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 point of 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--_what_ did 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’re _mad_. You can’t know what you’re talking about!”
Bridget sat with lips tightly closed, and a white face.
“Not a word about _me_!” 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, for _you_, 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
always _were_ too ’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 any rate, it’s no _use_. They’re all alike. Women have all got
to bear it, and you’ll ’ave to bear it too. There _is_ another woman, I
suppose?”
“Oh! as to that--” Bridget gave a little scornful laugh, and left the
sentence unfinished.
“But, mother, you _loved_ father!” 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 I _don’t_ love my husband. I--I--_despise_ him. 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 powerful argument. “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 hurting _you_, to
take pleasure in my freedom yet. But some day, perhaps, I may be happy
again, when I can be _myself_ once 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. “Would _you_
take 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.