Chapter V: Book II: Henrietta (2)

Then she noticed that one of the flowers was missing, a little one of a fairy pink and shape, and almost immediately she heard footsteps on the grass and saw a man approaching with the orchid in his hand. She recognized the man she had seen riding the black horse on the day she arrived in Radstowe and her heart fluttered. This was romance, this, she had time to think excitedly, must be preordained. But when he handed her the flower with a polite, “I think you dropped this,” she wished he had chosen to keep the trophy. If she had had the happiness of seeing him conceal it!

She said nervously, “Oh, yes, thank you very much. I’d just missed it,” and as he turned away she had at least the minor joy of seeing a look of arrested interest in his eyes.

She sat there holding the frail and almost sacred branch. She supposed she was in love; there was no other explanation of her feelings; and what a marvellous sequence of events! If Mr. Batty had not given her the orchids this romantic episode could not have happened. And she was glad that the eyes of the stranger had not rested on her that first day when she was wearing her shabby, her atrociously cut clothes. Fate had been kind in allowing him to see her thus, in a black dress with a broad white collar, a carefully careless bow, silk stockings covering her matchless ankles and—she glanced down—shoes that did their best to conceal the squareness of her feet.

She recognized her own absurdity, but she liked it: she Had leisure in which to be absurd, she had nothing else to do, And romance, which had seemed to be waiting for her outside Nelson Lodge, had now met her in the open! She was not going to pass it by. This was, she knew, no more than a precious secret, a little game she could play all by herself, but it had suddenly coloured vividly a life which was already opening wider; and she would have been astonished and perhaps disgusted, to learn that Aunt Rose had once occupied herself with similar dreamings. But She was spared that knowledge and she was tempted to wait in her place on the chance that the stranger would return, but, deciding that it was hardly what a Mallett would do, she rose reluctantly, carrying the pink orchid in one hand, the less favoured ones in the other.

The evening was exquisite: she saw a pale-blue sky fretted with green leaves, striped with tree trunks astonishingly black; she heard steamers threshing through the water and giving out warning whistles, sounds to stir the heart with the thoughts of voyage, of danger, and of unknown lands; and as she walked up the long avenue of elms she found that all the people strolling out after tea for an evening walk had happy, pleasant faces.

She met fathers and mothers in loitering advance of children, shy lovers with no words for each other, an old lady in a bath chair propelled by a man as old, young men in check caps, with flowers in their coats, earnest people carrying prayer-books and umbrellas, girls with linked arms and shrill laughter; and she envied none of them: not the children, finding interest in everything they saw; not the parents, proud in possession; not the old lady whose work was done, not the young men and women eyeing each other and letting out their enticing laughter; she envied no one in the world. She had found an occupation, and that night, sitting at the dinner-table, she was conscious of the difference in herself and of a new kinship with these women, the two who could look back on adventures, rosy and poetic, the one who seemed shrouded in some delicate mystery. It was as though she, too, had been initiated; she was surer of herself, even in the presence of Aunt Rose, with her beauty like that of a white flower, the faint irony of her smile.

§ 4

A few days later Rose said, “I want to take you to see a friend of mine, a Mrs. Sales.”

“Do the milkcarts belong to them?” Henrietta asked at once.

“Yes.” Rose was amused. “Mrs. Sales is an invalid and she would like to see you. Shall we go on Saturday?” She added as she left the room, “Mrs. Sales was hurt in a hunting accident, but you need not avoid the subject. She likes to talk about it.”

“What a good thing,” Henrietta said, practically.

Aunt Rose was dressed for walking and Henrietta was afraid of being asked to go with her, but Aunt Rose made no such suggestion. Since Sunday Henrietta had been exploring Radstowe and its suburbs with an enthusiasm surprising to the elder aunts, who did not care for exercise; but Henrietta was as much inspired by the hope of seeing that man again as by interest in the old streets, the unexpected alleys, the flights of worn steps leading from Upper to Lower Radstowe, the slums, cheek by jowl with the garden of some old house, the big houses deteriorated into tenements. All these had their own charm and the added one of having been familiar to her father, but she never forgot to watch for the hero on the horse, the restorer of her orchid. If she met him, should she bow to him, or pretend not to see him? She had practised various expressions before the glass, and had almost decided to look up as he passed and flash a glance of puzzled recognition from her eyes. She thought she could do it satisfactorily and to-day she meant to cross the bridge for the first time. He had been riding over the bridge that afternoon and what had happened once might happen again. Moreover, she had a feeling that across the water there was something waiting for her. Certainly behind the trees clothing the gorge there was the real country, with cows and sheep and horses in the meadows, with the possibility of rabbits in the lanes, and she had never yet seen a rabbit running wild. There were innumerable possibilities on that farther side.

She crossed the bridge, stood to look up and down the river, to watch the gulls, white against the green, to consider the ant-like hurrying of the people on the road below and the clustered houses on the city side, a medley of shapes and colours, rising in terraces, the whole like some immense castle guarding the entrance to the town. And as before, carriages and carts went and came over, schoolgirls on bicycles, babies in perambulators, but this time there was no man on a horse. She knew that this mattered very little; her stimulated excitement was hardly more than salt and pepper to a dish already appetizing enough, and now and then as she went along the road on a level with the tree-tops in the gorge and had glimpses of water and of rock, she had to remind herself of her preoccupation.

She passed big houses with their flowery gardens and then, suddenly timorous, she decided not to go too far afield. She might get lost, she might meet nasty people or horned beasts. A little path on her right hand had an inviting look; it might lead her down through the trees to the water’s edge. It was all strewn and richly brown with last autumn’s leaves and on a tree a few yards ahead she saw a brilliant object—tiny, long-tailed, extraordinarily swift. It was out of sight before she had time to tell herself that this was a squirrel; and again she had a consciousness of development. She had seen a squirrel in its native haunts! This was wonderful, and she approached the tree. The squirrel had vanished, but these woods, within sound of a city, yet harbouring squirrels, seemed to have become one of her possessions. She was enriched, she was a different person, and she, whose familiar fauna had been stray cats and the black beetles in Mrs. Banks’ kitchen, was actually in touch with nature. She now felt equal to meeting unattended cows, but the woods offered enough excitement for to-day.

She found that her path did not immediately descend. It led her levelly to an almost circular green space; then it became enclosed again and soft to the feet with grass; and just ahead of her, blocking her way, she saw two figures, those of a woman and a man. Their backs were towards her, but there was no mistaking Aunt Rose’s back. It was straight without being stiff, her dress fell with a unique perfection and the little hat and grey floating veil were hers alone.

For an instant Henrietta stood still, and the man, turning to look at his companion, showed the profile of her stranger. At the same moment he touched Aunt Rose’s hand and before Henrietta swerved and sped back whence she had come, she saw that hand removed gently, as though reluctantly, and the head, mistily veiled, shaken slowly.

Her first desire was for flight and, safely on the road again, she found her heart beating to suffocation; she was filled with an indignation that almost brought her to tears; it was as though Aunt Rose had deliberately robbed her of treasure—Aunt Rose, who was almost middle-aged! For a moment she despised that fair, handsome man whose image had filled her mind for what seemed a long, long time; then she felt pity for him who had no eyes for youth, yet she remembered his look of arrested interest.

But steadying her thoughts and enjoying her dramatic bitterness, she laughed. He had merely surprised her likeness to Aunt Rose and that was all. Her dream was over. She had known it was a dream, but the awakening was cruel; it was also intensely exciting. She did not regret it; she had at least discovered something about Aunt Rose. She had a lover. That look of his, that pleading movement of his hand, were unmistakable; he was a lover, and perhaps she, Henrietta Mallett, alone knew the truth. She had suspected a secret, now she knew it; and she had a sense of power, she had a weapon. She imagined herself standing over Aunt Rose, armed with knowledge, no longer afraid; she was involved in a romantic, perhaps a shameful, situation. Aunt Rose was meeting a lover clandestinely in the woods while Aunt Caroline and Aunt Sophia sat innocently at home, marvelling at Rose’s indifference to men, yet rejoicing in her spinsterhood; and Henrietta felt that Rose had wronged her stepsisters almost as much as she had wronged her niece. She was deceitful; that, in plain terms, accounted for what had seemed a mysterious and conquered sorrow. It was Henrietta who was to suffer, through the shattering of a dream.

She went home, walking quickly, but feeling that she groped in a fog, broken here and there by lurid lights, the lights of knowledge and determination. She was younger than Aunt Rose, she was as pretty, and she was the daughter of Reginald Mallett who, though she did not know it, had always wanted the things desired by other people. She could continue to love her stranger and at the back of her mind was the unacknowledged conviction that Aunt Rose’s choice must be well worth loving. And again how strangely events seemed to serve her: first the dropping of an orchid and now the leaping of a squirrel! She felt herself in the hands of higher powers.

She had a feverish longing to see Rose again, to see her plainly for the first time and dressing for dinner was like preparing for a great event. Yet when dinner-time came everything was surprisingly the same. The deceived Caroline and Sophia ate with the usual appetite, Susan hovered with the same quiet attention, and Rose showed no sign of a recent interview with a lover. Across the candlelight she looked at Henrietta kindly and Henrietta remembered the three thousand pounds. She did not want to remember them. They constituted an obligation towards this woman who did not sufficiently appreciate her, who met that man secretly, in a wood, who was beautiful with a far-off kind of beauty, like that of the stars. And while these angry thoughts passed through Henrietta’s mind, Rose’s tender expression had developed into a smile, and she asked, “Did you have a nice walk?”

Henrietta gulped. She looked steadily at Rose, and on her lips certain words began to form themselves, but she did not utter them, and instead of saying as she intended, “Yes, I went across the bridge and into those woods on the other side,” she merely said, “Yes, yes, thank you,” and smiled back. It had been impossible not to smile and she was angry with Aunt Rose for making her a hypocrite. Perhaps she had smiled like that in the wood and she did not look so very old. Even the flames of the candles, throwing her face into strong relief as she leaned forward, did not reveal any lines.

“Don’t walk too much, child,” Caroline said. “It enlarges the feet. Girls nowadays can wear their brothers’ shoes and men don’t like that. Have I ever told you”—Caroline was given to repetition of her stories—“how one of my partners, ridiculous creature, insisted on calling me Cinderella for a whole evening? Do you remember, Sophia?”

“Yes, dear,” Sophia said, and she determined that some day, when she was alone with Henrietta, she would tell her that she, too, had been called Cinderella that night. It was hard, but, since she loved her sister, not so very hard, to ignore her own little triumphs, yet she would like Henrietta to know of them. “Dear child,” she murmured vaguely.

“We have our shoes made for us,” Caroline went on. “It’s necessary.” She snorted scorn for a large-footed generation.

Rose laughed. She said, “Walk as much as you like, Henrietta. Health is better than tiny feet.”

Henrietta had no response for this remark. For the first time she felt out of sympathy with her surroundings, and her resentment against Rose spread to her other aunts. They were foolish in their talk of men and little feet; they knew, for all their worldliness, nothing about life. They had never known what it was to be insufficiently fed or clothed; they had never battled with black beetles and mutton bones, their white hands had never been soiled by greasy water and potato skins and she felt a bitterness against them all. “Nonsense, Rose, what do you know about it?” Caroline asked. “You’re a nun, that’s what you are.”

“Ah, lovely!” Sophia sighed, but Henrietta, thinking of that man in the wood, raised her dark eyebrows sceptically.

“Lovely! Rubbish! A nun, and the first in the family. All our women,” Caroline turned to Henrietta, “have broken hearts. They can’t help it. It’s in the blood. You’ll do it yourself. All except Rose. And our men—” she guffawed; “yes, even the General—but if I tell you about our men Sophia will be shocked.”

“The men!” Henrietta straightened herself and looked round the table. Her dark eyes shone, and the anger she was powerless to display against Aunt Rose, the remembrance of her own and her mother’s struggles, found an outlet. “You can’t tell me anything I don’t know. I don’t think it is funny. Haven’t I suffered through one of them? My father, he wasn’t anything to boast about.”

“Henrietta,” Sophia said gently, and Caroline uttered a stern, “What are you saying?”

“I don’t care,” Henrietta said. “Perhaps you’re proud of all the harm he did, but my mother and I had to bear it. He was weak and selfish; we nearly starved, but he didn’t. Oh, no, he didn’t!” With her hands clasped tightly on her knee she bent over the table and her head was lowered with the effect of some small animal prepared for a spring. “Do you know,” she said, “he wore silk shirts? Silk shirts! and I had only one set of underclothing in the world! I had to wash them overnight. That was my father—a Mallett! Were they all like that?”

There was silence until Caroline, peeling an apple with trembling fingers, said severely, “I don’t think we need continue this conversation.” Her indignation was beyond mere words; she was outraged; her brother had been insulted by this child who owed his sisters gratitude; the family had been held up to scorn, and Henrietta, aware of what she had done and of her obligations, was overwhelmed with regret, with confusion, with the sense that, after all, it was she who really loved and understood her father.

“We will excuse you, Henrietta, if you have finished your dessert,” Caroline said. She had a great dignity.

This was a dismissal and Henrietta stood up. She could not take back her words, for they were true: she did not know how to apologize for their manner; she felt she would have to leave the house to-morrow and she had a sudden pride in Aunt Caroline and in her own name. But there was nothing she could do.

Most unexpectedly, Rose intervened. “You must forgive Henrietta’s bitterness,” she said quietly. “It is natural.”

“But her own father!” Sophia remonstrated tearfully, and added tenderly, “Ah, poor child!”

Henrietta dropped into her chair. She wept without concealment. “It isn’t that I didn’t love him,” she sobbed.

“Ah, yes, you loved him,” Sophia said. “So did we.” She dabbed her face with her lace handkerchief. “It is Rose who knows nothing about him,” she said, with something approaching anger. “Nothing!”

“Perhaps that is why I understand,” Rose said.

“No, no, you don’t!” Henrietta cried. She could not admit that. She would not allow Aunt Rose to make such a claim. She looked from Caroline to Sophia. “It’s we who know,” she said. Yes, it was they three who were banded together in love for Reginald Mallett, in their sympathy for each other, in the greater nearness of their relationship to the person in dispute. She looked up, and she saw through her tears a slight quiver pass over the face of Rose and she knew she had hurt her and she was glad of it. “You must forgive me,” she said to Caroline.

“Well, well; he was a wretch—a great wretch—a great dear. Let us say no more about it.”

It was Rose, now, who was in disgrace, and it was Henrietta, Caroline and Sophia who passed an evening of excessive amiability in the drawing-room.

Henrietta felt heroically that she had thrown down her glove and it was annoying, the next morning, to find Rose would not pick it up. She remained charming; she was inimitably calm: she seemed to have forgotten her offence of the night before and Henrietta delighted in the thought that, though Rose did not know it, she and Henrietta were rivals in love, and she told herself that her own time would come.

She had only to wait. She was a great believer in her own luck, and had not Aunt Caroline assured her that all the Mallett women were born to break hearts—all but Aunt Rose? Some day she was bound to meet that man again and, looking in the glass after the Mallett manner, she was pleased with what she saw there. She was her father’s daughter. Her father had never denied himself anything he wanted, and since her outbreak against him she felt closer to him; she was prepared to condone his sins, even to emulate them and find in him her excuse. She looked at the portrait on the wall, she kissed her hand to it. Somehow he seemed to be helping her.

But with all her carefully nurtured enmity, she could not deny her admiration for Aunt Rose. She was proud to sit beside her in the carriage which took them to Sales Hall, and on that occasion Rose talked more than usual, telling Henrietta little stories of the people living in the houses they passed and little anecdotes of her own childhood connected with the fields and lanes.

Henrietta sighed suddenly. “It must be nice,” she said, “to be part of a place. You can’t be part of London, in lodging-houses, with no friends. I should love to have had a tree for a friend, all my life. It sounds silly, but it would make me feel different.” She was angry with herself for saying this to Aunt Rose, but again she could not help it. She saw too much with her eyes and Aunt Rose pleased them and she assured herself that though these softened her heart and loosened her tongue, she could resume her reserve at her leisure. “There was a tree, a cherry, in one of the gardens once, but we didn’t stay there long. We had to go.” She added quickly, “It was too expensive for us. I suppose they charged for the tree, but I did long to see it blossom; and this spring,” she waved a hand, “I’ve seen hundreds—I’ve seen a squirrel—” She stopped.

“Dear little things,” Rose said. They were jogging alongside the high, bare wall she hated, and the big trees, casting their high, wide branches far above and beyond it, seemed to be stretching out to the sea and the hills.

“Have you seen one lately?” Henrietta asked.

“What? A squirrel? No, not lately. They’re shy. One doesn’t see them often.”

“Oh, then I was lucky,” Henrietta said. “I saw one in those woods we’ve just passed, the other day.” She looked at her Aunt Rose’s creamy cheek. There was no flush on it, her profile was serene, the dark lashes did not stir.

“Soon,” Rose said, “you will see hills and the channel.”

“And when shall we come to Mrs. Sales’ house? Is she an old lady?”

“I don’t think you would call her very old. She is younger than I am.”

“Oh, that’s not old,” Henrietta said kindly. “Has she any children?”

“No, there’s a cat and a dog—especially a cat.”

“And a husband, I suppose?”

“Yes, a husband. Do you like cats, Henrietta?”

“They catch mice,” Henrietta said informatively.

“I don’t think this one has ever caught a mouse, but it lies in wait— for something. Cats are horrible; they listen.” And she added, as though to herself, “They frighten me.”

“I’m more afraid of dogs,” Henrietta said.

“Oh, but you mustn’t be.”

“Well,” Henrietta dared, “you’re afraid of cats.”

“I know, but dogs, they seem to be part of one’s inheritance—dogs and horses.”

“All the horses I’ve known,” Henrietta said with her odd bitterness, “have been in cabs, and even then I never knew them well.”

“Francis Sales must show you his,” Rose said. “There are the hills. Now we turn to the left, but down that track and across the fields is the short cut to Sales Hall. One can ride that way.”

“I should like to see the dairy,” Henrietta remarked, “or do they pretend they haven’t one?”

Rose smiled. “No, they’re very proud of it. It’s a model dairy. I’ve no doubt Francis will be glad to show you that, too. And here we are.”

The masculine hall, with its smell of tobacco, leather and tweed, the low winding staircase covered with matting, its walls adorned with sporting prints, was a strange introduction to the room in which Henrietta found herself. She had an impression of richness and colour; the carpet was very soft, the hangings were of silk, a fire burned in the grate though the day was warm and before the fire lay the cat. The dog was on the window-sill looking out at the glorious world, full of smells and rabbits which he loved and which he denied himself for the greater part of each day because he loved his mistress more, but he jumped down to greet Rose with a great wagging of his tail.

She stooped to him, saying, “Here is Henrietta, Christabel. Henrietta, this is Mrs. Sales.”

The woman on the couch looked to Henrietta like a doll animated by some diabolically clever mechanism, she was so pink and blue and fair. She was, in fact, a child’s idea of feminine beauty and Henrietta felt a rush of sorrow that she should have to lie there, day after day, watching the seasons come and go. It was marvellous that she had courage enough to smile, and she said at once, “Rose Mallett is always trying to give me pleasure,” and her tone, her glance at Rose, startled Henrietta as much as if the little thin hand outside the coverlet had suddenly produced a glittering toy which had its uses as a dagger. She, too, looked at Rose, but Rose was talking to the dog and it was then that Henrietta became really aware of the cat. It was certainly listening; it had stretched out its fore-paws and revealed shining, nail-like claws, and those polished instruments seemed to match the words which still floated on the warm air of the room.

“And now she has brought you,” Christabel went on. “It was kind of you to come. Do sit here beside me. Tell me what you think of Rose. Tell me what you think,” she laughed, “of your aunt. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes, very,” Henrietta said, and she spoke coldly, because she, too, was a Mallett, and she suspected this praise uttered in Rose’s hearing and still with that sharpness as of knives. She had never been in a room in which she felt less at ease: perhaps she had been prejudiced by Aunt Rose’s words about the cat, but that seemed absurd and she was confused by her vague feelings of anger and pity and suspicion.

However, she did her best to be a pleasant guest. She had somehow to break the tenseness in the room and she called on her reserve of anecdote. She told the story of Mr. Jenkins trying to fetch his boots and catch a glimpse of Mrs. Banks’s daily help who could cook but had no character; she described the stickiness of his collar; and because she was always readily responsive to her surroundings, she found it natural to be humorous in a somewhat spiteful way; and at a casual mention of the Battys, she became amusing at the expense of Charles and felt a slight regret when she had roused Christabel’s laughter. It seemed unkind; he had confided in her; she had betrayed him; and Rose completed her discomfiture by saying, “Ah, don’t laugh at poor Charles. He feels too much.”

Christabel nodded her head. “Your aunt is very sympathetic. She understands men.” She added quickly, “Have you met my husband?”

“No,” Henrietta said, “I’ve only seen your carts.”

The two women laughed and it was strange to hear them united in that mirth. Henrietta looked puzzled. “Well,” she explained, “it was one of the first things I noticed. It stuck in my head.” Naturally the impressions of that day had been unusually vivid and she saw with painful clearness the figure of the man on the horse, as enduring as though it had been executed in bronze yet animated by ardent life.

“Well,” Christabel said, “you are to have tea with the owner of the carts. Rose has tea with him every time she comes. It’s part of the ceremony.” She sighed wearily; the cat moved an ear; the nurse entered as a signal that the visitors must depart. “You’ll come again, won’t you?” Christabel asked, holding Henrietta’s hand and, as Rose said a few words to the nurse, she whispered, “Come alone”; and surprisingly, from the hearthrug, there was a loud purring from the cat.

It was like release to be in the matted corridor again and it was in silence that Rose led the way downstairs. Henrietta followed slowly, looking at the pictures of hounds in full cry, top-hatted ladies taking fences airily, red-coated gentlemen immersed in brooks, but at the turn of the stairs she stood stock-still. She had the physical sensation of her heart leaving its place and lodging in her throat. Her stranger was standing in the hall; he was looking at Aunt Rose, and she knew now what expression he was wearing in the wood; he was looking at her half-angrily and as though he were suffering from hunger. She could not see her aunt’s face, but when Henrietta stood beside her, Rose turned, saying, “Henrietta, let me introduce Mr. Sales.”

He said, “How do you do?” and then she saw again that look of interest with which she seemed to have been familiar for so long. “I think I have seen you before,” he said.

“It was you who picked up my orchid.”

“Of course.” He looked from her to Rose. “I couldn’t think who you reminded me of, but now I know.”

“I don’t think we are very much alike,” Henrietta said.

Rose laughed. “Oh, don’t say that. I have been glad to think we are.”

“You might be sisters,” said Francis Sales.

This little scene, being played so easily and lightly by this man and woman, had a nightmare quality for Henrietta. It had the confusion, the exaggerated horror of an evil dream, without the far-away consciousness of its unreality. Here she was, in the presence of the man she loved and it was wicked to love him. She had longed to meet him and now she wished she might have kept his memory only, the figure on the horse, the man with the pink orchid in his hand. She had suspected her Aunt Rose of a secret love affair, she had now discovered her guilty of sin. The evidence was slight, but Henrietta’s conviction was tremendous. She was horrified, but she was also elated. This was drama, this was life. She was herself a romantic figure; she was robbed of her happiness, her youth was blighted; the woman upstairs was wronged and Henrietta understood why there were knives on her tongue: she understood the watchfulness of the cat.

Yet, as they sat in the cool drawing-room with its pale flowery chintz, its primrose curtains, the faded water-colours on the walls and Aunt Rose pouring tea into the flowered cups, she might, if she had wished, have been persuaded that she was wrong. Perhaps she had mistaken that angry, starving look in the man’s eyes; it had gone; nothing could have been more ordinary than his expression and his conversation. But she knew she was not wrong and she sat there, on the alert, losing not a glance, not a tone. Her limbs were trembling, she could not eat and she was astonished that Aunt Rose could nibble biscuits with such nonchalance, that Francis Sales could eat plum cake.

He was, without doubt, the most attractive man she had ever seen; his long brown fingers fascinated her. And again she wondered at the odd sequence of events. She had seen his name on the carts, she had seen him on the horse, he had picked up her pink orchid, she had been led by Fate and a squirrel into the wood and now she found him here. It was like a play and it would be still more like a play if she snatched him from Aunt Rose. In that idea there was the prompting of her father, but her mother’s part in her was a reminder that she must not snatch him for herself. No, only out of danger; men were helpless, they were like babies in the hands of women, and hands could differ; they could hurt or soothe, and she imagined her own performing the latter task. She saw it as her mission, and on the way home she told herself that her silence was not that of anger but of dedication.

§ 5

She thought Aunt Rose looked at her rather curiously, though there was no expression so definite in that glance. Her aunts did not ask questions, they never interfered, and if Henrietta chose to be silent it was her own affair. She was, as a matter of fact, swimming in a warm bath of emotion and she experienced the usual chill when she descended from the carriage and felt the pavement under her feet. She had dedicated herself to a high purpose, but for the moment it was impossible to get on with the noble work. The mere business of life had to be proceeded with, and though the situation was absorbing it receded now and then until, looking at her Aunt Rose, she was reminded of it with a shock.

She looked often at her aunt, finding her more than ever fascinating. She tried to see her with the eyes of Francis Sales, she tried to imagine how Rose’s clear grey eyes, so dark sometimes that they seemed black, answered the appeal of his, yet, as the days passed, Henrietta found it difficult to remember her resignation and her wrongs in this new life of luxury and pleasure.

She woke each morning to the thought of gaiety and to the realization of comfort and the blessed absence of anxiety. Her occupation was the getting of enjoyment and she took it all eagerly yet without greed, and as she was enriched she became generous with her own offerings of laughter, sympathy and affection. She liked and looked for the brightening of Caroline and Sophia at her approach, she became pleasantly aware of her own ability to charm and she rejoiced in an exterior world no longer limited to streets. Each morning she went to her window and looked over and beyond the roofs, so beautiful and varied in themselves, to the trees screening the open country across the river and if the sight reminded her to sigh for her own sorrows and to think bitterly of Aunt Rose, she had not time to linger on her emotions. Summer was gay in Upper Radstowe. There were tea-parties and picnics, she paid calls with her aunts and learnt to play lawn tennis with her contemporaries. Her friendship with the Battys ripened.

She was always sure of her welcome at Prospect House, and though she often assured herself that she could love no one but Francis Sales, that was no reason why others should not love her. From that point of view John Batty was a failure. He took her to a cricket match, but finding that she did not know the alphabet of the game, and was more interested in the spectators than in the players, he gave her up. He admired her appearance, but it did not make amends for ignorance of such a grossness; and, equally displeased with him, she returned home alone while he watched out the match.

The next day when she paid her usual Sunday visit, she ignored him pointedly and mentally crossed him off her list. Charles, ugly and odd, was infinitely more responsive, though he greeted her on this occasion with reproach.

“You went to a cricket match yesterday with John.”

“It was very boring and I got a headache. I shall never go again.”

“He said he wouldn’t take you.”

Henrietta smiled subtly, implying a good deal.

“I shouldn’t have thought,” Charles went on mournfully, “of suggesting such a thing.”

“My aunts were rather shocked. I went on the top of a tramcar with him.”

“But if you can go out with him, why shouldn’t you go out with me?”

“But where?” Henrietta questioned practically.

“Well, to a concert.”

“When?”

“When there is one. I don’t know. They won’t have one in this God-forsaken place until the autumn.”

“That’s a long time ahead.”

He spread his hands. “You see, I never have any luck. I just want you to promise.”

“Oh, I’ll promise,” Henrietta said.

“It will be the first time I’ve been anywhere with a girl,” he said. “I don’t get on.”

“Have you wanted to?”

He sighed. “Yes, but not much.” Her laughter, which was so pretty, startled him; it also delighted him with its music, and his sad eyes grew wider and more vague. He had an inspiration. “I’ll take you home now.”

“I’m not going home. I’ve promised to go to Sales Hall.”

“Sales Hall—oh, yes, he’s the man who talks at concerts—when he goes. I know him. Have you ever wanted to murder anyone? I’ve wanted to murder him. I might some day. You’d better warn him.”

Was this another strand in the web of her drama, she wondered. Was Aunt Rose involved in this too? She breathed quickly. “Why, what has he done to you?”

He ground his teeth, looking terrible but ineffectual. “Stolen beauty. That’s what his sort does. He kills lovely things that fly and run, for sport, and he steals beauty, spoils it.”

“Who?” she whispered.

“That man Sales.”

“No, no. Who has he stolen and spoilt?”

“Heavenly music—and my happiness. I lost a bar—a whole bar, I tell you. I’ll never forgive him. I can’t get it back.”

“If that’s all—” Henrietta gestured.

“And there are others,” Charles went on. “I never forget them. I meet them in the streets and they look horrible—like beetles.” “I believe you’re mad,” Henrietta said earnestly. “It’s not sense.”

“What is sense?” Henrietta could not tell him. She looked at him, a little afraid, but excited by this proximity to danger. And I thought you would understand.”

“Of course I do.” She could not bear to let go of anything which might do her credit. “I do. But you exaggerate. And Mr. Sales—” She hesitated, and in doing so she remembered to be angry with Charles Batty for maligning him. “How can you judge Mr. Sales?” she asked with scorn. “He is a man.” “And what am I?” Charles demanded.

“You’re—queer,” she said.

“Yes”—his face twisted curiously—“I suppose if I shot things and chased them, you’d like me better. But I can’t—not even for that, but perhaps, some day—” He seemed to lose himself in the vagueness of his thoughts.

She finished his sentence gaily, for after all, it was absurd to quarrel with him. “Some day we’ll go to a concert.”

He recovered himself. “More than that,” he said. He nodded his head with unexpected vigour. “You’ll see.”

She gazed at him. It was wonderful to think of all the things that might happen to a person who was only twenty-one, but she hastily corrected her thoughts. What could happen to her? In a few short days events had rushed together and exhausted themselves at their source! There was nothing left. She said good-bye to Charles and thought him foolish not to offer to accompany her. She said, “It’s a very long way to Sales Hall,” and he answered, “Oh, you’ll meet that man somewhere, potting at rabbits.”

“Do you think so? I hope he won’t shoot me.” And she saw herself stretched on the ground, wounded, dying, with just enough force to utter words he could never forget—words that would change his whole life. She was willing to sacrifice herself and she said good-bye to Charles again, and sorrowfully, as though she were already dead. She tried to plan her dying words, but as she could not hit on satisfactory ones, she contented herself with deciding that whether she were wounded or not, she would try to introduce the subject of Aunt Rose; and as she went she looked out hopefully for a tall figure with a gun under its arm.

She met it, but without a gun, on the track where, on one side, the trees stood in fresh green, like banners, and on the other the meadows sloped roughly to the distant water. He had been watching for her, he said, and suddenly over her assurance there swept a wave of embarrassment, of shyness. She was alone with him and he was not like Charles Batty. He looked down at her with amusement in his blue, thick-lashed eyes, and it was difficult to believe that here was the hero, or the villain, of the piece. She felt the sensation she had known when he handed her the orchid, and she blushed absurdly when he actually said, as though he read her thoughts, “No orchids to-day?”

“No.” She laughed up at him. “That was a special treat. I didn’t see Mr. Batty this afternoon, and he couldn’t afford to give them away every Sunday.”

“Do you go there every Sunday?” “Yes; they’re very kind.”

“They would be.”

This reminded her a little of Mr. Jenkins, though she cast the idea from her quickly. Mr. Jenkins was not worthy of sharing a moment’s thought with Francis Sales; his collar was made of rubber, his accent was grotesque; but the influence of the boarding-house was still on her when she asked very innocently, “Why?”

“Oh, I needn’t tell you that.”

It was Mr. Jenkins again, but in a voice that was soft, almost caressing. Did Mr. Sales talk like this to Aunt Rose? She could not believe it and she was both flattered and distressed. She must assert her dignity and she had no way of doing it but by an expression of firmness, a slight tightening of lips that wanted to twitch into a smile.

“Mr. Charles Batty,” the voice went on, “seems to have missed his opportunities, but I have always suspected him of idiocy.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said untruthfully, and then, loyally, she protested. “But he’s not an idiot. He’s very clever, too clever, not like other people.”

“Well, there are different names for that sort of thing,” he said easily, and she was aware of an immense distance between her and him— he seemed to have put her from him with a light push—and at the same time she was oppressively conscious of his nearness. She felt angry, and she burst out, “I won’t have you speaking like that about Charles.”

“Certainly not, if he’s a friend of yours.”

“And I won’t have you laughing at me.”

He stopped in his long stride. “Don’t you laugh yourself at the things that please you very much?”

“Oh, don’t!” she begged. He was too much for her; she was helpless, as though she had been drugged to a point when she could move and think, but only through a mist, and she felt that his ease, approaching impudence, was as indecent as Aunt Rose’s calm. It was both irritating and pleasing to know that she could have shattered both with the word she was incapable of saying, but her nearest approach to that was an inquiry after the health of Mrs. Sales. He replied that she was looking forward to Henrietta’s visit. She had very few pleasures and was always glad to see people.

“Aunt Rose”—here was an opportunity—“comes, doesn’t she, every week?”

He said he believed so.

“Did you know her when she was a little girl?”

He gave a discouraging affirmative.

“What was she like?”

“I don’t know.” He had, indeed, forgotten.

“Well, you must remember her when she was young.”

“Young?”

Henrietta nodded bravely though he seemed to smoulder. “As young as I am.”

“She was exactly the same as she is now. No, not quite.”

“Nicer?”

“Nicer? What a word! Nice!” He looked all round him and made a flourish with his stick. He could not express himself, yet he seemed unable to be silent. “Do you call the sky nice?”

“Yes, very, when it’s blue.”

He gave, to her great satisfaction, the kind of laugh she had expected. “Let us talk about something a little smaller than the sky,” he said. He looked down at her, and she was relieved to see the anger fading from his face; but she was glad to have learnt something of what he felt for Aunt Rose. To him she was like the sky whence came the rain and the sunshine, where the stars shone and the moon, and she wondered to what he would have compared herself. “You said we might be sisters.”

He looked again. She wore a broad white hat in honour of the season, her black dress was dotted with white; from one capable white hand she swung her gloves; she tilted her chin, a trick she had inherited from her father, in a sort of challenge.

“You like the idea?” he asked.

“I don’t believe it. I’m really the image of my father. Did you know him?”

“No. Heard of him, of course.”

“It’s him I’m like,” Henrietta repeated firmly.

“Then the story of his good looks must be true.”

Mixed with her pleasure, she had a return of disappointment. Here was Mr. Jenkins once more, and while it was sad to discover his re-incarnation in her ideal, it was thrilling to resume the kind of fencing she thought she had resigned. She forgot her virtuous resolves, and the remainder of the walk was enlivened by the hope of a thrust which she would have to parry, but none came. Francis Sales seemed to have exhausted his efforts, and at the door he said with a sort of sulkiness, “I think you had better go up alone. You must let me see you home.”

This was not her first solitary visit to Christabel Sales, and she half dreaded, half enjoyed meeting the glances of those wide blue eyes, which were searching behind their innocence and hearing remarks which, though dropped carelessly, always gave her the impression of being tipped with steel. She was bewildered, troubled by her sense that she and Christabel were allies and yet antagonists, and her jealousy of her Aunt Rose fought with her unwilling loyalty to one of her own blood. There were moments when she acquiesced in the suggestions offered in the form of admiration, and others when she stiffened with distaste, with a realization that she herself was liable to attack, with horror for the beautiful luxurious room, the crippled woman, the listening cat. Henrietta sometimes saw herself as a mouse, in mortal danger of a feline spring, and then pity for Christabel would overcome this weariness; she would talk to her with what skill she had for entertainment, and she emerged exhausted, as though from a fight.

This evening she was amazed to be received without any greeting, but a question: “Has Rose Mallett told you why I am here?” Christabel was lying very low on her couch. Her lips hardly moved; these might have been the last words she would ever utter.

“Yes, a hunting accident. And you told me about it yourself.”

There was a silence, and then the voice, its sharpness dulled, said slowly, “Yes, I told you what I remembered and what I heard afterwards. A hunting accident! It sounds so simple. That’s what they call it. Names are useful. We couldn’t get on without them. I get such queer ideas, lying here, with nothing to do. Before I was married I never thought at all. I was too happy.” She seemed to be lost in memory of that time. Henrietta sat very still; she breathed carefully as though a brusqueness would be fatal, and the voice began again. “They call you Henrietta. It’s only a name, but it doesn’t describe you; nobody knows what it means except you, but it’s convenient. It’s the same with my hunting accident. Do you see?”

Henrietta said nothing. She had that familiar feeling of being in the dark, and now the evening shadows augmented it. She was conscious of the cat behind her, on the hearthrug.

“Do you see?” Christabel persisted.

“Things have to be called something,” Henrietta said.

“That’s just what I have been telling you. And so Rose Mallett calls it a hunting accident.” A high-pitched and thin laugh came from the pillows. “She was terribly distressed about it. And she actually told me she had suspected that mare from the first. She told me! It’s funny—don’t you think so?”

“No,” Henrietta said stoutly, “not funny at all.” She spoke in a very firm and reasonable voice, as though only her common sense could combat what seemed like insanity in the other. “I think it’s very sad.”

“For me? Oh, yes, but I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of your charming aunt, the most beautiful woman in Radstowe. That’s what I have heard her called. Yet why hasn’t she married? Can’t she find anybody”—the voice was gentle—“to love her? She suspected that mare but she warned nobody. Funny—”

Henrietta had a physical inward trembling. She felt a dreadful rage against the woman on the couch, a sickening disgust, such as she would have felt at looking down a dark, deep well and seeing slime and blind ugliness at the bottom. She felt as though her ears were dirty; she tried to move, but she sat perfectly still and, dreading what would come next, she listened, fascinated.

“Perhaps she is in love with somebody. Does she get many letters, Henrietta? She is very reserved, she doesn’t tell me much; but, of course, I’m interested in her.” She laughed again. “I am very anxious for her happiness. It would comfort me to know anything you can tell me.”

Henrietta managed to stand up. “I know nothing,” she said in a slightly broken voice. “I don’t want to know anything.”

Christabel interrupted smoothly. “Perhaps you are wise or you couldn’t stay happily in that house. They’re all like witches, those women. They frighten me. You must be very brave, Henrietta.”

“I’m very grateful,” Henrietta said; “and I shan’t come here again, no, never. I don’t know what you have been trying to tell me, but I don’t believe it. It’s no good crying. I shall never come back. They’re not witches.” She had a vision of them at the dinner table, Rose like a white flower, Caroline and Sophia jewelled, gaily dressed, a little absurd, oddly distinguished. “Witches! They are my father’s sisters, and I love them.”

“Ah, but you don’t know Rose,” Christabel sobbed. “And don’t say you will never come again. And don’t tell Francis. He would be angry.”

“How could I tell him?” Henrietta asked indignantly. “No, no, I don’t want to see either of you again. I shall go away—go away—” She left the room to the sound of a horrible, faint weeping.

She meant what she had said. She thought she would go away from Radstowe and forget Christabel Sales, forget Francis Sales, whom she would no longer pretend to love; forget those insinuations that Aunt Rose was guilty of a crime. This place and these people were abhorrent to her, she felt she had been poisoned and she rushed down the long avenue where, overhead, the rooks were calling, as though she could only be saved by the clean night air beyond the house. She was shocked; she believed that Christabel was mad; the thought of that warm room where the cat listened, made her gasp, and her horror extended to Francis Sales himself. The place felt wicked, but the clear road stretching before her, the pale evening sky and the sound of her own feet tapping the road restored her.

She was glad to be alone and, avoiding the short cut, she enjoyed the sanity of the highway used by ordinary men and women in the decent pursuit of their lives. But now the road was empty and though at another time she would have been afraid of the lonely country, to-night she had a sense of escape from greater perils than any lurking here. And before long it all seemed like a dream, but it was a dream that might recur if she ran the risk.

No, she would never go there again, she would never envy Aunt Rose a lover from that house, she would never believe that the worst of Christabel’s implications were true. They were the fabrications of a suspicious woman, and though her jealousy might be justified, it seemed to Henrietta that she deserved her fate. She was hateful, she was poisonous, and Henrietta felt a sudden tenderness for Aunt Rose and Francis Sales. They could not help themselves, for they were unfortunate, she longed to show them sympathy and she saw herself taking them by the hand and saying gently, “Confide in me. I understand.” She imagined Aunt Rose melting at that touch and those words into tears, perhaps of repentance, certainly of gratitude, but at this point Henrietta’s fancies were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind her. She quickened her pace, then began to run, and the steps followed, gaining on her. She could not outrun them and she stopped, turning to see who came.

“Miss Mallett!” It was the voice of Francis Sales. She sank down on a heap of stones, panting and laughing. He sat beside her. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I hate to hear anybody coming behind me. It might have been a tramp. I’m very much afraid of tramps.”

“I said I would see you home.”

“Yes, I forgot. Let us go on.”

“You didn’t stay long.”

“I don’t think Mrs. Sales is very well.”

“She isn’t. She gets hysterical and that affects her heart. I thought you would do her good.” He seemed to blame Henrietta. “And I thought a walk with you would do me good, too. I have a pretty dull life.”

“Aren’t you interested in your cows and things?”

“A man can’t live on cows.”