The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing) Part 19

Rose managed a laugh. 'Oh, Henrietta, how primitive!'

'Yes,' Henrietta agreed, but she knew she had betrayed Francis Sales.

She knew and Rose knew that she would not have struck him if the kiss had been paternal. 'I suppose it was vulgar,' she murmured sadly, yet not without some skill.

Rose descended the two stairs without a word and went to the bottom of the flight, but there she paused, saying, 'Take off your things and let us have some music.'

Henrietta was learning to sing, and in defiance of Charles Batty's prophecy, she neither squeaked nor gurgled. She piped with a pretty simplicity and with an enjoyment which made her forget herself. Yet she looked charming, standing in the candle-light beside the s.h.i.+ning grand piano on which Aunt Rose accompanied her, and to-night she felt they were united in more than the music: they were friends, they were fellow-sufferers, and long after Henrietta had tired of singing, Rose went on playing, mournfully, as it seemed to Henrietta, consoling herself with sweet sounds. Sophia sat before her embroidery frame, slowly pus.h.i.+ng her needle in and out; Caroline read a novel with avidity and an occasional pause for chuckles, and when Rose at length dropped her hands on her knees and remained motionless, staring at the keys, Henrietta startled her aunts by saying firmly, 'I am just going to enjoy life.'

Rose raised her head and her enigmatic smile widened a little.

Caroline exclaimed, 'Good gracious! Why not?' Sophia said gently, 'That is what we wish.'

Henrietta stiffened herself for questions which did not come. n.o.body expressed a desire to know what had caused this solemn declaration: Caroline went on reading, Sophia embroidering; Rose retired to bed.

Henrietta was not daunted by this indifference. She persisted in her determination; she cast off all thoughts of ministering like an angel, or revenging like a demon; she enjoyed the gaieties with which the youth of Radstowe amused itself during the summer months; she accompanied her aunts to garden parties, ate ices, had her fortune told in tents, flirted mildly and endured Charles Batty's peculiar half-apprehensive tyranny.

Nothing went amiss with Charles but what he seemed to blame her for it, and while she resented this strange form of attention, she had a compensating conviction that he was really paying tribute and she knew that the absence of his complaints would have left a blank. Fixing her with his pale eyes, he described the bitterness of life in his father's office, his mismanagement of clients, his father's sneers, his mother's sighs; his sufferings in not being allowed to go to Germany and study music.

'If I were a man,' Henrietta said, voicing a pathetic faith in masculine ability to break bonds, 'I would do what I liked. I'd go to Germany and starve and be happy. A man can do and get anything he really wants.'

'Ah, I shall remember that,' he said. 'But I can't go to Germany now,'

he added darkly, and when she asked him for a reason, he groaned.

'Even you--even you don't understand me.'

In this respect she understood him perfectly well, but she did not wish to clear the mysterious gloom, not devoid of excitement, in which they moved together; and they parted for the summer holidays, miserably on his part, cheerfully on hers. She was going to Scotland with Aunt Rose and the prospect was so delightful that she did not trouble to inquire about his movements.

She was surprised and almost disappointed that he did not reproach her for this thoughtlessness when, on her return, she went to call on Mrs.

Batty and hear about her annual holiday at Bournemouth. Mrs. Batty had suffered very much from the heat, Mr. Batty had suffered from dyspepsia, and they were glad to be at home again, though it was to find that John, without a hint to his parents, had engaged himself to a girl with tastes like his own.

'But it's bull-dogs with her, instead of terriers,' Mrs. Batty sighed.

'She brings them here and they s...o...b..r on the carpets--dirty things.

And golf. But she's a nice girl, and they go out before breakfast with the dogs and have a game--but I did hope he would look elsewhere, dear.' She gazed sentimentally at Henrietta. 'I don't feel she will ever be a daughter to me. Of course, I kissed her and all that when I heard the news, but now she just comes in and says, "Hullo, Mrs.

Batty! Where's John?" And that's all. I do like affection. She'll kiss the bull-dogs, though,' Mrs. Batty added grimly; 'but whether she ever kisses John, I can't say. And as for Charles, he never looks at a girl, so I'm as badly off as ever. Worse, for Charles, really Charles hasn't a word to throw at me. He comes down to breakfast and you'd think the bacon had upset him, and it's the best I can get. And his father sits reading the paper and lifting his eyebrows over the edge at Charles. He's very cool, Mr. Batty is. Half the time, John comes in late for breakfast, after his game, you know, and then he's in too much of a hurry to talk. They might all be dumb. With Charles it's all that piano business. I tell him I wish he'd go to Germany and be done with it, though I never think musicians are respectable, with all that hair. Anyhow, Charles is getting bald, and he says he's too old to start afresh. And then he glares at his father. It's all very unpleasant. Still, he's a good boy really. They're both good boys.

I've a lot to be thankful for; and, my dear,'--her voice sank, and she laid a plump hand on Henrietta's--'Mr. Batty says we may give a ball after Christmas. Everybody in Radstowe. We shall take the a.s.sembly Rooms. The date isn't fixed, and now and then, if he isn't feeling well, Mr. Batty says he can't afford it. But that's nonsense, we shall have it; but don't say a word. I've told n.o.body else, but somehow, Henrietta, I always want to tell you everything, as if you were my daughter.' Mrs. Batty sighed heavily. 'If only Charles were different!'

However, Charles surprised his mother that evening by walking to the gate with Henrietta. Arrived there, he announced firmly that he would take her home.

'I'm going for a walk,' Henrietta said.

'Oh, a walk. Well, all right. Where shall we go? I know, I will take you where you've never been before.'

It was October and already the lamps were lighted in the streets; they studded the bridge like fairy lanterns for a fairy path to that world of woods and stealthy lanes and open country where the wind rustled the gorse bushes on the other side. Below, at the water's edge, more lamps stood like sentinels, here and there, straight and lonely, fulfilling their task, and as Charles and Henrietta watched, the terraces of Radstowe became illuminated by an unseen hand. Over everything there was a suggestion of enchantment: lovers, strolling by, were romantic in their silence; a faint hoot from some steamer was like a laugh.

'It will be dark over there, won't it?' Henrietta asked.

'Frightfully. We'll cut across the fields.'

'Not to Sales Hall?'

'Sales Hall? What for? To see that miserable fellow? We're not going near Sales Hall.'

She breathed a word.

'What did you say?' he asked.

'Cows,' she breathed again.

'Perhaps.'

'But in the winter,' she said hopefully, 'I should think they shut them up at night, poor things.'

'Not cold enough yet for that.'

'I'm afraid of them, you know.'

'Domestic animals,' he said calmly.

'Horns,' she whispered.

They said no more. Their path edged those woods which in their turn edged the gorge; but here and there the trees spread themselves more freely and, through the darkness, Henrietta had glimpses of furtive little paths, of dips and hollows. A small pool, thick with early fallen leaves, had hardly a foot of gleaming surface with which to gaze like an unwinking eye at the emerging stars. But this skirting of the wood came to an end and there stretched before their feet, which made the only sound in the quiet night, a broad white road where the arched gateway of a distant house looked like the fragment of a temple.

'I like this,' Henrietta said; 'I feel safe.'

'Not for long,' Charles replied sternly. He opened a gate and through a little coppice they reached a fence. 'You'll have to climb it.' The broad fields on the other side were as dark as water and as still. It was surprising, when she jumped down, to find she did not sink, to find that she and Charles could walk steadily on this blackness, cut here and there by the deeper blackness of a hedge. There were no cows, but sheep stumbled up and bleated at their approach, and for some time the tinkling of the bell-wether's bell accompanied them like music.

'There's a stile here,' Charles said, and from this they plunged into another wood where birds fluttered and twittered and, in the undergrowth, there were small stealthy sounds.

'I wouldn't come here alone,' Henrietta said, 'for all the world.'

Charles said nothing. Mrs. Batty was right: it was like walking with a dumb man. They left the wood and walked downhill beside a ploughed field, and in the shelter of a high wall. An open lane brought them to a gate, the gate opened on a rough road through yet another wood of larch and spruce and fir. The road was deeply rutted and they walked in single file until Charles turned, saying, 'This is what I've brought you to see. This is "The Monks' Pool."'

A large pond, almost round and strewn with dead leaves about its edge, lay sombrely on their right hand, without a movement, without a gleam.

It was like a pall covering something secret, something which must never be revealed, and opposite, where the ground rose steeply, tall firs stood up, guardians of the unknown. Faint quackings came from some unseen ducks among the willows and water gurgled at the invisible outlet of the pond; there were little stirrings and sighings among the trees. The protruding roots of an oak offered a seat to Henrietta, and behind her Charles leaned against the trunk.

It was comfortable to have him there, to be able to look at this dark beauty without fear, and as she sat there she heard an ever-increasing number of little sounds; they were caused by she knew not what: small creatures moving among the pine needles, night birds on the watch for prey, water rats, the flop of fish, the fall of some leaf over-ripe on the tree, her own slow breathing, the m.u.f.fled ticking of her heart; and into this orchestra of tiny instruments there came slowly, and as if it grew out of all these, another sound.

It was the voice of Charles, and it was so much a part of this rare experience, it seemed so right a complement, that at first she did not listen to the sense of what he said. The words had no clearer meaning than had the other voices of the night; the whole thing was wonderful --the tall, immobile trees, the small, secret sounds, the black lake like an immense, mysterious pall, the steady booming of the voice, had the effect of magic.

This was essential beauty revealed to her ears and eyes, but gradually the words formed themselves into sentences and were carried to her brain. She understood that Charles was talking of himself, of her, with an eloquence born of long-considered thoughts. He was telling her how she appeared to him as a being of light and sweetness and necessity; he was telling her how he loved her; he was asking for nothing, but he was saying amazing things in language worthy of his thoughts of her.

That m.u.f.fled ticking of her heart went on like distant drum beats, the symphony of tiny instruments did not pause, the dominant sound of Charles's voice continued, and now, as she listened, she heard nothing but his voice. He was not pathetic, he did not plead, he did not claim: he spoke of very old and lasting things, and it was like hearing some one read a tale. She did not stir. She forgot that this was Charles; it was a simple heart become articulate. And then suddenly the voice stopped and the orchestra, as though in relief, in triumph, seemed to play more loudly. A water rat dived again, a duck quacked sleepily and a branch of a tree creaked mournfully under a lost puff of wind.

Henrietta turned her head and saw Charles Batty standing motionless against the tree. His hat was tilted a little to one side and his eyes were staring straight before him. Even the darkness was not entirely kind to him, but that did not matter. She wondered if he knew what he had been saying; she could not remember it all, but it would come back. As they went home over the dark fields, she would remember it.

It seemed to have everything and yet nothing to do with her; it was like poetry that, without embarra.s.sment, profoundly moves the hearer, and his very voice had developed the dignity of his theme.

He did not speak again. In complete silence they retraced their steps and at the gate of Nelson Lodge he left her. In the little high-walled garden she stood still. This had been a wonderful experience. She felt uplifted, better than herself, yet she could not resist speculating on her probable feelings if another than Charles Batty, if, for instance, Francis Sales, had poured that rhapsody into the night.