“More people were in love with her than with any one I’ve ever known,” Helen stated. “She had that power—she enjoyed things. She wasn’t beautiful, but—I was thinking of her last night at the dance. She got on with every kind of person, and then she made it all so amazingly—funny.”
It appeared that Helen was going back into the past, choosing her words deliberately, comparing Theresa with the people she had known since Theresa died.
“I don’t know how she did it,” she continued, and ceased, and there was a long pause, in which a little owl called first here, then there, as it moved from tree to tree in the garden.
“That’s so like Aunt Lucy and Aunt Katie,” said Rachel at last. “They always make out that she was very sad and very good.”
“Then why, for goodness’ sake, did they do nothing but criticize her when she was alive?” said Helen. Very gentle their voices sounded, as if they fell through the waves of the sea.
“If I were to die to-morrow . . .” she began.
The broken sentences had an extraordinary beauty and detachment in Hewet’s ears, and a kind of mystery too, as though they were spoken by people in their sleep.
“No, Rachel,” Helen’s voice continued, “I’m not going to walk in the garden; it’s damp—it’s sure to be damp; besides, I see at least a dozen toads.”
“Toads? Those are stones, Helen. Come out. It’s nicer out. The flowers smell,” Rachel replied.
Hewet drew still farther back. His heart was beating very quickly. Apparently Rachel tried to pull Helen out on to the terrace, and Helen resisted. There was a certain amount of scuffling, entreating, resisting, and laughter from both of them. Then a man’s form appeared. Hewet could not hear what they were all saying. In a minute they had gone in; he could hear bolts grating then; there was dead silence, and all the lights went out.