CHAPTER VII
Onthe following Monday, Bridget woke with something of the delightful childish feeling that there was a treat in store. All the time she was dressing, she sang to herself softly, and during the History lesson in her own form, she found her mind wandering frequently from James the First to St. James’s Hall.
It seemed natural that there should be several offerings of flowers on her desk that morning. It was a gala day for her. One of the children came in late, after the names had been called; she walked up to the desk with a bunch of violets in her hand.
“I’m late, Miss Ruan,” she said calmly, presenting them; “but they hadn’t any flowers at the corner, so I had to go back.”
Bridget reproved her somewhat perfunctorily, and fastened the violets in the front of her dress, whereupon Gladys went to her seat, smiling happily, and gave in her “late, please,” with cheerful emphasis.
The room was full when she went into the little study set apart for the mistresses, at lunch time. Two or three of the teachers looked up as she entered.
“Flowers again, Miss Ruan!” one of them exclaimed. “You get a great many more than your share.”
“Oh, Miss Ruan!” exclaimed Miss Yarvis, apologetically. She was a middle-aged lady, with a worried expression, and spectacles. “I wasobligedto give an order mark in your form this morning. Beatrice Mandy was so excessively tiresome that she left me no alternative. I’m extremely sorry.”
“You speak as though you’d signed a death-warrant!” said Bridget lightly. “I suppose she forgot her pencil, or something?”
“Oh, my dear Miss Ruan! Beatrice Mandy? She’s the trial of my life,” Miss Harding broke in, volubly. “She’s adreadfulchild! I’m worn out with her,—wornout! Corporal punishment is the only thing for children like that, in spite of all the nonsense that—”
“It’s moralinfluencethat is required, Miss Harding,” interrupted one of the teachers, looking up from the pile of exercise-books she was correcting at the middle table.
Miss Harding and Miss Brown did not love one another, and Miss Brown’s tone sufficientlyindicated the fact. Miss Harding reddened angrily, and an animated argument on the subject of personal chastisementversusthe ameliorating influence of the True Teacher (Miss Harding, by implication, not answering to that description) was soon in full swing.
“Miss Ruan, have you begun the History for the Cambridge yet?—because I haven’t; and how the Third will ever get through it, I don’t know,” sighed Miss Miles resignedly. “They know absolutely nothing of the Tudor Period, and as to the Stuarts—”
Bridget had heard precisely similar remarks at lunch time for the past three months. To-day they seemed to her more than ordinarily trivial and unmeaning. “I wonder if it’s like this in the real world?” she thought, as she re-entered her class-room. “All this fuss over trifles; and the real things—the vital things—always, always untouched!”
At half-past seven, she was climbing the stairs leading to the orchestra.
“I don’t believe he’ll be there,” she repeated to herself at each step. Her eyes sought the top row of seats, directly she turned the corner, and brightened instantly.
He met her look, and rose, indicating a seat next to him, with a smile.
They shook hands.
“Well,” he began, as Bridget sat down, glancing at her; “you’ve had lunch to-day, I see.”
“I not only had lunch, I had an egg for tea!” she replied, laughing. “Mrs. Fowler, my landlady, was much surprised, and a little indignant; but I insisted.”
“But this surpasses my wildest, most daring dreams of success!” he exclaimed. “I shall begin to believe that my properrôleafter all, is to turn missionary to the girls of England, on the great Food Question.”
“What are they going to play to-night?” Bridget asked, turning to him. She had loosened the gray fur at her throat; it fell round her shoulders, and showed a glimpse of her white, slender throat above the dark gown she wore. There was color in her cheeks, and her eyes were big and bright with excitement.
“TheMeistersingerandTristan und Isolde,” Carey said, looking at the little waving curls that fell against her forehead as she bent over the programme.
He wondered what color her hair was by daylight. It was red gold where the light caught it at the upturned edges.
“It seems rather ridiculous that I don’t know your name yet,” he remarked after a moment.
She raised her head, with the quick movement he had observed was a trick of hers.
“Yes; so it is!” she said, laughing a little; “and I don’t know yours either. My name is Bridget Ruan.”
“Irish?” he asked. “Of course—I see you are! Oh, I’m forgetting my part of it. My name’s Carey.”
“Bridgetwas my grandmother’s name,” she said. “She was Irish, but she married an Englishman. They say I’m like her, but I never saw her; she died before I was born.... And so you’re starting to-morrow for all the wonderful, beautiful places in the world? Ah,” with a long breath, “how I envy you! You will just pass on from one lovely country to another. It will be like a royal progress, with all the bother of royalty left out.”
He smiled. “I shall put in a little work at intervals, I hope; just to accentuate the joy of the progress.”
“Work?” she repeated, knitting her brows a little. “What work?”
“Oh!—writing.”
Bridget turned to him with sudden interest. “You write?” she said eagerly. “Where? What sort of things?—do tell me! Novels?”
“No, I never perpetrated a novel. Verses sometimes, articles, various things. They are signed ‘L. C.,’” he added.
“Oh,” her face flushed with eagerness, “thenI know them! I’ve read several of them!” She paused, there was a thrill of excitement in her voice. The articles, she remembered, had charmed her. She had read them many times. There was about them a rather intoxicating breath of vitality, a somewhat incongruous, but wholly charming play of fancy, which had delighted her. It seemed to her the most intensely interesting and exciting thing in her experience, to be actually talking to the man who wrote them.
“I readThe Other Countrya week or two ago,” she began. “I thought it wonderful,” she added after a moment, looking full at Carey.
There was such evident sincerity in her words and gesture that his face lit up with sudden pleasure.
“I’m glad it pleased you,” he said, simply.
There was a pause. Bridget’s face clouded, and saddened.
The man bent slightly towards her.
“May I know what you are thinking?” he asked gently,—“or is the question an impertinent one?”
She started, and blushed a little. “How did you know? I wish I had the sort of face that contradicts what one feels! I was thinking how hard things are for women. I mean, it takes such a lot of struggling and fighting before wecan get to the point at which men—or most of them—begin. For instance, I want to write—Ishallwrite some day, I think,” with a determined lift of the head; “but oh, if you only knew!”—she checked herself. “It has been, and will be, for me, one ceaseless fight with circumstances,” she went on in a low tone, as though impelled to speak. “It seems that all one’s best strength is wasted in raising a little platform for oneself—just room to stand on and breathe, but quite bare and empty, when one has at last reached it,” she added bitterly. “Oh, I know therearewomen who start fair; theycanhave life, be in the stream, if they wish,—if they want to badly enough, and have the courage to defy a few prejudices which are every day getting fewer and fewer—but it’s maddening to think that eventhisdepends on all sorts of things outside oneself—the accident of birth, social position, money—” she paused. “How egotistical you must think me; and you are bored, of course,” she exclaimed, apologetically, with a quick change of tone. “But—it’s so long,sucha long time since I talked to any one!”
“I am not bored,” he said gravely. “I understand.”
She turned her face, and looked up with gratitude that touched him.
“That is nice! I wanted to say—if I mayreally grumble and not bore you—that it’s hard for other people to realize what the life of a woman who works for a bare living is like—to some one who wants—oh,everythingalmost! I mean, of course, for one like me, who has no independent social life; and there are hundreds, hundreds like me!” she went on. “One sees them, and they grow old, and faded, and uninteresting. I watch them, and shudder, and think—‘A few years, andyouwill be like that, past everything,—past sensations, emotions, experience! You won’t ever remember how you once longed for these things; even your work, which interests you now, will have grown stale, because it—’ When these thoughts come, in the night sometimes, I feel that I shall go mad.” She spoke in a low, vibrating tone. The last words were the expression of months of pent-up restlessness and lonely misery.
Carey was startled by their passionate, despairing ring.
“I know, I understand,” he began. “But see! I don’t think it will be like this with you for long. Will you believe me, seriously? I’m going to prophesy; but I will do it, presently, as we go home,” he added.
Bridget smiled. In some mysterious fashion, she felt that what he said was true. Her heart began to beat exultantly. It was absurd, shetold herself, the way he had of inspiring confidence.
Was it merely his voice? she wondered. She glanced at him to see if the explanation was to be found in his appearance. She liked the look of strength about his square jaw, and the air of life, of strong vitality, which his bright, deep-set gray eyes gave to his face. A clever face, she thought gladly.
They talked on indifferent subjects for the ten minutes or so before the music began, and then not at all, till the last notes of theLiebestod, with which the concert ended, died away.
Bridget rose with a long sigh, her eyes still dreamy with the music.
It was raining fast, as they found when they reached the open air, and she uttered an exclamation of dismay, at the discovery. “I didn’t even bring an umbrella!” she exclaimed tragically.
“We’ll have a cab,” Carey said. “Wait in the doorway till I get one. I’ll come back for you.”
He was gone before she could protest.
“I was going towards Hackney,” he assured her, with an unveracious smile, holding his umbrella over her, as they went down the narrow alley towards the hansom. He helped her in, gave the address she resignedly told him to the cabman; and after the preliminary plunging and backing, they started.
“You shouldn’t!” she began, reproachfully.
“You obviously couldn’t go home without an umbrella,” he returned calmly; “and the spirit of prophecy doesn’t descend upon a man more than once or twice in a lifetime. When it does, he shouldalwaystake a hansom.”
“How comfortable!” Bridget exclaimed, settling herself against the padded back of the cab. “I’ve never been in a hansom before! Ah, how beautiful the lights are! See that long line of lamps reflected in the wet pavement!” She never forgot this drive,—from Piccadilly to Wentworth Street. In dreams, sometimes, she saw long, dark roads, outlined in points of flame, white smoke rising from the reeking flanks of the horse, as the lamplight for a moment streamed full across its path,—shining, wet pavements, reflecting yellow gleams: all seen through rain-dimmed glass. In dreams, too, the sound of Carey’s voice had, as an accompaniment, the ring of hoofs on the road, and the jingle of harness.... They talked nearly all the way, freely, without reserve. Until they reached a street in the neighborhood of her lodgings, a street familiar to Bridget, she had forgotten that he was going, that this was probably their last meeting. She realized it then all at once, with painful suddenness. It was like a dreaded parting with some one dear to her. Carey lookeddown at her. She was silent, leaning back against the cushions, her chin a little lifted. The lighted lamp overhead threw out her profile in strong relief against the dark background of the cab. His eyes rested on her face. It was pale, and there was a pathetic, tired droop about her mouth. Her waving hair fell in bewildering little rings on her white forehead.
He put out his hand with a sudden, impulsive movement, and withdrew it as hastily.
She did not see the gesture, but the slight movement made her turn her face towards him.
“You will send me the stories, then,” he said a little hurriedly. “You won’t forget—to-morrow? I shall get them in time. You have the address?”
“Yes,” she returned, and then added, “it is so good of you.”
“Why, to be curious?” he asked lightly. “Iwantto see them.”
“I hope you won’t be disappointed; it’s so difficult to judge one’s own work, isn’t it?”
She felt she was speaking mechanically, for the sake of saying something. The cab had turned into Wentworth Street. She could see the lamp-post just opposite Mrs. Fowler’s house.
“Good-night,” she said, “and good-bye, and,—thank you very much.” She put out her hand, as the cab drew up with a flourish before numbertwenty-five. “I hope you will have a delightful time,” she murmured.
“I havehada delightful time,” Carey answered, still holding her hand. “I ought to thankyoufor it.” He hesitated, took her other hand as well for a moment, and then released them both. “I shall not forget it,” he said, as he helped her to alight.
She did not ring the bell till the hansom had turned, and was on its way down the street.
Mrs. Fowler, cross and sleepy, opened the door, and closed it again with unnecessary vehemence. “I s’pose you won’t want any supper, Miss!” she said, as Bridget entered with a weary step.