She sat up until daylight, to her maid's dismay, still in her
remodelled wedding gown. She was thinking chaotic, rebellious,
ridiculous nothings, punctuated with uneven ragged thoughts about
matching gloves to gowns or getting potted goose livers at the
East-Side store Trudy had just recommended. The general trend of her
reverie was the dissatisfaction not over this first year of
married life but at the twenty-seven years as a Gorgeous Girl, the
disappointment at not having some vital impelling thing to do,
which should of course supply a good time as well as a desirable
achievement. The inherited energy was demanding an outlet. She
recalled the evening's entertainment--a paper chase with every
room left littered and disordered, her lace flounce badly torn,
her head thumping with pain, the latest dances, the inane music, the
scandal whispered between numbers, the elaborate supper and favours,
the elaborate farewells--and the elaborate lies about the charm of
the hostess and the good time.
She began to envy Steve as well as Trudy, Steve in his hotel busy with
Labour delegates, wrangling, demanding, threatening, winning or losing
as the case might be. She, too, must do something. She had finished
with another series of adventures--that of being a mad butterfly. It
was shelved with the months of a romantic, parasitical existence
misnaming jealous monopoly as love, an existence which all at once
seemed as long ago as another lifetime.
She would now be an advanced woman, intellectual, daring; she would
allow her stunted abilities to have definite expression. Either she
would find a new circle of friends or else swerve the course of the
present circle into an atmosphere of Ibsen, Pater, advanced feminine
thought, and so on--with Egyptology as a special side line. She would
even become an advocate of parlour socialism, perhaps. She would
encourage languid poets and sarcastic sex novelists with matted hair
and puff satin ties. She would seek out short-haired mannish women
with theories and oodles of unpublished short stories, and feed them
well, opening her house for their drawing-room talks. She would be a
lion tamer! She was done with sighing and tears, belonging to the
first stage of Glorious Girlism; and with pouting and flirting, which
belonged to the second--she would now make them roar, herself
included!
At noon the next day she sought Mary Faithful in her office, to
everyone's surprise. To her own astonishment she discovered her
husband busily engaged in conversation with some members of the Board
of Trade, his travelling bag on a side table.
"I didn't bother to telephone you or wire--I got in at eight this
morning and came right up here. I knew you'd not be up," he added,
curtly. "Would you mind waiting in Miss Faithful's office until I'm at
liberty?"
Beatrice was forced to consent graciously and pass into the other
room, where Mary was giving dictation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account