The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 16

'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 a.s.surance there swept a wave of embarra.s.sment, of shyness. She was alone with him and he was not like Charles Batty. He looked down at her with amus.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sert 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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.