CHAPTER III
TheJenkins party was at its height. The plush-covered chairs were all pushed back against the wall, leaving a sea of crimson carpet exposed, in the midst of which, like a solitary black island, stood a tall hat, into which Mr. Jenkins was endeavoring to throw cards. On the marble-topped chiffonier, in front of a glass-covered statuette of a fat little girl with an emaciated lamb, and a little boy in a white parian sailor suit teaching a dog to beg, there were plates of nuts, half oranges, and apples cut into quarters.
The light from the glass chandelier, with all its dangling irresponsible pendants, streamed down upon the kneeling form of Mr. Jenkins, and brilliantly illuminated the scene. A group of young men, among whom were a few girls in a chronic state of giggle, stood behind their host, applauding his skill, or making rash boasts about the brilliance shortly to be observed in their own performances, when he should have resigned his place. The rest of the companysat round the room on the plush-covered chairs. Most of the young men had congregated on one side, and the girls on the other.
Only two or three of the men were in evening dress. The girls for the most part wore much starched summer muslins, high at the neck and long in the sleeves. Some of them had put on their winter best gowns, and attempted to give the “evening” touch by bows of heliotrope or pink chiffon, light gloves, and hair bound with a colored ribbon.
Mrs. Jenkins, a fat comfortable lady in black silk, with an écru lace cap, sat in an arm-chair, alternately beaming upon the young people and applauding “papa’s” lucky shots.
“Carrie, dear, won’t you give us a song?” she begged presently. “That pretty new one of yours—what is it? I nevercanremember.”
“Oh, lor, ma! How many times am I to tell you it’s as old as the hills! She means ‘Queen of my Heart,’” said Carrie, turning to the girl next her. “Every one’s sick and tired of it, of course, but pa likes it.”
“Never mind, dear, it’s alwayssweet. I love it. It reminds me of that darling Haydn Coffin. Isn’t he a dear? Isn’t hehandsome? My! Susie and I did make fools of ourselves over him the first time we saw him. Do sing it,Carrie. I’ll shut my eyes anddreamof him,” she cried in a tone of chastened sorrow, though her smile was cheerful. She was a plump girl, with green plush sleeves, and a Swiss belt covered with coffee lace.
Carrie rose to look for her music.
“Allowme,” said one of the young men, crossing the room in a great hurry. Mr. Spiller was tall and pale, with a facetious expression and sandy hair. He was a great wit, and whenever he said, “Allowme,” or “May I offer you any refreshment?” the girls giggled.
“Mr. Spiller, how absurd you are! You’re killing,” Carrie murmured, with laughter.
“Not at all,” observed Mr. Spiller, with truth. “Always delighted to wait on the ladies, I’m sure. Little dears! we all love them.”
“Rude man,” said Carrie, shaking out her skirts, and pushing the music-stool backwards and forwards.
Mr. Spiller’s gallantry did not carry him far enough to turn over the leaves of the song. He presently strolled away, and walked leisurely in front of the rank of chairs on the girls’ side of the room, with his hands in his pockets. Some of them nudged each other as he passed, and giggled.
“Doesn’ he fancy himself—just,” observedMary Wilby. “But he’s handsome, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, isn’t he divine!” whispered her friend. “I b’lieve he’s going to talk to Miss Ruan. Yes,” with a sigh, “he is.”
“Shefancies herself, if you like. I believe she’sawfullystuck-up—really; despises us, I shouldn’t wonder, for all she’s pleasant enough when you meet her.”
“Stuck up! what’s she got to be stuck-up about? Why, her father’s only a publican. I must say I wonder at Mrs. Jenkins knowing the Ruans. Nice shop and all as they’ve got, and so well up as you might say they are. I hate public-house people myself. It’s such alowbusiness. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t look much as though she belonged to one, does she? Queer-looking girl. Do you think she’s pretty?”
“No—much too strange-looking for my taste. I suppose we’re not good enough for her after her boarding-school people. She’s never made any friends since she came home. I don’t know her at all—don’t want to either; but Nellie Clarke says she went in there one day, and couldn’t get on with her a bit. She was polite enough, but Nellie says she couldn’t understand her; she didn’t seem to care for anything—not the church even, nor Mr. Millar, and he’s thebest-looking of the curates. Anyway, Nellie couldn’t do with her at all.”
“Look at her,” urged Mary, nudging her friend again. “She’s hardly answering Charley Downs. Don’t you hate that way she has of looking on the carpet?—so indifferent; though I shouldn’t wonder if it wasn’t to show off her eyelashes. I believe she can hardly keep a sneer off her face.”
“She wouldn’t surely have the cheek to sneer at Charley Downs. Surelyhe’sgood enough for her. Why, he’s in Bailey’s Bank, you know.”
“Oh, bless you, she wants a duke! What a dress, too. I think it’s downright affectation to come in a dress as plain as that. Just to make herself look different from us. She knew all the girls would likely wear their summer muslins.”
“It’s awfully well made, though; and that bit of lace is good, you can see.”
“So it ought to be. They’ve plenty of money—must have, or her dad couldn’t have sent her to a swell school.”
The conversation, to which “Queen of my Heart” had made an excellent accompaniment, was broken off by the inevitable high note with which all of Carrie’s songs ended.
“Thankyou, dear!” both girls exclaimed, in haste and simultaneously. “Wehaveenjoyed it so.”
“Carrie, my girl, let’s have something to eat,” shouted Mr. Jenkins, who had persistently aimed cards at the hat throughout the song, accompanied by loud exclamations at intervals of “Got ’im!” “Boss shot!” “Try another!”
“Here, you young folks! Can’t enjoy yourselves on an empty stomach, you know. All nonsense.”
“Pa!” exclaimed Carrie, with annoyance. “How stupid you are!”
“Stupid, my dear, I may be; faint, Iam. When’s supper, mother? Oh my! look at ’em frowning! Said something I oughtn’t to, ’ave I? Can’t help it. Food’s the main thing in life, eh? What do you say, all of you?”
Mr. Jenkins trotted about with a plate of ginger-nuts in one hand, and one of quartered apples in the other, talking cheerfully to the company at large.
“Now, young men, make yourselves useful. Wait on the ladies.”
Thus admonished, the youths dashed at the chiffonier, where they jostled one another for the green dessert plates.
“Have a nut, Miss Ruan,” implored Mr. Spiller, returning to her side. “So sustaining. Not one? Won’t you share one with me now?” he whispered facetiously, bending towards her.
The girl drew back proudly. There was no mistaking the gesture.
“That girl of Ruan’s is too big for her boots, as the saying is,” whispered Mrs. Jenkins to a friend.
“Is she? She’s quiet, I noticed, but she’s pleasant mannered enough, I thought.”
“Look at ’er with young Spiller. I don’t callthatpleasant.”
“Perhaps he’s offended her,” Mrs. Walker returned comfortably. “Young men nowadays are very free, I fancy. When I was young—”
“Nonsense. Why, most girls like a bit of chaff. I’ve no patience with stuck-up rubbish like that.”
“Now, you girls and boys,” called Mr. Jenkins’s voice, drowning the buzz of talk and laughter, and clatter of plates, “what do you say tokiss-in-the-ring! There’ll be just time for a good game before supper, eh, missus?”
Some of the girls furtively tossed their heads. “So common,” one or two murmured.
“We’re delighted, sir, of course,” drawled Mr. Spiller, superciliously, “but what about the fair sex? Kiss-in-the-ring is a little out of date, don’t you think?”
“All nonsense, my boy!” answered Mr. Jenkins, cheerfully, bustling people about to form the ring. “Kissing ain’t out of fashion,whatever else is, I’ll be bound; and the girls like it right enough, for all their screaming anddon’t-ing. A very good game. I like it myself, atmyage. Don’t let the missus ’ear that, though,” he added in a stage whisper, with a wink. “Now, Miss Ruan, my dear, come along. There’s a young gentleman at your right hand that’s anxious to begin,Iknow. Headache? Nonsense! it’ll take it away. Won’t you, really?”
“There! she won’t play,” announced Mrs. Jenkins, as Bridget passed her to find a seat on the opposite side of the room, out of the way of the ring. “Not proper, I suppose.”
Mrs. Walker followed the girl with her eyes. “Beautiful girl, I call her. How well she moves!” she said.
“I’d rather have your Louisa or my Carrie,” Mrs. Jenkins returned with asperity. “An outlandish looking girl, I say—and proud as Lucifer, I’ll be bound. What for, I should like to know? My ’usband alwayswouldknow Tom Ruan; he’s a very old friend, else, as far as I’m concerned, I draw the line at publicans. One must draw itsomewhere.”
“It’s her schooling,” replied Mrs. Walker. “I’ve heard she’s clever. I daresay she’d put my Louie or Lizzie in the shade at her books,” she added, laughing comfortably.
“Well, what if she can?” Mrs. Jenkins returned. “What’s the good of it? A girl doesn’t get married any sooner for so much book-learning. The men don’t care about it, my dear. What they want’s a girl that can keep house and cook a bit, and make the children’s clothes. If she’s pretty, so much the better. Men will be men, of course.” Mrs. Jenkins laughed leniently, and shook her cap roguishly at Mrs. Walker, so that all the sequins on it clattered.
“There’s Carrie gone to talk to her,” she went on. “I suppose she thinks she looks out of it. Well, and it’s ’er own fault if she does. Her mother was always a stuck-up madam. There she is, over there. Looks young still, doesn’t she?”
Bridget sat on a blue plush sofa, working her heel savagely into the carpet. Her heart was still beating angrily in spite of a desire to laugh, which was inextricably mingled with a sense of shame.
“You came—you shouldn’t have come if you can’t have the decency not to ‘behave superior,’” she found herself repeating monotonously.
With an effort, she pulled herself together, and turned smiling to Carrie, moving her skirt a little to make room for her.
“You don’t care for kiss-in-the-ring, ducky?”Carrie began effusively. “No more do I. I think it’scommon, don’t you? I think a girl oughtn’t to let herself be kissed by anybody—only her beau. Have you got a beau?” she inquired confidentially.
“A bow?” asked Bridget, with a momentary puzzled frown. “Oh I see! No, I haven’t.”
“Why don’t you set your cap at one of the gentlemen here?” Carrie whispered. “Mr. Spiller, now. He’s good-looking, isn’t he? and I’m sure he’s awfully gone on you. You’ve mashed him awfully.”
Bridget involuntarily drew her dress a little closer to her, and straightened herself. Then she resolutely turned to the girl again.
“Oh! I don’t know,” she answered vaguely, laughing a little.
“Now, missus, I ain’t goin’ to wait a minute longer for my supper. Come along, you young folks. Take your ladies, young gentlemen, and follow me.”
Mr. Jenkins seized the plump girl with the green sleeves, tucked her hand under his arm, and pranced out of the room into the oil-cloth covered landing. There was much confusion and a babel of tongues, as the couples filed after him. Bridget saw Mr. Spiller coming towards her, and shrank hopelessly in her corner.
“There! I told you so, ducky,” whisperedCarrie, as she took the arm of her acknowledged beau. “He’s awfully gone.”
“Are you engaged, Miss Ruan. Pardon me—I did not meanpermanently—though formysake I hope not. But may I?—will you favor me?—supper?”
Bridget set her teeth, and rose in silence.
Supper was spread in the breakfast-room next to the kitchen. The somewhat dark narrow staircase which led to it afforded an opportunity for a good deal of whispering and giggling before the last step was reached. Bridget had dropped the young man’s arm almost immediately, on pretence of gathering up her dress, and her left hand hung at her side. Mr. Spiller’s hand crept towards it. They had just reached the bottom step. Bridget turned her head, and gave him a lightning-swift glance, and his hand dropped instantly as though it had been stung. He flushed, and stumbled in the narrow passage before the door was reached.
They were the last couple, and as they entered the room Bridget saw with relief that there was only room for the ladies at the table. The men stood behind their partners’ chairs, unscrewing bottles of ale and stout, or handing plates of chicken. One or two of them paused a moment with a vague sense of admiration as the girl walked up the room, head erect, to where Carriewas energetically patting a chair next to her own.
“Come here, dear. I’ve kept a place for you. Mr. Spiller, give Miss Ruan some bottled ale, and look after her, you naughty man!”
“By Jove! she’s a stunner,” whispered Wilby junior to young Jenkins. “What eyes she’s got, eh? and hair! I’m a bit spoony, Jim. Let’s try and cut Spiller out.”
“Done,” returned Jenkins, with emphasis. “I’ll have first go. Give me that plate of tongue.”
“Let me give you some tongue, Miss Ruan,” he implored, elbowing Spiller aside, as he stood sulkily in the background.
“Look here,” he whispered, as he put the plate down in front of her. “Spiller’s had too long innings by a good bit. Give some other feller a chance, won’t you, Miss Ruan? We’re goin’ to have dancin’ after supper. May I have the first valse? Come now.”
“Thank you. I don’t dance,” murmured Bridget, untruthfully.
“Oh, come now, that’s playin’ it too low down upon a chap,” Jenkins returned, ruefully retreating.
“Have some jelly, Miss Ruan?” said Wilby junior’s voice at her ear, through the babel of laughter and clattering of plates. “You’llhave some to pleasemenow, won’t you?” he murmured in wheedling tones.
“Harry’s quite a lady’s man, isn’t he, ducky?” said Carrie, in an audible whisper on the other side. “You’ve mashed him too, I declare.”
“She’s quite right, though she needn’t shout so loud,” Mr. Wilby murmured, reluctantly removing the plate of jelly. “I shalltakethe first waltz after supper,” he added fiercely, with a Corsair-like change of tone.
“Now, my dear,” said Mr. Jenkins heartily, bustling round to Bridget. “You’re eating nothin’,Ican see. Bless these young fellers, they ain’t ’arf up to the mark, not a patch on the young men forty years ago.They’d’ave looked after you fast enough. You’ve got some footin’ on the light fantastic before you, remember, and young girls ain’t kep’ up on nothing, though theydotry to make us believe it, eh?
“No puddin’? Nonsense!” He cut a huge slice of tipsy cake, and bundled it unceremoniously on to her plate. “There! you won’t taste anythin’ much better nor that in a ’urry. My missus’s make. Ain’t it, missus?”
The Ruans’ cab came at twelve o’clock. Bridget followed her mother downstairs with a white fleecy shawl over her head. She looked pale and tired.
Mr. Jenkins was in the passage leading to the front door, shaking hands heartily with the departing guests, and shouting last words to them as they drove away.
“Good-night, Mary, my dear,” he cried, pinching Mary’s red cheek. “When are you goin’ to git married, eh? Must look sharp about it, you know. Keep the young men up to the mark. They’re cautious nowadays,—they’re cautious,” he repeated gleefully, rubbing his hands. “’Ullo, Ruan! You off? Glad to have seen you, old boy, and your missus, and the young lady,” he added, with a mock serious bow to Bridget. “She’s a bit quiet, Tom. Ain’t you, miss?—but none the worse for that, p’raps. You know what they say about the quiet ones, my dear? Ha! ha! Eh, Tom? Eh? You’ll have her flying away from the nest before you know where you are, p’raps, eh?”
Mrs. Jenkins shook hands a little stiffly with the mother and daughter, but Carrie made up for her lack of cordiality by kissing Bridget effusively on both cheeks.
“Good-bye, ducky, youdon’tmind giving me the pattern of that lace collar, do you?”—“I call herlovely!” she exclaimed with honest admiration as the cab drove off.
“AndIcall her a stuck-up little minx,” her mother said sharply.
“And why you couldn’t have made yourself agreeable to that young Spiller passes my comprehension,” Mrs. Ruan said in an irritable voice half an hour later. Her husband had risen to go upstairs to bed, but he paused at the door to listen to her words. Bridget lay back wearily in her chair. Her cheeks were flushed with annoyance, her eyes big and bright with tears. In the light of the gas burner overhead her hair glittered like threads of gold. The sight of the girl’s beauty, as she glanced at her, angered her mother still further. “She’ll throw away all her chances in spite of it,” she thought resentfully.
“Mother, Icouldn’t,” she answered with fierce emphasis. “The man’s not a gentleman. I—”
“Not a gentleman!” interrupted her father. “Not agentleman, indeed! And pray what do you call a gentleman? And you a publican’s daughter. P’raps you’ve forgotten it.’E hasn’t, you may take your oath. Don’t talk to me. You make mesickwith your nonsense.”
“I don’twantto talk, I never want to talk about it, but you drag me into these discussions,” Bridget cried hopelessly. “I’m not talking about social position,—that isn’t what I mean.” She paused, and then moved restlessly in her chair.
“Mother,” she said, turning to her appealingly,“don’t let us discuss these things so much. Weneverunderstand one another, and it leads to so much unhappiness.” Her voice trembled.
“Unhappiness! Yes, you may very well say so,” repeated Mrs. Ruan, sobbing.
“It’s all very well for you to sit there and cry,” broke in her husband furiously. “Who badgered me from morning till night about this girl’s education, eh? If only you’d listened to me, we wouldn’t ’ave had any of this ’umbug. I suppose she’s got some new-fangled ideas into ’er ’ed, that it isn’t necessary or becoming nowadays to please the men. But I’ll tell yer what it is, my girl,” he continued, turning to Bridget, “unless you want to be a miserable old maid you’ll ’ave to brisk up, and not be so stand-off. What men like is a nice bright girl that’ll listen to ’em with a smilin’ face, that can rattle off a bit of lively music to cheer them up when they’re dull. I don’t mean the sort of rubbishyouplay, but—”
“Father, I’ve told you often that I learnt quite a different sort of music at school. I can’t help it that Mr. Jenkins doesn’t like classical music. You sent me to school, and now you’re vexed because—”
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 wasashamedof 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’mnot 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 dooron 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—tomarryone of them perhaps! Oh, I can’t, Ican’twear 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 tofoot; she rose swiftly in horror, and began to undress.
“No, no,” she whispered, “itcan’tbe like that. I won’t have it. It’smylife. 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.SomehowI 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’sfacetiously 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 Ilivewith 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.
Her eyes wandered over the little room. She looked at the frilled curtains her mother had hemmed, at the valance round her bed, at the lace-edged covers on the dressing-table and chest of drawers, at the numberless trifles about the room, all of them dainty and pretty. Mrs. Ruan had the feminine graceful touch commonlysupposed to be the peculiar monopoly of women of a higher class. She glanced from one thing to another, and as she looked her eyes filled again with tears. Her mother had spent so many hours making her room pretty before she came home from school! A portrait of her stood on one side of the dressing-table. Bridget took it up, and looked long at it. Even in the photograph, the querulous lines round the pretty, weak mouth were strongly indicated. But Bridget only saw hermother’sface. As she gazed, hundreds of little nursery scenes flashed through her mind. She remembered coming in from a walk once, long ago, crying with cold. She saw her mother running towards her with pitying, caressing exclamations. “Mother’s poor little girl! Was she cold and miserable? Let mother warm her!” She felt once more the delicious sense of warmth and protection as she lay cuddled in her lap, her little bare feet wrapped in the warm flannel apron. She remembered her mother’s heart-broken tears the first time she went to school.
“But she’ll come home such a little lady, won’t she, father?” she had said with a pitiful smile and trembling lips, as Bridget had clung to her, crying too.
She turned the photograph over, and read with tear-dimmed eyes the words on the back,“Mother’s love to her dear little Bid.” It was the photograph she had sent her the first term at school.
Bridget threw it down with a sob.
“Poor mother! poor mother!” she wailed. She rose impulsively and opened her door. The light downstairs was out. All was darkness opposite, where her mother slept, and she closed the door, with the added misery of being in some way again repulsed. She undressed mechanically, her tears falling all the time. “Poor mother! She must be so disappointed! It’s all so different from what she expected. I understand how she feels. And yet how can I help it? We haven’t a thought or a pleasure in common; but we love one another, and that makes it so difficult, so impossible to go, so unbearable to stay. And it’s nobody’s fault—that’s the worst of it. Oh, if we were only not fond of each other, how much simpler it would be!” She turned out the gas, crept shivering into bed, and buried her face in the pillow, sobbing miserably. In the opposite room her mother lay, crying quietly lest her husband should wake, but not less bitterly.