Her mind dwelt upon this picture with dread. She told herself that she could not pass another winter at Greystones, cooped up with the fearsome old woman, her great-grandmother. She would lose her wits if she did, or die; at any rate, lose her youth. Youth was not so much a matter of a few years as of happiness—the happy were always young, the sad old long before their time.
As Lucy sat on the bridge this fair autumn evening, herself as fair as a little rosy cloud floating overhead, although she was outwardly calm and unoccupied, she was listening, not with the best of grace, to two voices talking in her own soul. One had been trying to make itself heard for days, nay, weeks; but she would pay no heed to it. Now it refused to be stifled any longer.
"You are doing wrong," said this better self, but the other part of her vehemently protested innocence.
Ever since Peter Fleming had returned to High Fold Lucy's attitude towards life had changed. She had not been happier, but she had been less willing to suffer with resignation. She had looked facts in the face. She considered Joel's departure and the possibility of his ever returning; would she not be grey-haired by then? Fortunes were not made in a day. She weighed her own chances of escape from a life that she detested. There was only one. So she made up her mind that sorrow should not fall upon her like a blighting sickness, take the roses out of her cheeks, the light from her eyes, the hope from her heart. She refused to be thrust into darkness. If happiness was not bestowed upon her as a gift, she would go out and seek it.
Yet she was ill at ease—beset by fears, troubled by conscience.
She rose from her seat upon the bridge and looked down the dale to Forest Hall. Her eyes had lost their sweetness and were hard, her lips were compressed.
She was passionately wishing that Joel had not gone away, but stayed at home and made the best of his luck. But as he had gone, why had he not been kinder? The summer was nearly over, winter was at hand, and he had only written once—a letter so cold that it might have been read from the housetops, and even the rooks flying home would have got as much satisfaction out of it as she. A loving word from him would have brought summer back to her. She would have made shift to put up with her present existence. She would have waited till fortune had smiled upon him. If it had kept a sullen face, she would have given him cheer and hope. But he had forgotten her. She told herself this again and again making a reason out of it for her own actions. She would forget, too, and find someone else to spend her affection upon.
She had determined one thing—she would remain no longer than she must at Greystones. She hated it. She hated the loneliness, the crags that overhung the house, the snow, and the winds, and the rain. She hated her great-grandmother. So hardened had she become by that which she had suffered that she was not afraid to express her real feelings to herself. She would cease to fetch and carry for the old woman, she would refuse to be a drudge. She would be happy before she was too old to enjoy happiness.
She turned away from gazing down the dale as though she had fixed her determination, but her better self would not let her be. It insisted that happiness was a state of the soul and she could not win it until hers was at rest.
"I am doing no wrong," she argued, "nothing that hundreds of women do not do. I am lonely, I seek companionship. I am sad, I seek happiness. I want sympathy, so I give it."