Her angry voice broke again miserably, as she recognized the utter futility of arguing the question.
“Yes, I did, and a fool I was for my pains. Precious little good it’s done you. There you sat like a stick the ’ole evening, till I was ashamed of you, and—” Mr. Ruan left the room, banging the door, without completing the sentence.
“And such a nice party as it was, and every one ready to be agreeable to you; that Mr. Spiller, and young Wilby, and all,” her mother said between her tears.
Bridget rose abruptly. “Oh, yes. I was rude and hateful, I know,” she began wildly, “but—there! Why do we talk about it? Good-night, mother.” She bent towards her, but the elder woman put out a hand to keep her away.
“I don’t want you to kiss me. If you think yourself above the Spillers and the Jenkinses, I’m not good enough for you. Me and your father are common, of course. I wonder you’re not too much of a fine lady to live with us.”
“I wish to Heaven I didn’t!” cried the girl in a half strangled voice. She gathered her cloak over her arm, and left the room hurriedly, choking a sob.
She stumbled on the shiny oil-cloth covered stairs, blinded by her tears. A glimmer of gas lighted the narrow landing at the top of the second flight. Bridget pushed open the door on the right, and entered her own room. Her hand trembled as she raised it to turn the gas higher. She sank down on a chair before the dressing-table, and, burying her face in her hands, sobbed aloud. Presently she rose, impatiently, and began to pace the room, clenching her hands angrily, her tears drying on her flushed cheeks.
“Why should I care,” she thought incoherently. “It’s as unjust as it can be. They first send me to live with ladies, and then expect me to tolerate the Spillers and the Jenkinses of their acquaintance. To have no friends but people like these! no talk but their talk, about their sweethearts, and ‘divine men,’ and their Sunday hats! To submit to be ‘spooned with’ by these abominable young men—to marry one of them perhaps! Oh, I can’t, I can’t wear out my life like this!” she whispered in a sort of frenzy of despair. “Such a long life—” She sat down on the edge of her little white bed, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. In fancy the long gray years passed over her in endless procession, bringing the ever recurring household routine, the same profitless heart-breaking scenes with her parents, the same listless dressing for hateful parties, and preparations for still more hateful ones at home. A shudder shook her from head to foot; she rose swiftly in horror, and began to undress.
“No, no,” she whispered, “it can’t be like that. I won’t have it. It’s my life. I’ll make something better of it than that. There are people I should like—people who would like me—somewhere. I will find them. I will go. Somehow I will get away. I will teach. Some day”—she threw up her head determinedly—“I will write—but first I must have life—experience. Oh! I know that it will take a long time, but I will do it! The thing is to get away. I must think, I must plan.” She had taken the hair-pins out of her hair, and pushed the brushes and trays aside to make room for her elbows on the dressing-table. Her eyes were dry, and bright with hope and excitement. She thrust her slender fingers through the thick hair that fell round her face and neck, while her thoughts whirled. “There will be a row with father, of course, but I shall get my way. I will go to London. Helen will help me to get work, and in my spare time I can write.” Brilliant, intangible ideas for stories began to take shape and float through her brain. Why, even this evening’s experience, remembered in London, would be glorious—as copy. She smiled a little, and then began to laugh softly. A phrase or two which indicated Mr. Spiller’s facetiously tender side-glance, and Mr. Wilby’s struggles with an aspirate, rose to her lips. “How splendid they would be—in a story!” The word brought her suddenly, with a shock, to actualities. “Yes, but I live amongst them,” she cried, as though to some listener. “To outsiders, to people who belong to the upper classes, they are funny, they are types,—they speak of them with amusement, as though they were curious animals, whose habits and customs they had been clever enough to observe. But I live with them, I belong to them. What right have I to satirize them? It’s an impertinence, disloyal—they are my people. I belong to them. Why, mother thinks they are above me!”
The thought of her mother, of her angry reproachful words half an hour ago, brought back her misery in a flood. She always shrank from allowing herself to analyze her feeling for her father; but for her mother—that was different.