The Misses Mallett by E. H. Young (page 5)

She nodded, and he kept the bag as hostage.

The large policeman had strolled back. He saw the tall young man standing over the bag and thought it would be well to keep an eye on him, but Charles did not notice the policeman. His whole attention was for Henrietta’s reappearance. She would come back because she had said she would, but if she did not come alone there would be trouble. He did not, however, expect to see Francis Sales: he gathered that Sales had failed her, and he was sorry. He would have beaten him, somehow; he would have conquered for the first time in his life, and now he felt that his task was going to be too easy. He wished he could have sweated and panted in the doing of it; and when Henrietta returned alone, walking with an angry swiftness, he felt a genuine regret.

‘Come along, Charles,’ she said briskly. ‘Let us have dinner.’

He could see the brightness of her eyes, looking past him; her lips had a fixed smile and he wished she would cry again. ‘She is crying inside,’ he told himself. He moved forward beside her vaguely. The tenderness of his love for her was like a powerful, warm wave, sweeping over him and making him helpless for the time. He could do nothing against it, he had to be carried with it, but suddenly it receded, leaving him high and dry and unromantically in contact with a lamp-post. His hat had fallen off.

‘What are you doing?’ Henrietta asked irritably.

He rubbed his head. ‘Bumped it. I was thinking about you.’

‘What were you thinking?’ she asked defiantly.

‘Oh, well–‘ he said.

She laughed. ‘Charles, you’re hopeless.’

‘No, I’m not.’ He stooped for his hat and picked it up. ‘Not,’ he repeated strongly. ‘Here’s the place.’ They had turned into a busy street. ‘I hope there won’t be a band.’

‘I hope there will be. I want noises, hideous noises.’

‘You’re going to get them,’ he sighed as he pushed open the swing-door and received in his ears the fierce banging, braying and shrieking of various instruments played in a frenzy by a group of musicians confined, as if for the public safety, in a small gallery at the end of the room. Large and encumbered by the bag, he stood obstructing the waiters in the passage between the tables.

‘They’re like wild beasts in a cage,’ he said in the loud voice of his anger. ‘Can you stand it?’

‘Oh, yes–yes. Let us sit here, in this corner.’ He was ridiculous, she thought, yet to-night, unconscious of any absurdity himself, he had a dignity; he was not so ugly as she had thought; his somewhat protruding eyes had less vacancy, and though his tie was crooked, she was not ashamed of him. Nevertheless, she said as he sat down, ‘Charles, I’m going to London to-night. Get a time-table.’

‘Soup first,’ he said.

‘I must go to-night. I can’t go back to Radstowe.’

‘Did you,’ he asked unexpectedly, ‘leave a note on your dressing-table?’

‘What?’ She frowned. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Oh, well, you can go back. We’re going to a concert together. It’s quite easy. I told you you were different from everybody else.’ And then, remembering Rose’s words, he leaned across the table towards her. ‘The most beautiful and the best,’ he said severely.

‘Me?’

‘Yes. Here’s the soup.’

She drank it, looking at him between the spoonfuls. This was the man who had talked to her by the Monks’ Pool. Here was the same detachment he had shown then, and though the act of taking soup was not poetical, though the band blared and the place shone with many lights, she was taken back to that night among the trees, with the water lying darkly at her feet, keeping its own secrets; with the ducks quacking sleepily and unseen, and the water rats diving with a silken splash.

She seemed to be recovering something she had lost because she had disregarded it, something she wanted, not for use but for the sake of possessing and sometimes looking at it.

Sternly she tried not to think of Francis Sales, who had deserted her. She might have known he would desert her. He had looked at Aunt Rose and she had seen him weaken, yet he had promised. He was that kind of man: he could not say no to her face, but he left her in this city, all alone.

Her lips trembled; she steadied them with difficulty. She was determined not to honour him with so much as a memory or a regret, but there came forbidden recollections of the dance, of the terrace, and of her hands in his. She closed her eyes and a tremor, delicious, horrible, ran through her body. She felt the strength of those brown, muscular hands and she was assailed by the odour of wind and tobacco that clung to him. He had never said anything worth remembering, but there had been danger and excitement in his presence. There was neither in the neighbourhood of Charles, yet she could not forget his words.

She opened her eyes. ‘What was it you said just now?’

‘You’re the best and most beautiful woman in the world. Your fish is getting cold.’

She ate it without appetite or distaste. ‘But, Charles–‘

‘I know.’

‘What?’

‘Everything,’ he said.

‘How?’

He tapped himself, ‘Here.’

‘I expect you’ve got it all wrong.’

‘Yesterday, perhaps, but not to-day. To-day I know everything.’

‘How does it feel?’

‘Wonderful,’ he replied. They laughed together but, as though with that laughter the door to emotion had been opened, he saw tears start into her eyes. ‘No,’ he begged, ‘there’s no need to cry.’

She laughed again. ‘I’ve got to cry some time.’

‘When we’re going home, then. We’re going home in a car.’

‘Are we?’ she said, pleased as a child. ‘But what about London, Charles? I have to go.’

‘Not to-night. Here’s some chicken.’

‘I can’t go back.’

‘But you haven’t left a note.’

‘No.’

‘Then it’s easy. You and I have just been to a concert. You promised me that long ago.’

She uttered no more protests. She ate and drank obediently, glad to be cared for, and when the meal was over she told him gratefully, ‘You have been good. You never said another word about the band and it has made even my head ache.’

‘And I forgot about it!’ He stared at her in amazement. ‘I forgot about it! I didn’t hear it! Good heavens! But come away quickly before I begin remembering.’

That they might be able to tell the truth, they went to the concert and, standing at the back of the hall stayed there for a little while. Even for Charles, the music was only a covering for his thoughts. Henrietta, strangely gentle, was beside him, but he dwelt less on that than on the greater marvel of the new power he felt within himself. She might laugh at him, she might mock him in the future, but she could not daunt him, and though she might never love him, he had done her service. No one could take that from him. He turned his head and looked down at her, to find her looking up at him, a little puzzled but entirely friendly.

‘Oh, Henrietta!’ he whispered loudly, transgressing his own law of silence and evoking an indignant hiss from an enthusiastic neighbour. He blushed with shame, then decided that to-night he could not really care, and signing to Henrietta to follow him, he tiptoed from the hall.

‘Did you hear? Did you hear?’ he asked her. ‘I spoke! I–at a concert! I’ve never done that in my life before. I’ll never do it again! But, then, it was the first time you’d ever looked at me like that, Henrietta! And, oh Lord, we’ve forgotten the bag. I dare not go back for it.’

‘We’ll leave it, then,’ she said indifferently. ‘I don’t want to see it again.’

‘But I like it. It’s an old friend. I’ve watched it–‘ He checked himself. ‘I’ll go. Wait here.’

‘Why aren’t we going home by train?’ she asked, when he returned.

‘The angry man didn’t see me,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Oh, because– well, you wanted somewhere to cry, didn’t you?’

In the closed car she sat, for a time very straight, looking out of the window at the streets and the people, but when they had drawn away from the old city and left its grey stone houses behind and taken to the roads where slowly moving carts were creaking and snatches of talk from slow-tongued country people were heard and lost in the same moment, she sank back. The roads were dark. They were lined by tall, bare trees which seemed to challenge this swift passage and then decide to permit what they could not prevent, and for a mile or so the river gleamed darkly like an unsheathed sword in the night.

‘We shall soon be there, shan’t we?’ she asked, in a small voice.

‘Yes, pretty soon.’

‘I wish we wouldn’t. I wish we could go on like this for ever, to the edge of the world and then drop over and forget.’

He sighed. He could not arrange that for her but he told the man to drive more slowly. Against the dark upholstery of the car, her face was like a young moon, wan and too weary for its work. He slipped his arm under her back and drew her to him. Pulling off her hat, she found a place for her head against his shoulder and he shut his eyes. She breathed regularly and lightly, as though she were asleep, but presently she said, ‘Charles, I don’t mean anything by this, but you are the only friend I have. You won’t think I mean anything, will you?’

He shook his head and it came to rest on hers. He, too, wished they might go on like this for ever, to the world’s edge.

* * * * *

The car was stopped at a little distance from the house and Henrietta had to rouse herself from the state between waking and sleeping, thought and imagery, in which she had passed the journey. The jarring of the brake shocked her into a recognition of facts and the gentle humming of the engine reminded her that life had to go on as before. The persistent sound, regular, not loud, controlled, was like existence in Nelson Lodge; one wearied of it, yet one would weary more of accidents breaking the healthy beating of the engine: to-night had been one of the accidents and she was terribly tired. No wonder! She had been trying to run away with a man who did not want her, a man who had a lonely, miserable invalid for a wife, the old lover of Aunt Rose. A little blaze of anger flared up at the thought of Rose; nevertheless, she continued her self-accusations. She had been willing to leave her aunts without a word and they had been good to her and one of them was ill, and the very money in her pocket was not her own. She was shocked by her behaviour. She was like her father, who took what belonged to other people and used it badly.

She sat, flaccid, her hands loose on her lap. She felt incapable of movement, but Charles was speaking to her, telling her to get out and run home quickly. She looked at him. She was holding his friendly hand. What would she have done without him? She saw herself in the train, speeding through the lonely darkness; she saw herself knocking at Mrs. Banks’s door, felt herself clasped to the doubtful blackness of that bosom, and she shuddered.

‘You must go,’ Charles said, but he still held her hand.

He had brought her back to cleanliness and comfort, he had saved her from behaviour of gross ingratitude, he had been marvellously kind and wise.

‘Charles,’ she said, ‘it’s awful.’

‘No, it’s all right. We’ve been to a concert.’

‘Yes’–her voice sank–‘I’ve kept that promise. But the whole thing– and Aunt Caroline so ill. She may have died.’

‘There hasn’t been time,’ he said.

‘Oh, Charles, it only takes a minute.’

‘Well, run home quickly. This bag’s a nuisance,’ he said, but he looked at it tenderly. How he had dogged that bag! How heavy it had seemed for her! ‘Look here, I’ll take it home and get it to you to-morrow somehow.’

‘I don’t want it. I hate it.’

He thought, ‘I’ll keep it, then,’ and aloud he said, ‘I’ll wrap the things up in a parcel and let you have them. Nothing you don’t want me to see, is there?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘All right. Do get out, dear. No, I shall drive on.’

She lingered on the pavement. She had not said a word of thanks. She jumped on to the step and put her head through the window. ‘Thank you, kind Charles,’ she said.

‘Henrietta,’ he began in a loud voice, filling the dark interior with sound, ‘Henrietta–‘

‘What is it?’

‘No, no. Nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No. Not fair,’ he said. ‘Just weakness. Good night. Be quick.’

She ran along the street and gave the front-door bell a gentle push. To her relief it was the housemaid and not Susan who opened to her. Susan would have looked at her severely, but the housemaid had a welcoming smile, an offer of food if Miss Henrietta had not dined.

Henrietta shook her head. She was going to bed at once. She did not want anything to eat. How was Miss Caroline?

‘Not so well to-night, Miss Henrietta. The doctor’s been again and there’s a night-nurse come.’

Henrietta pressed her hands against her heart. Oh, good Charles, wonderful Charles! She did not know how to be grateful enough. She moved meekly, humbly through the hall and up the stairs. All was terribly, portentously still, but in her bedroom there were no signs of the trouble in the house. The fire was lighted, her evening gown had been laid out on the bed, her silk stockings and slippers were in their usual places. Nobody had suspected, nobody had been alarmed; she had stolen back by a miracle into her place.

Yes, Charles Batty was a miracle, there was no other word for him and, by contrast, the image of Francis Sales appeared mean, contemptible. Why had he failed her? His desertion was a blessing, but it was also a slight and perhaps a tribute to the power of Rose. Yes, that was it. She set her little teeth. He had stared at Aunt Rose as though he could not look at her enough, not with the starved expression she had first intercepted long ago, but with a look of wonder, almost of awe. She was nearly middle-aged, yet she could force that from him. Well, she was welcome to anything he could give her, his offerings were no compliment. Henrietta was done with him; she would not think of him again; she had been foolish, she had been wicked, but she was the richer and the wiser for her experience.

She had always been taught that sin brought suffering, yet here she was, warm and comfortable, in possession of a salutary lesson and with the good Charles for a secure friend. It was odd, unnatural, and this variation in her case gave her a pleasant feeling of being a special person for whom the operation of natural laws could be diverted. By the weakness of Francis Sales and the strength of Aunt Rose whom, nevertheless, she could never forgive, she was saved from much unhappiness, and if her mother knew everything in that heaven to which she had surely gone, she must now be weeping tears of thankfulness. Yet Henrietta’s future lay before her rather drearily. She stretched out her arms and legs; she yawned. What was she to do? Being good, as she meant to be, and realizing her sin, as indeed she did, was hardly occupation enough for all her energies.

Her immediate business was to answer a knock at the door. It was Rose who entered. Her natural pallor was overlaid by the whiteness of distress. ‘Oh, Henrietta, I am glad you have come in.’

‘I’ve been to a concert with Charles Batty,’ Henrietta said quickly.

Rose showed no interest or surprise. ‘Caroline is so much worse.’ Henrietta felt a pang at her forgetfulness. ‘She is very ill. I was afraid you might not be back in time. She has been asking for you.’

‘I’ve been to Wellsborough, to a concert,’ Henrietta insisted. ‘Is she as bad as that, Aunt Rose? But she’ll get better, won’t she?’

‘Come with me and say good night to her. ‘Rose took Henrietta’s hand. ‘How warm you are,’ she said, in wonder that anything could be less cold than Caroline soon would be.

Henrietta’s fingers tightened round the living hand. ‘She’s not going to die, is she?’

‘Yes, she’s dying,’ Rose said quietly.

‘Oh, but she can’t,’ Henrietta protested. ‘She doesn’t want to. She’ll hate it so.’ It was impossible to imagine Aunt Caroline without her parties, without her clothes, she would find it intolerably dull to be dead. ‘Perhaps she will get better.’

Rose said nothing. They crossed the landing and entered the dim room. Caroline lay in the middle of the big bed: with her hair lank and uncurled she was hardly recognizable and strangely ugly. Her body seemed to have dwindled, but her features were strong and harsh, and Henrietta said to herself, ‘This is the real Aunt Caroline, not what I thought, not what I thought. I’ve never seen her before.’ She wondered how she had ever dared to joke with her: she had been a funny, vain old woman without much sensibility, immune from much that others suffered, and now she was a mere human creature, breathing with difficulty and in pain.

Henrietta stood by the bed, saying and doing nothing: Rose had slipped away; the nurse was quietly busy at a table and Aunt Sophia was kneeling before a high-backed chair with her elbows on the cushioned seat, her face in her hands. She was praying; it was as bad as that. Her back, the sash-encircled waist, the thick hair, looked like those of a young girl. She was praying. Henrietta looked again at Aunt Caroline’s grey face and saw that the eyes had opened, the lips were smiling a little. ‘Good child,’ she said, with immense difficulty, as though she had been seeking those words for a long time and had at last fitted them to her thought.

Sophia stirred, dropped her hands and looked round: the nurse came forward with a little crackle of starched clothes. ‘Say good night to her and go.’

Henrietta leaned over the empty space of bed and kissed Caroline on the temple. ‘Good night, dear Aunt Caroline,’ she said softly.

There was no answer. The eyes were closed again and the harsh breathing went on cruelly, like waves falling back from a pebbled shore, and Henrietta felt the dampness of death on her lips. No, Aunt Caroline would not get better.

She died in the early morning while Henrietta slept. Susan, entering as usual with Henrietta’s tea, did not say a word. She knew her place; it was not for her to give the news to a member of the family; moreover, she blamed Henrietta for Miss Caroline’s death. It was the Battys’ ball that had killed Miss Caroline, and Susan stuck to her belief that if it had not been for Miss Henrietta, there would not have been a ball.

Sleepily, Henrietta watched Susan draw the blinds, but something in the woman’s slow, languid movements startled her into wakefulness. Her dreams dropped back into their place. She had been sleeping warmly, forgetfully, while death hovered over the house, looking for a way in. She sat up in bed. ‘Aunt Caroline?’

Susan began to cry, but in spite of her tears and her distress she ejaculated dutifully, ‘Miss Henrietta, your dressing-gown, your slippers!’ but Henrietta had rushed forth and bounded into Rose’s room.

‘You might have told me! You might have waked me!’

Rose was writing at her desk. She turned. ‘Put on your dressing-gown, Henrietta. You will get cold. I came into your room but you were fast asleep, and in that minute it was all over. The big things happen so quickly.’

Yes, that was true. Quickly one fell in and out of love, ran away from home, returned and slept and waked to find that people had quickly died. The big things happened quickly, but the little ones of every day went on slow feet, as though they were tired of themselves.

‘It was somehow a comfort,’ Rose went on, ‘to know that you were fast asleep, but living. You never moved when I kissed you.’

‘Kissed me? What did you do that for?’ Henrietta asked in a loud voice. She had been taken unawares by the woman who had wronged her, yet she was touched and pleased.

‘I couldn’t help it. I was so glad to have you there, and you looked so young. I don’t know what we should do without you, poor Sophia and I. Oh, do put on my dressing-gown!’

‘Yes, dear, yes, put on the dressing-gown.’ It was Sophia who spoke. Her face was very calm; she actually looked younger, as though the greatness of her sorrow had removed all other signs, like a fall of snow hiding the scars of a hillside.

‘Oh, Aunt Sophia!’ Henrietta went forward and pressed her cheek against the other’s.

‘Yes, dear, but you must go and dress. Breakfast is ready.’

Henrietta was a little shocked that Aunt Sophia, who was naturally sentimental, should be less emotional on this occasion than Aunt Rose, but she was also awed by this control. She remembered how, when her own mother died, Mrs. Banks had refused to take solid food for a whole day, and the recollection braced her for her cold bath, for fresh linen, for emulation of Aunt Sophia, for everything unlike the slovenly weeping of Mrs. Banks, sitting in the neglected kitchen with a grimy pocket-handkerchief on her lap and the teapot at her elbow; but she knew that the Banksian manner was really natural to her, and the Mallett control, the acceptance, the same eating of breakfast, were a pose, a falseness oddly better than her sincerity.

At table no one referred to Caroline; they were practical and composed and afterwards, when Sophia and Rose were closeted together, making arrangements, writing letters to relatives of whom Henrietta had never heard, interviewing Mr. Batty and a husky personage in black, Henrietta stole upstairs past Caroline’s death chamber and into her own room.

She was glad to find the pretty housemaid there, tidying the hearth and dusting the furniture. She wanted to talk to somebody and the pretty housemaid was sympathetic and discreet. She told Henrietta, inevitably, of deaths in her own family, and Henrietta was interested to hear how the housemaid’s grandmother had died, actually while she was saying her prayers.

‘And you couldn’t have a better end than that, could you, Miss Henrietta?’

‘I suppose not,’ Henrietta said, ‘but it might depend on what you were praying for.’

‘Oh, she would be saying the usual things, Miss Henrietta, just daily bread and forgive our trespasses. There was no harm in my grandmother. It was her husband who broke his neck picking apples. His own apples,’ she said hastily, ‘And now poor Mrs. Sales has gone.’

‘Mrs. Sales?’

‘Yes, Miss Henrietta, I thought you’d know–last night. Her and Miss Caroline together.’ She implied that in this journey they would be company for each other.

Henrietta found nothing to say, but above the shock of pity she felt for the woman she had disliked and the awe induced by the name of death, she was conscious of a load lifted from her mind: she had not been deserted, her charm had not failed; it was the approach of death that had held him back. She put the thought away lest it should lead to others of which she would be ashamed, yet she felt a malicious pleasure, lasting only for a second, at remembering that downstairs sat Aunt Rose calmly full of affairs, Aunt Rose for whom the love of Francis Sales had ceased too soon! And, suppressed but fermenting, was the idea that in these late events, including the failure of her escape, there was the kind hand of fate.

At that very moment Charles Batty chose to call.

‘With a parcel, Miss Henrietta, and he would like to see you.’

‘I can’t see him,’ Henrietta said. ‘Tell him–tell him about Miss Caroline.’ She had already drifted away from Charles. He had been so near last night, so almost dear in the troubled fog of her distress, but this morning she had drifted and between them there was a shining space of water sparkling hardly. But she spared him an instant of gratitude and softness. His part in her life was like that, to a sailor, of some lightship eagerly looked for in the darkness, of strangely diminished consequence in the clear day, still there, safely anchored, but with half its significance gone.

‘I can’t see him,’ she repeated.

She wanted, suddenly, to see Aunt Rose. Voices no longer came from the drawing-room. Mr. Batty, genuinely sad in the loss of an old friend, had gone; the undertaker had tiptoed off to his gloomy lair, and Henrietta went downstairs, but when she saw her aunt she dared not ask her if she knew about Christabel Sales. Rose had a look of invulnerability; perhaps she knew, but it was impossible to ask, and if she knew, it had made no difference. It seemed as though she had gone beyond the reach of feeling: she and Sophia both wore white masks, but Sophia’s was only a few hours old and Rose’s had been gradually assumed. It was not only Caroline’s death which had given her that strange, calm face: the expression had grown slowly, as though something had been a long time dying, yet she hardly had a look of loss. She seemed to be in possession of something, but Henrietta could not understand what it was and she was vaguely afraid.

It was Aunt Sophia who, in spite of her amazing courage, had an air of desolation. And there was no rouge on her cheeks: its absence made Henrietta want to cry. She did cry at intervals throughout that day and the ones that followed. It was terrible without Aunt Caroline and pitiful to see Aunt Sophia keeping up her dignity among black-clothed, black-beaded relatives who seemed to appear out of the ground like snails after rain and who might have been part of the undertaker’s permanent stock-in-trade. Henrietta hated the mournful looks of these ancient cousins, the shaking of their black beads, their sibilant whisperings, and in their presence she was dry-eyed and rather rude. Aunt Caroline would have laughed at them and their dowdy clothes that smelt of camphor, but it seemed as though no one would ever laugh again in Nelson Lodge.

And over the river, in the unsubdued country, where death was only the repayment of a loan, there was another house with lowered blinds and voices hushed. She was irritated by the thought of it, of the consolatory letters Francis would receive, of the emotions he would display, or conceal, but at the same time she was sorry that in death, as in life, Christabel should be lonely. Her large and lively family was far away, even the cat had gone, and there were only the nurse and Francis and the little dog to miss her. In a sense Henrietta missed her too, and that fair region of fields and woods which had been as though blocked by that helpless body now lay open, vast, full of possibilities, inviting exploration; and when Henrietta looked at her Aunt Rose, it was with the jealous eye of a rival adventurer. But that was absurd: there could be no rivalry between them. Henrietta was sure of that and she tried to avoid these speculations.

And meanwhile necessary things were done and Christabel Sales and Caroline Mallett were buried on the same day. The beaded relatives departed, not to reappear until the next death in the family, and Rose and Henrietta, both perhaps thinking of Francis Sales returning to his big empty house, returned with Sophia to a Nelson Lodge oppressive in its desolation. It seemed now that the whole business of life there, the servants, the fires, the delicate meals, had proceeded solely for Caroline’s benefit; yet everything continued as before: the machinery went on running smoothly; the dinner-table still reflected in its rich surface the lights of candles, the sheen of silver, the pallor of flowers. Nothing was neglected, everything was beautiful and exact, and Susan had carefully arranged the chairs so that the vacant space should not be emphasized.

The three black-robed women slipped into their seats without a word. The soup was very hot, according to Caroline’s instructions, but the cook, inspired more by the desire to give pleasant nutriment than by tact, had chosen to make the creamy variety which was Caroline’s favourite and, as each Mallett took up her spoon, she had a vision of Caroline tasting the soup with the thoughtfulness of a connoisseur and proclaiming it perfect to the last grain of salt.

‘I can’t eat it,’ Sophia said faintly. In this almost comic realization of her loss she showed the first sign of weakness. She rose, trembling visibly, and Susan, anxious for the preservation of the decencies, opened the door and closed it on her faltering figure before the first sob shook her body. The others, without exchanging a single glance, proceeded with the meal, eating little, each eager for solitude and each finding it unbearable to picture Sophia up there in the bedroom alone.

‘But she doesn’t want us,’ Rose said.

‘She might want me,’ Henrietta replied provocatively, and for answer Rose’s smile flickered disconcertingly across the candle-light, and her voice, a little worn, said quietly, ‘Then go and see.’

The bedroom had a dreadful neatness; it smelt of disinfectant, furniture polish and soap, and Sophia, from the big armchair, said mournfully, ‘They might have left it as it was. It feels like lodgings.’ And as the very feebleness of her outcry smote her sense and waked echoes of all she left unsaid, her mouth fell shapeless, and she cried, ‘She’s gone!’ in a tone of astonishment and horror.

Henrietta, sitting on a little stool before the fire, listened to the weeping which was too violent for Sophia’s strength, and the harsh sound reminded her of Aunt Caroline’s difficult breathing. It seemed as though the noise would go on for ever: she counted each separate sob, and when they had gradually lessened and died away the relief was like the ceasing of physical pain.

‘Aunt Sophia,’ Henrietta said, ‘everybody has to die.’

Sophia heard. Tears glistened on her cheeks, her hair was disordered, she looked like a large flaxen doll that had been left out in the rain for a long time. ‘But each person only once,’ she whispered. ‘One doesn’t get used to it, and Caroline–‘ She struggled to sit up. ‘Caroline would be ashamed of me for this.’

‘She might pretend to be, but she’d like it really.’

‘I don’t know,’ Sophia murmured. ‘She had such character. You never believed her, did you, Henrietta, when she made out she had been–had been indiscreet?’

‘No, I never believed it.’

‘I’m glad of that. It was a fancy of hers. I encouraged her in it, I’m afraid; but it made her happy, it pleased her and it did no harm. I suppose nobody believed her, but she didn’t know. I don’t think I’ll sit here doing nothing, Henrietta. I suppose I ought to go through her papers. She never destroyed a letter. I might begin on them.’

‘Oh, do you think you’d better? Don’t you like just to sit here and talk to me?’

‘No, no, I must not give way. I’m not the only one. There’s poor Francis Sales. If he’d married Rose–I always planned that he should marry Rose–and of course, we ought not to think of such things so soon, but the thought has come to me that they may marry after all.’

Henrietta tightened the clasp of the hands on her knee and said, ‘Why do you think that?’

‘It would be suitable,’ Sophia said.

‘But she’s so old. Haven’t you noticed how old she has looked lately?’

‘Old? Rose old?’ Sophia’s manner became almost haughty. ‘Rose has nothing to do with age. My only doubt is whether Francis Sales is worthy of her. Dear Caroline used to say she ought to–to marry a king.’

‘And she hasn’t married anybody,’ Henrietta remarked bitingly.

‘Nobody,’ Sophia said serenely. ‘The Malletts don’t marry,’ she sighed; ‘but I hope you will, Henrietta.’

‘No,’ Henrietta said sharply. ‘I shan’t. I don’t want to. Men are hateful.’

‘No, dear child, not all of them. Perhaps none of them. When I was eighteen–‘ She hesitated. ‘I must get on with her papers.’ She stood up and moved towards the bureau. ‘They’re here. We shared the drawers. We shared everything.’ She stretched out her hands and they fell heavily, taking the weight of her body with them, against the shining slope of wood.

Henrietta, who had been gazing moodily at the fire, was astonished to hear the thud, to see her Aunt Sophia leaning drunkenly over the desk. Sophia’s lips were blue, her eyes were glazed, and Henrietta thought, ‘She’s dying, too. Shall I let her die?’ but at the same moment she leapt up and lowered her aunt into a chair.

‘It’s my heart,’ Sophia said after a few minutes, and Henrietta understood why poor Aunt Sophia always went upstairs so slowly. ‘Don’t tell anybody. No one knows. I ought not to have cried like that. There’s a little bottle–‘ She told Henrietta to fetch it from a secret place. ‘I never let Caroline know. It would have worried her, and, after all, she was the first to go. I’m glad to think I saved her that anxiety. You remember how she teased me about getting tired? Well, it didn’t matter and she liked to think she was so young. Wherever she is now, I do hope she isn’t feeling angry with herself. She thought illness was so vulgar.’

‘But not death,’ Henrietta said.

‘No, not death,’ and Henrietta fancied her aunt lingered lovingly on the word. ‘This must be a secret between us.’ She lay back exhausted. ‘I only had two secrets from Caroline. This about my heart was one. Henrietta, in that little drawer, at the very back, you’ll find a photograph wrapped in tissue-paper. Find it for me, dear child. Thank you.’ She held it tenderly between her palms. ‘This was the other. It’s the picture of my lover, Henrietta. Yes, I wanted you to know that some one once loved me very dearly.’

‘Oh, Aunt Sophia, we all love you. I love you dearly now.’

‘Yes, dear, yes, I know; I’m grateful, but I wanted somebody to know that I had had my romance, and have it still–all these years. But I was loved, Henrietta, till he died, and I was very young then, younger than you are now. Yes, I wanted somebody to know that poor Sophia had a real lover once. He went away to America to make a fortune for me, but he died. I have been wondering, since Caroline went, if she and he have met. If so, perhaps she knows, perhaps she blames me, but I don’t think she will laugh–not now. I hope she laughs still, but not at that. And now, Henrietta, we’ll put the photograph into the fire.’

‘Ah, no, Aunt Sophia, keep it still!’

‘Dear child, I may die at any moment, and I have his dear face by heart. I shouldn’t like any other eyes to look at it, not even yours. Stir the fire, Henrietta. Now help me up. No, dear, I would rather do it myself.’

She knelt, her faded face lighted by the flames which consumed her greatest treasure, her back still girlish, her slim waist girdled with a black ribbon, her thick knot of hair resting on her neck.

Henrietta went quietly out of the room, but on the landing she wrung her hands together. She felt herself surrounded by death, decay, lost love, sad memories. She was too young for this house. She had a longing to escape into sunshine, gaiety and pleasure. It was Caroline who had laughed and planned, it was she who had made the place a home. Rose was too remote, Sophia was living in the past, and Henrietta felt herself alone. Even her father’s portrait looked down at her with eyes too much like her own, and out there, beyond the high-walled garden, the roofs and the river, there was only Francis Sales and he was not a friend. He was, perhaps, a lover; he was a sensation, an accident; but he was not a companion or a refuge.

And the thought of Charles rose up, at that moment, like the thought of a fireside. She wished he would come now and sit with her, asking for nothing, but assuring her of service. That was what he was for, she decided. You could not love Charles, but you could trust him for ever, and the more trust he was given, the more he grew to it. She needed him: she must not lose him. Deep in her heart she supposed she was going to marry Francis Sales, yes, in spite of what Aunt Sophia said, and it was a prospect towards which she tiptoed, holding her breath, not daring to look; but she, like Rose, had no illusions. She was the daughter of her mother’s union with her father, and she was prepared for trouble, for the need of Charles. Besides, she liked him: he was companionable even when he scolded. One forgot about him, but he returned; he was there. She went to bed in that comfortable assurance.

9

There could be no more parties for Henrietta that winter, but Mrs. Batty’s house was always open to her, and Mrs. Batty, like her son Charles, could be relied upon for welcome and for relaxation. In her presence Henrietta had a pleasant sense of superiority; she was applauded and not criticized and she knew she could give comfort as well as get it. Mrs. Batty liked to talk to her and Henrietta could sink into one of the superlatively cushioned arm-chairs and listen or not as she chose. There she was relieved of the slight but persistent strain she was under in Nelson Lodge, for Sophia and Rose had standards of manner, conduct and speech beyond her own, while Mrs. Batty’s, though they existed, were on another plane. Henrietta was sure of herself in that luxurious, overcrowded drawing-room, decorated and scented with the least precious of Mr. Batty’s hothouse flowers, and somewhat overheated.

On her first visit after Caroline’s death, Mrs. Batty received the bereaved niece with unction. ‘Ah, poor dear,’ she murmured, and whether her sympathy was for Caroline or Henrietta, perhaps she did not know herself. ‘Poor dear! I can’t get your aunt out of my head, Henrietta, love. There she was at the party, looking like a queen– well, you know what I mean–and Mr. Batty said she was the belle of the ball. It was just his joke; but Mr. Batty never makes a joke that hasn’t something in it. I could see it myself. And then for her to die like that–it seems as if it was our fault. It was a beautiful ball, wasn’t it, dear? I do think it was, but it’s spoilt for me. I can only be thankful it wasn’t her stomach or I should have blamed the supper. As it is, there must have been a draught. It was a cold night.’

‘It was a lovely night,’ Henrietta said, thinking of the terrace and the dark river and the stars. She could remember it all without shame, for he had not failed her and her personality had not failed. He had not deserted her, and when they met there would be no need for explanations. He would look at her, she would look at him–she had to rouse herself. ‘Yes, it was a splendid ball, Mrs. Batty.’

‘And what did you think of my dress, dear?’ Mrs. Batty asked, and checked herself. ‘But we ought not to talk about such things with your dear aunt just dead. You must miss her sadly. Did you–were you with her at the end?’

But this was a region in which Henrietta could not wander with Mrs. Batty. ‘Don’t let us talk of it,’ she said.

Mrs. Batty gurgled a rich sympathy and after a due pause she was glad to resume the topic of the dance. This was her first real opportunity for discussing it; under Mr. Batty’s slightly ironical smile and his references to expense, she had controlled herself; among her acquaintances it was necessary to treat the affair as a mere bagatelle; but with Henrietta she could expand unlimitedly. What she thought, what she felt, what she said, what other people said to her, and what her guests were reported to have said to other people, was repeated and enlarged upon to Henrietta who, leaning back, occasionally nodding her head or uttering a sound of encouragement, lived through that night again.

Yes, out on the terrace he had been the real Francis Sales and that man in the hollow looking at Aunt Rose and then turning to Henrietta in uncertainty was the one evoked by that witch on horseback, the modern substitute for a broomstick. Christabel Sales was right: Aunt Rose was a witch with her calm, white face, riding swiftly and fearlessly on her messages of evil. He was never himself in her presence: how could he be? He was under her spell and he must be cleared of it and kept immune. But how? Through these thoughts, which were both exciting and alarming, Henrietta heard Mrs. Batty uttering the name of Charles.

‘He seems to have taken a turn for the better, my dear.’

‘Has he been ill?’ Henrietta asked.

‘Ill? No. Bad-tempered, what you might call melancholy. Not lately. Well, since the dance he has been different. Not so irritable at breakfast. I told you once before, love, how I dreaded breakfast, with John late half the time, going out with the dogs, and Mr. Batty behind the paper with his eyebrows up, and Charles looking as if he’d been dug up, like Lazarus, if it isn’t wrong to say so, pale and pasty and sorry he was alive–sort of damp, dear. Well, you know what I mean. But as I tell you, he’s been more cheerful. That dance must have done him good, or something has. And Mr. Batty tells me he takes more interest in his work. Still,’ Mrs. Batty admitted, ‘he does catch me up at times.’

‘Yes, I know. About music. I know. He’s queer. I hate it when he gets angry and shouts, but he’s good really, in his heart.’

‘Oh, of course he is,’ Mrs. Batty murmured, and, looking at the plump hands on her silken lap, she added, ‘I wish he’d marry. Now, John, he’s engaged; but he didn’t need to be. You know what I mean. He was happy enough before, but Charles, if he could marry a nice girl–‘

‘He won’t,’ Henrietta said at once, and Mrs. Batty, suddenly alert, asked sharply, ‘Why not?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Men are so easily deceived.’

‘We can’t help it. You wouldn’t neglect a baby. Well, then, it’s the same thing. They never get out of their short frocks. Even Mr. Batty,’ his wife chuckled, ‘he’s very clever and all that, but he’s like all the rest. The very minute you marry, you’ve got a baby on your hands.’

Henrietta sighed. ‘It isn’t fair,’ she murmured, yet she liked the notion. Francis Sales was a baby. He would have to be managed, to be amused; he would tire of his toys. She knew that, and she saw herself constantly dressing up the old ones and deceiving him into believing they were new.

‘I suppose they’re worth it,’ she half questioned.

‘Men?’

‘No, babies,’ Henrietta answered, meaning the same thing, but Mrs. Batty took her up with fervour. She was reminiscent, and tears came into her eyes; she was prophetic, she was embarrassing and faintly disgusting to Henrietta, and when the door opened to let in Charles, she welcomed him with a pleasure which was really the measure of her relief.

She had not seen him since she had parted from him in the car. He did not return her smile and it struck her that he never smiled. It was a good thing: it would have made him look odder than ever, and somehow he contrived to show his happiness without the display of teeth. His eyes, she decided, bulged most when he was miserable, and now they hardly bulged at all.

‘You’re back early to-day, dear,’ Mrs. Batty said. ‘I’ll have some fresh tea made.’ But Charles, without averting his gaze from Henrietta, said, ‘I don’t want any tea,’ and to Henrietta he said quietly, ‘I haven’t seen you for weeks.’

To her annoyance, she felt the colour creeping over her cheeks. No doubt he would account for that in his own way, and to disconcert him she added casually, ‘It’s not long really.’

‘It seems long,’ he said.

No one but Charles Batty would have said that in the presence of his mother; it was ridiculous, and she looked at him with revengeful criticism. He was plain; he was getting bald; his trousers bagged; his socks were wrinkled like concertinas; his comparative self-assurance was quite unjustified. He had looked at her consistently since he entered the room, and Henrietta was angrily aware that Mrs. Batty was trying to make herself insignificant in her corner of the sofa. Henrietta could hear the careful control of her breathing. She was hoping to make the young people forget she was there. Henrietta frowned warningly at Charles.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked at once.

‘Nothing.’ She might have known it was useless to make signs.

‘But you frowned.’

‘Well, don’t you ever get a twinge?’ she prevaricated.

‘Toothache, dear?’ Mrs. Batty clucked her distress. ‘I’ll get some laudanum. You just rub it on the gum–‘ She rose. ‘I have some in my medicine cupboard. I’ll go and get it.’ She went out, and across her broad back she seemed to carry the legend, ‘This is the consummation of tact.’

Charles stood up and planted himself on the hearthrug and Henrietta wished Mrs. Batty had not gone. ‘I’m sorry you’ve got toothache,’ he said.

‘I haven’t. I didn’t say I had. My teeth are perfect.’ With a vicious opening of her mouth, she let him see them.

‘Then why did you frown?’

‘I had to do something to stop your glaring at me.’

‘Was I glaring? I didn’t know. I suppose I can’t help looking at you.’

Henrietta appreciated this remark. ‘I don’t mind so much when we are alone.’ From anybody else she would have expected a reminder that she had once allowed more than that, but she was safe with Charles and half annoyed by her safety. Her instinct was to run and dodge, but it was a poor game to play at hide-and-seek with this roughly executed statue of a young man. ‘Your mother must have noticed,’ she explained.

‘Well, why not? She’ll have to know.’

‘Know what?’ she cried indignantly.

‘That we’re engaged.’

She brightened angrily. After all, he was thinking of that night and she felt a new, exasperated respect for him. ‘But I told you–I told you I didn’t mean anything when I let you–when we were alone in that car.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that,’ he said, and she felt a drop. He had no business not to think of it.

‘Then what do you mean?’ she asked coldly.

‘I’ve been engaged to you,’ he said, ‘for a long time. I told you. But I’ve been thinking that it really doesn’t work.’

‘Of course it doesn’t. Anybody would have known that except you, Charles Batty.’

‘Yes, but nobody tells me things. I have to find them out.’ He sighed. ‘It takes time. But now I know.’

‘Very well. You’re released from the engagement you made all by yourself. I had nothing to do with it.’

‘No,’ he said mildly, ‘but I can’t be released, so the only way out of it is for you to be engaged too.’ He fumbled in a pocket. ‘I’ve bought a ring.’

She sneered. ‘Who told you about that?’

‘I remembered it. John got one. It’s always done and I think this one is pretty.’

She had a great curiosity to see his choice. She guessed it would be gaudy, like a child’s, but she said, ‘It has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to see it.’

‘Do look.’

‘Charles, you’re hopeless.’ ‘The man said he would change it if you didn’t like it.’ Into her hand he put the little box, attractively small, no doubt lined with soft white velvet, and she longed to open it. She had always wanted one of those little boxes and she remembered how often she had gazed at them, holding glittering rings, in the windows of jewellers’ shops. She looked up at Charles, her eyes bright, her lips a little parted, so young and helpless in that moment that she drew from him his first cry of passion. ‘Henrietta!’ His hands trembled.

‘It’s only,’ she faltered, ‘because I like looking at pretty things.’

‘I know.’ He dropped to the sofa beside her. ‘It couldn’t be anything else.’

She turned to him, her face close to his, and she asked plaintively, ‘But why shouldn’t it be?’ She seemed to blame him; she did blame him. There was something in his presence seductively secure; there was peace: she almost loved him; she loved her power to make him tremble, and if only he could make her tremble too, she would be his. ‘But it isn’t anything else,’ she said below her breath.

‘No, it isn’t,’ he echoed in the loud voice of his trouble. He got up and moved away. ‘So just look at the ring and tell me if you like it.’

He heard the box unwrapped and a voice saying, ‘I do like it.’

‘Then keep it.’

‘But I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can. It’s for you. It’s pretty, isn’t it? And you like pretty things.’

‘I could just look at it now and then, couldn’t I? But no, it isn’t fair.’

‘I don’t mind about that.

‘I mean fair to me.’

He turned at that. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘A kind of hold,’ she explained.

‘How could it be? I wasn’t trying to tempt you, but we’re engaged and you must have a ring.’

She shook her small, clenched fists. ‘We’re not, we’re not! Oh, yes, you can be, if you like; but I didn’t mean it would hold me in that way. I meant it would be like a sign–of you. I shouldn’t be able to forget you; you would be there in the ring, in the box, in the drawer, like the portrait of Aunt Sophia’s–‘ She stopped herself. ‘And I can’t burn you.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about. I suppose I ought to.’

‘No, you oughtn’t.’ She sprang up, delivered from her weakness. ‘This is nonsense. Of course, I can’t keep your ring. Take it back, Charles. It’s beautiful. I thought it would be all red and blue like a flag, but it’s lovely. It makes my mouth water. It’s like white fire.’

‘It’s like you,’ he said. ‘You’re just as bright and just as hard, and if only you were as small, I could put you in my pocket and never let you go.’

She opened her eyes very wide. ‘Then why do you let me go?’ she asked on an ascending note, and she did not mean to taunt him. It would be so easy for him to keep her, if he knew how. She expected a despairing groan, she half hoped for a violent embrace, but he answered quietly, ‘I don’t really let you go. It’s you I love, not just your hair and your face and the way your nose turns up, and your hands and feet, and your straight neck. I have to let them go, but you don’t go. You stay with me all the time: you always will. You’re like music, always in my head, but you’re more than that. You go deeper: I suppose into my heart. Sometimes I think I’m carrying you in my arms. I can’t see you but I can feel you’re there, and sometimes I laugh because I think you’re laughing.’

She listened, charmed into stillness. Here was an echo of his outpouring in the darkness of that hour by the Monks’ Pool, but these words were closer, dearer. She felt for that moment that he did indeed carry her in his arms and that she was glad to be there. He spoke so quietly, he was so certain of his love that she was exalted and abashed. She did not deserve all this, yet he knew she was hard as well as bright, he knew her nose turned up. Perhaps there was nothing he did not know.

He went on simply, without effort. ‘And though I’m ugly and a fool, I can’t be hurt whatever you choose to do. What you do isn’t you.’ He touched himself. ‘The you is here. So it doesn’t matter about the ring. It doesn’t matter about Francis Sales.’

She said on a caught breath and in a whisper, ‘What about him?’

He looked at her and made a slight movement with the hands hanging at his sides, a little flicking movement, as though he brushed something away. ‘I think perhaps you are going to marry him,’ he said deeply.

Her head went up. ‘Who told you that?’ she demanded.

‘Nobody. Nobody tells me anything.’

‘Because nobody knows,’ she said scornfully. ‘I haven’t seen him since–‘ She hesitated. This Charles knew everything, and he said for her, rather wearily, very quietly, ‘Since his wife died. No. But you will.’

‘Yes,’ she said defiantly, ‘I expect I shall. I hope I shall.’

A shudder passed through Charles Batty’s big frame and the words, ‘Don’t marry him,’ reached her ears like a distant muttering of a storm. ‘You would not be happy.’

‘What has happiness to do with it?’ she asked with an astonishing young bitterness.

‘Ah, if you feel like that,’ he said, ‘if you feel as I do about you, if nothing he does and nothing he says–‘

‘He says very little,’ Henrietta interrupted gloomily, but Charles seemed not to hear.

‘If his actions are only like the wind in the trees, fluttering the leaves–yes, I suppose that’s love. The tree remains.’

She dropped her face into her hands. ‘You’re making me miserable,’ she cried.

He removed her hands and held them firmly. ‘But why?’

‘I don’t know,’ she swayed towards him, but he kept her arms rigid, like a bar between them, ‘but I don’t want to lose you.’

‘You can’t,’ he assured her.

‘And though you think you have me in your heart, the me that doesn’t change, you’d like the other one too, wouldn’t you? I mean, you’d really like to hold me? Not just the thought of me? Tell me you love me in that way too.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I love you in that way too, but I tell you it doesn’t matter.’ He dropped her hands as though he had no more strength. ‘Marry your Francis Sales. You still belong to me.’

‘But will you belong to me?’ she asked softly. She could not lose him, she wanted to have them both, and Charles, perhaps unwisely, perhaps from the depth of his wisdom, which was truth, answered quietly, ‘I belonged to you since the first day I saw you.’

She let out a sigh of inexpressible relief.

10

To Rose, the time between the death of Caroline and the coming of spring was like an invalid’s convalescence. She felt a languor as though she had been ill, and a kind of content as though she were temporarily free from cares. She knew that Henrietta and Charles Batty often met, but she did not wish to know how Charles had succeeded in preventing her escape: she did not try to connect Christabel’s illness with Henrietta’s return; she enjoyed unquestioningly her rich feeling of possession in the presence of the girl, who was much on her dignity, very well behaved, but undeniably aloof. She had not yet forgiven her aunt for that episode in the gipsies’ hollow, but it did not matter. Rose could tell herself without any affectation of virtue that she had hoped for no benefit for herself; looking back she saw that even what might be called her sin had been committed chiefly for Francis’s sake, only she had not sinned enough.

But for the present she need not think of him. He had gone away, she heard, and she could ride over the bridge without the fear of meeting him and with the feeling that the place was more than ever hers. It was gloriously empty of any claim but its own. To gallop across the fields, to ride more slowly on some height with nothing between her and great massy clouds of unbelievable whiteness, to feel herself relieved of an immense responsibility, was like finding the new world she had longed for. She wished sincerely that Francis would not come back; she wished that, riding one day, she might find Sales Hall blotted out, leaving no sign, no trace, nothing but earth and fresh spikes of green.

Day by day she watched the advance of spring. The larches put out their little tassels, celandines opened their yellow eyes, the smell of the gorse was her youth wafted back to her and she shook her head and said she did not want it. This maturity was better: she had reached the age when she could almost dissociate things from herself and she found them better and more beautiful. She needed this consolation, for it seemed that her personal relationships were to be few and shadowy; conscious in herself of a capacity for crystallizing them enduringly, they yet managed to evade her; it was some fault, some failure in herself, but not knowing the cause she could not cure it and she accepted it with the apparent impassivity which was, perhaps, the origin of the difficulty.

And capable as she was of love, she was incapable of struggling for it. She wanted Henrietta’s affection; she wanted to give every happiness to that girl, but she could not be different from herself, she could not bait the trap. And it seemed that Henrietta might be finding happiness without her help, or at least without realizing that it was she who had given Charles his chance. She had rejected her plan of taking Henrietta away: it was better to leave her in the neighbourhood of Charles, for he was not a Francis Sales, and if Henrietta could once see below his queer exterior, she would never see it again except to laugh at it with an understanding beyond the power of irritation; and she was made to have a home, to be busy about small, important things, to play with children and tyrannize over a man in the matter of socks and collars, to be tyrannized over by him in the bigger affairs of life.

And with Henrietta settled, Rose would at last be free to take that journey which, like everything else, had eluded her so far. She would be free but for Sophia who seemed in these days pathetically subdued and frail; but Sophia, Rose decided, could stay with Henrietta for a time, or one of the elderly cousins would be glad to take up a temporary residence in Nelson Lodge.

She was excited by the prospect of her freedom and sometimes, as though she were doing something wrong, she secretly carried the big atlas to her bedroom and pored over the maps. There were places with names like poetry and she meant to see them all. She moved already in a world of greater space and fresher air; her body was rejuvenated, her mind recovered from its weariness and when, on an April day, she came across Francis Sales in one of his own fields, it was a sign of her condition that her first thought was of Henrietta and not of herself. He had returned and Henrietta was again in danger, though one of another kind.

She stopped her horse, thinking firmly, Whatever happens, she shall not marry him: he is not good enough. She said: ‘Good morning,’ in that cool voice which made him think of churches, and he stood, stroking the horse’s nose, looking down and making no reply.

‘I’ve been away,’ he said at last.

‘I know. When did you come back?’

‘Last night. I’ve been to Canada to see her people. I thought they’d like to know about her and she would have liked it, too.’

A small smile threatened Rose’s mouth. It seemed rather late to be trying to please Christabel.

‘I didn’t hope,’ he went on quietly, ‘to have this luck so soon. I’ve been wanting to see you, to tell you something. I wanted to get things cleared up.’

‘What things?’

He looked up. ‘About Henrietta.’

‘There’s no need for that.’

‘Not for you, perhaps, but there is for me. You were quite right that day. I went home and I made up my mind to break my word to her. I’d made it up before Christabel became so ill. I wanted you to know that. I couldn’t have left her that night–perhaps you hadn’t realized I’d meant to–but anyhow I couldn’t have left her, and I wouldn’t have done it if I could. You were perfectly right.’

Rose moved a little in her saddle. ‘And yet I had no right to be,’ she said. ‘You and I–‘

‘Ah,’ he said quickly, ‘you and I were different. I don’t blame myself for that, but with Henrietta it was just devilry, sickness, misery. Don’t,’ he commanded, ‘dare to compare our–our love with that.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I don’t think of it at all. It has dropped back where it came from and I don’t know where that is. I don’t think of it any more, but thank you for telling me about Henrietta. Good-bye.’

She moved on, but his voice followed her. ‘I never loved her.’

She stopped but did not turn. ‘I know that.’

‘Yes, but I wanted to tell you.’ He was at the horse’s head again. ‘I don’t think much of the way those people are keeping your bridle. There’s rust on the curb chain. Look at it. It’s disgraceful! And I’d like to tell you that I tried to make it up to Christabel at the last. Too late–but she was happy. Good-bye. Tell those people they ought to be ashamed of themselves.’

‘I suppose we all ought to be,’ Rose said wearily.

‘Some of us are,’ he replied. ‘And,’ he hesitated, ‘you won’t stop riding here now I’ve come back?’

‘Of course not. It’s the habit of a lifetime.’

‘I shan’t worry you.’

She laughed frankly. ‘I’m not afraid of that.’

She was immune, she told herself, she could not be touched, yet she knew she had been touched already: she was obliged to think of him. For the first time in her knowledge of him he had not grumbled, he was like a repentant child, and she realized that he had suffered an experience unknown to her, a sense of sin, and the fact gave him a certain superiority and interest in her eyes.

She went home but not as she had set forth, for she seemed to hear the jingle of her chains.

At luncheon Henrietta appeared in a new hat and an amiable mood. She was going, she said casually, to a concert with Charles Batty.

‘I didn’t know there was one,’ Rose said. ‘Where is it?’

‘Oh, not in Radstowe. We’re going,’ Henrietta said reluctantly, ‘to Wellsborough.’

But that name seemed to have no association for Aunt Rose. She said, ‘Oh, yes, they have very good concerts there, and I hope Charles will like your hat.’

‘I don’t suppose he will notice it,’ Henrietta murmured. She felt grateful for her aunt’s forgetfulness, and she said, with an enthusiasm she had not shown for a long time, ‘You look lovely to-day, Aunt Rose, as if something nice had happened.’

Rose laughed and said, ‘Nonsense, Henrietta,’ in a manner faintly reminiscent of Caroline. And she added quickly, against the invasion of her own thoughts, ‘And as for Charles, he notices much more than one would think.’

‘Oh, I’ve found that out,’ Henrietta grieved. ‘I don’t think people ought to notice–well, that one’s nose turns up.’

‘It depends how it does it. Yours is very satisfactory.’

They sparkled at each other, pleased at the ease of their intercourse and quite unaware that these personalities also were reminiscent of the Caroline and Sophia tradition of compliment.

Sophia, drooping over the table, said vaguely, ‘Yes, very satisfactory,’ but she hardly knew to what Rose had referred. She lived in her own memories, but she tried to disguise her distraction and it was always safe to agree with Rose: she had good judgment, unfailing taste. ‘Rose,’ she said more brightly, ‘I’d forgotten. Susan tells me that Francis Sales has come home.’

Rose said ‘Yes,’ and after the slightest pause, she added, ‘I saw him this morning.’ She did not look at Henrietta. She felt with something like despair that this had occurred at the very moment when they seemed to be re-establishing their friendship, and now Henrietta would be reminded of the unhappy past. She did not look across the table, but, to her astonishment, she heard the girl’s voice with trouble, enmity and anger concentrated in its control, saying quickly, ‘So that’s the nice thing that’s happened!’

‘Very nice,’ Sophia murmured. ‘Poor Francis! He must have been glad to see you.’

Rose’s eyes glanced over Henrietta’s face with a look too proud to be called disdain: she was doubly shocked, first by the girl’s effrontery and then by the truth in her words. She had indeed been feeling indefinitely happy and ignoring the cause. She was, even now, not sure of the cause. She did not know whether it was the change in Francis or the jingling of the chains still sounding in her ears, but there had been a lightness in her heart which had nothing to do with the sense of that approaching freedom on which she had been counting.

She turned to Sophia as though Henrietta had not spoken. ‘Yes, I think he was glad to see a friend. He has been to Canada to see Christabel’s family. No, he didn’t say how he was, but I thought he looked rather old.’

‘Ah, poor boy,’ Sophia said. ‘I think, Rose dear, it would be kind to ask him here.’

‘Oh, he knows he can come when he likes,’ Rose said.

On the other side of the table Henrietta was shaking delicately. She could only have got relief by inarticulate noises and insanely violent movements. She hated Francis Sales, she hated Rose and Sophia and Charles Batty. She would not go to the concert–yes, she would go and make Charles miserable. She was enraged at the folly of her own remark, at Rose’s self-possession, and at her possible possession of Francis Sales. She could not unsay what she had said and, having said it, she did not know how to go on living with Aunt Rose; but she was going to Wellsborough again and this time she need not come back: yet she must come back to see Francis Sales. And though there was no one in the world to whom she could express the torment of her mind she could, at least, make Charles unhappy.

Rose and Sophia were chatting pleasantly, and Henrietta pushed back her chair. ‘Will you excuse me? I have to catch a train.’

Rose inclined her head: Sophia said, ‘Yes, dear, go. Where did you say you were going?’

‘To Wellsborough.’

‘Ah, yes. Caroline and I–Be careful to get into a ladies’ carriage, Henrietta.’

‘I’m going with Charles Batty,’ she said dully.

‘Ah, then, you will be safe.’

Safe! Yes, she was perfectly safe with Charles. He would sit with his hands hanging between his knees and stare. She was sick of him and, if she dared, she would whisper during the music; at any rate, she would shuffle her feet and make a noise with the programme. And to-morrow she would emulate her aunt and waylay Francis Sales. There would be no harm in copying Aunt Rose, a pattern of conduct! She had done it before, she would do it again and they would see which one of them was to be victorious at the last.

She fulfilled her intentions. Charles, who had been flourishing under the kindness of her friendship, was puzzled by her capriciousness, but he did not question her. He was learning to accept mysteries calmly and to work at them in his head. She shuffled her feet and he pretended not to hear: she crackled her programme and he smiled down at her. This was maddening, yet it was a tribute to her power. She could do what she liked and Charles would love her; he was a great possession; she did not know what she would do without him.

As they ate their rich cakes in a famous teashop, Charles talked incessantly about the music, and when at last he paused, she said indifferently, ‘I didn’t hear a note.’

Mildly he advised her not to wear such tight shoes.

‘Tight!’ She looked down at them. ‘I had them made for me!’

‘You seemed to be uncomfortable,’ he said.

‘I was thinking, thinking, thinking.’

‘What about?’

‘Things you wouldn’t understand, Charles. You’re too good.’

‘I dare say,’ he murmured.

‘You’ve never wanted to murder anyone.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Who?’

‘That Sales fellow.’

Her eyelids quivered, but she said boldly, ‘Because of me?’

‘No, of course not. Making noises at concerts. Shooting birds. I’ve told you so before.’

‘He’s been to Canada.’

‘I know.’

‘But he has come back.’

‘Well, I suppose he had to come back some day.’

‘And I hate Aunt Rose.’

‘What a pity,’ Charles said, taking another cake.

‘Why a pity?’

‘Beautiful woman.’

‘Oh, yes, everybody thinks so, till they know her.’

‘I know her and I think she’s adorable.’

The word was startling from his lips. Charles, too, she exclaimed inwardly. Was Aunt Rose even to come between her and Charles?

‘But of course’–he remembered his lesson–‘you’re the most beautiful and the best woman in the world.’

‘I’m not a woman at all,’ she said angrily: ‘I’m a fiend.’

‘Yes, to-day; but you won’t be to-morrow. You’ll feel different to-morrow.’

He had, she reflected, a gift of prophecy. ‘Yes, I shall,’ she said softly, ‘I’m stupid. It will be all right to-morrow. I shan’t even be angry with Aunt Rose and you’ve been an angel to me. I shall never forget you.’

He said nothing. He seemed very much interested in his cake.

And because she foresaw that her anger towards Aunt Rose would soon be changed to pity, she apologized to her that night. ‘I’m afraid I was rude to you at luncheon.’

‘Were you? Oh, not rude, Henrietta. Perhaps rather foolish and indiscreet. You should think before you speak.’

This admonition was not what Henrietta expected, and she said, ‘That’s just what I was doing. You mean I ought to be quiet when I’m thinking.’

‘Well, yes, that would be even better.’

‘Then, Aunt Rose, I should never speak at all when I’m with you.’

‘You haven’t talked to me for a long time.’

She made a gesture like her father’s–impatient, hopeless. ‘How can I?’ she demanded. There was too much between them: the figure of Francis Sales was too solid.

She set out as she had intended the next afternoon. It was full spring-time now and Radstowe was gay and sweet with flowering trees. The delicate rose of the almond blossom had already faded to a fainting pink and fallen to the ground, and the laburnum was weeping golden tears which would soon drop to the pavements and blacken there; the red and white hawthorns were all out, and Henrietta’s daily walks had been punctuated by ecstatic halts when she stood under a canopy of flower and leaf and drenched herself in scent and colour, or peeped over garden fences to see tall tulips springing up out of the grass; but to-day she did not linger.

It seemed a long time since she had crossed the river, yet the only change was in the new green of the trees splashing the side of the gorge. The gulls were still quarrelling for food on the muddy banks, children and perambulators, horses and carts, were passing over the bridge as on her first day in Radstowe, but there was now no Francis Sales on his fine horse. The sun was bright but clouds were being blown by a wind with a sharp breath, and she went quickly lest it should rain before her business was accomplished. She had no fear of not finding Francis Sales: in such things her luck never failed her, and she came upon him even sooner than she had expected in the outermost of his fields.

He stood beside the gate, scrutinizing a flock of sheep and lambs and talking to the shepherd, and he turned at the sound of her footsteps on the road. She smiled sweetly: rather stiffly he raised his hand to his hat and in that moment she recognized that he had no welcome for her. He had changed; he was grave though he was not sullen, and she said to herself with her ready bitterness, ‘Ah, he has reformed, now that there’s no need. That’s what they all do.’

But her smile did not fade. She leaned over the gate in a friendly manner and asked him about the lambs. How old were they? She hoped he would not have them killed: they were too sweet. She had never touched one in her life. Why did they get so ugly afterwards? It was hard to believe those little things with faces like kittens, or like flowers, were the children of their lumpy mothers. ‘Do you think I could catch one if I came inside?’ she asked.

‘Come inside,’ he said, ‘but the shepherd shall catch one for you.’

She stroked the curly wool, she pulled the apprehensive ears, she uttered absurdities and, glancing up to see if Sales were laughing at her charming folly, she saw that he was examining his flock with the practical interest of a farmer. He was apparently considering some technical point; he had not been listening to her at all. She hated that lamb, she hoped he would kill it and all the rest, and she decided to eat mutton in future with voracity.

‘I was going to pick primroses,’ she said. ‘Are there any in these fields?’ ‘I don’t know. Can you spare me a few minutes? I want to speak to you.’

Her heart, which had been thumping with a sickening slowness, quickened its beats. Perhaps she had been mistaken, perhaps his serious manner was that of a great occasion, and she saw herself returning to Nelson Lodge and treating her Aunt Rose with gentle tact.

‘Shall we sit on the gate?’ she asked.

‘I’d rather walk across the field. I’ve been wanting to see you–since that night. I owe you an apology.’

She dared not speak for fear of making a mistake, and she waited, walking slowly beside him, her eyes downcast.

‘An apology–for the whole thing,’ he said.

She looked up. ‘What whole thing?’

‘The way I behaved with you.’

‘Oh, that! I don’t see why you should apologize,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even decent.’

‘But it was a sort of habit with you, wasn’t it?’ she said commiseratingly, and had the happiness of seeing his face flush. ‘I quite understand. And we were both amused.’

‘I wasn’t amused,’ he said, ‘not a bit, and I’m sorry I behaved as I did. You were so young–and so pretty. Well, it’s no good making excuses, but I couldn’t rest until I’d seen you and–humbled myself.’

‘Did Aunt Rose tell you to say this?’ she asked.

‘Rose? Of course not. Why should she?’

‘She seems to have an extraordinary power.’

‘Yes, she has,’ he said simply.

‘And have you humbled yourself to her, too?’

‘No. With her,’ he said slowly, ‘there was no need.’

‘I see.’ She laughed up at him frankly. ‘You know, I never took it very seriously. I’m sorry the thought of it has troubled you.’

He went on, ignoring her lightness, and determined to say everything. ‘I meant to meet you that night and tell you what I’m telling you now; but Christabel was very ill and I couldn’t leave her. I hope’–this was difficult–‘I hope you didn’t get into any sort of mess.’

‘That night?’ She seemed to be thinking back to it. ‘That night–no–I went to a concert with Charles Batty.’

‘Oh–‘ He was bewildered. ‘Then it was all right?’

‘Perfectly, of course.’

‘I didn’t know,’ he muttered. ‘And you forgive me?’

She was generous. ‘I was just as bad as you. The Malletts are all flirts. Haven’t you heard Aunt Caroline say so? We can’t help doing silly things, but we never take them seriously. Why, you must have noticed that with Aunt Rose!’

‘No,’ he said with dignity, ‘your Aunt Rose is like nobody else in the world. I think I told you that once. She–‘ He hesitated and was silent.

‘Well, I must be going back,’ Henrietta said easily. ‘I shan’t bother about the primroses. I think it’s going to rain. And you won’t think about this any more, will you? You know, Aunt Caroline says she nearly eloped several times, and I know my father did it once, with my own mother, probably with other people beside. It’s in the blood. I must try to settle down. We did behave rather badly, I suppose, but so much has happened since. That was my first ball and I felt I wanted to do something daring.’

‘You were not to blame,’ he said; ‘but I’m nearly old enough to be your father. I can’t forgive myself. I can’t forget it.’

‘Oh, dear! And I never took it seriously at all. There was a train back to Radstowe at ten o’clock. I looked it up. I was going to get that, but as it happened I went to a concert with Charles Batty. You seem to have no idea how to play a game. You have to pretend to yourself it’s a matter of life and death; but you haven’t to let it be. That would spoil it.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t look at it like that. I wish I had, and I’m glad you did. It makes it easier–and harder–for me.’

‘We ought,’ she said, ‘to have laid the rules down first. Yes, we ought to have done that.’ She laughed again. ‘I shall do that another time. Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye. You’ve been awfully good to me, Henrietta. Thank you.’

‘Not a bit,’ she cried. ‘If I’d known you were bothering about it, I would have reassured you.’ She could not withhold a parting shot. ‘I would have sent you a message by Aunt Rose.’

She waved a hand and ran back to the road. She did not trouble to ask herself whether or not he believed her. She was shaken by sobs without tears. She did not love him, she had never loved him, but she could not bear the knowledge that he did not love her. It was quite plain; she was not going to deceive herself any more; his manner had been unmistakable and it was Aunt Rose he loved. She had been beaten by Aunt Rose, and even Charles called her adorable. She did not want Francis Sales; he was rather stupid, and as a legitimate lover he would be dull, duller than Charles, who at least knew how to say things; but something coloured and exciting and dramatic had been ravished from her–by Aunt Rose. That was the sting, and she was humiliated, though she would not own it. She had been good enough for an episode, but her charm had not endured.

Her little, rather inhuman teeth ground against each other. But she had been clever, she had carried it off well; she had not given a sign, and she determined to be equally clever with Aunt Rose. Some day she would refer lightly to her folly and laugh at the susceptibility of Francis Sales. It would hurt Aunt Rose to have her faithful lover disparaged! But, ah! if only she and Aunt Rose were friends, what a conspiracy they could enjoy together! They had both suffered, they might both laugh. How they might play into each other’s hands with Francis Sales for the bewildered ball! It would be the finest sport in the world; but they were not friends, and it was impossible to imagine Aunt Rose at that game. No, she was alone in the world, and as she felt the first drop of rain on her face she became aware of the aching of her heart.

She stood for a moment on the bridge. A grey mist was being driven up the river, blotting out the gorge and the trees. A gull, shrieking dismally, cleaved the greyness with a white flash. It was cold and Henrietta shivered, and once again she wished she could sit by a fireside with some one who was kind and tender; but to-night there would only be Aunt Sophia and Aunt Rose sitting with her in that drawing-room, where everything was too elegant and too clear, where now no one ever laughed.

11

They sat by the fire as she had foreseen, Sophia pretending to be busy with her embroidery, Rose, in a straight-backed chair, reading a book. Henrietta sat on a low stool with a book open on her knee, but she did not read it. The fire talked to itself, said silly things and chuckled, or murmured sentimentally. That chatter, vaguely insane, and the turning of Rose’s pages, the drawing of Sophia’s silks through the stuff and the click of her scissors, were the only sounds until, suddenly, Sophia gave a groan and fell back in her chair. Rose, very much startled, glanced at Henrietta and jumped up.

‘It’s her heart,’ Henrietta said with the superiority of her knowledge. ‘I’ll get her medicine.’ She came back with it. ‘She was like this when Aunt Caroline died, but I promised not to tell. If she has this she will be better.’

It was Henrietta who poured the liquid into the glass and applied it to Sophia’s lips. She was, she felt, the practical person, and it was she, and not Aunt Rose, who had been trusted by Aunt Sophia. ‘She told me where she kept the stuff,’ Henrietta continued calmly. ‘There, that’s better.’

Sophia recovered with apologies: a little faintness; it was nothing. In a few minutes she would go to bed. They helped her there.

‘You ought to have told me, Henrietta,’ Rose said on the landing.

‘I couldn’t. She wished it to be our secret.’ It was pleasant to feel that Aunt Rose was out of this affair.

‘We must have the doctor and she ought not to be alone to-night.’

I’ll sleep on the sofa in her room.’

‘No, Henrietta, you need more sleep than I do.’

‘Oh, but I’m young enough to sleep anywhere–on the floor! But let Aunt Sophia choose.’

Henrietta went back to the drawing-room, and the housemaid was sent for the doctor. Shortly afterwards there came a ring at the bell; no doubt it was the doctor, and Henrietta wished she could go upstairs with him, for Aunt Rose, she told herself again, was not a practical person and Henrietta was experienced in illness. She had nursed her mother and she liked looking after people. She knew how to arrange pillows; she was not afraid of sickness. However, she would have to wait until Aunt Sophia sent for her; but it was not the doctor: it was Charles Batty who appeared in the doorway.

‘Oh,’ Henrietta said, ‘what have you come for?’

He put down the hat and stick he had forgotten to leave in the hall. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I had a kind of feeling you might like to see me. It’s the first time I’ve had it,’ he added solemnly.

He really had an extraordinary way of knowing things, but she said, ‘Well, Aunt Sophia’s ill, so I don’t think you can stay.’

He looked round for her. ‘She’s not here. I shan’t do any harm, shall I? We can whisper.’

‘She wouldn’t hear us anyhow. It’s my room above this one.’

‘Is it?’ He gazed at the ceiling with interest. ‘Oh, up there!’

‘I should have thought you knew by instinct,’ she said bitingly.

‘No.’

‘Come and sit down, Charles, and don’t be disagreeable. I shall have to go to Aunt Sophia soon, but then you will be able to talk to Aunt Rose. That will do just as well.’

‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘I really came to tell you–‘

‘You said you came because you thought I wanted you.’

‘So I did, but there were several reasons. You said you were going to be happy to-day, not murderous, do you remember? And I thought I’d like to see how you looked. You don’t look happy a bit. What’s the matter?’

‘I’ve told you Aunt Sophia’s ill. And would you be happy if you had to sit in this prim room with two old women?’

‘Two? But your Aunt Caroline is dead.’

‘But my Aunt Rose is very much alive.’

He wagged his head. ‘I see.’

‘But she isn’t lively. She sits like this–reading a book, and Aunt Sophia, poor Aunt Sophia, sews like this, and I sit on this horrid little stool, like this. That’s how we spend the evening.’

‘How would you like to spend it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She dropped her black head to her knees. ‘It’s so lonely.’

‘Well,’ he began again, ‘I really came to tell you that there’s a house to let on The Green: that little one with the red roof like a cap and windows that squint; a little old house; but–‘ he paused–‘it has every modern convenience. Henrietta, there’s a curl at the back of your neck.’

‘I know. It’s always there.’

‘I can’t go on about the house unless you sit up.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of that curl.’

‘And I’m not interested in the house.’ She did not move. ‘Whose is it?’

‘It belongs to a client of ours, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s to let. I’ve got an order to view. Look!–“_Please admit Mr. Charles Batty._” I went this evening and we can both go to-morrow. It’s really a very cosy little house. There’s a drawing-room opening on the garden at the back, with plenty of room for a grand piano, and the dining-room–I liked the dining-room very much. There was a fire in it.’

‘Is that unusual?’

‘It looked so cosy, with a red carpet and everything.’

‘Is the carpet to let, too?’

‘I don’t know. I dare say we could buy it. And mind you, Henrietta, the kitchen is on the ground floor. That’s unusual, if you like, in an old house. I made sure of that before I went any further.’

‘How far are you going?’

‘We’ll go everywhere to-morrow, even into the coal cellar. To-day I just peeped.’

‘I can imagine you. But what do you want a house for, Charles?’

‘For you,’ he said. ‘You say you don’t like spending the evenings here–well, let’s spend them in the little house. We can’t go on being engaged indefinitely.’

‘Certainly not,’ she said firmly, ‘and I should adore a little house of my own. I believe that’s just what I want.’

‘Then that’s settled.’

‘But not with you, Charles.’

He said nothing for a time. She was sitting up, her hands clasped on her lap, and as she looked at him she half regretted her last words. This was how they would sit in the little house, by the fire, surrounded by their own possessions, with everything clean and bright and, as he had said, very cosy. She had never had a home.

Suddenly she leaned towards him and put her head on his knee. His hand fell on her hair. ‘This doesn’t mean anything,’ she murmured; ‘but I was just thinking. You’re tempting me again. First with the ring because it was so pretty, and now with a house.’

‘How else am I to get you?’ he cried out. ‘And you know you were feeling lonely. That’s why I came.’

‘You thought it was your chance?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t know the ordinary things, but I know the others.’

‘I wonder how,’ she said, and he answered with the one word, ‘Love,’ in a voice so deep and solemn that she laughed.

‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I have never had a home. I’ve lived in other people’s houses, with their ugly furniture, their horrid sticky curtains–‘

‘I shall take that house to-morrow.’

‘But you can’t go on collecting things like this. Houses and rings–‘

‘The ring’s in my pocket now.’

‘It must stay there, Charles. I ought not to keep my head on your knee; but it’s comfortable and I have no conscience. None.’ She sat up, brushing his chin with her hair. ‘None!’ she said emphatically. ‘And here’s Aunt Rose coming to fetch me for Aunt Sophia. Mind, I’ve promised nothing. Besides, you haven’t asked me to promise anything.’

‘Oh!’ He blinked. ‘Well, there’s no time now. Good evening, Miss Mallett.’ He pulled himself out of his chair.

‘Good evening, Charles. I’m glad you’re here to keep Henrietta company. The doctor has been, Henrietta–‘

‘Oh, has he? I didn’t hear him.’

‘Sophia is settled for the night, and I’m going to her now.’

‘But she’ll want me!’ Henrietta cried.

‘No, she asked me to stay with her. Good night. Good night, Charles.’

‘But did you say I wanted to be with her?’

Rose, smiling but a little pitiful, said gently, ‘I gave her the choice and she chose me.’

She disappeared, and Henrietta turned to Charles. ‘You see, she gets everything. She gets everything I ever wanted and she doesn’t try–‘ Her hands dropped to her side. ‘She just gets it.’

‘But what have you wanted?’

She turned away. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Is she going to marry Francis Sales?’

‘What makes you ask that?’ she cried.

‘I don’t know. I just thought of it.’

‘Oh, your thoughts! Why, you suggested the same thing, for me! As if I would look at him!’

Charles blinked, his sign of agitation, but Henrietta did not see. ‘He’s good to look at,’ Charles muttered. ‘He knows how to wear his clothes.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

Charles heaved a sigh. ‘One never knows what matters.’

‘And the Malletts don’t marry,’ Henrietta said. ‘Aunt Caroline and Aunt Sophia and Aunt Rose, and now me. There’s something in us that can’t be satisfied. It was the same with my father, only it took him the other way.’

‘I didn’t know he was married more than once. Nobody tells me things.’

‘Charles, dear, you’re very stupid. He was only married once in a church.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘And if I did marry, I should be like him.’ She turned to him and put her face close to his. ‘Unfaithful,’ she pronounced clearly.

‘Oh, well, Henrietta, you would still be you.’

She stepped backwards, shocked. ‘Charles, wouldn’t you mind?’

‘Not so much,’ he said stolidly, ‘as doing without you altogether.’

‘And the other day you said you need never do that because’–she tapped his waistcoat–‘because I’m here!’

He showed a face she had never seen before. ‘You seem to think I’m not made of flesh and blood!’ he cried. ‘You’re wanton, Henrietta, simply wanton!’ And he rushed out of the room.

She heard the front door bang; she saw his hat and stick, lying where he had put them; she smiled at them politely and then, sinking to the floor beside the fender, she let out a little moan of despair and delight. The fire chuckled and chattered and she leaned forward, her face near the bars.

‘Stop talking for a minute! I want to tell you something. There’s nobody else to tell. Listen! I’m in love with him now.’ She nodded her head. ‘Yes, with him. I know it’s ridiculous; but it’s true. Did you hear? You can laugh if you like. I don’t care. I’m in love with him. Oh, dear!’

She circled her neck with her hands as though she must clasp something, and it would have been too silly to fondle his ugly hat. And he would remember he had forgotten it; he would come back. She dared not see him. ‘I love him,’ she cried out, ‘too much to want to see him!’ She paused, astonished. ‘I suppose that’s how he feels about me. How wonderful!’ She looked round at the furniture, so still and unmoved by the happy bewilderment in which she found herself. The piano was mute; the lamps burned steadily; the chair in which Charles had sat was unconscious of its privilege; even the fire’s flames had subsided; and she was intensely, madly, joyously alive. ‘It’s too much,’ she said, ‘too much!’ And for the first time she was ashamed of her episode with Francis Sales. ‘Playing at love,’ she whispered.

But Charles would be coming back and, tiptoeing as though he might hear her from the street, she picked up his hat and stick and laid them neatly on the step outside the front door.

She slept with the profundity of her happiness and descended to breakfast in a dream. Only the sight of Rose’s tired face reminded her that Aunt Sophia was ill. She had had a bad night, but she was better.

‘She’s not going to die, too, is she?’ Henrietta asked, and she had a sad vision of Aunt Rose living all alone in Nelson Lodge.

‘She may live for a long time, but the doctor says she may die at any moment.’

‘I don’t suppose she wants to live.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because of Aunt Caroline–and–other people. But if she dies, whatever will you do?’

The question amused Rose. ‘Go and see the world at last,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you will come, too.’