§ 9
There could be no more parties for Henrietta that winter, but Mrs. Batty’s house was always open to her, and Mrs. Batty, like her son Charles, could be relied upon for welcome and for relaxation. In her presence Henrietta had a pleasant sense of superiority; she was applauded and not criticized and she knew she could give comfort as well as get it. Mrs. Batty liked to talk to her and Henrietta could sink into one of the superlatively cushioned arm-chairs and listen or not as she chose. There she was relieved of the slight but persistent strain she was under in Nelson Lodge, for Sophia and Rose had standards of manner, conduct and speech beyond her own, while Mrs. Batty’s, though they existed, were on another plane. Henrietta was sure of herself in that luxurious, overcrowded drawing-room, decorated and scented with the least precious of Mr. Batty’s hothouse flowers, and somewhat overheated.
On her first visit after Caroline’s death, Mrs. Batty received the bereaved niece with unction. “Ah, poor dear,” she murmured, and whether her sympathy was for Caroline or Henrietta, perhaps she did not know herself. “Poor dear! I can’t get your aunt out of my head, Henrietta, love. There she was at the party, looking like a queen— well, you know what I mean—and Mr. Batty said she was the belle of the ball. It was just his joke; but Mr. Batty never makes a joke that hasn’t something in it. I could see it myself. And then for her to die like that—it seems as if it was our fault. It was a beautiful ball, wasn’t it, dear? I do think it was, but it’s spoilt for me. I can only be thankful it wasn’t her stomach or I should have blamed the supper. As it is, there must have been a draught. It was a cold night.”
“It was a lovely night,” Henrietta said, thinking of the terrace and the dark river and the stars. She could remember it all without shame, for he had not failed her and her personality had not failed. He had not deserted her, and when they met there would be no need for explanations. He would look at her, she would look at him—she had to rouse herself. “Yes, it was a splendid ball, Mrs. Batty.”
“And what did you think of my dress, dear?” Mrs. Batty asked, and checked herself. “But we ought not to talk about such things with your dear aunt just dead. You must miss her sadly. Did you—were you with her at the end?”
But this was a region in which Henrietta could not wander with Mrs. Batty. “Don’t let us talk of it,” she said.
Mrs. Batty gurgled a rich sympathy and after a due pause she was glad to resume the topic of the dance. This was her first real opportunity for discussing it; under Mr. Batty’s slightly ironical smile and his references to expense, she had controlled herself; among her acquaintances it was necessary to treat the affair as a mere bagatelle; but with Henrietta she could expand unlimitedly. What she thought, what she felt, what she said, what other people said to her, and what her guests were reported to have said to other people, was repeated and enlarged upon to Henrietta who, leaning back, occasionally nodding her head or uttering a sound of encouragement, lived through that night again.
Yes, out on the terrace he had been the real Francis Sales and that man in the hollow looking at Aunt Rose and then turning to Henrietta in uncertainty was the one evoked by that witch on horseback, the modern substitute for a broomstick. Christabel Sales was right: Aunt Rose was a witch with her calm, white face, riding swiftly and fearlessly on her messages of evil. He was never himself in her presence: how could he be? He was under her spell and he must be cleared of it and kept immune. But how? Through these thoughts, which were both exciting and alarming, Henrietta heard Mrs. Batty uttering the name of Charles.
“He seems to have taken a turn for the better, my dear.”
“Has he been ill?” Henrietta asked.
“Ill? No. Bad-tempered, what you might call melancholy. Not lately. Well, since the dance he has been different. Not so irritable at breakfast. I told you once before, love, how I dreaded breakfast, with John late half the time, going out with the dogs, and Mr. Batty behind the paper with his eyebrows up, and Charles looking as if he’d been dug up, like Lazarus, if it isn’t wrong to say so, pale and pasty and sorry he was alive—sort of damp, dear. Well, you know what I mean. But as I tell you, he’s been more cheerful. That dance must have done him good, or something has. And Mr. Batty tells me he takes more interest in his work. Still,” Mrs. Batty admitted, “he does catch me up at times.”
“Yes, I know. About music. I know. He’s queer. I hate it when he gets angry and shouts, but he’s good really, in his heart.”
“Oh, of course he is,” Mrs. Batty murmured, and, looking at the plump hands on her silken lap, she added, “I wish he’d marry. Now, John, he’s engaged; but he didn’t need to be. You know what I mean. He was happy enough before, but Charles, if he could marry a nice girl—”
“He won’t,” Henrietta said at once, and Mrs. Batty, suddenly alert, asked sharply, “Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Men are so easily deceived.”
“We can’t help it. You wouldn’t neglect a baby. Well, then, it’s the same thing. They never get out of their short frocks. Even Mr. Batty,” his wife chuckled, “he’s very clever and all that, but he’s like all the rest. The very minute you marry, you’ve got a baby on your hands.”
Henrietta sighed. “It isn’t fair,” she murmured, yet she liked the notion. Francis Sales was a baby. He would have to be managed, to be amused; he would tire of his toys. She knew that, and she saw herself constantly dressing up the old ones and deceiving him into believing they were new.
“I suppose they’re worth it,” she half questioned.
“Men?”
“No, babies,” Henrietta answered, meaning the same thing, but Mrs. Batty took her up with fervour. She was reminiscent, and tears came into her eyes; she was prophetic, she was embarrassing and faintly disgusting to Henrietta, and when the door opened to let in Charles, she welcomed him with a pleasure which was really the measure of her relief.
She had not seen him since she had parted from him in the car. He did not return her smile and it struck her that he never smiled. It was a good thing: it would have made him look odder than ever, and somehow he contrived to show his happiness without the display of teeth. His eyes, she decided, bulged most when he was miserable, and now they hardly bulged at all.
“You’re back early to-day, dear,” Mrs. Batty said. “I’ll have some fresh tea made.” But Charles, without averting his gaze from Henrietta, said, “I don’t want any tea,” and to Henrietta he said quietly, “I haven’t seen you for weeks.”
To her annoyance, she felt the colour creeping over her cheeks. No doubt he would account for that in his own way, and to disconcert him she added casually, “It’s not long really.”
“It seems long,” he said.
No one but Charles Batty would have said that in the presence of his mother; it was ridiculous, and she looked at him with revengeful criticism. He was plain; he was getting bald; his trousers bagged; his socks were wrinkled like concertinas; his comparative self-assurance was quite unjustified. He had looked at her consistently since he entered the room, and Henrietta was angrily aware that Mrs. Batty was trying to make herself insignificant in her corner of the sofa. Henrietta could hear the careful control of her breathing. She was hoping to make the young people forget she was there. Henrietta frowned warningly at Charles.
“What’s the matter?” he asked at once.
“Nothing.” She might have known it was useless to make signs.
“But you frowned.”
“Well, don’t you ever get a twinge?” she prevaricated.
“Toothache, dear?” Mrs. Batty clucked her distress. “I’ll get some laudanum. You just rub it on the gum—” She rose. “I have some in my medicine cupboard. I’ll go and get it.” She went out, and across her broad back she seemed to carry the legend, “This is the consummation of tact.”
Charles stood up and planted himself on the hearthrug and Henrietta wished Mrs. Batty had not gone. “I’m sorry you’ve got toothache,” he said.
“I haven’t. I didn’t say I had. My teeth are perfect.” With a vicious opening of her mouth, she let him see them.
“Then why did you frown?”
“I had to do something to stop your glaring at me.”
“Was I glaring? I didn’t know. I suppose I can’t help looking at you.”
Henrietta appreciated this remark. “I don’t mind so much when we are alone.” From anybody else she would have expected a reminder that she had once allowed more than that, but she was safe with Charles and half annoyed by her safety. Her instinct was to run and dodge, but it was a poor game to play at hide-and-seek with this roughly executed statue of a young man. “Your mother must have noticed,” she explained.
“Well, why not? She’ll have to know.”
“Know what?” she cried indignantly.
“That we’re engaged.”
She brightened angrily. After all, he was thinking of that night and she felt a new, exasperated respect for him. “But I told you—I told you I didn’t mean anything when I let you—when we were alone in that car.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” he said, and she felt a drop. He had no business not to think of it.
“Then what do you mean?” she asked coldly.
“I’ve been engaged to you,” he said, “for a long time. I told you. But I’ve been thinking that it really doesn’t work.”
“Of course it doesn’t. Anybody would have known that except you, Charles Batty.”
“Yes, but nobody tells me things. I have to find them out.” He sighed. “It takes time. But now I know.”
“Very well. You’re released from the engagement you made all by yourself. I had nothing to do with it.”
“No,” he said mildly, “but I can’t be released, so the only way out of it is for you to be engaged too.” He fumbled in a pocket. “I’ve bought a ring.”
She sneered. “Who told you about that?”
“I remembered it. John got one. It’s always done and I think this one is pretty.”
She had a great curiosity to see his choice. She guessed it would be gaudy, like a child’s, but she said, “It has nothing to do with me. I don’t want to see it.”
“Do look.”
“Charles, you’re hopeless.” “The man said he would change it if you didn’t like it.” Into her hand he put the little box, attractively small, no doubt lined with soft white velvet, and she longed to open it. She had always wanted one of those little boxes and she remembered how often she had gazed at them, holding glittering rings, in the windows of jewellers’ shops. She looked up at Charles, her eyes bright, her lips a little parted, so young and helpless in that moment that she drew from him his first cry of passion. “Henrietta!” His hands trembled.
“It’s only,” she faltered, “because I like looking at pretty things.”
“I know.” He dropped to the sofa beside her. “It couldn’t be anything else.”
She turned to him, her face close to his, and she asked plaintively, “But why shouldn’t it be?” She seemed to blame him; she did blame him. There was something in his presence seductively secure; there was peace: she almost loved him; she loved her power to make him tremble, and if only he could make her tremble too, she would be his. “But it isn’t anything else,” she said below her breath.
“No, it isn’t,” he echoed in the loud voice of his trouble. He got up and moved away. “So just look at the ring and tell me if you like it.”
He heard the box unwrapped and a voice saying, “I do like it.”
“Then keep it.”
“But I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. It’s for you. It’s pretty, isn’t it? And you like pretty things.”
“I could just look at it now and then, couldn’t I? But no, it isn’t fair.”
“I don’t mind about that.
“I mean fair to me.”
He turned at that. “I don’t understand.”
“A kind of hold,” she explained.
“How could it be? I wasn’t trying to tempt you, but we’re engaged and you must have a ring.”
She shook her small, clenched fists. “We’re not, we’re not! Oh, yes, you can be, if you like; but I didn’t mean it would hold me in that way. I meant it would be like a sign—of you. I shouldn’t be able to forget you; you would be there in the ring, in the box, in the drawer, like the portrait of Aunt Sophia’s—” She stopped herself. “And I can’t burn you.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. I suppose I ought to.”
“No, you oughtn’t.” She sprang up, delivered from her weakness. “This is nonsense. Of course, I can’t keep your ring. Take it back, Charles. It’s beautiful. I thought it would be all red and blue like a flag, but it’s lovely. It makes my mouth water. It’s like white fire.”
“It’s like you,” he said. “You’re just as bright and just as hard, and if only you were as small, I could put you in my pocket and never let you go.”
She opened her eyes very wide. “Then why do you let me go?” she asked on an ascending note, and she did not mean to taunt him. It would be so easy for him to keep her, if he knew how. She expected a despairing groan, she half hoped for a violent embrace, but he answered quietly, “I don’t really let you go. It’s you I love, not just your hair and your face and the way your nose turns up, and your hands and feet, and your straight neck. I have to let them go, but you don’t go. You stay with me all the time: you always will. You’re like music, always in my head, but you’re more than that. You go deeper: I suppose into my heart. Sometimes I think I’m carrying you in my arms. I can’t see you but I can feel you’re there, and sometimes I laugh because I think you’re laughing.”
She listened, charmed into stillness. Here was an echo of his outpouring in the darkness of that hour by the Monks’ Pool, but these words were closer, dearer. She felt for that moment that he did indeed carry her in his arms and that she was glad to be there. He spoke so quietly, he was so certain of his love that she was exalted and abashed. She did not deserve all this, yet he knew she was hard as well as bright, he knew her nose turned up. Perhaps there was nothing he did not know.
He went on simply, without effort. “And though I’m ugly and a fool, I can’t be hurt whatever you choose to do. What you do isn’t you.” He touched himself. “The you is here. So it doesn’t matter about the ring. It doesn’t matter about Francis Sales.”
She said on a caught breath and in a whisper, “What about him?”
He looked at her and made a slight movement with the hands hanging at his sides, a little flicking movement, as though he brushed something away. “I think perhaps you are going to marry him,” he said deeply.
Her head went up. “Who told you that?” she demanded.
“Nobody. Nobody tells me anything.”
“Because nobody knows,” she said scornfully. “I haven’t seen him since—” She hesitated. This Charles knew everything, and he said for her, rather wearily, very quietly, “Since his wife died. No. But you will.”
“Yes,” she said defiantly, “I expect I shall. I hope I shall.”
A shudder passed through Charles Batty’s big frame and the words, “Don’t marry him,” reached her ears like a distant muttering of a storm. “You would not be happy.”
“What has happiness to do with it?” she asked with an astonishing young bitterness.
“Ah, if you feel like that,” he said, “if you feel as I do about you, if nothing he does and nothing he says—”
“He says very little,” Henrietta interrupted gloomily, but Charles seemed not to hear.
“If his actions are only like the wind in the trees, fluttering the leaves—yes, I suppose that’s love. The tree remains.”
She dropped her face into her hands. “You’re making me miserable,” she cried.
He removed her hands and held them firmly. “But why?”
“I don’t know,” she swayed towards him, but he kept her arms rigid, like a bar between them, “but I don’t want to lose you.”
“You can’t,” he assured her.
“And though you think you have me in your heart, the me that doesn’t change, you’d like the other one too, wouldn’t you? I mean, you’d really like to hold me? Not just the thought of me? Tell me you love me in that way too.”
“Yes,” he said, “I love you in that way too, but I tell you it doesn’t matter.” He dropped her hands as though he had no more strength. “Marry your Francis Sales. You still belong to me.”
“But will you belong to me?” she asked softly. She could not lose him, she wanted to have them both, and Charles, perhaps unwisely, perhaps from the depth of his wisdom, which was truth, answered quietly, “I belonged to you since the first day I saw you.”
She let out a sigh of inexpressible relief.