“Oh, well it’s all over now. Let’s be thankful and think no more about it.”
“All very fine, Jemima. You’re going home.”
“Thank goodness.”
“And not coming back. Lucky Pigleinchen.”
“Well, so am I,” said Miriam, “and I’m not coming back.”
“I say! Aren’t you coming to Norderney?” Gertrude flashed dark eyes at her.
“Can’t you come to Norderney?” said Judy thickly, at her elbow.
“Well, you see there are all sorts of things happening at home. I must go. One of my sisters is engaged and another going away. I must go home for a while. Of course I might come back.”
“Think it over, Henderson, and see if you can’t decide in our favour.”
“We shall have another Miss Owen.”
Miriam struggled up out of her basket. “But I thought you all liked Miss Owen!”
“Ho! Goodness! Too simple for words.”
“You never told us you had any sisters, Hendy,” said Jimmie, tapping her on the wrist.
“What a pity you’re going just as we’re getting to know you,” Judy smiled shyly and looked on the floor.
“Well—I’m off with my bundle,” announced Gertrude. “To be continued in our next. Think it over, Hendy. Don’t desert us. Hurry up, my room. It’ll be teatime before we’re straight. Come on, Jim.”
Miriam moved, with Judy following at her elbow, across the room to Millie. She looked up with her little plaintive frown. Miriam could not remember what her plans were. “Let’s see,” she said, “you’re going to Norderney, aren’t you?”
“I’m not going to Norderney,” said Millie almost tearfully. “I only wish I were. I don’t even know I’m coming back next term.”
“Aren’t you looking forward to the holidays?”
“I don’t know. I’d rather be staying here if I’m not coming back after.”
“To stay in Germany? You’d rather do that than anything?”
“Rather.”
“Here, with Fräulein Pfaff?”
“Of course, here with Fräulein Pfaff. I’d rather be in Germany than anything.”
Millie stood staring with her pout and her slightly raised eyebrows at the frosted window.
“Would you stay here in the school for the holidays if Fräulein were staying?”
“I’d do anything,” said Millie, “to stay in Germany.”
“You know,” said Miriam gazing at her, “so would I—any mortal thing.”
Millie’s eyes had filled with tears.
“Then why don’t ye stay?” said Judy, with gentle gruffness.
The house was shut up for the night.
Miriam looked up at the clock dizzily as she drank the last of her coffee. It marked half past eleven. Fräulein had told her to be ready at a quarter to twelve. Her hands felt large and shaky and her feet were cold. The room was stifling—bare and brown in the gaslight. She left it and crept through the hall where her trunk stood and up the creaking stairs. She turned up the gas. Emma lay asleep with red eyelids and cheeks. Miriam did not look at Ulrica. Hurriedly and desolately she packed her bag. She was going home empty-handed. She had achieved nothing. Fräulein had made not the slightest effort to keep her. She was just nothing again—with her Saratoga trunk and her handbag. Harriett had achieved. Harriett. She was just going home with nothing to say for herself.
“The carriage is here, my child. Make haste.”
Miriam pushed things hurriedly into her bag. Fräulein had gone downstairs.
She was ready. She looked numbly round the room. Emma looked very far away. She turned out the gas. The dim light from the landing shone into the room. She stood for a moment in the doorway looking back. The room seemed to be empty. There seemed to be nothing in it but the black screen standing round the bed that was no longer hers.
“Goodbye,” she murmured and hurried downstairs.
In the hall Fräulein began to talk at once, talking until they were seated side by side in the dark cab.
Then Miriam gazed freely at the pale profile shining at her side. Poor Fräulein Pfaff, getting old.
Fräulein began to ask about Miriam’s plans for the future. Miriam answered as to an equal, elaborating a little account of circumstances at home, and the doings of her sisters. As she spoke she felt that Fräulein envied her her youth and her family at home in England—and she raised her voice a little and laughed easily and moved, crossing her knees in the cab.
She used sentimental German words about Harriett—a description of her that might have applied to Emma—little emphatic tender epithets came to her from the conversations of the girls. Fräulein praised her German warmly and asked question after question about the house and garden at Barnes and presently of her mother.
“I can’t talk about her,” said Miriam shortly.
“That is English,” murmured Fräulein.
“She’s such a little thing,” said Miriam, “smaller than any of us.” Presently Fräulein laid her gloved hand on Miriam’s gloved one. “You and I have, I think, much in common.”
Miriam froze—and looked at the gas lamps slowly swinging by along the boulevard. “Much will have happened in England whilst you have been here with us,” said Fräulein eagerly.
They reached a street—shuttered darkness where the shops were, and here and there the yellow flare of a café. She strained her eyes to see the faces and forms of men and women—breathing more quickly as she watched the characteristic German gait.
There was the station.
Her trunk was weighed and registered. There was something to pay. She handed her purse to Fräulein and stood gazing at the uniformed man—ruddy and clear-eyed—clear hard blue eyes and hard clean clear yellow moustaches—decisive untroubled movements. Passengers were walking briskly about and laughing and shouting remarks to each other. The train stood waiting for her. The ringing of an enormous bell brought her hands to her ears. Fräulein gently propelled her up the three steps into a compartment marked Damen-Coupé. It smelt of biscuits and wine.
A man with a booming voice came to examine her ticket. He stood bending under the central light, uttering sturdy German words. Miriam drank
