“Eh—my dear girl,” Miss Jenny was saying diffidently at her side, “isn’t it a little unwise—very unwise—under the circumstances—with the difficulties—well, in fact with all ye’ve just told us—have ye thought?” When Miriam reached her broad smile Miss Jenny stopped and suddenly chuckled. “My dear Miriam! I don’t know. I suppose we don’t know ye. I suppose we haven’t really known ye as ye are. But come, have ye thought it out? No, ye haven’t,” she ended gravely, looking along the table and flicking with her forefinger the end of her little red nose.
Miriam glanced at her profile and her insecure disorderly bunch of hair. Miss Jenny was formidable. She would recommend certificates. Her eye wavered towards Miss Deborah.
“My dear Jenny,” said Miss Deborah promptly, “Miriam is not a child. She must do as she thinks best.”
“But don’t ye see my point, my dear Deborah? I don’t say she’s a child. She’s a madcap. That’s it.” She paused. “Of course I daresay she’ll fall on her feet. Ye’re a most extraordinary gel. I don’t know. Of course ye can come back—or stay here in yer holidays. Ye know that, my dear,” she concluded, suddenly softening her sharp little voice.
“I don’t want to go,” cried Miriam with tear-filled eyes. They were one person in the grip of a decision. Miss Haddie sat up and moved her elbows about. All four pairs of eyes held tears.
“My dear—I wish we could give ye more, Miriam,” murmured Miss Jenny; “we don’t want to lose ye, ye’ve pulled the lower school together in a remarkable way”; Miss Deborah was drawing little breaths of protest at this descent into gross detail; “the children are interested. We hear that from the parents. We shall be able to give ye excellent testimonials.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” responded Miriam desperately. “Fancy—Great Scott—parents—behind all my sore throats—I’ve never heard about that. It’s all coming out now,” she thought.
“Well—my dear—now—” began Miss Jenny hesitatingly. Feeling herself slipping, Miriam clung harshly to her determination and drew herself up to offer the set of the pretty blouse Gerald and Harriett had bought her in Brighton as a seal on her irrevocable decision to break with Banbury Park. It was a delicate sheeny green silk, with soft tuckers.
“What steps have ye taken?” asked Miss Jenny in a quizzical businesslike tone.
“It’s very kind of you,” said Miriam formally, and went on to hint vaguely and convincingly at the existence of some place in a family in the country that would be sure to fall to her lot through the many friends to whom Eve had written on her behalf, turning away from the feast towards the freedom of the untenanted part of the room. The sitting had to be brought to an end. … In a moment she would be utterly routed. … Her lame statements were the end of the struggle. She knew she was demonstrating in her feeble broken tones a sort of blind strength they knew nothing of and that they would leave it at that, whatever they thought, if only there were no more talk.
When they had left the room and Flora came in for the supper things, instead of sitting as usual at the far end of the table pretending to read, she stood planted on the hearthrug watching her. Flora’s hands were small and pale and serenely despairing like her face. She cleared the table quietly. She had nothing to hope for. She did not know she had nothing to hope for. Whatever happened she would go quietly on doing things … in the twilight … on a sort of edge. People would die. Perhaps people had already died in her family. But she would always be the same. One day she would die, perhaps of something hard and slow and painful with that small yellowish constitution.
She would not be able to go on looking serene and despairing with people round her bed helping her. When she died she would wait quietly with nothing to do, blind and wondering. Death would take her into a great festival—things for her for herself. She would not believe it and would put up her hands to keep it off. But it would be all round her in great laughter, like the deep roaring and crying of a flood. Then she would cry like a child.
Why was it that for some people, for herself, life could be happy now. It was possible now to hear things laugh just by setting your teeth and doing things; breaking into things, chucking things about, refusing to be held. It made even the dreadful past seem wonderful. All the days here, the awful days, each one awful and hateful and painful.
Flora had gathered up her tray and disappeared, quietly closing the door. But Flora had known and somehow shared her triumph, felt her position in the school as she stood planted and happy in the middle of the Pernes’ hearthrug.
“An island is a piece of land entirely surrounded by water.”
Miriam kept automatically repeating these words to herself as the newly returned children clung about her the next morning in the schoolroom. It was a morning of heavy wind and rain and the schoolroom was dark, and chilly with its summer-screened fireplace. The children seemed to her for the first time small and pathetic. She was deserting them. After fifteen months of strange intimacy she was going away forever.
During the usual routine days the little girls always seemed large and formidable. She was quite sure they were not so to the other teachers, and she hesitated when she thought over this difference, between the explanation which accounted for their size and redoubtableness by her own feebleness and the one to which she inclined when she felt her success
