The winter wore on, and Bridget remained with the Mansfields. Every
attempt on her side to urge that she ought to take rooms was met by
determined opposition on the part of her friends. Finally, it was
settled, that she should stay at any rate, till after Helen’s marriage,
which was arranged for the middle of May. Helen never forgot the
evenings of that winter, when the curtains were drawn, and the shaded
lamps and the firelight made their little drawing-room glow like a
warmly tinted jewel. Nearly every night two or three people came in
after dinner, in informal fashion. Her father would sit in his huge
arm-chair on one side of the fire, talking with the eagerness of a
boy of the last new poem, or the extraordinary promise of this or
that young painter. Bridget, sometimes in a fantastic, sometimes a
whimsical, less often in a serious mood, moved about the room, talking
and laughing in her eager, vivid fashion. She was a girl again then,
Helen said to herself with a thrill of pleasure--the Bridget of three
years ago--quick, impulsive, with as many moods as there were hours
in the day, sometimes in the highest heaven of delight, sometimes the
uttermost depths of dejection. She never spoke of her husband. By tacit
consent, his name was rarely mentioned between them. “I want to tear
out that chapter, and burn it,” she said once. “It will have to be
destroyed in a slow fire; but in the end it will perish utterly.”
Imperceptibly, however, as the months went on, Helen noticed a change
in her. A growing restlessness possessed her. “Bid, you’re getting too
thin,” she said, one morning, looking at her critically, as she sat
down to breakfast. “Also your eyes are too big.”
“The better to see you with, my dear,” Bridget replied, helping herself
to sugar. She laughed a little nervously as she spoke.
“You rush about too much. I think you’ve undertaken far too much work,”
Helen went on, in a dissatisfied tone. “I never see you all day now;
you tear from one place to another like one possessed! Your writing
will suffer. I don’t believe you’ve put pen to paper for weeks. Why
don’t you?”
“I don’t know--there isn’t time,” Bridget said vaguely. “I can’t write
now,” she went on, with a touch of desperation in her tone. “I don’t
know what’s the matter with me!” She moved restlessly in her chair.
“I can tell you--over-work; isn’t it, Aunt Charlotte?”
“That’s what Mr. Carey always says about Bridget,” Miss Mansfield said,
placidly sipping her tea. “By the way, he doesn’t come in so often now;
he hasn’t been here for quite a fortnight. James was only remarking
upon it yesterday. Ah!” as her brother entered the room at the moment.
“James, we were just saying that Mr. Carey has deserted us.”
“Busy, I expect, seeing his book through,” the Professor said, taking
his seat at the table. “Bridget, my dear, you’re not off, are you?”
“Yes, dear sir, if you will excuse me. I’m due at Hampstead at ten
o’clock.” She waved a smiling farewell to him, and hurried from the
room.
“That child doesn’t look strong,” Dr. Mansfield observed meditatively,
taking his cup of coffee from his sister.
“She isn’t; she’s working herself to death for no reason whatever,”
Helen exclaimed.
“Ah!” he returned, raising his eyes a moment to Bridget’s empty place.
He was very silent throughout the meal. She was unusually gay that
evening. Her color was so brilliant that at first sight the hollowness
of her cheeks was hardly observable. Dr. Mansfield watched her as
she talked. The men who stood round her laughed a good deal; their
admiration was almost as plainly perceptible as their amusement. Once,
when the door opened, he saw her quick eyes glance in the direction; he
noticed the little half-expectant turn of her head, though she did not
cease speaking. She crossed the room towards him a moment afterwards,
followed by the young man with whom she was talking, to make some
laughing appeal for his decision in an argument. The Professor
experienced a sudden pang as he looked at her smiling face. Her eyes
were bright with what he fancied were unshed tears; the look in them
haunted him for the rest of the evening.
“Well,” Helen said, as they parted at Bridget’s bedroom door, “I’m glad
to-morrow is Sunday. You’ll be obliged to rest. Do try to moderate the
size of those eyes, child; they frighten me.”
“Any one would think I was made of priceless china, to hear the way
this family talks,” Bridget returned, with a laugh and a shrug of her
shoulders as she kissed her.
Her smile faded when she closed the door of her room. The fire sparkled
on the hearth. Drawn up beside it was a little writing-table, at which
she worked. She moved towards it, and stood absently fingering the
scattered papers. On the shelf above were some framed photographs. She
put up her hand mechanically, and took one of them from its place.
It was the reproduction of a photograph of Carey, cut from one of the
illustrated papers. She held it where the firelight shone upon it,
and looked at it steadily for a moment. All at once, with a hurried
movement, she rose and thrust it out of sight in one of the drawers
of her dressing-table. She did not sit down again, but instead, began
to walk up and down the room, feverishly clasping and unclasping
her hands. Presently she turned the light higher, and went to her
writing-table. She resolutely gathered up the loose papers, sorting
and arranging them. Her lips were tightly closed, and her hands moved
restlessly from one leaf to another. She took up a pen and bent over
the sheets, pushing her hair from her face with a gesture familiar to
her from childhood. She wrote a line or two--then paused; two or three
words followed; then all at once she thrust the paper violently from
her, and buried her face in her hands with a groan. “Oh, I can’t--I
_can’t_ bear it!” she half whispered, incoherently. “I didn’t know it
was like this. Why doesn’t he come?--at least--at least he might come.
I should see him;--I shouldn’t be so starved.” She rose, and flung
herself beside the bed, and buried her face in the pillow.