CHAPTER X
THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE
Dinah ran swiftly down the corridor to her own room.
As a matter of fact, she had intruded upon the Colonel and Lady Grace inthe secret hope of finding a propitious moment for once again pressingher request to be allowed to accept Scott's invitation to tea. Herfailure to do so added fuel to the flame, arousing in her an almostirresistible impulse to rebel openly.
The fear of consequences alone restrained her, for to be escorted home indisgrace after only a week in this Alpine paradise was more than shecould face. All her life the dread of her mother's wrath had overhungDinah like a cloud, sometimes near, sometimes distant, but alwayspresent. She had been brought up to fear her from her cradle. All throughher childhood her punishments had been bitterly severe. She winced stillat the bare thought of them; and she was as fully convinced as was LadyGrace that her mother had never really loved her. To come under the banof her displeasure meant days of harsh treatment, nor, now that herchildhood was over, had the discipline been relaxed. She never attemptedto rebel openly. Her fear of her mother had become an integral part ofherself. Her spirit shrank before her fits of violence. But for herfather and Billy she sometimes thought that home would be an impossibleplace.
But her affection for her father was of a very intense order. Lazy,self-indulgent, supremely easy-going, yet possessed of a fascination thathad held her from babyhood, such was Guy Bathurst. Despised at leastoutwardly by his wife and adored by his daughter, he went his indifferentway, enjoying life as he found it and quite impervious to snubs.
"I never interfere with your mother," was a very frequent sentence on hislips, and by that axiom he ruled his life, looking negligently on whileDinah was bent without mercy to the wheel of tyranny.
He was fond of Dinah,--her devotion to him made that inevitable--but henever obtruded his fondness to the point of interference on her behalf;for both of them were secretly aware that the harshness meted out to herhad much of its being in a deep, unreasoning jealousy of that veryselfish fondness. They kept their affection as it were for strictlyprivate consumption, and it was that alone that made life at hometolerable to Dinah.
For upon one point her father was insistent. He would not part with herunless she married. He did not object to her working at home for hiscomfort, but the idea of her working elsewhere and making her living wasone which he refused to consider. With rare self-assertion, he would nothear of it, and when he really asserted himself, which was seldom, hiswife was wont to yield, albeit ungraciously enough, to his behest.
Besides Dinah was undoubtedly useful at home, and would certainly growout of hand if she left her.
Not very willingly had she agreed to let her go upon this Alpine jauntwith the de Vignes, but Billy had been so keen, and the invitation wouldscarcely have been extended to him alone.
The whole idea had originated between the heads of the two families,riding home together after a day's hunting. Dinah had chanced to comeinto the conversation, and the Colonel, comparing her with that of hisown daughter and being stirred to pity, had suggested that the twochildren might like to join them on their forthcoming expedition.Bathurst had at once accepted the tentative proposal, and had blurtedforth the whole matter to his assembled family on his return with theresult that Billy's instant and eager delight had made it virtuallyimpossible for his mother to oppose the suggestion.
Dinah had been delighted too, almost deliriously so; but she had kept herpleasure to herself, not daring to show it in her mother's presence tillthe actual arrival of the last day. Then indeed she had lost her head,had sung and danced and made merry, till some trifling accident hadprovoked her mother's untempered wrath and a sound boxing of ears hadquite sobered her enthusiasm. She had fared forth finally upon theadventure with tearful eyes and drooping heart, her mother's frigid kissof farewell hurting her more poignantly than her drastic punishment of anhour before. For Dinah was intensely sensitive, keenly susceptible torebuke and coldness, and her warm heart shrank from unkindness with ashrinking that was actual pain.
She knew that the little social world of Perrythorpe looked down upon hermother though not actually refusing to associate with her. Bathurst hadmarried a circus-girl in his green Oxford days; so the story went,--ahard, handsome woman older than himself, and fiercely, intenselyambitious. Lack of funds had prevented her climbing very high, andbitterly she resented her failure. He had never done a day's work in hislife, but, unlike his wife, he had plenty of friends. He was well-bred, agood rider, a straight shot, and an entertaining guest. He knew everyonewithin a radius of twenty miles, and was upon terms of easy intimacy withthe de Vignes and many others who received him with pleasure, but veryseldom went out of their way to encounter his wife.
Dinah shrewdly suspected that this fact accounted for much of thebitterness of her mother's outlook. Her ambition had apparently died ofstarvation long since, but her resentment remained. Her hand was againstpractically all the world, including her daughter, whose fairy-likedaintiness and piquancy were so obvious a contrast to the somewhat coarseand flashy beauty that had once been hers. For all that Dinah inheritedfrom her mother was her gipsy darkness. Mrs. Bathurst was not flashy now,and any attempt at personal adornment on Dinah's part was always verysternly repressed. She had met and writhed under the eye of scornfulcriticism too often, and she distrusted her own taste. She was determinedthat Dinah should never be subjected to the same humiliation.
She humiliated her often enough herself. It was the only means she knewof asserting her authority; for she had no intention of ever being theobject of her daughter's contempt. She was harsh to the point ofbrutality, so that the girl's heart was wont to quicken apprehensivelywhenever she heard her step. She scolded, she punished, she coerced. Butfrom an outsider, the bare thought of a snub was unendurable, and thepossibility that Dinah might by any means lay herself open to one wasenough to bring down the vials of wrath upon her head. Dinah rememberedstill with shivering vividness the whipping she had received on oneoccasion for demeaning herself by running after the de Vignes's carriageto deliver a message. Her mother's whippings had always been veryterrible, vindictively thorough. The indignity of them lashed her souleven more cruelly than the unsparing thong her body. Because of them shewent in daily trepidation, submissive almost to the point of abjectness,lest this hateful and demoralizing form of punishment should be inflictedupon her. For some time now, by great wariness and circumspection she hadevaded it, and she had begun to entertain the trembling hope that she wasat last considered to have passed the age for such childish correction.But her mother's outbreak of violence on the day of their departure hadbeen a painful disillusion, and she knew well what it would mean toreturn home in disgrace with the de Vignes. Her cheeks burned and tingledstill with the shame of the discovery. She felt that another of the olddreadful chastisements would overwhelm her utterly. And yet that shewould most certainly have to endure it if she were unruly now wasconviction that pressed like a cold weight upon her heart. Had not theletter she had received from her mother only that morning contained astern injunction to her to behave herself, as though she had been anaughty, wayward child?
"It would kill me!" she told herself passionately. "Oh, why, why, whycan't I grow up quick and marry? But I never shall grow up at home.That's the horrible, horrible part of it. And I shall never have a chanceof marrying with mother looking on. I'm just a slave--a slave. Othergirls can have a good time, do as they like, flirt when they like. ButI--never--never!"
Her fit of rebellion lasted long. The emancipation from the home bondagewas beginning to work within her as the Colonel had predicted. Seen froma distance, the old tyranny seemed outrageous and impossible, to go backinto it monstrous. And yet, so far as she could see, there was no way ofescape. She was not apparently to be allowed to make any friends outsideher own sphere. The freedom she had begun to enjoy so feverishly had verysuddenly been circumscribed, and if she dared to overstep the boundsmarked out for her, she knew what to expect.
And yet she longed for freedom as she had never longed in her lifebefore. She was nearly desperate with longing, so sweet had been thefirst, intoxicating taste thereof. For the first time she had seen lifefrom the standpoint of the ordinary, happy girl, and the contrast to thelife she knew had temporarily upset her equilibrium. Her mother'streatment, harsh before, seemed unendurable now. Her cheeks burned afreshwith a fierce, intolerable shame. No, no! She could never face it again.She could not! She could not! Already her brief emancipation had begun tocost her dear. She must--she must--find a way of escape ere she went backinto thraldom. For she knew her mother's strength so terribly well. Itwould conquer all resistance by sheer, overwhelming weight. She could notremember a single occasion upon which she had ever in the smallest degreeheld her own against it. Her will had been broken to her mother's sooften that the very thought of prolonged resistance seemed absurd. Sheknew herself to be incapable of it. She was bound to crumple under thestrain, bound to be humbled to the dust long ere the faintest hope ofoutmatching her mother's iron will had begun to dawn in her soul. Thevery thought made her feel puny and contemptible. If she resisted to thevery uttermost of her strength, yet would she be crushed in the end, andthat end would be more horribly painful than she dared to contemplate.All her childhood it had been the same. She had been conquered ere shehad passed the threshold of rebellion. She had never been permitted toexercise a will of her own, and the discovery that she possessed one hadbeen something of a surprise to Dinah.
It was partly this discovery that made her long so passionately forfreedom. She wanted to grow, to develop, to get beyond the stultifyinginfluence of that unvarying despotism. She longed to get away from theperpetual dread of consequences that so haunted her. She wanted tobreathe her own atmosphere, live her own life, be herself.
"I believe I could do lots of things if I only had the chance," shemurmured to herself; and then she was suddenly plunged into the memory ofanother occasion when she had received summary and austere punishment foromitting scales from her practising. But then no one ever liked doingwhat they must, and she had never had any real taste for music; or if shehad had, it had vanished long since under the uninspiring goad ofcompulsion.
All her morning depression came back while these bitter meditationsracked her brain. Oh, if only--if only--her father had chosen a lady forhis wife! It was disloyal, she knew, to indulge such a thought, but hermood was black and her soul was in revolt. She was sure--quite sure--thatmarriage presented the only possibility of deliverance, and deliverancewas beginning to seem imperative. Her whole individuality, which thispast week of giddy liberty had done so much to develop, cried aloud forit.
She went to the window. Billy had grown tired of waiting and gone offwithout her. She fancied she could see his sturdy figure on the furtherslope. Her eyes took in the whole lovely scene, and suddenly,effervescently, her spirits began to rise. The inherent gaiety of herbubbled to the surface. What a waste of time to stay here grizzling whilethat paradise lay awaiting her! The sweetness of her nature began toassert itself once more, and an almost fevered determination to live inthe present, to be happy while she could, entered into her. Withimpetuous energy she pushed the evil thoughts away. She would be happy.She would! She would! And happiness was not difficult to Dinah. Itbubbled in her, a natural spring, that ever flowed again even after theworst storms had forced it from its course.
She even laughed to herself as she prepared to join Billy. Life wasgood,--oh yes, life was good! And home and the trials thereof were manymiles away. Who could be unhappy for long in such a world as this, wherethe air sparkled like champagne, and the magic of it ran riot in theblood?
The black mood passed away from her spirit like a cloud. She threw on capand coat and ran to join the merry-makers.
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