Aunt Rose was dressed for walking and Henrietta was afraid of being asked to go with her, but Aunt Rose made no such suggestion. Since Sunday Henrietta had been exploring Radstowe and its suburbs with an enthusiasm surprising to the elder aunts, who did not care for exercise; but Henrietta was as much inspired by the hope of seeing that man again as by interest in the old streets, the unexpected alleys, the flights of worn steps leading from Upper to Lower Radstowe, the slums, cheek by jowl with the garden of some old house, the big houses deteriorated into tenements. All these had their own charm and the added one of having been familiar to her father, but she never forgot to watch for the hero on the horse, the restorer of her orchid. If she met him, should she bow to him, or pretend not to see him? She had practised various expressions before the glass, and had almost decided to look up as he passed and flash a glance of puzzled recognition from her eyes. She thought she could do it satisfactorily and to-day she meant to cross the bridge for the first time. He had been riding over the bridge that afternoon and what had happened once might happen again. Moreover, she had a feeling that across the water there was something waiting for her. Certainly behind the trees clothing the gorge there was the real country, with cows and sheep and horses in the meadows, with the possibility of rabbits in the lanes, and she had never yet seen a rabbit running wild. There were innumerable possibilities on that farther side.
She crossed the bridge, stood to look up and down the river, to watch the gulls, white against the green, to consider the ant-like hurrying of the people on the road below and the clustered houses on the city side, a medley of shapes and colours, rising in terraces, the whole like some immense castle guarding the entrance to the town. And as before, carriages and carts went and came over, schoolgirls on bicycles, babies in perambulators, but this time there was no man on a horse. She knew that this mattered very little; her stimulated excitement was hardly more than salt and pepper to a dish already appetizing enough, and now and then as she went along the road on a level with the tree-tops in the gorge and had glimpses of water and of rock, she had to remind herself of her preoccupation.
She passed big houses with their flowery gardens and then, suddenly timorous, she decided not to go too far afield. She might get lost, she might meet nasty people or horned beasts. A little path on her right hand had an inviting look; it might lead her down through the trees to the water’s edge. It was all strewn and richly brown with last autumn’s leaves and on a tree a few yards ahead she saw a brilliant object—tiny, long-tailed, extraordinarily swift. It was out of sight before she had time to tell herself that this was a squirrel; and again she had a consciousness of development. She had seen a squirrel in its native haunts! This was wonderful, and she approached the tree. The squirrel had vanished, but these woods, within sound of a city, yet harbouring squirrels, seemed to have become one of her possessions. She was enriched, she was a different person, and she, whose familiar fauna had been stray cats and the black beetles in Mrs. Banks’ kitchen, was actually in touch with nature. She now felt equal to meeting unattended cows, but the woods offered enough excitement for to-day.
She found that her path did not immediately descend. It led her levelly to an almost circular green space; then it became enclosed again and soft to the feet with grass; and just ahead of her, blocking her way, she saw two figures, those of a woman and a man. Their backs were towards her, but there was no mistaking Aunt Rose’s back. It was straight without being stiff, her dress fell with a unique perfection and the little hat and grey floating veil were hers alone.
For an instant Henrietta stood still, and the man, turning to look at his companion, showed the profile of her stranger. At the same moment he touched Aunt Rose’s hand and before Henrietta swerved and sped back whence she had come, she saw that hand removed gently, as though reluctantly, and the head, mistily veiled, shaken slowly.
Her first desire was for flight and, safely on the road again, she found her heart beating to suffocation; she was filled with an indignation that almost brought her to tears; it was as though Aunt Rose had deliberately robbed her of treasure—Aunt Rose, who was almost middle-aged! For a moment she despised that fair, handsome man whose image had filled her mind for what seemed a long, long time; then she felt pity for him who had no eyes for youth, yet she remembered his look of arrested interest.
But steadying her thoughts and enjoying her dramatic bitterness, she laughed. He had merely surprised her likeness to Aunt Rose and that was all. Her dream was over. She had known it was a dream, but the awakening was cruel; it was also intensely exciting. She did not regret it; she had at least discovered something about Aunt Rose. She had a lover. That look of his, that pleading movement of his hand, were unmistakable; he was a lover, and perhaps she, Henrietta Mallett, alone knew the truth. She had suspected a secret, now she knew it; and she had a sense of power, she had a weapon. She imagined herself standing over Aunt Rose, armed with knowledge, no longer afraid; she was involved in a romantic, perhaps a shameful, situation. Aunt Rose was meeting a lover clandestinely in the woods while Aunt Caroline and Aunt Sophia sat innocently at home, marvelling at Rose’s indifference to men, yet rejoicing in her spinsterhood; and Henrietta felt that Rose had wronged her stepsisters almost as much as she had wronged her niece. She was deceitful; that, in plain terms, accounted for what had seemed a mysterious and conquered sorrow. It was Henrietta who was to suffer, through the shattering of a dream.
She went home, walking quickly, but feeling that she groped in a fog, broken here and there by lurid lights, the lights of knowledge and determination. She was younger than Aunt Rose, she was as pretty, and she was the daughter of Reginald Mallett who, though she did not know it, had always wanted the things desired by other people. She could continue to love her stranger and at the back of her mind was the unacknowledged conviction that Aunt Rose’s choice must be well worth loving. And again how strangely events seemed to serve her: first the dropping of an orchid and now the leaping of a squirrel! She felt herself in the hands of higher powers.
She had a feverish longing to see Rose again, to see her plainly for the first time and dressing for dinner was like preparing for a great event. Yet when dinner-time came everything was surprisingly the same. The deceived Caroline and Sophia ate with the usual appetite, Susan hovered with the same quiet attention, and Rose showed no sign of a recent interview with a lover. Across the candlelight she looked at Henrietta kindly and Henrietta remembered the three thousand pounds. She did not want to remember them. They constituted an obligation towards this woman who did not sufficiently appreciate her, who met that man secretly, in a wood, who was beautiful with a far-off kind of beauty, like that of the stars. And while these angry thoughts passed through Henrietta’s mind, Rose’s tender expression had developed into a smile, and she asked, “Did you have a nice walk?”
Henrietta gulped. She looked steadily at Rose, and on her lips certain words began to form themselves, but she did not utter them, and instead of saying as she intended, “Yes, I went across the bridge and into those woods on the other side,” she merely said, “Yes, yes, thank you,” and smiled back. It had been impossible not to smile and she was angry with Aunt Rose for making her a hypocrite. Perhaps she had smiled like that in the wood and she did not look so very old. Even the flames of the candles, throwing her face into strong relief as she leaned forward, did not reveal any lines.