"I don't think he intends to have a house in town again."
"And what am I to do?"
"I suppose we shall stay here at Caversham."
"And I'm to be buried just like a nun in a convent,—only that the nun does it by her own consent and I don't! Mamma, I won't stand it. I won't indeed."
"I think, my dear, that that is nonsense. You see company here, just as other people do in the country;—and as for not standing it, I don't know what you mean. As long as you are one of your papa's family of course you must live where he lives."
"Oh, mamma, to hear you talk like that!—It is horrible—horrible! As if you didn't know! As if you couldn't understand! Sometimes I almost doubt whether papa does know, and then I think that if he did he would not be so cruel. But you understand it all as well as I do myself. What is to become of me? Is it not enough to drive me mad to be going about here by myself, without any prospect of anything? Should you have liked at my age to have felt that you had no chance of having a house of your own to live in? Why didn't you, among you, let me marry Mr. Brehgert?" As she said this she was almost eloquent with passion.
"You know, my dear," said Lady Pomona, "that your papa wouldn't hear of it."
"I know that if you would have helped me I would have done it in spite of papa. What right has he to domineer over me in that way? Why shouldn't I have married the man if I chose? I am old enough to know surely. You talk now of shutting up girls in convents as being a thing quite impossible. This is much worse. Papa won't do anything to help me. Why shouldn't he let me do something for myself?"
"You can't regret Mr. Brehgert!"
"Why can't I regret him? I do regret him. I'd have him to-morrow if he came. Bad as it might be, it couldn't be so bad as Caversham."