Fan : The Story of a Young Girl's LifeHudson, W. H. (William Henry)
General
Fan : The Story of a Young Girl's Life
Hudson, W. H. (William Henry)
Fiction
Rosie got tired of tormenting her, and took herself off at last; then
another hour went slowly by while it gradually grew dark; and as the
lights faded her rebellious feelings left her, and she began to hope
that Miss Starbrow would soon call her or come to her. And at length,
unable to bear the loneliness and suspense, she went to the bedroom door
and softly knocked. There was no answer, and trying the door she found
that it was locked. She waited outside the door for about half an hour,
and then hearing her mistress moving in the room she tapped again, with
the same result as before. Then she went back despairingly to the back
room and her place beside the window. The night was starry and not very
cold, and to protect herself from the night air she put on her fur cape.
Hour after hour she listened to the bells of St. Matthew's chiming the
quarters, feeling a strange loneliness each time the chimes ceased; and
then, after a few minutes' time, beginning again to listen for the next
quarter. It was getting very late, and still no one came to her, not
even Rosie with her supper, which she had made up her mind not to touch.
Then she dropped her head on her hands, and cried quietly to herself.
She had so many thoughts, and each one seemed sadder than the last. For
the great tumult in her soul was over now, and she could think about it
all, and of all the individuals who had treated her cruelly. She felt
very differently towards them. Captain Horton she feared and hated, and
wished him dead with all her heart; and Rosie she also hated, but not so
intensely, for the maid's enmity had not injured her. Against Mary she
only felt a great anger, but no hatred; for Mary had been so kind, so
loving, and she could not forget that, and all the sweetness it had
given her life. Then she began to compare this new luxurious life in
Dawson Place to the old wretched life in Moon Street, which now seemed
so far back in time; and it seemed strange to her that, in spite of the
great difference, yet to-night she felt more unhappy than she had ever
felt in the old days. She remembered her poor degraded mother, who had
never turned against her, and cried quietly again, leaning her face on
the window-sill. Then she had a thought which greatly perplexed her,
and she asked herself why it was in those old days, when hard words
and unjust blows came to her, she only felt a fearful shrinking of the
flesh, and wished like some poor hunted animal to fly away and hide
herself from her tormentors, while now a spirit of resentment and
rebellion was kindled in her and burnt in her heart with a strange fire.
Was it wrong to feel like that, to wish that those who made her suffer
were dead? That was a hard question which Fan put to herself, and she
could not answer it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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