The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 2

She lingered for a moment to watch the children playing, the nursemaids slowly pus.h.i.+ng, the elms opening their crumpled leaves like babies' hands. She had a momentary desire to stay, to wander round the hill and look with untired eyes at the familiar scene; but she pa.s.sed on under the tyranny of tea. The Malletts were always in time for meals and the meals were exquisite, like the polish on the old bra.s.s door-knocker, like the furniture in the white panelled hall, like the beautiful old mahogany in the drawing-room, the old china, the gla.s.s bowls full of flowers.

Rose found Caroline and Sophia there on either side of a small wood fire, while, facing the fire and spread in a chair not too low and not too narrow for her bulk, sat Mrs. Batty, flushed, costumed for spring, her hat a flower garden.

'Just in time,' Caroline said. 'Touch the bell, please, Sophia.'

'Susan saw me,' Rose said, and the elderly parlourmaid entered at that moment with the teapot.

'Rose insists on having a latchkey,' Sophia explained. 'What would the General have said?'

'What, indeed!' Caroline echoed. 'Young rakes are always old prudes.

Yes, the General was a rake, Sophia; you needn't look so modest. I think I understand men.'

'Yes, yes, Caroline, no one better, but we are told to honour our father and mother.'

'And I do honour him,' Caroline guffawed, 'honour him all the more.'

She had a deep voice and a deep laugh; she ought, she always said, to have been a man, but there was nothing masculine about her appearance.

Her dark hair, carefully tinted where greyness threatened, was piled in many puffs above a curly fringe: on the bodice of her flounced silk frock there hung a heavy golden chain and locket; ear-rings dangled from her large ears; there were rings on her fingers, and powder and a hint of rouge on her face.

She laughed again. 'Mrs. Batty knows I'm right.'

Mrs. Batty's tightly gloved hand made a movement. She was a little in awe of the Miss Malletts. With them she was always conscious of her inferior descent. No General had ever ornamented her family, and her marriage with James Batty had been a giddy elevation for her, but she was by no means humble. She had her place in local society: she had a fine house in that exclusive part of Radstowe called The Slope, and her husband was a member of the oldest firm of lawyers in the city.

'You are very naughty, Miss Caroline,' she said, knowing that was the remark looked for. She gave a little nod of her flower-covered head.

'And we've just got to put up with them, whatever they are.'

'Yes, yes, poor dears,' Sophia murmured. 'They're different, they can't help it.'

'Nonsense,' Caroline retorted, 'they're just the same, there's nothing to choose between me and Reginald--nothing except discretion!'

'Oh, Caroline dear!' Sophia entreated.

'Discretion!' Caroline repeated firmly, and Mrs. Batty, bending forward stiffly because of her constricting clothes, and with a creak and rustle, ventured to ask in low tones, 'Have you any news of Mr.

Mallett lately?' The three elder ladies murmured together; Rose, indifferent, concerned with her own thoughts, ate a creamy cake. This was one of the conversations she had heard before and there was no need for her to listen.

She was roused by the departure of Mrs. Batty.

'Poor thing,' Caroline remarked as the door closed. 'It's a pity she has no daughter with an eye for colour. The roses in her hat were pale in comparison with her face. Why doesn't she use a little powder, though I suppose that would turn her purple, and after all, she does very well considering what she is; but why, why did James Batty marry her? And he was one of our own friends! You remember the sensation at the time, Sophia?'

Sophia remembered very well. 'She was a pretty girl, Caroline, and good-natured. She has lost her looks, but she still has a kind heart.'

'Personally I would rather keep my looks,' said Caroline, touching her fringe before the mirror. 'And I never had a kind heart to cherish.'

Tenderly Sophia shook her head. 'It isn't true,' she whispered to Rose. 'The kindest in the world. It's just her way.'

Rose nodded understanding; then she stood up, tall and slim in her severe clothes, her high boots. The gilt clock on the mantelpiece said it was only five o'clock. There were five more hours before she could reasonably go to bed.

'Where did you ride to-day, dear?' Sophia asked.

'Over the bridge.' And to dissipate some of her boredom, she added, 'I met Francis Sales. He thinks of going abroad.'

There was an immediate confusion of little exclamations and a chatter.

'Going abroad? Why?'

'To learn farming.'

'Oh, dear,' Sophia sighed, 'and we thought--we hoped--'

'She must do as she likes,' Caroline said, and Rose smiled. 'The Malletts don't care for marrying. Look at us, free as the air and with plenty of amusing memories. In this world n.o.body gets more than that, and we have been saved much trouble. Don't marry, my dear Rose.'

'You're a.s.suming a good deal,' Rose said.

'But Rose is not like us,' Sophia protested. 'We have each other, but we shall die before she does and leave her lonely. She ought to marry, Caroline; we ought to have more parties. We are not doing our duty.'

'Parties! No!' Rose said. 'We have enough of them. If you threaten me with more I shall go into a convent.'

Caroline laughed, and Sophia sighed again. 'That would be beautiful,'

she said.

'Sophia, how dare you?'

Sophia persisted mildly: 'So romantic--a young girl giving up all for G.o.d;' and Caroline gave the ribald laugh on which she prided herself-- a shocking sound. 'Rose Mallett,' Sophia went on, so lost in her vision that the jarring laughter was not heard, 'such a pretty name--a nun! She would never be forgotten: people would tell their children.

Sister Rose!' She developed her idea. 'Saint Rose! It's as pretty as Saint Cecilia--prettier!'

'Sophia, you're in your dotage,' Caroline cried. 'A Mallett and a nun!

Well, she could pray for the rest of us, I suppose.'

'But I would rather you were married, dear,' Sophia said serenely.

'And we have known the Sales all our lives. It would have been so suitable.'

'So dull!' Rose murmured.

'And we need praying for,' Caroline said. 'You'd be dull either way, Rose. Have your fling, as I did. I've never regretted it. I was the talk of Radstowe, wasn't I, Sophia? There was never a ball where I was not looked for, and when I entered the ballroom'--she gave a display of how she did it--'there was a rush of black coats and white s.h.i.+rts-- a mob--I used just to wave them all away--like that. Oh, yes, Sophia, you were a belle, too--'

'But never as you were, Caroline.'

'You were admired for yourself, Sophia, but with me it was curiosity.

They only wanted to hear what I should say next. I had a tongue like a las.h.!.+ They were afraid of it.'

'Yes, yes,' Sophia said hastily, and she glanced at Rose, afraid of meeting scepticism in her clear young eyes; but though Rose was smiling it was not in mockery. She was thinking of her childhood when, like a happier Cinderella, she had seen her stepsisters, in satins and laces, with pendant fans and glittering jewels, excited, rustling, with little words of commendation for each other, setting out for the evening parties of which they never tired. They had always kissed her before they went, looking, she used to think, as beautiful as princesses.

'And men like what they fear,' Caroline added.

'Yes, dear,' Sophia said. A natural flush appeared round the delicate dabs of rouge. She hoped she might be forgiven for her tender deceits.

Those young men in the white waistcoats had often laughed at Caroline rather than at her wit; she was, as Sophia had shrinkingly divined, as often as not their b.u.t.t, and dear Caroline had never known it; she must never know it, never know it. She drew half her happiness from the past, as, so differently, Sophia did herself, and, drooping a little, her thoughts went farther back to the last year of her teens when a pale and penniless young man had been her secret suitor, had gone to America to make his fortune there--and died. She had told no one; Caroline would have scorned him because he was shy and timid, and he had not had time to earn enough to keep her; he had not had time.

She had a faded photograph of him pushed away at the back of a drawer of the walnut bureau in the bedroom she shared with Caroline, a pale young man wearing a collar too large for his thin neck, a young man with kind, honest eyes. It was a grief to her that she could not wear that photograph in a locket near her heart, but Caroline would have found out. They had slept in the same bed since they were children, and nothing could be hidden from her except the love she still cherished in her heart. Some day she meant to burn that photograph lest unsympathetic hands should touch it when she died; but death still seemed far off, and sometimes, even while she was talking to Caroline, she would pretend to rummage in the drawer, and for a moment she would close her hand upon the photograph to tell him she had not forgotten. She loved her little romance, and the gaiety in which she had persisted, even on the day when she heard of his death and which at first had seemed a necessary but cruel disloyalty, had become in her mind the tenderest of concealments, as though she had wrapped her secret in beauty, laughter, music and s.h.i.+ning garments.

'Oh, yes, dear Rose,' she said, lifting her head, 'you must be married.'