The dogma of a rude nature full of secret forces found utterance at length under the scourge of a resentment of very mingled quality. Let half be put to the various forms of disinterested feeling, at least half was due to personal exasperation. The whole change that her life had perforce undergone was an outrage upon the stubbornness of uninstructed habit; the old woman could see nothing but evil omens in a revolution which cost her bodily discomfort and the misery of a mind perplexed amid alien conditions. She was prepared for evil; for months she had brooded over every sign which seemed to foretell its approach; the egoism of the unconscious had made it plain to her that the world must suffer in a state of things which so grievously affected herself. Maternal solicitude kept her restlessly swaying between apprehension for her children and injury in the thought of their estrangement from her. And now at length a bitter shame added itself to her torments. She was shamed in her pride as a mother, shamed before the girl for whom she nourished a deep affection. Emma’s injuries she felt charged upon herself; she would never dare to stand before her again. Her moral code, as much a part of her as the sap of the plant and as little the result of conscious absorption, declared itself on the side of all these rushing impulses; she was borne blindly on an exhaustless flux of words. After vain attempts to make herself heard, Alice turned away and sat sullenly waiting for the outburst to spend itself. Herself comparatively unaffected by the feelings strongest in her mother, this ear-afflicting clamour altogether checked her sympathy, and in a great measure overcame those personal reasons which had made her annoyed with Richard. She found herself taking his side, even knew something of his impatience with Emma and her sorrows. When it came to rebukes and charges against herself her impatience grew active. She stood up again and endeavoured to make herself heard.
‘What’s the good of going on like this, mother? Just because you’re angry, that’s no reason you should call us all the names you can turn your tongue to. It’s over and done with, and there’s an end of it. I don’t know what you mean about disgracing you; I think you might wait till the time comes. I don’t see what I’ve done as you can complain of.’
‘No, of course you don’t,’ pursued her mother bitterly. ‘It’s the money as prevents you from seeing it. Them as was good enough for you before you haven’t a word to say to now; a man as works honestly for his living you make no account of. Well, well, you must go your own way—’
‘What is it you want, mother? You don’t expect me to look no higher than when I hadn’t a penny but what I worked for? I’ve no patience with you. You ought to be glad—’
‘You haven’t no patience, of course you haven’t. And I’m to be glad when a son of mine does things as he deserves to be sent to prison for! I don’t understand that kind o’ gladness. But mind what I say; do what you like with your money, I’ll have no more part in it. If I had as much as ten shillings a week of my own, I’d go and live by myself, and leave you to take your own way. But I tell you what I can do, and what I will. I’ll have no more servants a-waitin’ on me; I wasn’t never used to it, and I’m too old to begin. I go to my own bedroom upstairs, and there I live, and there ‘ll be nobody go into that room but myself. I’ll get my bits o’ meals from the kitchen. ‘Tain’t much as I want, thank goodness, an’ it won’t be missed. I’ll have no more doin’s with servants, understand that; an’ if I can’t be left alone i’ my own room, I’ll go an’ find a room where I can, an’ I’ll find some way of earnin’ what little I want. It’s your own house, and you’ll do what you like in it. There’s the keys, I’ve done with ‘em; an’ here’s the money too, I’m glad to be rid of it. An’ you’ll just tell Dick. I ain’t one as says what I don’t mean, nor never was, as that you know. You take your way, an’ I’ll take mine. An’ now may be I’ll get a night’s sleep, the first I’ve had under this roof.’
As she spoke she took from her pockets the house keys, and from her purse the money she used for current expenses, and threw all together on to the table. Alice had turned to the fireplace, and she stood so for a long time after her mother had left the room. Then she took the keys and the money, consulted her watch, and in a few minutes was walking from the house to a neighbouring cab-stand.
She drove to Wilton Square. Inspecting the front of the house before knocking at the door, she saw a light in the kitchen and a dimmer gleam at an upper window. It was Mrs. Clay who opened to her.
‘Is Emma in?’ Alice inquired as she shook hands rather coldly.
‘She’s sitting with Jane. I’ll tell her. There’s no fire except in the kitchen,’ Kate added, in a tone which implied that doubtless her visitor was above taking a seat downstairs.
‘I’ll go down,’ Alice replied, with just a touch of condescension. ‘I want to speak a word or two with Emma, that’s all.’