CHAPTER XI
A telegram, the day after Bridget left her husband’s house, prepared Mrs. Ruan for her daughter’s arrival. She sat waiting for her in the drawing-room in the afternoon, in a flutter of pleasurable excitement. Bridget’s somewhat infrequent visits were the bright patches of color in her existence. To go to church with her on Sunday, to hear the excited whisperings from the Wilbys’ pew just at the back, to see all eyes fixed on them as they walked up the aisle, to know that Bridget’s picture hats, her well-cut gowns and dainty shoes were being eagerly scanned, and would serve as food for voluble, envious criticism on the homeward walk from the members of every family in Rilchester, was to her the breath of life. The greetings after church were only less pleasurable. They generally walked home with the Jenkins family; and it was with hardly concealed joy that Mrs. Ruan observed the silent awe with which Mr. Jenkins, usually jovial to the pointof fatigue, from time to time regarded her child—the Bridget he used to patronize.
The drawing-room was very little changed; there were a few more terra-cotta plates on the wall; the tambourines were tied with heliotrope instead of red ribbons, and there was fresh pampas grass in the big vases on the mantel-piece—otherwise it was not materially altered in appearance in seven years. Neither was Mrs. Ruan. She was a little grayer, perhaps; there were a few more wrinkles round her eyes. She was daintily dressed, as usual, and her little tea-table was pretty and spotless as ever.
She put down her cross-stitch embroidery, and ran to the door, almost as quickly as at Bridget’s home-coming seven years ago, when at last the welcome sound of wheels reached her ears.
But Bridget did not run upstairs. She did not see her mother at first, and Mrs. Ruan was struck with the slow, tired way in which she moved.
“My dear child, are you ill?” she cried, anxiously, clasping and kissing her. “Yes, you are!” she exclaimed, drawing her into the light. “Bid, how dreadfully white and thin you’ve grown, my dear girl!”
She pushed her gently into a seat by the fire, and took off her thick gloves and cloak, with little soft flurried exclamations.
Bridget’s lips quivered. She bowed her face suddenly on her mother’s shoulder, and broke into low sobbing.
“My dear! my dear!” repeated Mrs. Ruan, in a frightened voice; then all at once her face cleared. She looked at her daughter with hopeful, questioning eyes. Bridget caught her look, and flushed, drawing herself a little away. Her tears ceased.
“Give me some tea, mother,” she begged. “We will talk afterwards.”
When the maid had taken out the tea-things Bridget drew her chair close to her mother’s. She sat stroking her hand, but looking away from her into the fire.
“How long can you stay, Bid?” asked Mrs. Ruan, anxiously.
Bridget did not reply at once. Then she slowly turned her head.
“Mother,” she said, below her breath, “I came to tell you—I have left my husband.”
Mrs. Ruan pushed her chair back, and gazed incredulously at her daughter.
“Left—whatdid you say, Bridget?”
“I’ve left him—forever,” Bridget repeated more firmly. Mrs. Ruan looked at her a moment longer, and burst into tears.
“Was there ever such a girl!” she sobbed. “You’ve always been a trouble to me—always!and now, just when you’re settled and comfortable, and us so glad and thankful—and your beautiful house, and the carriage, and all those servants!—and the disgrace of it! What will every one say? How those Wilbys will talk, and how glad they’ll be. I can never hold up my head again—never. And your father—Bridget, you’remad. You can’t know what you’re talking about!”
Bridget sat with lips tightly closed, and a white face.
“Not a word aboutme!” she broke out at last, bitterly. “Do you suppose I’m doing this without a cause? Do you think that if my life hadn’t been unendurable, I—? As it is, I’ve stayed with him and borne it for three years, foryou, because I couldn’t bear to hurt you! Oh, mother! mother!” The last word was a cry of appeal.
Mrs. Ruan was not deaf to it, even in the midst of her selfish grief.
“Tell me what it’s all about,” she cried, turning to the girl. “You alwaysweretoo ’asty, Bridget. Even if there’s another woman, it’s no good flying in the face of Providence. What a woman’s got to do is to humor a man till he comes round to ’er again. I’ve been through it all with your father, Bid; so I know. It doesn’t do to be too hard on men; at anyrate, it’s nouse. They’re all alike. Women have all got to bear it, and you’ll ’ave to bear it too. Thereisanother woman, I suppose?”
“Oh! as to that—” Bridget gave a little scornful laugh, and left the sentence unfinished.
“But, mother, youlovedfather!” she said, turning eagerly to her. “You love him!”
“Yes, of course; ’Enry and I always got on very well together, on the whole. He’s got ’is faults, of course; we all ’ave. He’s a violent-tempered man, as you know, but—”
“Well, but Idon’tlove my husband. I—I—despisehim. He doesn’t love me. That is why I have decided to leave him—isn’t that reason enough?”
“Reason?” repeated Mrs. Ruan, beginning to cry again. “You have no reason in you, Bridget. Suppose every one was to leave their husbands just because they didn’t love them, as you call it.”
“The world would be a much cleaner place,” said Bridget, in a tense voice.
“I must say I have no patience with these new-fangled, high-flown ideas, as your father would say,” Mrs. Ruan exclaimed. “No one ever thought of such things in my young days. We should have thought it wicked and immodest. And so it is!” she went on, suddenly recollecting that she had entirely forgotten a powerfulargument. “It’s sinful. What does the Bible say?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” returned Bridget, sighing wearily.
“Well, the Prayer-Book, at any rate, says, ‘till death us do part,’—it’s God’s will.”
“Mother, how is it you never think of God except to allude to Him as a sort of fetish to be dreaded when one wants to do what is morally right?” Bridget exclaimed, in her old, passionate way.
“And now,” cried her mother, “I’m told by my own child that I never think of God!—when I say my prayers night after night, and always ’ave done since I was a girl. And if you’d said more, Bid, perhaps—”
“Oh, mother!” Bridget interrupted, in a tired, broken voice, “don’t let us argue; what is the use of it? Won’t you be a little sorry for me? If I only cared for him ever so little, or he for me, I could forgive many things. I would stay, and try to make things right; but as it is—if you knew how I feel—how I hate and loathe my life—myself—everything. And—I’m so tired,” she added, pitifully.
The look of suffering in the girl’s face softened the elder woman, in spite of herself. She smoothed back her hair, crying all the time, and Bridget clung to her in passionate gratitude.
“And I, hoping—” began her mother, presently. But a sudden movement from Bridget made her leave the sentence unfinished.
“Thank God, no!” she exclaimed. “If so, I should be a wretched woman, indeed! As it is, I feel too dazed, too sorry for hurtingyou, to take pleasure in my freedom yet. But some day, perhaps, I may be happy again, when I can bemyselfonce more.”
Mrs. Ruan sighed. “Are you going to get a divorce?” she asked, anxiously, after a moment.
“No. It’s not a question of divorce at all. I only want to live alone. There is to be a separation. That will be arranged, I suppose.”
“’Ow I’m to tell your father, and what he’ll say, I don’t know,” her mother continued, sobbing.
“I’ll tell him—but to-morrow. May I go to bed soon, mother dear? You can tell him I’m not well,” Bridget said, rising. “Let us talk to-morrow. I—I can’t to-night.”
“But what are you going to do?” persisted her mother. “You’ll ’ave a good allowance, of course?”
“No; I won’t touch a penny, even if it’s offered to me,” Bridget said hotly, turning at the door, and facing her mother. “Wouldyoutake money from a man who has never lost an opportunity of insulting you—your relations?That’s why I thank Heaven I have no child. One never knows what one may be tempted to do for the sake of one’s child. As it is, I can work. I worked before I was married. I can work now.”
Mrs. Ruan did not reply, except by a melancholy shake of the head. She followed her daughter from the room, wiping her eyes and sighing deeply as she went.