The Misses Mallett by E. H. Young (page 3)

She looked often at her aunt, finding her more than ever fascinating. She tried to see her with the eyes of Francis Sales, she tried to imagine how Rose’s clear grey eyes, so dark sometimes that they seemed black, answered the appeal of his, yet, as the days passed, Henrietta found it difficult to remember her resignation and her wrongs in this new life of luxury and pleasure.

She woke each morning to the thought of gaiety and to the realization of comfort and the blessed absence of anxiety. Her occupation was the getting of enjoyment and she took it all eagerly yet without greed, and as she was enriched she became generous with her own offerings of laughter, sympathy and affection. She liked and looked for the brightening of Caroline and Sophia at her approach, she became pleasantly aware of her own ability to charm and she rejoiced in an exterior world no longer limited to streets. Each morning she went to her window and looked over and beyond the roofs, so beautiful and varied in themselves, to the trees screening the open country across the river and if the sight reminded her to sigh for her own sorrows and to think bitterly of Aunt Rose, she had not time to linger on her emotions. Summer was gay in Upper Radstowe. There were tea-parties and picnics, she paid calls with her aunts and learnt to play lawn tennis with her contemporaries. Her friendship with the Battys ripened.

She was always sure of her welcome at Prospect House, and though she often assured herself that she could love no one but Francis Sales, that was no reason why others should not love her. From that point of view John Batty was a failure. He took her to a cricket match, but finding that she did not know the alphabet of the game, and was more interested in the spectators than in the players, he gave her up. He admired her appearance, but it did not make amends for ignorance of such a grossness; and, equally displeased with him, she returned home alone while he watched out the match.

The next day when she paid her usual Sunday visit, she ignored him pointedly and mentally crossed him off her list. Charles, ugly and odd, was infinitely more responsive, though he greeted her on this occasion with reproach.

‘You went to a cricket match yesterday with John.’

‘It was very boring and I got a headache. I shall never go again.’

‘He said he wouldn’t take you.’

Henrietta smiled subtly, implying a good deal.

‘I shouldn’t have thought,’ Charles went on mournfully, ‘of suggesting such a thing.’

‘My aunts were rather shocked. I went on the top of a tramcar with him.’

‘But if you can go out with him, why shouldn’t you go out with me?’

‘But where?’ Henrietta questioned practically.

‘Well, to a concert.’

‘When?’

‘When there is one. I don’t know. They won’t have one in this God-forsaken place until the autumn.’

‘That’s a long time ahead.’

He spread his hands. ‘You see, I never have any luck. I just want you to promise.’

‘Oh, I’ll promise,’ Henrietta said.

‘It will be the first time I’ve been anywhere with a girl,’ he said. ‘I don’t get on.’

‘Have you wanted to?’

He sighed. ‘Yes, but not much.’ Her laughter, which was so pretty, startled him; it also delighted him with its music, and his sad eyes grew wider and more vague. He had an inspiration. ‘I’ll take you home now.’

‘I’m not going home. I’ve promised to go to Sales Hall.’

‘Sales Hall–oh, yes, he’s the man who talks at concerts–when he goes. I know him. Have you ever wanted to murder anyone? I’ve wanted to murder him. I might some day. You’d better warn him.’

Was this another strand in the web of her drama, she wondered. Was Aunt Rose involved in this too? She breathed quickly. ‘Why, what has he done to you?’

He ground his teeth, looking terrible but ineffectual. ‘Stolen beauty. That’s what his sort does. He kills lovely things that fly and run, for sport, and he steals beauty, spoils it.’

‘Who?’ she whispered.

‘That man Sales.’

‘No, no. Who has he stolen and spoilt?’

‘Heavenly music–and my happiness. I lost a bar–a whole bar, I tell you. I’ll never forgive him. I can’t get it back.’

‘If that’s all–‘ Henrietta gestured.

‘And there are others,’ Charles went on. ‘I never forget them. I meet them in the streets and they look horrible–like beetles.’ ‘I believe you’re mad,’ Henrietta said earnestly. ‘It’s not sense.’

‘What is sense?’ Henrietta could not tell him. She looked at him, a little afraid, but excited by this proximity to danger. And I thought you would understand.’

‘Of course I do.’ She could not bear to let go of anything which might do her credit. ‘I do. But you exaggerate. And Mr. Sales–‘ She hesitated, and in doing so she remembered to be angry with Charles Batty for maligning him. ‘How can you judge Mr. Sales?’ she asked with scorn. ‘He is a man.’ ‘And what am I?’ Charles demanded.

‘You’re–queer,’ she said.

‘Yes’–his face twisted curiously–‘I suppose if I shot things and chased them, you’d like me better. But I can’t–not even for that, but perhaps, some day–‘ He seemed to lose himself in the vagueness of his thoughts.

She finished his sentence gaily, for after all, it was absurd to quarrel with him. ‘Some day we’ll go to a concert.’

He recovered himself. ‘More than that,’ he said. He nodded his head with unexpected vigour. ‘You’ll see.’

She gazed at him. It was wonderful to think of all the things that might happen to a person who was only twenty-one, but she hastily corrected her thoughts. What could happen to her? In a few short days events had rushed together and exhausted themselves at their source! There was nothing left. She said good-bye to Charles and thought him foolish not to offer to accompany her. She said, ‘It’s a very long way to Sales Hall,’ and he answered, ‘Oh, you’ll meet that man somewhere, potting at rabbits.’

‘Do you think so? I hope he won’t shoot me.’ And she saw herself stretched on the ground, wounded, dying, with just enough force to utter words he could never forget–words that would change his whole life. She was willing to sacrifice herself and she said good-bye to Charles again, and sorrowfully, as though she were already dead. She tried to plan her dying words, but as she could not hit on satisfactory ones, she contented herself with deciding that whether she were wounded or not, she would try to introduce the subject of Aunt Rose; and as she went she looked out hopefully for a tall figure with a gun under its arm.

She met it, but without a gun, on the track where, on one side, the trees stood in fresh green, like banners, and on the other the meadows sloped roughly to the distant water. He had been watching for her, he said, and suddenly over her assurance there swept a wave of embarrassment, of shyness. She was alone with him and he was not like Charles Batty. He looked down at her with amusement in his blue, thick-lashed eyes, and it was difficult to believe that here was the hero, or the villain, of the piece. She felt the sensation she had known when he handed her the orchid, and she blushed absurdly when he actually said, as though he read her thoughts, ‘No orchids to-day?’

‘No.’ She laughed up at him. ‘That was a special treat. I didn’t see Mr. Batty this afternoon, and he couldn’t afford to give them away every Sunday.’

‘Do you go there every Sunday?’ ‘Yes; they’re very kind.’

‘They would be.’

This reminded her a little of Mr. Jenkins, though she cast the idea from her quickly. Mr. Jenkins was not worthy of sharing a moment’s thought with Francis Sales; his collar was made of rubber, his accent was grotesque; but the influence of the boarding-house was still on her when she asked very innocently, ‘Why?’

‘Oh, I needn’t tell you that.’

It was Mr. Jenkins again, but in a voice that was soft, almost caressing. Did Mr. Sales talk like this to Aunt Rose? She could not believe it and she was both flattered and distressed. She must assert her dignity and she had no way of doing it but by an expression of firmness, a slight tightening of lips that wanted to twitch into a smile.

‘Mr. Charles Batty,’ the voice went on, ‘seems to have missed his opportunities, but I have always suspected him of idiocy.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said untruthfully, and then, loyally, she protested. ‘But he’s not an idiot. He’s very clever, too clever, not like other people.’

‘Well, there are different names for that sort of thing,’ he said easily, and she was aware of an immense distance between her and him– he seemed to have put her from him with a light push–and at the same time she was oppressively conscious of his nearness. She felt angry, and she burst out, ‘I won’t have you speaking like that about Charles.’

‘Certainly not, if he’s a friend of yours.’

‘And I won’t have you laughing at me.’

He stopped in his long stride. ‘Don’t you laugh yourself at the things that please you very much?’

‘Oh, don’t!’ she begged. He was too much for her; she was helpless, as though she had been drugged to a point when she could move and think, but only through a mist, and she felt that his ease, approaching impudence, was as indecent as Aunt Rose’s calm. It was both irritating and pleasing to know that she could have shattered both with the word she was incapable of saying, but her nearest approach to that was an inquiry after the health of Mrs. Sales. He replied that she was looking forward to Henrietta’s visit. She had very few pleasures and was always glad to see people.

‘Aunt Rose’–here was an opportunity–‘comes, doesn’t she, every week?’

He said he believed so.

‘Did you know her when she was a little girl?’

He gave a discouraging affirmative.

‘What was she like?’

‘I don’t know.’ He had, indeed, forgotten.

‘Well, you must remember her when she was young.’

‘Young?’

Henrietta nodded bravely though he seemed to smoulder. ‘As young as I am.’

‘She was exactly the same as she is now. No, not quite.’

‘Nicer?’

‘Nicer? What a word! Nice!’ He looked all round him and made a flourish with his stick. He could not express himself, yet he seemed unable to be silent. ‘Do you call the sky nice?’

‘Yes, very, when it’s blue.’

He gave, to her great satisfaction, the kind of laugh she had expected. ‘Let us talk about something a little smaller than the sky,’ he said. He looked down at her, and she was relieved to see the anger fading from his face; but she was glad to have learnt something of what he felt for Aunt Rose. To him she was like the sky whence came the rain and the sunshine, where the stars shone and the moon, and she wondered to what he would have compared herself. ‘You said we might be sisters.’

He looked again. She wore a broad white hat in honour of the season, her black dress was dotted with white; from one capable white hand she swung her gloves; she tilted her chin, a trick she had inherited from her father, in a sort of challenge.

‘You like the idea?’ he asked.

‘I don’t believe it. I’m really the image of my father. Did you know him?’

‘No. Heard of him, of course.’

‘It’s him I’m like,’ Henrietta repeated firmly.

‘Then the story of his good looks must be true.’

Mixed with her pleasure, she had a return of disappointment. Here was Mr. Jenkins once more, and while it was sad to discover his re-incarnation in her ideal, it was thrilling to resume the kind of fencing she thought she had resigned. She forgot her virtuous resolves, and the remainder of the walk was enlivened by the hope of a thrust which she would have to parry, but none came. Francis Sales seemed to have exhausted his efforts, and at the door he said with a sort of sulkiness, ‘I think you had better go up alone. You must let me see you home.’

This was not her first solitary visit to Christabel Sales, and she half dreaded, half enjoyed meeting the glances of those wide blue eyes, which were searching behind their innocence and hearing remarks which, though dropped carelessly, always gave her the impression of being tipped with steel. She was bewildered, troubled by her sense that she and Christabel were allies and yet antagonists, and her jealousy of her Aunt Rose fought with her unwilling loyalty to one of her own blood. There were moments when she acquiesced in the suggestions offered in the form of admiration, and others when she stiffened with distaste, with a realization that she herself was liable to attack, with horror for the beautiful luxurious room, the crippled woman, the listening cat. Henrietta sometimes saw herself as a mouse, in mortal danger of a feline spring, and then pity for Christabel would overcome this weariness; she would talk to her with what skill she had for entertainment, and she emerged exhausted, as though from a fight.

This evening she was amazed to be received without any greeting, but a question: ‘Has Rose Mallett told you why I am here?’ Christabel was lying very low on her couch. Her lips hardly moved; these might have been the last words she would ever utter.

‘Yes, a hunting accident. And you told me about it yourself.’

There was a silence, and then the voice, its sharpness dulled, said slowly, ‘Yes, I told you what I remembered and what I heard afterwards. A hunting accident! It sounds so simple. That’s what they call it. Names are useful. We couldn’t get on without them. I get such queer ideas, lying here, with nothing to do. Before I was married I never thought at all. I was too happy.’ She seemed to be lost in memory of that time. Henrietta sat very still; she breathed carefully as though a brusqueness would be fatal, and the voice began again. ‘They call you Henrietta. It’s only a name, but it doesn’t describe you; nobody knows what it means except you, but it’s convenient. It’s the same with my hunting accident. Do you see?’

Henrietta said nothing. She had that familiar feeling of being in the dark, and now the evening shadows augmented it. She was conscious of the cat behind her, on the hearthrug.

‘Do you see?’ Christabel persisted.

‘Things have to be called something,’ Henrietta said.

‘That’s just what I have been telling you. And so Rose Mallett calls it a hunting accident.’ A high-pitched and thin laugh came from the pillows. ‘She was terribly distressed about it. And she actually told me she had suspected that mare from the first. She told me! It’s funny–don’t you think so?’

‘No,’ Henrietta said stoutly, ‘not funny at all.’ She spoke in a very firm and reasonable voice, as though only her common sense could combat what seemed like insanity in the other. ‘I think it’s very sad.’

‘For me? Oh, yes, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of your charming aunt, the most beautiful woman in Radstowe. That’s what I have heard her called. Yet why hasn’t she married? Can’t she find anybody’–the voice was gentle–‘to love her? She suspected that mare but she warned nobody. Funny–‘

Henrietta had a physical inward trembling. She felt a dreadful rage against the woman on the couch, a sickening disgust, such as she would have felt at looking down a dark, deep well and seeing slime and blind ugliness at the bottom. She felt as though her ears were dirty; she tried to move, but she sat perfectly still and, dreading what would come next, she listened, fascinated.

‘Perhaps she is in love with somebody. Does she get many letters, Henrietta? She is very reserved, she doesn’t tell me much; but, of course, I’m interested in her.’ She laughed again. ‘I am very anxious for her happiness. It would comfort me to know anything you can tell me.’

Henrietta managed to stand up. ‘I know nothing,’ she said in a slightly broken voice. ‘I don’t want to know anything.’

Christabel interrupted smoothly. ‘Perhaps you are wise or you couldn’t stay happily in that house. They’re all like witches, those women. They frighten me. You must be very brave, Henrietta.’

‘I’m very grateful,’ Henrietta said; ‘and I shan’t come here again, no, never. I don’t know what you have been trying to tell me, but I don’t believe it. It’s no good crying. I shall never come back. They’re not witches.’ She had a vision of them at the dinner table, Rose like a white flower, Caroline and Sophia jewelled, gaily dressed, a little absurd, oddly distinguished. ‘Witches! They are my father’s sisters, and I love them.’

‘Ah, but you don’t know Rose,’ Christabel sobbed. ‘And don’t say you will never come again. And don’t tell Francis. He would be angry.’

‘How could I tell him?’ Henrietta asked indignantly. ‘No, no, I don’t want to see either of you again. I shall go away–go away–‘ She left the room to the sound of a horrible, faint weeping.

She meant what she had said. She thought she would go away from Radstowe and forget Christabel Sales, forget Francis Sales, whom she would no longer pretend to love; forget those insinuations that Aunt Rose was guilty of a crime. This place and these people were abhorrent to her, she felt she had been poisoned and she rushed down the long avenue where, overhead, the rooks were calling, as though she could only be saved by the clean night air beyond the house. She was shocked; she believed that Christabel was mad; the thought of that warm room where the cat listened, made her gasp, and her horror extended to Francis Sales himself. The place felt wicked, but the clear road stretching before her, the pale evening sky and the sound of her own feet tapping the road restored her.

She was glad to be alone and, avoiding the short cut, she enjoyed the sanity of the highway used by ordinary men and women in the decent pursuit of their lives. But now the road was empty and though at another time she would have been afraid of the lonely country, to-night she had a sense of escape from greater perils than any lurking here. And before long it all seemed like a dream, but it was a dream that might recur if she ran the risk.

No, she would never go there again, she would never envy Aunt Rose a lover from that house, she would never believe that the worst of Christabel’s implications were true. They were the fabrications of a suspicious woman, and though her jealousy might be justified, it seemed to Henrietta that she deserved her fate. She was hateful, she was poisonous, and Henrietta felt a sudden tenderness for Aunt Rose and Francis Sales. They could not help themselves, for they were unfortunate, she longed to show them sympathy and she saw herself taking them by the hand and saying gently, ‘Confide in me. I understand.’ She imagined Aunt Rose melting at that touch and those words into tears, perhaps of repentance, certainly of gratitude, but at this point Henrietta’s fancies were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind her. She quickened her pace, then began to run, and the steps followed, gaining on her. She could not outrun them and she stopped, turning to see who came.

‘Miss Mallett!’ It was the voice of Francis Sales. She sank down on a heap of stones, panting and laughing. He sat beside her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know. I hate to hear anybody coming behind me. It might have been a tramp. I’m very much afraid of tramps.’

‘I said I would see you home.’

‘Yes, I forgot. Let us go on.’

‘You didn’t stay long.’

‘I don’t think Mrs. Sales is very well.’

‘She isn’t. She gets hysterical and that affects her heart. I thought you would do her good.’ He seemed to blame Henrietta. ‘And I thought a walk with you would do me good, too. I have a pretty dull life.’

‘Aren’t you interested in your cows and things?’

‘A man can’t live on cows.’

‘But you have other things and you live in the country. People can’t have everything. I don’t suppose you’d change with anybody really, if you could. People are like that. They grumble, but they like being themselves. Suppose you were a young man in a shop, measuring cloth or selling bacon. You’d find that much duller, I should think.’

He laughed a little. ‘Where did you learn this wisdom?’

‘I’ve had experience,’ she said staidly. ‘Yes, you’d find it duller.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. But then, you might come to buy the bacon. I should look forward to that.’

In the darkness, these playful words frightened her a little; they hurt her sense of what was fitting from him to her and at the same time they pleased her with their hint of danger.

‘Would you?’ she asked slowly.

He paused, saying, ‘May I light a pipe?’ and by the flame of the match he examined her face quite openly for a moment. ‘You know I would,’ he said.

She met his look, her eyes wavered and neither spoke for a long time. She was oppressed by his nearness, the smell of his tobacco, her own inexplicable delight. From the trees by the roadside birds gave out happy chirrups, country people in their Sunday clothes and creaking boots passed or overtook the silent pair; a man on a horse rode out from a gate and cantered with very little noise on the rough grass edging the road. Henrietta watched him until he disappeared and then it seemed as if he had never been there at all. A sheep in a field uttered a sad cry and every sight and sound seemed a little unreal, like things happening on a stage.

And gradually Henrietta’s excitement left her. The world seemed a sad and lonely place; she remembered that she herself was lonely; there was no one now to whom she was the first, and she had a longing for her mother. She wished that instead of returning to Nelson Lodge with its cleanliness and richness and comfort, she might turn the key of the boarding-house door and find herself in the narrow passage with the smell of cooking and the gas turned low; she wished she could run up the stairs and rush into the drawing-room and find her mother sitting there, sewing by the fire, and see her look up and hear her say, ‘Well, Henry dear, what have you been doing?’ After all, that old life was better than this new one. The troubles of her mother, her own young struggles for food and warmth, the woes of Mrs. Banks, had in them something nobler than she could find in the distresses of Christabel and Aunt Rose and Francis Sales, something redeeming them from the sordidness in which they were set. She checked a sob.

‘It’s a long way,’ she sighed.

‘Are you tired?’ His voice was gentle.

‘Yes, dreadfully.’

‘Then let us sit down again.’

‘No, I must go on. I must get back.’

‘If you would talk to me, you wouldn’t notice the distance.’

‘I don’t want to talk. I’m thinking. When we get to the bridge you can go back, can’t you? There will be lights and I shall be quite safe.’

‘Very well, but I wish you’d tell me what’s the matter.’

‘I’m very unhappy,’ Henrietta said with a sob.

‘What on earth for? Look here,’–he touched her arm–‘did Christabel say anything?’

‘I don’t know why it is.’

‘Are you going to cry?’

‘It’s no good crying.’

He held the arm now quite firmly and they faced each other. ‘You’d better tell me the whole story.’

Her lips quivered. She wished he would loosen his grip and hoped he would go on holding her for ever. It was a moment of mingled ecstasy and sadness. ‘Oh,’ she almost wailed, ‘can’t I be unhappy if I want to?’

He gave a short laugh, saying, ‘Poor little girl,’ and stooping, kissed her on the mouth. She endured that kiss willingly for a moment and then, very lightly, struck him in the face.

6

Afterwards there was some satisfaction in thinking that she had done the dramatic thing–what the pure-minded heroine always did to the villain; but at the time the action was spontaneous and unconsidered. Henrietta was not really avenging an insult: she was simply expressing her annoyance at her pleasure in it. Being, when she chose, a clear- sighted young woman, she realized this, but she also knew that Francis Sales would find the obvious meaning in the blow. For herself, she sanely determined to blot that episode from her mind: it was maddening to think of it as an insult and dangerous to remember its delight, and she was able calmly to tell her aunts that Mr. Sales had seen her home.

‘Then why didn’t he come in?’ Caroline asked with a grunt. ‘Leaving you on the doorstep like a housemaid!’

‘He only came as far as the bridge.’

‘My dear child! What was he thinking of? Men are not what they were, or is it the women who are different? They haven’t the charm! They haven’t the old charm! My difficulty was always to get rid of the creatures. I’m disappointed in you, Henrietta.’

‘But he’s married,’ Henrietta said gravely. ‘I only needed him on the dark roads and I should think he wanted to go back to Mrs. Sales.’

‘It would be the first time, then,’ Caroline said.

‘Why, isn’t he fond of her?’

‘Don’t ask dangerous questions, child–and would you be fond of her yourself?’

‘She’s very pretty.’

‘Now, Caroline, don’t,’ Sophia begged.

Caroline chuckled. ‘Don’t what?’

‘Say what you were going to say.’

Caroline chuckled again. ‘I can’t help it. My tongue won’t be tied. I’m like all the Malletts–‘

‘But not before the child.’

‘You’re a prude, Sophia, and if Henrietta imagines that a man like Francis Sales, any man worth his salt–besides, Henrietta has knocked about the world. She is no more innocent than she looks.’

‘She doesn’t mean half she says,’ Sophia whispered.

‘And neither is Francis Sales,’ Caroline persisted. ‘Ridiculous! Dark roads, indeed! I don’t think I care for your wandering about at night, Henrietta.’

‘I won’t do it again,’ Henrietta said meekly.

‘Sophia and I–‘ Caroline began one of her reminiscences, to which neither Sophia nor Henrietta listened. To the one, they were familiar in their exaggeration, and the other had her own thoughts, which were bewilderingly confused.

She had meant to stand between Francis Sales and Aunt Rose; later she had wished to help them, now she did not know whether she wanted to help or hinder. The thing was too much for her, but she wondered if Aunt Rose had ever experienced such a kiss. Meeting her a few minutes later on the stairs, with her slim hand on the polished rail, a beautiful satin-shod foot gleaming below the lace of her dress, she seemed a being too ethereal for a salute so earthly, and because she looked so lovely, because Christabel had been unjust, Henrietta forgot to feel unfriendly.

Rose said unexpectedly, ‘Oh, Henrietta, I am glad you have come back. You seem to have been away for a long time.’

‘I went to the Battys’ to tea and then to Sales Hall. I promised Mrs. Sales. Do you mind?’

‘Of course not; but I missed you.’

‘Oh! Oh! I never thought of that.’

‘I always miss you,’ Rose said gravely. ‘You have made a great difference to us all.’

Henrietta’s mouth opened with astonishment. ‘I had no idea. And I do nothing but enjoy myself.’

Rose laughed. ‘That’s what we want you to do. You must be as happy as you can.’

This, from Aunt Rose, was the most wonderful thing that had happened yet. Henrietta was overcome by astonishment and gratitude. ‘I had no idea. I never dreamt of your liking me. I thought you just put up with me.’

‘You haven’t given me much chance,’ Rose said in a low voice, ‘of doing anything else.’

It was true: Henrietta could not flourish when she thought herself unappreciated, but now she expanded like a flower blossoming in a night.

‘Oh, if we could be friends! There’s nobody to talk to except Charles Batty, and I hated, I simply hated being at Sales Hall to-night.’ She tightened her lips and opened them to say, ‘I shan’t go there again. I said so. She is a terrible woman.’

‘She has a great deal to bear.’

‘Yes, and she counts on your remembering that,’ Henrietta said acutely.

‘What was the matter to-night?’

‘Hints,’ Henrietta whispered. ‘Hints,’ and she added nervously, ‘about you.’

Rose made a slight movement. ‘Don’t tell me.’

‘And the cat. I ran away. She was crying, but I didn’t care. I ran all down the avenue on to the road. Mr. Sales had said he would take me home, but I didn’t wait. It was much better under the sky. Then I heard footsteps, and it was Mr. Sales running after me.’ She paused. Two stairs above her, Aunt Rose stood, listening with attention. She was, as usual, all black and white; her neck, rising from the black lace, looked like a bowl of cream laid out of doors to cool in the night.

‘He kissed me,’ Henrietta said abruptly.

Rose did not move, and before she spoke Henrietta had time to wonder what had prompted her to that confession. She had not thought about it, the words had simply issued of themselves.

‘Kissed you?’

‘Yes,’ Henrietta said, and suddenly she wanted to make it easier for Aunt Rose. ‘I think he was sorry for me. I told him I was unhappy, but I couldn’t tell him why, I couldn’t say it was his wife. I think he meant it kindly.’

‘I am sure he did,’ Rose said with admirable self-possession. ‘You look very young in that big hat, you are very young, and perhaps he guessed what you had been through. Don’t think about it any more.’

‘No.’ Henrietta seemed to have no control over her tongue. ‘But then, you see, I hit him.’

Rose managed a laugh. ‘Oh, Henrietta, how primitive!’

‘Yes,’ Henrietta agreed, but she knew she had betrayed Francis Sales. She knew and Rose knew that she would not have struck him if the kiss had been paternal. ‘I suppose it was vulgar,’ she murmured sadly, yet not without some skill.

Rose descended the two stairs without a word and went to the bottom of the flight, but there she paused, saying, ‘Take off your things and let us have some music.’

Henrietta was learning to sing, and in defiance of Charles Batty’s prophecy, she neither squeaked nor gurgled. She piped with a pretty simplicity and with an enjoyment which made her forget herself. Yet she looked charming, standing in the candle-light beside the shining grand piano on which Aunt Rose accompanied her, and to-night she felt they were united in more than the music: they were friends, they were fellow-sufferers, and long after Henrietta had tired of singing, Rose went on playing, mournfully, as it seemed to Henrietta, consoling herself with sweet sounds. Sophia sat before her embroidery frame, slowly pushing her needle in and out; Caroline read a novel with avidity and an occasional pause for chuckles, and when Rose at length dropped her hands on her knees and remained motionless, staring at the keys, Henrietta startled her aunts by saying firmly, ‘I am just going to enjoy life.’

Rose raised her head and her enigmatic smile widened a little. Caroline exclaimed, ‘Good gracious! Why not?’ Sophia said gently, ‘That is what we wish.’

Henrietta stiffened herself for questions which did not come. Nobody expressed a desire to know what had caused this solemn declaration: Caroline went on reading, Sophia embroidering; Rose retired to bed.

Henrietta was not daunted by this indifference. She persisted in her determination; she cast off all thoughts of ministering like an angel, or revenging like a demon; she enjoyed the gaieties with which the youth of Radstowe amused itself during the summer months; she accompanied her aunts to garden parties, ate ices, had her fortune told in tents, flirted mildly and endured Charles Batty’s peculiar half-apprehensive tyranny.

Nothing went amiss with Charles but what he seemed to blame her for it, and while she resented this strange form of attention, she had a compensating conviction that he was really paying tribute and she knew that the absence of his complaints would have left a blank. Fixing her with his pale eyes, he described the bitterness of life in his father’s office, his mismanagement of clients, his father’s sneers, his mother’s sighs; his sufferings in not being allowed to go to Germany and study music.

‘If I were a man,’ Henrietta said, voicing a pathetic faith in masculine ability to break bonds, ‘I would do what I liked. I’d go to Germany and starve and be happy. A man can do and get anything he really wants.’

‘Ah, I shall remember that,’ he said. ‘But I can’t go to Germany now,’ he added darkly, and when she asked him for a reason, he groaned. ‘Even you–even you don’t understand me.’

In this respect she understood him perfectly well, but she did not wish to clear the mysterious gloom, not devoid of excitement, in which they moved together; and they parted for the summer holidays, miserably on his part, cheerfully on hers. She was going to Scotland with Aunt Rose and the prospect was so delightful that she did not trouble to inquire about his movements.

She was surprised and almost disappointed that he did not reproach her for this thoughtlessness when, on her return, she went to call on Mrs. Batty and hear about her annual holiday at Bournemouth. Mrs. Batty had suffered very much from the heat, Mr. Batty had suffered from dyspepsia, and they were glad to be at home again, though it was to find that John, without a hint to his parents, had engaged himself to a girl with tastes like his own.

‘But it’s bull-dogs with her, instead of terriers,’ Mrs. Batty sighed. ‘She brings them here and they slobber on the carpets–dirty things. And golf. But she’s a nice girl, and they go out before breakfast with the dogs and have a game–but I did hope he would look elsewhere, dear.’ She gazed sentimentally at Henrietta. ‘I don’t feel she will ever be a daughter to me. Of course, I kissed her and all that when I heard the news, but now she just comes in and says, “Hullo, Mrs. Batty! Where’s John?” And that’s all. I do like affection. She’ll kiss the bull-dogs, though,’ Mrs. Batty added grimly; ‘but whether she ever kisses John, I can’t say. And as for Charles, he never looks at a girl, so I’m as badly off as ever. Worse, for Charles, really Charles hasn’t a word to throw at me. He comes down to breakfast and you’d think the bacon had upset him, and it’s the best I can get. And his father sits reading the paper and lifting his eyebrows over the edge at Charles. He’s very cool, Mr. Batty is. Half the time, John comes in late for breakfast, after his game, you know, and then he’s in too much of a hurry to talk. They might all be dumb. With Charles it’s all that piano business. I tell him I wish he’d go to Germany and be done with it, though I never think musicians are respectable, with all that hair. Anyhow, Charles is getting bald, and he says he’s too old to start afresh. And then he glares at his father. It’s all very unpleasant. Still, he’s a good boy really. They’re both good boys. I’ve a lot to be thankful for; and, my dear,’–her voice sank, and she laid a plump hand on Henrietta’s–‘Mr. Batty says we may give a ball after Christmas. Everybody in Radstowe. We shall take the Assembly Rooms. The date isn’t fixed, and now and then, if he isn’t feeling well, Mr. Batty says he can’t afford it. But that’s nonsense, we shall have it; but don’t say a word. I’ve told nobody else, but somehow, Henrietta, I always want to tell you everything, as if you were my daughter.’ Mrs. Batty sighed heavily. ‘If only Charles were different!’

However, Charles surprised his mother that evening by walking to the gate with Henrietta. Arrived there, he announced firmly that he would take her home.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ Henrietta said.

‘Oh, a walk. Well, all right. Where shall we go? I know, I will take you where you’ve never been before.’

It was October and already the lamps were lighted in the streets; they studded the bridge like fairy lanterns for a fairy path to that world of woods and stealthy lanes and open country where the wind rustled the gorse bushes on the other side. Below, at the water’s edge, more lamps stood like sentinels, here and there, straight and lonely, fulfilling their task, and as Charles and Henrietta watched, the terraces of Radstowe became illuminated by an unseen hand. Over everything there was a suggestion of enchantment: lovers, strolling by, were romantic in their silence; a faint hoot from some steamer was like a laugh.

‘It will be dark over there, won’t it?’ Henrietta asked.

‘Frightfully. We’ll cut across the fields.’

‘Not to Sales Hall?’

‘Sales Hall? What for? To see that miserable fellow? We’re not going near Sales Hall.’

She breathed a word.

‘What did you say?’ he asked.

‘Cows,’ she breathed again.

‘Perhaps.’

‘But in the winter,’ she said hopefully, ‘I should think they shut them up at night, poor things.’

‘Not cold enough yet for that.’

‘I’m afraid of them, you know.’

‘Domestic animals,’ he said calmly.

‘Horns,’ she whispered.

They said no more. Their path edged those woods which in their turn edged the gorge; but here and there the trees spread themselves more freely and, through the darkness, Henrietta had glimpses of furtive little paths, of dips and hollows. A small pool, thick with early fallen leaves, had hardly a foot of gleaming surface with which to gaze like an unwinking eye at the emerging stars. But this skirting of the wood came to an end and there stretched before their feet, which made the only sound in the quiet night, a broad white road where the arched gateway of a distant house looked like the fragment of a temple.

‘I like this,’ Henrietta said; ‘I feel safe.’

‘Not for long,’ Charles replied sternly. He opened a gate and through a little coppice they reached a fence. ‘You’ll have to climb it.’ The broad fields on the other side were as dark as water and as still. It was surprising, when she jumped down, to find she did not sink, to find that she and Charles could walk steadily on this blackness, cut here and there by the deeper blackness of a hedge. There were no cows, but sheep stumbled up and bleated at their approach, and for some time the tinkling of the bell-wether’s bell accompanied them like music.

‘There’s a stile here,’ Charles said, and from this they plunged into another wood where birds fluttered and twittered and, in the undergrowth, there were small stealthy sounds.

‘I wouldn’t come here alone,’ Henrietta said, ‘for all the world.’

Charles said nothing. Mrs. Batty was right: it was like walking with a dumb man. They left the wood and walked downhill beside a ploughed field, and in the shelter of a high wall. An open lane brought them to a gate, the gate opened on a rough road through yet another wood of larch and spruce and fir. The road was deeply rutted and they walked in single file until Charles turned, saying, ‘This is what I’ve brought you to see. This is “The Monks’ Pool.”‘

A large pond, almost round and strewn with dead leaves about its edge, lay sombrely on their right hand, without a movement, without a gleam. It was like a pall covering something secret, something which must never be revealed, and opposite, where the ground rose steeply, tall firs stood up, guardians of the unknown. Faint quackings came from some unseen ducks among the willows and water gurgled at the invisible outlet of the pond; there were little stirrings and sighings among the trees. The protruding roots of an oak offered a seat to Henrietta, and behind her Charles leaned against the trunk.

It was comfortable to have him there, to be able to look at this dark beauty without fear, and as she sat there she heard an ever-increasing number of little sounds; they were caused by she knew not what: small creatures moving among the pine needles, night birds on the watch for prey, water rats, the flop of fish, the fall of some leaf over-ripe on the tree, her own slow breathing, the muffled ticking of her heart; and into this orchestra of tiny instruments there came slowly, and as if it grew out of all these, another sound.

It was the voice of Charles, and it was so much a part of this rare experience, it seemed so right a complement, that at first she did not listen to the sense of what he said. The words had no clearer meaning than had the other voices of the night; the whole thing was wonderful –the tall, immobile trees, the small, secret sounds, the black lake like an immense, mysterious pall, the steady booming of the voice, had the effect of magic.

This was essential beauty revealed to her ears and eyes, but gradually the words formed themselves into sentences and were carried to her brain. She understood that Charles was talking of himself, of her, with an eloquence born of long-considered thoughts. He was telling her how she appeared to him as a being of light and sweetness and necessity; he was telling her how he loved her; he was asking for nothing, but he was saying amazing things in language worthy of his thoughts of her.

That muffled ticking of her heart went on like distant drum beats, the symphony of tiny instruments did not pause, the dominant sound of Charles’s voice continued, and now, as she listened, she heard nothing but his voice. He was not pathetic, he did not plead, he did not claim: he spoke of very old and lasting things, and it was like hearing some one read a tale. She did not stir. She forgot that this was Charles; it was a simple heart become articulate. And then suddenly the voice stopped and the orchestra, as though in relief, in triumph, seemed to play more loudly. A water rat dived again, a duck quacked sleepily and a branch of a tree creaked mournfully under a lost puff of wind.

Henrietta turned her head and saw Charles Batty standing motionless against the tree. His hat was tilted a little to one side and his eyes were staring straight before him. Even the darkness was not entirely kind to him, but that did not matter. She wondered if he knew what he had been saying; she could not remember it all, but it would come back. As they went home over the dark fields, she would remember it. It seemed to have everything and yet nothing to do with her; it was like poetry that, without embarrassment, profoundly moves the hearer, and his very voice had developed the dignity of his theme.

He did not speak again. In complete silence they retraced their steps and at the gate of Nelson Lodge he left her. In the little high-walled garden she stood still. This had been a wonderful experience. She felt uplifted, better than herself, yet she could not resist speculating on her probable feelings if another than Charles Batty, if, for instance, Francis Sales, had poured that rhapsody into the night.

Book III: Rose and Henrietta

1

Early one October afternoon, Rose Mallett rode to Sales Hall. She went through a world of brown and gold and blue, but she was hardly conscious of beauty, and the air, which was soft, yet keen, and exciting to her horse, had no inspiriting effect on her. She felt old, incased in a sort of mental weariness which was like armour against emotion. She knew that the spirit of the country, at once gentle and wild, furtive and bold, was trying to reach her in every scent and sound: in the smell of earth, of fruit, of burning wood; in the noise of her horse’s feet as he cantered on the grassy side of the road, in the fall of a leaf, the call of a bird or a human voice become significant in distance; but she remained unmoved.

This was, she thought, like being dead yet conscious of all that happened, but the dead have the excuse of death and she had none; she was merely tired of her mode of life. It seemed to her that in her thirty-one years the sum of her achievement was looking beautiful and being loved by Francis Sales: she put it in that way, but immediately corrected herself unwillingly. Her attitude towards him had not been passive; she had loved him. She had owed him love and she had paid her debt; she had paid enough, yet if to-day he asked for more, she would give it. Her pride hoped for that demand; her weariness shrank from it.

And he had kissed Henrietta. The sharpness of that thought, on which from the first moment on the stairs she had refused to dwell, steeling her mind against it with a determination which perhaps accounted for her fatigue, was like a physical pain running through her whole body, so that the horse, feeling an unaccustomed jerk on his mouth, became alarmed and restive. She steadied him and herself. A kiss was nothing –yet she had always denied it to Francis Sales. She could not blame him, for she saw how her own fastidiousness had endangered his. He needed material evidence of love. She ought, she supposed, to have sacrificed her scruples for his sake; mentally she had already done it, and the physical refusal was perhaps no more than pride which salved her conscience and might ruin his, but it existed firmly like a fortress. She could not surrender it. Her love was not great enough for that; or was it, she asked herself, too great? She could not comfort herself with that illusion, and there came creeping the thought that for some one else, some one too strong to need such a capitulation, she would have given it gladly, but against Francis, who was intrinsically weak, she had held out.

Life seemed to mock at her; it offered the wrong opportunities, it strewed her path with chances of which no human being could judge the value until the choice had been made; it was like walking over ground pitted with hidden holes, it needed luck as well as skill to avoid a fall. But, like other people, she had to pursue her road: the thing was to hide her bruises, even from herself, and shake off the dust.

She had by this time reached the track which was connected with so much of her life, and she drew rein in astonishment. They were felling the trees. Already a space had been cleared and men and horses were busy removing the fallen trunks; piles of branches, still bravely green, lay here and there, and the pine needles of the past were now overlaid by chippings from the parent trees. What had been a still place of shadows, of muffled sounds, of solemn aisles, the scene of a secret life not revealed to men, was now half devastated, trampled, and loud with human noises. It had its own beauty of colour and activity, there was even a new splendour in the unencumbered ground, but Rose had a sense of loss and sacrilege. Something had gone. It struck her that here she was reminded of herself. Something had gone. The larch trees which had flamed in green for her each spring were dead and she had this strange dead feeling in her heart.

She saw the figure of Francis Sales detach itself from a little group and advance towards her. She knew what he would say. He would tell her, in that sulky way of his, how many weeks had passed since he had seen her and, to avoid hearing that remark, she at once waved a hand towards the clearing and said, ‘Why have you done this?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘To get money.’

‘But they were my trees.’

‘You never wrote,’ he muttered.

She made a gesture, quickly controlled. Long ago when, in the first exultation of their love and their sense of richness, they had marked out the limits of their intercourse, so that they might keep some sort of faith with Christabel and preserve what was precious to themselves, it had been decided that they were not to meet by appointment, they were not to speak of love, no letters were to be exchanged, and though time had bent the first and second rules, the last had been kept with rigour. It was understood, but periodically she had to submit to Francis Sales’s complaint, ‘You never wrote.’

‘So you cut down the trees,’ she said half playfully.

‘Why didn’t you write?’

‘Oh, Francis, you know quite well.’

He was looking at the ground; he had not once looked at her since her greeting. ‘You go off on a holiday, enjoying yourself, while I–who did you go with?’

‘With Henrietta,’ Rose said softly.

‘Oh, that girl.’

‘Yes, that girl. But here I am. I have come back.’ She seemed to invite him to be glad. ‘And,’ she went on calmly, feeling that it did not matter what she said, ‘what a queer world to come back to. I miss the trees. They stood for my childhood and my youth; yes, they stood for it, so straight–I must go on. Christabel is expecting me.’

‘She didn’t tell me.’

‘No?’ Rose questioned without surprise. ‘I suppose I shall see you at tea?’ she said.

He nodded and she touched her horse. Something had happened to him as well as to her and a mass of pain lodged itself in her breast. He was different, and as though he had suspected the weary quality of her love he had met her with the same kind, or perhaps with none at all. A little while ago she was half longing for release from this endless necessity of controlling herself and him; from the shifts, the refusals and the reproaches which had gradually become the chief part of their intercourse; and now he had dared to seem indifferent, though he had not forgotten to reproach! She could almost feel the healthy pallor of her face change to a sickly white; her anger chilled and then stiffened her into a rigidity of body and mind and when she dismounted she slid down heavily, like a figure made of wood.

The man who took her horse looked at her curiously. Miss Mallett always had a pleasant word for him and, conscious of his stare, she forced a smile. She had not ridden for weeks, she told him; she was tired. He was amused at that. She had been born in the saddle; he remembered her as a little girl on a Shetland pony and he did not believe she could ever tire. ‘Must be something wrong somewhere,’ he said, examining girth and pommels.

‘It’s old age coming on,’ Rose said gravely.

He thought that a great joke. He was twice her age already and considered himself in his prime. He led the horse away and Rose went into the house.

How extraordinarily limited her life had been! It had passed almost entirely in this house and Nelson Lodge and on the road between the two. Of all her experiences the only ones that mattered had been suffered here, and they had all been of one kind. Even Henrietta’s fewer years had been more varied. She had known poverty and been compelled to the practical application of her wits, she had baffled Mr. Jenkins, she had been kissed by Francis Sales.

Rose stood for a moment in the hall and looked for the mirror which was not there. She did not wish to give Christabel Sales the satisfaction of seeing her look distraught, but a peep in the glass of one of the sporting prints reassured her. Her appearance almost made her doubt the reality of the feelings which consisted of a great heat in the head and a deadly cold weight near her heart and which forced these triumphant words from her lips–‘At least Henrietta has never felt like this.’

She entered Christabel’s room calmly, smiling and prepared for news, but at the first sight of the invalid, lying very low in her bed and barely turning her head at the sound of the opening door, she thought that perhaps Christabel’s weakness had at last overcome her enmity.

‘I’m very ill,’ she said faintly.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, don’t say that. You may as well tell the truth–to me.’

‘Then I must say again that I am sorry.’

‘I wonder why.’

To that Rose made no answer, and before Christabel spoke again she had time to notice that the cat had gone. She breathed more easily. The cat had gone, the trees were going and Francis was going too. Suddenly she felt she did not care. The idea of an empty world was pleasant, but if Francis were really going, the cat might as well have stayed.

‘Tell me what you did in Scotland,’ Christabel said.

‘I showed Henrietta all the sights.’

‘Oh, Henrietta–she’s a horrid girl. She has stopped coming to see me.’

‘You made yourself so unpleasant.’

‘Did she tell you that? Do you think she told Francis?’

‘I know she didn’t.’

‘But I can’t make out why she should tell you.’

‘Henrietta and I are great friends.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rose said slowly. ‘What has happened to the cat?’

‘It’s gone. It went out and never came back.’

‘How queer.’

‘Some one must have killed it.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rose said thoughtfully. ‘I think it decided to go. I’m sure it did.’

‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’ Christabel cried. ‘Had you something to do with that, too?’

‘Not that I know of.’ Rose laughed. She was tired of considering every word before she uttered it.

‘With that too!’ Christabel repeated a little wildly, and then in a firm voice she said, ‘You’ve got to tell me.’

‘But I don’t know. You must make all inquiries of the cat. It was a wise animal. It knew the time had come.’

‘I think you’re mad,’ Christabel said.

‘Animals are very strange,’ Rose went on easily, ‘and rats leave sinking ships.’

A cry of terror came from Christabel. ‘You mean I’m going to die!’

‘No, no!’ Rose became sane and reassuring. ‘I never thought of that. It might have known it was going to die itself and an animal likes to die decently alone. It had been getting unhealthily fat.’

Christabel kept an exhausted silence, and Rose regretting her cruelty, aware of its futility, said gently, ‘Shall I get you a kitten?’

‘No, no kitten. They jump about. The old cat was so quiet. And I miss him.’ A tear rolled down either cheek. ‘It has been so lonely. Everybody was away.’

‘Well, we’ve all come back now,’ Rose said.

‘Yes, but that Henrietta–she’s deserted me.’

‘It was your own fault, Christabel. You horrified her.’

‘It should have been you who did that.’

‘Things don’t always have the effect we hope for. You said too much.’

‘Ah, but not half what I could have said.’

‘Too much for Henrietta, anyhow. I don’t think she will come again.’

Christabel smiled oddly and Rose knew that now she was to hear some news. ‘You can tell her,’ Christabel said, ‘that I shan’t say anything to upset her. I shall say nothing about you–as she loves you so much. Does she love you? I dare say. You make people love you–for a little while.’ Her voice lingered on those words. ‘Yes, for a little while, but you don’t keep love, Rose Mallett. No, you don’t. I’m sorry for you now. Tell Henrietta she needn’t be afraid, because I’m sorry for you. Yes, you and I are in the same boat, in the same deserted boat.

If there were any rats they would run away. You said so yourself.’

‘I said the cat had gone.’

‘Then you knew?’

Rose shook her head. It was her turn to smile. She was prepared for anything Christabel might say, she was even anxious to hear it, but when Christabel spoke in a mysteriously gleeful manner, she had difficulty in repressing a shudder. It was not, she told herself, that she suffered from the knowledge now imparted by Christabel with detail and with proofs, but her malice, her salacious curiosity were more than Rose could bear. She felt that the whole affair, which at first, so long ago, had possessed a noble sadness, a secret beauty, the quality of a precious substance enclosed in a common vial, was indecent and unclean.

‘So you see,’ Christabel said, ‘you haven’t kept him; you won’t keep Henrietta.’

Rose said nothing. She was thinking of what she might have done and she was glad she had not done it.

‘You don’t seem to mind,’ Christabel said. ‘Why don’t you ask me why I’m so sure?’ She laughed. ‘I ought to know how to find things out by this time, and I know Francis, yes, better than you do. When I had my accident–it wasn’t worth it, was it?–I said to myself, ‘Now he won’t be faithful to me.’ When I knew I should have to lie here, I told myself that. And now you–‘ Her voice almost failed her. ‘I suppose you haven’t been kind enough to him.’

‘I think it’s time I went,’ Rose said.

‘And you’ll never come back?’

‘Yes, if you want me.’

‘I can say what I like to you.’

‘You can, indeed,’ Rose murmured.

‘And tell Henrietta to come too.’

‘No, I can’t ask Henrietta.’

‘I promise to be like a maiden aunt. Ah, but she has three already– she knows what they are. That won’t attract her. I’ll be like an invalid in a Sunday School story-book.’

‘I’ll tell her of your promise,’ Rose said.

There remained the task of having tea with Francis Sales and breaking the bonds of which he had tired. She made it easy for him. That was necessary for her dignity, but beyond the desire for as much seemliness as could be saved from the general ugliness of their mistake, she had no feeling; yet she thought it would be good to be in the open air, on horseback, free. If there had been anything still owing, she had paid her debt with generosity. She gave him the chance he wanted but did not know how to take, and she had to allow him to appear aggrieved. She was cruel: she was tired of him; she was, he sneered, too good for him. The words went on for some time, and if some of them were new, their manner was wearisomely familiar. She was amazed at her own endurance, now and in the past, and at last she said, ‘No, no, Francis. Say no more. This is too much fuss. Perhaps we have both changed.’

‘It was you who began it.’

‘Was it? How can one tell?’

‘You began it,’ he persisted. ‘There was a time when you went white, like paper, when we met, and your eyes went black. Now I might be a sheep in a field.’

She was standing up, ready to go. ‘One gets used to things,’ she said.

‘I have never been used to you,’ he muttered, and she knew that, telling this truth, he also explained a good deal. ‘I never should be. You’re like nobody else–nobody.’

‘But it is too much strain,’ she murmured slowly.

‘Yes–well, it is you who have said it. I had made up my mind–I’m not ungrateful–I never intended to say a word.’

She smiled. This was the first remark which had really touched her. She found it so offensive that a smile was the only weapon with which to meet it. ‘I know that.’

‘But mind,’ he almost shouted, ‘there’s nobody like you.’

‘Yes, yes, I know that too.’ She turned to him with a silencing sternness. ‘I tell you I know everything.’

2

The old groom who held her horse nodded with satisfaction when he helped her into the saddle. She had not lost her spring and he tightened her girths in a leisurely manner and arranged her skirt with the care due to a fine rider and a lady who understood a horse, yet one who was always ready to ask an old man’s advice. He had a great admiration for Miss Mallett and, conscious of it and rather pathetically glad of it, she lingered for the pleasure of talking to some one who seemed simple and untroubled. He had spent all his life on the Sales estate, and she wondered whether, though, like herself, of a limited outward experience, he also had known the passions of love and disgust and shame. He was sixty-five, he told her, but as strong as ever, and she envied him: to be sixty-five with the turmoil of life behind him, yet to be strong enough to enjoy the peace before him, was a good finale to existence. She was only thirty-one, but she was strong too, and she felt as though she had come through a storm, battered and exhausted but whole and ready for the calm which already hovered over her. She said, ‘The young are always sorry for the old, but that is one of the many mistakes they make. I think it must be the best time of all.’

‘If you have them that cares for you,’ he answered.

That was where her own happiness would break down.

There were her stepsisters, who would probably die before herself; there was Henrietta, who would form ties of her own; and there was no one else. If she had had less faith in Francis Sales’s love and, at the same time, had been capable of pandering to it, she might have had his devotion for her old age, the devotion of a somewhat querulous and dull old man. Now she had not even that to hope for, and she was glad. She had always wanted the best of everything, and always, except in the one fatal instance, refused what fell below her standard. She had not realized until now that Francis Sales had always been below it. She had at least tried to wrap their love in beauty, but that sort of beauty was not enough for him. It was her scruples, he said, which had been his undoing, and there was truth in that, but she had to remember that when originally she had disappointed him, he had found comfort quickly in Christabel; when Christabel failed him he had returned to her; and now he had found consolation, if only of a temporary kind, in some one else. When would he seek yet another victim of his affection and his griefs? He was, she thought scornfully, a man who needed women, yet she knew that if he had pleaded with her to-day, saying that in spite of everything he needed her, she would have listened.

She admitted her responsibility, it would always be present to her, for she had that kind of conscientiousness, and having once helped him, she must always hold herself ready to do it again. The chain binding them was not altogether broken, but she no longer felt its weight. She had a lightness of spirit unknown for years; the anger, the jealous rage and the disgust had vanished with a completeness which made her doubt their short existence, and she began to make plans for a new life. There was no reason now why she should not wander all over the world, yet, on the very doorstep of Nelson Lodge, she found a reason in the person of Henrietta–flushed and gay and just returned from a tea party. She had enjoyed herself immensely, but her head ached a little. It had been all she could do to understand the brilliant conversation. There had been present a budding poet and a woman painter and she had never heard people talk like that before.

‘I didn’t speak at all, except to Charles,’ she said.

‘Oh, Charles was there?’

‘Yes. I thought it safer not to talk but I looked as bright as I could, and of course I asked for cakes and things. They all ate a lot. I was glad of that. But most of them still looked hungry at the end. And Charles has taken tickets for me for the concerts, next to him, in a special corner where you can sometimes hear the music through the whispering of the audience. That’s what he says!’

‘But, Henrietta, I have taken tickets for you too.’

‘Thank you, but perhaps they will take them back.’

‘Henrietta, you really can’t sit in a corner with Charles when I’m in another part of the hall.’

‘Can’t I? Well, Charles will be very angry, but he’ll have to put up with it. If you explained to him, Aunt Rose, he’d understand. And I’d really rather sit with you. I shall be able to look at people and if I crackle my programme you won’t glare. Of course, I shall try not to. Will you explain to him? And I did promise to go to a concert with him some day.’

‘Then you must. I’ll tell him that, too. Are you afraid of him, Henrietta?’

‘He shouts,’ Henrietta said, ‘and I’m sorry for him. And I do like him very much. I feel inclined to do things just to please him.’

‘Don’t let that carry you too far.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of. Not him, exactly, but me.’

‘I didn’t suspect you of such tenderness. I shall have to look after you.’

‘I wish you would.’

‘And if you are feeling very kind some day, perhaps you will go and see Christabel Sales. She has promised to behave herself.’

Henrietta’s expression tightened. ‘I don’t want to go. It’s a dreadful place.’

‘I know,’ Rose said, and she added encouragingly, ‘but the cat has gone.’

They were standing together in the hall and against the white panelled walls, the figure of Rose, in the austere riding habit, one gauntletted hand holding her crop, the other resting lightly on her hip, had an heroic aspect, like a statue in dark marble; but her eyes did not offer the blank gaze, the calm effrontery of stone: they looked at Henrietta with something like appeal against this obsession of the cat.

‘Oh, I’m glad the cat’s gone,’ Henrietta murmured. ‘What happened to it?’

Rose shook her head. ‘It disappeared.’

They stared at each other until Henrietta said, ‘But all the same, I don’t want to go.’ And then, because Rose would not help her out, she was obliged to say, ‘It’s Mr. Sales.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I haven’t seen him since I hit him.’

Rose turned to go upstairs. ‘I shouldn’t think too much of that.’

‘You don’t think it matters?’

‘No.’

Henrietta looked after her and followed her for a step. ‘You think I may go?’ Her voice was dull under her effort to control it. She felt that the stately figure moving up the stairs was deliberately leaving her to face a danger, sanctioning her desire to meet it. She felt her fate was in the answer made by Rose.

‘I think you can take care of yourself perfectly well, Henrietta,’ and like a sigh, another sentence floated from the landing where Rose stood, out of sight: ‘You are not like me.’

This was a mysterious and astonishing remark. Henrietta did not understand it and in her excited realization that the door so carefully locked by her own hand had been opened. Aunt Rose, she did not try to understand it. Aunt Rose had said she was able to take care of herself, and it was true, but honesty and a weak clinging to safety urged her to answer, ‘But you see, you see I don’t want to do it!’

These words were not uttered. She stood, looking up towards the empty landing with a hand pressed against her heart. It was beating fast. The spirit of Reginald Mallett, subdued in his daughter for some months, seemed to be fluttering in her breast and it was Aunt Rose who had waked it up. It was not Henrietta’s fault, she was not responsible; and suddenly, the ordinary happiness she had been enjoying was transferred into an irrational joy. She went singing up the stairs, and Rose, sitting in her room in a state of limpness she would never have allowed anybody to see, heard a sound as innocent as if a bird had waked to a sunny dawn.

Henrietta sang, but now and then she paused and became grave when the spirit of that mother who lived in her memory more and more dimly, as though she had died when Henrietta was a child, overcame the spirit of her father. Her mission was to be one of kindness to Christabel Sales, and if–the song burst out again–if adventure came in her way, could she refuse it? She would refuse nothing–the song ceased–short of sin. She looked at herself and saw a solemn feminine edition of the portrait hanging behind her on the wall. She was like her father, but she took pride in her greater conscientiousness; her vocabulary was larger than his by at least one word.

A few days later she set out on that road and past those trees which had been the safe witnesses of so much of Rose Mallett’s life, but their safeness lay in their constant muteness, and they had no message for Henrietta. Walking quickly, she rehearsed her coming meeting with Francis Sales, but when she actually met him on the green track, on the very spot where Rose had pulled up her horse in amazement at the scene of transformation, Henrietta, like Rose, had no formal greeting for him.

She said, ‘The trees! What are you doing with them?’

‘Turning them into gold.’

‘But they were beautiful.’

‘So are lots of things they will buy.’ She moved a little under his look, but when he said, ‘I’m hard up,’ she became interested.

‘Really? I thought you were frightfully rich. You ought to be with all these belongings.’ She looked round at the fields dotted with sheep and cattle, the distant chimneys of Sales Hall, the fallen trees and the team of horses dragging logs under the guidance of workmen in their shirt sleeves. ‘I know all about being poor,’ she said, ‘but I don’t suppose we mean the same thing by the word. I’ve been so poor–‘ She stopped. ‘But there’s a lot of excitement about it. I used to hope I should find a shilling in my purse that I’d forgotten. A shilling! You can do a lot with a shilling. At least I can.’

‘I wish you’d tell me how.’

‘Pretend you haven’t got it. That’s the beginning. You haven’t got it, so you can’t have what you want.’

‘I never have what I want.’

‘Then you mustn’t want anything.’

‘Oh, yes, that’s so easy.’

‘Well’–she descended to details with an air of kindness–‘what do you want? Let’s work it out. We’d better sit on the wall. After all, it’s rather lovely without the trees. It’s so clear and the air’s so blue, as if it’s trying to make up. Now tell me what you want.’

‘Something money can’t buy.’

‘Then you needn’t have cut down the trees.’

‘I shouldn’t have if I’d thought you’d care.’

She said softly but sharply, ‘I don’t believe that for a moment. Why don’t you tell the truth?’

‘Do you want to hear it?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Then I’ll wait while you make up your mind.’

Sitting on the wall, his feet rested easily on the ground while hers swung free, and while he seemed to loll in complete indifference, she was conscious of a tenseness she could not prevent. She hated her enjoyment of his manner, which was impudent, but it had the spice of danger that she liked and it was in defiance of the one and encouragement of the other that she said, ‘I’m sure you would never talk to Aunt Rose like that.’

‘I should never give your Aunt Rose my confidence,’ he said severely.

It was impossible not to feel a warmth of satisfaction, and she asked shortly, ‘Why not?’ ‘She wouldn’t understand. You’re human. I’m devilish lonely. Well, you know my circumstances.’ A shadow which seemed to affect the brightness of the autumn day, even deadening the clear shouting of the men and the jingling of the chains attached to the horses, passed over Francis Sales’s face. ‘One wants a friend.’

A cry of genuine bewilderment came from Henrietta. ‘But I thought you were so fond of Aunt Rose!’

From sulky contemplation of his brown boots and leggings, he looked at her. His eyes, of a light yet dense blue, were widely opened. ‘What makes you think that? Did she tell you?’

Henrietta’s lip curled derisively. ‘No, it was you, when you looked at her. And now you have told me again.’ She had a moment of thoughtful contempt for the blundering of men. There was Charles, who always seemed to wander in a mist, and now this Francis Sales, who revealed what he wished to hide. He was mentally inferior to Mr. Jenkins, who had a quickness of wit, a vulgar sharpness of tongue which kept the mind on the alert; but physically she had shrunk from Mr. Jenkins’s proximity, while that of Francis Sales, in his well-cut tweeds and his shining boots, who seemed as clean as the air surrounding him, had an attraction actually enhanced by his heaviness of spirit. He was like a child possessed, consciously or unconsciously, of a weapon, and her sense of her own superiority was corrected by fear of his strength and of the subtle weakness in her own blood.

She heard a murmur. ‘She has treated me very badly. I’ve known her all my life. Well–‘

Henrietta, with a gentleness he appreciated and a cleverness he missed, said commiseratingly, ‘She wouldn’t let you take her hand in the wood.’

‘What on earth are you talking about? Look here, Henrietta, what do you mean?’ There had been so many occasions of the kind that it was impossible to know to which one she referred, and, looking back, his past seemed to be blocked with frustrations and petty torments. ‘What do you mean?’ he repeated.

‘Never mind.’

‘This is some gossip,’ he muttered.

‘Yes, among the squirrels and the rabbits. Woods are full of eyes and ears.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘the eyes and ears will have to find another home. There will soon be no wood left.’

So he had tried to take Aunt Rose’s hand in this wood too! She laughed with the pretty trill which made her laughter a new thing every time.

‘I don’t see the joke,’ he grumbled.

She turned to him. ‘I don’t think you’ve laughed very much in your life. You’re always being sorry for yourself.’

‘I have been very unfortunate,’ he replied.

‘There you are again! Why don’t you tell yourself you’re lucky not to squint or turn in your toes? You’d be much more miserable then–much. But thinking yourself unfortunate, when you’re not, is a pleasant occupation.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know a lot,’ Henrietta said. ‘But I never thought myself unfortunate, so I wasn’t.’

‘Very noble,’ Sales said sourly.

‘No. I told you it was exciting to be poor. You’re not poor enough. A new dress,’ she went on, clasping her hands; ‘first of all, I had to save up–in pennies.’ She turned accusingly. ‘You don’t believe it.’

‘It must have taken a long time.’

‘It did, but not so long as you would think, because it cost so little in the end. I saved up, and then I looked in the shop windows, and then I talked about it for days, and then I bought the stuff. Mother cut out the dress, and then I made it.’

‘And the result was charming.’

‘I thought so then. Now I know it wasn’t, but at the time I was happy.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s very interesting, but it doesn’t help me.’

‘But I could help you if you told me your troubles. I should know how.’

‘Telling my troubles would be a help.’

‘Here I am, then.’

‘What’s the good?’ he said. ‘You’ll desert me, too.’

‘Not if you’re good.’

‘Oh, if that’s the stipulation–‘ He stood up. His tone, which might have been provocative, was simply bored. She knew she had been dull, and her lip trembled with mortification.

‘Why, of course!’ she cried gaily, when she had mastered that weakness. ‘Aunt Caroline warned me against you this very afternoon. She said–but, never mind. I’m not going to repeat her remarks. And anyhow, Aunt Sophia said they were not true. Aunt Rose,’ Henrietta said thoughtfully, ‘was not there. I don’t suppose either of them is right. And now I’m going to see Mrs. Sales.’

He ran after her. ‘Henrietta, I shouldn’t tell her you’ve seen me.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t like that.’

‘It’s for her sake.’

Henrietta turned away without a word, but she pondered, as she went, on the dangerous likeness between right and wrong and the horrible facility with which they could be, with which they had to be, interchanged. One became bewildered, one became lost; she felt herself being forced into a false position: she might not be able to get out. Aunt Rose had sent her, Francis Sales was conspiring with her–she made her father’s gesture of helplessness, it was not her fault. But she made up her mind she would never allow Francis Sales to find her dull again, for that was unfair to herself.

3

Rose Mallett, who had always accepted conditions and not criticized them, found herself in those days forced to a puzzled consideration of life. It seemed an unnecessary invention on the part of a creator, a freak which, on contemplation, he must surely regret. She was not tired of her own existence, but she wondered what it was for and what, possessing it, she could do with it. Her one attempt at usefulness had been foiled, and though she had never consciously wanted anything to do, she felt the need now that she was deprived of it. She passed her days in the order and elegance of Nelson Lodge, in a monotonous satisfaction of the eye, listening to the familiar chatter of Caroline and Sophia, dressing herself with tireless care and refusing to regret her past. Nevertheless, it had been wasted, and the only occupation of her present was her anxiety for Francis Sales. She could not rid herself of that claim, begun so long ago. She had to accept the inactive responsibility which in another would have resolved itself into earnest prayer but which in her was a stoical endurance of possibilities.

What was he doing? What would he do? She knew he could not stand alone, she knew she must continue to hold herself ready for his service, but a prisoner fastened to a chain does not find much solace in counting the links, and that was all she had to do. It seemed to her that she moved, rather like a ghost, up and down the stairs, about the landing, in the delicate silence of her bedroom; that she sat ghost-like at the dining-table and heard the strangely aimless talk of human beings. She supposed there were countless women like herself, unoccupied and lonely, yet her pride resented the idea. There was only one Rose Mallett; there was no one else with just her past, with the same mental pictures and her peculiar isolation, and if she had been a vainer woman she would have added that no other woman offered the same kind of beauty to a world in need of it. Her obvious consolation was in the presence of Henrietta, though she had little companionship to give her aunt, and no suspicion that Rose, almost unawares, began to transfer her interests to the girl, to set her mind on Henrietta’s happiness. She would take her abroad and let her see the world.

Caroline sniffed at the suggestion, Sophia sighed.

‘The world’s the same everywhere,’ Caroline said. ‘If you know one man you know them all.’

‘But if you know a great many, you will know one all the better. However,’ she smiled in the way of which her stepsisters were afraid, ‘I wasn’t thinking of men.’

‘That’s where you’re so unnatural.’

‘I was thinking of places–cities and mountains and plains.’

‘You’ll get the plague or be run away with by brigands.’

‘I think Henrietta and I would rather like the brigands. We must avoid the plague.’

‘Smallpox,’ Caroline went on, ‘and your complexions ruined.’

‘I wish you would stay at home,’ Sophia said. ‘Caroline and I are getting old.’

‘Nonsense, Sophia! I’d go myself for twopence. But I’d better wait here and get the ransom money ready, and then James Batty and I can start out together with a bag of it.’ She laughed loudly at the prospect of setting forth with the respectable James. ‘And it wouldn’t be the first elopement I’d planned either. When I was eighteen I set my mind on getting out of my bedroom window with a bundle–no, of course I never told you, Sophia. You would have run in hysterics to the General. But there was never one among them all who was worth the inconvenience, so I gave it up. I always had more sense than sentiment.’ She sighed with regret for the legions of disappointed and fictitious lovers waiting under windows, with which her mind was peopled. ‘Not one,’ she repeated.

No one took any notice. Sophia, drooping her heavy head, was thinking of brigands in a far country and of Caroline and herself left in Nelson Lodge without Rose and without Henrietta. If they really went away she determined to tell Henrietta the story of her lover, lest she should die and the tale be unrecorded. She wanted somebody to know; she would tell Henrietta on the eve of her departure, among the bags and boxes. He had gone to America and died there, and that continent was both sacred to her and abhorrent.

‘Don’t go to America,’ she murmured.

‘Why not?’ Caroline demanded. ‘Just the place they ought to go to. Lots of millionaires.’

Rose reassured Sophia. ‘And it is only an idea. I haven’t said a word to Henrietta.’

Henrietta showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion. She liked Radstowe. And there was the Battys’ ball. It would be a pity to miss that. She must certainly not miss that, said Caroline and Sophia. And what was she going to wear? They had better go upstairs at once, to the elder ladies’ room, and see what could be done with Caroline’s pink satin. She had only worn it once, years ago. Nobody would remember it, and trimmed with some of her mother’s lace, the big flounce and the fichu, it would be a different thing. Sophia could wear her apricot.

‘Come along, Henrietta. Come along, Rose. We must really get this settled.’

They went upstairs, Caroline moving with heavy dignity, but keeping up her head as she had been taught in her youth. Nothing was more unbecoming than ducking the head and sticking out the back. Sophia went slowly, holding to the balustrade, so very slowly that Henrietta did not attempt to start. She said softly to Rose, ‘How slowly she goes. I’ve never noticed it before.’

‘She always goes upstairs like that,’ Rose said. ‘It is not natural to her to hurry.’

Henrietta followed and found Sophia panting a little on the landing. She laid hold of her niece’s arm. ‘A little out of breath,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t say anything, dear child, to Caroline. She doesn’t like to be reminded of our age.’

They went into the bedroom and Rose, drifting into her own room, heard the opening of the great wardrobe doors. She would be called in presently for her advice, but there would be a lot of talk and many reminiscences before she was needed. She stood by the fire, which, giving the only light to the room, threw golden patches on the white dressing-gown lying across a chair, and made the buckles on her shoes sparkle like diamonds.

She was wondering why Henrietta’s eyes had darkened as though with fear at the idea of going away. She had been very quick in veiling them, and her voice, too, had been quick, a little tremulous. There was more than the Battys’ ball in her desire to stay in Radstowe. Was it Charles whom she was both to leave? Afterwards, perhaps in the spring, she had said it would be nice to go. It was kind of Aunt Rose, and Aunt Rose, gazing down at the fire, controlled her longing to escape from this place too full of memories. She would not leave Henrietta who had to be cared for, perhaps protected; she would not persuade her who had to be happy, but she felt a sinking of the heart which was almost physical. She rested both hands on the mantelshelf and on them her weight. She felt as though she could not go on like this for ever. She, who apparently had no ties, was never free; she had the duties without the joys, and for these few minutes, before a knock came at the door, she allowed herself the relief of melancholy. She was incapable of tears, but she wished she could cry bitterly and for a long time.

The knock was Henrietta’s. She entered a little timidly. Aunt Rose was not free with invitations to her room and to Henrietta it was a beautiful and mysterious place. She had a childlike pleasure in the silver and glass on the dressing-table, in glimpses of exquisite garments and slippers worn to the shape of Aunt Rose’s slim foot, and Aunt Rose herself was like some fairy princess growing old and no less lovely in captivity, but to-night, that dark straight figure splashed by the firelight reminded her of words uttered by Christabel. She had said that all Henrietta’s aunts were witches, and for the first time the girl agreed. In the other room, brilliantly lighted, Caroline and Sophia were bending somewhat greedily over a mass of silks and satins and laces, their cheeks flushed round the dabs of rouge, their fingers active yet inept, fumbling in what might have been a brew for the working of spells; and here, straight as a tree, Aunt Rose looked into the fire as though she could see the future in its red heart, but her voice, very clear, had a reassuring quality. It was not, Henrietta thought, a witch’s voice. Witches mumbled and screeched, and Aunt Rose spoke like water falling from a height.

‘Come in, Henrietta. Is the consultation over?’

‘It has hardly begun. What a lot of clothes they have, and boxes of lace, boxes! I think you will have to decide for them. And Aunt Caroline snubs Aunt Sophia, all the time.’

‘Did they send you to fetch me?’

‘Yes, but we needn’t go back yet, need we? Aunt Caroline wants to wear her emeralds, but she says they will look vulgar with pink satin. There’s some lovely grey stuff like a cobweb. She says it was in her mother’s trousseau and I think she ought to wear that, but she says she is going to keep it until she’s old!’

‘Then she’ll never wear it. She will never make such an admission.’

‘And she won’t let Aunt Sophia have it because she says it would make her look like a dusty broom. And it would, you know! She’s really very funny sometimes.’

‘Very funny. We’re queer people, Henrietta.’

‘Are we? And I’m more theirs than yours.’

‘As far as blood goes, yes.’ She spoke very quietly, but she felt a great desire to assert, for once, her own claims, instead of accepting those of others. She wanted to tell Henrietta that in return for the secret care, the growing affection she was giving, she demanded confidence and love; but she had never asked for anything in her life. She had taken coolly much she could easily have done without, admiration and respect and the material advantages to which she had been born, but she had asked for nothing. Cruelly conscious of all that lay in the gift of Henrietta, who sat in a low chair, her chin on the joined fingers of her hands, Rose continued to look at the fire.

‘You mean I’m really more like you?’ Henrietta said. ‘Am I? I’m like my father,’ and she added softly, ‘terribly.’

‘Why terribly?’

Henrietta moved her feet. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘I wish you’d tell me.’

‘He was queer. You said we all were, and I’m a Mallett, too, that’s all. Don’t you think we ought to go and see about the dresses now? Aunt Rose, they’re bothering me to wear white, the only thing for a young girl, but I want to wear yellow. Don’t you think I might?’

Rose, who had felt herself on the brink of confidences, as though she peered over a cliff, and watched the mists clear to show the secret valley underneath, now saw the clouds thicken hopelessly, and retreated from her position with an effort.

‘Yellow? Yes, certainly. You will look like a marigold. Henrietta–‘ She did not know what she was going to say, but she wanted to detain the girl for a little longer, she hoped for another chance of drawing nearer. ‘Henrietta, wait a minute.’ She moved to her dressing-table, smiling at what she was about to do. It seemed as though she were going to bribe the girl to love her, but she was only yielding to the pathetic human desire to give something tangible since the intangible was ignored. ‘When I was twenty-one,’ she said, ‘your father gave me a present.’

‘Only when you were twenty-one?’

‘Well,’ Rose excused him, ‘we didn’t know each other very well. He was a great deal from home, but he remembered my twenty-first birthday and he gave me this necklace. I think it’s beautiful, but I never wear it now, and I think you may like to have it. Here it is, in its own box and with the card he wrote–“A jewel for a rose.”‘

Holding it in her cupped hands, Henrietta murmured with delight: ‘May I have it really? How lovely! And may I have the card, too? He did say nice things. Are you sure you can spare the card? I expect he admired you very much. He liked beautiful women. My mother was pretty, too; but I don’t believe he ever gave her anything except a wedding-ring, and he had to give her that.’

‘Oh, Henrietta–well, his daughter shall have all he gave me.’

‘If you’re sure you don’t want it. What are the stones?’

‘Topaz and diamonds; but so small that you can wear them.’

‘Topaz and diamonds! Oh!’ And Henrietta, clasping it round her neck and surveying herself by the candles Rose had lighted, said earnestly, ‘Oh, I do hope he paid for it!’ This was the first thought of Reginald Mallett’s daughter.

Rose was horrified into laughter, which seemed hysterically continuous to Henrietta, and through it Rose cried tenderly, ‘Oh, you poor child! You poor child!’

Henrietta did not laugh. She said gravely, ‘All the same, I’m glad I had him for a father. Nobody but he would have chosen a thing like this. He had such taste.’ She looked at her aunt. ‘I do hope I have some taste, too.’

‘I hope you have,’ Rose said with equal gravity. She laughed no longer. ‘There are many kinds, and though he knew how to choose an ornament, he made mistakes in other ways.’

Henrietta unclasped the necklace and laid it down. She looked, indeed, remarkably like her father. Her eyes flashed above her angry mouth. ‘You mean my mother!’

‘No, Henrietta. How could I? I did not know your mother, and from the little you have told us I believe she was too good for him.’

‘How can I tell you more,’ Henrietta protested, ‘when I know what you would be thinking? You would be thinking she was common. Aunt Caroline does. She does! I don’t know how she dare! No, I won’t have the necklace.’

‘You must believe what I say, Henrietta. Your mother was not the only woman in your father’s life, and I was referring to the others.’

‘You need not speak of them to me,’ Henrietta said with dignity.

‘I won’t do so again. That, perhaps, is where my own taste failed.’ She decided to put out no more feelers for Henrietta’s thoughts. It was what she would have resented bitterly herself, and it did no good. She was not clever at this unpractised art, and she told herself that if her own affection could not tell her what she wished to know, the information would be useless. Moreover, she had Henrietta’s word for it that she was terribly like her father.

‘So put on the necklace again. It suits you better than it does me, so well that we can pretend he really chose it for you.’

‘Yes,’ Henrietta said, fingering it again, ‘if you promise you never think anything horrid about my mother.’

‘The worst I have ever thought of her,’ Rose said lightly, ‘is envying her for her daughter.’

She saw Henrietta’s mouth open inelegantly. ‘Me? Oh, but you’re not old enough.’

‘I feel very old sometimes.’

‘I thought you were when I first saw you,’ Henrietta said, looking in the glass and swaying her body to make the diamonds glitter, ‘but now I know you never will be, because it’s only ugly people who get old. When your hair is white you’ll be like a queen. Now you’re a princess, though Mrs. Sales says you’re a witch. Oh, I didn’t mean to tell you that. It was a long time ago. She is never disagreeable now. I’m going to see her again to-morrow.’

‘I wish you would go in the morning, Henrietta. The afternoons get dark so soon and the road is lonely.’

‘She doesn’t like visitors in the morning,’ Henrietta said. ‘I love this necklace. Could I wear it to the dance?’

‘It depends on the dress. If you are really to look like a marigold you must wear no ornaments. If you had yellow tulle–‘ And Rose took pencil and paper and made a rough design, talking with enthusiasm meanwhile, for like all the Malletts, she loved clothes.

The next day Caroline had to stay in bed. She had been feverish all