The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 37

'I don't know,' Sophia murmured. 'She had such character. You never believed her, did you, Henrietta, when she made out she had been--had been indiscreet?'

'No, I never believed it.'

'I'm glad of that. It was a fancy of hers. I encouraged her in it, I'm afraid; but it made her happy, it pleased her and it did no harm. I suppose n.o.body believed her, but she didn't know. I don't think I'll sit here doing nothing, Henrietta. I suppose I ought to go through her papers. She never destroyed a letter. I might begin on them.'

'Oh, do you think you'd better? Don't you like just to sit here and talk to me?'

'No, no, I must not give way. I'm not the only one. There's poor Francis Sales. If he'd married Rose--I always planned that he should marry Rose--and of course, we ought not to think of such things so soon, but the thought has come to me that they may marry after all.'

Henrietta tightened the clasp of the hands on her knee and said, 'Why do you think that?'

'It would be suitable,' Sophia said.

'But she's so old. Haven't you noticed how old she has looked lately?'

'Old? Rose old?' Sophia's manner became almost haughty. 'Rose has nothing to do with age. My only doubt is whether Francis Sales is worthy of her. Dear Caroline used to say she ought to--to marry a king.'

'And she hasn't married anybody,' Henrietta remarked bitingly.

'n.o.body,' Sophia said serenely. 'The Malletts don't marry,' she sighed; 'but I hope you will, Henrietta.'

'No,' Henrietta said sharply. 'I shan't. I don't want to. Men are hateful.'

'No, dear child, not all of them. Perhaps none of them. When I was eighteen--' She hesitated. 'I must get on with her papers.' She stood up and moved towards the bureau. 'They're here. We shared the drawers.

We shared everything.' She stretched out her hands and they fell heavily, taking the weight of her body with them, against the s.h.i.+ning slope of wood.

Henrietta, who had been gazing moodily at the fire, was astonished to hear the thud, to see her Aunt Sophia leaning drunkenly over the desk.

Sophia's lips were blue, her eyes were glazed, and Henrietta thought, 'She's dying, too. Shall I let her die?' but at the same moment she leapt up and lowered her aunt into a chair.

'It's my heart,' Sophia said after a few minutes, and Henrietta understood why poor Aunt Sophia always went upstairs so slowly. 'Don't tell anybody. No one knows. I ought not to have cried like that.

There's a little bottle--' She told Henrietta to fetch it from a secret place. 'I never let Caroline know. It would have worried her, and, after all, she was the first to go. I'm glad to think I saved her that anxiety. You remember how she teased me about getting tired?

Well, it didn't matter and she liked to think she was so young.

Wherever she is now, I do hope she isn't feeling angry with herself.

She thought illness was so vulgar.'

'But not death,' Henrietta said.

'No, not death,' and Henrietta fancied her aunt lingered lovingly on the word. 'This must be a secret between us.' She lay back exhausted.

'I only had two secrets from Caroline. This about my heart was one.

Henrietta, in that little drawer, at the very back, you'll find a photograph wrapped in tissue-paper. Find it for me, dear child. Thank you.' She held it tenderly between her palms. 'This was the other.

It's the picture of my lover, Henrietta. Yes, I wanted you to know that some one once loved me very dearly.'

'Oh, Aunt Sophia, we all love you. I love you dearly now.'

'Yes, dear, yes, I know; I'm grateful, but I wanted somebody to know that I had had my romance, and have it still--all these years. But I was loved, Henrietta, till he died, and I was very young then, younger than you are now. Yes, I wanted somebody to know that poor Sophia had a real lover once. He went away to America to make a fortune for me, but he died. I have been wondering, since Caroline went, if she and he have met. If so, perhaps she knows, perhaps she blames me, but I don't think she will laugh--not now. I hope she laughs still, but not at that. And now, Henrietta, we'll put the photograph into the fire.'

'Ah, no, Aunt Sophia, keep it still!'

'Dear child, I may die at any moment, and I have his dear face by heart. I shouldn't like any other eyes to look at it, not even yours.

Stir the fire, Henrietta. Now help me up. No, dear, I would rather do it myself.'

She knelt, her faded face lighted by the flames which consumed her greatest treasure, her back still girlish, her slim waist girdled with a black ribbon, her thick knot of hair resting on her neck.

Henrietta went quietly out of the room, but on the landing she wrung her hands together. She felt herself surrounded by death, decay, lost love, sad memories. She was too young for this house. She had a longing to escape into suns.h.i.+ne, gaiety and pleasure. It was Caroline who had laughed and planned, it was she who had made the place a home.

Rose was too remote, Sophia was living in the past, and Henrietta felt herself alone. Even her father's portrait looked down at her with eyes too much like her own, and out there, beyond the high-walled garden, the roofs and the river, there was only Francis Sales and he was not a friend. He was, perhaps, a lover; he was a sensation, an accident; but he was not a companion or a refuge.

And the thought of Charles rose up, at that moment, like the thought of a fireside. She wished he would come now and sit with her, asking for nothing, but a.s.suring her of service. That was what he was for, she decided. You could not love Charles, but you could trust him for ever, and the more trust he was given, the more he grew to it. She needed him: she must not lose him. Deep in her heart she supposed she was going to marry Francis Sales, yes, in spite of what Aunt Sophia said, and it was a prospect towards which she tiptoed, holding her breath, not daring to look; but she, like Rose, had no illusions. She was the daughter of her mother's union with her father, and she was prepared for trouble, for the need of Charles. Besides, she liked him: he was companionable even when he scolded. One forgot about him, but he returned; he was there. She went to bed in that comfortable a.s.surance.

-- 9

There could be no more parties for Henrietta that winter, but Mrs.

Batty's house was always open to her, and Mrs. Batty, like her son Charles, could be relied upon for welcome and for relaxation. In her presence Henrietta had a pleasant sense of superiority; she was applauded and not criticized and she knew she could give comfort as well as get it. Mrs. Batty liked to talk to her and Henrietta could sink into one of the superlatively cus.h.i.+oned arm-chairs and listen or not as she chose. There she was relieved of the slight but persistent strain she was under in Nelson Lodge, for Sophia and Rose had standards of manner, conduct and speech beyond her own, while Mrs.

Batty's, though they existed, were on another plane. Henrietta was sure of herself in that luxurious, overcrowded drawing-room, decorated and scented with the least precious of Mr. Batty's hothouse flowers, and somewhat overheated.

On her first visit after Caroline's death, Mrs. Batty received the bereaved niece with unction. 'Ah, poor dear,' she murmured, and whether her sympathy was for Caroline or Henrietta, perhaps she did not know herself. 'Poor dear! I can't get your aunt out of my head, Henrietta, love. There she was at the party, looking like a queen-- well, you know what I mean--and Mr. Batty said she was the belle of the ball. It was just his joke; but Mr. Batty never makes a joke that hasn't something in it. I could see it myself. And then for her to die like that--it seems as if it was our fault. It was a beautiful ball, wasn't it, dear? I do think it was, but it's spoilt for me. I can only be thankful it wasn't her stomach or I should have blamed the supper.

As it is, there must have been a draught. It was a cold night.'

'It was a lovely night,' Henrietta said, thinking of the terrace and the dark river and the stars. She could remember it all without shame, for he had not failed her and her personality had not failed. He had not deserted her, and when they met there would be no need for explanations. He would look at her, she would look at him--she had to rouse herself. 'Yes, it was a splendid ball, Mrs. Batty.'

'And what did you think of my dress, dear?' Mrs. Batty asked, and checked herself. 'But we ought not to talk about such things with your dear aunt just dead. You must miss her sadly. Did you--were you with her at the end?'

But this was a region in which Henrietta could not wander with Mrs.

Batty. 'Don't let us talk of it,' she said.

Mrs. Batty gurgled a rich sympathy and after a due pause she was glad to resume the topic of the dance. This was her first real opportunity for discussing it; under Mr. Batty's slightly ironical smile and his references to expense, she had controlled herself; among her acquaintances it was necessary to treat the affair as a mere bagatelle; but with Henrietta she could expand unlimitedly. What she thought, what she felt, what she said, what other people said to her, and what her guests were reported to have said to other people, was repeated and enlarged upon to Henrietta who, leaning back, occasionally nodding her head or uttering a sound of encouragement, lived through that night again.

Yes, out on the terrace he had been the real Francis Sales and that man in the hollow looking at Aunt Rose and then turning to Henrietta in uncertainty was the one evoked by that witch on horseback, the modern subst.i.tute for a broomstick. Christabel Sales was right: Aunt Rose was a witch with her calm, white face, riding swiftly and fearlessly on her messages of evil. He was never himself in her presence: how could he be? He was under her spell and he must be cleared of it and kept immune. But how? Through these thoughts, which were both exciting and alarming, Henrietta heard Mrs. Batty uttering the name of Charles.

'He seems to have taken a turn for the better, my dear.'

'Has he been ill?' Henrietta asked.

'Ill? No. Bad-tempered, what you might call melancholy. Not lately.

Well, since the dance he has been different. Not so irritable at breakfast. I told you once before, love, how I dreaded breakfast, with John late half the time, going out with the dogs, and Mr. Batty behind the paper with his eyebrows up, and Charles looking as if he'd been dug up, like Lazarus, if it isn't wrong to say so, pale and pasty and sorry he was alive--sort of damp, dear. Well, you know what I mean.

But as I tell you, he's been more cheerful. That dance must have done him good, or something has. And Mr. Batty tells me he takes more interest in his work. Still,' Mrs. Batty admitted, 'he does catch me up at times.'

'Yes, I know. About music. I know. He's queer. I hate it when he gets angry and shouts, but he's good really, in his heart.'

'Oh, of course he is,' Mrs. Batty murmured, and, looking at the plump hands on her silken lap, she added, 'I wish he'd marry. Now, John, he's engaged; but he didn't need to be. You know what I mean. He was happy enough before, but Charles, if he could marry a nice girl--'

'He won't,' Henrietta said at once, and Mrs. Batty, suddenly alert, asked sharply, 'Why not?'

'Oh, I don't know. Men are so easily deceived.'

'We can't help it. You wouldn't neglect a baby. Well, then, it's the same thing. They never get out of their short frocks. Even Mr. Batty,'

his wife chuckled, 'he's very clever and all that, but he's like all the rest. The very minute you marry, you've got a baby on your hands.'