“Nobody,” Sophia said serenely. “The Malletts don’t marry,” she sighed; “but I hope you will, Henrietta.”
“No,” Henrietta said sharply. “I shan’t. I don’t want to. Men are hateful.”
“No, dear child, not all of them. Perhaps none of them. When I was eighteen—” She hesitated. “I must get on with her papers.” She stood up and moved towards the bureau. “They’re here. We shared the drawers. We shared everything.” She stretched out her hands and they fell heavily, taking the weight of her body with them, against the shining slope of wood.
Henrietta, who had been gazing moodily at the fire, was astonished to hear the thud, to see her Aunt Sophia leaning drunkenly over the desk. Sophia’s lips were blue, her eyes were glazed, and Henrietta thought, “She’s dying, too. Shall I let her die?” but at the same moment she leapt up and lowered her aunt into a chair.
“It’s my heart,” Sophia said after a few minutes, and Henrietta understood why poor Aunt Sophia always went upstairs so slowly. “Don’t tell anybody. No one knows. I ought not to have cried like that. There’s a little bottle—” She told Henrietta to fetch it from a secret place. “I never let Caroline know. It would have worried her, and, after all, she was the first to go. I’m glad to think I saved her that anxiety. You remember how she teased me about getting tired? Well, it didn’t matter and she liked to think she was so young. Wherever she is now, I do hope she isn’t feeling angry with herself. She thought illness was so vulgar.”
“But not death,” Henrietta said.
“No, not death,” and Henrietta fancied her aunt lingered lovingly on the word. “This must be a secret between us.” She lay back exhausted. “I only had two secrets from Caroline. This about my heart was one. Henrietta, in that little drawer, at the very back, you’ll find a photograph wrapped in tissue-paper. Find it for me, dear child. Thank you.” She held it tenderly between her palms. “This was the other. It’s the picture of my lover, Henrietta. Yes, I wanted you to know that some one once loved me very dearly.”
“Oh, Aunt Sophia, we all love you. I love you dearly now.”
“Yes, dear, yes, I know; I’m grateful, but I wanted somebody to know that I had had my romance, and have it still—all these years. But I was loved, Henrietta, till he died, and I was very young then, younger than you are now. Yes, I wanted somebody to know that poor Sophia had a real lover once. He went away to America to make a fortune for me, but he died. I have been wondering, since Caroline went, if she and he have met. If so, perhaps she knows, perhaps she blames me, but I don’t think she will laugh—not now. I hope she laughs still, but not at that. And now, Henrietta, we’ll put the photograph into the fire.”
“Ah, no, Aunt Sophia, keep it still!”