On the steamer bound for Holyhead.... During the crossing the stifling weight that had benumbed her intellect ever since the man with the dent in his hat came riding up the drive seemed suddenly to lift. Whipped away perhaps by the edged wind that rushed past her from England to Ireland sinking in the sea--a wind to cut you to the bone; discovering sensation in every marrow; stinging her to clear thought.... That idyllic life with Mother and Dad--the world to one another and none else in the world beside--had been rather the creation of circumstance than of design. Dad's people were furious when he married Mother; in defiance of hers, Mother married Dad. Relations on either side had shrieked their disapproval of the match, then left the couple to their own adventures. A thing to laugh at in those days, but bringing now to the child that was left the realisation of not a support in the world.
Her mother's sisters had written after the funeral inviting her to come to them in England “while she looked about her.” She could recall every sentence of that letter. It had burned. Each word, each comma was fresh before her eyes as the cab jolted on to Palace Gardens.
“It would have been our pleasure constantly to have entertained you during your mother's life-time,” they had written, “but she wilfully flouted our desires at her marriage and thereafter utterly ignored us. The fault for the rift between us was of her making, not ours; we sent her an Easter card one year, and had no reply; though we have no doubt that your father, not that we would say a word against him now, influenced her against her better judgment. However....”
She had written back a hysterical letter.
“Your letter came just after I had returned from burying my dear, dear father, who worshipped my darling mother. If I were begging in the street, starving, dying, I would not touch a crumb or a penny of yours. You are wicked--yes, you are wicked to write to me as you have written....”
She could not stay in Ireland. Her only friends there lived about the dear home that was now no longer a home but a “desirable residence with some acres of garden and paddock.” Her only friends there were friends who had been shared with Mother and Dad--whose presence now would be constant reminder of that happy participation now lost. One and all offered her hospitality, but she must refuse. “No, no silly idea of being a burden to you, dear, dear Mrs. Sullivan--only I can't, can't live anywhere near where we used to live.”