§ 3
Rose Mallett, who had always accepted conditions and not criticized them, found herself in those days forced to a puzzled consideration of life. It seemed an unnecessary invention on the part of a creator, a freak which, on contemplation, he must surely regret. She was not tired of her own existence, but she wondered what it was for and what, possessing it, she could do with it. Her one attempt at usefulness had been foiled, and though she had never consciously wanted anything to do, she felt the need now that she was deprived of it. She passed her days in the order and elegance of Nelson Lodge, in a monotonous satisfaction of the eye, listening to the familiar chatter of Caroline and Sophia, dressing herself with tireless care and refusing to regret her past. Nevertheless, it had been wasted, and the only occupation of her present was her anxiety for Francis Sales. She could not rid herself of that claim, begun so long ago. She had to accept the inactive responsibility which in another would have resolved itself into earnest prayer but which in her was a stoical endurance of possibilities.
What was he doing? What would he do? She knew he could not stand alone, she knew she must continue to hold herself ready for his service, but a prisoner fastened to a chain does not find much solace in counting the links, and that was all she had to do. It seemed to her that she moved, rather like a ghost, up and down the stairs, about the landing, in the delicate silence of her bedroom; that she sat ghost-like at the dining-table and heard the strangely aimless talk of human beings. She supposed there were countless women like herself, unoccupied and lonely, yet her pride resented the idea. There was only one Rose Mallett; there was no one else with just her past, with the same mental pictures and her peculiar isolation, and if she had been a vainer woman she would have added that no other woman offered the same kind of beauty to a world in need of it. Her obvious consolation was in the presence of Henrietta, though she had little companionship to give her aunt, and no suspicion that Rose, almost unawares, began to transfer her interests to the girl, to set her mind on Henrietta’s happiness. She would take her abroad and let her see the world.
Caroline sniffed at the suggestion, Sophia sighed.
“The world’s the same everywhere,” Caroline said. “If you know one man you know them all.”
“But if you know a great many, you will know one all the better. However,” she smiled in the way of which her stepsisters were afraid, “I wasn’t thinking of men.”
“That’s where you’re so unnatural.”
“I was thinking of places—cities and mountains and plains.”
“You’ll get the plague or be run away with by brigands.”
“I think Henrietta and I would rather like the brigands. We must avoid the plague.”
“Smallpox,” Caroline went on, “and your complexions ruined.”
“I wish you would stay at home,” Sophia said. “Caroline and I are getting old.”
“Nonsense, Sophia! I’d go myself for twopence. But I’d better wait here and get the ransom money ready, and then James Batty and I can start out together with a bag of it.” She laughed loudly at the prospect of setting forth with the respectable James. “And it wouldn’t be the first elopement I’d planned either. When I was eighteen I set my mind on getting out of my bedroom window with a bundle—no, of course I never told you, Sophia. You would have run in hysterics to the General. But there was never one among them all who was worth the inconvenience, so I gave it up. I always had more sense than sentiment.” She sighed with regret for the legions of disappointed and fictitious lovers waiting under windows, with which her mind was peopled. “Not one,” she repeated.
No one took any notice. Sophia, drooping her heavy head, was thinking of brigands in a far country and of Caroline and herself left in Nelson Lodge without Rose and without Henrietta. If they really went away she determined to tell Henrietta the story of her lover, lest she should die and the tale be unrecorded. She wanted somebody to know; she would tell Henrietta on the eve of her departure, among the bags and boxes. He had gone to America and died there, and that continent was both sacred to her and abhorrent.
“Don’t go to America,” she murmured.
“Why not?” Caroline demanded. “Just the place they ought to go to. Lots of millionaires.”
Rose reassured Sophia. “And it is only an idea. I haven’t said a word to Henrietta.”
Henrietta showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion. She liked Radstowe. And there was the Battys’ ball. It would be a pity to miss that. She must certainly not miss that, said Caroline and Sophia. And what was she going to wear? They had better go upstairs at once, to the elder ladies’ room, and see what could be done with Caroline’s pink satin. She had only worn it once, years ago. Nobody would remember it, and trimmed with some of her mother’s lace, the big flounce and the fichu, it would be a different thing. Sophia could wear her apricot.
“Come along, Henrietta. Come along, Rose. We must really get this settled.”
They went upstairs, Caroline moving with heavy dignity, but keeping up her head as she had been taught in her youth. Nothing was more unbecoming than ducking the head and sticking out the back. Sophia went slowly, holding to the balustrade, so very slowly that Henrietta did not attempt to start. She said softly to Rose, “How slowly she goes. I’ve never noticed it before.”
“She always goes upstairs like that,” Rose said. “It is not natural to her to hurry.”
Henrietta followed and found Sophia panting a little on the landing. She laid hold of her niece’s arm. “A little out of breath,” she whispered. “Don’t say anything, dear child, to Caroline. She doesn’t like to be reminded of our age.”
They went into the bedroom and Rose, drifting into her own room, heard the opening of the great wardrobe doors. She would be called in presently for her advice, but there would be a lot of talk and many reminiscences before she was needed. She stood by the fire, which, giving the only light to the room, threw golden patches on the white dressing-gown lying across a chair, and made the buckles on her shoes sparkle like diamonds.
She was wondering why Henrietta’s eyes had darkened as though with fear at the idea of going away. She had been very quick in veiling them, and her voice, too, had been quick, a little tremulous. There was more than the Battys’ ball in her desire to stay in Radstowe. Was it Charles whom she was loth to leave? Afterwards, perhaps in the spring, she had said it would be nice to go. It was kind of Aunt Rose, and Aunt Rose, gazing down at the fire, controlled her longing to escape from this place too full of memories. She would not leave Henrietta who had to be cared for, perhaps protected; she would not persuade her who had to be happy, but she felt a sinking of the heart which was almost physical. She rested both hands on the mantelshelf and on them her weight. She felt as though she could not go on like this for ever. She, who apparently had no ties, was never free; she had the duties without the joys, and for these few minutes, before a knock came at the door, she allowed herself the relief of melancholy. She was incapable of tears, but she wished she could cry bitterly and for a long time.
The knock was Henrietta’s. She entered a little timidly. Aunt Rose was not free with invitations to her room and to Henrietta it was a beautiful and mysterious place. She had a childlike pleasure in the silver and glass on the dressing-table, in glimpses of exquisite garments and slippers worn to the shape of Aunt Rose’s slim foot, and Aunt Rose herself was like some fairy princess growing old and no less lovely in captivity, but to-night, that dark straight figure splashed by the firelight reminded her of words uttered by Christabel. She had said that all Henrietta’s aunts were witches, and for the first time the girl agreed. In the other room, brilliantly lighted, Caroline and Sophia were bending somewhat greedily over a mass of silks and satins and laces, their cheeks flushed round the dabs of rouge, their fingers active yet inept, fumbling in what might have been a brew for the working of spells; and here, straight as a tree, Aunt Rose looked into the fire as though she could see the future in its red heart, but her voice, very clear, had a reassuring quality. It was not, Henrietta thought, a witch’s voice. Witches mumbled and screeched, and Aunt Rose spoke like water falling from a height.
“Come in, Henrietta. Is the consultation over?”
“It has hardly begun. What a lot of clothes they have, and boxes of lace, boxes! I think you will have to decide for them. And Aunt Caroline snubs Aunt Sophia, all the time.”
“Did they send you to fetch me?”
“Yes, but we needn’t go back yet, need we? Aunt Caroline wants to wear her emeralds, but she says they will look vulgar with pink satin. There’s some lovely grey stuff like a cobweb. She says it was in her mother’s trousseau and I think she ought to wear that, but she says she is going to keep it until she’s old!”
“Then she’ll never wear it. She will never make such an admission.”
“And she won’t let Aunt Sophia have it because she says it would make her look like a dusty broom. And it would, you know! She’s really very funny sometimes.”
“Very funny. We’re queer people, Henrietta.”
“Are we? And I’m more theirs than yours.”
“As far as blood goes, yes.” She spoke very quietly, but she felt a great desire to assert, for once, her own claims, instead of accepting those of others. She wanted to tell Henrietta that in return for the secret care, the growing affection she was giving, she demanded confidence and love; but she had never asked for anything in her life. She had taken coolly much she could easily have done without, admiration and respect and the material advantages to which she had been born, but she had asked for nothing. Cruelly conscious of all that lay in the gift of Henrietta, who sat in a low chair, her chin on the joined fingers of her hands, Rose continued to look at the fire.
“You mean I’m really more like you?” Henrietta said. “Am I? I’m like my father,” and she added softly, “terribly.”
“Why terribly?”
Henrietta moved her feet. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“I wish you’d tell me.”
“He was queer. You said we all were, and I’m a Mallett, too, that’s all. Don’t you think we ought to go and see about the dresses now? Aunt Rose, they’re bothering me to wear white, the only thing for a young girl, but I want to wear yellow. Don’t you think I might?”
Rose, who had felt herself on the brink of confidences, as though she peered over a cliff, and watched the mists clear to show the secret valley underneath, now saw the clouds thicken hopelessly, and retreated from her position with an effort.
“Yellow? Yes, certainly. You will look like a marigold. Henrietta—” She did not know what she was going to say, but she wanted to detain the girl for a little longer, she hoped for another chance of drawing nearer. “Henrietta, wait a minute.” She moved to her dressing-table, smiling at what she was about to do. It seemed as though she were going to bribe the girl to love her, but she was only yielding to the pathetic human desire to give something tangible since the intangible was ignored. “When I was twenty-one,” she said, “your father gave me a present.”
“Only when you were twenty-one?”
“Well,” Rose excused him, “we didn’t know each other very well. He was a great deal from home, but he remembered my twenty-first birthday and he gave me this necklace. I think it’s beautiful, but I never wear it now, and I think you may like to have it. Here it is, in its own box and with the card he wrote—‘A jewel for a rose.’”
Holding it in her cupped hands, Henrietta murmured with delight: “May I have it really? How lovely! And may I have the card, too? He did say nice things. Are you sure you can spare the card? I expect he admired you very much. He liked beautiful women. My mother was pretty, too; but I don’t believe he ever gave her anything except a wedding-ring, and he had to give her that.”
“Oh, Henrietta—well, his daughter shall have all he gave me.”
“If you’re sure you don’t want it. What are the stones?”
“Topaz and diamonds; but so small that you can wear them.”
“Topaz and diamonds! Oh!” And Henrietta, clasping it round her neck and surveying herself by the candles Rose had lighted, said earnestly, “Oh, I do hope he paid for it!” This was the first thought of Reginald Mallett’s daughter.
Rose was horrified into laughter, which seemed hysterically continuous to Henrietta, and through it Rose cried tenderly, “Oh, you poor child! You poor child!”
Henrietta did not laugh. She said gravely, “All the same, I’m glad I had him for a father. Nobody but he would have chosen a thing like this. He had such taste.” She looked at her aunt. “I do hope I have some taste, too.”
“I hope you have,” Rose said with equal gravity. She laughed no longer. “There are many kinds, and though he knew how to choose an ornament, he made mistakes in other ways.”
Henrietta unclasped the necklace and laid it down. She looked, indeed, remarkably like her father. Her eyes flashed above her angry mouth. “You mean my mother!”
“No, Henrietta. How could I? I did not know your mother, and from the little you have told us I believe she was too good for him.”
“How can I tell you more,” Henrietta protested, “when I know what you would be thinking? You would be thinking she was common. Aunt Caroline does. She does! I don’t know how she dare! No, I won’t have the necklace.”
“You must believe what I say, Henrietta. Your mother was not the only woman in your father’s life, and I was referring to the others.”
“You need not speak of them to me,” Henrietta said with dignity.
“I won’t do so again. That, perhaps, is where my own taste failed.” She decided to put out no more feelers for Henrietta’s thoughts. It was what she would have resented bitterly herself, and it did no good. She was not clever at this unpractised art, and she told herself that if her own affection could not tell her what she wished to know, the information would be useless. Moreover, she had Henrietta’s word for it that she was terribly like her father.
“So put on the necklace again. It suits you better than it does me, so well that we can pretend he really chose it for you.”
“Yes,” Henrietta said, fingering it again, “if you promise you never think anything horrid about my mother.”
“The worst I have ever thought of her,” Rose said lightly, “is envying her for her daughter.”
She saw Henrietta’s mouth open inelegantly. “Me? Oh, but you’re not old enough.”
“I feel very old sometimes.”
“I thought you were when I first saw you,” Henrietta said, looking in the glass and swaying her body to make the diamonds glitter, “but now I know you never will be, because it’s only ugly people who get old. When your hair is white you’ll be like a queen. Now you’re a princess, though Mrs. Sales says you’re a witch. Oh, I didn’t mean to tell you that. It was a long time ago. She is never disagreeable now. I’m going to see her again to-morrow.”
“I wish you would go in the morning, Henrietta. The afternoons get dark so soon and the road is lonely.”
“She doesn’t like visitors in the morning,” Henrietta said. “I love this necklace. Could I wear it to the dance?”
“It depends on the dress. If you are really to look like a marigold you must wear no ornaments. If you had yellow tulle—” And Rose took pencil and paper and made a rough design, talking with enthusiasm meanwhile, for like all the Malletts, she loved clothes.
The next day Caroline had to stay in bed. She had been feverish all night and Sophia appeared in Rose’s bedroom early in the morning, her great plait of hair swinging free, her face yellow with anxiety and sleeplessness and lack of powder, to inform her stepsister that dear Caroline was very ill: they must have the doctor directly after breakfast. Sophia was afraid Caroline was going to die. She had groaned in the night when she thought Sophia was asleep. “I deceived her,” Sophia said. “I hope it wasn’t wrong, but I knew she would be easier if she thought I slept. Now she says there is nothing the matter with her and she wants to get up, but that’s her courage.”
Caroline was not allowed to rise and after breakfast and an hour with Sophia behind the locked door she announced her readiness to see the doctor, who diagnosed nothing more serious than a chill. She was very much disgusted with his order to stay in bed. She had not had a day in bed for years; she believed people were only ill when they wanted to be and, as she did not wish to be, she was not ill. She had no resource but to be unpleasant to Sophia, to the silently devoted Susan and to Rose who had intended to go to Sales Hall with Henrietta.
She was not able to do that, but later in the afternoon she set out to meet her so that she might have company for part of the dark way home.
Afterwards, she could never make up her mind whether she was glad or sorry she had gone. She had expected to meet Henrietta within a mile or two of the bridge, and the further she went without a sight of the small figure walking towards her, the more necessary it became to proceed, but she felt a deadly sickness of this road. She loved each individual tree, each bush and field and the view from every point, but the whole thing she hated. It was the personification of mistake, disappointment and slow disillusion, but now it was all shrouded in darkness and she seemed to be walking on nothing, through nothing and towards nothing. She herself was nothing and she thought of nothing, though now and then a little wave of anxiety washed over her. Where was Henrietta?
She became genuinely alarmed when, in the hollow between the track and the rising fields, she saw a fire and discovered by its light a caravan, a cart, a huddle of dark figures, a tethered pony, and heard the barking of dogs. There were gipsies camping in the sheltered dip. If Henrietta had walked into their midst, she might have been robbed, she would certainly have been frightened; and Rose stood still, listening intently.
The cleared space, where the wood had been, stretched away to a line of trees edging the main road and above it there was a greenish colour in the sky. There was not a sound but what came from the encampment. Down there the fire glowed like some enormous and mysterious jewel and before it figures which had become poetical and endowed with some haggard kind of beauty passed and vanished. They might have been employed in the rites of some weird worship and the movements which were in reality connected with the cooking of some snared bird or rabbit seemed to have a processional quality. The fire was replenished, the stew was stirred, there was a faint clatter of tin plates and a sharp cracking of twigs: a figure passed before the fire with extraordinary gestures and slid into the night: another figure appeared and followed its predecessor: smoke rose and a savoury smell floated on the air.
Suddenly a child wailed and Rose had the ghastly impression that it was the child who was in the pot.
Cautiously she stepped into the clearing; the dogs barked again and she ran swiftly, as silently as possible, leaping over the small hummocks of heath, dodging the brushwood and finding a certain pleasure in her own speed and in her fear that the dogs would soon be snapping at her heels. If she did not find Henrietta on the road, she would go on to Sales Hall. Very high up, clouds floated as though patrolling the sky; they found in her fleeting figure something which must be watched.
She was breathless and strangely happy when she reached the road. She was pleased at her capacity for running and her dull trouble seemed to have lifted, to have risen from her mind and gone off to join the clouds. She laughed a little and dropped down on a stone, and above the hurried beating of her heart she heard fainter, more despairing, the cry of the gipsy child. “It isn’t cooked yet,” she thought. There was a deeper silence, and she imagined a horrible dipping into the pot, a loud and ravenous eating.
For a few minutes she forgot her quest, conscious of a happy loss of personality in this solitary place, feeling herself merged into the night, looking up at the patrolling clouds which, having lost her, had moved on. She sat in the darkness until she heard, very far off, the beat of a horse’s hoofs, the rumble of wheels. She remembered then that she had to find Henrietta. The road towards Sales Hall was nowhere blurred by a figure, there was no sound of footsteps, and the noise of the approaching horse and cart was distantly symbolic of human activity and home-faring; it made her think of lights and food.
She looked back, and not many yards away two figures stepped from the sheltering trees by the roadside. On the whiteness of the road they were clear and unmistakable. Their arms were outstretched and their hands were joined and, as she looked, the two forms became one, separated and parted. The feet of Henrietta went tapping down the road and for a moment Francis stood and watched her. Then he turned. He struck a match, and Rose saw his face and hands illuminated like a paper lantern. The match made a short, brilliant journey in the air and fell extinguished. He had lighted his pipe and was advancing towards her. She, too, advanced and stopped a few feet from him and at once she said calmly, “Was that Henrietta? I came to find her.”
He stammered something; she was afraid he was going to lie, yet at the same time she knew that to hear him lie would give her pleasure; it would be like the final shattering and trampling of her love: but he did not lie.
“Yes, Henrietta,” he said sullenly. “There are gipsies in the hollow. I shall turn them out to-morrow.”
“Let them stay there,” she said, she knew not why.
“They’re all thieves,” he muttered.
Neither spoke. It was like a dream to be standing there with him and hearing Henrietta’s footsteps tapping into silence. Then Rose asked in genuine bewilderment, “Why did you let her go home alone? Why did you leave her here?”
“She wouldn’t have me. She’s safe now”; and raising his voice, he almost cried, “You shouldn’t let her come here!” It was a cry for help, he was appealing to her again, he was the victim of his habit. She smiled and wondered if her pale face was as clear to him as his was to her.
“No, I should not,” she said slowly. “I should not. One does nothing all one’s life but make mistakes.” Her chief feeling at that moment was one of self-disgust. She moved away without another word, going slowly so that she should not overtake Henrietta.