The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 5

Rose looked back. 'I can't think what Sophia will do with the stone,'

she murmured, smiling her faint smile.

Mrs. Sales was puzzled by this remark. 'Oh, she'll manage, won't she?

You don't want to help her, do you?'

'No, I don't want to help her.'

'Come along, then.'

Rose saw the boudoir, a little room half-way up the stairs. 'It's Louis something,' said Mrs. Sales, 'but all the same, I think it's sweet, and pink's my favourite colour. Francis thought of that. I was wearing pink when I first met him.'

'I see,' Rose said. 'Was that long ago?'

'Only three months. I think we both fell in love at the same minute, and that's nice, isn't it? I know I'm going to be happy, but I do hope I shan't be dull. We're a big family at home. I'm English,' she added a little anxiously, 'but my father settled there.'

'I don't think you should be dull,' Rose said. 'Everybody in Radstowe will call on you, and there are lots of parties. And then there's hunting.'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Sales. Her eyes left Rose's face, to return a little wider, a little warier. 'Do you hunt too?'

'As often as I can. I only have one horse.'

'Francis says I am to have two.'

'And they will be good ones. He likes hunting and horses better than anything else, I suppose.'

'But he mustn't neglect the farm,' his wife said firmly, and she added slowly, 'I don't know that I need two horses, really. I haven't ridden much, and there's a lot to do in the house. I don't believe in people being out all day.'

'Well, you can't hunt all the year round, you know.'

Mrs. Sales let out a sigh so faint that most people would have missed it. 'It will be beginning soon, won't it?'

'It feels a long way off in weather like this,' Rose said. 'But they are getting into the carriage. I must go.'

Mrs. Sales lingered for an instant. 'I do hope we're going to be friends.' This was more than a statement, it was a request, and Rose shrank from it; but she said lightly, 'We shall be meeting often. You will see more of us than you will care for, I'm afraid. The Malletts are rather ubiquitous in Radstowe. It's fortunate for us, or Caroline would die of boredom, but I don't know how it appears to other people.'

She was going down the shallow stairs and the voice of Mrs. Sales followed her sadly: 'He hasn't told me anything about any of his friends.'

'In three months? He hasn't had time, with you to think about!' A laugh, pleased and self-conscious, reached her ears. 'No, but it's rather lonely in this old house. We're a big family at home--and so lively. There was always something going on. I wished we lived nearer Radstowe.'

'And I envy you here. It's peaceful.'

'Yes, it's that,' Mrs. Sales agreed.

'I'm a good deal older than you, you see,' Rose elaborated.

'That's just it,' said Mrs. Sales.

Rose laughed, and Francis, standing at the door, turned at the sound in time to catch the end of Rose's smile.

'What are you laughing at?'

'Mrs. Sales's candour.'

'Oh, was I rude?'

'No. Good-bye. I liked it.' Yet, as she settled herself in her place, she was not more than half pleased. She liked her superior age only because it marked a difference between her and the wife of Francis Sales.

'H'm!' Caroline said when the carriage had turned into the road and the figures in the doorway had disappeared. 'Pretty, but unformed.'

'They seem very happy,' Sophia said, 'but I do think she ought to have been wearing black. Her father-in-law has only been dead six months, and even Francis was not wearing a black tie.'

But if Caroline condemned men in general, she supported them in particular. 'Quite right, too. Men don't think of these things--and a black tie with those tweeds! Sophia, don't be silly and sentimental; but you always were, you always will be.'

'She might have had a white frock with a black ribbon,' Sophia persisted. 'Why, Rose looked more like our old friend's daughter-in-law.'

'But hardly like a bride,' Rose said. 'And you see, pink is her colour.'

'So it is, dear. One could see that. Pink and blue, just as they were mine.' She corrected herself. '_Are_ mine. Our complexions are very much alike; in fact, she reminded me a little of myself.'

'Nonsense, Sophia! If you had been like that I should have disowned you. However, she will do well enough for Sales Hall.'

Rose bent forward slightly. 'I like her,' she said distinctly. 'And she's lonely.'

'Well, my dear, she'll soon have half a dozen children to keep her lively.'

'Hush, Caroline! The man will hear you.'

Caroline addressed Rose. 'Sophia's modesty is indecent. I've done what I could for her.'

'Please listen to me,' Rose said. 'You are not to belittle Mrs. Sales to people, Caroline. You can be a powerful friend, if you choose, and if you sing her praises there will be a mighty chorus.'

'That's true,' Caroline said.

'Yes, that's true, dear Caroline,' Sophia echoed. 'And I think you're taking this very sweetly, Rose.'

'Sweetly? Why?'

Caroline p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. 'What's this? I'm out of this. Oh, that old rubbis.h.!.+ She will have it you and Francis should have married. My dear Sophia, Rose could have married anybody if she'd wanted to.

You'll admit that? Yes? Then can't you see'--she tapped Sophia's knee--'then can't you see that Rose didn't want him? That's logic--and something you lack.'

'Yes, dear,' Sophia said with the meekness of the unconvinced. 'And of course it's wrong to think of it now that he's married to another.'

Caroline guffawed her loudest, and the astonished horse quickened his pace. The driver cast a look over his shoulder to see that all was well, for he had a sister who made strange noises in her fits; and Sophia, sitting in her drooping fas.h.i.+on, as though her head with its great k.n.o.b of fair hair, in which the silver was just beginning to show, were too heavy for her body, had to listen to the old gibes which had never made and never would make any impression on her, though she would have felt forlorn without them. She was the only puritanical Mallett in history, Caroline said. Oh, yes, the General had been great at family prayers, but he was trying to make up for lost time. It was difficult to believe that Sophia and Reginald were the same flesh and blood.

Sophia interrupted. She was fond of Reginald, but she had no desire to be like him, and Caroline knew he was a disgrace. They argued for some time, and Rose closed her eyes until the talk, never really acrimonious, drifted into reminiscences of their childhood and Reginald's.

It was strange that they should have chosen that day to speak so much of him, for when they reached home they found a letter addressed in an unfamiliar hand.

'What's this?' Caroline said.