“Oh, yes,” said Miriam, with a pounce in her voice.
“You play the piano?”
“A little.”
“You must keep up your practice then, while you are with us—you must have time for practice.”
Fräulein Pfaff rose and moved away. The girls were arranging the chairs in two rows—plates and cups were collected and carried away. It dawned on Miriam that they were going to have prayers. What a wet blanket on her evening. Everything had been so bright and exciting so far. Obviously they had prayers every night. She felt exceedingly uncomfortable. She had never seen prayers in a sitting room. It had been nothing at school—all the girls standing in the drill room, rows of voices saying “adsum,” then a Collect and the Lord’s Prayer.
A huge Bible appeared on a table in front of Fräulein’s high-backed chair. Miriam found herself ranged with the girls, sitting in an attentive hush. There was a quiet, slow turning of pages, and then a long indrawn sigh and Fräulein’s clear, low, even voice, very gentle, not caustic now but with something childlike about it, “Und da kamen die Apostel zu Ihm. …” Miriam had a moment of revolt. She would not sit there and let a woman read the Bible at her … and in that “smarmy” way. … In spirit she rose and marched out of the room. As the English pupil-teacher bound to suffer all things or go home, she sat on. Presently her ear was charmed by Fräulein’s slow clear enunciation, her pure unaspirated North German. It seemed to suit the narrative—and the narrative was new, vivid and real in this new tongue. She saw presently the little group of figures talking by the lake and was sorry when Fräulein’s voice ceased.
Solomon Martin was at the piano. Someone handed Miriam a shabby little paperbacked hymnbook. She fluttered the leaves. All the hymns appeared to have a little short-lined verse, under each ordinary verse, in small print. It was in English—she read. She fumbled for the title page and then her cheeks flamed with shame, “Moody and Sankey.” She was incredulous, but there it was, clearly enough. What was such a thing doing here? … Finishing school for the daughters of gentlemen. … She had never had such a thing in her hands before. … Fräulein could not know. … She glanced at her, but Fräulein’s cavernous mouth was serenely open and the voices of the girls sang heartily, “Whenhy‑cometh. Whenhy‑cometh, to make-up his jewels—” These girls, Germany, that piano. … What did the English girls think? Had anyone said anything? Were they chapel? Fearfully, she told them over. No. Judy might be, and the Martins perhaps, but not Gertrude, nor Jimmie, nor Millie. How did it happen? What was the German Church? Luther—Lutheran.
She longed for the end.
She glanced through the book—frightful, frightful words and choruses.
The girls were getting on to their knees.
Oh dear, every night. Her elbows sank into soft red plush.
She was to have time for practising—and that English lesson—the first—Oxford, decisive for—educated people. …
Fräulein’s calm voice came almost in a whisper, “Vater unser … der Du bist im Himmel,” and the murmuring voices of the girls followed her.
Miriam went to bed content, wrapped in music. The theme of Clara’s solo recurred again and again; and every time it brought something of the wonderful light—the sense of going forward and forward through space. She fell asleep somewhere outside the world. No sooner was she asleep than a voice was saying, “Bonjour, Meece,” and her eyes opened on daylight and Mademoiselle’s little night-gowned form minuetting towards her down the single strip of matting. Her hair, hanging in short ringlets when released, fell forward round her neck as she bowed—the slightest dainty inclination, from side to side against the swaying of her dance. She was smiling her down-glancing, little sprite smile. Miriam loved her. …
A great plaque of sunlight lay across the breakfast table. Miriam was too happy to trouble about her imminent trial. She reflected that it was quite possible today and tomorrow would be free. None of the visiting masters came, except, sometimes, Herr Bossenberger for music lessons—that much she had learned from Mademoiselle. And, after all, the class she had so dreaded had dwindled to just these four girls, little Emma and the three grown-up girls. They probably knew all the rules and beginnings. It would be just reading and so on. It would not be so terrible—four sensible girls; and besides they had accepted her. It did not seem anything extraordinary to them that she should teach them; and they did not dislike her. Of that she felt sure. She could not say this for even one of the English girls. But the German girls did not dislike her. She felt at ease sitting amongst them and was glad she was there and not at the English end of the table. Down here, hemmed in by the Bergmanns with Emma’s little form, her sounds, movements and warmth, her little quiet friendliness planted between herself and the English, with the apparently unobservant Minna and Elsa across the way she felt safe. She felt fairly sure those German eyes did not criticise her. Perhaps, she suggested to herself, they thought a good deal of English people in general; and then they were in the minority, only four of them; it was evidently a school for English girls as much as anything … strange—what an adventure for all those English girls—to be just boarders—Miriam wondered how she would feel sitting there as an English boarder among the Martins and Gertrude, Millie, Jimmie and Judy? It would mean being friendly with them. Finally she ensconced herself amongst her Germans, feeling additionally secure. … Fräulein had spent many years in England. Perhaps that explained the breakfast of oatmeal
