Chapter IX: Book III: Rose and Henrietta (3)

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.”