“Soon,” Rose said, “you will see hills and the channel.”
“And when shall we come to Mrs. Sales’ house? Is she an old lady?”
“I don’t think you would call her very old. She is younger than I am.”
“Oh, that’s not old,” Henrietta said kindly. “Has she any children?”
“No, there’s a cat and a dog—especially a cat.”
“And a husband, I suppose?”
“Yes, a husband. Do you like cats, Henrietta?”
“They catch mice,” Henrietta said informatively.
“I don’t think this one has ever caught a mouse, but it lies in wait— for something. Cats are horrible; they listen.” And she added, as though to herself, “They frighten me.”
“I’m more afraid of dogs,” Henrietta said.
“Oh, but you mustn’t be.”
“Well,” Henrietta dared, “you’re afraid of cats.”
“I know, but dogs, they seem to be part of one’s inheritance—dogs and horses.”
“All the horses I’ve known,” Henrietta said with her odd bitterness, “have been in cabs, and even then I never knew them well.”
“Francis Sales must show you his,” Rose said. “There are the hills. Now we turn to the left, but down that track and across the fields is the short cut to Sales Hall. One can ride that way.”
“I should like to see the dairy,” Henrietta remarked, “or do they pretend they haven’t one?”
Rose smiled. “No, they’re very proud of it. It’s a model dairy. I’ve no doubt Francis will be glad to show you that, too. And here we are.”
The masculine hall, with its smell of tobacco, leather and tweed, the low winding staircase covered with matting, its walls adorned with sporting prints, was a strange introduction to the room in which Henrietta found herself. She had an impression of richness and colour; the carpet was very soft, the hangings were of silk, a fire burned in the grate though the day was warm and before the fire lay the cat. The dog was on the window-sill looking out at the glorious world, full of smells and rabbits which he loved and which he denied himself for the greater part of each day because he loved his mistress more, but he jumped down to greet Rose with a great wagging of his tail.
She stooped to him, saying, “Here is Henrietta, Christabel. Henrietta, this is Mrs. Sales.”
The woman on the couch looked to Henrietta like a doll animated by some diabolically clever mechanism, she was so pink and blue and fair. She was, in fact, a child’s idea of feminine beauty and Henrietta felt a rush of sorrow that she should have to lie there, day after day, watching the seasons come and go. It was marvellous that she had courage enough to smile, and she said at once, “Rose Mallett is always trying to give me pleasure,” and her tone, her glance at Rose, startled Henrietta as much as if the little thin hand outside the coverlet had suddenly produced a glittering toy which had its uses as a dagger. She, too, looked at Rose, but Rose was talking to the dog and it was then that Henrietta became really aware of the cat. It was certainly listening; it had stretched out its fore-paws and revealed shining, nail-like claws, and those polished instruments seemed to match the words which still floated on the warm air of the room.
“And now she has brought you,” Christabel went on. “It was kind of you to come. Do sit here beside me. Tell me what you think of Rose. Tell me what you think,” she laughed, “of your aunt. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yes, very,” Henrietta said, and she spoke coldly, because she, too, was a Mallett, and she suspected this praise uttered in Rose’s hearing and still with that sharpness as of knives. She had never been in a room in which she felt less at ease: perhaps she had been prejudiced by Aunt Rose’s words about the cat, but that seemed absurd and she was confused by her vague feelings of anger and pity and suspicion.
However, she did her best to be a pleasant guest. She had somehow to break the tenseness in the room and she called on her reserve of anecdote. She told the story of Mr. Jenkins trying to fetch his boots and catch a glimpse of Mrs. Banks’s daily help who could cook but had no character; she described the stickiness of his collar; and because she was always readily responsive to her surroundings, she found it natural to be humorous in a somewhat spiteful way; and at a casual mention of the Battys, she became amusing at the expense of Charles and felt a slight regret when she had roused Christabel’s laughter. It seemed unkind; he had confided in her; she had betrayed him; and Rose completed her discomfiture by saying, “Ah, don’t laugh at poor Charles. He feels too much.”
Christabel nodded her head. “Your aunt is very sympathetic. She understands men.” She added quickly, “Have you met my husband?”
“No,” Henrietta said, “I’ve only seen your carts.”
The two women laughed and it was strange to hear them united in that mirth. Henrietta looked puzzled. “Well,” she explained, “it was one of the first things I noticed. It stuck in my head.” Naturally the impressions of that day had been unusually vivid and she saw with painful clearness the figure of the man on the horse, as enduring as though it had been executed in bronze yet animated by ardent life.
“Well,” Christabel said, “you are to have tea with the owner of the carts. Rose has tea with him every time she comes. It’s part of the ceremony.” She sighed wearily; the cat moved an ear; the nurse entered as a signal that the visitors must depart. “You’ll come again, won’t you?” Christabel asked, holding Henrietta’s hand and, as Rose said a few words to the nurse, she whispered, “Come alone”; and surprisingly, from the hearthrug, there was a loud purring from the cat.
It was like release to be in the matted corridor again and it was in silence that Rose led the way downstairs. Henrietta followed slowly, looking at the pictures of hounds in full cry, top-hatted ladies taking fences airily, red-coated gentlemen immersed in brooks, but at the turn of the stairs she stood stock-still. She had the physical sensation of her heart leaving its place and lodging in her throat. Her stranger was standing in the hall; he was looking at Aunt Rose, and she knew now what expression he was wearing in the wood; he was looking at her half-angrily and as though he were suffering from hunger. She could not see her aunt’s face, but when Henrietta stood beside her, Rose turned, saying, “Henrietta, let me introduce Mr. Sales.”
He said, “How do you do?” and then she saw again that look of interest with which she seemed to have been familiar for so long. “I think I have seen you before,” he said.
“It was you who picked up my orchid.”
“Of course.” He looked from her to Rose. “I couldn’t think who you reminded me of, but now I know.”
“I don’t think we are very much alike,” Henrietta said.
Rose laughed. “Oh, don’t say that. I have been glad to think we are.”
“You might be sisters,” said Francis Sales.
This little scene, being played so easily and lightly by this man and woman, had a nightmare quality for Henrietta. It had the confusion, the exaggerated horror of an evil dream, without the far-away consciousness of its unreality. Here she was, in the presence of the man she loved and it was wicked to love him. She had longed to meet him and now she wished she might have kept his memory only, the figure on the horse, the man with the pink orchid in his hand. She had suspected her Aunt Rose of a secret love affair, she had now discovered her guilty of sin. The evidence was slight, but Henrietta’s conviction was tremendous. She was horrified, but she was also elated. This was drama, this was life. She was herself a romantic figure; she was robbed of her happiness, her youth was blighted; the woman upstairs was wronged and Henrietta understood why there were knives on her tongue: she understood the watchfulness of the cat.
Yet, as they sat in the cool drawing-room with its pale flowery chintz, its primrose curtains, the faded water-colours on the walls and Aunt Rose pouring tea into the flowered cups, she might, if she had wished, have been persuaded that she was wrong. Perhaps she had mistaken that angry, starving look in the man’s eyes; it had gone; nothing could have been more ordinary than his expression and his conversation. But she knew she was not wrong and she sat there, on the alert, losing not a glance, not a tone. Her limbs were trembling, she could not eat and she was astonished that Aunt Rose could nibble biscuits with such nonchalance, that Francis Sales could eat plum cake.
He was, without doubt, the most attractive man she had ever seen; his long brown fingers fascinated her. And again she wondered at the odd sequence of events. She had seen his name on the carts, she had seen him on the horse, he had picked up her pink orchid, she had been led by Fate and a squirrel into the wood and now she found him here. It was like a play and it would be still more like a play if she snatched him from Aunt Rose. In that idea there was the prompting of her father, but her mother’s part in her was a reminder that she must not snatch him for herself. No, only out of danger; men were helpless, they were like babies in the hands of women, and hands could differ; they could hurt or soothe, and she imagined her own performing the latter task. She saw it as her mission, and on the way home she told herself that her silence was not that of anger but of dedication.
§ 5
She thought Aunt Rose looked at her rather curiously, though there was no expression so definite in that glance. Her aunts did not ask questions, they never interfered, and if Henrietta chose to be silent it was her own affair. She was, as a matter of fact, swimming in a warm bath of emotion and she experienced the usual chill when she descended from the carriage and felt the pavement under her feet. She had dedicated herself to a high purpose, but for the moment it was impossible to get on with the noble work. The mere business of life had to be proceeded with, and though the situation was absorbing it receded now and then until, looking at her Aunt Rose, she was reminded of it with a shock.
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.