“I suppose it was chiefly Gerty's marriage which set me thinking I'd better change. Until then I'd lived contentedly enough. I'm easily occupied, and I felt no necessity to work. But when I was left alone with father, I began gradually to feel as if I couldn't go on living so, as if I hadn't the right; nothing I ever did pleased him. And then I wondered what I was waiting for——”
She looked up at Lady Beamish and saw her fine features set attentively to her story; she could tell everything to such a face—all these things of which she had never spoken to anyone. She looked away again.
“Was I waiting to get married? That idea tortured me. Why should ideas come and trouble us when they're untrue and bear no likeness to our character?”
She turned her head once more to glance at the face above her.
“I looked into myself. Was it true of me that my only outlook in life was a man, that that was the only aim of my life? It wasn't necessary to answer the question, for it flashed into my mind with bitter truth that if I'd been playing that game, I'd been singularly unsuccessful, so I needn't trouble about the question——”
Astonished at herself, she moved her hand up, and Lady Beamish stretched out hers, and held the girl's hand upon her lap. Then, half ashamed of her frankness, she went on quickly and in a more ordinary tone:
“Oh, that and everything else—I was afraid of growing bitter, When my father threw up his work and decided to go to Algiers with his old friends, that seemed a good opportunity; I would do something for myself, you're justified if you work. It seemed hopeful then; but now the prospect is as hopeless and desolate as before.”
Janet saw the tears collecting in Lady Beamish's eyes, and her underlip beginning to quiver. Lady Beamish dared not kiss the girl for fear of breaking into tears: she stood up and went towards the fire, and trying to conquer her tears said: “Seeing you in trouble makes all my old wounds break out afresh.”
Janet gazed in wonder at her, feeling greatly comforted. Lady Beamish put her hand on the girl's head as she sat before her and said smiling: “It's strange how one sorrow brings up another, and if you cry you can't tell for what exactly you're crying. As I hear you talk of loneliness, I'm reminded of my own loneliness, so different from yours. As long as my own great friend was living, there was no possibility of loneliness; I was proud, I could have faced the whole world. But since he died, every year has made me feel the want of a sister or brother, some one of my own generation. I don't suppose you can understand what I mean. You say: 'You have sons, and many friends who love and respect you'; that's true, and, indeed, without my sons I should not live; but they've all got past me, even Harry, the youngest. I can do nothing more for them, and as years go by I grow less able to do anything for anybody; my energy leaves me, and I sit still and see the world in front of me, see men and women whom I admire, whose conduct I commend inwardly, but that is all. My heart aches sometimes for a companion of my own age who would sit still with me, who understands my ideas, who has no new object in view, who has done life and has been left behind too——”
“Extremes meet,” she broke off. “I wish to comfort you, who are looking hopelessly forward, and all I can do is to show you an old woman's sorrow.”