“Well, don’t go away, you funny cuckoo, you can wait, can’t you?”
A party of girls straggled in one by one and drifted towards Polly in the window space.
“It’s the parties I look forward to.”
“Oh, look at her tie!”
“My tie? Six-three at Crisp’s.”
The sounds of Polly’s bootlacing came to an end. She sat holding a court. “Doesn’t look forward to parties? She must be a funny cuckoo!”
“Dancing’s divine,” said a smooth deep smiling voice. “Reversing. Khoo! with a fella. Khooo!”
“You surprise me, Edie. You do indeed. Hoh. Shocking.”
“Shocking? Why? What do you mean, Poll?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Riang doo too.”
“I don’t think dancing’s shocking. How can it be? You’re barmy, my son.”
“Ever heard of Lottie Collins?”
“Ssh. Don’t be silly.”
“I don’t see what Lottie Collins has got to do with it. My mother thinks dancing’s all right. That’s good enough for me.”
“Well—I’m not your mother.”
“Nor anyone else’s.”
“Khoo, Mabel.”
“Who wants to be anyone’s mother?”
“Not me. Ug. Beastly little brats.”
“Oh shut up. Oh you do make me tired.”
“Kids are jolly. A1. I hope I have lots.”
Surprised into amazement, Miriam looked up to consult the face of Jessie Wheeler, the last speaker—a tall flat-figured girl with a strong squarish pale face, hollow cheeks, and firm colourless lips. Was it being a Baptist that made her have such an extraordinary idea? Miriam’s eyes sought refuge from the defiant beam of her sea-blue eyes in the shimmering cloud of her hair. The strangest hair in the school; negroid in its intensity of fuzziness, but saved by its fine mesh.
“Don’t you adore kiddies, Miss Henderson?”
“I think they’re rather nice,” said Miriam quickly, and returned to her book.
“I should jolly well think they were,” said Jessie fervently.
“Hope your husband’ll think so too, my dear,” said Polly, getting up.
“Oh, of course, I should only have them if the fellow wanted me to.”
“You haven’t got a fella yet, madam.”
“Of course not, cuckoo. But I shall.”
“Plenty of time to think about that.”
“Hoo. Fancy never having a fellow. I should go off my nut.”
When they had all disappeared Miriam opened the windows. There was still someone moving about in the hall, and as she stood in the instreaming current of damp air looking wearily at the concrete—a girl came into the room. “Can I come in a minute?” she said, advancing to the window. “I want to speak to you,” she pursued when she reached the bay. She stood at Miriam’s side and looked out of the window. Half-turning, Miriam had recognized Grace Broom, one of the elder first-class girls who attended only for a few subjects. She was a dark short-necked girl with thick shoulders; a receding mouth and boldly drawn nose and chin gave her a look of shrewd elderliness. The heavy mass of hair above the broad sweep of her forehead, her heavy frame and flat-footed walk added to this appearance. She wore a high-waisted black serge pinafore dress with black crape vest and sleeves.
“Do you mind me speaking to you?” she said in a hot voice. Her black-fringed brown eyes were fixed on the garden railings where people passed by and Miriam never looked.
“No,” said Miriam shyly.
“You know why we’re in mourning?”
Miriam stood silent with beating heart, trying to cope with the increasing invasion.
“Our father’s dead.”
Hurriedly Miriam noted the superstitious tone in the voice. … This is a family that revels in plumes and hearses. She glanced at the stiff rather full crape sleeve nearest to her and sought about in her mind for help as she said with a blush, “Oh, I see.”
“We’ve just moved.”
“Oh yes, I see,” said Miriam, glancing fearfully at the heavy scroll of profile and finding it expressive and confused.
“We’ve got a house about a quarter as big as where we used to live.”
Miriam found it impossible to respond to this confession and still tried desperately to sweep away the sense of the figure so solidly planted at her side.
“I’ve asked our aunt if we can ask you to come to tea with us.”
“Thank you very much,” said Miriam in one word.
“When could you come?”
“Oh, I’m afraid I couldn’t come. It would be impossible.”
“Oh no. You must come. I shall ask Aunt Lucy to write to Miss Perne.”
“I really couldn’t come. I shouldn’t be able to ask you back.”
“That doesn’t matter,” panted the relentless voice. “I’ve wanted to speak to you ever since you came.”
When next Miriam saw the black-robed Brooms and their aunt file past the transept where were the Wordsworth House sittings, she felt that to visit them might perhaps not be the ordeal she had not dared to picture. It would be strange. Those three heavy black-dressed women. Their small new house. She imagined them sitting at tea in a little room. Why was Grace so determined that she should sit there too? Grace had a life and a home and was real. She did not know that things were awful. Nor did Florrie Broom, nor the aunt. But yet they did not look like “social” people. They were a little different. Not worldly. Not pious either. Nor intellectual. What could they want with her? She had soon forgotten them and the congregation assumed its normal look. As the service went on the thoughts came that came every Sunday. An old woman with a girl at her side were the only people whose faces were within Miriam’s line of vision from her place at the wall end of the Wordsworth House pew. The people in front of them were not even in profile, and those behind were hidden from her by the angle of the transept wall. To her right she could just see rising above the heads in the rows of pews in front of her the far end of the chancel screen. The faces grouped in the transept on the opposite side of the church were a blur. The two figures sat or knelt or stood in a heavy silence. They neither sang nor prayed. Their faces remained unaltered during the whole service. To Miriam they were its most intimate part. During
