Book III: Rose and Henrietta

§ 1

Early one October afternoon, Rose Mallett rode to Sales Hall. She went

through a world of brown and gold and blue, but she was hardly

conscious of beauty, and the air, which was soft, yet keen, and

exciting to her horse, had no inspiriting effect on her. She felt old,

incased in a sort of mental weariness which was like armour against

emotion. She knew that the spirit of the country, at once gentle and

wild, furtive and bold, was trying to reach her in every scent and

sound: in the smell of earth, of fruit, of burning wood; in the noise

of her horse’s feet as he cantered on the grassy side of the road, in

the fall of a leaf, the call of a bird or a human voice become

significant in distance; but she remained unmoved.

This was, she thought, like being dead yet conscious of all that

happened, but the dead have the excuse of death and she had none; she

was merely tired of her mode of life. It seemed to her that in her

thirty-one years the sum of her achievement was looking beautiful and

being loved by Francis Sales: she put it in that way, but immediately

corrected herself unwillingly. Her attitude towards him had not been

passive; she had loved him. She had owed him love and she had paid her

debt; she had paid enough, yet if to-day he asked for more, she would

give it. Her pride hoped for that demand; her weariness shrank from it.

And he had kissed Henrietta. The sharpness of that thought, on which

from the first moment on the stairs she had refused to dwell, steeling

her mind against it with a determination which perhaps accounted for

her fatigue, was like a physical pain running through her whole body,

so that the horse, feeling an unaccustomed jerk on his mouth, became

alarmed and restive. She steadied him and herself. A kiss was nothing

—yet she had always denied it to Francis Sales. She could not blame

him, for she saw how her own fastidiousness had endangered his. He

needed material evidence of love. She ought, she supposed, to have

sacrificed her scruples for his sake; mentally she had already done it,

and the physical refusal was perhaps no more than pride which salved

her conscience and might ruin his, but it existed firmly like a

fortress. She could not surrender it. Her love was not great enough for

that; or was it, she asked herself, too great? She could not comfort

herself with that illusion, and there came creeping the thought that

for some one else, some one too strong to need such a capitulation, she

would have given it gladly, but against Francis, who was intrinsically

weak, she had held out.

Life seemed to mock at her; it offered the wrong opportunities, it

strewed her path with chances of which no human being could judge the

value until the choice had been made; it was like walking over ground

pitted with hidden holes, it needed luck as well as skill to avoid a

fall. But, like other people, she had to pursue her road: the thing was

to hide her bruises, even from herself, and shake off the dust.

She had by this time reached the track which was connected with so much

of her life, and she drew rein in astonishment. They were felling the

trees. Already a space had been cleared and men and horses were busy

removing the fallen trunks; piles of branches, still bravely green, lay

here and there, and the pine needles of the past were now overlaid by

chippings from the parent trees. What had been a still place of

shadows, of muffled sounds, of solemn aisles, the scene of a secret

life not revealed to men, was now half devastated, trampled, and loud

with human noises. It had its own beauty of colour and activity, there

was even a new splendour in the unencumbered ground, but Rose had a

sense of loss and sacrilege. Something had gone. It struck her that

here she was reminded of herself. Something had gone. The larch trees

which had flamed in green for her each spring were dead and she had

this strange dead feeling in her heart.

She saw the figure of Francis Sales detach itself from a little group

and advance towards her. She knew what he would say. He would tell her,

in that sulky way of his, how many weeks had passed since he had seen

her and, to avoid hearing that remark, she at once waved a hand towards

the clearing and said, “Why have you done this?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “To get money.”

“But they were my trees.”

“You never wrote,” he muttered.

She made a gesture, quickly controlled. Long ago when, in the first

exultation of their love and their sense of richness, they had marked

out the limits of their intercourse, so that they might keep some sort

of faith with Christabel and preserve what was precious to themselves,

it had been decided that they were not to meet by appointment, they

were not to speak of love, no letters were to be exchanged, and though

time had bent the first and second rules, the last had been kept with

rigour. It was understood, but periodically she had to submit to

Francis Sales’s complaint, “You never wrote.”

“So you cut down the trees,” she said half playfully.

“Why didn’t you write?”

“Oh, Francis, you know quite well.”

He was looking at the ground; he had not once looked at her since her

greeting. “You go off on a holiday, enjoying yourself, while I—who did

you go with?”

“With Henrietta,” Rose said softly.

“Oh, that girl.”

“Yes, that girl. But here I am. I have come back.” She seemed to invite

him to be glad. “And,” she went on calmly, feeling that it did not

matter what she said, “what a queer world to come back to. I miss the

trees. They stood for my childhood and my youth; yes, they stood for

it, so straight—I must go on. Christabel is expecting me.”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“No?” Rose questioned without surprise. “I suppose I shall see you at

tea?” she said.

He nodded and she touched her horse. Something had happened to him as

well as to her and a mass of pain lodged itself in her breast. He was

different, and as though he had suspected the weary quality of her love

he had met her with the same kind, or perhaps with none at all. A

little while ago she was half longing for release from this endless

necessity of controlling herself and him; from the shifts, the refusals

and the reproaches which had gradually become the chief part of their

intercourse; and now he had dared to seem indifferent, though he had

not forgotten to reproach! She could almost feel the healthy pallor of

her face change to a sickly white; her anger chilled and then stiffened

her into a rigidity of body and mind and when she dismounted she slid

down heavily, like a figure made of wood.

The man who took her horse looked at her curiously. Miss Mallett always

had a pleasant word for him and, conscious of his stare, she forced a

smile. She had not ridden for weeks, she told him; she was tired. He

was amused at that. She had been born in the saddle; he remembered her

as a little girl on a Shetland pony and he did not believe she could

ever tire. “Must be something wrong somewhere,” he said, examining

girth and pommels.

“It’s old age coming on,” Rose said gravely.

He thought that a great joke. He was twice her age already and

considered himself in his prime. He led the horse away and Rose went

into the house.

How extraordinarily limited her life had been! It had passed almost

entirely in this house and Nelson Lodge and on the road between the

two. Of all her experiences the only ones that mattered had been

suffered here, and they had all been of one kind. Even Henrietta’s

fewer years had been more varied. She had known poverty and been

compelled to the practical application of her wits, she had baffled Mr.

Jenkins, she had been kissed by Francis Sales.

Rose stood for a moment in the hall and looked for the mirror which was

not there. She did not wish to give Christabel Sales the satisfaction

of seeing her look distraught, but a peep in the glass of one of the

sporting prints reassured her. Her appearance almost made her doubt the

reality of the feelings which consisted of a great heat in the head and

a deadly cold weight near her heart and which forced these triumphant

words from her lips—“At least Henrietta has never felt like this.”

She entered Christabel’s room calmly, smiling and prepared for news,

but at the first sight of the invalid, lying very low in her bed and

barely turning her head at the sound of the opening door, she thought

that perhaps Christabel’s weakness had at last overcome her enmity.

“I’m very ill,” she said faintly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t say that. You may as well tell the truth—to me.”

“Then I must say again that I am sorry.”

“I wonder why.”

To that Rose made no answer, and before Christabel spoke again she had

time to notice that the cat had gone. She breathed more easily. The cat

had gone, the trees were going and Francis was going too. Suddenly she

felt she did not care. The idea of an empty world was pleasant, but if

Francis were really going, the cat might as well have stayed.

“Tell me what you did in Scotland,” Christabel said.

“I showed Henrietta all the sights.”

“Oh, Henrietta—she’s a horrid girl. She has stopped coming to see me.”

“You made yourself so unpleasant.”

“Did she tell you that? Do you think she told Francis?”

“I know she didn’t.”

“But I can’t make out why she should tell you.”

“Henrietta and I are great friends.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said slowly. “What has happened to the cat?”

“It’s gone. It went out and never came back.”

“How queer.”

“Some one must have killed it.”

“I don’t think so,” Rose said thoughtfully. “I think it decided to go.

I’m sure it did.”

“What do you mean? What do you mean?” Christabel cried. “Had you

something to do with that, too?”

“Not that I know of.” Rose laughed. She was tired of considering every

word before she uttered it.

“With that too!” Christabel repeated a little wildly, and then in a

firm voice she said, “You’ve got to tell me.”

“But I don’t know. You must make all inquiries of the cat. It was a

wise animal. It knew the time had come.”

“I think you’re mad,” Christabel said.

“Animals are very strange,” Rose went on easily, “and rats leave

sinking ships.”

A cry of terror came from Christabel. “You mean I’m going to die!”

“No, no!” Rose became sane and reassuring. “I never thought of that. It

might have known it was going to die itself and an animal likes to die

decently alone. It had been getting unhealthily fat.”

Christabel kept an exhausted silence, and Rose regretting her cruelty,

aware of its futility, said gently, “Shall I get you a kitten?”

“No, no kitten. They jump about. The old cat was so quiet. And I miss

him.” A tear rolled down either cheek. “It has been so lonely.

Everybody was away.”

“Well, we’ve all come back now,” Rose said.

“Yes, but that Henrietta—she’s deserted me.”

“It was your own fault, Christabel. You horrified her.”

“It should have been you who did that.”

“Things don’t always have the effect we hope for. You said too much.”

“Ah, but not half what I could have said.”

“Too much for Henrietta, anyhow. I don’t think she will come again.”

Christabel smiled oddly and Rose knew that now she was to hear some

news. “You can tell her,” Christabel said, “that I shan’t say anything

to upset her. I shall say nothing about you—as she loves you so much.

Does she love you? I dare say. You make people love you—for a little

while.” Her voice lingered on those words. “Yes, for a little while,

but you don’t keep love, Rose Mallett. No, you don’t. I’m sorry for you

now. Tell Henrietta she needn’t be afraid, because I’m sorry for you.

Yes, you and I are in the same boat, in the same deserted boat.

If there were any rats they would run away. You said so yourself.”

“I said the cat had gone.”

“Then you knew?”

Rose shook her head. It was her turn to smile. She was prepared for

anything Christabel might say, she was even anxious to hear it, but

when Christabel spoke in a mysteriously gleeful manner, she had

difficulty in repressing a shudder. It was not, she told herself, that

she suffered from the knowledge now imparted by Christabel with detail

and with proofs, but her malice, her salacious curiosity were more than

Rose could bear. She felt that the whole affair, which at first, so

long ago, had possessed a noble sadness, a secret beauty, the quality

of a precious substance enclosed in a common vial, was indecent and

unclean.

“So you see,” Christabel said, “you haven’t kept him; you won’t keep

Henrietta.”

Rose said nothing. She was thinking of what she might have done and she

was glad she had not done it.

“You don’t seem to mind,” Christabel said. “Why don’t you ask me why

I’m so sure?” She laughed. “I ought to know how to find things out by

this time, and I know Francis, yes, better than you do. When I had my

accident—it wasn’t worth it, was it?—I said to myself, “Now he won’t be

faithful to me.” When I knew I should have to lie here, I told myself

that. And now you—” Her voice almost failed her. “I suppose you haven’t

been kind enough to him.”

“I think it’s time I went,” Rose said.

“And you’ll never come back?”

“Yes, if you want me.”

“I can say what I like to you.”

“You can, indeed,” Rose murmured.

“And tell Henrietta to come too.”

“No, I can’t ask Henrietta.”

“I promise to be like a maiden aunt. Ah, but she has three already— she

knows what they are. That won’t attract her. I’ll be like an invalid in

a Sunday School story-book.”

“I’ll tell her of your promise,” Rose said.

There remained the task of having tea with Francis Sales and breaking

the bonds of which he had tired. She made it easy for him. That was

necessary for her dignity, but beyond the desire for as much seemliness

as could be saved from the general ugliness of their mistake, she had

no feeling; yet she thought it would be good to be in the open air, on

horseback, free. If there had been anything still owing, she had paid

her debt with generosity. She gave him the chance he wanted but did not

know how to take, and she had to allow him to appear aggrieved. She was

cruel: she was tired of him; she was, he sneered, too good for him. The

words went on for some time, and if some of them were new, their manner

was wearisomely familiar. She was amazed at her own endurance, now and

in the past, and at last she said, “No, no, Francis. Say no more. This

is too much fuss. Perhaps we have both changed.”

“It was you who began it.”

“Was it? How can one tell?”

“You began it,” he persisted. “There was a time when you went white,

like paper, when we met, and your eyes went black. Now I might be a

sheep in a field.”

She was standing up, ready to go. “One gets used to things,” she said.

“I have never been used to you,” he muttered, and she knew that,

telling this truth, he also explained a good deal. “I never should be.

You’re like nobody else—nobody.”

“But it is too much strain,” she murmured slowly.

“Yes—well, it is you who have said it. I had made up my mind—I’m not

ungrateful—I never intended to say a word.”

She smiled. This was the first remark which had really touched her. She

found it so offensive that a smile was the only weapon with which to

meet it. “I know that.”

“But mind,” he almost shouted, “there’s nobody like you.”

“Yes, yes, I know that too.” She turned to him with a silencing

sternness. “I tell you I know everything.”

§ 2

The old groom who held her horse nodded with satisfaction when he

helped her into the saddle. She had not lost her spring and he

tightened her girths in a leisurely manner and arranged her skirt with

the care due to a fine rider and a lady who understood a horse, yet one

who was always ready to ask an old man’s advice. He had a great

admiration for Miss Mallett and, conscious of it and rather

pathetically glad of it, she lingered for the pleasure of talking to

some one who seemed simple and untroubled. He had spent all his life on

the Sales estate, and she wondered whether, though, like herself, of a

limited outward experience, he also had known the passions of love and

disgust and shame. He was sixty-five, he told her, but as strong as

ever, and she envied him: to be sixty-five with the turmoil of life

behind him, yet to be strong enough to enjoy the peace before him, was

a good finale to existence. She was only thirty-one, but she was strong

too, and she felt as though she had come through a storm, battered and

exhausted but whole and ready for the calm which already hovered over

her. She said, “The young are always sorry for the old, but that is one

of the many mistakes they make. I think it must be the best time of

all.”

“If you have them that cares for you,” he answered.

That was where her own happiness would break down.

There were her stepsisters, who would probably die before herself;

there was Henrietta, who would form ties of her own; and there was no

one else. If she had had less faith in Francis Sales’s love and, at the

same time, had been capable of pandering to it, she might have had his

devotion for her old age, the devotion of a somewhat querulous and dull

old man. Now she had not even that to hope for, and she was glad. She

had always wanted the best of everything, and always, except in the one

fatal instance, refused what fell below her standard. She had not

realized until now that Francis Sales had always been below it. She had

at least tried to wrap their love in beauty, but that sort of beauty

was not enough for him. It was her scruples, he said, which had been

his undoing, and there was truth in that, but she had to remember that

when originally she had disappointed him, he had found comfort quickly

in Christabel; when Christabel failed him he had returned to her; and

now he had found consolation, if only of a temporary kind, in some one

else. When would he seek yet another victim of his affection and his

griefs? He was, she thought scornfully, a man who needed women, yet she

knew that if he had pleaded with her to-day, saying that in spite of

everything he needed her, she would have listened.

She admitted her responsibility, it would always be present to her, for

she had that kind of conscientiousness, and having once helped him, she

must always hold herself ready to do it again. The chain binding them

was not altogether broken, but she no longer felt its weight. She had a

lightness of spirit unknown for years; the anger, the jealous rage and

the disgust had vanished with a completeness which made her doubt their

short existence, and she began to make plans for a new life. There was

no reason now why she should not wander all over the world, yet, on the

very doorstep of Nelson Lodge, she found a reason in the person of

Henrietta—flushed and gay and just returned from a tea party. She had

enjoyed herself immensely, but her head ached a little. It had been all

she could do to understand the brilliant conversation. There had been

present a budding poet and a woman painter and she had never heard

people talk like that before.

“I didn’t speak at all, except to Charles,” she said.

“Oh, Charles was there?”

“Yes. I thought it safer not to talk but I looked as bright as I could,

and of course I asked for cakes and things. They all ate a lot. I was

glad of that. But most of them still looked hungry at the end. And

Charles has taken tickets for me for the concerts, next to him, in a

special corner where you can sometimes hear the music through the

whispering of the audience. That’s what he says!”

“But, Henrietta, I have taken tickets for you too.”

“Thank you, but perhaps they will take them back.”

“Henrietta, you really can’t sit in a corner with Charles when I’m in

another part of the hall.”

“Can’t I? Well, Charles will be very angry, but he’ll have to put up

with it. If you explained to him, Aunt Rose, he’d understand. And I’d

really rather sit with you. I shall be able to look at people and if I

crackle my programme you won’t glare. Of course, I shall try not to.

Will you explain to him? And I did promise to go to a concert with him

some day.”

“Then you must. I’ll tell him that, too. Are you afraid of him,

Henrietta?”

“He shouts,” Henrietta said, “and I’m sorry for him. And I do like him

very much. I feel inclined to do things just to please him.”

“Don’t let that carry you too far.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Not him, exactly, but me.”

“I didn’t suspect you of such tenderness. I shall have to look after

you.”

“I wish you would.”

“And if you are feeling very kind some day, perhaps you will go and see

Christabel Sales. She has promised to behave herself.”

Henrietta’s expression tightened. “I don’t want to go. It’s a dreadful

place.”

“I know,” Rose said, and she added encouragingly, “but the cat has

gone.”

They were standing together in the hall and against the white panelled

walls, the figure of Rose, in the austere riding habit, one gauntletted

hand holding her crop, the other resting lightly on her hip, had an

heroic aspect, like a statue in dark marble; but her eyes did not offer

the blank gaze, the calm effrontery of stone: they looked at Henrietta

with something like appeal against this obsession of the cat.

“Oh, I’m glad the cat’s gone,” Henrietta murmured. “What happened to

it?”

Rose shook her head. “It disappeared.”

They stared at each other until Henrietta said, “But all the same, I

don’t want to go.” And then, because Rose would not help her out, she

was obliged to say, “It’s Mr. Sales.” Her voice dropped. “I haven’t

seen him since I hit him.”

Rose turned to go upstairs. “I shouldn’t think too much of that.”

“You don’t think it matters?”

“No.”

Henrietta looked after her and followed her for a step. “You think I

may go?” Her voice was dull under her effort to control it. She felt

that the stately figure moving up the stairs was deliberately leaving

her to face a danger, sanctioning her desire to meet it. She felt her

fate was in the answer made by Rose.

“I think you can take care of yourself perfectly well, Henrietta,” and

like a sigh, another sentence floated from the landing where Rose

stood, out of sight: “You are not like me.”

This was a mysterious and astonishing remark. Henrietta did not

understand it and in her excited realization that the door so carefully

locked by her own hand had been opened. Aunt Rose, she did not try to

understand it. Aunt Rose had said she was able to take care of herself,

and it was true, but honesty and a weak clinging to safety urged her to

answer, “But you see, you see I don’t want to do it!”

These words were not uttered. She stood, looking up towards the empty

landing with a hand pressed against her heart. It was beating fast. The

spirit of Reginald Mallett, subdued in his daughter for some months,

seemed to be fluttering in her breast and it was Aunt Rose who had

waked it up. It was not Henrietta’s fault, she was not responsible; and

suddenly, the ordinary happiness she had been enjoying was transferred

into an irrational joy. She went singing up the stairs, and Rose,

sitting in her room in a state of limpness she would never have allowed

anybody to see, heard a sound as innocent as if a bird had waked to a

sunny dawn.

Henrietta sang, but now and then she paused and became grave when the

spirit of that mother who lived in her memory more and more dimly, as

though she had died when Henrietta was a child, overcame the spirit of

her father. Her mission was to be one of kindness to Christabel Sales,

and if—the song burst out again—if adventure came in her way, could she

refuse it? She would refuse nothing—the song ceased—short of sin. She

looked at herself and saw a solemn feminine edition of the portrait

hanging behind her on the wall. She was like her father, but she took

pride in her greater conscientiousness; her vocabulary was larger than

his by at least one word.

A few days later she set out on that road and past those trees which

had been the safe witnesses of so much of Rose Mallett’s life, but

their safeness lay in their constant muteness, and they had no message

for Henrietta. Walking quickly, she rehearsed her coming meeting with

Francis Sales, but when she actually met him on the green track, on the

very spot where Rose had pulled up her horse in amazement at the scene

of transformation, Henrietta, like Rose, had no formal greeting for

him.

She said, “The trees! What are you doing with them?”

“Turning them into gold.”

“But they were beautiful.”

“So are lots of things they will buy.” She moved a little under his

look, but when he said, “I’m hard up,” she became interested.

“Really? I thought you were frightfully rich. You ought to be with all

these belongings.” She looked round at the fields dotted with sheep and

cattle, the distant chimneys of Sales Hall, the fallen trees and the

team of horses dragging logs under the guidance of workmen in their

shirt sleeves. “I know all about being poor,” she said, “but I don’t

suppose we mean the same thing by the word. I’ve been so poor—” She

stopped. “But there’s a lot of excitement about it. I used to hope I

should find a shilling in my purse that I’d forgotten. A shilling! You

can do a lot with a shilling. At least I can.”

“I wish you’d tell me how.”

“Pretend you haven’t got it. That’s the beginning. You haven’t got it,

so you can’t have what you want.”

“I never have what I want.”

“Then you mustn’t want anything.”

“Oh, yes, that’s so easy.”

“Well”—she descended to details with an air of kindness—“what do you

want? Let’s work it out. We’d better sit on the wall. After all, it’s

rather lovely without the trees. It’s so clear and the air’s so blue,

as if it’s trying to make up. Now tell me what you want.”

“Something money can’t buy.”

“Then you needn’t have cut down the trees.”

“I shouldn’t have if I’d thought you’d care.”

She said softly but sharply, “I don’t believe that for a moment. Why

don’t you tell the truth?”

“Do you want to hear it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then I’ll wait while you make up your mind.”

Sitting on the wall, his feet rested easily on the ground while hers

swung free, and while he seemed to loll in complete indifference, she

was conscious of a tenseness she could not prevent. She hated her

enjoyment of his manner, which was impudent, but it had the spice of

danger that she liked and it was in defiance of the one and

encouragement of the other that she said, “I’m sure you would never

talk to Aunt Rose like that.”

“I should never give your Aunt Rose my confidence,” he said severely.

It was impossible not to feel a warmth of satisfaction, and she asked

shortly, “Why not?” “She wouldn’t understand. You’re human. I’m

devilish lonely. Well, you know my circumstances.” A shadow which

seemed to affect the brightness of the autumn day, even deadening the

clear shouting of the men and the jingling of the chains attached to

the horses, passed over Francis Sales’s face. “One wants a friend.”

A cry of genuine bewilderment came from Henrietta. “But I thought you

were so fond of Aunt Rose!”

From sulky contemplation of his brown boots and leggings, he looked at

her. His eyes, of a light yet dense blue, were widely opened. “What

makes you think that? Did she tell you?”

Henrietta’s lip curled derisively. “No, it was you, when you looked at

her. And now you have told me again.” She had a moment of thoughtful

contempt for the blundering of men. There was Charles, who always

seemed to wander in a mist, and now this Francis Sales, who revealed

what he wished to hide. He was mentally inferior to Mr. Jenkins, who

had a quickness of wit, a vulgar sharpness of tongue which kept the

mind on the alert; but physically she had shrunk from Mr. Jenkins’s

proximity, while that of Francis Sales, in his well-cut tweeds and his

shining boots, who seemed as clean as the air surrounding him, had an

attraction actually enhanced by his heaviness of spirit. He was like a

child possessed, consciously or unconsciously, of a weapon, and her

sense of her own superiority was corrected by fear of his strength and

of the subtle weakness in her own blood.

She heard a murmur. “She has treated me very badly. I’ve known her all

my life. Well—”

Henrietta, with a gentleness he appreciated and a cleverness he missed,

said commiseratingly, “She wouldn’t let you take her hand in the wood.”

“What on earth are you talking about? Look here, Henrietta, what do you

mean?” There had been so many occasions of the kind that it was

impossible to know to which one she referred, and, looking back, his

past seemed to be blocked with frustrations and petty torments. “What

do you mean?” he repeated.

“Never mind.”

“This is some gossip,” he muttered.

“Yes, among the squirrels and the rabbits. Woods are full of eyes and

ears.”

“Well,” he said, “the eyes and ears will have to find another home.

There will soon be no wood left.”

So he had tried to take Aunt Rose’s hand in this wood too! She laughed

with the pretty trill which made her laughter a new thing every time.

“I don’t see the joke,” he grumbled.

She turned to him. “I don’t think you’ve laughed very much in your

life. You’re always being sorry for yourself.”

“I have been very unfortunate,” he replied.

“There you are again! Why don’t you tell yourself you’re lucky not to

squint or turn in your toes? You’d be much more miserable then—much.

But thinking yourself unfortunate, when you’re not, is a pleasant

occupation.”

“How do you know?”

“I know a lot,” Henrietta said. “But I never thought myself

unfortunate, so I wasn’t.”

“Very noble,” Sales said sourly.

“No. I told you it was exciting to be poor. You’re not poor enough. A

new dress,” she went on, clasping her hands; “first of all, I had to

save up—in pennies.” She turned accusingly. “You don’t believe it.”

“It must have taken a long time.”

“It did, but not so long as you would think, because it cost so little

in the end. I saved up, and then I looked in the shop windows, and then

I talked about it for days, and then I bought the stuff. Mother cut out

the dress, and then I made it.”

“And the result was charming.”

“I thought so then. Now I know it wasn’t, but at the time I was happy.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s very interesting, but it doesn’t help me.”

“But I could help you if you told me your troubles. I should know how.”

“Telling my troubles would be a help.”

“Here I am, then.”

“What’s the good?” he said. “You’ll desert me, too.”

“Not if you’re good.”

“Oh, if that’s the stipulation—” He stood up. His tone, which might

have been provocative, was simply bored. She knew she had been dull,

and her lip trembled with mortification.

“Why, of course!” she cried gaily, when she had mastered that weakness.

“Aunt Caroline warned me against you this very afternoon. She said—but,

never mind. I’m not going to repeat her remarks. And anyhow, Aunt

Sophia said they were not true. Aunt Rose,” Henrietta said

thoughtfully, “was not there. I don’t suppose either of them is right.

And now I’m going to see Mrs. Sales.”

He ran after her. “Henrietta, I shouldn’t tell her you’ve seen me.”

She frowned. “I don’t like that.”

“It’s for her sake.”

Henrietta turned away without a word, but she pondered, as she went, on

the dangerous likeness between right and wrong and the horrible

facility with which they could be, with which they had to be,

interchanged. One became bewildered, one became lost; she felt herself

being forced into a false position: she might not be able to get out.

Aunt Rose had sent her, Francis Sales was conspiring with her—she made

her father’s gesture of helplessness, it was not her fault. But she

made up her mind she would never allow Francis Sales to find her dull

again, for that was unfair to herself.

§ 3

Rose Mallett, who had always accepted conditions and not criticized

them, found herself in those days forced to a puzzled consideration of

life. It seemed an unnecessary invention on the part of a creator, a

freak which, on contemplation, he must surely regret. She was not tired

of her own existence, but she wondered what it was for and what,

possessing it, she could do with it. Her one attempt at usefulness had

been foiled, and though she had never consciously wanted anything to

do, she felt the need now that she was deprived of it. She passed her

days in the order and elegance of Nelson Lodge, in a monotonous

satisfaction of the eye, listening to the familiar chatter of Caroline

and Sophia, dressing herself with tireless care and refusing to regret

her past. Nevertheless, it had been wasted, and the only occupation of

her present was her anxiety for Francis Sales. She could not rid

herself of that claim, begun so long ago. She had to accept the

inactive responsibility which in another would have resolved itself

into earnest prayer but which in her was a stoical endurance of

possibilities.

What was he doing? What would he do? She knew he could not stand alone,

she knew she must continue to hold herself ready for his service, but a

prisoner fastened to a chain does not find much solace in counting the

links, and that was all she had to do. It seemed to her that she moved,

rather like a ghost, up and down the stairs, about the landing, in the

delicate silence of her bedroom; that she sat ghost-like at the

dining-table and heard the strangely aimless talk of human beings. She

supposed there were countless women like herself, unoccupied and

lonely, yet her pride resented the idea. There was only one Rose

Mallett; there was no one else with just her past, with the same mental

pictures and her peculiar isolation, and if she had been a vainer woman

she would have added that no other woman offered the same kind of

beauty to a world in need of it. Her obvious consolation was in the

presence of Henrietta, though she had little companionship to give her

aunt, and no suspicion that Rose, almost unawares, began to transfer

her interests to the girl, to set her mind on Henrietta’s happiness.

She would take her abroad and let her see the world.

Caroline sniffed at the suggestion, Sophia sighed.

“The world’s the same everywhere,” Caroline said. “If you know one man

you know them all.”

“But if you know a great many, you will know one all the better.

However,” she smiled in the way of which her stepsisters were afraid,

“I wasn’t thinking of men.”

“That’s where you’re so unnatural.”

“I was thinking of places—cities and mountains and plains.”

“You’ll get the plague or be run away with by brigands.”

“I think Henrietta and I would rather like the brigands. We must avoid

the plague.”

“Smallpox,” Caroline went on, “and your complexions ruined.”

“I wish you would stay at home,” Sophia said. “Caroline and I are

getting old.”

“Nonsense, Sophia! I’d go myself for twopence. But I’d better wait here

and get the ransom money ready, and then James Batty and I can start

out together with a bag of it.” She laughed loudly at the prospect of

setting forth with the respectable James. “And it wouldn’t be the first

elopement I’d planned either. When I was eighteen I set my mind on

getting out of my bedroom window with a bundle—no, of course I never

told you, Sophia. You would have run in hysterics to the General. But

there was never one among them all who was worth the inconvenience, so

I gave it up. I always had more sense than sentiment.” She sighed with

regret for the legions of disappointed and fictitious lovers waiting

under windows, with which her mind was peopled. “Not one,” she

repeated.

No one took any notice. Sophia, drooping her heavy head, was thinking

of brigands in a far country and of Caroline and herself left in Nelson

Lodge without Rose and without Henrietta. If they really went away she

determined to tell Henrietta the story of her lover, lest she should

die and the tale be unrecorded. She wanted somebody to know; she would

tell Henrietta on the eve of her departure, among the bags and boxes.

He had gone to America and died there, and that continent was both

sacred to her and abhorrent.

“Don’t go to America,” she murmured.

“Why not?” Caroline demanded. “Just the place they ought to go to. Lots

of millionaires.”

Rose reassured Sophia. “And it is only an idea. I haven’t said a word

to Henrietta.”

Henrietta showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion. She liked Radstowe.

And there was the Battys’ ball. It would be a pity to miss that. She

must certainly not miss that, said Caroline and Sophia. And what was

she going to wear? They had better go upstairs at once, to the elder

ladies’ room, and see what could be done with Caroline’s pink satin.

She had only worn it once, years ago. Nobody would remember it, and

trimmed with some of her mother’s lace, the big flounce and the fichu,

it would be a different thing. Sophia could wear her apricot.

“Come along, Henrietta. Come along, Rose. We must really get this

settled.”

They went upstairs, Caroline moving with heavy dignity, but keeping up

her head as she had been taught in her youth. Nothing was more

unbecoming than ducking the head and sticking out the back. Sophia went

slowly, holding to the balustrade, so very slowly that Henrietta did

not attempt to start. She said softly to Rose, “How slowly she goes.

I’ve never noticed it before.”

“She always goes upstairs like that,” Rose said. “It is not natural to

her to hurry.”

Henrietta followed and found Sophia panting a little on the landing.

She laid hold of her niece’s arm. “A little out of breath,” she

whispered. “Don’t say anything, dear child, to Caroline. She doesn’t

like to be reminded of our age.”

They went into the bedroom and Rose, drifting into her own room, heard

the opening of the great wardrobe doors. She would be called in

presently for her advice, but there would be a lot of talk and many

reminiscences before she was needed. She stood by the fire, which,

giving the only light to the room, threw golden patches on the white

dressing-gown lying across a chair, and made the buckles on her shoes

sparkle like diamonds.

She was wondering why Henrietta’s eyes had darkened as though with fear

at the idea of going away. She had been very quick in veiling them, and

her voice, too, had been quick, a little tremulous. There was more than

the Battys’ ball in her desire to stay in Radstowe. Was it Charles whom

she was loth to leave? Afterwards, perhaps in the spring, she had said

it would be nice to go. It was kind of Aunt Rose, and Aunt Rose, gazing

down at the fire, controlled her longing to escape from this place too

full of memories. She would not leave Henrietta who had to be cared

for, perhaps protected; she would not persuade her who had to be happy,

but she felt a sinking of the heart which was almost physical. She

rested both hands on the mantelshelf and on them her weight. She felt

as though she could not go on like this for ever. She, who apparently

had no ties, was never free; she had the duties without the joys, and

for these few minutes, before a knock came at the door, she allowed

herself the relief of melancholy. She was incapable of tears, but she

wished she could cry bitterly and for a long time.

The knock was Henrietta’s. She entered a little timidly. Aunt Rose was

not free with invitations to her room and to Henrietta it was a

beautiful and mysterious place. She had a childlike pleasure in the

silver and glass on the dressing-table, in glimpses of exquisite

garments and slippers worn to the shape of Aunt Rose’s slim foot, and

Aunt Rose herself was like some fairy princess growing old and no less

lovely in captivity, but to-night, that dark straight figure splashed

by the firelight reminded her of words uttered by Christabel. She had

said that all Henrietta’s aunts were witches, and for the first time

the girl agreed. In the other room, brilliantly lighted, Caroline and

Sophia were bending somewhat greedily over a mass of silks and satins

and laces, their cheeks flushed round the dabs of rouge, their fingers

active yet inept, fumbling in what might have been a brew for the

working of spells; and here, straight as a tree, Aunt Rose looked into

the fire as though she could see the future in its red heart, but her

voice, very clear, had a reassuring quality. It was not, Henrietta

thought, a witch’s voice. Witches mumbled and screeched, and Aunt Rose

spoke like water falling from a height.

“Come in, Henrietta. Is the consultation over?”

“It has hardly begun. What a lot of clothes they have, and boxes of

lace, boxes! I think you will have to decide for them. And Aunt

Caroline snubs Aunt Sophia, all the time.”

“Did they send you to fetch me?”

“Yes, but we needn’t go back yet, need we? Aunt Caroline wants to wear

her emeralds, but she says they will look vulgar with pink satin.

There’s some lovely grey stuff like a cobweb. She says it was in her

mother’s trousseau and I think she ought to wear that, but she says she

is going to keep it until she’s old!”

“Then she’ll never wear it. She will never make such an admission.”

“And she won’t let Aunt Sophia have it because she says it would make

her look like a dusty broom. And it would, you know! She’s really very

funny sometimes.”

“Very funny. We’re queer people, Henrietta.”

“Are we? And I’m more theirs than yours.”

“As far as blood goes, yes.” She spoke very quietly, but she felt a

great desire to assert, for once, her own claims, instead of accepting

those of others. She wanted to tell Henrietta that in return for the

secret care, the growing affection she was giving, she demanded

confidence and love; but she had never asked for anything in her life.

She had taken coolly much she could easily have done without,

admiration and respect and the material advantages to which she had

been born, but she had asked for nothing. Cruelly conscious of all that

lay in the gift of Henrietta, who sat in a low chair, her chin on the

joined fingers of her hands, Rose continued to look at the fire.

“You mean I’m really more like you?” Henrietta said. “Am I? I’m like my

father,” and she added softly, “terribly.”

“Why terribly?”

Henrietta moved her feet. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“I wish you’d tell me.”

“He was queer. You said we all were, and I’m a Mallett, too, that’s

all. Don’t you think we ought to go and see about the dresses now? Aunt

Rose, they’re bothering me to wear white, the only thing for a young

girl, but I want to wear yellow. Don’t you think I might?”

Rose, who had felt herself on the brink of confidences, as though she

peered over a cliff, and watched the mists clear to show the secret

valley underneath, now saw the clouds thicken hopelessly, and retreated

from her position with an effort.

“Yellow? Yes, certainly. You will look like a marigold. Henrietta—” She

did not know what she was going to say, but she wanted to detain the

girl for a little longer, she hoped for another chance of drawing

nearer. “Henrietta, wait a minute.” She moved to her dressing-table,

smiling at what she was about to do. It seemed as though she were going

to bribe the girl to love her, but she was only yielding to the

pathetic human desire to give something tangible since the intangible

was ignored. “When I was twenty-one,” she said, “your father gave me a

present.”

“Only when you were twenty-one?”

“Well,” Rose excused him, “we didn’t know each other very well. He was

a great deal from home, but he remembered my twenty-first birthday and

he gave me this necklace. I think it’s beautiful, but I never wear it

now, and I think you may like to have it. Here it is, in its own box

and with the card he wrote—‘A jewel for a rose.’”

Holding it in her cupped hands, Henrietta murmured with delight: “May I

have it really? How lovely! And may I have the card, too? He did say

nice things. Are you sure you can spare the card? I expect he admired

you very much. He liked beautiful women. My mother was pretty, too; but

I don’t believe he ever gave her anything except a wedding-ring, and he

had to give her that.”

“Oh, Henrietta—well, his daughter shall have all he gave me.”

“If you’re sure you don’t want it. What are the stones?”

“Topaz and diamonds; but so small that you can wear them.”

“Topaz and diamonds! Oh!” And Henrietta, clasping it round her neck and

surveying herself by the candles Rose had lighted, said earnestly, “Oh,

I do hope he paid for it!” This was the first thought of Reginald

Mallett’s daughter.

Rose was horrified into laughter, which seemed hysterically continuous

to Henrietta, and through it Rose cried tenderly, “Oh, you poor child!

You poor child!”

Henrietta did not laugh. She said gravely, “All the same, I’m glad I

had him for a father. Nobody but he would have chosen a thing like

this. He had such taste.” She looked at her aunt. “I do hope I have

some taste, too.”

“I hope you have,” Rose said with equal gravity. She laughed no longer.

“There are many kinds, and though he knew how to choose an ornament, he

made mistakes in other ways.”

Henrietta unclasped the necklace and laid it down. She looked, indeed,

remarkably like her father. Her eyes flashed above her angry mouth.

“You mean my mother!”

“No, Henrietta. How could I? I did not know your mother, and from the

little you have told us I believe she was too good for him.”

“How can I tell you more,” Henrietta protested, “when I know what you

would be thinking? You would be thinking she was common. Aunt Caroline

does. She does! I don’t know how she dare! No, I won’t have the

necklace.”

“You must believe what I say, Henrietta. Your mother was not the only

woman in your father’s life, and I was referring to the others.”

“You need not speak of them to me,” Henrietta said with dignity.

“I won’t do so again. That, perhaps, is where my own taste failed.” She

decided to put out no more feelers for Henrietta’s thoughts. It was

what she would have resented bitterly herself, and it did no good. She

was not clever at this unpractised art, and she told herself that if

her own affection could not tell her what she wished to know, the

information would be useless. Moreover, she had Henrietta’s word for it

that she was terribly like her father.

“So put on the necklace again. It suits you better than it does me, so

well that we can pretend he really chose it for you.”

“Yes,” Henrietta said, fingering it again, “if you promise you never

think anything horrid about my mother.”

“The worst I have ever thought of her,” Rose said lightly, “is envying

her for her daughter.”

She saw Henrietta’s mouth open inelegantly. “Me? Oh, but you’re not old

enough.”

“I feel very old sometimes.”

“I thought you were when I first saw you,” Henrietta said, looking in

the glass and swaying her body to make the diamonds glitter, “but now I

know you never will be, because it’s only ugly people who get old. When

your hair is white you’ll be like a queen. Now you’re a princess,

though Mrs. Sales says you’re a witch. Oh, I didn’t mean to tell you

that. It was a long time ago. She is never disagreeable now. I’m going

to see her again to-morrow.”

“I wish you would go in the morning, Henrietta. The afternoons get dark

so soon and the road is lonely.”

“She doesn’t like visitors in the morning,” Henrietta said. “I love

this necklace. Could I wear it to the dance?”

“It depends on the dress. If you are really to look like a marigold you

must wear no ornaments. If you had yellow tulle—” And Rose took pencil

and paper and made a rough design, talking with enthusiasm meanwhile,

for like all the Malletts, she loved clothes.

The next day Caroline had to stay in bed. She had been feverish all

night and Sophia appeared in Rose’s bedroom early in the morning, her

great plait of hair swinging free, her face yellow with anxiety and

sleeplessness and lack of powder, to inform her stepsister that dear

Caroline was very ill: they must have the doctor directly after

breakfast. Sophia was afraid Caroline was going to die. She had groaned

in the night when she thought Sophia was asleep. “I deceived her,”

Sophia said. “I hope it wasn’t wrong, but I knew she would be easier if

she thought I slept. Now she says there is nothing the matter with her

and she wants to get up, but that’s her courage.”

Caroline was not allowed to rise and after breakfast and an hour with

Sophia behind the locked door she announced her readiness to see the

doctor, who diagnosed nothing more serious than a chill. She was very

much disgusted with his order to stay in bed. She had not had a day in

bed for years; she believed people were only ill when they wanted to be

and, as she did not wish to be, she was not ill. She had no resource

but to be unpleasant to Sophia, to the silently devoted Susan and to

Rose who had intended to go to Sales Hall with Henrietta.

She was not able to do that, but later in the afternoon she set out to

meet her so that she might have company for part of the dark way home.

Afterwards, she could never make up her mind whether she was glad or

sorry she had gone. She had expected to meet Henrietta within a mile or

two of the bridge, and the further she went without a sight of the

small figure walking towards her, the more necessary it became to

proceed, but she felt a deadly sickness of this road. She loved each

individual tree, each bush and field and the view from every point, but

the whole thing she hated. It was the personification of mistake,

disappointment and slow disillusion, but now it was all shrouded in

darkness and she seemed to be walking on nothing, through nothing and

towards nothing. She herself was nothing and she thought of nothing,

though now and then a little wave of anxiety washed over her. Where was

Henrietta?

She became genuinely alarmed when, in the hollow between the track and

the rising fields, she saw a fire and discovered by its light a

caravan, a cart, a huddle of dark figures, a tethered pony, and heard

the barking of dogs. There were gipsies camping in the sheltered dip.

If Henrietta had walked into their midst, she might have been robbed,

she would certainly have been frightened; and Rose stood still,

listening intently.

The cleared space, where the wood had been, stretched away to a line of

trees edging the main road and above it there was a greenish colour in

the sky. There was not a sound but what came from the encampment. Down

there the fire glowed like some enormous and mysterious jewel and

before it figures which had become poetical and endowed with some

haggard kind of beauty passed and vanished. They might have been

employed in the rites of some weird worship and the movements which

were in reality connected with the cooking of some snared bird or

rabbit seemed to have a processional quality. The fire was replenished,

the stew was stirred, there was a faint clatter of tin plates and a

sharp cracking of twigs: a figure passed before the fire with

extraordinary gestures and slid into the night: another figure appeared

and followed its predecessor: smoke rose and a savoury smell floated on

the air.

Suddenly a child wailed and Rose had the ghastly impression that it was

the child who was in the pot.

Cautiously she stepped into the clearing; the dogs barked again and she

ran swiftly, as silently as possible, leaping over the small hummocks

of heath, dodging the brushwood and finding a certain pleasure in her

own speed and in her fear that the dogs would soon be snapping at her

heels. If she did not find Henrietta on the road, she would go on to

Sales Hall. Very high up, clouds floated as though patrolling the sky;

they found in her fleeting figure something which must be watched.

She was breathless and strangely happy when she reached the road. She

was pleased at her capacity for running and her dull trouble seemed to

have lifted, to have risen from her mind and gone off to join the

clouds. She laughed a little and dropped down on a stone, and above the

hurried beating of her heart she heard fainter, more despairing, the

cry of the gipsy child. “It isn’t cooked yet,” she thought. There was a

deeper silence, and she imagined a horrible dipping into the pot, a

loud and ravenous eating.

For a few minutes she forgot her quest, conscious of a happy loss of

personality in this solitary place, feeling herself merged into the

night, looking up at the patrolling clouds which, having lost her, had

moved on. She sat in the darkness until she heard, very far off, the

beat of a horse’s hoofs, the rumble of wheels. She remembered then that

she had to find Henrietta. The road towards Sales Hall was nowhere

blurred by a figure, there was no sound of footsteps, and the noise of

the approaching horse and cart was distantly symbolic of human activity

and home-faring; it made her think of lights and food.

She looked back, and not many yards away two figures stepped from the

sheltering trees by the roadside. On the whiteness of the road they

were clear and unmistakable. Their arms were outstretched and their

hands were joined and, as she looked, the two forms became one,

separated and parted. The feet of Henrietta went tapping down the road

and for a moment Francis stood and watched her. Then he turned. He

struck a match, and Rose saw his face and hands illuminated like a

paper lantern. The match made a short, brilliant journey in the air and

fell extinguished. He had lighted his pipe and was advancing towards

her. She, too, advanced and stopped a few feet from him and at once she

said calmly, “Was that Henrietta? I came to find her.”

He stammered something; she was afraid he was going to lie, yet at the

same time she knew that to hear him lie would give her pleasure; it

would be like the final shattering and trampling of her love: but he

did not lie.

“Yes, Henrietta,” he said sullenly. “There are gipsies in the hollow. I

shall turn them out to-morrow.”

“Let them stay there,” she said, she knew not why.

“They’re all thieves,” he muttered.

Neither spoke. It was like a dream to be standing there with him and

hearing Henrietta’s footsteps tapping into silence. Then Rose asked in

genuine bewilderment, “Why did you let her go home alone? Why did you

leave her here?”

“She wouldn’t have me. She’s safe now”; and raising his voice, he

almost cried, “You shouldn’t let her come here!” It was a cry for help,

he was appealing to her again, he was the victim of his habit. She

smiled and wondered if her pale face was as clear to him as his was to

her.

“No, I should not,” she said slowly. “I should not. One does nothing

all one’s life but make mistakes.” Her chief feeling at that moment was

one of self-disgust. She moved away without another word, going slowly

so that she should not overtake Henrietta.

§ 4

Henrietta was going very fast, impelled by the fury of her thoughts,

and she forgot to be afraid of the lonely country, for she felt herself

still wrapped in the dangerous safety of that man’s embrace, and the

darkness through which she went was still the palpitating darkness

which had fallen over her at his touch. The thing had been bound to

happen. She had been watching its approach and pretending it was not

there, and now it had arrived and she was giddy with excitement,

inspired with a sense of triumph, tremulous with apprehension.

Her thoughts were not of her lover as an individual, but of the

situation as a whole. Here she was, Henrietta Mallett, from Mrs.

Banks’s boarding-house, the chief figure in a drama and an unrepentant

sinner. She could not help it: she loved him; he needed her. Since that

day when she had offered him friendship and help, he had been depending

on her more and more, a big man like a neglected baby. She had

strenuously fixed her mind on the babyish side of him, but all the time

her senses had been attracted by the man, and now, by the mere physical

experience of the force of his arms, she could never see him as a child

again. She clung to the idea of helping him, to the thought of his

misfortunes, for that was imperative, but she was now conscious of her

fewer years, her infinitely smaller bodily strength, the limitations of

her sex.

And suddenly, as she moved swiftly, hardly feeling the ground under her

feet, she began to cry, with emotion, with fear and joy. What was going

to happen to her? She loved him. She could still feel the violence of

his clasp, the roughness of his coat on her cheeks, the iron of his

hands, so distinctly that it seemed to have happened only a moment ago,

yet she was nearly home. She could see the lights of the bridge as

though swung on a cord across the gulf, and she dried her eyes. She was

exhausted and hungry and when she had passed over the river she made

her way to a shop where chocolates could be bought. She knew their

comforting and sustaining properties. It was unromantic, but hunger

asserts itself in spite of love.

It was getting late and the shop was empty but for one assistant and a

tall young man. This was Charles Batty, taking a great deal of trouble

over his purchase, for spread before him on the counter was an

assortment of large chocolate boxes adorned with bows of ribbon and

pictures of lovers leaning over stiles and red-lipped maidens caressing

dogs.

“I don’t like these pictures,” Henrietta heard him mutter bashfully.

“Here’s one with roses. Roses are always suitable.” “No,” he said, “I

want a big white box with crimson ribbon.” Henrietta stepped up to his

side. “I’ll help you choose,” she said.

He started, stared, forgot to take off his hat. He gazed at her with

the absorption of some connoisseur looking at the perfect thing he has

dreamed of: he looked without greed and with a sort of ecstasy which

left his face expressionless and embarrassed Henrietta in the presence

of the arch girl behind the counter.

Charles waked up. “I want a white one,” he repeated, “with crimson

ribbon. No pictures.” The assistant went away and he turned to

Henrietta. “It’s for you,” he said.

“Charles, don’t speak so loud.”

“I don’t care. But I suppose you’re ashamed of me. Yes, of course,

that’s it.”

“Don’t be silly,” Henrietta said, “and do be quick, because I want some

chocolates myself.”

With the large box, white and crimson-ribboned and wrapped in paper,

under his arm, he waited until she was served, and then they walked

together down the street, made brilliant with the lights of many little

shops.

“This is for you,” he said, “but I’ll carry it.”

“But this isn’t the way home.”

“No.” They turned back into the dimmer road bordering The Green.

“I suppose you wouldn’t walk round the hill?”

“I don’t mind.” She felt as she might have done in the company of some

large, protective dog. He was there, saving her from the fear of

molestation, but there was no need to speak to him, it was almost

impossible to think consecutively of him, yet she did remind herself

that a very long time ago, when she was young, he had said wonderful

things to her. She had forgotten that fact in the stir of these last

days.

“I got these chocolates for you,” he said again. “I thought perhaps

that was the kind of thing I ought to do. I don’t know, and you can’t

ask people because they’d laugh. Why didn’t you come to tea on Sunday?”

“I can’t come every Sunday.”

“Of course you can. Considering I’m engaged to you, it’s only proper.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes,” he said, “you may not be engaged to me, but I’m engaged to you.

That’s what I’ve decided.”

She laughed. “You’ll find it rather dull, I’m afraid.”

“No,” he said. “I can do things for you.” She was struck by that simple

statement, spoilt by his next words: “Like these chocolates.”

He was very insistent about the chocolates and proud of his idea. She

thanked him. “But I don’t want you to give me things.”

“You can’t stop me. I’m doing it all the time.”

They had reached the highest point of the hill and they halted at the

railing on the cliff’s edge. Below them, the blackness of earth gave

way to the blackness of air and the shining blackness of water, and

slowly the opposing cliff cleared itself from a formless mass into the

hardly seen shapes of rock and tree. Here was beauty, here was

something permanent in the midst of change, and it seemed as though the

hand of peace were laid on Henrietta. For a moment the episode on the

other side of the water and the problem it involved took their tiny

places in the universe instead of the large ones in her life and,

strangely enough, it was Charles Batty who loomed up big, as though he

had some odd fellowship with immensity and beauty.

“What do you give me?” she asked. “I don’t want it, you know, but tell

me.”

“I told you that night when you listened and took it all. I don’t think

I can say it again.”

“No, but you’re not to misunderstand me, and you mustn’t go on giving

and getting nothing back.”

“That’s just what I can do. Not many people could, but I can. Perhaps

it’s the only way I can be great, like an artist giving his work to a

world that doesn’t care.”

The quick sense she had to serve her instead of knowledge and to make

her unconsciously subtle, detected his danger in the words and some

lack of homage to herself. “Ah, you’re pretending, and you’re enjoying

it,” she said. “It’s consoling you for not being able to do anything

else.”

“Who said I couldn’t do anything else?”

“Well, you nearly did, and I don’t suppose you can. If you could, you

wouldn’t bother about me.”

He was silent and though she did not look at him she was very keenly

aware of his tall figure wrapped in an overcoat reaching almost to his

heels and with the big parcel under his left arm. He was always

slightly absurd and now, when he struck the top bar of the railing with

his left hand and uttered a mournful, “Yes, it’s true!” the tragedy in

his tone could not repress her smile. Yet if he had been less funny he

might have been less truly tragic.

“So, you see, I’m only a kind of makeshift,” she remarked.

“No,” he said, “but I may have been mistaken in myself. I’m not

mistaken about you. Never!” he cried, striking the rail again.

They were alone on the hill, but suddenly, with a clatter of wings, a

bird left his nest in the rocks and swept out of sight, leaving a

memory of swiftness and life, of an intenser blackness in the gulf. Far

below them, to the left, there were lights, stationary and moving, and

sometimes the clang of a tramcar bell reached them with its harsh

music: the slim line of the bridge, with here and there a dimly burning

light, was like a spangled thread. The sound of footsteps and voices

came to them from the road behind the hill.

“But after all,” Charles said more clearly, “it doesn’t matter about

being acclaimed. It’s just like making music for deaf people: the

music’s there; the music’s there. And so it doesn’t matter very much

whether you love me. It’s one’s weakness that wants that, one’s

loneliness. I can love you just the same, perhaps better; it’s the

audience that spoils things. I should think it does!”

“So you’re quite happy.”

“Not quite,” he answered, “but I have something to do, something I can

do, too. Music—no, I’m not good enough. I’m no more than an amateur,

but in this I can be supreme.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” she said acutely. “If you wrote a poem you

might think it was perfect, but you wouldn’t absolutely know till you’d

tried it on other people. So you can’t be sure about love.”

“You mightn’t be,” he said with a touch of scorn. “You may depend on

other people, but I don’t.”

She made a small sound of scorn. “No, you’ll never know whether you’re

doing this wonderful work of yours well or not because,” she said,

cruelly exultant, “it won’t be tested.”

“Ah, but it might be. You’ve got to do things as though they will be.”

“I suppose so,” she said indifferently. “And now I must go back.”

He turned obediently and thrust the parcel at her.

“But aren’t you going to take me home?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think I need do that. I shall stay here.”

“Then I won’t have your chocolates. I didn’t want them, anyhow, but now

I won’t take them.”

“I don’t understand you,” he said miserably.

“Doesn’t the painter understand his paints or the musician his

instruments? No, you’ll have to begin at the beginning, Charles Batty,

and work very hard before you’re a success.”

She ran from him fleetly, hardly knowing why she was so angry, but it

seemed to her that he had no right to be content without her love; she

felt he must be emasculate, and the guilty passion of Francis Sales

was, by contrast, splendid. But for that passion, Charles Batty might

have persuaded her she was incapable of rousing men’s desire and not to

rouse it was not to be a woman. Accordingly, she valued Francis and

despised the other, yet when she had reached home and run upstairs and

was standing in the dim room where the firelight cast big, uncertain

shadows, like vague threats, on walls and ceiling, she suffered a

reaction.

The scene on the road became sinister: she remembered the strange

silence of the trees and the clangorous barking of the dogs, the hoarse

voices from the encampment in the hollow. It had been very dark there

and an extraordinary blackness had buried her when she was in that

man’s arms. It had been dark, too, on the hill, but with a feeling of

space and height and freedom. If Charles had been a little

different—but then, he did not really want her; he was making a study

of his sorrow, he was gazing at it, turning it round and over, growing

familiar with all its aspects. He was an artist frustrated of any power

but this of feeling and to have given him herself would simply have

been to rob him of what he found more precious. But she and Francis

Sales were kin; she understood him: he was not better than herself,

perhaps he was not so good and he, too, was unhappy, but he did not

love her for those qualities of which Charles Batty had talked by the

Monks’ Pool, he wove no poetry about her: he loved her because she was

pretty; because her mouth was red and her eyes bright and her body

young: he loved her because, being her father’s daughter, her youth

answered his desire with enough shame to season appetite, but not to

spoil it. And she thought of Christabel as of some sick doll.

Dinner was a strange meal that night. Caroline’s chair was empty, and

the sighs of Sophia were like gentle zephyrs in the room. Henrietta’s

silence might have been interpreted as anxiety about her aunt and Susan

informed the cook, truly enough, that Miss Henrietta had a feeling

heart.

It was only Rose who could have explained the nature of the feeling.

She was fascinated by the sight of Henrietta, her rival, her fellow

dupe. Rose looked at her without envy or malice or covetousness, but

with an extraordinary interest, trying to find what likeness to herself

and what differences had attracted Francis Sales.

There was the dark hair, curly where hers was straight, dark eyes

instead of grey ones, the same warm pallor of the skin, in Henrietta’s

case slightly overlaid with pink; but the mouth, ah! it must be the

mouth and what it meant that made the alluring difference. Henrietta’s

mouth was soft, red and mutinous; in her father it had been a blemish,

half hidden by the foreign cut of moustache and beard, but in Henrietta

it was a beauty and a warning. Rose had never properly studied that

mouth before and under the fixity of her gaze Henrietta’s eyelids

fluttered upwards. There were shadows under her eyes and it seemed to

Rose that she had changed a little. She must have changed. Rose had

never been in the arms of Francis Sales; she shuddered now at the

thought, but she knew that she, too, would have been different after

that experience.

She looked at Henrietta with the sadness of her desire to help her, the

fear of her inability to do it; and Henrietta looked back with a hint

of defiance, the symbol of her attitude to the cruel world in which

fond lovers were despised and love had a hard road. Rose restrained an

impulse to lean across the table and say quietly, “I saw you to-night

with Francis Sales and I am sorry for you. He told me I should not let

you meet him. He said that himself, so you see he does not want you,”

and she wondered how much that cry of his had been uttered in despair

of his passion and how much in weariness of Henrietta and himself.

Rose leaned back in her chair and immediately straightened. She was

intolerably tired but she refused to droop. It seemed as though she

were never to be free from secrecy: after her release there had been a

short time of dreary peace and now she had Henrietta’s fight to wage in

secret, her burden to carry without a word. And this was worse, more

difficult, for she had less power with which to meet more danger.

Between the candle lights she sent a smile to Henrietta, but the girl’s

mouth was petulantly set and it was a relief when Sophia quavered out,

“She won’t be able to go to the Battys’ ball! She will be

heart-broken.”

Rose and Henrietta were momentarily united in their common amazement at

the genuineness of this sorrow and to both there was something comic in

the picture of the elderly Caroline, suffering from a chill and

bemoaning the loss of an evening’s pleasure. Henrietta cast a look of

scornful surprise at her Aunt Sophia. Was the Battys’ ball a matter for

a broken heart? Rose said consolingly, “It isn’t till after Christmas.

Perhaps she will be well enough.”

“And Christmas,” Sophia wailed. “Henrietta’s first Christmas here! With

Caroline upstairs!”

“I don’t like Christmas,” Henrietta said. “It makes me miserable.”

“But you will like the ball,” Rose said. “Why, if it hadn’t been for

the ball we might have been in Algiers now.”

“With Caroline ill! I should have sent for you.”

“Shall we start, Henrietta, in a few weeks’ time?” She ignored

Henrietta’s vague murmur. “Oh, not until Caroline is quite well,

Sophia. We could go to the south of France, Henrietta. Yes, I think we

had better arrange that.” Rose felt a slightly malicious pleasure in

this proposal which became a serious one as she spoke. “You must learn

to speak French, and it is a long time since I have been abroad. It

will be a kindness to me. I don’t care to go alone. We have no

engagements after the middle of January, so shall we settle to go

then?” There was authority in her tone. “We shall avoid brigands,

Sophia, but I think we ought to go. It is not fair that Henrietta’s

experiences should be confined to Radstowe.”

“Quite right, dear.” Sophia was unwillingly but nobly truthful. “We

have a duty to her father, but say nothing to Caroline until she is

stronger.”

Henrietta was silent but she had a hot rage in her heart. She felt

herself in a trap and she looked with sudden hatred and suspicion at

her Aunt Rose. It was impossible to defy that calm authority. She would

have to go, in merest gratitude she must consent; she would be carried

off, but she looked round wildly for some means of escape.

The prospect of that exile spoilt a Christmas which otherwise would not

have been a miserable one, for the Malletts made it a charming festival

with inspired ideas for gifts and a delightful party on Christmas Day,

when Caroline was allowed to appear. She refused to say that she was

better; she had never been ill; it was a mere fad of the doctor and her

sisters; she supposed they were tired of her and wanted a little peace.

However, she continued to absorb large quantities of strengthening

food, beef tea, meat jelly and heady tonic, for she loved food, and she

was determined to go to the ball.

This was on New Year’s Eve, and all that day, from the moment when

Susan drew the curtains and brought the early tea, there was an

atmosphere of excitement in Nelson Lodge and Henrietta permitted

herself to enjoy it. Francis Sales was to be at the ball. She forgot

the threatened exile, she ignored Charles Batty’s tiresome insistence

that she must dance with him twice as many times as with anybody else,

because he was engaged to her.

“I don’t believe you can dance a bit,” she cried.

“I can get round,” he said. “It’s the noise of the band that upsets

me—jingle, jingle, bang, bang! But we can sit out when we can’t bear it

any longer.”

“That would be very amusing,” Henrietta said.

Susan, drawing Henrietta’s curtains, remarked that it was a nice day

for the ball and then, looking severely at Henrietta and arranging a

wrap round her shoulders, she said, “I suppose Miss Caroline is going.”

“Oh, I hope so,” Henrietta said. “She’s not worse, is she?”

“Not that I know of, Miss Henrietta, but I’m afraid it will be the

death of her.” She seemed to think it would be Henrietta’s fault and,

in the kitchen, she told Cook that, but for Miss Henrietta, the Battys,

who were close-fisted people—you had only to look at Mr. Batty’s

mouth—would not be giving a ball at all, but they had their eyes on

Miss Henrietta for that half-witted son of theirs. She was sure of it.

And Miss Caroline was not fit to go, it would be the death of her. Cook

was optimistic. It would do Miss Caroline good; she was always the

better for a little fun.

The elder ladies breakfasted in bed to save themselves all unnecessary

fatigue, and throughout the day they moved behind half-lowered blinds.

Henrietta was warned not to walk out. There was a cold wind, her face

would be roughened; and when she insisted on air and exercise she was

advised to wear a thick veil. Both ladies offered her a shawl-like

covering for the face, but Henrietta shook her head. “Feel,” she said,

lifting a hand of each to either cheek.

“Like a flower,” Sophia said.

“The wind doesn’t hurt flowers. It won’t hurt me.”

Fires were lighted in the bedroom earlier than usual. Caroline and

Sophia again retired to their room, leaving orders that they were not

to be disturbed until four o’clock, and a solemn hush fell on the

house.

While the ladies were having tea, Susan was busy in their bedroom

laying out their gowns and Henrietta, chancing to pass the open door,

peeped in. The bed was spread with the rose-pink and apricot dresses of

their choice, with petticoats of corresponding hues, with silken

stockings and long gloves and fans; and on the mound made by the

pillows two pairs of very high-heeled slippers pointed their narrow

toes. It might have been the room of two young girls and, before she

fluttered down to tea, Henrietta took another glance at the mass of

yellow tulle on her own bed. She wished Mrs. Banks and Miss Stubb could

see her in that dress. Mrs. Banks would cry and Miss Stubb would grow

poetical. She would have to write and tell them all about it. At eight

o’clock the four Miss Malletts assembled in the drawing-room. Caroline

was magnificent. Old lace veiled the shimmering satin of her gown and

made it possible to wear the family emeralds: these, heavily set, were

on her neck and in her ears; a pair of bracelets adorned her arms. Seen

from behind, she might have been the stout and prosperous mother of a

family in her prime and only when she turned and displayed the pink

patches on yellow skin, was her age discernible. She was magnificent,

and terrible, and Henrietta had a moment of recoil before she gasped,

“Oh, Aunt Caroline, how lovely!”

Sophia advanced more modestly for inspection. “She looks about

twenty-one!” Caroline exclaimed. “What a figure! Like a girl’s!”

“You’re prejudiced, dear Caroline. I never had your air. You’re

wonderful.”

“We’re all wonderful!” Henrietta cried.

They had all managed to express themselves: Caroline in the superb

attempt at overcoming her age, and Sophia in the softness of her

apparel; Rose, in filmy black and pearls round her firm throat, gently

proud and distant; and Henrietta was like some delicately gaudy insect,

dancing hither and thither, approaching and withdrawing.

“Yes, we’re all wonderful,” Henrietta said again. “Don’t you think we

ought to start? It’s a pity for other people not to see us!”

With Susan’s help they began the business of packing themselves into

the cab. Caroline lifted her skirts and showed remarkably thin legs,

but she stood on the doorstep to quarrel with Sophia about the taking

of a shawl. She ought to have a lace one round her shoulders, Sophia

said, for the Assembly Rooms were always cold and it was a frosty

night.

“Sophia, you’re an idiot,” Caroline said. “Do you think I’m going to

sit in a ball-room in a shawl? Why not take a hot-water bottle and a

muff?”

“At least we must have the smelling salts. Susan, fetch the salts. Miss

Caroline might need them.”

Miss Caroline said she would rather die than display such weakness and

she stepped into the cab which groaned under her weight. Another

fainter groan accompanied Sophia’s entrance and Rose and Henrietta,

tapping their satin shoes on the pavement, heard sounds of bickering.

Sophia had forgotten her handkerchief and Susan fled once more into the

house.

The cabman growled his disapproval from the box. “I’ve another party to

fetch,” he said. “And how many of you’s going?”

“Only four,” Henrietta said sweetly, “and we shan’t be a minute.”

“I’ve been waiting ten already,” said the man.

The handkerchief was handed into the darkness of the cab and Rose and

Henrietta followed. “Mind my toes,” Caroline said. “Susan, tell that

disagreeable fellow to drive on.”

They had not far to go, but the man did not hurry his horse. Other cabs

passed them on the road, motor-cars whizzed by.

“We shall be dreadfully late,” Henrietta sighed.

“I am always late for balls,” Caroline said calmly.

Rose, leaning back in her corner, could see Henrietta’s profile against

the window-pane. Her lips were parted, she leaned forward eagerly. “We

shall miss a dance,” she murmured.

Caroline coughed. “Oh, dear,” Sophia moaned. “Caroline, you should be

in bed.”

“You’re a silly old woman,” Caroline retorted.

“But you’ll promise not to sit in a draught; Henrietta, see that your

Aunt Caroline doesn’t sit in a draught.” But Henrietta was letting down

the window, for the cab had drawn up before the portals of the Assembly

Rooms.

In the cloak-room, Rose and Henrietta slipped off their wraps, glanced

in the mirror, and were ready, but there were anxious little

whisperings and consultations on the part of the elder ladies and

Henrietta cast a despairing glance at Rose. Would they never be ready?

But at last Caroline uttered a majestic “Now” and led the way like a

plump duck swimming across a pond with a fleet of smaller ducks behind

her.

No expense and no trouble had been spared to justify the expectations

of Radstowe. The antechamber was luxuriously carpeted, arm-chaired,

cushioned, palmed and screened, and the hired flunkey at the ballroom

door had a presence and a voice fitted for the occasion.

“Miss Mallett!” he bawled. “Miss Sophia Mallett! Miss Rose Mallett!

Miss Henrietta Mallett!”

The moment had come. Henrietta lifted her head, settled her shoulders

and prepared to meet the eyes of Francis Sales. The Malletts had

arrived between the first and second dances and the guests sitting

round the walls had an uninterrupted view of the stately entrance. Mrs.

Batty, in diamonds and purple satin, greeted the late-comers with

enthusiasm and James Batty escorted Caroline and Sophia to arm-chairs

that had all the appearance of thrones. Mrs. Batty patted Henrietta on

the shoulder.

“Pretty dear,” she said. “Here you are at last. There are a lot of boys

with their programmes half empty till you come, and my Charles, too.

Not that he’s much for dancing. I’ve told him he must look after the

ugly ones. We’re going to have a quadrille for your aunts’ sake!” And

then, whispering, she asked, “What do you think of it? I said if we had

it at all, we’d have it good.”

“It’s gorgeous!” Henrietta said, and off the stage she had never seen a

grander spectacle. The platform at the end of the room was banked with

flowers and behind them uniformed and much-moustached musicians played

with ardour, with rapture, their eyes closing sentimentally in the

choicest passages. Baskets of flowers hung from the chandeliers, the

floor was polished to the slipperiness of ice and Mrs. Batty, on her

hospitable journeys to and fro, was in constant danger of a fall.

The society of Radstowe, all in new garments, appeared to Henrietta of

a dazzling brilliance, but she stood easily, holding her head high, as

though she were well used to this kind of glory. Looking round, she saw

Francis Sales leaning against a wall, talking to his partner and

smiling with unnecessary amiability. A flame of jealousy flickered

hotly through her body. How could he smile like that? Why did he not

come to her? And then, in the pride of her secret love, she remembered

that he dare not show his eagerness. They belonged to each other, they

were alone in their love, and all these people, talking, laughing,

fluttering fans, thinking themselves of immense importance, had no real

existence. He and she alone of all that company existed with a

fierceness that changed the sensuous dance-music into the cry of

essential passion.

Young men approached her and wrote their initials on her programme

which was already marked with little crosses against the numbers she

had promised to Francis Sales. Charles Batty, rather hot, anxious and

glowering, arrived too late. His angry disgust, his sense of desertion,

were beyond words. He stared at her. “And my flowers,” he demanded.

“Charles, don’t shout.”

“Where are my flowers? I sent some—roses and lilies and maidenhair.

Where are they?”

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Ah, I suppose you didn’t like them, but the girl in the shop told me

they would be all right. How should I know?”

“I haven’t seen them,” she repeated. Over his shoulder she saw the

figure of Francis Sales coming towards her.

“I ordered them yesterday,” Charles continued loudly. “I’ll kill that

girl. I’ll go at once.”

“The shop will be shut,” Henrietta reminded him. “Oh, do be quiet,

Charles.” She turned with a smile for Francis.

“She hasn’t a dance left,” Charles said.

“Mr. Sales took the precaution of booking them in advance,” Henrietta

said lightly, and with a miserable gesture Charles went off, muttering,

“I hadn’t thought of that. Why didn’t some one tell me?”

§ 5

That ball was to be known in Nelson Lodge as the one that killed Miss

Caroline, but Miss Caroline had her full share of pleasure out of it.

It was the custom in Radstowe to make much of Caroline and Sophia: they

were respected and playfully loved and it was not only the middle-aged

gentlemen who asked them to dance, and John and Charles Batty were not

the only young ones who had the honour of leading them into the middle

of the room, taking a few turns in a waltz and returning, in good

order, to the throne-like arm-chairs. Francis Sales had their names on

his programme, but with him they used the privilege of old friends and

preferred to talk.

“You can keep your dancing for Rose and Henrietta,” Caroline said.

“He comes too late for me,” Rose said pleasantly. He gave her something

remarkably like one of his old looks and she answered it with a grave

one. There was gnawing trouble at her heart. She had watched his

meeting with Henrietta. It had been wordless; everything was

understood. She had also seen the unhappiness of Charles Batty, and, on

an inspiration, she said to him, “Charles, you must take pity on an old

maid. I have all these dances to give away.”

For him this dance was to be remembered as the beginning of his

friendship with Rose Mallett; but at the moment he was merely annoyed

at being prevented from watching Henrietta’s dark head appearing and

disappearing among the other dancers like that of a bather in a rough

sea. He said, “Oh, thank you very much. Are you sure there’s nobody

else? But I suppose there can’t be”; and holding her at arm’s length,

he ambled round her, treading occasionally on her toes. He apologized:

he was no good at dancing: he hoped he had not hurt her slippers, or

her feet.

She paused and looked down at them. “You mustn’t do that to Henrietta.

Her slippers are yellow and you would spoil them.”

“She isn’t giving me a single dance!” he burst out. “I asked her to,

but I never thought I ought to get a promise. Nobody told me. Nobody

tells me anything.”

An icily angry gentleman remonstrated with him for standing in the

fairway and Rose suggested that they should sit down.

“You see, I’m no good. I can’t dance. I can’t please her.”

“Charles, you’re still in the way. Let us go somewhere quiet and then

you can tell me all about it.”

He took her to a small room leading from the big one. “I’ll shut the

door,” he said, “and then we shan’t hear that hideous din.”

“It is a very good band.”

“It’s profane,” Charles said wearily. “Music—they call it music!” He

was off at a great pace and she did not try to hold him in. She lay

back in the big chair and seemed to study the toes on which Charles

Batty had trampled. His voice rolled on like the sound of water,

companionable and unanswerable. Suddenly his tone changed. “Henrietta

is very unkind to me.”

“Is there any reason why she shouldn’t be?”

“I do everything I can think of. I’ve told her all about myself.”

“She would rather hear about herself.”

“I’ve done that, too. Perhaps I haven’t done it enough. I’ve given her

chocolates and flowers. What else ought I to do?”

Her voice, very calm and clear after his spluttering, said, “Not too

much.”

“Oh!” This was a new idea. “Oh! I never thought of that. Why—”

She interrupted his usual cry. “Women are naturally cruel.”

“Are they? I didn’t know that either.” He swallowed the information

visibly. She could almost see the process of digestion. “Oh!” he said

again.

“They don’t mean to be. They are simply untouched by a love they don’t

return.” She added thoughtfully: “And inclined to despise the lover.”

“That’s it,” he mourned. “She despises me.” And in a louder voice he

demanded, not of Rose Mallett, but of the mysterious world in which he

gropingly existed, “Why should she?”

“She shouldn’t, but perhaps you yourself are making a mistake.”

She heard indistinctly the word, “Impossible.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“I’m quite certain about that—about nothing else.” His big hands moved.

“I cling to that.”

“Then you must be ready to serve her. Charles, if I ever needed you—”

“I’d do anything for you because you’re her aunt. And besides,” he said

simply, “you’re rather like her in the face.”

“Thank you, but it’s her you may have to serve—and not me. I want her

to be happy. I don’t know where her happiness is, but I know where it

is not. Some day I may tell you.” She looked at him. He might be useful

as an ally; she was sure he could be trusted. “Promise you will do

anything I ask for her sake.”