And it would really be those women, expecting things of her. They would be so affable at first. She had been through it a million times—all her life—all eternity. They would smile those hateful women’s smiles—smirks—self-satisfied smiles as if everybody were agreed about everything. She loathed women. They always smiled. All the teachers had at school, all the girls, but Lilla. Eve did … maddeningly sometimes … Mother … it was the only funny horrid thing about her. Harriett didn’t. … Harriett laughed. She was strong and hard somehow. …
Pater knew how hateful all the world of women were and despised them.
He never included her with them; or only sometimes when she pretended, or he didn’t understand. …
Someone was saying “Hi!” a gurgling muffled shout, a long way off.
She opened her eyes. It was bright morning. She saw the twist of Harriett’s body lying across the edge of the bed. With a gasp she flung herself over her own side. Harry, old Harry, jolly old Harry had remembered the Grand Ceremonial. In a moment her own head hung, her long hair flinging back on to the floor, her eyes gazing across under the bed at the reversed snub of Harriett’s face. It was flushed in the midst of the wiry hair which stuck out all round it but did not reach the floor. “Hi!” they gurgled solemnly, “Hi. … Hi!” shaking their heads from side to side. Then their four frilled hands came down and they flumped out of the high bed.
They performed an uproarious toilet. It seemed so safe up there in the bright bare room. Miriam’s luggage had been removed. It was away somewhere in the house; far away and unreal and unfelt as her parents somewhere downstairs, and the servants away in the basement getting breakfast and Sarah and Eve always incredible, getting quietly up in the next room. Nothing was real but getting up with old Harriett in this old room.
She revelled in Harriett’s delicate buffoonery (“voluntary incongruity” she quoted to herself as she watched her)—the titles of some of the books on Harriett’s shelf, Ungava; A Tale of the North, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, John Halifax, Swiss Family Robinson made her laugh. The curtained recesses of the long room stretched away into space.
She went about dimpling and responding, singing and masquerading as her large hands did their work.
She intoned the titles on her own shelf—as a response to the quiet swearing and jesting accompanying Harriett’s occupations. “The Voyage of the Beeeeeeagle,” she sang “Scott’s Poetical Works.” Villette—Longfellow—Holy Bible with Apocrypha—Egmont—
“Binks!” squealed Harriett daintily. “Yink grink binks.”
“Books!” she responded in a low tone, and flushed as if she had given Harriett an affectionate hug. “My rotten books. …” She would come back, and read all her books more carefully. She had packed some. She could not remember which and why.
“Binks,” she said, and it was quite easy for them to crowd together at the little dressing table. Harriett was standing in her little faded red moirette petticoat and a blue flannelette dressing jacket brushing her wiry hair. Miriam reflected that she need no longer hate her for the set of her clothes round her hips. She caught sight of her own faded jersey and stiff, shapeless black petticoat in the mirror. Harriett’s “Hinde’s” lay on the dressing table, her own still lifted the skin of her forehead in suffused puckerings against the shank of each pin.
Unperceived, she eyed the tiny stiff plait of hair which stuck out almost horizontally from the nape of Harriett’s neck, and watched her combing out the tightly-curled fringe standing stubbily out along her forehead and extending like a thickset hedge midway across the crown of her head, where it stopped abruptly against the sleekly-brushed longer strands which strained over her poll and disappeared into the plait.
“Your old wool’ll be just right in Germany,” remarked Harriett.
“Mm.”
“You ought to do it in basket plaits like Sarah.”
“I wish I could. I can’t think how she does it.”
“Ike spect it’s easy enough.”
“Mm.”
“But you’re all right, anyhow.”
“Anyhow, it’s no good bothering when you’re plain.”
“You’re not plain.”
Miriam looked sharply round.
“Go on, Gooby.”
“You’re not. You don’t know. Granny said you’ll be a bonny woman, and Sarah thinks you’ve got the best shape face and the best complexion of any of us, and cook was simply crying her eyes out last night and said you were the light of the house with your happy, pretty face, and mother said you’re much too attractive to go about alone, and that’s partly why Pater’s going with you to Hanover, silly. … You’re not plain,” she gasped.
Miriam’s amazement silenced her. She stood back from the mirror. She could not look into it until Harriett had gone. The phrases she had just heard rang in her head without meaning. But she knew she would remember all of them. She went on doing her hair with downcast eyes. She had seen Harriett vividly, and had longed to crush her in her arms and kiss her little round cheeks and the snub of her nose. Then she wanted her to be gone.
Presently Harriett took up a brooch and skated down the room, “Ta‑ra‑ra‑la‑eee‑tee!” she carolled, “don’t be long,” and disappeared.
“I’m pretty,” murmured Miriam, planting herself in front of the dressing table. “I’m pretty—they like me—they like me. Why didn’t I know?” She did not look into the mirror. “They all like me, me.”
The sound of the breakfast bell came clanging up through the house. She hurried to her side of the curtained recess. Hanging there were her old red stockinette jersey and her blue skirt … never again … just
