The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing)

by E. H. Young

§ 11

They sat by the fire as she had foreseen, Sophia pretending to be busy with her embroidery, Rose, in a straight-backed chair, reading a book. Henrietta sat on a low stool with a book open on her knee, but she did not read it. The fire talked to itself, said silly things and chuckled, or murmured sentimentally. That chatter, vaguely insane, and the turning of Rose’s pages, the drawing of Sophia’s silks through the stuff and the click of her scissors, were the only sounds until, suddenly, Sophia gave a groan and fell back in her chair. Rose, very much startled, glanced at Henrietta and jumped up.

“It’s her heart,” Henrietta said with the superiority of her knowledge. “I’ll get her medicine.” She came back with it. “She was like this when Aunt Caroline died, but I promised not to tell. If she has this she will be better.”

It was Henrietta who poured the liquid into the glass and applied it to Sophia’s lips. She was, she felt, the practical person, and it was she, and not Aunt Rose, who had been trusted by Aunt Sophia. “She told me where she kept the stuff,” Henrietta continued calmly. “There, that’s better.”

Sophia recovered with apologies: a little faintness; it was nothing. In a few minutes she would go to bed. They helped her there.

“You ought to have told me, Henrietta,” Rose said on the landing.

“I couldn’t. She wished it to be our secret.” It was pleasant to feel that Aunt Rose was out of this affair.

“We must have the doctor and she ought not to be alone to-night.”

I’ll sleep on the sofa in her room.”

“No, Henrietta, you need more sleep than I do.”

“Oh, but I’m young enough to sleep anywhere—on the floor! But let Aunt Sophia choose.”

Henrietta went back to the drawing-room, and the housemaid was sent for the doctor. Shortly afterwards there came a ring at the bell; no doubt it was the doctor, and Henrietta wished she could go upstairs with him, for Aunt Rose, she told herself again, was not a practical person and Henrietta was experienced in illness. She had nursed her mother and she liked looking after people. She knew how to arrange pillows; she was not afraid of sickness. However, she would have to wait until Aunt Sophia sent for her; but it was not the doctor: it was Charles Batty who appeared in the doorway.

“Oh,” Henrietta said, “what have you come for?”

He put down the hat and stick he had forgotten to leave in the hall. “I don’t know,” he said. “I had a kind of feeling you might like to see me. It’s the first time I’ve had it,” he added solemnly.

He really had an extraordinary way of knowing things, but she said, “Well, Aunt Sophia’s ill, so I don’t think you can stay.”

He looked round for her. “She’s not here. I shan’t do any harm, shall I? We can whisper.”

“She wouldn’t hear us anyhow. It’s my room above this one.”

“Is it?” He gazed at the ceiling with interest. “Oh, up there!”

“I should have thought you knew by instinct,” she said bitingly.

“No.”

“Come and sit down, Charles, and don’t be disagreeable. I shall have to go to Aunt Sophia soon, but then you will be able to talk to Aunt Rose. That will do just as well.”

“Not quite,” he said. “I really came to tell you—”

“You said you came because you thought I wanted you.”

“So I did, but there were several reasons. You said you were going to be happy to-day, not murderous, do you remember? And I thought I’d like to see how you looked. You don’t look happy a bit. What’s the matter?”

“I’ve told you Aunt Sophia’s ill. And would you be happy if you had to sit in this prim room with two old women?”

“Two? But your Aunt Caroline is dead.”

“But my Aunt Rose is very much alive.”

He wagged his head. “I see.”

“But she isn’t lively. She sits like this—reading a book, and Aunt Sophia, poor Aunt Sophia, sews like this, and I sit on this horrid little stool, like this. That’s how we spend the evening.”

“How would you like to spend it?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She dropped her black head to her knees. “It’s so lonely.”

“Well,” he began again, “I really came to tell you that there’s a house to let on The Green: that little one with the red roof like a cap and windows that squint; a little old house; but—” he paused—“it has every modern convenience. Henrietta, there’s a curl at the back of your neck.”

“I know. It’s always there.”

“I can’t go on about the house unless you sit up.”

“Why?”

“Because of that curl.”

“And I’m not interested in the house.” She did not move. “Whose is it?”

“It belongs to a client of ours, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s to let. I’ve got an order to view. Look!—‘Please admit Mr. Charles Batty.’ I went this evening and we can both go to-morrow. It’s really a very cosy little house. There’s a drawing-room opening on the garden at the back, with plenty of room for a grand piano, and the dining-room—I liked the dining-room very much. There was a fire in it.”

“Is that unusual?”

“It looked so cosy, with a red carpet and everything.”

“Is the carpet to let, too?”

“I don’t know. I dare say we could buy it. And mind you, Henrietta, the kitchen is on the ground floor. That’s unusual, if you like, in an old house. I made sure of that before I went any further.”

“How far are you going?”

“We’ll go everywhere to-morrow, even into the coal cellar. To-day I just peeped.”

“I can imagine you. But what do you want a house for, Charles?”

“For you,” he said. “You say you don’t like spending the evenings here—well, let’s spend them in the little house. We can’t go on being engaged indefinitely.”

“Certainly not,” she said firmly, “and I should adore a little house of my own. I believe that’s just what I want.”

“Then that’s settled.”

“But not with you, Charles.”

He said nothing for a time. She was sitting up, her hands clasped on her lap, and as she looked at him she half regretted her last words. This was how they would sit in the little house, by the fire, surrounded by their own possessions, with everything clean and bright and, as he had said, very cosy. She had never had a home.

Suddenly she leaned towards him and put her head on his knee. His hand fell on her hair. “This doesn’t mean anything,” she murmured; “but I was just thinking. You’re tempting me again. First with the ring because it was so pretty, and now with a house.”

“How else am I to get you?” he cried out. “And you know you were feeling lonely. That’s why I came.”

“You thought it was your chance?”

“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know the ordinary things, but I know the others.”

“I wonder how,” she said, and he answered with the one word, “Love,” in a voice so deep and solemn that she laughed.

“Do you know,” she said, “I have never had a home. I’ve lived in other people’s houses, with their ugly furniture, their horrid sticky curtains—”

“I shall take that house to-morrow.”

“But you can’t go on collecting things like this. Houses and rings—”

“The ring’s in my pocket now.”

“It must stay there, Charles. I ought not to keep my head on your knee; but it’s comfortable and I have no conscience. None.” She sat up, brushing his chin with her hair. “None!” she said emphatically. “And here’s Aunt Rose coming to fetch me for Aunt Sophia. Mind, I’ve promised nothing. Besides, you haven’t asked me to promise anything.”

“Oh!” He blinked. “Well, there’s no time now. Good evening, Miss Mallett.” He pulled himself out of his chair.

“Good evening, Charles. I’m glad you’re here to keep Henrietta company. The doctor has been, Henrietta—”

“Oh, has he? I didn’t hear him.”

“Sophia is settled for the night, and I’m going to her now.”

“But she’ll want me!” Henrietta cried.

“No, she asked me to stay with her. Good night. Good night, Charles.”

“But did you say I wanted to be with her?”

Rose, smiling but a little pitiful, said gently, “I gave her the choice and she chose me.”

She disappeared, and Henrietta turned to Charles. “You see, she gets everything. She gets everything I ever wanted and she doesn’t try—” Her hands dropped to her side. “She just gets it.”

“But what have you wanted?”

She turned away. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“Is she going to marry Francis Sales?”

“What makes you ask that?” she cried.

“I don’t know. I just thought of it.”

“Oh, your thoughts! Why, you suggested the same thing, for me! As if I would look at him!”

Charles blinked, his sign of agitation, but Henrietta did not see. “He’s good to look at,” Charles muttered. “He knows how to wear his clothes.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

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. Nobody 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 pronounced 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 nobody 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 assailed 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 passion 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 nobody wanted a house like that; it was neglected and so was she: nobody 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 surreptitiously 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 slobbering 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 clustered 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?”

“Getting cool,” Charles said. “I thought nobody 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 attitude 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 passed 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.”