The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 44

Charles heaved a sigh. 'One never knows what matters.'

'And the Malletts don't marry,' Henrietta said. 'Aunt Caroline and Aunt Sophia and Aunt Rose, and now me. There's something in us that can't be satisfied. It was the same with my father, only it took him the other way.'

'I didn't know he was married more than once. n.o.body tells me things.'

'Charles, dear, you're very stupid. He was only married once in a church.'

'Oh, I see.'

'And if I did marry, I should be like him.' She turned to him and put her face close to his. 'Unfaithful,' she p.r.o.nounced clearly.

'Oh, well, Henrietta, you would still be you.'

She stepped backwards, shocked. 'Charles, wouldn't you mind?'

'Not so much,' he said stolidly, 'as doing without you altogether.'

'And the other day you said you need never do that because'--she tapped his waistcoat--'because I'm here!'

He showed a face she had never seen before. 'You seem to think I'm not made of flesh and blood!' he cried. 'You're wanton, Henrietta, simply wanton!' And he rushed out of the room.

She heard the front door bang; she saw his hat and stick, lying where he had put them; she smiled at them politely and then, sinking to the floor beside the fender, she let out a little moan of despair and delight. The fire chuckled and chattered and she leaned forward, her face near the bars.

'Stop talking for a minute! I want to tell you something. There's n.o.body else to tell. Listen! I'm in love with him now.' She nodded her head. 'Yes, with him. I know it's ridiculous; but it's true. Did you hear? You can laugh if you like. I don't care. I'm in love with him.

Oh, dear!'

She circled her neck with her hands as though she must clasp something, and it would have been too silly to fondle his ugly hat.

And he would remember he had forgotten it; he would come back. She dared not see him. 'I love him,' she cried out, 'too much to want to see him!' She paused, astonished. 'I suppose that's how he feels about me. How wonderful!' She looked round at the furniture, so still and unmoved by the happy bewilderment in which she found herself. The piano was mute; the lamps burned steadily; the chair in which Charles had sat was unconscious of its privilege; even the fire's flames had subsided; and she was intensely, madly, joyously alive. 'It's too much,' she said, 'too much!' And for the first time she was ashamed of her episode with Francis Sales. 'Playing at love,' she whispered.

But Charles would be coming back and, tiptoeing as though he might hear her from the street, she picked up his hat and stick and laid them neatly on the step outside the front door.

She slept with the profundity of her happiness and descended to breakfast in a dream. Only the sight of Rose's tired face reminded her that Aunt Sophia was ill. She had had a bad night, but she was better.

'She's not going to die, too, is she?' Henrietta asked, and she had a sad vision of Aunt Rose living all alone in Nelson Lodge.

'She may live for a long time, but the doctor says she may die at any moment.'

'I don't suppose she wants to live.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Because of Aunt Caroline--and--other people. But if she dies, whatever will you do?'

The question amused Rose. 'Go and see the world at last,' she said.

'Perhaps you will come, too.'

Henrietta laughed and flushed and became serious. 'She mustn't die.'

For, after all, Aunt Sophia was not a true Mallett, according to Aunt Caroline's test; she believed in marriage, she would like to see Henrietta in the little house; one of them would be able to call on the other every day. It was wonderful of Charles to have known she would like that house: she knew it well, with its red cap and its squinting eyes; but, then, he was altogether wonderful.

She supposed he would call for her that afternoon and they would present the order to view together, but he did not come. With her hat and gloves lying ready on the bed, she waited for his knock in vain.

He must have been kept by business; he would come later to explain.

And then, when still he did not come, she decided that he must be ill.

If so, her place was by his side, and she saw herself moving like an angel about his bed; and yet the thought of Charles in bed was comic.

At dinner she ate nothing and when Rose remarked on this, Henrietta murmured that she had a headache; she thought she would go for a walk.

'Then, if you are really going out, will you take a note to Mrs.

Batty? She sent some fruit and flowers to Sophia. I suppose Charles told her she was ill.'

Henrietta looked sharply at her aunt: she was suspicious of what seemed like tact, but Rose wore an ordinary expression.

'Is the note ready?' Henrietta asked.

'Yes, I meant to post it, but I'd rather she had it to-night, and there is the basket to return.'

'Very well, I'll take them both, and if I'm a little late, you'll know I have just gone for a walk or something.'

'I shan't worry about you,' Rose said.

Henrietta walked up the yellow drive, trembling a little. She had decided to ask for Mrs. Batty who was always pleased to see her, but when the door was opened her ears were a.s.sailed by a blast of triumphant sound. It was Charles, playing the piano; he was not ill, he was not busy, he was merely playing the piano as though there were no Henrietta in the world, and her trembling changed to the stiffness of great anger.

She handed in the basket and the note without a word or a smile for the friendly parlourmaid. She walked home in the awful realization that she had worn Charles out. He had called her wanton; he must have meant it. It was that word which had really made her love him, yet it was also the sign of his exhaustion. Life was tragic: no, it was comic, it was playful. She had had happiness in her hands, and it had slipped through them. She felt sick with disappointment under her rage; but she was not without hope. It stirred in her gently. Charles would come back. But would he? And she suddenly felt a terrible distrust of that love of which he had boasted. It was too complete; he could do without her. He would go on loving, but, she repeated it, she had worn him out, and she could not love like that. She wanted tangible things. But he had said that he, too, was flesh and blood, and that comforted her. He would come back, but she could do nothing to invite him.

This, she said firmly, was the real thing. It had been different with Francis Sales: with him there had been no necessity for pride, but her love for Charles must be wrapped round with reserve and kept holy; and at once, with her unfailing dramatic sense, she saw herself moving quietly through life, tending the sacred flame. And then, irritably, she told herself she could not spend her days doing that: she did not know what to do! She hated him; she would go away; yes, she would go away with Aunt Rose.

In the meantime she wept with a pa.s.sion of disappointment, humiliation and pain, but on each successive morning, for some weeks, she woke to hope, for here was a new day with many possibilities in its hours; and each evening she dropped on to her bed, disheartened. Nothing happened. Aunt Sophia was better, Rose rode out every day, the little house on The Green stood empty, squinting disconsolately, resignedly surprised at its own loneliness. It was strange that n.o.body wanted a house like that; it was neglected and so was she: n.o.body noticed the one or the other.

Every morning Henrietta took Aunt Sophia for a stately walk; every afternoon she went to a tea- or tennis-party, for the summer festivities were beginning once more; and often, as she returned, she would meet Aunt Rose coming back from her ride, always cool in her linen coat, however hot the day. Where did she go? How often did she meet Francis Sales? Why should she be enjoying adventures while Henrietta, at the only age worth having, was desperately fulfilling the tedious round of her engagements? It was absurd, and Aunt Rose would ask serenely, 'Did you have a good game, Henrietta?' as though there was nothing wrong.

Henrietta did not care for games. It was the big sport of life itself she craved for, and she could not get it. All these young men, handsome and healthy in their flannels and ready to be pleasant, she found dull, while the figure of the loose-jointed Charles, his vague gestures, his unseeing eyes screening the activity of his brain, became heroic in their difference. She never saw him; she did not visit Mrs. Batty; she was afraid of falling tearfully on that homely, sympathetic breast, but Mrs. Batty, as usual, issued invitations for a garden-party.

'We shall have to go,' Sophia sighed. 'Such an old and so kind a friend! But without Caroline--for the first tune!'

'There is no need for you to go,' Rose said at once. 'Mrs. Batty will understand, and Henrietta and I will represent the family.'

'No, I must not give way. Caroline never gave way.'

There was no excitement in dressing for this party. Without Caroline things lost their zest, and they set out demurely, walking very slowly for Sophia's sake.

It was a hot day and Mrs. Batty, standing at the garden door to greet her guests, was obliged to wipe her face surrept.i.tiously now and then, while the statues in the hall, with their burdens of ferns and lamps, showed their cool limbs beneath their scanty but still decent drapery.

Mrs. Batty took Sophia to a seat under a tree and Henrietta stood for a moment in the blazing sunlight alone. Where was Aunt Rose? Henrietta looked round and had a glimpse of that slim black form moving among the rose-trees with Francis Sales. He had simply carried her off! It was disgraceful, and things seemed to repeat themselves for ever. Aunt Rose, with her look of having lost everything, still succeeded in possessing, while Henrietta was alone. She had no place in the world.

John's affianced bride was busy among the guests, like a daughter of the house, a s...o...b..ring bulldog at her heels; and Henrietta, isolated on the lawn, was overcome by her own forlornness. It had been very different at the ball. And how queer life was! It was just a succession of days, that was all: little things happened and the days went on; big things happened and seemed to change the world, but nothing was really changed, and a whole life could be spent with a moment's happiness or despair for its only marks.

Henrietta, rather impressed by the depths of her own thoughts, moved through the garden. Where was Charles? She wanted to see him and get their meeting over, but there was not a sign of him and, avoiding the croquet players and that shady corner where elderly ladies were cl.u.s.tered near the band, the same band which had played at the ball, Henrietta found herself in the kitchen garden. She examined the gooseberry bushes and strawberry beds with apparent interest, unwilling to join the guests and still more unwilling to be found alone in this deserted state. It was very hot. The open door of a little shed showed her a dim and cool interior; she peeped in and stepped back with an exclamation. Something had moved in there. It might be a rat or one of John's ferocious terriers, but a voice said quietly, 'It's only me.'

She stepped forward. 'What are you doing in there?'