“I don’t think we are very much alike,” Henrietta said.
Rose laughed. “Oh, don’t say that. I have been glad to think we are.”
“You might be sisters,” said Francis Sales.
This little scene, being played so easily and lightly by this man and woman, had a nightmare quality for Henrietta. It had the confusion, the exaggerated horror of an evil dream, without the far-away consciousness of its unreality. Here she was, in the presence of the man she loved and it was wicked to love him. She had longed to meet him and now she wished she might have kept his memory only, the figure on the horse, the man with the pink orchid in his hand. She had suspected her Aunt Rose of a secret love affair, she had now discovered her guilty of sin. The evidence was slight, but Henrietta’s conviction was tremendous. She was horrified, but she was also elated. This was drama, this was life. She was herself a romantic figure; she was robbed of her happiness, her youth was blighted; the woman upstairs was wronged and Henrietta understood why there were knives on her tongue: she understood the watchfulness of the cat.
Yet, as they sat in the cool drawing-room with its pale flowery chintz, its primrose curtains, the faded water-colours on the walls and Aunt Rose pouring tea into the flowered cups, she might, if she had wished, have been persuaded that she was wrong. Perhaps she had mistaken that angry, starving look in the man’s eyes; it had gone; nothing could have been more ordinary than his expression and his conversation. But she knew she was not wrong and she sat there, on the alert, losing not a glance, not a tone. Her limbs were trembling, she could not eat and she was astonished that Aunt Rose could nibble biscuits with such nonchalance, that Francis Sales could eat plum cake.
He was, without doubt, the most attractive man she had ever seen; his long brown fingers fascinated her. And again she wondered at the odd sequence of events. She had seen his name on the carts, she had seen him on the horse, he had picked up her pink orchid, she had been led by Fate and a squirrel into the wood and now she found him here. It was like a play and it would be still more like a play if she snatched him from Aunt Rose. In that idea there was the prompting of her father, but her mother’s part in her was a reminder that she must not snatch him for herself. No, only out of danger; men were helpless, they were like babies in the hands of women, and hands could differ; they could hurt or soothe, and she imagined her own performing the latter task. She saw it as her mission, and on the way home she told herself that her silence was not that of anger but of dedication.
§ 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.