The lie her father had told seemed only a part of the evening's vulgarity.
Near the kitchen door the waitresses, cooks and musicians were being loaded
into the bus that had been driven out from the Bidwell House. She went into
the dining-room. Sadness had taken the place of the anger in her, but when
she saw Hugh the anger came back. Piles of dishes filled with food lay all
about the room and the air was heavy with the smell of food. Hugh stood by
a window looking out into the dark farmyard. He held his hat in his hand.
"You might put your hat away," she said sharply. "Have you forgotten you're
married to me and that you now live here in this house?" She laughed
nervously and walked to the kitchen door.
Her mind still clung to the past and to the days when she was a child and
had spent so many hours in the big, silent kitchen. Something was about
to happen that would take her past away--destroy it, and the thought
frightened her. "I have not been very happy in this house but there have
been certain moments, certain feelings I've had," she thought. Stepping
through the doorway she stood for a moment in the kitchen with her back
to the wall and with her eyes closed. Through her mind went a troop of
figures, the stout determined figure of Kate Chanceller who had known
how to love in silence; the wavering, hurrying figure of her mother; her
father as a young man coming in after a long drive to warm his hands
by the kitchen fire; a strong, hard-faced woman from town who had once
worked for Tom as cook and who was reported to have been the mother of two
illegitimate children; and the figures of her childhood fancy walking over
the bridge toward her, clad in beautiful raiment.
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