The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 15

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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed, 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 friends.h.i.+p with the Battys ripened.

She was always sure of her welcome at Prospect House, and though she often a.s.sured 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 G.o.d-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.'