The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 45

'Getting cool,' Charles said. 'I thought n.o.body would find me. Won't you come in? It's rather dirty in here, but it's cool, and you can't hear the band. I've been sitting on the handle of the wheelbarrow, so that's clean, anyhow. I'll wipe it with my handkerchief to make sure.'

'But where are you going to sit?'

'Oh, I don't know.'

'There's room on the other handle.'

Henrietta sat with her knees between the shafts, and he sat on the other handle with his back to her.

'We can't stay here long,' she said.

'No,' Charles agreed.

The place smelt musty, but of heaven. It was draped with cobwebs like celestial clouds; it was dark, but gradually the forms of rakes, hoes, spades and a watering-pot cleared themselves from the gloom and Charles's head bloomed above his coat like a great pale flower.

She put out her hand and drew it back again. She found nothing to say.

Outside the sun poured down its rays like fire. Henrietta's head drooped under her big hat. She was content to stay here for ever if Charles would stay, too. Her body felt as though it were imponderable, she had no feet, she could not feel the hard handle of the wheelbarrow; she seemed to be floating blissfully, aware of nothing but that floating, yet a threat of laughter began to tickle her. It was absurd to sit like this, like strangers in an omnibus. The laughter rose to her throat and escaped: she floated no longer, but she was no less happy.

'What's the matter?' asked the voice of Charles.

'So funny, sitting like this.'

'What else can we do?'

'You could turn round.'

'There's not room for all our knees.'

She stood up with a little rustle and walked to the door. 'No, it's too hot out there,' she said, and returned to face him. 'Charles,' she said in rather a high voice, 'did you find your hat and stick that night?'

'What? Oh, yes,' and then irrelevantly he added, 'I've just been made a partner.'

'Really?' She was always interested in practical things. 'In Mr.

Batty's firm? How splendid! I didn't know you were any good at business.'

'I've been improving, and you don't know anything about me.'

'I do, Charles,' she said earnestly.

'No, nothing. You haven't time to think of anybody but yourself. And now I must go and look after all these people. You'd better come and have an ice.'

There was ice at her heart and she realized now that her past unhappiness had been half false; she had been waiting for him all the time and trusting to his next sight of her to put things right, but she had failed with him, too.

In that dim tool-house she had stood before him in her pretty dress, smiling down at him, surely irresistible, and he had resisted. Well, she could resist, too, and she walked calmly by his side, holding her head very high, and when he parted from her with a grave bow, she felt a great, an awed respect for him.

She went to find her Aunt Sophia, who was still sitting under the tree, surrounded by a chattering group. She looked tired, and, signalling for Henrietta to approach, she said, 'I'm afraid this is too much for me, dear child. Can you find Rose and ask her to take me home? But I don't want to spoil your pleasure, Henrietta. There is no need for you to come.'

Henrietta's lip twisted with dramatic bitterness. There was no pleasure left for her. 'I would rather go back with you, Aunt Sophia.

Let us go now.'

'No, no. Find Rose.'

There was another buffet in the face. It was Rose who was wanted and Henrietta, walking swiftly, crossed the lawn again, casting quick glances right and left. Rose was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, for their ways had an odd habit of following the same path, she was in the tool-house with Francis Sales, but as she turned to go there, the voice of Mrs. Batty, husky with exhaustion and heat, said in her ear, 'Is it your Aunt Rose you are looking for, love? I think I saw her go into the house, and I wish I could go myself. It's so hot that I really feel I may have a fit.'

Henrietta went into the cool, shaded drawing-room on light feet, and there, against the window, she saw her Aunt Rose in an att.i.tude startlingly unfamiliar. She was standing with her hands clasped before her, and she gazed down at them lost in thought--or prayer. Her body, so upright and strong, seemed limp and broken, and her face, which was calm, yet had the look of having composed itself after pain.

There was no one else in the room, but Henrietta had the strong impression that someone had lately pa.s.sed through the door. She was afraid to disturb that moment in which an escaped soul seemed to be fluttering back into its place, but Rose looked up and saw her and Henrietta, advancing softly as though towards a person who was dead, stopped within a foot of her. Then, without thought and obeying an uncontrollable impulse, she stepped forward and laid her cheek against her aunt's. Rose's hands dropped apart and, one arm encircling Henrietta's waist, she held her close, but only for a minute. It was Henrietta who broke away, saying, 'Aunt Sophia sent me to look for you. She doesn't feel well.'

-- 12

Mrs. Batty was cured of giving parties. It was after her ball that Miss Caroline died, and it was after her garden-party that Miss Sophia finally collapsed. The heat, the emotion of her memories and the effort of disguising it had been too much for her. She died the following day and Mrs. Batty felt that the largest and most expensive wreath procurable could not approach the expression of her grief. It was no good talking to Mr. Batty about it; he would only say he had been against the ball and garden-party from the first, but Mrs. Batty found Charles unexpectedly soothing. He was certainly much improved of late, and when she heard that he was to go to Nelson Lodge on business connected with the estate, she burdened him with a number of incoherent messages for Rose.

Perhaps he delivered them; he certainly stayed in the drawing-room for some time, and Henrietta, sitting sorrowfully in her bedroom, could hear his voice 'rolling on monotonously. Then there was a laugh and Henrietta was indignant. n.o.body ought to laugh with Aunt Sophia lying dead, and she did not know how to stay in her room while those two, Aunt Rose and her Charles, talked and laughed together. She thought of pretending not to know he was there and of entering the drawing-room in a careless manner, but she could not allow Aunt Rose to witness Charles's indifference. All she could do was to steal on to the landing and lean over the banisters to watch him depart. She had the painful consolation of seeing the top of his head and of hearing him say, 'The day after to-morrow?'

Rose answered, 'Yes, it's most important.'

Henrietta waited until the front door had closed behind him and then, seeing Rose at the foot of the stairs, she said, 'What's important, Aunt Rose?'

'Oh, are you there, Henrietta? What a pity you didn't come down. That was Charles Batty.'

'I know. What's important?'

'There is a lot of complicated business to get through.'

'You might let me help.'

'I wish you would. When Charles comes again--his father isn't very well--you had better be present.'

'No, not with Charles,' Henrietta said firmly. 'Does he understand wills and things?'

'Perfectly, I think. He's very clever and quite interesting.'

'Oh!' Henrietta said.

'I'm glad he's coming again. And now, Henrietta,' she sighed, 'we must get ready for the cousins.'

The female relatives returned in dingy cabs. They had not yet laid aside their black and beads for Caroline, and, as though they thought Sophia had been unfairly cheated of new mourning, they had adorned themselves with a fresh black ribbon here and there, or a larger brooch of jet, and these additions gave to the older garments a rusty look, a sort of blush.

Across these half-animated heaps of woe and dye, the glances of Rose and Henrietta met in an understanding pleasing to both. This mourning had a professional, almost a rapacious quality, and if these women had no hope of material pickings, they were getting all possible nourishment from emotional ones. Their eyes, very sharp, but veiled by seemly gloom, criticized the slim, upright figures of these young women who could wear black gracefully, sorrow with dignity, and who had, as they insisted, so much the look of sisters.

The air seemed freer for their departure, but the house was very empty, and though Sophia had never made much noise the place was heavy with a final silence.

'I don't know why we're here!' Henrietta cried pa.s.sionately across the dinner-table when Susan had left the ladies to their dessert.

'Why were we ever here?' Rose asked. 'If one could answer that question--'

They faced each other in their old places. The curved ends of the s.h.i.+ning table were vacant, the Chippendale armchairs were pushed back against the wall, yet the ghosts of Caroline and Sophia, gaily dressed, with dangling earrings, the sparkle of jewels, the movements of their beringed fingers, seemed to be in the room.