Philippina ascribed their failure to the quiet influence of her destructive work. Every bit of misfortune in the life of her father loosened by that much the chain that prevented her from complete freedom of movement. In her most infamous hours she would dream of the hunger and distress, bankruptcy and despair of her people. Once this state of affairs had been realised, she would no longer have to play the rôle of Cinderella; she would no longer have to be the first one up in the morning; she would no longer have to chop wood, and polish her brothers’ boots: she would have a fair field and no favours in her campaign to capture Daniel.
IX
At times she thought she could simply go to him and stay with him. At times she felt that he would come and get her. One thing or the other had to take place, she thought.
One Sunday afternoon—it chanced to be her eighteenth birthday—a junior agent of Jason Philip, a fellow by the name of Pfefferkorn, came to the house, and in the course of the conversation remarked rather casually that the elder of the Jordan sisters was engaged to the musician Nothafft, that the engagement had been kept secret for a while, but that the wedding was to take place in the immediate future.
“By the way, I hear that the musician is your nephew,” said Pfefferkorn at the close of his report.
Jason Philip cast a gloomy look into space, while Theresa, then sipping her chicory coffee, set her cup on the table, and looked at the man with scornful contempt.
Philippina broke out in a laughter that went through them like a knife. Then she ran from the room, and banged the door behind her. “She seems a bit deranged,” murmured Jason Philip angrily.
Then came that June night on which she did not come home at all. Jason Philip raged and howled when she returned the next morning; but she was silent. He locked her up in the cellar for sixteen hours; but she was silent.
After this she did not leave the house for months at a time; she did not wash or comb her hair; she sat crouched up in the kitchen with her long, dishevelled, unwashed hair falling in loose locks down over her neck and shoulders.
A feeling of consuming vengeance seethed in her heart; the patience she was forced to practise, much against her will, petrified in time into a mien of hypocritic sottishness.