§ 5
She thought Aunt Rose looked at her rather curiously, though there was no expression so definite in that glance. Her aunts did not ask questions, they never interfered, and if Henrietta chose to be silent it was her own affair. She was, as a matter of fact, swimming in a warm bath of emotion and she experienced the usual chill when she descended from the carriage and felt the pavement under her feet. She had dedicated herself to a high purpose, but for the moment it was impossible to get on with the noble work. The mere business of life had to be proceeded with, and though the situation was absorbing it receded now and then until, looking at her Aunt Rose, she was reminded of it with a shock.
She looked often at her aunt, finding her more than ever fascinating. She tried to see her with the eyes of Francis Sales, she tried to imagine how Rose’s clear grey eyes, so dark sometimes that they seemed black, answered the appeal of his, yet, as the days passed, Henrietta found it difficult to remember her resignation and her wrongs in this new life of luxury and pleasure.
She woke each morning to the thought of gaiety and to the realization of comfort and the blessed absence of anxiety. Her occupation was the getting of enjoyment and she took it all eagerly yet without greed, and as she was enriched she became generous with her own offerings of laughter, sympathy and affection. She liked and looked for the brightening of Caroline and Sophia at her approach, she became pleasantly aware of her own ability to charm and she rejoiced in an exterior world no longer limited to streets. Each morning she went to her window and looked over and beyond the roofs, so beautiful and varied in themselves, to the trees screening the open country across the river and if the sight reminded her to sigh for her own sorrows and to think bitterly of Aunt Rose, she had not time to linger on her emotions. Summer was gay in Upper Radstowe. There were tea-parties and picnics, she paid calls with her aunts and learnt to play lawn tennis with her contemporaries. Her friendship with the Battys ripened.
She was always sure of her welcome at Prospect House, and though she often assured herself that she could love no one but Francis Sales, that was no reason why others should not love her. From that point of view John Batty was a failure. He took her to a cricket match, but finding that she did not know the alphabet of the game, and was more interested in the spectators than in the players, he gave her up. He admired her appearance, but it did not make amends for ignorance of such a grossness; and, equally displeased with him, she returned home alone while he watched out the match.
The next day when she paid her usual Sunday visit, she ignored him pointedly and mentally crossed him off her list. Charles, ugly and odd, was infinitely more responsive, though he greeted her on this occasion with reproach.
“You went to a cricket match yesterday with John.”
“It was very boring and I got a headache. I shall never go again.”
“He said he wouldn’t take you.”
Henrietta smiled subtly, implying a good deal.
“I shouldn’t have thought,” Charles went on mournfully, “of suggesting such a thing.”
“My aunts were rather shocked. I went on the top of a tramcar with him.”
“But if you can go out with him, why shouldn’t you go out with me?”
“But where?” Henrietta questioned practically.
“Well, to a concert.”
“When?”
“When there is one. I don’t know. They won’t have one in this God-forsaken place until the autumn.”
“That’s a long time ahead.”
He spread his hands. “You see, I never have any luck. I just want you to promise.”
“Oh, I’ll promise,” Henrietta said.
“It will be the first time I’ve been anywhere with a girl,” he said. “I don’t get on.”
“Have you wanted to?”
He sighed. “Yes, but not much.” Her laughter, which was so pretty, startled him; it also delighted him with its music, and his sad eyes grew wider and more vague. He had an inspiration. “I’ll take you home now.”
“I’m not going home. I’ve promised to go to Sales Hall.”
“Sales Hall—oh, yes, he’s the man who talks at concerts—when he goes. I know him. Have you ever wanted to murder anyone? I’ve wanted to murder him. I might some day. You’d better warn him.”
Was this another strand in the web of her drama, she wondered. Was Aunt Rose involved in this too? She breathed quickly. “Why, what has he done to you?”
He ground his teeth, looking terrible but ineffectual. “Stolen beauty. That’s what his sort does. He kills lovely things that fly and run, for sport, and he steals beauty, spoils it.”
“Who?” she whispered.
“That man Sales.”
“No, no. Who has he stolen and spoilt?”
“Heavenly music—and my happiness. I lost a bar—a whole bar, I tell you. I’ll never forgive him. I can’t get it back.”
“If that’s all—” Henrietta gestured.
“And there are others,” Charles went on. “I never forget them. I meet them in the streets and they look horrible—like beetles.” “I believe you’re mad,” Henrietta said earnestly. “It’s not sense.”
“What is sense?” Henrietta could not tell him. She looked at him, a little afraid, but excited by this proximity to danger. And I thought you would understand.”
“Of course I do.” She could not bear to let go of anything which might do her credit. “I do. But you exaggerate. And Mr. Sales—” She hesitated, and in doing so she remembered to be angry with Charles Batty for maligning him. “How can you judge Mr. Sales?” she asked with scorn. “He is a man.” “And what am I?” Charles demanded.
“You’re—queer,” she said.
“Yes”—his face twisted curiously—“I suppose if I shot things and chased them, you’d like me better. But I can’t—not even for that, but perhaps, some day—” He seemed to lose himself in the vagueness of his thoughts.
She finished his sentence gaily, for after all, it was absurd to quarrel with him. “Some day we’ll go to a concert.”
He recovered himself. “More than that,” he said. He nodded his head with unexpected vigour. “You’ll see.”
She gazed at him. It was wonderful to think of all the things that might happen to a person who was only twenty-one, but she hastily corrected her thoughts. What could happen to her? In a few short days events had rushed together and exhausted themselves at their source! There was nothing left. She said good-bye to Charles and thought him foolish not to offer to accompany her. She said, “It’s a very long way to Sales Hall,” and he answered, “Oh, you’ll meet that man somewhere, potting at rabbits.”
“Do you think so? I hope he won’t shoot me.” And she saw herself stretched on the ground, wounded, dying, with just enough force to utter words he could never forget—words that would change his whole life. She was willing to sacrifice herself and she said good-bye to Charles again, and sorrowfully, as though she were already dead. She tried to plan her dying words, but as she could not hit on satisfactory ones, she contented herself with deciding that whether she were wounded or not, she would try to introduce the subject of Aunt Rose; and as she went she looked out hopefully for a tall figure with a gun under its arm.
She met it, but without a gun, on the track where, on one side, the trees stood in fresh green, like banners, and on the other the meadows sloped roughly to the distant water. He had been watching for her, he said, and suddenly over her assurance there swept a wave of embarrassment, of shyness. She was alone with him and he was not like Charles Batty. He looked down at her with amusement in his blue, thick-lashed eyes, and it was difficult to believe that here was the hero, or the villain, of the piece. She felt the sensation she had known when he handed her the orchid, and she blushed absurdly when he actually said, as though he read her thoughts, “No orchids to-day?”
“No.” She laughed up at him. “That was a special treat. I didn’t see Mr. Batty this afternoon, and he couldn’t afford to give them away every Sunday.”
“Do you go there every Sunday?” “Yes; they’re very kind.”
“They would be.”
This reminded her a little of Mr. Jenkins, though she cast the idea from her quickly. Mr. Jenkins was not worthy of sharing a moment’s thought with Francis Sales; his collar was made of rubber, his accent was grotesque; but the influence of the boarding-house was still on her when she asked very innocently, “Why?”
“Oh, I needn’t tell you that.”
It was Mr. Jenkins again, but in a voice that was soft, almost caressing. Did Mr. Sales talk like this to Aunt Rose? She could not believe it and she was both flattered and distressed. She must assert her dignity and she had no way of doing it but by an expression of firmness, a slight tightening of lips that wanted to twitch into a smile.
“Mr. Charles Batty,” the voice went on, “seems to have missed his opportunities, but I have always suspected him of idiocy.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said untruthfully, and then, loyally, she protested. “But he’s not an idiot. He’s very clever, too clever, not like other people.”
“Well, there are different names for that sort of thing,” he said easily, and she was aware of an immense distance between her and him— he seemed to have put her from him with a light push—and at the same time she was oppressively conscious of his nearness. She felt angry, and she burst out, “I won’t have you speaking like that about Charles.”
“Certainly not, if he’s a friend of yours.”
“And I won’t have you laughing at me.”
He stopped in his long stride. “Don’t you laugh yourself at the things that please you very much?”
“Oh, don’t!” she begged. He was too much for her; she was helpless, as though she had been drugged to a point when she could move and think, but only through a mist, and she felt that his ease, approaching impudence, was as indecent as Aunt Rose’s calm. It was both irritating and pleasing to know that she could have shattered both with the word she was incapable of saying, but her nearest approach to that was an inquiry after the health of Mrs. Sales. He replied that she was looking forward to Henrietta’s visit. She had very few pleasures and was always glad to see people.
“Aunt Rose”—here was an opportunity—“comes, doesn’t she, every week?”
He said he believed so.
“Did you know her when she was a little girl?”
He gave a discouraging affirmative.
“What was she like?”
“I don’t know.” He had, indeed, forgotten.
“Well, you must remember her when she was young.”
“Young?”
Henrietta nodded bravely though he seemed to smoulder. “As young as I am.”
“She was exactly the same as she is now. No, not quite.”
“Nicer?”
“Nicer? What a word! Nice!” He looked all round him and made a flourish with his stick. He could not express himself, yet he seemed unable to be silent. “Do you call the sky nice?”
“Yes, very, when it’s blue.”
He gave, to her great satisfaction, the kind of laugh she had expected. “Let us talk about something a little smaller than the sky,” he said. He looked down at her, and she was relieved to see the anger fading from his face; but she was glad to have learnt something of what he felt for Aunt Rose. To him she was like the sky whence came the rain and the sunshine, where the stars shone and the moon, and she wondered to what he would have compared herself. “You said we might be sisters.”
He looked again. She wore a broad white hat in honour of the season, her black dress was dotted with white; from one capable white hand she swung her gloves; she tilted her chin, a trick she had inherited from her father, in a sort of challenge.
“You like the idea?” he asked.
“I don’t believe it. I’m really the image of my father. Did you know him?”
“No. Heard of him, of course.”
“It’s him I’m like,” Henrietta repeated firmly.
“Then the story of his good looks must be true.”
Mixed with her pleasure, she had a return of disappointment. Here was Mr. Jenkins once more, and while it was sad to discover his re-incarnation in her ideal, it was thrilling to resume the kind of fencing she thought she had resigned. She forgot her virtuous resolves, and the remainder of the walk was enlivened by the hope of a thrust which she would have to parry, but none came. Francis Sales seemed to have exhausted his efforts, and at the door he said with a sort of sulkiness, “I think you had better go up alone. You must let me see you home.”
This was not her first solitary visit to Christabel Sales, and she half dreaded, half enjoyed meeting the glances of those wide blue eyes, which were searching behind their innocence and hearing remarks which, though dropped carelessly, always gave her the impression of being tipped with steel. She was bewildered, troubled by her sense that she and Christabel were allies and yet antagonists, and her jealousy of her Aunt Rose fought with her unwilling loyalty to one of her own blood. There were moments when she acquiesced in the suggestions offered in the form of admiration, and others when she stiffened with distaste, with a realization that she herself was liable to attack, with horror for the beautiful luxurious room, the crippled woman, the listening cat. Henrietta sometimes saw herself as a mouse, in mortal danger of a feline spring, and then pity for Christabel would overcome this weariness; she would talk to her with what skill she had for entertainment, and she emerged exhausted, as though from a fight.
This evening she was amazed to be received without any greeting, but a question: “Has Rose Mallett told you why I am here?” Christabel was lying very low on her couch. Her lips hardly moved; these might have been the last words she would ever utter.
“Yes, a hunting accident. And you told me about it yourself.”
There was a silence, and then the voice, its sharpness dulled, said slowly, “Yes, I told you what I remembered and what I heard afterwards. A hunting accident! It sounds so simple. That’s what they call it. Names are useful. We couldn’t get on without them. I get such queer ideas, lying here, with nothing to do. Before I was married I never thought at all. I was too happy.” She seemed to be lost in memory of that time. Henrietta sat very still; she breathed carefully as though a brusqueness would be fatal, and the voice began again. “They call you Henrietta. It’s only a name, but it doesn’t describe you; nobody knows what it means except you, but it’s convenient. It’s the same with my hunting accident. Do you see?”
Henrietta said nothing. She had that familiar feeling of being in the dark, and now the evening shadows augmented it. She was conscious of the cat behind her, on the hearthrug.
“Do you see?” Christabel persisted.
“Things have to be called something,” Henrietta said.
“That’s just what I have been telling you. And so Rose Mallett calls it a hunting accident.” A high-pitched and thin laugh came from the pillows. “She was terribly distressed about it. And she actually told me she had suspected that mare from the first. She told me! It’s funny—don’t you think so?”
“No,” Henrietta said stoutly, “not funny at all.” She spoke in a very firm and reasonable voice, as though only her common sense could combat what seemed like insanity in the other. “I think it’s very sad.”
“For me? Oh, yes, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of your charming aunt, the most beautiful woman in Radstowe. That’s what I have heard her called. Yet why hasn’t she married? Can’t she find anybody”—the voice was gentle—“to love her? She suspected that mare but she warned nobody. Funny—”
Henrietta had a physical inward trembling. She felt a dreadful rage against the woman on the couch, a sickening disgust, such as she would have felt at looking down a dark, deep well and seeing slime and blind ugliness at the bottom. She felt as though her ears were dirty; she tried to move, but she sat perfectly still and, dreading what would come next, she listened, fascinated.
“Perhaps she is in love with somebody. Does she get many letters, Henrietta? She is very reserved, she doesn’t tell me much; but, of course, I’m interested in her.” She laughed again. “I am very anxious for her happiness. It would comfort me to know anything you can tell me.”
Henrietta managed to stand up. “I know nothing,” she said in a slightly broken voice. “I don’t want to know anything.”
Christabel interrupted smoothly. “Perhaps you are wise or you couldn’t stay happily in that house. They’re all like witches, those women. They frighten me. You must be very brave, Henrietta.”
“I’m very grateful,” Henrietta said; “and I shan’t come here again, no, never. I don’t know what you have been trying to tell me, but I don’t believe it. It’s no good crying. I shall never come back. They’re not witches.” She had a vision of them at the dinner table, Rose like a white flower, Caroline and Sophia jewelled, gaily dressed, a little absurd, oddly distinguished. “Witches! They are my father’s sisters, and I love them.”
“Ah, but you don’t know Rose,” Christabel sobbed. “And don’t say you will never come again. And don’t tell Francis. He would be angry.”
“How could I tell him?” Henrietta asked indignantly. “No, no, I don’t want to see either of you again. I shall go away—go away—” She left the room to the sound of a horrible, faint weeping.
She meant what she had said. She thought she would go away from Radstowe and forget Christabel Sales, forget Francis Sales, whom she would no longer pretend to love; forget those insinuations that Aunt Rose was guilty of a crime. This place and these people were abhorrent to her, she felt she had been poisoned and she rushed down the long avenue where, overhead, the rooks were calling, as though she could only be saved by the clean night air beyond the house. She was shocked; she believed that Christabel was mad; the thought of that warm room where the cat listened, made her gasp, and her horror extended to Francis Sales himself. The place felt wicked, but the clear road stretching before her, the pale evening sky and the sound of her own feet tapping the road restored her.
She was glad to be alone and, avoiding the short cut, she enjoyed the sanity of the highway used by ordinary men and women in the decent pursuit of their lives. But now the road was empty and though at another time she would have been afraid of the lonely country, to-night she had a sense of escape from greater perils than any lurking here. And before long it all seemed like a dream, but it was a dream that might recur if she ran the risk.
No, she would never go there again, she would never envy Aunt Rose a lover from that house, she would never believe that the worst of Christabel’s implications were true. They were the fabrications of a suspicious woman, and though her jealousy might be justified, it seemed to Henrietta that she deserved her fate. She was hateful, she was poisonous, and Henrietta felt a sudden tenderness for Aunt Rose and Francis Sales. They could not help themselves, for they were unfortunate, she longed to show them sympathy and she saw herself taking them by the hand and saying gently, “Confide in me. I understand.” She imagined Aunt Rose melting at that touch and those words into tears, perhaps of repentance, certainly of gratitude, but at this point Henrietta’s fancies were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind her. She quickened her pace, then began to run, and the steps followed, gaining on her. She could not outrun them and she stopped, turning to see who came.
“Miss Mallett!” It was the voice of Francis Sales. She sank down on a heap of stones, panting and laughing. He sat beside her. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. I hate to hear anybody coming behind me. It might have been a tramp. I’m very much afraid of tramps.”
“I said I would see you home.”
“Yes, I forgot. Let us go on.”
“You didn’t stay long.”
“I don’t think Mrs. Sales is very well.”
“She isn’t. She gets hysterical and that affects her heart. I thought you would do her good.” He seemed to blame Henrietta. “And I thought a walk with you would do me good, too. I have a pretty dull life.”
“Aren’t you interested in your cows and things?”
“A man can’t live on cows.”
“But you have other things and you live in the country. People can’t have everything. I don’t suppose you’d change with anybody really, if you could. People are like that. They grumble, but they like being themselves. Suppose you were a young man in a shop, measuring cloth or selling bacon. You’d find that much duller, I should think.”
He laughed a little. “Where did you learn this wisdom?”
“I’ve had experience,” she said staidly. “Yes, you’d find it duller.”
“Perhaps you’re right. But then, you might come to buy the bacon. I should look forward to that.”
In the darkness, these playful words frightened her a little; they hurt her sense of what was fitting from him to her and at the same time they pleased her with their hint of danger.
“Would you?” she asked slowly.
He paused, saying, “May I light a pipe?” and by the flame of the match he examined her face quite openly for a moment. “You know I would,” he said.
She met his look, her eyes wavered and neither spoke for a long time. She was oppressed by his nearness, the smell of his tobacco, her own inexplicable delight. From the trees by the roadside birds gave out happy chirrups, country people in their Sunday clothes and creaking boots passed or overtook the silent pair; a man on a horse rode out from a gate and cantered with very little noise on the rough grass edging the road. Henrietta watched him until he disappeared and then it seemed as if he had never been there at all. A sheep in a field uttered a sad cry and every sight and sound seemed a little unreal, like things happening on a stage.
And gradually Henrietta’s excitement left her. The world seemed a sad and lonely place; she remembered that she herself was lonely; there was no one now to whom she was the first, and she had a longing for her mother. She wished that instead of returning to Nelson Lodge with its cleanliness and richness and comfort, she might turn the key of the boarding-house door and find herself in the narrow passage with the smell of cooking and the gas turned low; she wished she could run up the stairs and rush into the drawing-room and find her mother sitting there, sewing by the fire, and see her look up and hear her say, “Well, Henry dear, what have you been doing?” After all, that old life was better than this new one. The troubles of her mother, her own young struggles for food and warmth, the woes of Mrs. Banks, had in them something nobler than she could find in the distresses of Christabel and Aunt Rose and Francis Sales, something redeeming them from the sordidness in which they were set. She checked a sob.
“It’s a long way,” she sighed.
“Are you tired?” His voice was gentle.
“Yes, dreadfully.”
“Then let us sit down again.”
“No, I must go on. I must get back.”
“If you would talk to me, you wouldn’t notice the distance.”
“I don’t want to talk. I’m thinking. When we get to the bridge you can go back, can’t you? There will be lights and I shall be quite safe.”
“Very well, but I wish you’d tell me what’s the matter.”
“I’m very unhappy,” Henrietta said with a sob.
“What on earth for? Look here,”—he touched her arm—“did Christabel say anything?”
“I don’t know why it is.”
“Are you going to cry?”
“It’s no good crying.”
He held the arm now quite firmly and they faced each other. “You’d better tell me the whole story.”
Her lips quivered. She wished he would loosen his grip and hoped he would go on holding her for ever. It was a moment of mingled ecstasy and sadness. “Oh,” she almost wailed, “can’t I be unhappy if I want to?”
He gave a short laugh, saying, “Poor little girl,” and stooping, kissed her on the mouth. She endured that kiss willingly for a moment and then, very lightly, struck him in the face.