Miriam paused under the overhanging gallery. Her eyes went, incredulously, up to the springboard. It seemed impossible … and all that distance above the water. … Her gaze was drawn to the flicking of the curtain of one of the little compartments lining the gallery.
“Hullo, Hendy, let me get into my cubicle.” Gertrude stood before her dripping and smiling.
“However on earth did you do it?” said Miriam, gazing incredulously at the ruddy wet face.
Gertrude’s smile broadened. “Go on,” she said, shaking the drops from her chin, “it’s all in the day’s work.”
In the hard clear light Miriam saw that the teeth that looked so gleaming and strong in the distance were slightly ribbed and fluted and had serrated edges. Large stoppings showed like shadows behind the thin shells of the upper front ones. Even Gertrude might be ill one day; but she would never be ill and sad and helpless. That was clear from the neat way she plunged in through her curtains. …
Miriam’s eyes went back to the row of little curtained recesses in the gallery. The drapery that had flapped was now half withdrawn, the light from the glass roof fell upon the top of a head flung back and shaking its mane of hair. The profile was invisible, but the sheeny hair rippled in thick gilded waves almost to the floor. … How hateful of her, thought Miriam. … How beautiful. I should be just the same if I had hair like that … that’s Germany. … Lohengrin. … She stood adoring. “Stay and talk while I get on my togs,” came Gertrude’s voice from behind her curtains.
Miriam glanced towards the marble steps. The little group had disappeared. She turned helplessly towards Gertrude’s curtains. She could not think of anything to say to her. She was filled with apprehension. “I wonder what we shall do tomorrow,” she presently murmured.
“I don’t,” gasped Gertrude, towelling.
Miriam waited for the prophecy.
“Old Lahmann’s back from Geneva,” came the harsh panting voice.
“Pastor Lahmann?” repeated Miriam.
“None other, Madame.”
“Have you seen him?” went on Miriam dimly, wishing that she might be released.
“Scots wha hae, no! But I saw Lily’s frills.”
The billows of gold hair in the gallery were being piled up by two little hands—white and plump like Eve’s, but with quick clever irritating movements, and a thin sweet self-conscious voice began singing “Du, meine Seele.” Miriam lost interest in the vision. … They were all the same. Men liked creatures like that. She could imagine that girl married.
“Lily and his wife were great friends,” Gertrude was saying. “She’s dead, you know.”
“Is she,” said Miriam emphatically.
“She used to be always coming when I first came over, Scots wha—blow—got a pin, Hendy? … We shan’t have his … thanks, you’re a saint … his boys in the schoolroom any more now.”
“Are those Pastor Lahmann’s boys?” said Miriam, noticing that Gertrude’s hair was coarse, each hair a separate thread. “She’s the wiry plucky kind. How she must despise me,” said her mind.
“Well,” said Gertrude, switching back her curtain to lace her boots. “Long may Lily beam. I like summer weather myself.”
Miriam turned away. Gertrude half-dressed behind the curtains was too clever for her. She could not face her unveiled with vacant eyes.
“The summer is jolly, isn’t it?” she said uneasily.
“You’re right, my friend. Hullo! There’s Emmchen looking for you. I expect the Germans have just finished their annual. They never come into the Schwimmbad, they’re always too late. I should think you’d better toddle them home, Hendy—the darlings might catch cold.”
“Don’t we all go together?”
“We go as we are ready, from this establishment, just anyhow as long as we’re not in ones or twos—Lily won’t have twos, as I dare say you’ve observed. Be good, my che-hild,” she said heartily, drawing on her second boot, “and you’ll be happy—sehr sehr happy, I hope, Hendy.”
“Thank you,” laughed Miriam. Emma’s hands were on her muff, stroking it eagerly. “Hendchen, Hendchen,” she cooed in her consoling tones, “to house to house, I am so angry—hangry.”
“Hungry.”
“Hungry, yes, and Minna and Clara is ready. Komm!”
The child linked arms with her and pulled Miriam towards the corridor. Once out of sight under the gallery she slipped her arm round Miriam’s waist. “Oh, Hendchen, my darling beautiful, you have so lovely teint after your badth—oh, I am zo hangry, oh Hendchen, I luff you zo, I am zo haypie, kiss me one small, small kiss.”
“What a baby you are,” said Miriam, half turning as the girl’s warm lips brushed the angle of her jaw. “Yes, we’ll go home, come along.”
The corridor was almost airless. She longed to get out into the open. They found Minna at a table in the entrance hall her head propped on her hand, snoring gently. Clara sat near her with closed eyes.
As the little party of four making its way home, cleansed and hungry, united and happy, stood for a moment on a tree-planted island halfway across a wide-open space, Minna with her eager smile said, gazing, “Oh, I would like a glass Bier.” Miriam saw very distinctly the clear sunlight on the boles of the trees showing every ridge and shade of colour as it had done on the peaked summerhouse porch in the morning. The girls closed in on her during the moment of disgust which postponed her response.
“Dear Hendchen! We are alone! Just we nice four! Just only one most little small glass! Just one! Kind best, Hendchen!”
