The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 33

'The best and most beautiful--yes,' he said. 'All right. But you'll see--I'll lose her. Bound to,' he muttered.

She put her hand on his arm. 'You'll bring her home,' she said firmly, and she left him standing monumentally, with his hat awry.

Charles stood obediently in the place a.s.signed to him, where the shelter of the Malleus' garden wall made his own bulk less conspicuous and whence he could see the gate. The night was mild, but a little wind had risen, gently rocking the branches of the trees which, in the neighbourhood of the street lamps, cast their shadows monstrously on the pavements. Their movements gradually resolved themselves into melody in Charles Batty's mind: the beauty of the reflected and exaggerated twigs and branches was not consciously realized by his eyes, but the swaying, the sudden ceasing, and the resumption of that delicate agitation became music in his ears. He, too, swayed slightly on his big feet and forgot his business, to remember it with a jerk and a fear that Henrietta had escaped him. Rose had told him he must not make music in his head. How had she known he would want to do that? She must have some faculty denied to him, the same faculty which warned her that Henrietta was going to do something strange to-night.

He felt in his pocket to a.s.sure himself of the money's safety. He rearranged his hat and determined to concentrate on watching. The pain which, varying in degrees, always lived in his bosom, the pain of misunderstanding and being misunderstood, of doing the wrong thing, of meaning well and acting ill, became acute. He was bound to make a mistake; he would lose Henrietta or incense her, though now he was more earnest to do wisely than he had ever been. He had told her he was going to make an art of love, but he knew that art was far from perfected, and she was incapable of appreciating mere endeavour. He was afraid of her, but to-night he was more afraid of failing.

The music tripped in his head but he would not listen to it. He strained his ears for the opening of the Malletts' door, and just as the sound of the clock striking two steady notes for half-past five was fading, as though it were being carried on the light wings of the wind over the big trees, over the green, across the gorge, across the woods to the essential country, he heard a faint thud, a patter of feet and the turning of the handle of the gate. He stepped back lest she should be going to pa.s.s him, but she turned the other way, walking quickly, with a small bag in her hand.

'She's going away,' Charles said to himself with perspicacity, and now for the first time he knew what her absence would mean to him. She did not love him, she mocked and despised him, but the Malletts' house had held her, and several times a day he had been able to pa.s.s and tell himself she was there. Now, with the sad little bag in her hand, she was not only in personal danger, she threatened his whole life.

He followed, not too close. Her haste did not destroy the beauty of her carriage, her body did not hang over her feet, teaching them the way to go; it was straight, like a young tree. He had never really looked at her before, he had never had a mind empty of everything except the consideration of her, and now he was puzzled by some difference. In his desire to discover what it was, he drew indiscreetly close to her, and though a quick turn of her head reminded him of his duty to see and not to be seen, he had made his discovery. Her clothes were different: they were shabby and, searching for an explanation, he found the right one. She was wearing the clothes in which she had arrived at Nelson Lodge. He remembered. In books it was what fugitives always did: they discarded their rich clothes and they left a note on the pin-cus.h.i.+on. It was her way of shaking the dust from her feet and, with a rush of feeling in which he forgot himself, he experienced a new, protective tenderness for her.

He realized that she, too, might be unhappy, and it seemed that it was he who ought to comfort her, he who could do it.

He had to put a drag on his steps as they tried to hurry after her, through the main street of Upper Radstowe, through another darker one where there were fewer people and he had to exercise more care, and so past the big square where tall old houses looked at each other across an enclosure of trees, down to a broad street where tramcars rushed and rattled. She boarded one of these and went inside. Pulling his hat farther over his face in the erroneous belief that he would be the less noticeable, he ascended to the top, to crane his head over the side at every stopping-place lest Henrietta should get off; but there was no sign of her until they reached that strange place in the middle of the city where the harbour ran into the streets and the funnels and masts of s.h.i.+ps mingled with the roofs of houses. This was the spot where, round a big triangle of paving, tramcars came and went in every direction, and here everybody must alight.

The streets were brilliant with electricity; electric signs popped magically with many-coloured lights on the front of a music hall where an audience was already gathering for the first performance, on public-houses, on the big red warehouses on the quay. The lighted tramcars with pa.s.sengers inside looked like magic-lantern slides, and amid all the people using the triangle as a promenade or hurrying here and there on business, the newsboys shouting and the general bustle, Charles did not know whether to be more afraid of losing Henrietta or colliding with her. But now his faculties were alert and he used more discretion than was necessary, for Henrietta, under the influence of that instinct which persuades that not seeing is a precaution against being seen, was scrupulous in avoiding the encounter of any eye.

He followed her to another tramcar which would take her to the station; he followed her when she alighted once more and, seeing her change that bag from one hand to another, as though she found it heavy, he let out a groan so loud and heartfelt that it aroused the pity of a pa.s.ser-by, but he was really luxuriating in his sorrow for her. It was an immense relief after much sorrowing for himself and it induced a forgetfulness of everything but his determination to help her.

It was easy to keep her in sight while she went up the broad approach to the dull, crowded, badly lighted and dirty station: it was harder to get near enough to hear what ticket she demanded. He did not hear, but again he followed the little, shabby, yet somehow elegant figure, and he took a place in the compartment next to the one she chose. It was the London train, and he found himself hoping she was not going so far; he felt that to see her disappearing into that house of which he had the address in his pocket would be like seeing her disappear for ever. He would lose his chance of helping her, or rather, she would lose her chance of being helped, a slightly different aspect of the affair and the one on which he had set his mind.

He had taken a ticket for the first stop, and when the train slowed down for the station of that neighbouring city, he had his head out of the window. An old gentleman with a noisy cold protested. Could he not wait until the train actually stopped? Charles was afraid he could not be so obliging. He a.s.sured the old gentleman that the night was mild.

'And I'm keeping a good deal of the draught out,' he said pleasantly.

He saw a small hand on the door of the next compartment, then the sleeve of a black coat as Henrietta stretched for the handle, and he said to himself, 'She was in mourning for her mother.' He was proud of remembering that; he had a sense of nearness and a slow suspicion that hitherto he had not sufficiently considered her. In their past intercourse he had been trying to stamp his own thoughts on her mind, but now it seemed that something of her, more real than her physical beauty, was being impressed on him. He wanted to know what she was feeling, not in regard to him, but in regard, for instance, to that dead mother, and why she ran away like this, in her old clothes and with the little bag.

She was out of the train: she had descended the steps to the roadway and there she looked about her, hesitating. Cabmen hailed her but, ignoring them and crossing the tramlines, she began to walk slowly up a dull street where cards in the house windows told of lodgings to be let. If she knocked at one of these doors, what was he to do? But she did not look at the houses: her head was drooping a little, her feet moved reluctantly, she was no longer eager and her bag was heavy again, she had changed it from the right to the left hand, and then, unexpectedly, she quickened her pace. The naturally un.o.bservant Charles divined a cause and, looking for it, he saw with a shock of surprise and horror the tall figure of a man at the end of the street.

She was hastening towards him.

Charles stood stock-still. A man! He had not thought of that, he had positively never thought of it! Nor had he guessed at his capacity for jealousy and anger. Then this was why Rose Mallett had sent him on this mission: it was a man's work, and in the confusion of his feelings he still had time to wish he had spent more of his youth in the exercise of his muscles. He braced himself for an encounter, but already Henrietta had swerved aside. This was not the man she was to meet; her expectation had misled her; but the acute Charles surmised that the man she looked for would also be tall and slim.

Tall and slim; he repeated the words so that he should make no mistake, but subconsciously they had roused memories and instead of that little black figure hurrying on in front of him, he saw a young woman clothed in yellow, entering from the frosty night, with brilliant half veiled eyes, and by the side of her was Francis Sales.

Again he stood still, as much in amazement at his own folly as in any other feeling. Francis Sales, the fellow who could dance, who murdered music and little birds! And he had a wife! Charles was not shocked. If Henrietta had wished to elope with a great musician, wived though he might be, Charles could have let her go, subduing his own pangs, not for her own sake but for that of a man more important than himself, but he would not yield the claims of his devotion to Francis Sales. He should not have her.

He walked on quickly, taking no precautions. He had lost sight of Henrietta and he could not even hear the sound of her steps, yet he had no doubt but he would find her, and she was not far to seek. A turn of the road brought him under the shadow of the cathedral and, in the paved square surrounded by old houses in which it stood, he saw her. Apparently at that moment she also saw him, for with an incredibly swift movement and a furtiveness which wrung his heart, she slipped into the porch and disappeared. He followed. The door was unlocked and she had pa.s.sed through it, but he lingered there, fancying he could smell the faint sweetness of her presence. Within, the organ was booming softly and in that sound he forgot, for a moment, the necessity for action. The music seemed to be wonderfully complicated with the waft of Henrietta's pa.s.sage, with his love for her, with all he imagined her to be, but the forgetfulness was only for that moment, and he pushed open the door.

-- 8

The place was dimly lighted. Two candles, like stars, twinkled on the distant altar; a few people sat in the darkness with an extraordinary effect of personal sorrow. This was not where happy people came to offer thanks; it was a refuge for the afflicted, a temporary harbour for the weary. They did not seem to pray; they sat relaxed, wrapped in the antique peace, the warm, musty smell of the building, sitting with the stillness of their desire to preserve this safety which was theirs only for a little while. Their dull clothes mixed with the shadows, the old oak, the worn stone, and the voice of the organ was like the voice of mult.i.tudes of sad souls. Very soon the music ceased with a kind of sob and the verger, with his skirts flapping round his feet, came to warn those isolated human creatures that they must face the world again.

They rose obediently, but Henrietta did not move, as though she alone of that company had not learnt the lesson of necessity. But the altar lights were now extinguished, the skirted verger was approaching her, and Charles forestalled him. He murmured, 'Henrietta!'

She looked up without surprise. 'What time is it?' she asked.

'Seven o'clock.'

She rose, picking up her bag.

'Let me have that,' he said.

'No, no,' she answered absently, and then, 'Is it really seven?'

'Yes, there's the clock striking now.' The sound of the seven notes whirred and then clanged above their heads. 'We must go,' he said.

'They're locking up.' The air was cold and damp after the warmth of the church and Henrietta stood, s.h.i.+vering a little and looking round her.

'I'm hungry,' Charles Batty said. 'Will you come and have dinner with me?'

'No,' she replied, 'I shall stay here.'

'How long for?'

'I don't know.' And sharply she turned on him and asked, 'What are you doing here?'

'I come here sometimes. There are concerts.'

'You'll be late, then, if you are going to dine.'

'I know, but I'm hungry. You can't listen to music if you're hungry.

Let's have dinner first.'

The square was deserted, the lights in the little shops, where old furniture and lace and jewels were sold, were all put out and the large policeman who had been standing at the corner had moved away.

'I don't want anything to eat,' she said. She dropped the bag and covered her face with both her hands. She was going to cry, but he was not afraid; he was rather glad and, not without pleasure at his own daring, he removed a hand, tucked it under his arm, and said, 'Come along.'

She struggled. 'I can't. I must go to London. If you want to help me you'll find out about the trains. I can go to Mrs. Banks. I can't go back to Radstowe.'

'Henrietta,' he said firmly, 'come and have dinner and we'll talk about it.'

'If you'll promise to help me.'

'There's nothing I want to do so much,' he said. 'We mustn't forget the bag.'

'Somewhere quiet, Charles,' she murmured.

'Somewhere good,' he emended.

She looked down, 'Such old clothes.'

'It doesn't matter what you wear,' he told her. 'You always look different from anybody else.'

'Do I? And I am! I am! I'm much worse, and n.o.body,' she almost sobbed, 'is so unhappy! Charles, will you wait here for a minute? I must just--just walk round the square.'

'You'll come back?'

She nodded, and he kept the bag as hostage.