§ 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. Nobody 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 passionately 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 shining 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.
“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 pronounced 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.
Standing on the stair, Rose heard that laughter and went on very slowly to her room. She had, at least, done something for Henrietta. She had given Charles his chance, and now she was to go on doing things for Francis Sales. She owed him something: she owed him the romance of her youth, she owed him the care which was all she had left to give him. Things had come to her too late, her eyes were too wide open, yet perhaps it was better so. She had no illusions and she wanted to justify her early faith and Christabel’s sufferings and her own. There was nothing else to do. Besides, he needed her, and with him she would not be more unhappy; he would be happier, he said. She had to protect him against himself, yet even there she was frustrated, for he had, in a measure, found himself, and now that she was ready and able to serve him there would be less for her to do. But she had no choice: there was the old debt, there were the old chains, and as she faced the future she was stirred by hope. She could tell herself that something of her dead love had waked to life, yet when she tried to get back the old rapture, she knew it had gone for ever.
She entered her room and did not turn on the light. There seemed to be a strange weight in her body, pressing her down, but, as she looked through her open window at the summer sky deepening to night and letting out the stars, which seemed to be much amused, there was a lightness in her mind and, smiling back at them, she was able to share their appreciation of the joke.