I gave no one else an opportunity to utter a syllable. The sight of their continued dumbness was more than flesh and blood could endure; and, above all, what the brown man had the audacity to call his apology. I strode out into the hall, and I am afraid I banged the door after me as I went.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ON THE SINGULAR EFFECTS OF SUNLIGHT
When I regained my bedroom, which, in spite of its manifold and ostentatious deficiencies, I had long regarded as a harbour of refuge in which I might find shelter when the storms of life pressed too hardly, I took out of my dress pocket—I always insisted on having a pocket in my dress, whatever the fashion was, it was the one point on which I would have my way—that scrap of paper. It was blank. That sentence must have been written on it with vanishing ink, because already not a trace of it could be seen. That process of fading must have proceeded with marvellous rapidity. I held in my hand a soiled, crumpled piece of paper, which was so void of anything in the shape of written characters, that I was at a loss as to which side of it those mysterious words had been on.
The brief hour of my triumph had faded too. I was again the plain, uninteresting Norah O’Brady; the ugly girl with the pretty sisters; the overgrown gawk, who always looked so ridiculous in the clothes she wore. As I had once heard myself described—the creature with the hands and feet. I was that pleasant person again, this time for ever and a day. I could hardly expect a second miraculous interference with the ordinance of nature.
And the story of that interposition would be scored up against me, in the family debtor and creditor account, to be used as another missile, when the tale of Norah’s clumsiness, bearishness, multitudinous stupidities, was once more the well-worn domestic theme. How amusing it would be to recall the day when the five men took her out to dine. How incredible it seemed, and, indeed, was. One must have dreamed it. By degrees, quite possibly, a legend would grow up that it was an elaborate practical joke which those five gentlemen had planned among themselves. And the Duke who called on her! You wouldn’t think it to look at her, would you? No one ever does believe it; but he actually did. And the bald-headed old horror! And that waiter!—a waiter, actually, my dear!—such a ridiculous fellow! Don’t you remember how impertinent he was to her? How he treated her as if she were the dirt beneath his feet! It was the funniest thing you ever saw.
I knew. My prophetic soul saw it all in store for me, being acquainted with the family methods where anything which would point a gibe against me was concerned.
Putting on my hat I went out. The atmosphere of the house, even of my own room, was insupportable. It would not have been surprising if someone had endeavoured to stay me, for with Jane, assisted only by a charwoman, I had to play the part of second maid. But no one did. I was conscious that someone came to the drawing-room window as I went by. But I did not notice who it was; and as, so far as I know, no attempt was made to attract my attention, I did not care.
I steered for Kensington Gardens. They were the nearest available approach to the country for which I was always longing; and there, sometimes, one could be alone with the grass, and the trees, and the birds. That was my dominant feeling: the desire to get away from everyone, from everything. To transplant myself from this world, in which I had been, and was, and should be, such an utter failure. If I could only find myself in a different environment, in some place where people were not principally concerned with each other’s appearance, where one could dress as one pleased, and do as one chose, and be comfortable, and yet not be the subject of perpetual comment; where one could have liberty to be a woman, a girl, in one’s own way, which would not be such a dreadful way after all, where one could be even huge and plain and not despised, what a place that would be.
As I tramped through the trees, seeking a spot which was not overrun with nursemaids, and all kinds of persons, I perceived no prospect of ever finding such a haven; unless, perhaps, it were by way of the Round Pond, if it contains water to cover a person of my unseemly inches. On the other side of it, almost obscured by the trunk of a great oak, I saw two chairs. Not only were they unoccupied, but there seemed to be no one in their immediate neighbourhood. So I planted myself in one. In Kensington Gardens no one ever sits upon the grass. Not only would it be in the highest degree improper, but it would spoil one’s clothes, and everyone would stare, and take one for quite a common person. Such an act would be impossible. If one sits at all, one sits upon a chair,—as I did then, though I would infinitely have preferred the ground, and my back against a tree, because the chair was most uncomfortable. And I prepared to lash myself with pessimistic and painful reflections on some such cheerful topic as the Vanity of Human Wishes—please put in the capital letters.
Unfortunately, the sun was shining; and when the sun shines, and I am out-of-doors, and the air is fresh and sweet, and one feels that the summer is at hand, and there is no unsympathetic person to stick pins in you, somehow I never can make as much of my distresses as I ought to; they seem to melt. To begin with, they are solid; in fact, immensely solid, and I mean to keep them solid. Indeed, I often set out with the deliberate intention of considering nothing else but their immense solidity, and allowing nothing to interfere with my consideration either. Then, in some way, the sunshine gets into my eyes, or head, or something, and has a sort of a kind of a dazzling effect. It must have, because, all of a sudden, they are gone—or seem gone. I cannot see them anywhere. Of course, it is absurd, and most illogical; because, all the time, they must be there. But it really is fatal for me to start thinking of my grievances in fine weather. No matter how resolved I am to stick to the subject, I never can keep my mind fixed on them when the sun is shining, and I am out-of-doors—never.