‘I must be going now. I have a full day ahead of me.’
And I have an empty one, she thought soberly, as the door closed behind him. She had not been altogether serious in her suggestion that she should become a journalist. It had been more of a passing thought, than a burning ambition, but the idea seemed to gain in attraction as she considered it. Besides, it was time she began to think for herself and plan her life. Many girls whose examination results had not nearly been as good as hers were starting at university, and in some ways she wished she had insisted on going too, but Sir Charles had been so emphatic that he wanted her at home, that it had seemed ungracious to persist. And at that time, the prospect of several more years in academic pursuits had not seemed very alluring.
But her father surely couldn’t expect her to spend all her time sitting round the house twiddling her thumbs. He knew perfectly well that all the real work was done by Mrs Lambert, with the assistance of a daily help, and that Briony’s place in the scheme of things was a supernumary one. Or did he think she was going to get married almost at once?
Unwillingly she found herself recalling what Logan Adair had said about her choice of a husband, and a sudden image rose in her mind of herself, white-gowned and bridal-veiled, walking up an aisle of a church to where a faceless man awaited her by the altar, waited for her to be handed over to him by her father—untouched by human hand or by life itself.
She felt an hysterical giggle rising in her throat at the thought. Could it be possible to allow oneself to be bored into matrimony—to exchange the dullness of one safe existence for another without even being tempted to taste the danger and adventure of real life?
She pushed her chair back abruptly and stood up. University would have been her first encounter with an unsheltered world, and she had been baulked of that. She could not afford to let another opportunity pass her by.
She would go round to the U.P.G. building and ask Hal Mackenzie of the Courier for a job. He had been very pleasant when she had met him the previous evening, she tried to bolster her confidence, and she had all the requisite qualifications on paper.
Besides, she thought not too hopefully, if she was successful in obtaining a job, however junior, on the most serious and influential paper in the group, perhaps her father would become resigned or even sympathetic to her aspirations. At least she would make him see she was not merely a cipher with no mind of her own. She had nothing to lose by trying.
But she was already on her way to the U.P.G. offices when the disturbing thought struck her that she might have a great deal to lose. That by deliberately seeking to place herself in close proximity to Logan Adair, she could well end up by losing her heart.
‘And I did,’ Briony thought in anguish, staring sightlessly into the fire. ‘Oh, God, I did!’
And her tears, slow and heavy, tasted salt upon her trembling mouth.
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