I
Those days were gone now. There were no more of those Sunday afternoons
in her mother’s kitchen. A sister had married well, and the whole family
had migrated to Boston, where the unwilling and resentful son-in-law
could “keep an eye” on them. Rosaleen had written two or three times to
her mother, but had never had an answer. And with her sorrowful
resignation, had given her up as lost.
But whenever a dark hour came, her memory flew back to that spot,
recalled to her that time spent in the dreadful dirty old kitchen with
her mother, a little bit intoxicated, seated before the table covered
with oilcloth, and usually a neighbor or two, widow women, or married as
it might be, all drinking tea and complaining. There was always a baby
sister or brother crawling about the floor, and a cat; it was always
warm, steamy, indescribably friendly. The depth of it, the vitality, the
kind, consoling human flavour of it, of those slovenly women who were
forever bearing children, whose talk was of life and death, of pain,
sorrow and earthly joys! Compared with it, the hurried artificial
conversation of Miss Amy and Mr. Humbert was like the talk of
shadows....
She was thinking and thinking of it that night.
“All right!” she said, bitterly. “I won’t deny it! I’m common! I’m not
happy here. I don’t belong here. I don’t appreciate it. I hate it! I
wouldn’t be like Miss Amy for anything.... Of course _he’d_ soon see
that. He’d find out that I’m--common....”
But she couldn’t bear the thought. She sat up in bed.
“Oh, but I haven’t had a chance!” she cried. “I’ve _never_ had a chance!
Oh!... If I could just see him alone, I could show him that I’m....”
She could not explain to herself just what she knew herself to be, just
what it was that she wished this young man to know. It was that pitiful
secret thought of all human beings, whether a fallacy or a profound
truth can never be demonstrated--the thought that if you know me, you
will love me, that if you hold a poor opinion of me, it is because you
misunderstand me.
Perhaps after all she would go, just this once, just see him, and trust
to his comprehension....
She waked up the next morning, still undecided, her heart as heavy as
lead. She dressed in the dismal twilight of her little cell, weighing
and deliberating, hesitating miserably. At last it resolved itself into
this bald alternative--which way would cause her the least pain--not to
meet him, to lose him forever now, at the very beginning, to destroy
this promise of the first interest any man had yet shown in her--or to
let it go on, to let her starved and ardent affection rush out to him,
to become fatally entangled in the web of her own making, only to have
him find her out and despise her?
She went into the kitchen to get ready the breakfast, and in there, a
back room looking out over little yards, the sun was beginning to enter.
She could see a soft blue morning sky, with shadowy white clouds blown
across it by a mild and steady wind. It cheered her marvellously. She
was as easily made happy as she was easily hurt.
She started to grind the coffee, in itself a cheerful morning noise.
“Oh, nonsense!” she said to herself. “I’m making a mountain out of a
molehill. Of course I’ll go and meet him. Why shouldn’t I? It’s just a
lark. It won’t lead to anything, if I don’t want it to. There’s no need
for me to be so serious about it. I’m _going_!”
She was well used to keeping her own counsel. She looked and she acted
just the same as usual; when Miss Amy appeared she found breakfast on
the table, as it should be, and Rosaleen occupying a few spare moments
in dusting.
“Good morning, Miss Amy!” she said, in her gentle, her almost meek
little voice.
Miss Amy answered curtly, and looked into the kitchen to see if all was
in order. She was a stout grey haired woman with a face as dark as a
gypsy’s and a long, sharp--an almost wolfish, nose. She had a perpetual
smile, a smile which she had schooled her lips to assume, in her
terrible efforts to subdue her own fierce nature. She was a woman of
natural ferocity and violence, but controlled and dominated by a
passionate desire to be good. So well did she rule herself that she very
rarely spoke a sharp word, and though she had a deep-rooted and
unshakable dislike for Rosaleen, she treated her with generosity. She
made her work; that, she considered, was good for her, and in every way
fitting and proper. But she likewise considered that she and her brother
were morally responsible for this girl, and she paid out of her own
pocket for Art Lessons, for an occasional Shakespearian matinée and
other items of cultural importance.
Anyone who has experienced it will admit how immeasurably painful is the
combination of hostility and gratitude. Rosaleen was obliged by her own
heart to dislike Miss Amy, and by her soul to recognise her
benefactions. They were in all things opposed and hostile. Rosaleen was
a fool possessed of common sense and Miss Amy was a practical woman
without any.
Rosaleen brought in Miss Amy’s little dish of prunes.
“Anything I can do for you downtown to-day, Miss Amy?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, of course! It’s your lesson day. No, thank you, Rosaleen,
there is nothing.”
Mr. Humbert now appeared to be fed. He ate, pretending to be absent
minded so that no one should bother him about anything, and went away to
his office. Then Miss Amy began leisurely to get herself ready to go to
market, while Rosaleen washed the dishes and made the beds.
“You’d better hurry!” she said. “You’ll be late, Rosaleen!”
But Rosaleen was only waiting for her to be gone, so that she could put
on her best blouse and her white gloves.