The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 46

'But we shall never forget them,' Henrietta said. 'They were persons.

Aunt Rose, do you think you and I will go on as they did, until just one of us is left?'

'We could never be like them.'

'No, they were happy.'

'You will be happy again, Henrietta. We shall get used to this silence.'

'But I don't think either of us is meant to be happy. No, we're not like them. We're tragic. But all the same, we might get really fond of one another, mightn't we?'

'I am fond of you.'

'I don't see how you can be'--Henrietta looked down at the fruit on her plate--'considering what has happened,' she almost whispered.

Rose made no answer. The steady, pale flames of the candles stood up like golden fingers, the shadows behind the table seemed to listen.

'But how fond are you?' Henrietta asked in a loud voice, and Rose, peeling her apple delicately, said vaguely, 'I don't know how you measure.'

'By what you would do for a person.'

'Ah, well, I think I have stood that test.'

Henrietta leaned over the table, and a candle flame, as though startled by her gesture, gave a leap, and the shadows behind were stirred.

'Yes,' Henrietta said, 'I hated you for a long time, but now I don't.

You've been unhappy, too. And you were right about--that man. I didn't love him. How could I? How could I? How could anybody? If you hadn't come that day--'

Rose closed her eyes for a moment and then said wearily, 'It wouldn't have made any difference. I never made any difference. You didn't love him; but he never loved you either, child. You were quite safe.'

Henrietta's face flushed hotly. This might be true, but it was not for Aunt Rose to say it. Once more she leaned across the table and said clearly, 'Then you're still jealous.'

Rose smiled. It seemed impossible to move her. 'No, Henrietta. I left jealousy behind years ago. We won't discuss this any further. It doesn't bear discussion. It's beyond it.'

'I know it's very unpleasant,' Henrietta said politely, 'but if we are to go on living together, we ought to clear things up.'

'We are not going on living together,' Rose said. She left the table and stood before the fire, one hand on the mantelshelf and one foot on the fender. The long, soft lines of her dark dress were merged into the shadows, and the white arm, the white face and neck seemed to be disembodied. Henrietta, struck dumb by that announcement, and feeling the situation wrested from the control of her young hands, stared at the slight figure which had typified beauty for her since she first saw it.

'Then you don't like me,' she faltered.

Rose did not move, but she began to speak. 'Henrietta, I have loved you very dearly, almost as if you were my daughter, but you didn't seem to want my love. I couldn't force it on you, but it has been here: it is still here. I think you have the power of making people love you, yet you do nothing for it except, perhaps, exist. One ought not to ask any more; I don't ask it, but you ought to learn to give.

You'll find it's the only thing worth doing. Taking--taking--one becomes atrophied. No, it isn't that I don't care for you, it isn't that. I am going to be married.'

Very carefully, Henrietta put her plate aside, and, supporting her face in her hands, she pressed her elbows into the table; she pressed hard until they hurt. So Aunt Rose was going to be married while Henrietta was deserved. 'Not to Francis Sales?' she whispered.

'Yes, to Francis Sales.'

She had a wild moment of anger, succeeded by horror for Aunt Rose. Was she stupid? Was she insensible? And Henrietta said, 'But you can't, Aunt Rose, you can't.' Her distress and a kind of envy gave her courage. 'He isn't good enough. He played with you and then with me and you said there was some one else.' The figure by the mantelpiece was so still that Henrietta became convinced of the potency of her own words, and she went on: 'You know everything about him and you can't marry him. How can you marry him?'

A sound, like the faint and distant wailing of the wind, came out of the shadows into which Rose had retreated: 'Ah, how?'

'And you're going to leave me--for him!'

'Yes--for him.'

'Aunt Rose, you would be happier with me.'

Again there came that faint sound. 'Perhaps.'

'I'd try to be kinder to you. I don't understand you.'

'No, you don't understand me. Do you understand yourself?' She left her place and put her hands on Henrietta's shoulders. 'Say no more,' she said with unmistakable authority. 'Say no more, neither to me nor to anybody else. This is beyond you. And now come into the drawing-room. Don't cry, Henrietta. I'm not going to be married for some time.'

'I wish I'd known you loved me,' Henrietta sobbed.

'I tried to show you.'

'If I'd known, everything might have been different.'

Rose laughed. 'But we don't want it to be different.'

'You won't be happy,' Henrietta wailed.

'You, at least,' Rose said sternly, 'have done nothing to make me so.'

Henrietta stilled her sobbing. It was quite true. She had taken everything--Aunt Rose's money, Aunt Rose's love, her wonderful forbearance and the love of Charles.

'I don't know what to do,' she cried.

'Come into the drawing-room and we'll talk about it.'

But they did not talk. Rose played the piano in the candlelight for a little while before she slipped out of the room. Henrietta sat on the little stool without even the fire to keep her company. She was too dazed to think. She did not understand why Aunt Rose should choose to marry Francis Sales and she gave it up, but loneliness stretched before her like a long, hard road.

If only Charles would come! He always came when he was wanted. A memory reached her weary mind. This was 'the day after to-morrow,' and Aunt Rose expected him. She leapt up and examined herself in the mirror. She was one of those lucky people who can cry and leave no trace; colour had sprung into her cheeks, but it faded quickly. She had waited for him before and he had not come, and she was tired of waiting. She sank into Aunt Caroline's chair and shut her eyes; she almost slept. She was on the verge of dreams when the bell jangled harshly. She did not move. She sat in an agony of fear that this would not be Charles; but the door opened and he entered. Susan p.r.o.nounced his name, and he stood on the threshold, thinking the room was empty.

A very small voice pierced the stillness. 'Charles, I'm here.'

'I won't come a step farther,' Charles said severely, 'until you tell me if you love me.'

'I thought you'd come to see Aunt Rose.'

'Henrietta--'

'Yes, I love you, I love you,' she said hurriedly. 'I'm nodding my head hard. No, stay where you are, stay where you are. I've been loving you for weeks and you've treated me shamefully. No, no, I've got to be different, I've got to give. You didn't treat me shamefully.'

'No,' he said stolidly, 'I didn't. Here's the ring, and I took that house. I've been renting it ever since I knew we were going to live in it. Here's the ring.' He dropped it into her lap.

She looked down at the stones, hard and bright like herself. 'Aunt Rose will be very much surprised,' she said, and she was too happy to wonder why he laughed.