly hateful?"

"No. I admire you more than ever. I think you're simply splendid."

"Then you simply don't know me."

"Yes I do. And you'll be able to write to me."

Eve, easily weeping, hugged her and whispered, "You mustn't. I can't see you break down-don't-don't-don't. We can't be blue your last night.... Think of nice things.... There will be nice things again... there will, will, will, will."

Miriam pursed her lips to a tight bunch and sat twisting her long thickish fingers. Eve stood up in her tears. Her smile and the curves of her mouth were unchanged by her weeping, and the crimson had spread and deepened a little in the long oval of her face. Miriam watched the changing crimson. Her eyes went to and fro between it and the neatly pinned masses of brown hair.

"I'm going to get some hot water," said Eve, "and we'll make ourselves glorious."

Miriam watched her as she went down the long room-the great oval of dark hair, the narrow neck, the narrow back, tight, plump little hands hanging in profile, white, with a purple pad near the wrist.

The crossing was over. They were arriving. The movement of the little steamer that had collected the passengers from the packet-boat drove the raw air against Miriam's face. In her tired brain the grey river and the flat misty shores slid constantly into a vision of the gaslit dining-room at home... the large clear glowing fire, the sounds of the family voices.

Every effort to obliterate the picture brought back again the moment that had come at the dinner-table as they all sat silent for an instant with downcast eyes and she had suddenly longed to go on for ever just sitting there with them all.

Now, in the boat she wanted to be free for the strange grey river and the grey shores. But the home scenes recurred relentlessly. Again and again she went through the last moments... the goodbyes, the unexpected convulsive force of her mother's arms, her own dreadful inability to give any answering embrace. She could not remember saying a single word. There had been a feeling that came like a tide carrying her away. Eager and dumb and remorseful she had gone out of the house and into the cab with Sarah, and then had come the long sitting in the loop-line train... "talk about something"... Sarah sitting opposite and her unchanged voice saying "What shall we talk about?" And then a long waiting, and the brown leather strap swinging against the yellow grained door, the smell of dust and the dirty wooden flooring, with the noise of the wheels underneath going to the swinging tune of one of Heller's "Sleepless Nights." The train had made her sway with its movements. How still Sarah seemed to sit, fixed in the old life. Nothing had come but strange cruel emotions.

After the suburban train nothing was distinct until the warm snowflakes were drifting against her face through the cold darkness on Harwich quay. Then, after what seemed like a great loop of time spent going helplessly up a gangway towards "the world" she had stood, face to face with the pale polite stewardess in her cabin. "I had better have a lemon, cut in two," she had said, feeling suddenly stifled with fear. For hours she had lain despairing, watching the slowly swaying walls of her cabin or sinking with closed eyes through invertebrate dipping spaces. Before each releasing paroxysm she told herself "this is like death; one day I shall die, it will be like this."

She supposed there would be breakfast soon on shore, a firm room and a teapot and cups and saucers. Cold and exhaustion would come to an end. She would be talking to her father.