He turned the head which had been sunk on his crumpled shirt. “Is

anything the matter?” he asked, concerned, and more alert than she had

ever seen him.

She said, “Hush!” for the door behind was opening and it let in a

murmur of voices and a rush of cold, fresh air. Rose shivered and,

looking round, she saw Henrietta and Francis Sales. Her cloak was half

on and half off her shoulders, her colour was very high and her eyes

were not so dazzled by the light that she did not immediately recognize

her aunt. It was Francis Sales who hesitated and Rose said quickly,

“Oh, please shut the door.”

He obeyed and stood by Henrietta’s side, a pleasing figure, looking

taller and more finely made in his black clothes.

“Have you been on the terrace?”

“Yes, it’s a glorious night.”

“You’ll get cold,” Charles said severely. She had been out there with

the man who murdered music and who, therefore, was a scoundrel, and

Charles’s objection was based on that fact and not on Francis Sales’s

married state. He had not the pleasure of feeling a pious indignation

that a man with an invalid wife walked on the terrace with Henrietta.

He would have said, “Why not?” and he would have found an excuse for

any man in the beauty, the wonder, the enchantment of that girl, though

he could not forgive Henrietta for her friendship with the slaughterer

of music and of birds.

He glared and repeated, “You’ll be ill.”

Henrietta pretended not to hear him, and Rose said thoughtfully and

slowly, “Oh, no, Charles, people don’t get cold when they are happy.”

“I suppose not.” He felt in a vague way that he and Rose, sitting

there, for he had forgotten to stand up, were united against the other

two who stood, very clear, against the gold-embossed wall of the room,

and that those two were conscious of the antagonism. They also were

united and he felt an increase of his dull pain at the sight of their

comeliness, the suspicion of their likeness to each other. “I suppose

not,” Charles said, and after that no one spoke, as though it were

impossible to find a light word, and unnecessary.

Each one was aware of conflict, of something fierce and silent going

on, but it was Rose who understood the situation best and Charles who

understood it least. His feelings were torturing but simple. He wanted

Henrietta and he could not get her: he did not please her, and that

Sales, that Philistine, that handsome, well-made, sulky-looking beggar

knew how to do it.

But Rose was conscious of the working of four minds: there was her own,

sore with the past and troubled by a present in which her lover

concealed his discomfiture under the easy sullenness of his pose. He,

too, had the past shared with her to haunt him, but he had also a

present bright with Henrietta’s allurements yet darkly streaked with

prohibitions, struggles and surrenders, and Rose saw that the worst

tragedy was his and hers. It must not be Henrietta’s. In their youth

she and Francis had misunderstood, and in their maturity they had

failed, each other; it was the fault of neither and Henrietta must not

be the victim of their folly. Looking at the big fan of black feathers

spread on her knee, Rose smiled a little, with a maternal tenderness.

Henrietta was her father’s daughter, wilful and lovable, but she was

also the daughter of that mother who had been good and loving.

Henrietta had her father’s passion for excitement but, being a woman,

she had the greater need of being loved, and Rose raised her eyes and

looked at Charles with an ironical appreciation of his worthiness, of

his comicality. She saw him with Henrietta’s eyes, and her white

shoulders lifted and dropped in resignation. Then she looked at

Henrietta and smiled frankly. “Another dance has begun,” she said.

“Somebody must be looking for you.”

“No,” Henrietta said, “it’s with Mr. Sales,” and turning to him with

the effect of ignoring Rose, she said in a clear voice which became

slightly harsh as she saw him gazing at her aunt oddly, almost as

though he were astonished by a new sight, “Shall we go back to the

terrace or shall we dance?”

“You’ll get cold,” Charles said again angrily.

“Let us dance,” Sales said.

The door to the ball-room closed behind them and Charles let out a

groan. “You see!” he said.

Rose hoped he did not see too much and she was reassured when he added,

“She takes no notice of me.”

“Poor Charles, but you know you treat her a little like a child. You

shouldn’t talk of catching cold. You’re too material.”

She was surprised to hear him say with a sort of humble pride, “Only

before other people. She’s heard me different.” Then, dropping into the

despair of his own thoughts, and with the rage of one feeling himself

sinking hopelessly, he cried out, “It’s like pouring water through a

sieve.”

The voice of Rose, very calm and wise, said gently, “Continue to pour.”

“It’s all very fine,” he muttered.

“Continue to pour. It may be all you can do, but it is worth while.”

“I told her I would do that, one night, on the hill. She said she

didn’t want it.”

“She doesn’t know,” Rose said in the same voice, comforting in its

quietness. She stood up. “We had better go back now, and remember, you

promise to do for her anything I ask of you.”

“Of course,” he said, “but I shall do it wrong.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “It must be done rightly. It must. It

will be. Now take me back.”

He resigned her unwillingly, for he felt that she was his strength, to

the partner who claimed her, but as she prepared to dance, Charles

returned hurriedly and, ignoring the affronted gentleman who had

already clasped her, he said anxiously, “This service—what is it? Is

there something wrong?”

She looked deeply into his eyes. “There must not be.”

And now, for him in the sea of dancers, there were two dark heads

bobbing among the waves.

The hours sped by; the lavish supper was consumed; dresses and flowers

lost their freshness; the musicians lost their energetic ardour; the

man at the piano was seen to yawn cavernously above the keys. The

guests began to depart, leaving an exhausted but happy Mrs. Batty. She

had been complimented by Miss Mallett on the perfection of her

arrangements, on the brilliance of the assembly, on the music and even

on the refreshments, and Mrs. Batty had blessed her own perseverance

against Mr. Batty’s obstinacy in the matter of the supper. He had

wanted light refreshments and she had insisted on a knife-and-fork

affair, and Miss Caroline had actually remarked on the wisdom of a

solid meal. She had no patience with snacks. Mrs. Batty intended to

lull Mr. Batty to slumber with that quotation.

In the cab, as the Malletts jolted home in the care of the same surly

driver, Caroline complaisantly spoke of her congratulations. She would

not have said so much to anybody else, but she knew Mrs. Batty would be

pleased.

“So she was, dear,” Sophia said, but her more delicate social sense was

troubled. “Though I do think one ought to treat everybody as one would

treat the greatest lady in the land. I think we ought to have taken for

granted that everything would be correct.”

“Rubbish! You must treat people as they want to be treated. She was

panting for praise, and she got it, and anyhow it’s too late to argue.”

They had stayed to the end so that Henrietta’s pleasure should not be

curtailed, and now she was leaning back, very white and still.

“I believe the child’s asleep,” Sophia whispered.

“No, I’m not. I’m wide awake.”

“Did you enjoy it, dear?”

“Very much,” said Henrietta.

“I kept my eye on you, child,” Caroline said.

Henrietta made an effort. “I kept my eye on you, Aunt Caroline. I saw

you flirting with Mr. Batty.”

“Impudence! Sophia, do you hear her? I only danced with him twice,

though I admit he hovered round my chair. They always did. I can’t help

it. We’re all like that. You should have seen your father at a ball!

There was no one like him. Such an air! Ah, here we are. I suppose this

disagreeable cabman must be tipped.”

“I’ll see to that,” Rose said. It was the first time she had spoken.

“Be quick, Caroline. Don’t stand in the cold.”

“The dancing has done me good,” Caroline said, and she lingered on the

pavement to look at the stars, holding her skirts high in the happy

knowledge of her unrivalled legs and feet. “No, Sophia, I am not cold,

or tired; but yes, I’ll take a little soup.”

They sat round the roaring fire prepared for them and drank the soup

out of fine old cups. Caroline chattered; she was gay; she believed she

had been a great success; young men had paid court to her; she had

rapped at least one of them with her fan; a grey-haired man had talked

to her of her lively past. But Sophia had much ado to prevent her heavy

head from nodding. Henrietta was silent, very busy with her thoughts

and careful to avoid the eyes of Rose.

“I think,” Caroline said, “we ought to give a little dance. We could

have this carpet up. Just a little dance—”

“But Henrietta and I,” Rose said distinctly, “are going away.”

“Oh, nonsense! You must put it off. We ought to give a dance for the

child. Now, how many couples? Ten, at least. Sophia, you’re asleep.”

“No, dear. A party. I heard. But if you’re ready now, I think I’ll go

to bed.”

“Go along. I’ll follow.”

“Oh, no, Caroline, we always go together.”

“Well, well, I’ll come, but I could stay here and talk for hours. I

could always sit you out and dance you out, couldn’t I?”

“Yes, dear. You’re wonderful. Such spirit!”

They kissed Rose; they both kissed Henrietta on each cheek.

“A little dance,” Caroline repeated, and patted Henrietta’s arm. “Good

child,” she murmured.

Henrietta went upstairs behind them, slowly, not to overtake Sophia.

She did not want to be left down there with Aunt Rose. She wanted

solitude, and she knew now what people meant when they talked of being

in a dream. Under her hand the slim mahogany rail felt like the cold,

firm hand of Francis Sales when, after their last dance together, he

had led her on to the terrace again. They were alone there, for the

wind was very cold, but for Henrietta it was part of the exquisite

mantle in which she was wrapped. She was wrapped in the glamour of the

night and the stars and the excitement of the dance, yet suddenly,

looking down at the dark river, she was chilled. She said, and her

voice seemed to be carried off by the wind, “Aunt Rose is going to take

me away.”

He bent down to her. “What did you say?”

She put her lips close to his ear. “Aunt Rose is going to take me

away.”

He dropped her hand. “She can’t do that.”

“But she will. I shall have to go,” and he said gloomily, “I knew you

would leave me, too.” She felt helpless and lonely: her happiness had

gone; the wind had risen. She said loudly, “It’s not my fault. What can

I do? I shall come back.”

He stood quite still and did not look at her. “You don’t think of me.”

“I think of nothing else. How can I tell her I can’t leave you? She has

been good to me.”

“She was once good to me, too. That won’t last long.”

“Ah, that’s not true!” she cried.

“Go, then, if she’s more to you than I am. I’m used to that.”

She moved away from him. Why did he not help her? He was a man; he

loved her, but he was cruel. Ah, the thought warmed her, it was his

love that made him cruel: he needed her; he was lonely. Under her

cloak, she clasped her gloved hands in a helplessness which must be

conquered. What shall I do? she asked the stars. Across the river the

cliff was sombre; it seemed to listen and to disapprove. The stars were

kinder: they twinkled, they laughed, they understood, and the lights on

the bridge glowed steadily with reassurance. She turned back to Francis

Sales. “You must trust me,” she said firmly. He put his hands heavily

on her shoulders. “I won’t let you go.”

A murmur, inarticulate and delighted, escaped her lips. This was what

she wanted. Very small and willing to be commanded, she leaned against

him. “What will you do with me?” she whispered, secure in his strength.

She laughed. “You will have to take me away yourself!”

“You wouldn’t come,” he said with unexpected seriousness.

So close to him that the wind could not steal the words, she answered,

“I would do anything for one I loved.”

The memory of her own voice, its tenderness and seduction, startled her

in the solitude of her room. She had not known she could speak like

that. She dropped her face into her hands, and in the rapture of her

own daring and in the recollection of the excitement which had frozen

them into a stillness through which the beating of their hearts sounded

like a faint tap of drums, there came the doubt of her sincerity.

Had she really meant what she said? Yet she could have said nothing

else. The words had left her lips involuntarily, her voice, as though

of itself, had taken on that tender tone. She could not have failed in

that dramatic moment, but now she was half afraid of her undertaking.

Well, her hands dropped to her sides, she had given her word; she had

promised herself in an heroic surrender and her very doubts seemed to

sanctify the act.

For a long time she sat by the fire, half undressed, her immature thin

arms hanging loosely, her sombre eyes staring at the fire. She wished

this night might go on for ever, this time of ecstasy between a promise

and its fulfilment. She had seen disillusionment in another and did not

laugh at its possibility for herself; it would come to her, she

thought, as it had come to her mother, who had hoped her daughter would

find happiness in love; and Henrietta wondered if that gentle spirit

was aware of what was happening.

The thought troubled her a little, and from her mother, who had been a

neglected wife, it was no more than a step to that other, lying on her

back, tortured and lonely. If Christabel Sales had a daughter, what

would be her fierce young thoughts about this thief, sitting by the

fire in a joy which was half misery? Yet she was no thief: she was only

picking up what would otherwise be wasted. It seemed to her that life

was hardly more than a perpetual and painful choice. Some one had to be

hurt, and why should it not be Christabel? Or was she hurt enough

already? And again, what good would she get from Henrietta’s sacrifice?

No one would gain except Henrietta herself, she could see that plainly,

and she was prepared to suffer; she was anxious to suffer and be

justified.

The coals in the grate began to fade, the room was cold and she was

tired. Slowly she continued her undressing, throwing down her dainty

garments with the indifference of her fatigue. She feared her thoughts

would stand between her and sleep, but, when she lay down, warmth

gradually stole over her and soothed her into forgetfulness. She slept,

but she waked to unusual sounds in the house: a door opened, there were

footsteps on the landing and then a voice, shrill and frightened. She

jumped out of bed. Sophia was on the landing; Rose was just opening her

door; Susan, decently covered by a puritanical dressing-gown, had been

roused by the noise. Caroline was in pain, Sophia said. She was

breathing with great difficulty. “I told her she ought to take a

shawl,” Sophia sobbed.

Fires had to be lighted, water boiled and flannels warmed, and the

voice of Caroline was heard in gasping expostulation. Henrietta dressed

quickly. “I’m going for the doctor,” she told Rose, who was already

putting on her coat, and Henrietta noticed that she still wore her

evening gown. She had not been to bed, and for a moment Henrietta

forgot her Aunt Caroline and stared at her Aunt Rose.

“I am going,” Rose said quietly. “Oh, hadn’t you better stay here?

Aunt Sophia is in such a fuss.”

“We’ll go together,” Rose said. “I can’t let you go alone.”

Henrietta laughed a little. This care was so unnecessary for one who

had given herself to a future full of peril.

They went out in the cold darkness of the morning, walking very fast

and now and then breaking into a run, and with them there walked a

shadowy third person, keeping them apart. It was strange to be yoked

together by Caroline’s danger and securely separated by this shadow.

They did not speak, they had nothing to say, yet both thought, What

difference is this going to make? But on their way back, when the

doctor had been roused and they had his promise to come quickly,

Henrietta’s fear burst the bonds of her reserve. “You don’t think she

is going to die, do you?”

Rose put her arm through Henrietta’s. “Oh, Henrietta, I hope not. No,

no, I’m not going to believe that, “and, temporarily united, the third

person left behind though following closely, they returned to the

lighted house. As they stood in the hall they could hear the rasping

sound of Caroline’s breathing.

§ 6

John Gibbs, of Sales Hall, milkman and news carrier, shook his head

over the cans that morning. Mrs. Sales was very bad. The master had

fetched the doctor in the early morning. He had set out in the same car

that brought him from the dance. Cook and Susan looked at each other

with a compression of lips and a nodding of heads, implying that

misfortune never came singly, but they did not tell John Gibbs of the

illness in their own house. They had imbibed something of the Mallett

reserve and they did not wish the family affairs to be blabbed at every

house in Radstowe. But when the man had gone, Susan reminded Cook of

her early disapproval of that ball. It would kill Miss Caroline, it

would kill Mrs. Sales.

“She wasn’t there, poor thing,” Cook said.

“But he was, gallivanting. I dare say it upset her.”

Susan was right. Christabel Sales had fretted herself into one of her

heart attacks; but the Malletts did not know this until later. At

present they were concerned with Caroline, about whom the doctor was

reassuring. She was very ill, but she had herself remarked that if they

were expecting her to die they would be disappointed, and that was the

spirit to help recovery.

A nurse was installed in the sick-room, Sophia fluttered a little less

and Rose and Henrietta ignored their emotion of the early morning; they

also avoided each other. They were both occupied with the same problem,

though Henrietta’s thoughts had taken definite shape; above her

dreaming, her practical mind was dealing with concrete details, and

Rose was merely speculating on the future, and the more she speculated,

the surer she became of the necessity to interfere. Her plan of

carrying Henrietta to other lands was frustrated for the present by

Caroline’s illness and she dared not allow things to drift. There was a

smouldering defiance in Henrietta’s manner: she was absorbed yet wary;

she seemed to have a grudge against the aunt who had missed nothing at

the dance, who had seen her exits and entrances with Francis Sales and

interrupted their farewell glance, the wave of Henrietta’s gloved hand

towards the tall figure standing in the porch of the Assembly Rooms to

see her depart.

There was a certain humour about the situation, and for Rose an

impeding feeling of hypocrisy. Here she was, determined to put

obstacles on the primrose path where she herself once had dallied. It

looked like the envy of age for youth, it looked like inclining to

virtue because the opposite was no longer possible for her, like tardy

loyalty to Christabel; but she must not be hampered by appearances.

Her chief fear was of hardening Henrietta’s temper, and she came to the

conclusion that she must appeal to Francis Sales himself. It was an

unpleasant task and, she dimly felt, she hardly knew why, a dangerous

one; and meeting Henrietta that day at meals or in the hushed quiet of

the passages, she felt herself a traitor to the girl. After all, what

right had she to interfere? She had no right, and her double excuse was

her knowledge of Francis Sales’ character and her certainty that

Henrietta was chiefly moved by her dramatic instinct. And again Rose

wished that the hair of Charles Batty’s head were thicker and that he

could supply the counter-attraction needed; but she might at least be

able to use him; there was no one else.

That night, after an evening spent in soothing Sophia’s fears which had

been roused by the unnatural gentleness of Caroline, and treating

Henrietta to all the friendliness she would receive, Rose went out to

post a letter to Francis Sales. She had asked him, with an irony she

had no doubt he would miss, to meet her in the hollow where the gipsies

had encamped and where so many of their interviews had taken place. It

was within a few yards of that bank of primroses where he had asked her

to marry him.

Caroline was better the next morning and it was easy for Rose to

escape. She chose to ride. It was one of those mild January days which

already promise the return of spring. Birds chirped in the leafless

trees, the earth was damp and seemed to stir with the efforts of

innumerable roots to produce a richer life, yet the leaves of autumn

were still lying on the ground. How she loved this country, this blue

air, this smell of fruit present even before the blossom was on the

trees, the sight of wood smoke curling from the cottage chimneys, the

very ruts in the road! A little while ago she had told herself she was

sickened by it: it was the symbol of failure and young, tender, ruined

hopes, but the love of it lay deeply in her heart; all this, the

failure and the ruin, were of her life and it could be no more cast off

than could the hands which had refused the kissing and clasping of

Francis Sales.

This was her own country: the strange, unbridled, stealthy wildness of

it was in her blood; it was in Henrietta through her father, it was in

Francis, too, and due to it was this tragic muddle in which they found

themselves. She had a faint, despairing feeling that she could not

fight against it, that her mission would only be another failure, yet

she counted on Francis’s easy tenderness of heart. The very weakness

which persuaded him to an action could turn him from it, and it was to

his tenderness she must appeal.

She reached the track and, raised high on her horse, she could see the

fields with the rough grass and gorse bushes sloping to the channel;

the pale strip of water like silver melted in the heart of the hills

and falling slowly to the sea; the blue hills themselves like gates

keeping a fair country. The place where the wood had been was like a

brown and purple rug, but before long the pattern would be complicated

by creeping green. Where the trees had murmured and whispered or stood

silent, listening, there was now no sound, no secrecy; the place lay

candidly under the wide sky, but, from a field out of sight, a sheep

bleated disconsolately, with a sound of infinite, uncomprehending woe,

and a steamer in the river sent out a distant hoot of answering

derision.

The gipsies had departed; the ashes of their fire made a black patch on

the ground and a few rags fluttered in the wind. There was no human

being in sight and she rode down the slope to wait in the hollow. She

was beginning to wonder if Francis had received her letter when, with a

dreary sense of watching a familiar scene reacted, she saw him in the

lane with Henrietta by his side. Here was an unexpected difficulty, and

she could do nothing but ride towards them, raising her whip in

greeting.

She said at once to Francis, “Did you get my letter?” She saw

Henrietta’s face flush angrily, but she knew that the time had come for

her to speak. “I asked you to meet me here.”

He was staring at her and his mouth moved mechanically. “No, I didn’t

get it by the first post. Perhaps it’s there now.” With his eyes still

fixed on her, he moved back a step.

“No.” Rose smiled. “Don’t go and get it. Fortunately you are here. I

want to talk to you, Henrietta, please—” Her voice was gentle, she

leaned forward in the saddle with a charming gesture of request, but

Henrietta shook her head. She was antagonized by that charm which was

holding Francis’s eyes. A loosened curl had fallen over her forehead,

giving to the severity of her dress, copied from that portrait of her

father, a dishevelling touch, as though a young lady were suddenly

discovered to be a gipsy in an evil frame of mind.

“If it’s anything to do with me, I’m going to stay,” she said. “If it

hasn’t, I’ll go.” She looked at Francis and added, between her teeth,

“But it must have.” Those words and that look claimed him for her own.

Rose lifted her chin and looked over the two heads, the uncovered one

of Francis Sales and Henrietta’s, with her hat a little askew, and,

absurdly, Rose remembered that the child had washed her hair the night

before: that was why the hat was crooked and the curl loose, making the

scene undignified and funny above the pain of it. Rose spoke in a voice

heightened by a tone. “It concerns you both,” she said.

“Ah, then, you needn’t say it, need she, Francis?”

“Francis,” she repeated the name with a grave humour, “this is not fair

to Henrietta.”

“I know that,” he muttered, and Rose saw Henrietta shoot at him a thin

look of scorn.

Henrietta said, “But I don’t care about that, and anyhow, we’re not

going to do it any more. We’re tired of these meetings”—she faced

him—“aren’t we? We had just made up our minds to have no more of them.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Rose, and she fancied that the hurried beating

of her heart must be plain through the thick stuff of her coat.

Henrietta laughed, showing little teeth, and Rose thought, “Her teeth

are too small. They spoil her.”

“No, you need not spy on us any more,” Henrietta said.

Francis made a movement of distaste. He said, as though the words cost

him much labour, “Henrietta, don’t.”

But there seemed to be no limit to what Rose could bear. She stooped

forward suddenly and put her cheek against the horse’s neck in an

impulsive need to express affection, perhaps to get it.

“You think I don’t understand,” she said quietly, “but I do, too well.”

She paused, and in her overpowering sense of helplessness, of distrust,

she found herself making, without a quiver, the confession of her own

foolishness.

“I don’t know whether Francis has told you that he and I were once in

love with one another. At least that is what we called it.” Very pale,

appearing to have grown thinner in that moment, she looked at the

horse’s ears and spoke as though she and Henrietta were alone. “Until

quite lately. Then he realized, we both realized, our mistake. But it

seems that Francis must have somebody to—to meet, to kiss. Between me

and you there has been some one else.” With a wave of her hand, she put

aside that thought. “We used to meet here often. This place must be

full of memories for him. For me, the whole countryside is scattered

with little broken bits of love. It breaks so easily, or it may be only

the counterfeit that breaks. Anyhow, it broke, it chipped. I thought

you ought to know that.” She touched her horse with her heel and turned

down the lane. She went slowly, sitting very straight, but she had the

constant expectation of being shot in the back. She had to remind

herself that Henrietta had no weapon but her eyes.

It was those eyes Francis Sales chiefly remembered when he had parted

from Henrietta and turned homewards. There had been scorn in them,

anger, grief, jealousy and expectation. If she had not been so small,

if they had not been raised to his, if he could have looked levelly

into them as he did into the clear grey eyes of Rose, things might have

been different. But she was little and she had clung to him, looking

up. She had told him she could never see her Aunt Rose again. How could

she? Was he sure he did not love Rose still? Was he sure? He ought to

be, for it was he who had made Henrietta love him. He had liked that

tribute too much to contradict it, but Rose Mallett was right: whoever

had been the promoter of this business, it was not fair to Henrietta,

and the thought of Rose, so white and straight, was like wind after a

sultry day. She was like a church, he thought; a dim church with tall

pillars losing themselves in the loftiness of the roof; yes, that was

what was the matter with her: she was cold, but there was no one like

her, you could not forget her even in the warmth of Henrietta’s

presence. One way and another, these Malletts tortured him.

He walked home, trying to find some way out of this maze of promises to

Henrietta and of self-reproach, and his mental wanderings were

interrupted by an unwelcome request from the nurse that he should go at

once to Mrs. Sales. She seemed, the woman warned him, to be very much

excited: would he please be careful? She must not have another heart

attack.

As he entered the room, it seemed to him that he had been treading on

egg-shells all his life, but a sudden pity swept him at the sight of

his wife, very weak from the pain of the night before last, yet

intensely, almost viciously alive. He wished he had not gone to the

Battys’ ball; it had upset her and done him no good. If it had not been

for that walk on the terrace—

He shut the door gently and stood by her. “Are you in pain?” he asked.

He felt remorsefully that he did not know how to treat her; he had not

love enough, yet with all his heart he wanted to be kind.

“You haven’t kissed me to-day,” she said. “No, don’t do it. You don’t

want to, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” he said, and as he bent over her he was touched by the

contented sigh she gave. If he could begin over again, he told himself,

with the virtue of the man who has committed himself fatally, things

would be different. If he hadn’t brought Henrietta to such a pass, they

should be different now.

“I’ve never stopped being fond of you, Christabel.”

She laughed and disconcerted him. “Or of your horses, or your dogs,”

she said. “No one could expect you to care much for a useless log like

me. No one could have expected you not to go to that dance.” Tears

filled her eyes. “But I was lonely. And I imagined you there—”

“I wish I hadn’t gone,” he said truthfully.

She seemed to consider that remark, but presently she asked, “Have you

lost something?”

He had lost a great deal, for Rose despised him; that had been plain in

the face which once had been so soft for him.

“I asked you,” Christabel said, “if you had lost something.”

“Yes—no, nothing.”

She let out a small piercing shriek. “You’re lying, lying! But why

should I care? You’ve done that for years. And Rose has been so kind,

hasn’t she, coming to see me every week? Take your letter, Francis.

Yes, I’ve read it! I don’t care. I’m helpless. Take it!” From its

hiding-place under the coverlet she drew the letter and threw it at

him. It fluttered feebly to the ground. She had made a tremendous

effort, trying to fling it in his face, and it had fallen as mildly as

a snowflake. She began to sob. This was the climax of her suffering,

that it should fall like that.

He picked it up and read it. It was no good trying to explain, for one

explanation would only necessitate another. He was deeply in the mire,

they were both, they were all in it, and he did not know how to get

anybody out, but he had to stop that sobbing somehow. His pity for

Christabel swelled into his biggest feeling. He crumpled the letter

angrily and, at the sound, she held her breathing for a moment. Of

course, she should have crumpled the letter and then she might have hit

him with it.

“I wish to God I’d never seen her,” she heard him say with despairing

anger. And then, more gently, “Don’t cry, Christabel. I can’t bear to

hear you. The letter’s nothing. I shall never meet her again. I must

take more care of you.” He took her hand and stroked it. He would never

meet Rose again, but he had an appointment with Henrietta.

“You promise? But no, it doesn’t matter if you love her.”

“I don’t love her.”

“But you did.”

He passed his free hand across his forehead. No, he would not keep that

appointment with Henrietta, or he would only keep it to tell her it was

impossible. He could not go with this wailing in his ears and he knew

that piteous sound was his salvation. It gave him the strength to

appear weak. “Don’t cry. It’s all right, Christabel. Look, I’ll burn

the confounded letter and I swear it’s the only one I’ve ever had from

her. “It was to Rose, he admitted miserably, that he owed the

possibility of telling that truth.

Her weeping became quieter. “Tell her,” she articulated, “I never want

to see her again.”

“But,” he said petulantly, “haven’t I just told you I never want to

meet her?”

“Then write—write—I don’t mind Henrietta.”

“No!” he almost shouted, “not Henrietta either!”

She turned to him a face ravaged with tears and misery. “Why not

Henrietta?” she whispered.

“I hate the lot of them,” he muttered. “They’re all witches.”

She laughed joyously. “That’s what I’ve said myself!” She gave him both

her thin, hot hands to hold. “But it’s worth while, all this, if you

are going to be good to me.”

He kissed her then as the sinner kisses the saint who has wrought a

miracle of salvation for him. “We’ve had bad luck,” he murmured.

“You’ve had the worst of it.” He stroked her cheek. “Poor little

thing.”

§ 7

Once out of sight of the two standing in the lane, Rose rode home

quickly. She felt she had a great deal to do, but she did not know what

it was. Her head was hot with the turmoil of her thoughts. There was no

order in them; the past was mixed with the present, the done with the

undone: she was assailed by the awful conviction that right was

prolific in producing wrong. If she had not preserved her own physical

integrity, these two, who were almost like her children—yes, that was

how she felt towards them—would not have been tempted to such folly.

For it was folly: they did not love each other, and she remembered,

with a sickening pang, the expression with which Francis had looked at

her. She told herself he loved her still; he had never loved anybody

else and she had only pity and protection and a deep-rooted fondness to

give him in return. She cared more passionately for Henrietta, who was

now the victim of the superficial chastity on which Rose had insisted.

If she had known that Henrietta was to suffer, she would have subdued

her niceness, for if Francis had been in physical possession of her

body, she would have had no difficulty in possessing his mind. Holding

nothing back, she could also have held him securely. She did not want

him, but Henrietta would have been saved. But then Rose had not known:

how could she? And Henrietta might be saved yet, she must be saved. The

obvious method was to lay siege to the facile heart of Francis, but

there was no time for that. Rose was not deceived by Henrietta’s

enigmatic words. They were tired of meeting stealthily, she had said.

What did that mean? Her head grew hotter. She had to force herself into

calm, and the old man at the toll-house on the bridge received her

visual greeting as she passed, but, as she went slowly to the stables,

there was added to her anxiety the thrilling knowledge that at last,

and for the first time, she was going to take definite action. Her

whole life had been a long and dull preparation for this day. She began

to take a pleasure in her excitement: she had something to do; she was

delivered from the monotony of thought.

On her way from the stables she met Charles Batty going home for his

midday meal, and she stopped him. “Charles!” she said. She presented to

his appreciative eyes a very elegant figure in the habit looped up to

show her high slim boots, with her thick plait of hair under the hard

hat, her complexion defying the whiteness of her stock; while to her he

appeared with something of the aspect of an angel in a long top coat

and a hat at the back of his head. “Charles,” she said again, tapping

her boot with her whip, “I’m in trouble. Would you mind walking home by

the hill? I want you to help me, but I can’t tell you how. Not yet.”

He walked beside her without speaking and they came to the place where

he had stood with Henrietta and she had flouted him; whither she had

wandered on her first day in Radstowe, that high point overlooking the

gorge, the rocks, the trees, the river; that scene of which not

Charles, nor Rose, nor Henrietta could ever tire.

“Not, yet,” she repeated. “Will you meet me this afternoon?”

“Look here,” he remonstrated, “if Henrietta found out—”

She had not time to smile. “It’s for her sake.”

“I’ll do anything,” he said.

“Then will you meet me this afternoon at five o’clock? Not here. I may

not be able to get so far. Where can we meet?”

“Well, there’s the post-office. Can’t mistake that.”

“No, no, I may have something important, very important, Charles, to

say to you. At five o’clock, will you be on The Green? There’s a seat

by the old monument. It won’t take a minute to get there. Are you

listening? On The Green at five o’clock. Come towards me as soon as you

see me and at once we’ll walk together towards the avenue. Wait till

six, and if I don’t come, will you still hold yourself in readiness at

home? Don’t forget. Don’t be absent-minded and forget what you are

there for, and even if there’s a barrel-organ playing dreadful tunes,

you’ll wait there? For Henrietta.”

“I don’t understand this about Henrietta.”

“That doesn’t matter, not in the least. Now what are your

instructions?”

He repeated them.

“Very well. I trust you.”

They separated and she went home, a little amused by her melodramatic

conduct, but much comforted by the fact that Charles, though ignorant

of his part, was with her in this conspiracy. She was met by reproaches

from Sophia.

“Oh, Rose, riding on such a day! And Henrietta out, too! Suppose we’d

wanted something from the chemist!”

“But you didn’t, did you? And there are four servants in the house. How

is Caroline now?”

“Very quiet. Oh, Rose, she’s very ill. She lets me do anything I like.

She hasn’t a fault to find with me.”

“Let Henrietta sit with her this afternoon while Nurse is out.”

“No, no, Rose, I must do what I can for her.”

“I should like Henrietta to feel she is needed.”

“I don’t think Caroline would be pleased. I’ll see what she says.”

Caroline was distressingly indifferent but, as Henrietta went to her

room on her return and sent a message that she had a headache and did

not want any food, she was left undisturbed. Sophia became still more

agitated. What was the matter with the child? It would be terrible if

she were ill, too. Would Rose go and take her temperature? No, Rose was

sure Henrietta would not care for that. She had better be left to

sleep. If only she could be put to sleep for a few days!

Now that she was in the house and locked into her room, Rose was

alarmed. She was afraid she had done wrong in making that confession;

she had played what seemed to be her strongest card but she had played

it in the wrong way, at the wrong moment. She had surely roused the

girl’s antagonism and rivalry, and there came to Rose’s memory many

little scenes in which Reginald Mallett, crossed in his desires, or

irritated by reproaches, had suddenly stopped his storming, set his

stubborn mouth and left the house, only to return when need drove him

home.

But if Henrietta went, and Rose had no doubt of her intention, she

would not come back. She had the unbending pride of her mother’s class,

and Rose’s fear was changed into a sense of approaching desolation. The

house would be unbearable without Henrietta. Rose stood on the landing

listening to the small sounds from Caroline’s room and the unbroken

silence from Henrietta’s. If that room became empty, the house would be

empty too. There would be no swift footsteps up and down the stairs, no

bursts of singing, no laughter: she must not go; she could not be

spared. For a moment Rose forgot Francis Sales’s share in the

adventure: she could only think of her own impending loneliness.

She went quickly down the stairs and sat in the drawing-room, leaving

the door open, and after an hour or so she heard stealthy sounds from

the room above; drawers were opened carefully and Henrietta, in

slipperless feet, padded across the floor. Rose looked at her watch and

rang the bell.

“Please take a tray to Miss Henrietta’s room,” she told Susan, “with

tea, and sandwiches and, yes, an egg. She had no luncheon. A good,

substantial tea, please, Susan.” If the child were anticipating a

journey, she must be fed.

A little later she heard Susan knock at Henrietta’s door. It was not

opened, but the tray was deposited outside with a slight rattle of

china, and Susan’s voice, mildly reproachful, exhorted Miss Henrietta

to eat and drink.

At half-past four the tray was still lying there untouched. This meant

that Henrietta was in no hurry, or that she was too indignant to eat:

but it might also mean that she had no time. Only half-past four and

Charles Batty was not due till five! He might be there already; in his

place, she would have been there, but men were painfully exact, and

five was the hour she had named. But again, Charles Batty was not an

ordinary man. Trusting to that fact, she went to her room and provided

herself with money, and, having listened without a qualm at Henrietta’s

door, she ran out of the house.

The church facing The Green sounded the three-quarters and there, on

the seat by the old stone, sat Charles, his hands in his pockets, his

hat pulled over his eyes in a manner likely to rouse suspicions in the

mildest of policemen.

He rose. “Where’s your hat?”

“No time,” she said.

He repeated his lesson. “We were to walk towards the avenue.”

“Yes, but I daren’t. I want to keep in sight of the house. Come with

me. Here’s money. Don’t lose it.”

He held it loosely. “Some one’s been playing ‘The Merry Peasant’ for

half an hour,” he said. “I’ll never sit here again.”

“Charles, take care of the money. You may need it. There’s ten

pounds—all I had—but perhaps it will be enough. I want you to watch our

gate, and if Henrietta goes out, please follow her, but don’t let her

see you.”

“Oh, I say!” he murmured.

“I know. It’s hateful, it’s abominable, but you must do it.”

“She won’t be pleased.”

“You must do it,” Rose repeated.

“She’s sure to see me. Eyes like needles.”

“She mustn’t. She’ll probably go by train. If she goes to London, to

this address—I’ve written it down for you—you may leave her there for

the night and let me know at once. If she goes anywhere else, you must

go with her. Take care of her. I can’t tell you exactly what to do

because I don’t know what’s going to happen. She may meet somebody, and

then, Charles, you must go with them both. But bring her home if you

can. Don’t go to sleep. Don’t compose music in your head. Oh, Charles,

this is your chance!”

“Is it? I shall miss it. I always do the wrong thing.”

“Not to-night.” She smiled at him eagerly, imperiously, trying to endue

him with her own spirit. “Stay here in the shadow. I don’t think you

will have long to wait, and if you get your chance, if you have to talk

to her, don’t scold.”

“Scold! It’s she that scolds. She bullies me.”

“Ah, not to-night!” she repeated gaily.

He peered down at her. “Yes, you are rather like her in the face,

specially when you laugh. Better looking, though,” he added mournfully.

“Don’t tell her that.”

“Mustn’t I? Well, I don’t suppose I shall think of it again.”

“Remember that for you she is the best and most beautiful woman in the

world. You can tell her that.”

“The best and most beautiful—yes,” he said. “All right. But you’ll

see—I’ll lose her. Bound to,” he muttered.

She put her hand on his arm. “You’ll bring her home,” she said firmly,

and she left him standing monumentally, with his hat awry.

Charles stood obediently in the place assigned to him, where the

shelter of the Malletts’ garden wall made his own bulk less conspicuous

and whence he could see the gate. The night was mild, but a little wind

had risen, gently rocking the branches of the trees which, in the

neighbourhood of the street lamps, cast their shadows monstrously on

the pavements. Their movements gradually resolved themselves into

melody in Charles Batty’s mind: the beauty of the reflected and

exaggerated twigs and branches was not consciously realized by his

eyes, but the swaying, the sudden ceasing, and the resumption of that

delicate agitation became music in his ears. He, too, swayed slightly

on his big feet and forgot his business, to remember it with a jerk and

a fear that Henrietta had escaped him. Rose had told him he must not

make music in his head. How had she known he would want to do that? She

must have some faculty denied to him, the same faculty which warned her

that Henrietta was going to do something strange to-night.

He felt in his pocket to assure himself of the money’s safety. He

rearranged his hat and determined to concentrate on watching. The pain

which, varying in degrees, always lived in his bosom, the pain of

misunderstanding and being misunderstood, of doing the wrong thing, of

meaning well and acting ill, became acute. He was bound to make a

mistake; he would lose Henrietta or incense her, though now he was more

earnest to do wisely than he had ever been. He had told her he was

going to make an art of love, but he knew that art was far from

perfected, and she was incapable of appreciating mere endeavour. He was

afraid of her, but to-night he was more afraid of failing.

The music tripped in his head but he would not listen to it. He

strained his ears for the opening of the Malletts’ door, and just as

the sound of the clock striking two steady notes for half-past five was

fading, as though it were being carried on the light wings of the wind

over the big trees, over the green, across the gorge, across the woods

to the essential country, he heard a faint thud, a patter of feet and

the turning of the handle of the gate. He stepped back lest she should

be going to pass him, but she turned the other way, walking quickly,

with a small bag in her hand.

“She’s going away,” Charles said to himself with perspicacity, and now

for the first time he knew what her absence would mean to him. She did

not love him, she mocked and despised him, but the Malletts’ house had

held her, and several times a day he had been able to pass and tell

himself she was there. Now, with the sad little bag in her hand, she

was not only in personal danger, she threatened his whole life.

He followed, not too close. Her haste did not destroy the beauty of her

carriage, her body did not hang over her feet, teaching them the way to

go; it was straight, like a young tree. He had never really looked at

her before, he had never had a mind empty of everything except the

consideration of her, and now he was puzzled by some difference. In his

desire to discover what it was, he drew indiscreetly close to her, and

though a quick turn of her head reminded him of his duty to see and not

to be seen, he had made his discovery. Her clothes were different: they

were shabby and, searching for an explanation, he found the right one.

She was wearing the clothes in which she had arrived at Nelson Lodge.

He remembered. In books it was what fugitives always did: they

discarded their rich clothes and they left a note on the pin-cushion.

It was her way of shaking the dust from her feet and, with a rush of

feeling in which he forgot himself, he experienced a new, protective

tenderness for her. He realized that she, too, might be unhappy, and it

seemed that it was he who ought to comfort her, he who could do it.

He had to put a drag on his steps as they tried to hurry after her,

through the main street of Upper Radstowe, through another darker one

where there were fewer people and he had to exercise more care, and so

past the big square where tall old houses looked at each other across

an enclosure of trees, down to a broad street where tramcars rushed and

rattled. She boarded one of these and went inside. Pulling his hat

farther over his face in the erroneous belief that he would be the less

noticeable, he ascended to the top, to crane his head over the side at

every stopping-place lest Henrietta should get off; but there was no

sign of her until they reached that strange place in the middle of the

city where the harbour ran into the streets and the funnels and masts

of ships mingled with the roofs of houses. This was the spot where,

round a big triangle of paving, tramcars came and went in every

direction, and here everybody must alight.

The streets were brilliant with electricity; electric signs popped

magically with many-coloured lights on the front of a music hall where

an audience was already gathering for the first performance, on

public-houses, on the big red warehouses on the quay. The lighted

tramcars with passengers inside looked like magic-lantern slides, and

amid all the people using the triangle as a promenade or hurrying here

and there on business, the newsboys shouting and the general bustle,

Charles did not know whether to be more afraid of losing Henrietta or

colliding with her. But now his faculties were alert and he used more

discretion than was necessary, for Henrietta, under the influence of

that instinct which persuades that not seeing is a precaution against

being seen, was scrupulous in avoiding the encounter of any eye.

He followed her to another tramcar which would take her to the station;

he followed her when she alighted once more and, seeing her change that

bag from one hand to another, as though she found it heavy, he let out

a groan so loud and heartfelt that it aroused the pity of a passer-by,

but he was really luxuriating in his sorrow for her. It was an immense

relief after much sorrowing for himself and it induced a forgetfulness

of everything but his determination to help her.

It was easy to keep her in sight while she went up the broad approach

to the dull, crowded, badly lighted and dirty station: it was harder to

get near enough to hear what ticket she demanded. He did not hear, but

again he followed the little, shabby, yet somehow elegant figure, and

he took a place in the compartment next to the one she chose. It was

the London train, and he found himself hoping she was not going so far;

he felt that to see her disappearing into that house of which he had

the address in his pocket would be like seeing her disappear for ever.

He would lose his chance of helping her, or rather, she would lose her

chance of being helped, a slightly different aspect of the affair and

the one on which he had set his mind.

He had taken a ticket for the first stop, and when the train slowed

down for the station of that neighbouring city, he had his head out of

the window. An old gentleman with a noisy cold protested. Could he not

wait until the train actually stopped? Charles was afraid he could not

be so obliging. He assured the old gentleman that the night was mild.

“And I’m keeping a good deal of the draught out,” he said pleasantly.

He saw a small hand on the door of the next compartment, then the

sleeve of a black coat as Henrietta stretched for the handle, and he

said to himself, “She was in mourning for her mother.” He was proud of

remembering that; he had a sense of nearness and a slow suspicion that

hitherto he had not sufficiently considered her. In their past

intercourse he had been trying to stamp his own thoughts on her mind,

but now it seemed that something of her, more real than her physical

beauty, was being impressed on him. He wanted to know what she was

feeling, not in regard to him, but in regard, for instance, to that

dead mother, and why she ran away like this, in her old clothes and

with the little bag.

She was out of the train: she had descended the steps to the roadway

and there she looked about her, hesitating. Cabmen hailed her but,

ignoring them and crossing the tramlines, she began to walk slowly up a

dull street where cards in the house windows told of lodgings to be

let. If she knocked at one of these doors, what was he to do? But she

did not look at the houses: her head was drooping a little, her feet

moved reluctantly, she was no longer eager and her bag was heavy again,

she had changed it from the right to the left hand, and then,

unexpectedly, she quickened her pace. The naturally unobservant Charles

divined a cause and, looking for it, he saw with a shock of surprise

and horror the tall figure of a man at the end of the street. She was

hastening towards him.

Charles stood stock-still. A man! He had not thought of that, he had

positively never thought of it! Nor had he guessed at his capacity for

jealousy and anger. Then this was why Rose Mallett had sent him on this

mission: it was a man’s work, and in the confusion of his feelings he

still had time to wish he had spent more of his youth in the exercise

of his muscles. He braced himself for an encounter, but already

Henrietta had swerved aside. This was not the man she was to meet; her

expectation had misled her; but the acute Charles surmised that the man

she looked for would also be tall and slim.

Tall and slim; he repeated the words so that he should make no mistake,

but subconsciously they had roused memories and instead of that little

black figure hurrying on in front of him, he saw a young woman clothed

in yellow, entering from the frosty night, with brilliant half veiled

eyes, and by the side of her was Francis Sales.

Again he stood still, as much in amazement at his own folly as in any

other feeling. Francis Sales, the fellow who could dance, who murdered

music and little birds! And he had a wife! Charles was not shocked. If

Henrietta had wished to elope with a great musician, wived though he

might be, Charles could have let her go, subduing his own pangs, not

for her own sake but for that of a man more important than himself, but

he would not yield the claims of his devotion to Francis Sales. He

should not have her.

He walked on quickly, taking no precautions. He had lost sight of

Henrietta and he could not even hear the sound of her steps, yet he had

no doubt but he would find her, and she was not far to seek. A turn of

the road brought him under the shadow of the cathedral and, in the

paved square surrounded by old houses in which it stood, he saw her.

Apparently at that moment she also saw him, for with an incredibly

swift movement and a furtiveness which wrung his heart, she slipped

into the porch and disappeared. He followed. The door was unlocked and

she had passed through it, but he lingered there, fancying he could

smell the faint sweetness of her presence. Within, the organ was

booming softly and in that sound he forgot, for a moment, the necessity

for action. The music seemed to be wonderfully complicated with the

waft of Henrietta’s passage, with his love for her, with all he

imagined her to be, but the forgetfulness was only for that moment, and

he pushed open the door.

§ 8

The place was dimly lighted. Two candles, like stars, twinkled on the

distant altar; a few people sat in the darkness with an extraordinary

effect of personal sorrow. This was not where happy people came to

offer thanks; it was a refuge for the afflicted, a temporary harbour

for the weary. They did not seem to pray; they sat relaxed, wrapped in

the antique peace, the warm, musty smell of the building, sitting with

the stillness of their desire to preserve this safety which was theirs

only for a little while. Their dull clothes mixed with the shadows, the

old oak, the worn stone, and the voice of the organ was like the voice

of multitudes of sad souls. Very soon the music ceased with a kind of

sob and the verger, with his skirts flapping round his feet, came to

warn those isolated human creatures that they must face the world

again.

They rose obediently, but Henrietta did not move, as though she alone

of that company had not learnt the lesson of necessity. But the altar

lights were now extinguished, the skirted verger was approaching her,

and Charles forestalled him. He murmured, “Henrietta!”

She looked up without surprise. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Seven o’clock.”

She rose, picking up her bag.

“Let me have that,” he said.

“No, no,” she answered absently, and then, “Is it really seven?”

“Yes, there’s the clock striking now.” The sound of the seven notes

whirred and then clanged above their heads. “We must go,” he said.

“They’re locking up.” The air was cold and damp after the warmth of

the church and Henrietta stood, shivering a little and looking round

her.

“I’m hungry,” Charles Batty said. “Will you come and have dinner with

me?”

“No,” she replied, “I shall stay here.”

“How long for?”

“I don’t know.” And sharply she turned on him and asked, “What are you

doing here?”

“I come here sometimes. There are concerts.”

“You’ll be late, then, if you are going to dine.”

“I know, but I’m hungry. You can’t listen to music if you’re hungry.

Let’s have dinner first.”

The square was deserted, the lights in the little shops, where old

furniture and lace and jewels were sold, were all put out and the large

policeman who had been standing at the corner had moved away.

“I don’t want anything to eat,” she said. She dropped the bag and

covered her face with both her hands. She was going to cry, but he was

not afraid; he was rather glad and, not without pleasure at his own

daring, he removed a hand, tucked it under his arm, and said, “Come

along.”

She struggled. “I can’t. I must go to London. If you want to help me

you’ll find out about the trains. I can go to Mrs. Banks. I can’t go

back to Radstowe.”

“Henrietta,” he said firmly, “come and have dinner and we’ll talk about

it.”

“If you’ll promise to help me.”

“There’s nothing I want to do so much,” he said. “We mustn’t forget the

bag.”

“Somewhere quiet, Charles,” she murmured.

“Somewhere good,” he emended.

She looked down, “Such old clothes.”

“It doesn’t matter what you wear,” he told her. “You always look

different from anybody else.”

“Do I? And I am! I am! I’m much worse, and nobody,” she almost sobbed,

“is so unhappy! Charles, will you wait here for a minute? I must

just—just walk round the square.”

“You’ll come back?”

She nodded, and he kept the bag as hostage.

The large policeman had strolled back. He saw the tall young man

standing over the bag and thought it would be well to keep an eye on

him, but Charles did not notice the policeman. His whole attention was

for Henrietta’s reappearance. She would come back because she had said

she would, but if she did not come alone there would be trouble. He did

not, however, expect to see Francis Sales: he gathered that Sales had

failed her, and he was sorry. He would have beaten him, somehow; he

would have conquered for the first time in his life, and now he felt

that his task was going to be too easy. He wished he could have sweated

and panted in the doing of it; and when Henrietta returned alone,

walking with an angry swiftness, he felt a genuine regret.

“Come along, Charles,” she said briskly. “Let us have dinner.”

He could see the brightness of her eyes, looking past him; her lips had

a fixed smile and he wished she would cry again. “She is crying

inside,” he told himself. He moved forward beside her vaguely. The

tenderness of his love for her was like a powerful, warm wave, sweeping

over him and making him helpless for the time. He could do nothing

against it, he had to be carried with it, but suddenly it receded,

leaving him high and dry and unromantically in contact with a

lamp-post. His hat had fallen off.

“What are you doing?” Henrietta asked irritably.

He rubbed his head. “Bumped it. I was thinking about you.”

“What were you thinking?” she asked defiantly.

“Oh, well—” he said.

She laughed. “Charles, you’re hopeless.”

“No, I’m not.” He stooped for his hat and picked it up. “Not,” he

repeated strongly. “Here’s the place.” They had turned into a busy

street. “I hope there won’t be a band.”

“I hope there will be. I want noises, hideous noises.”

“You’re going to get them,” he sighed as he pushed open the swing-door

and received in his ears the fierce banging, braying and shrieking of

various instruments played in a frenzy by a group of musicians

confined, as if for the public safety, in a small gallery at the end of

the room. Large and encumbered by the bag, he stood obstructing the

waiters in the passage between the tables.

“They’re like wild beasts in a cage,” he said in the loud voice of his

anger. “Can you stand it?”

“Oh, yes—yes. Let us sit here, in this corner.” He was ridiculous, she

thought, yet to-night, unconscious of any absurdity himself, he had a

dignity; he was not so ugly as she had thought; his somewhat protruding

eyes had less vacancy, and though his tie was crooked, she was not

ashamed of him. Nevertheless, she said as he sat down, “Charles, I’m

going to London to-night. Get a time-table.”

“Soup first,” he said.

“I must go to-night. I can’t go back to Radstowe.”

“Did you,” he asked unexpectedly, “leave a note on your

dressing-table?”

“What?” She frowned. “No, of course not.”

“Oh, well, you can go back. We’re going to a concert together. It’s

quite easy. I told you you were different from everybody else.” And

then, remembering Rose’s words, he leaned across the table towards her.

“The most beautiful and the best,” he said severely.

“Me?”

“Yes. Here’s the soup.”

She drank it, looking at him between the spoonfuls. This was the man

who had talked to her by the Monks’ Pool. Here was the same detachment

he had shown then, and though the act of taking soup was not poetical,

though the band blared and the place shone with many lights, she was

taken back to that night among the trees, with the water lying darkly

at her feet, keeping its own secrets; with the ducks quacking sleepily

and unseen, and the water rats diving with a silken splash.

She seemed to be recovering something she had lost because she had

disregarded it, something she wanted, not for use but for the sake of

possessing and sometimes looking at it.

Sternly she tried not to think of Francis Sales, who had deserted her.

She might have known he would desert her. He had looked at Aunt Rose

and she had seen him weaken, yet he had promised. He was that kind of

man: he could not say no to her face, but he left her in this city, all

alone.

Her lips trembled; she steadied them with difficulty. She was

determined not to honour him with so much as a memory or a regret, but

there came forbidden recollections of the dance, of the terrace, and of

her hands in his. She closed her eyes and a tremor, delicious,

horrible, ran through her body. She felt the strength of those brown,

muscular hands and she was assailed by the odour of wind and tobacco

that clung to him. He had never said anything worth remembering, but

there had been danger and excitement in his presence. There was neither

in the neighbourhood of Charles, yet she could not forget his words.

She opened her eyes. “What was it you said just now?”

“You’re the best and most beautiful woman in the world. Your fish is

getting cold.”

She ate it without appetite or distaste. “But, Charles—”

“I know.”

“What?”

“Everything,” he said.

“How?”

He tapped himself, “Here.”

“I expect you’ve got it all wrong.”

“Yesterday, perhaps, but not to-day. To-day I know everything.”

“How does it feel?”

“Wonderful,” he replied. They laughed together but, as though with that

laughter the door to emotion had been opened, he saw tears start into

her eyes. “No,” he begged, “there’s no need to cry.”

She laughed again. “I’ve got to cry some time.”

“When we’re going home, then. We’re going home in a car.”

“Are we?” she said, pleased as a child. “But what about London,

Charles? I have to go.”

“Not to-night. Here’s some chicken.”

“I can’t go back.”

“But you haven’t left a note.”

“No.”

“Then it’s easy. You and I have just been to a concert. You promised me

that long ago.”

She uttered no more protests. She ate and drank obediently, glad to be

cared for, and when the meal was over she told him gratefully, “You

have been good. You never said another word about the band and it has

made even my head ache.”

“And I forgot about it!” He stared at her in amazement. “I forgot about

it! I didn’t hear it! Good heavens! But come away quickly before I

begin remembering.”

That they might be able to tell the truth, they went to the concert

and, standing at the back of the hall stayed there for a little while.

Even for Charles, the music was only a covering for his thoughts.

Henrietta, strangely gentle, was beside him, but he dwelt less on that

than on the greater marvel of the new power he felt within himself. She

might laugh at him, she might mock him in the future, but she could not

daunt him, and though she might never love him, he had done her

service. No one could take that from him. He turned his head and looked

down at her, to find her looking up at him, a little puzzled but

entirely friendly.

“Oh, Henrietta!” he whispered loudly, transgressing his own law of

silence and evoking an indignant hiss from an enthusiastic neighbour.

He blushed with shame, then decided that to-night he could not really

care, and signing to Henrietta to follow him, he tiptoed from the hall.

“Did you hear? Did you hear?” he asked her. “I spoke! I—at a concert!

I’ve never done that in my life before. I’ll never do it again! But,

then, it was the first time you’d ever looked at me like that,

Henrietta! And, oh Lord, we’ve forgotten the bag. I dare not go back

for it.”

“We’ll leave it, then,” she said indifferently. “I don’t want to see it

again.”

“But I like it. It’s an old friend. I’ve watched it—” He checked

himself. “I’ll go. Wait here.”

“Why aren’t we going home by train?” she asked, when he returned.

“The angry man didn’t see me,” he said triumphantly. “Oh, because—

well, you wanted somewhere to cry, didn’t you?”

In the closed car she sat, for a time very straight, looking out of the

window at the streets and the people, but when they had drawn away from

the old city and left its grey stone houses behind and taken to the

roads where slowly moving carts were creaking and snatches of talk from

slow-tongued country people were heard and lost in the same moment, she

sank back. The roads were dark. They were lined by tall, bare trees

which seemed to challenge this swift passage and then decide to permit

what they could not prevent, and for a mile or so the river gleamed

darkly like an unsheathed sword in the night.

“We shall soon be there, shan’t we?” she asked, in a small voice.

“Yes, pretty soon.”

“I wish we wouldn’t. I wish we could go on like this for ever, to the

edge of the world and then drop over and forget.”

He sighed. He could not arrange that for her but he told the man to

drive more slowly. Against the dark upholstery of the car, her face was

like a young moon, wan and too weary for its work. He slipped his arm

under her back and drew her to him. Pulling off her hat, she found a

place for her head against his shoulder and he shut his eyes. She

breathed regularly and lightly, as though she were asleep, but

presently she said, “Charles, I don’t mean anything by this, but you

are the only friend I have. You won’t think I mean anything, will you?”

He shook his head and it came to rest on hers. He, too, wished they

might go on like this for ever, to the world’s edge.

The car was stopped at a little distance from the house and Henrietta

had to rouse herself from the state between waking and sleeping,

thought and imagery, in which she had passed the journey. The jarring

of the brake shocked her into a recognition of facts and the gentle

humming of the engine reminded her that life had to go on as before.

The persistent sound, regular, not loud, controlled, was like existence

in Nelson Lodge; one wearied of it, yet one would weary more of

accidents breaking the healthy beating of the engine: to-night had been

one of the accidents and she was terribly tired. No wonder! She had

been trying to run away with a man who did not want her, a man who had

a lonely, miserable invalid for a wife, the old lover of Aunt Rose. A

little blaze of anger flared up at the thought of Rose; nevertheless,

she continued her self-accusations. She had been willing to leave her

aunts without a word and they had been good to her and one of them was

ill, and the very money in her pocket was not her own. She was shocked

by her behaviour. She was like her father, who took what belonged to

other people and used it badly.

She sat, flaccid, her hands loose on her lap. She felt incapable of

movement, but Charles was speaking to her, telling her to get out and

run home quickly. She looked at him. She was holding his friendly hand.

What would she have done without him? She saw herself in the train,

speeding through the lonely darkness; she saw herself knocking at Mrs.

Banks’s door, felt herself clasped to the doubtful blackness of that

bosom, and she shuddered.

“You must go,” Charles said, but he still held her hand.

He had brought her back to cleanliness and comfort, he had saved her

from behaviour of gross ingratitude, he had been marvellously kind and

wise.

“Charles,” she said, “it’s awful.”

“No, it’s all right. We’ve been to a concert.”

“Yes”—her voice sank—“I’ve kept that promise. But the whole thing— and

Aunt Caroline so ill. She may have died.”

“There hasn’t been time,” he said.

“Oh, Charles, it only takes a minute.”

“Well, run home quickly. This bag’s a nuisance,” he said, but he looked

at it tenderly. How he had dogged that bag! How heavy it had seemed for

her! “Look here, I’ll take it home and get it to you to-morrow

somehow.”

“I don’t want it. I hate it.”

He thought, “I’ll keep it, then,” and aloud he said, “I’ll wrap the

things up in a parcel and let you have them. Nothing you don’t want me

to see, is there?”

“No, nothing.”

“All right. Do get out, dear. No, I shall drive on.”

She lingered on the pavement. She had not said a word of thanks. She

jumped on to the step and put her head through the window. “Thank you,

kind Charles,” she said.

“Henrietta,” he began in a loud voice, filling the dark interior with

sound, “Henrietta—”

“What is it?”

“No, no. Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“No. Not fair,” he said. “Just weakness. Good night. Be quick.”

She ran along the street and gave the front-door bell a gentle push. To

her relief it was the housemaid and not Susan who opened to her. Susan

would have looked at her severely, but the housemaid had a welcoming

smile, an offer of food if Miss Henrietta had not dined.

Henrietta shook her head. She was going to bed at once. She did not

want anything to eat. How was Miss Caroline?

“Not so well to-night, Miss Henrietta. The doctor’s been again and

there’s a night-nurse come.”

Henrietta pressed her hands against her heart. Oh, good Charles,

wonderful Charles! She did not know how to be grateful enough. She

moved meekly, humbly through the hall and up the stairs. All was

terribly, portentously still, but in her bedroom there were no signs of

the trouble in the house. The fire was lighted, her evening gown had

been laid out on the bed, her silk stockings and slippers were in their

usual places. Nobody had suspected, nobody had been alarmed; she had

stolen back by a miracle into her place.

Yes, Charles Batty was a miracle, there was no other word for him and,

by contrast, the image of Francis Sales appeared mean, contemptible.

Why had he failed her? His desertion was a blessing, but it was also a

slight and perhaps a tribute to the power of Rose. Yes, that was it.

She set her little teeth. He had stared at Aunt Rose as though he could

not look at her enough, not with the starved expression she had first

intercepted long ago, but with a look of wonder, almost of awe. She was

nearly middle-aged, yet she could force that from him. Well, she was

welcome to anything he could give her, his offerings were no

compliment. Henrietta was done with him; she would not think of him

again; she had been foolish, she had been wicked, but she was the

richer and the wiser for her experience.

She had always been taught that sin brought suffering, yet here she

was, warm and comfortable, in possession of a salutary lesson and with

the good Charles for a secure friend. It was odd, unnatural, and this

variation in her case gave her a pleasant feeling of being a special

person for whom the operation of natural laws could be diverted. By the

weakness of Francis Sales and the strength of Aunt Rose whom,

nevertheless, she could never forgive, she was saved from much

unhappiness, and if her mother knew everything in that heaven to which

she had surely gone, she must now be weeping tears of thankfulness. Yet

Henrietta’s future lay before her rather drearily. She stretched out

her arms and legs; she yawned. What was she to do? Being good, as she

meant to be, and realizing her sin, as indeed she did, was hardly

occupation enough for all her energies.

Her immediate business was to answer a knock at the door. It was Rose

who entered. Her natural pallor was overlaid by the whiteness of

distress. “Oh, Henrietta, I am glad you have come in.”

“I’ve been to a concert with Charles Batty,” Henrietta said quickly.

Rose showed no interest or surprise. “Caroline is so much worse.”

Henrietta felt a pang at her forgetfulness. “She is very ill. I was

afraid you might not be back in time. She has been asking for you.”

“I’ve been to Wellsborough, to a concert,” Henrietta insisted. “Is she

as bad as that, Aunt Rose? But she’ll get better, won’t she?”

“Come with me and say good night to her. “Rose took Henrietta’s hand.

“How warm you are,” she said, in wonder that anything could be less

cold than Caroline soon would be.

Henrietta’s fingers tightened round the living hand. “She’s not going

to die, is she?”

“Yes, she’s dying,” Rose said quietly.

“Oh, but she can’t,” Henrietta protested. “She doesn’t want to. She’ll

hate it so.” It was impossible to imagine Aunt Caroline without her

parties, without her clothes, she would find it intolerably dull to be

dead. “Perhaps she will get better.”

Rose said nothing. They crossed the landing and entered the dim room.

Caroline lay in the middle of the big bed: with her hair lank and

uncurled she was hardly recognizable and strangely ugly. Her body

seemed to have dwindled, but her features were strong and harsh, and

Henrietta said to herself, “This is the real Aunt Caroline, not what I

thought, not what I thought. I’ve never seen her before.” She wondered

how she had ever dared to joke with her: she had been a funny, vain old

woman without much sensibility, immune from much that others suffered,

and now she was a mere human creature, breathing with difficulty and in

pain.

Henrietta stood by the bed, saying and doing nothing: Rose had slipped

away; the nurse was quietly busy at a table and Aunt Sophia was

kneeling before a high-backed chair with her elbows on the cushioned

seat, her face in her hands. She was praying; it was as bad as that.

Her back, the sash-encircled waist, the thick hair, looked like those

of a young girl. She was praying. Henrietta looked again at Aunt

Caroline’s grey face and saw that the eyes had opened, the lips were

smiling a little. “Good child,” she said, with immense difficulty, as

though she had been seeking those words for a long time and had at last

fitted them to her thought.

Sophia stirred, dropped her hands and looked round: the nurse came

forward with a little crackle of starched clothes. “Say good night to

her and go.”

Henrietta leaned over the empty space of bed and kissed Caroline on the

temple. “Good night, dear Aunt Caroline,” she said softly.

There was no answer. The eyes were closed again and the harsh breathing

went on cruelly, like waves falling back from a pebbled shore, and

Henrietta felt the dampness of death on her lips. No, Aunt Caroline

would not get better.

She died in the early morning while Henrietta slept. Susan, entering as

usual with Henrietta’s tea, did not say a word. She knew her place; it

was not for her to give the news to a member of the family; moreover,

she blamed Henrietta for Miss Caroline’s death. It was the Battys’ ball

that had killed Miss Caroline, and Susan stuck to her belief that if it

had not been for Miss Henrietta, there would not have been a ball.

Sleepily, Henrietta watched Susan draw the blinds, but something in the

woman’s slow, languid movements startled her into wakefulness. Her

dreams dropped back into their place. She had been sleeping warmly,

forgetfully, while death hovered over the house, looking for a way in.

She sat up in bed. “Aunt Caroline?”

Susan began to cry, but in spite of her tears and her distress she

ejaculated dutifully, “Miss Henrietta, your dressing-gown, your

slippers!” but Henrietta had rushed forth and bounded into Rose’s room.

“You might have told me! You might have waked me!”

Rose was writing at her desk. She turned. “Put on your dressing-gown,

Henrietta. You will get cold. I came into your room but you were fast

asleep, and in that minute it was all over. The big things happen so

quickly.”

Yes, that was true. Quickly one fell in and out of love, ran away from

home, returned and slept and waked to find that people had quickly

died. The big things happened quickly, but the little ones of every day

went on slow feet, as though they were tired of themselves.

“It was somehow a comfort,” Rose went on, “to know that you were fast

asleep, but living. You never moved when I kissed you.”

“Kissed me? What did you do that for?” Henrietta asked in a loud voice.

She had been taken unawares by the woman who had wronged her, yet she

was touched and pleased.

“I couldn’t help it. I was so glad to have you there, and you looked so

young. I don’t know what we should do without you, poor Sophia and I.

Oh, do put on my dressing-gown!”

“Yes, dear, yes, put on the dressing-gown.” It was Sophia who spoke.

Her face was very calm; she actually looked younger, as though the

greatness of her sorrow had removed all other signs, like a fall of

snow hiding the scars of a hillside.

“Oh, Aunt Sophia!” Henrietta went forward and pressed her cheek against

the other’s.

“Yes, dear, but you must go and dress. Breakfast is ready.”

Henrietta was a little shocked that Aunt Sophia, who was naturally

sentimental, should be less emotional on this occasion than Aunt Rose,

but she was also awed by this control. She remembered how, when her own

mother died, Mrs. Banks had refused to take solid food for a whole day,

and the recollection braced her for her cold bath, for fresh linen, for

emulation of Aunt Sophia, for everything unlike the slovenly weeping of

Mrs. Banks, sitting in the neglected kitchen with a grimy

pocket-handkerchief on her lap and the teapot at her elbow; but she

knew that the Banksian manner was really natural to her, and the

Mallett control, the acceptance, the same eating of breakfast, were a

pose, a falseness oddly better than her sincerity.

At table no one referred to Caroline; they were practical and composed

and afterwards, when Sophia and Rose were closeted together, making

arrangements, writing letters to relatives of whom Henrietta had never

heard, interviewing Mr. Batty and a husky personage in black, Henrietta

stole upstairs past Caroline’s death chamber and into her own room.

She was glad to find the pretty housemaid there, tidying the hearth and

dusting the furniture. She wanted to talk to somebody and the pretty

housemaid was sympathetic and discreet. She told Henrietta, inevitably,

of deaths in her own family, and Henrietta was interested to hear how

the housemaid’s grandmother had died, actually while she was saying her

prayers.

“And you couldn’t have a better end than that, could you, Miss

Henrietta?”

“I suppose not,” Henrietta said, “but it might depend on what you were

praying for.”

“Oh, she would be saying the usual things, Miss Henrietta, just daily

bread and forgive our trespasses. There was no harm in my grandmother.

It was her husband who broke his neck picking apples. His own apples,”

she said hastily, “And now poor Mrs. Sales has gone.”

“Mrs. Sales?”

“Yes, Miss Henrietta, I thought you’d know—last night. Her and Miss

Caroline together.” She implied that in this journey they would be

company for each other.

Henrietta found nothing to say, but above the shock of pity she felt

for the woman she had disliked and the awe induced by the name of

death, she was conscious of a load lifted from her mind: she had not

been deserted, her charm had not failed; it was the approach of death

that had held him back. She put the thought away lest it should lead to

others of which she would be ashamed, yet she felt a malicious

pleasure, lasting only for a second, at remembering that downstairs sat

Aunt Rose calmly full of affairs, Aunt Rose for whom the love of

Francis Sales had ceased too soon! And, suppressed but fermenting, was

the idea that in these late events, including the failure of her

escape, there was the kind hand of fate.

At that very moment Charles Batty chose to call.

“With a parcel, Miss Henrietta, and he would like to see you.”

“I can’t see him,” Henrietta said. “Tell him—tell him about Miss

Caroline.” She had already drifted away from Charles. He had been so

near last night, so almost dear in the troubled fog of her distress,

but this morning she had drifted and between them there was a shining

space of water sparkling hardly. But she spared him an instant of

gratitude and softness. His part in her life was like that, to a

sailor, of some lightship eagerly looked for in the darkness, of

strangely diminished consequence in the clear day, still there, safely

anchored, but with half its significance gone.

“I can’t see him,” she repeated.

She wanted, suddenly, to see Aunt Rose. Voices no longer came from the

drawing-room. Mr. Batty, genuinely sad in the loss of an old friend,

had gone; the undertaker had tiptoed off to his gloomy lair, and

Henrietta went downstairs, but when she saw her aunt she dared not ask

her if she knew about Christabel Sales. Rose had a look of

invulnerability; perhaps she knew, but it was impossible to ask, and if

she knew, it had made no difference. It seemed as though she had gone

beyond the reach of feeling: she and Sophia both wore white masks, but

Sophia’s was only a few hours old and Rose’s had been gradually

assumed. It was not only Caroline’s death which had given her that

strange, calm face: the expression had grown slowly, as though

something had been a long time dying, yet she hardly had a look of

loss. She seemed to be in possession of something, but Henrietta could

not understand what it was and she was vaguely afraid.

It was Aunt Sophia who, in spite of her amazing courage, had an air of

desolation. And there was no rouge on her cheeks: its absence made

Henrietta want to cry. She did cry at intervals throughout that day and

the ones that followed. It was terrible without Aunt Caroline and

pitiful to see Aunt Sophia keeping up her dignity among black-clothed,

black-beaded relatives who seemed to appear out of the ground like

snails after rain and who might have been part of the undertaker’s

permanent stock-in-trade. Henrietta hated the mournful looks of these

ancient cousins, the shaking of their black beads, their sibilant

whisperings, and in their presence she was dry-eyed and rather rude.

Aunt Caroline would have laughed at them and their dowdy clothes that

smelt of camphor, but it seemed as though no one would ever laugh again

in Nelson Lodge.

And over the river, in the unsubdued country, where death was only the

repayment of a loan, there was another house with lowered blinds and

voices hushed. She was irritated by the thought of it, of the

consolatory letters Francis would receive, of the emotions he would

display, or conceal, but at the same time she was sorry that in death,

as in life, Christabel should be lonely. Her large and lively family

was far away, even the cat had gone, and there were only the nurse and

Francis and the little dog to miss her. In a sense Henrietta missed her

too, and that fair region of fields and woods which had been as though

blocked by that helpless body now lay open, vast, full of

possibilities, inviting exploration; and when Henrietta looked at her

Aunt Rose, it was with the jealous eye of a rival adventurer. But that

was absurd: there could be no rivalry between them. Henrietta was sure

of that and she tried to avoid these speculations.

And meanwhile necessary things were done and Christabel Sales and

Caroline Mallett were buried on the same day. The beaded relatives

departed, not to reappear until the next death in the family, and Rose

and Henrietta, both perhaps thinking of Francis Sales returning to his

big empty house, returned with Sophia to a Nelson Lodge oppressive in

its desolation. It seemed now that the whole business of life there,

the servants, the fires, the delicate meals, had proceeded solely for

Caroline’s benefit; yet everything continued as before: the machinery

went on running smoothly; the dinner-table still reflected in its rich

surface the lights of candles, the sheen of silver, the pallor of

flowers. Nothing was neglected, everything was beautiful and exact, and

Susan had carefully arranged the chairs so that the vacant space should

not be emphasized.

The three black-robed women slipped into their seats without a word.

The soup was very hot, according to Caroline’s instructions, but the

cook, inspired more by the desire to give pleasant nutriment than by

tact, had chosen to make the creamy variety which was Caroline’s

favourite and, as each Mallett took up her spoon, she had a vision of

Caroline tasting the soup with the thoughtfulness of a connoisseur and

proclaiming it perfect to the last grain of salt.

“I can’t eat it,” Sophia said faintly. In this almost comic realization

of her loss she showed the first sign of weakness. She rose, trembling

visibly, and Susan, anxious for the preservation of the decencies,

opened the door and closed it on her faltering figure before the first

sob shook her body. The others, without exchanging a single glance,

proceeded with the meal, eating little, each eager for solitude and

each finding it unbearable to picture Sophia up there in the bedroom

alone.

“But she doesn’t want us,” Rose said.

“She might want me,” Henrietta replied provocatively, and for answer

Rose’s smile flickered disconcertingly across the candle-light, and her

voice, a little worn, said quietly, “Then go and see.”

The bedroom had a dreadful neatness; it smelt of disinfectant,

furniture polish and soap, and Sophia, from the big armchair, said

mournfully, “They might have left it as it was. It feels like

lodgings.” And as the very feebleness of her outcry smote her sense and

waked echoes of all she left unsaid, her mouth fell shapeless, and she

cried, “She’s gone!” in a tone of astonishment and horror.

Henrietta, sitting on a little stool before the fire, listened to the

weeping which was too violent for Sophia’s strength, and the harsh

sound reminded her of Aunt Caroline’s difficult breathing. It seemed as

though the noise would go on for ever: she counted each separate sob,

and when they had gradually lessened and died away the relief was like

the ceasing of physical pain.

“Aunt Sophia,” Henrietta said, “everybody has to die.”

Sophia heard. Tears glistened on her cheeks, her hair was disordered,

she looked like a large flaxen doll that had been left out in the rain

for a long time. “But each person only once,” she whispered. “One

doesn’t get used to it, and Caroline—” She struggled to sit up.

“Caroline would be ashamed of me for this.”

“She might pretend to be, but she’d like it really.”

“I don’t know,” Sophia murmured. “She had such character. You never

believed her, did you, Henrietta, when she made out she had been—had

been indiscreet?”

“No, I never believed it.”

“I’m glad of that. It was a fancy of hers. I encouraged her in it, I’m

afraid; but it made her happy, it pleased her and it did no harm. I

suppose nobody believed her, but she didn’t know. I don’t think I’ll

sit here doing nothing, Henrietta. I suppose I ought to go through her

papers. She never destroyed a letter. I might begin on them.”

“Oh, do you think you’d better? Don’t you like just to sit here and

talk to me?”

“No, no, I must not give way. I’m not the only one. There’s poor

Francis Sales. If he’d married Rose—I always planned that he should

marry Rose—and of course, we ought not to think of such things so soon,

but the thought has come to me that they may marry after all.”

Henrietta tightened the clasp of the hands on her knee and said, “Why

do you think that?”

“It would be suitable,” Sophia said.

“But she’s so old. Haven’t you noticed how old she has looked lately?”

“Old? Rose old?” Sophia’s manner became almost haughty. “Rose has

nothing to do with age. My only doubt is whether Francis Sales is

worthy of her. Dear Caroline used to say she ought to—to marry a king.”

“And she hasn’t married anybody,” Henrietta remarked bitingly.

“Nobody,” Sophia said serenely. “The Malletts don’t marry,” she sighed;

“but I hope you will, Henrietta.”

“No,” Henrietta said sharply. “I shan’t. I don’t want to. Men are

hateful.”

“No, dear child, not all of them. Perhaps none of them. When I was

eighteen—” She hesitated. “I must get on with her papers.” She stood up

and moved towards the bureau. “They’re here. We shared the drawers. We

shared everything.” She stretched out her hands and they fell heavily,

taking the weight of her body with them, against the shining slope of

wood.