Brigit Mead did not go to bed at all that night. All night she worked in
her little flat making her plans, packing, and writing letters.
She had burnt her boats and the relief was great. Having broken with her
mother, there was no need for her to write to Kingsmead. To Tommy she
sent a note, saying that she was going away, but would write soon and
explain.
To Pam Lensky she wrote a rather long letter, for there were some few
things she wanted made clear.
"Dear Pam,"--she began abruptly--"I am going away with Victor
Joyselle. I wonder if you will blame me? In case you do, here is my only
defence. I hate my present life, I am miserable without Joyselle, and he
is miserable without me. My mother, with whom I have been on fairly
decent terms since Tommy has been ill, is hopeless. Gerald Carron shot
himself to-day, and mother, just, I honestly believe, to indulge her own
taste for sentimental scenes, turned on me about him and pretended to
believe a story he told her just before I left Pont Street--that I was
Joyselle's mistress, in fact. If she believed the story I would forgive
her, though it is not true, but I cannot forgive the kind of mind that
can amuse itself with such vulgar melodrama. I have always disliked my
mother, and now I simply cannot bear her any longer.
"And I have no other ties except Tommy. Tommy, to whom I shall write
before long, is nearly well. He will be forbidden to come to see me, but
he will come, and I do not think it will hurt him.
"As to Théo, Pam, I am deeply grieved. He is a remarkably nice young
man, but I cannot marry him, and the mere fact of his father's loving me
will not much hurt him. Whatever his father does, Théo in the long run
thinks right, and he, too, will forgive us.
"Then there is poor Félicité. She has been very kind to me, but she has
been stupid and over-self-confident, and I cannot consider her. I must
consider him. She will suffer and I am indeed sorry, poor soul, but
he--he shall be happy. So good-bye, Pam. Remember your own father and
mother, and understand. We go to Paris by the eleven o'clock train
to-morrow, and thence--to Arcadia, as your people used to say. My love
to you. "Brigit."
Re-reading this letter, which she was far too self-engrossed to consider
selfish, Brigit addressed it.
Then she looked over her clothes, packed them in three boxes, one of
which she labelled, "To be called for," the other two of which were to
go with her.
It was long after one when she had finished her work and sat down to
rest. She was not tired, nor did she feel any special excitement. It had
happened, that was all, and it seemed to her that she had always
foreseen this night, with its letter writing and packing.
To-morrow at this time they, she and Victor, would be in Paris. And then
they would go--where-ever he chose. She did not care.
And, although she did not know it, this unformulated mental attitude was
the first sign in her of any approach to an unselfish love.
Through the long hours she sat in her brilliantly lighted little
sitting-room, waiting for day. At five o'clock she switched off the
electricity and opened the blinds. A wan light came in.
"It is day. It is _to-day_," she told herself aloud, her beautiful mouth
quivering with happiness. "In four hours he will come."
She made herself a cup of tea and then lay down on the sofa where her
mother had lain the day before, and went to sleep.
She dreamed that she stood in a sloping, very green meadow; in the
distance a flock of dingy sheep browsed, and some invisible person was
playing a pipe! "_Il etait une bergère hé ron, ron, ron_,"--it was the
nursery song Joyselle had played to Tommy when the little boy was ill.
She smiled and moved her head.
Then suddenly she was awake, and Théo stood before her. "Brigit," he
said quietly, "my mother is dead. Will you come to father?"