MIRIAM WISHED SHE WAS THE SORT of person to run off in the dead of night, secure passage across the Channel, and make her way through enemy lines to hunt down her parents, but she wasn’t. She could barely walk to the village without a mental rehearsal of the ways it wasn’t a dangerous thing to do.
But lacking the courage of a soldier didn’t mean Miriam’s hands were tied. What she might lack in valor, Miriam felt she more than made up for in ambition.
Edith had as good as said she was doing something to try to help Miriam’s parents. Probably several members of the Société would involve themselves, both those who believed in Miriam’s family’s innocence and those who believed they could prove the reverse.
But they didn’t have every known text on diabolism at their fingertips.
Miriam did.
Furthermore, this was personal for her; a passion project. As much as Edith might care for Miriam’s parents, it couldn’t ever be the same for her. Miriam loved her mother and her father, not because of the secrets they carried or their role in the fate of the war effort, but because of who they were, and what they meant to her.
She had to clear their names.
Usually, Miriam was able to fold her anger into little neat packages, but this rage was too big, too messy for that. How could anyone dare accuse them? Her mother hadn’t been sad about Hitler’s election, she’d been furious; her father had become withdrawn and started going to services at his synagogue again, after years of intermittent attendance at best.
He’d brought Miriam with him, too. When she’d asked why she had to go, her father had replied, almost sharply: “If they hate us for being Jews, we’ll be as Jewish as we can be!”
She refused to believe that either of them had become collaborators.
Miriam was never one to put off work, but in order to avert suspicion on Edith’s part, she made sure to be at least reasonably social the rest of her aunt’s visit. She even walked with Edith and Jane into Hawkshead to look at what was in the few shop windows, though the trip didn’t seem to afford any of them much pleasure.
Jane was usually at her brightest when Edith visited, but she had been in a strangely dour mood ever since the night of their Test. In better days, Miriam would have intruded into Jane’s room to winkle out of her what weighed so heavily upon her mind, but the truth was Miriam was too afraid of what might be said if she did.
“You’re up to something,” said Jane, the last morning of their aunt’s visit, when the two girls passed on the stairs.
“What?” Even to her own ears, Miriam sounded startled, not innocent. “I mean, why do you say that?”
Jane leaned back like a movie star, head tilted, arms crossed; if she’d been smoking a forbidden cigarette, the look would have been complete. Miriam just stood there, right foot on the stair above, her hand gripping the railing for strength.
“You’ve had your nose in a book even more than usual.”
Miriam winced. “I didn’t mean to be so obvious.”
“Did Edith say something to you? After their fight, I mean?”
Miriam wasn’t sure she wanted to discuss Edith’s disclosures with Jane at all, but certainly not in the stairwell. “Just that she was sorry for everything.”
“She apologized to me, too.”
Miriam tried to throw Jane off her scent with what she thought would be the blandest possible explanation. “It’s just that, well . . . we passed our Test. It’s time to get to work on our Practical.”
“Oh!” Jane blushed. “Yes, of course. Me, too. I mean, I feel the same! I’ve just been a bit distracted.” Her eyes flickered to the kitchen, where Nancy and Edith were talking.
“She’ll be gone soon enough,” said Miriam, and then realizing how that sounded, added, “and you’ll be able to focus more easily on your endeavors. The two of you enjoy one another’s company so much, and get it so infrequently . . . no one could blame you for wanting to take advantage of it while you can.”
Miriam was surprised by Jane’s annoyed shrug.
“It’s interesting, isn’t it? They say we’re growing up so fast, but how would they know? They’re still children themselves.”
Miriam realized Jane was disappointed by something, but it felt presumptuous to ask what it might be. “True enough,” she replied, “but I’m only sometimes able to be an adult about things. Maybe growing up is just about adjusting the percentages.”
Jane laughed. “That’s as good an explanation as any. Just the same, I wish they hadn’t quarreled like that. It was so embarrassing.” She said all this very rapidly, almost whispering it. “It’s an old argument between them, I guess.”
“Old argument?”
“Edith didn’t want Mother to become the Librarian.” Miriam wondered how Jane knew all this, but also didn’t want to interrupt to ask. “She thought Mother was too young to bury herself in the country for the sake of a bunch of books.”
Miriam couldn’t hold back any longer. “Did she tell you this?”
“No!” Jane grinned. “After their fight, I hid in the hall and listened to them.”
“Eavesdropping!”
“Oh, go on! But that seems to be it. When Mother was pregnant with me”—Jane’s face went all funny for a moment; Nancy would never tell Jane anything about her father, much to Jane’s chagrin—“she put her name forward for Librarian and was accepted. Up until then she and Edith had been traveling around together. Edith said, ‘You loved these books more than you loved me—you jumped at the chance to come here and leave me to deal with the world on my own.’ And Mother said, ‘You’re still jealous of this place?’ And they went on from there. Anyway, then Edith said, ‘You took away Jane’s chance at having the life she deserves.’ ”
“No wonder they’ve been so polite to one another,” said Miriam. “This was quite a fight. What did Nancy say to that?”
Jane’s mood shifted slightly, her smile going from rueful to wry. “She said, ‘Perhaps, but I’m glad to have been able to offer Miriam a safe place to grow up when she needed it.’ ”
Miriam didn’t know what to say.
“I’m glad too,” added Jane.
Miriam looked up, wondering if Jane might be attempting to traverse the rift between them, but then Nancy called them to breakfast.
Jane’s expression soured. “Shall we? Last one of these for a while, thank goodness. And they’re always perky on the last morning of a visit.”
They were indeed, and, even better, Nancy suggested the girls might like to ride in the back of the mule cart when it came to collect Edith’s luggage. A bumpy cart ride was one of the few outdoor activities Miriam really loved; she scrambled right up. Jane hesitated, but after Edith declared her intention to walk, Jane planted herself beside Miriam.
“See you there!” called Jane, and the two of them bid the boy, “Drive on, drive on!” just as they’d used to do when they were younger.
The cart jolted over the winter-rough road, and more than once the girls squealed as they knocked into one another. The weather had turned colder again, and their breath puffed out in white clouds that disappeared against the gray sky.
Even on a dreary day like this one, Miriam thought this the most beautiful countryside she’d ever seen. While at times she still missed the low, flat German landscape, Cumbria’s rolling, rock-strewn hills and rushing culverts had claimed her heart.
Since coming here she’d learned that Beatrix Potter’s sweet little depictions of ducks and rabbits weren’t inaccurate—but Cumbria was also a wild place, lonely and remote with as many black and mysterious pinewoods as it had sunny farmyards.
They arrived in Hawkshead well before Edith and Nancy, of course. Jane bemoaned the lack of ice cream, for she desperately wanted one—if Jane wanted something these days, she wanted it desperately. For her part, Miriam wanted a cup of tea at the Red Lion, but she could not speak this desire aloud.
Once Nancy and Edith arrived, there was the usual snippy fussing that went into loading all her luggage into her too-small car. Then Edith said her farewells.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back again, so please try not to grow up too, too much before I return?” she said, gazing fondly upon them both.
“No promises,” muttered Jane. Miriam said nothing at all.
Edith looked rather annoyed as she got into her car. “Upon second thought, perhaps you might both use my time away to push through this awkward stage you seem to be in. Ta!”
And with that, she roared away in her Citroën.
“I’m surprised at you, Jane,” said Nancy. “Usually you’re one step away from stowing away in Edith’s boot.”
“We’re all very busy,” said Jane, “and it will be nice to get back into a routine.”
Miriam’s spirits sank further as they returned to the old farmhouse one Blackwood fewer. The rain-washed slate roof and white walls made her feel strangely ill at ease. Miriam usually considered the first sight of home to be the best part of a journey, but today it filled her with dread. She wondered if she and Jane would ever again ride to the village together in the back of a cart—if they would ever speak again in hushed whispers about the ways in which a family visit had gone wrong.
It wasn’t just Jane who was changing, not anymore. With this new quest before her, Miriam sensed she’d started down a path that led away from childhood—and that she would never be able to retrace her steps.