The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 24

'The world's the same everywhere,' Caroline said. 'If you know one man you know them all.'

'But if you know a great many, you will know one all the better.

However,' she smiled in the way of which her stepsisters were afraid, 'I wasn't thinking of men.'

'That's where you're so unnatural.'

'I was thinking of places--cities and mountains and plains.'

'You'll get the plague or be run away with by brigands.'

'I think Henrietta and I would rather like the brigands. We must avoid the plague.'

'Smallpox,' Caroline went on, 'and your complexions ruined.'

'I wish you would stay at home,' Sophia said. 'Caroline and I are getting old.'

'Nonsense, Sophia! I'd go myself for twopence. But I'd better wait here and get the ransom money ready, and then James Batty and I can start out together with a bag of it.' She laughed loudly at the prospect of setting forth with the respectable James. 'And it wouldn't be the first elopement I'd planned either. When I was eighteen I set my mind on getting out of my bedroom window with a bundle--no, of course I never told you, Sophia. You would have run in hysterics to the General. But there was never one among them all who was worth the inconvenience, so I gave it up. I always had more sense than sentiment.' She sighed with regret for the legions of disappointed and fict.i.tious lovers waiting under windows, with which her mind was peopled. 'Not one,' she repeated.

No one took any notice. Sophia, drooping her heavy head, was thinking of brigands in a far country and of Caroline and herself left in Nelson Lodge without Rose and without Henrietta. If they really went away she determined to tell Henrietta the story of her lover, lest she should die and the tale be unrecorded. She wanted somebody to know; she would tell Henrietta on the eve of her departure, among the bags and boxes. He had gone to America and died there, and that continent was both sacred to her and abhorrent.

'Don't go to America,' she murmured.

'Why not?' Caroline demanded. 'Just the place they ought to go to.

Lots of millionaires.'

Rose rea.s.sured Sophia. 'And it is only an idea. I haven't said a word to Henrietta.'

Henrietta showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion. She liked Radstowe.

And there was the Battys' ball. It would be a pity to miss that. She must certainly not miss that, said Caroline and Sophia. And what was she going to wear? They had better go upstairs at once, to the elder ladies' room, and see what could be done with Caroline's pink satin.

She had only worn it once, years ago. n.o.body would remember it, and trimmed with some of her mother's lace, the big flounce and the fichu, it would be a different thing. Sophia could wear her apricot.

'Come along, Henrietta. Come along, Rose. We must really get this settled.'

They went upstairs, Caroline moving with heavy dignity, but keeping up her head as she had been taught in her youth. Nothing was more unbecoming than ducking the head and sticking out the back. Sophia went slowly, holding to the bal.u.s.trade, so very slowly that Henrietta did not attempt to start. She said softly to Rose, 'How slowly she goes. I've never noticed it before.'

'She always goes upstairs like that,' Rose said. 'It is not natural to her to hurry.'

Henrietta followed and found Sophia panting a little on the landing.

She laid hold of her niece's arm. 'A little out of breath,' she whispered. 'Don't say anything, dear child, to Caroline. She doesn't like to be reminded of our age.'

They went into the bedroom and Rose, drifting into her own room, heard the opening of the great wardrobe doors. She would be called in presently for her advice, but there would be a lot of talk and many reminiscences before she was needed. She stood by the fire, which, giving the only light to the room, threw golden patches on the white dressing-gown lying across a chair, and made the buckles on her shoes sparkle like diamonds.

She was wondering why Henrietta's eyes had darkened as though with fear at the idea of going away. She had been very quick in veiling them, and her voice, too, had been quick, a little tremulous. There was more than the Battys' ball in her desire to stay in Radstowe. Was it Charles whom she was both to leave? Afterwards, perhaps in the spring, she had said it would be nice to go. It was kind of Aunt Rose, and Aunt Rose, gazing down at the fire, controlled her longing to escape from this place too full of memories. She would not leave Henrietta who had to be cared for, perhaps protected; she would not persuade her who had to be happy, but she felt a sinking of the heart which was almost physical. She rested both hands on the mantelshelf and on them her weight. She felt as though she could not go on like this for ever. She, who apparently had no ties, was never free; she had the duties without the joys, and for these few minutes, before a knock came at the door, she allowed herself the relief of melancholy.

She was incapable of tears, but she wished she could cry bitterly and for a long time.

The knock was Henrietta's. She entered a little timidly. Aunt Rose was not free with invitations to her room and to Henrietta it was a beautiful and mysterious place. She had a childlike pleasure in the silver and gla.s.s on the dressing-table, in glimpses of exquisite garments and slippers worn to the shape of Aunt Rose's slim foot, and Aunt Rose herself was like some fairy princess growing old and no less lovely in captivity, but to-night, that dark straight figure splashed by the firelight reminded her of words uttered by Christabel. She had said that all Henrietta's aunts were witches, and for the first time the girl agreed. In the other room, brilliantly lighted, Caroline and Sophia were bending somewhat greedily over a ma.s.s of silks and satins and laces, their cheeks flushed round the dabs of rouge, their fingers active yet inept, fumbling in what might have been a brew for the working of spells; and here, straight as a tree, Aunt Rose looked into the fire as though she could see the future in its red heart, but her voice, very clear, had a rea.s.suring quality. It was not, Henrietta thought, a witch's voice. Witches mumbled and screeched, and Aunt Rose spoke like water falling from a height.

'Come in, Henrietta. Is the consultation over?'

'It has hardly begun. What a lot of clothes they have, and boxes of lace, boxes! I think you will have to decide for them. And Aunt Caroline snubs Aunt Sophia, all the time.'

'Did they send you to fetch me?'

'Yes, but we needn't go back yet, need we? Aunt Caroline wants to wear her emeralds, but she says they will look vulgar with pink satin.

There's some lovely grey stuff like a cobweb. She says it was in her mother's trousseau and I think she ought to wear that, but she says she is going to keep it until she's old!'

'Then she'll never wear it. She will never make such an admission.'

'And she won't let Aunt Sophia have it because she says it would make her look like a dusty broom. And it would, you know! She's really very funny sometimes.'

'Very funny. We're queer people, Henrietta.'

'Are we? And I'm more theirs than yours.'

'As far as blood goes, yes.' She spoke very quietly, but she felt a great desire to a.s.sert, for once, her own claims, instead of accepting those of others. She wanted to tell Henrietta that in return for the secret care, the growing affection she was giving, she demanded confidence and love; but she had never asked for anything in her life.

She had taken coolly much she could easily have done without, admiration and respect and the material advantages to which she had been born, but she had asked for nothing. Cruelly conscious of all that lay in the gift of Henrietta, who sat in a low chair, her chin on the joined fingers of her hands, Rose continued to look at the fire.

'You mean I'm really more like you?' Henrietta said. 'Am I? I'm like my father,' and she added softly, 'terribly.'

'Why terribly?'

Henrietta moved her feet. 'Oh, I don't know.'

'I wish you'd tell me.'

'He was queer. You said we all were, and I'm a Mallett, too, that's all. Don't you think we ought to go and see about the dresses now?

Aunt Rose, they're bothering me to wear white, the only thing for a young girl, but I want to wear yellow. Don't you think I might?'

Rose, who had felt herself on the brink of confidences, as though she peered over a cliff, and watched the mists clear to show the secret valley underneath, now saw the clouds thicken hopelessly, and retreated from her position with an effort.

'Yellow? Yes, certainly. You will look like a marigold. Henrietta--'

She did not know what she was going to say, but she wanted to detain the girl for a little longer, she hoped for another chance of drawing nearer. 'Henrietta, wait a minute.' She moved to her dressing-table, smiling at what she was about to do. It seemed as though she were going to bribe the girl to love her, but she was only yielding to the pathetic human desire to give something tangible since the intangible was ignored. 'When I was twenty-one,' she said, 'your father gave me a present.'

'Only when you were twenty-one?'

'Well,' Rose excused him, 'we didn't know each other very well. He was a great deal from home, but he remembered my twenty-first birthday and he gave me this necklace. I think it's beautiful, but I never wear it now, and I think you may like to have it. Here it is, in its own box and with the card he wrote--"A jewel for a rose."'

Holding it in her cupped hands, Henrietta murmured with delight: 'May I have it really? How lovely! And may I have the card, too? He did say nice things. Are you sure you can spare the card? I expect he admired you very much. He liked beautiful women. My mother was pretty, too; but I don't believe he ever gave her anything except a wedding-ring, and he had to give her that.'

'Oh, Henrietta--well, his daughter shall have all he gave me.'

'If you're sure you don't want it. What are the stones?'

'Topaz and diamonds; but so small that you can wear them.'

'Topaz and diamonds! Oh!' And Henrietta, clasping it round her neck and surveying herself by the candles Rose had lighted, said earnestly, 'Oh, I do hope he paid for it!' This was the first thought of Reginald Mallett's daughter.