Part 62 (1/2)
”But this is no longer your home.”
”It was never home,” said Hilda, darkly. ”It was never home. I lived here with you and your father, but it was never home.”
Jean, more than ever afraid of this woman, had a sudden sense of something tragic in the fact of Hilda's homelessness.
”I don't quite see what you mean,” she said, slowly.
”You couldn't see,” Hilda told her, ”and you will never see. Women like you don't.”
”We didn't get on very well together,” Jean said, almost timidly, ”but that was because we were different.”
”It wasn't because we were different that we didn't get on,” Hilda said. ”It was because you were afraid of me. You knew your father liked me.”
With her usual frankness she spoke the truth as she saw it.
”I was not afraid,” Jean faltered.
”You were. But we needn't talk about that. I am going to France.”
”When?”
”As soon as I can get there. That's why I came here. To take away some things I wanted.”
”Oh--”
”And one of the things I wanted was the picture of your father which hung in your room. I have taken that. You can get more of them. I can't. So I have taken it.”
They faced each other, this s.h.i.+ning child and this dark woman.
”But--but it is mine--Hilda.”
”It is mine now, and if I were you, I shouldn't make a fuss about it.”
”Hilda, how dare you!” Jean began in the old indignant way, and stopped. There was something so sinister about it all. She hated the thought that she and Hilda were alone in the empty house--
”Hilda, if you go to France, shall you see Daddy?”
”I shall try. I had a letter from him the other day. He told me not to come. But I am going. There is work to do, and I am going.”
Jean had a stunned feeling, as if there was nothing left to say, as if Hilda were indeed a rock, and words would rebound from her hard surface.
”But after all, you didn't really care for Daddy--”
”What makes you say that?”
”You were going to marry the General.”
”Well, I wanted a home. I wanted some of the things you had always had. I'm not old, and I am tired of being a machine.”