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Mayor + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +hr { margin: 100px auto 50px auto; + height: 1px; + border-width: 1px 0 0 0; + border-style: solid; + border-color: black; + width: 400px; + clear: both; + } +hr.hr2 {margin: 50px auto 50px auto; width: 200px;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +td.left {text-align: left; padding-right: 1em;} +td.right {text-align: right;} + +em {font-style: italic;} +ins {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dashed silver;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /*visibility: hidden;*/ + position: absolute; + right: 5px; + font-size: 10px; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + font-style: normal; + letter-spacing: normal; + text-indent: 0em; + text-align: right; + color: #999999; + background-color: #ffffff; + } /* page numbers */ + + +.block {margin: auto; text-align: center; width: 28em;} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.noi {text-indent: 0em;} +.i2 {padding-left: 2em;} +.i4 {padding-left: 4em;} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.io { + display: block; + margin-left: -.2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3.2em; +} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +// --> +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Third Miss Symons, by Flora Macdonald Mayor + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Third Miss Symons + +Author: Flora Macdonald Mayor + +Release Date: October 28, 2008 [EBook #27071] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRD MISS SYMONS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h3>Contents</h3> + +<table summary="Table of Contents" style="width: 10em;"> +<colgroup> +<col width="50%" /> +<col width="50%" /> +</colgroup> +<tr> +<td class="right" colspan="2"><a href="#preface">Preface</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#i">I</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#ii">II</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#iii">III</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#iv">IV</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#v">V</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#vi">VI</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#vii">VII</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#viii">VIII</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#ix">IX</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#x">X</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#xi">XI</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#xii">XII</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Chapter</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#xiii">XIII</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + + +<h1>THE THIRD MISS SYMONS</h1> +<hr class="hr2" /> +<h2>F. M. Mayor</h2> +<h3><em>With a Preface by John Masefield<br /> +First published in Great Britain 1913</em></h3> + +<h5>Copyright F. M. Mayor 1913</h5> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="preface" id="preface"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Miss Mayor</span>'s story is of a delicate quality, not common here, though +occurring at intervals, and always sure of a choice, if not very large, +audience among those who like in art the refined movement and the gentle +line. Her subject, like her method, is one not commonly chosen by women +writers; it is simply the life of an unmarried idle woman of the last +generation, a life (to some eyes) of wasted leisure and deep futility, +but common enough, and getting from its permitted commonness a +justification from life, who is wasteful but roughly just. Miss Mayor +tells this story with singular skill, more by contrast than by drama, +bringing her chief character into relief against her world, as it passes +in swift procession. Her tale is in a form becoming common among our +best writers; it is compressed into a space about a third as long as the +ordinary novel, yet form and manner are so closely suited that all is +told and nothing seems slightly done, or worked with too rapid a hand. +Much that is tiresome in the modern novel, the pages of analysis and of +comment, the long descriptions and the nervous pathology, are omitted by +Miss Mayor's method, which is all for the swift movement and against the +temptations to delay which obstruct those whose eyes are not upon life; +she condenses her opportunities for psychology and platitude into a +couple of shrewd lines and goes on with her story, keeping her freshness +and the reader's interest unabated. The method is to draw the central +figure rapidly past a succession of bright lights, keeping the lights +various and of many colours and allowing none of them to shine too long. +This comparatively passive creative method suits the subject; for her +heroine has the fate to be born in a land where myriads of women of her +station go passively like poultry along all the tramways of their +parishes; life is something that happens to them, it is their duty to +keep to the tracks, and having enough to eat and enough to put on +therewith to be content, or if not content, sour, but in any case to +seek no further over the parochial bounds. Her heroine, born into such a +tradition, continues in it, partly by the pressure of custom and family +habit, both always very powerful and often deadly in this country, and +partly from a want of illumination in herself, her instructors, and in +the life about her. The latter want is the fatal defect in her: it is +the national defect, "the everlasting prison remediless" into which so +many thousands of our idle are yearly thrown; it is from this that she +really suffers; it is to this that she succumbs, while the ivy of her +disposition grows over and smothers whatever light may be in her. Like +water in flood-time revolving muddily over the choked outlet, her life +revolves over the evil in it without resolution or escape; her brain, +like so many of the brains in civilization, is but slightly drawn upon +or exercised; she is not so much wasted as not used. Having by fortune +and tradition nothing to do, she remains passive till events and time +make her incapable of doing, while the world glitters past in its +various activity, throwing her incapacity into ever stronger relief, +till her time is over and the general muddle is given a kind of +sacredness, even of beauty, by ceasing. She has done nothing but live +and been nothing but alive, both to such passive purpose that the +ceasing is pitiful; and it is by pushing on to this end, instead of +shirking it, and by marking the last tragical fact which puts a dignity +upon even the meanest being, that Miss Mayor raises her story above the +plane of social criticism, and keeps it sincere. A lesser writer would +have been content with less, and having imagined her central figure +would have continued to stick pins into it, till the result would have +been no living figure, but a record of personal judgments, perhaps even, +as sometimes happens, of personal pettiness, a witch's waxen figure +plentifully pricked before the consuming flame. Miss Mayor keeps on the +side of justice, with the real creators, to whom there is nothing simple +and no one unmixed, and in this way gets beauty, and through beauty the +only reality worth having.</p> + +<p>In a land like England, where there is great wealth, little education +and little general thought, people like Miss Mayor's heroine are common; +we have all met not one or two but dozens of her; we know her emptiness, +her tenacity, her futility, savagery and want of light; all circles +contain some examples of her, all people some of her shortcomings; and +judgment of her, even the isolation of her in portraiture, is dangerous, +since the world does not consist of her and life needs her. In life as +in art those who condemn are those who do not understand; and it is +always a sign of a writer's power, that he or she keeps from direct +praise or blame of imagined character. Miss Mayor arrives at an +understanding of her heroine's character by looking at her through a +multitude of different eyes, not as though she were her creator, but as +if she were her world, looking on and happening, infinitely active and +various, coming into infinite contrast, not without tragedy, but also +never without fun. The world is, of course, the comparatively passive +feminine world, but few modern books (if any) have treated of that +world so happily, with such complete acceptance, unbiassed and +unprejudiced, yet with such selective tact and variety of gaiety. She +comes to the complete understanding of Henrietta by illuminating all the +facets in her character and all the threads of her destiny, and this is +an unusual achievement, made all the more remarkable by a brightness and +quickness of mind which give delightful life to a multitude of incidents +which are in themselves new to fiction. Her touch upon all her world is +both swift and unerring; but the great charm of her work is its +brightness and unexpectedness; it lights up so many little unsuspected +corners in a world that is too plentifully curtained.</p> + +<p class="i2">JOHN MASEFIELD, 1913</p> + + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span><big>THE THIRD MISS SYMONS</big></h2> + +<h2><a name="i" id="i"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Henrietta</span> was the third daughter and fifth child of Mr. and Mrs. Symons, +so that enthusiasm for babies had declined in both parents by the time +she arrived. Still, in her first few months she was bound to be +important and take up a great deal of time. When she was two, another +boy was born, and she lost the honourable position of youngest. At five +her life attained its zenith. She became a very pretty, charming little +girl, as her two elder sisters had done before her. It was not merely +that she was pretty, but she suddenly assumed an air of graciousness and +dignity which captivated everyone. Some very little girls do acquire +this air: what its source is no one knows. In this case certainly not +Mr. and Mrs. Symons, who were particularly clumsy. Etta, as she was +called, was often summoned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> from the nursery when visitors came; so were +Minna and Louie her elder sisters, but all the ladies wanted to talk to +Etta. Minna and Louie had by this time, at nine and eleven, advanced to +the ugly, uninteresting stage, and they owed Henrietta a grudge because +she had annexed the petting that used to fall to them. They had their +revenge in whispering interminable secrets to one another, of which Etta +could hear stray sentences. "Ellen says she knows Arthur was very +naughty, because ... But we won't tell Etta." She was very susceptible +to notice, and the petting was not good for her.</p> + +<p>When she was eight her zenith was past, and her plain stage began. Her +charm departed never to return, and she slipped back into +insignificance. At eight she could no longer be considered a baby to +play with, and a good deal of fault-finding was deemed necessary to +counteract the previous spoiling. In Henrietta's youth, sixty years ago, +fault-finding was administered unsparingly. She did not understand why +she was more scolded than the others, and decided that it was because +Ellen and Miss Weston and her mother had a spite against her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Symons was not fond of children, and throughout Henrietta's +childhood she was delicate, so that Henrietta saw very little of her. +Her chief recollections of her mother were of scoldings in the +drawing-room when she had done anything specially naughty.</p> + +<p>If she had been one of two or one of three in a present-day family she +would have been more precious. But as one of four daughters—another +girl was born when she was eight—she was not much wanted. Mr. Symons +was a solicitor in a country town, and the problem of providing for his +seven, darkened the years of childhood for the whole Symons family. The +children felt that their parents found them something of a burden, and +in those days there was no cult of childhood to soften the hard reality.</p> + +<p>The two older boys had a partnership together, into which they +occasionally admitted Minna and Louie. Minna and Louie had, beside their +secrets, a friend named Rosa. Harold, the youngest boy, did not want any +person—only toy engines. He and Etta should have been companions, but +he said she cried and told tales, though she told no more tales than he +did.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>A large family should be such a specially happy community, but it +sometimes occurs that there is a girl or boy who is nothing but a middle +one, fitting in nowhere. So it was with Henrietta, till the youngest +child was born.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately she had an almost morbid longing, unusual in a child, to +be loved and of importance. Now she would have given anything to have +heard Minna and Louie's secrets, not for the sake of the secrets, but as +a sign that she was thought worthy of confidence. She ran everyone's +errands continually, but she broke the head off Arthur's carnation as +she was bringing it from his bedroom to the garden, and she let out +William's secret, which he had told her in an unusual fit of affability, +in order that she might curry favour with Minna. This infuriated +William, and did not conciliate Minna. She grew fast and was a little +delicate. It made her irritable, but her brothers and sisters, who were +all growing with great regularity, could not be expected to understand +delicacy. She always said she was sorry after she had been cross, but +they, who did not have tempers, could not see that that made things any +better.</p> + +<p>In her loneliness she made for herself, like many other forlorn +children, a phantom friend.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> It was a little girl two years older than +she was, for Henrietta preferred to look up, and be herself in an +inferior position. For this reason she did not much care for dolls, +where she was decidedly the superior. She called her friend Amy. Amy +slept with her, helped her with her lessons, told her secrets +perpetually, and grumbled about the other children.</p> + +<p>One day they all had a game at Hide and Seek. The lot fell on her and +William, now fourteen, to hide. They ensconced themselves in a dark spot +in a little grove at the end of the garden. The others could not find +them, and there was plenty of time for talk. William was a kind boy and +rather a chatterbox, ready to expand to any listener, even a sister of +nine. Henrietta never knew how it was that she told him about Amy. It +had always been her firm resolve that this was to be her own dead +secret, never revealed. But the unusual warmth of the interview went to +her head. It was in a kind of intoxication of happiness that she poured +out her confidence. The shrubbery was so dark that William's face could +not be seen, but he began fidgeting, and soon broke in: "I say, what +hours the others are, it must be tea-time. Let's go and find them."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>It was kind of William to snub her confidence so gently, but the +disappointment was cruel. She had been lifted up to such a height of +happiness. When Ellen brushed her hair at night she noticed her dismal +looks, and being really concerned at Henrietta's want of control, she +said bracingly that little girls must never be whiney-piney. When the +lamp was put out, Henrietta sobbed herself to sleep, and she looked back +on that evening as the most miserable of her childhood.</p> + +<p>It was not long after this that the last child was born, the baby girl. +They had all been sent away, and Henrietta, who had gone by herself to +an aunt, came back later than the others; they had seen the new arrival, +and had got over their very moderate excitement. Ellen asked Henrietta +if she would like to have a peep at her little sister. When Henrietta +saw it, she determined that it should be her own baby. "Oh, you little +darling, you darling, darling baby!" she murmured over and over again.</p> + +<p>"Now you are happy, aren't you, Miss Etta?" said Ellen; she had always +felt sorry for Henrietta out in the cold.</p> + +<p>The baby very much improved Etta's circumstances. Ellen allowed her to +help, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> she had something to care for, so she had less occasion for +interviews with her phantom friend. As she grew older the baby Evelyn +requited her affection with a gratifying preference, but she was very +sweet-natured and would like everybody, and not make a party against +Minna and Louie as Henrietta desired. She came to the pretty age, and +was prettier and more charming than any of them. When the pretty age +ought to have passed she remained as attractive as ever, and continued +to enjoy a universal popularity. This was disappointing to Henrietta; +she would have preferred them to be pariahs together. Still, it was +always Etta that Evelyn liked best.</p> + +<p>When Evelyn was four and Henrietta thirteen, Evelyn was given a canary. +It never became interesting, for it would not eat off her finger, but +she cared for it as much as a child of four can be considered to care +for anything. The canary died and was buried when Evelyn had a cold and +was in bed, and Henrietta went by herself into the town, contrary to +rules, and spent all her savings at a little, low bird-shop getting a +mangey canary. She brought it back and put it into the cage, and when +Evelyn, convalescent, came into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> nursery, she attempted to palm off +the new canary as Evelyn's original bird. This strange behaviour brought +her to great disgrace. Her only explanation was, "I didn't want Evelyn +to know that Dickie was dead. I think death is so dreadful, and I don't +want her to know anything dreadful." Mrs. Symons and the governess +thought this most inexplicable.</p> + +<p>"Etta is a very difficult child," said Mrs. Symons; "she always has been +so unlike the others, and now this dreadful untruth. I always feel an +untruth is very different from anything else. Going into that horrid, +dirty little shop! You must watch her most carefully, Miss Weston, and +let me know if there is any further deceit."</p> + +<p>"I never had noticed anything before, Mrs. Symons, but I will be +particularly careful." And Miss Weston took the most elaborate +precautions that there should be no cheating at lessons, which Henrietta +resented keenly, having, like the majority of girls, an extreme horror +of cheating.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span><a name="ii" id="ii"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Soon</span> after the incident of the canary, the three older girls went to +school. When her first home-sickness was passed, Henrietta enjoyed the +life. It was strict, but home had been strict, and there was much more +variety here. She was clever, and took eager delight in her lessons; +dull, stupid Miss Weston had found her beyond her.</p> + +<p>She would have liked school even more if her temper had been under +better control. But at thirteen she had settled down to bad temper as a +habit. She did not exactly put her feelings into thoughts, but there was +an impression in her mind that as she had been out of it so much of her +life she should be allowed to be bad-tempered as a consolation. This +brought her into constant conflicts, which made no one so unhappy as +herself.</p> + +<p>She had two great interests at school, Miranda Hardcastle and Miss +Arundel. Miranda was the kind of girl whom everybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> is always going to +adore, very pretty, very amusing, and with much cordiality of manner. +Henrietta fell a victim at once, and Miranda, who drank in all +adoration, gave Henrietta some good-natured friendship in return. +Henrietta fagged for her, did as many of her lessons as she could, +applauded all her remarks, amply rewarded by Miranda's welcoming smile +and her, "I've been simply pining for you, my child; come and hear me my +French at once, like a seraphim."</p> + +<p>This happy state of things continued until unfortunately Henrietta's +temper, over which she had kept an anxious guard in Miranda's presence, +showed signs of activity. The first time this occurred Miranda opened +her large eyes very wide and said, "What's come over my young friend, +has it got the hydrophobia? I shall try and cure it by kindness and give +it some chocolate."</p> + +<p>Henrietta's clouds dispersed, but she was not always so easily restored +to good-humour; and Miranda, with the whole school at her feet, was not +going to stand bad temper, the fault on the whole least easily forgiven +by girls. Henrietta had a heartrending scene with her: at fifteen she +liked heartrending scenes. Miranda<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> was too fond of popularity to give +Henrietta up entirely, so the two remained friendly, but they were no +longer intimate.</p> + +<p>Miss Arundel was the head-mistress's sister, and undertook all the +serious teaching that was not in the hands of masters. She did not have +many outward attractions of face and form, but schoolgirls will know +that that is not of much importance. She was adored, possibly because +she had a bad temper (bad temper is an asset in a teacher), which was +liable to burst forth unexpectedly; then she was clever and +enthusiastic, and gave good lessons. She marked out Henrietta, and it +came round that she had said, "Etta Symons is an interesting girl, she +has possibilities. I wonder how she will turn out." It came round also +that Miss Arundel had said, "I only wish she had more control and +tenacity of purpose," but this sentence Henrietta put out of her head. +The first sentence she thought of for hours on end, and set to work to +be more interesting than ever; in fact for some days she was so affected +and exasperating that Miss Arundel could hardly contain herself. Still, +even Miss Arundel's sarcasm was endurable, anything was endurable, after +that gratifying remark.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>When Miranda ceased to be her special friend, she transferred her whole +heart and soul to Miss Arundel. She waylaid her with flowers, hung about +in the passage on the chance of seeing her walk by, and waited on her as +much as she dared. Some teachers apparently enjoy girl adorations, and +even take pains to secure them. Miss Arundel had had enough of them to +find them disagreeable. She therefore gave out in the presence of two or +three of Henrietta's circle that she thought it was a pity Etta Symons +wasted so much of her pocket-money on buttonholes which gave very little +pleasure to anyone, certainly not to her, who particularly disliked +strong scents; she thought the money could be much better expended.</p> + +<p>Jessie Winsley repeated this speech to Henrietta, little thinking what +anguish it would cause. Henrietta had very little pride, very little +proper pride some people might have said; she did not at all mind giving +a great deal more than she got. But this speech, which was not, after +all, so very malignant, drove her to despair. She went to Miranda, who +hugged her, and said: "Old cat! barbaric old cat! Never think of her +again, she isn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> worth it. Try dear little Stanley, he's a pet; men are +much nicer." Stanley was the drawing-master.</p> + +<p>But after all one must have a little encouragement to start an +adoration, and as Henrietta never could draw, she got none from Stanley. +Besides she was constant, so instead, she brooded over Miss Arundel. She +had not been so unhappy, when she had her Miranda and her Arundel. Now +she had lost them both. Miss Arundel, with her cool, unaffectionate +interest, had, of course, never been "had" at all, but Henrietta had +imagined that when Miss Arundel said "Yes, quite right, that's a good +answer," it was a kind of beginning of friendship. She, Henrietta, small +and insignificant, was singled out for Miss Arundel's friendship; that +was what she thought. She did not realize that it was possible to care +merely for intellectual development.</p> + +<p>When she was prepared for Confirmation, there were serious talks about +her character. The Vicar, whose classes she attended, was mostly +concerned with doctrines, and Mrs. Marston with what one might call a +list of ideal vices and temptations which pupils must guard themselves +against. Miss Arundel talked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> to her about her untidy exercise books, +her unpunctuality, her loud voice in the corridor, and her round +shoulders, and explained very properly that inattention in these +comparatively small matters showed a general want of self-control. She +did not speak about bad temper, for Henrietta was much too frightened of +her to show any signs of temper in her proximity. Miss Arundel did not +give her an opportunity of unburdening herself of the problem that +weighed on her mind, not that she would have taken the opportunity if it +had occurred, not after that speech about the buttonholes. This was the +problem: Why was it that people did not love her?—she to whom love was +so much that if she did not have it, nothing else in the world was worth +having. There had been Evelyn, it is true, but now Evelyn did lessons +with a little friend of her own age, and she and the friend were all in +all, and did not want Henrietta in the holidays. Henrietta reflected +that she was not uglier, or stupider, or duller than anyone else. There +was a large set at school who were ugly, stupid, and dull, and they were +devoted to one another, though they none of them cared about her. Why +had God sent her into the world, if she was not wanted?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> She found the +problem insoluble, but a certain amount of light was thrown on it by one +of the girls.</p> + +<p>She had been snarling with two or three of her classmates over the +afternoon preparation, and had flounced off in a rage by herself. She +felt a touch on her arm, and turning round saw Emily Mence, a rather +uncouth, clever girl, whom she hardly knew.</p> + +<p>"I just came to say, Why <em>are</em> you such an idiot?"</p> + +<p>"Me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, why do you lose your temper like that? All the girls are laughing +at you; they always do when you get cross."</p> + +<p>"Then I think it's horrid of them."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can't be surprised; of course people won't stand you, if +you're so cross."</p> + +<p>"Won't they?" said Henrietta. "And the one thing I want in the world is +to be liked."</p> + +<p>"Do you really? Fancy wanting these girls to like you; they're such +silly little things."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't mind that if only they liked me."</p> + +<p>"<em>I</em> like you," said Emily. "Do you remember you said Charles I. +deserved to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> his head cut off because he was so stupid, and all the +others gushed over him?"</p> + +<p>"Did I?"</p> + +<p>"I don't like the other girls to laugh at you; that's why I thought I +would tell you."</p> + +<p>They walked up and down the path and talked about Charles I. Here there +seemed the beginning of a friendship, but it was nipped in the bud, for +Emily left unexpectedly at the end of the term. Henrietta received no +further overtures from any of the girls.</p> + +<p>Emily's words had made an impression however, and for six weeks +Henrietta took a great deal of pains with her temper. For this +concession on her part she expected Providence to give her an immediate +and abundant measure of popularity. It did not. The Symons family had +not the friend-making quality—a capricious quality, which withholds +itself from those who have the greatest desire, and even apparently the +best right, to possess it. The girls were kind, kinder, on the whole, +than the grown-up world, and they were perfectly willing to give her +their left arms round the garden, but their right would be occupied by +their real friends, to whom they would be telling their experiences, and +Henrietta would only come in for a, "Wasn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> it sickening, Etta?" now +and then. She was disappointed, and she relaxed her efforts. She had +missed the excitement of saying disagreeable things. The day had become +chilly without them. By the middle of the term she was as disagreeable +as ever.</p> + +<p>She very rarely received good advice in her life, and now that she had +got it, she made no use of it. If she had, it might have changed the +whole of her future. But from henceforth, on birthdays, New Year's Eves, +and other anniversaries, when she took stock of herself and her +character, she ignored her temper, and would not count it as a factor +that could be modified. There were others as lonely as herself at +school, there are always many lonely in a community; but she did not +realize this, and felt herself exceptional. She imagined that she was +overwhelmed with misery at this time, but really the life was so busy, +and she was so fond of the lessons, and did them so well, that she was +not to be pitied as much as she thought.</p> + +<p>It was clear she was to be lonely at school and lonely at home. Where +was she to find relief? There was a supply of innocuous story-books for +the perusal of Mrs. Marston's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> pupils on Saturday half-holidays, +innocuous, that is to say, but for the fact that they gave a completely +erroneous view of life, and from them Henrietta discovered that heroines +after the sixteenth birthday are likely to be pestered with adorers. The +heroines, it is true, were exquisitely beautiful, which Henrietta knew +she was not, but from a study of "Jane Eyre" and "Villette" in the +holidays, Charlotte Brontë was forbidden at school owing to her excess +of passion, Henrietta realized that the plain may be adored too, so she +had a modest hope that when the magic season of young ladyhood arrived, +a Prince Charming would come and fall in love with her. This hope filled +more and more of her thoughts, and all her last term, when other girls +were crying at the thought of leaving, she was counting the days to her +departure.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span><a name="iii" id="iii"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Henrietta</span> was eighteen when she left school. Minna and Louie had gone +two or three years before, and by the time Henrietta came home, Minna +was engaged to be married. There was nothing particular about Minna. She +was capable, and clear-headed, and rather good-looking, and could dress +well on a little money. She was not much of a talker, but what she said +was to the point. On these qualifications she married a barrister with +most satisfactory prospects. They were both extremely fond of one +another in a quiet way, and fond they remained. She was disposed of +satisfactorily.</p> + +<p>Louie was prettier and more lively. She was having a gay career of +flirtations, when Henrietta joined her. She did not at all want a +younger sister, particularly a sister with a pretty complexion. Three +years of parties had begun to tell on her own, which was of special +delicacy. She and Henrietta had never grown to like one another, and now +there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> went on a sort of silent war, an unnecessary war on Louie's side, +for she had a much greater gift with partners than Henrietta, and her +captives were not annexed.</p> + +<p>But for her complexion there was nothing very taking in Henrietta. +Whoever travels in the Tube must have seen many women with dark-brown +hair, brown eyes, and too-strongly-marked eyebrows; their features are +neither good nor bad; their whole aspect is uninteresting. They have no +winning dimples, no speaking lines about the mouth. All that one can +notice is a disappointed, somewhat peevish look in the eyes. Such was +Henrietta. The fact that she had not been much wanted or appreciated +hitherto began to show now she was eighteen. She was either shy and +silent, or talked with too much positiveness for fear she should not be +listened to; so that though she was not a failure at dances and managed +to find plenty of partners, there were none of the interesting episodes +that were continually occurring on Louie's evenings, and for a year or +two her hopes were not realized. The Prince Charming she was waiting for +came not.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Louie was away on visits, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> Henrietta went to dances +without her. At one of these, as usual a strange young man was +introduced. There was nothing special about him. They had the usual talk +of first dances. Then he asked for a second, then for a third. He was +introduced to her mother. She asked him to call. He came. He talked +mostly to her mother, but it was clear that it was Henrietta he came to +see. Another dance, another call, and meetings at friends' houses, and +wherever she was he wanted to be beside her. It was an exquisitely happy +month. He was a commonplace young man, but what did that matter? There +was nothing in Henrietta to attract anyone very superior. And perhaps +she loved him all the more because he was not soaring high above her, +like all her previous divinities, but walking side by side with her. +Yes, she loved him; by the time he had asked her for the third dance she +loved him. She did not think much of his proposing, of their marrying, +just that someone cared for her. At first she could not believe it, but +by the end of the month the signs clearly resembled those of Louie's +young men. Flowers, a note about a book he had lent her, a note about a +mistake he had made in his last note; she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> was sure he must care for +her. The other girls at the dances noticed his devotion, and asked +Henrietta when it was to be announced. She laughed off their questions, +but they gave her a thrill of delight. All must be well.</p> + +<p>And if they had married all would have been well. There might have been +jars and rubs, with Henrietta's jealous disposition there probably would +have been, but they would have been as happy as the majority of married +couples; she would have been happier, for to many people, even to some +women, it is not, as it was to her, the all-sufficing condition of +existence to love and be loved.</p> + +<p>At the end of the month Louie came home. Henrietta had dreaded her +return. She had no confidence in herself when Louie was by. Louie made +her cold and awkward. She would have liked to have asked her not to come +into the room when he called, but she was too shy; there had never been +any intimacy between the sisters. Mrs. Symons however, spoke to Louie. +"A very nice young fellow, with perfectly good connections, not making +much yet, but sufficient for a start. It would do very well."</p> + +<p>Louie would not have considered herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> more heartless than other +people, but she was a coquette, and she did not want Henrietta to be +settled before her. The next time the young man came, he found in the +drawing-room not merely a very much prettier Miss Symons, that in itself +was not of much consequence, but a Miss Symons who was well aware of her +advantages, and knew moreover from successful practice exactly how to +rouse a desire for pursuit in the ordinary young man.</p> + +<p>Henrietta saw at once, though she fought hard, that she had no chance.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to the Humphreys to-morrow?" he said to Louie.</p> + +<p>"If Henrietta's crinoline will leave any room in the carriage," answered +Louie, "I shall try to get a little corner, perhaps under the seat, or +one could always run behind. I crushed—see, what did I crush?—a little +teeny-tiny piece of flounce one terrible evening; didn't I, Henrietta? +And I was never allowed to hear the last of it."</p> + +<p>She smiled a special smile, only given to the most favoured of her +partners. The young man thought how pretty this sisterly teasing was on +the part of the lovely Miss Symons; Henrietta saw it in another light.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>"My crinolines are not larger than yours, you know they are not."</p> + +<p>"Methinks the lady doth protest too much, don't you, Mr. Dockerell?"</p> + +<p>"And you always take the best seat in the carriage, so it is nonsense to +say ..."</p> + +<p>He noticed for the first time how loud her voice was.</p> + +<p>"Please let us change the conversation," said Louie gently, "it can't be +at all interesting for Mr. Dockerell. I am ready to own anything you +like, that you don't wear crinolines at all, if that will please you."</p> + +<p>"If there is any difficulty, could not my mother take one of you +to-morrow night?" (It was Louie he looked at.) "She is staying with me +for a week. Couldn't we call for you? It would be a great pleasure."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you," began Henrietta.</p> + +<p>"Really," said Louie, "you make me quite ashamed of my poor little joke. +I don't think we have come quite to such a state of things that two +sisters can't sit in the same carriage. I hear you are a most alarmingly +good archer, Mr. Dockerell, and I want to ask you to advise me about my +bow, if you will be so kind." To be asked advice, of course, completed +the conquest.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>Mr. Dockerell had not been so much in love with Etta as with marrying. +It took him a very short time to change, but when he had made his offer +and Louie had discovered that he was too dull a young man for her, he +did not transfer his affections back to Henrietta. She would gladly have +taken him if he had. He left the neighbourhood, and not long after +married someone else.</p> + +<p>In this grievous trouble Henrietta did not know where to turn for +comfort. Mrs. Symons was one of those women who are much more a wife +than a mother. She could enter into all Mr. Symons' feelings quite +remarkably, even his most out-of-the-way masculine feelings, but her +daughters, who on the whole were very ordinary young women, she did not +understand. Perhaps Henrietta was not altogether ordinary, but after all +it is not exceptional to want to be loved. Nor did Mrs. Symons care +particularly for her daughters; she liked her sons much better, she +would perhaps have been happier without daughters; and she liked +Henrietta the least, connecting her still with those disagreeable +childish interviews when Henrietta had been brought down, black and +sulky, to be scolded.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>Henrietta was now passing through what is not an extraordinary +experience in a woman's life. She had loved and been loved, and then had +been disappointed. Her mother in her distress was no more comfort than, +I was going to say, the servants, but she was much less, for Ellen, now +Mrs. Symons' maid, gave poor Henrietta some of the sympathy for which +she hungered.</p> + +<p>Evelyn was away, her parents had consented to her being educated with +the little friend abroad, and if she had been at home, she was only +fourteen, too young to be of much use. However Henrietta poured out her +bitterness to her in a long letter, and Evelyn wrote back full of loving +sentiment and sentimentality. Henrietta wrote also to Miranda, and had a +sympathetic letter in answer, most sympathetic, considering that Miranda +had just consummated a triumphant engagement to the son of an earl.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Symons could not help thinking that Henrietta had stupidly muddled +her affairs, and wasted the good chance which had been contrived for +her. This was the view she presented to her husband, so that though they +tried not to show it in their manner, they both felt a little +aggrieved.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>It was to William that she turned, though she remembered clearly the +disappointing interview of her childhood. William, now a solicitor in +London, came home for a few days' holiday. The Sunday of his visit was +wet. When Mr. and Mrs. Symons were both asleep in the drawing-room, he +and Henrietta sat in the former school-room, and kept up friendly +small-talk about the neighbourhood. There was something so solid and +comfortable about his face that she felt she must tell him. She wanted +to lean on someone; she had not, she never had, any satisfaction, any +pride in battling for herself. Yet she knew that William's face was +deceptive; it would be much better not to speak. She determined, +therefore, that she would say very little, and speak as coolly as she +could. She began, but before she could stop herself, the whole story was +out, and much more than the story, unbridled abuse of Louie, who was +William's favourite sister. She only stopped at last, because her sobs +made it impossible to speak.</p> + +<p>"It does seem unlucky," said William, "very unlucky. I should talk it +over with mother."</p> + +<p>"Mother thinks it was my own fault. I know she does."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>"Well—um—write to Minna; yes, you might write to Minna."</p> + +<p>"Minna is only interested in the baby. She hardly ever writes; besides, +she never cared about me at all. She would be glad."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I shouldn't think it was worth while taking it to heart. Just +go out to plenty of dances and be jolly; you mustn't mope. If you can +get Aunt Mercer to give you a bed, I'll take you to the play. That will +do you all the good in the world."</p> + +<p>"It's very kind of you, William."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right. Well," going to the window, "it's no good staying +in all the afternoon, it makes one so hipped. I shall take a turn and +look in on Beardsley on my way back. Tell mother not to wait supper for +me."</p> + +<p>She knew she had better have said nothing. He hated the recesses of the +heart being revealed, particularly those special recesses of a woman's +heart; he had thought her unmaidenly. But he was sorry for her; he took +her to the play, a rousing farce, for he was one of those who naively +consider that two hours of laughing can compensate for months of misery, +and even be a remedy. He gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> her a brooch also, and said to his +mother, "I think Etta gets low by herself, now Minna is married and +Louie is away. Why shouldn't she go for some visits?"</p> + +<p>It may seem strange that Henrietta should have spread broadcast a grief +which most people would keep hidden in their own hearts. But it is one +of the saddest things about lonely people, that, having no proper +confidant, they tell to all and sundry what ought never to be told to +more than one. When, however, the overmastering desire for sympathy had +passed, words cannot express her regret that she had spoken. For years +and years afterwards it would suddenly come upon her, "I told him and he +despised me," and she would beat her foot on the floor with all her +might, in a useless transport of remorse.</p> + +<p>Both Louie and Henrietta had felt it was wiser not to see too much of +one another after Mr. Dockerell's proposal. Louie had gone away for a +month or six weeks, and when she came back, Henrietta went for a long +visit to Minna.</p> + +<p>With two babies, the youngest very delicate, Minna was completely +absorbed. She was emphatically Mrs. Willard now, not Minna<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> Symons. Mrs. +Symons had told her something of Henrietta's circumstances, and Minna +considered that the best balm would be her babies. So they might have +been for people with a natural admiration for babies, but this Henrietta +had not got. If Minna's children had been neglected she would have loved +them dearly, but when they were surrounded by the jealous care of +mother, nurse, nursemaid, and (if any space was left for him) father, +there was nothing for her but to look on as an outsider.</p> + +<p>It was during this visit that she heard of the young man's engagement. +She did not realize, till she heard, how tightly she had been clinging +to the hope that he might come back. Close following on that came the +news that Louie was engaged to a most amiable and agreeable colonel. +This made her more bitter, if it was possible to be more bitter, against +Louie than before. Louie was not merely let off scot-free for what she +did, but was to have every happiness given to her. Why? The old problem +of her Confirmation year pressed itself on her, only now she felt less +mournful and more acrid.</p> + +<p>Her troubles made her peevish and disagreeable,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> as was apparent from +Minna's kindly admonition.</p> + +<p>"I think," said she, as they sat sewing one morning, "that I really +ought to warn you not to talk quite so loud and so positively. I don't +like saying anything, but of course I am older than you, and that is the +sort of thing that spoils a girl's chances. Men don't like it. And your +temper—even Arthur noticed it, and he is not at all an observant man. I +daresay you hardly realize the importance of a good temper, Etta, but in +my opinion it makes more difference in life than anything else."</p> + +<p>Henrietta came back three days before Louie's wedding. Louie repented +the injury she had done, and on the last night she came into Henrietta's +room and apologized. "You know, Etty, I am very sorry, very, very sorry. +Of course I had no idea how you felt about him. He wasn't the sort of +man one could take very seriously, at least that was what I thought. +Anyhow I wouldn't worry about it any more, for you know I think he +cannot have been very seriously touched, or he would have made some +effort to see you again, surely, after his little episode with me."</p> + +<p>Louie felt more than her words conveyed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> but she could not demean +herself to show too much.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you didn't mean it unkindly," said Henrietta; "I shall try to +believe you, but you've wrecked my life."</p> + +<p>"Etta is so exaggerated and hysterical," said Louie afterwards, talking +things over. But as a matter of fact Henrietta spoke only the sober +truth.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span><a name="iv" id="iv"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">After</span> Louie's wedding Henrietta went to stay with an aunt, her father's +eldest sister, almost a generation older than he was. She lived in a +little white house in the country, with a green verandah and French +windows. She was a kind, nice old lady, not well off, a humble +great-aunt to the whole village. Children continually came to eat her +mulberries; girls were found places; sick people were sent jelly, and +there was always a great deal of sewing and knitting for poor friends.</p> + +<p>She did her best to make the visit pass cheerfully; she had some little +scheme of pleasure for each day, and so many people came and went that, +though not exciting, the life could not possibly be called dull.</p> + +<p>Henrietta did not know whether Mrs. Symons had mentioned her trouble to +her aunt; she hoped not. Now that the first shock was over, she had +become sensitive on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> subject, and did not wish to speak about it. +From a little speech her aunt made, it is possible that Mrs. Symons had +said something.</p> + +<p>One day as they sat talking comfortably and confidentially over the +fire, the conversation turned on her aunt's past days. She had been left +motherless, the eldest of a large family, when she was nineteen or +twenty. It was evidently her duty to devote herself to the younger ones, +and when a man presented himself whom she loved and by whom she was +loved, she felt that she could not be spared from home.</p> + +<p>Henrietta saw that she was bracing herself to say something. At last out +it came:</p> + +<p>"You know, my dear, I think in spite of—I mean that there are many +things besides—though when one has hoped—still life can be very happy, +very peaceful, without. Why, there is this garden, and there are those +three darling little children next door."</p> + +<p>Henrietta knew that this unanalysable sentence was meant to comfort her. +She felt grateful, but she was not comforted. Her aunt's life was the +sweetest and happiest possible for old age, but could she at twenty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +settle down to devising treats for other people's children, or sewing +garments for the poor? It made her feel sick and dismal to think of it. +Besides, their circumstances were not similar. Her aunt, fortified by +the spirit of self-sacrifice, had resigned what she loved, but she had +the reward of being the most necessary member of her circle. Henrietta +had had no scope for self-sacrifice, for she had never had anything to +give up. In fact she envied her aunt, for she realized now that Mr. +Dockerell could never have cared for her. And far from being the most +necessary member of her family, her difficulty was to squeeze into a +place at all.</p> + +<p>The visit came to an end. She went home, and regular life began again. +Since one ordinary young man had been attracted to her when she was +twenty, there seemed no reason why other ordinary men should not +continue to be attracted. As he had been in love with marrying rather +than with her, so she had been in love with being loved rather than with +him. She would have accepted almost any pleasant young man, provided he +had had the supreme merit of caring for her. But the inscrutable fate +which rules these matters,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> decreed that it was not to be. No other +suitor presented himself.</p> + +<p>For one thing, she went to fewer parties now. After Louie's marriage, +Mrs. Symons, who had worked hard in the good cause of finding husbands, +began to flag. Henrietta was not so gratifying to take out as Louie had +been, particularly as her complexion went off early, and without her +complexion she had nothing to fall back on. So Mrs. Symons gave herself +up to the luxury of bad health, and said she could not stand late hours. +When Henrietta did go out, her experience made her feel that she was +unlikely to please; and though no one can define what produces +attractiveness, it is safe to say that one of the most necessary +elements is to believe oneself attractive.</p> + +<p>Mr. Symons had not hitherto taken great interest in his daughters, but +when Minna and Louie were married, he became fonder of them. He was one +of those men whose good opinion of a woman is much strengthened if +confirmed by another man. His daughters' husbands had confirmed his +opinion in the most satisfactory way by marrying them, whereas his good +opinion of Henrietta, far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> from being confirmed, had been rather +weakened. Minna and Louie's virtues, husbands, and houses were often +extolled now, and there was nothing to extol in her. Henrietta felt this +continually. Her parents did not speak to her of her misfortunes; she +was left alone, which is perhaps what most girls would have liked best. +Not so Henrietta.</p> + +<p>The three years after Louie's marriage were the most miserable of +Henrietta's life. If she did not go out to parties, what was she to do? +The housekeeping? The housekeeping, as in many cases, was not nearly +enough to provide her mother with occupation. It certainly could not be +divided into occupation for two. Nursing her mother? Her mother much +preferred that Ellen, on whom she had become very dependent, should do +what was necessary, and for companionship she had all she wanted in her +husband. He was away for several hours in the day however, and during +his absence Henrietta did drive out with her mother, read to her, and +sit with her, and as they were so much together and shared the small +events of the country town, they were to a certain extent drawn +together. But Mrs. Symons always treated Henrietta <em>de haut en bas</em>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +and snubbed her when she thought necessary, as if she had been a child +of ten, so that Henrietta was constrained and a little timid with her. +There was the suggestion of a feeling that Mrs. Symons was to be pitied +for having Henrietta still on her hands. If Henrietta had refused to be +snubbed, there would have been none of that suggestion. Evelyn was still +away at school. There were a certain number of girls of Henrietta's age +whom she saw from time to time, but as her mother did not wish to be +disturbed by entertaining, they were not asked to the house, and +therefore did not ask Henrietta to theirs. Besides, she was sensitive, +thinking, truly, that they were discussing her misfortune, and did not +want to see them.</p> + +<p>In addition to the poignancy of disappointment, of present dulness and +aimlessness, Henrietta realized forcibly, though perhaps not forcibly +enough for the truth, that the years between eighteen and thirty were +her marrying years, which, slowly as they passed from the point of view +of her happiness, went only too fast, when she considered that once gone +they could never come back, and that as they fled, they took her chances +with them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>Fifty years ago the large majority of the girls of her class married +early, and the years of home life after school were arranged on the +supposition that they were a short period of preparation for marriage. +It did not matter to Minna and Louie that they had no interests to fill +their days, that their life had been nothing but parties and intervals +of waiting for parties, because it had only lasted four or five years. +It had done what it was intended to do, it had settled them very +comfortably with husbands. But with Henrietta, the condition which was +meant to be temporary, seemed spreading itself out to be permanent, and +with the parties taken away, she was hard put to it to fill up her days. +She longed inexpressibly for school, for its restrictions, its monotony +and variety. And to think that when she had the luck to be there, she +had counted the days to being a young lady. When she remembered how she +had almost wept at Miss Arundel's description of Joan of Arc, her mouth +watered for lessons. As for Miss Arundel herself, she hungered and +thirsted after her.</p> + +<p>At last she had a happy thought; she decided that she would read +Italian, read Dante. Miss Arundel had taught her Italian,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> and she would +write to Miss Arundel, and ask her to recommend a good translation. She +remembered that Miss Arundel and Mrs. Marston had occasionally had +favourite old pupils to stay with them. She imagined how one letter +might lead to another, and how at last Miss Arundel might invite her to +stay too. She wrote her letter with great care and great delight, +constantly changing her words, for none seemed good enough for Miss +Arundel, and making a fair copy, as if it were an exercise to be sent up +for correction.</p> + +<p>Miss Arundel received the letter, read it through, came to the +signature, and could not for the life of her remember who Henrietta +Symons was. So many girls had passed through her hands, and she lived in +the present rather than the past. A teacher was ill, she was very busy, +the letter slipped her memory. One evening it came into her head, and +she asked her sister, "By the by, who was Henrietta Symons?"</p> + +<p>"I recollect the name perfectly," said Mrs. Marston. "Let me see; yes, +now I know. There were three of them, one was Minnie, I believe, and I +think Etta had a bad headache at the picnic. It was a blazing day that +year,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> the hottest I ever remember, and I had to come back early with +her."</p> + +<p>"Of course; I remember now," said Miss Arundel. "A girl with very marked +eyebrows." And she wrote back a postcard, "Tr. of D.'s D. C. Carey, 2 +vols., Ward and Linsell. M. Arundel."</p> + +<p>The postcard made Henrietta inclined to back out of Dante. But by this +time she had arranged to read with a neighbour, Carrie Bostock, so she +had to make a start. They did start, but as they neither understood the +Italian, nor the translation, nor the notes, they found continual +excuses for not reading, till Carrie boldly suggested "I Promessi +Sposi," which went much better. They did not read for long, however, for +Carrie became engaged, it seemed to Henrietta that everybody she knew +was becoming engaged, and Carrie considered her engagement an occupation +which gave her no time for anything else, certainly no time for Italian.</p> + +<p>Henrietta found she did not read by herself. The two years away from +school made it difficult to start. Perhaps it may seem strange that a +girl who had been so eager at school, should not care to work by herself +at home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> But when there are no competitors and no Miss Arundel, work +loses much of its zest for everyone except the real student, who is +rarely to be found among men, still more rarely among women. And the +last thing Henrietta would ever be was unusual.</p> + +<p>Clever, interesting schoolgirls are not at all uncommon, though not so +general as clever, interesting children. But there are few who remain +clever and interesting when they grow up. Uninspiring surroundings, and +contact with life, or mere <a name="accumalation" id="accumalation"></a><ins title="original had accumalation">accumulation</ins> of years, take something away. +Or perhaps it simply is that when they are grown up they are judged by a +more severe standard. Miss Arundel had been disappointed again and +again. But she would not have been surprised that Henrietta let +everything go, for she had always observed in her an unfortunate strain +of weakness.</p> + +<p>Besides being weak, Henrietta was always affected by the people she was +with, and the atmosphere of home life was not encouraging to study. +"Reading Italian, my dear?" her mother would say. "Oh, can't you find +anything better to do than that? Surely there must be some mending;" +while her father advised her, through her mother, "not to become too +clever;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> it was a great pity for a girl to get too clever."</p> + +<p>After all, there seemed no earthly reason why she should read Italian; +it gave no pleasure to herself or to anyone else. So she spent most of +the long leisure hours sitting by the window and thinking. She often +said to herself the verse of a poem then just published by Christina +Rossetti. She had seen it on a visit, copied it out, and learned it:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"Downstairs I laugh and sport and jest with all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in my solitary room above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I turn my face in silence to the wall:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart is breaking for a little love."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>It did not quite apply to Henrietta, for she was not sporting and +jesting downstairs with anyone, but that verse was the greatest comfort +to her of those dreary years. The writer <em>must</em> have been through it +all, she thought; she knows what it is. Not to be alone, to have +someone, though an unknown one, who could share it, lightened her +burden, when she was in a mood that it should be lightened.</p> + +<p>She made up verses too, and wrote them in a pretty album she bought for +the purpose. They relieved her heart a little—at any rate it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> was a +distraction to think of the rhymes. She would have shown them to Carrie, +if she had had the slightest encouragement, but as Carrie gave no +encouragement, there was no one to see them.</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"While Nature op'ed her lavish hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fairest flowers displayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas his to taste of sunny joys,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas mine to sit in shade.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="io">"Oh, talk not to me of a lasting devotion!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It shrivels, it ceases, it fades and it dies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the heart of a man 'tis a fleeting emotion;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alas, in a woman eternal it lies!"<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>A poet would have said that anyone capable of writing that was incapable +of feeling, but he would have been wrong.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Henrietta used to have a phantom lover like the phantom friend +of her childhood, but now—had she more or less imagination as a +child?—she could not bear it. She imagined the phantom, and then she +wanted him so intensely that she had to forget him. The aspect of +certain days would be connected with some peculiarly mournful moments. +She wondered which was the most depressing, the dark setting in at four +o'clock and leaving her seven hours of drawing-room fancy work (for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> it +disturbed her mother if she went to bed before eleven), or the summer +sun that would not go down.</p> + +<p>If only some kind stroke of misfortune had taken away all Mr. Symons' +money. Disagreeable poverty would have been a great comfort to her. She +would have been forced to make an effort; not to brood and concentrate +herself on her misery. But Mr. Symons, on the contrary, continued to get +richer, and throughout her fairly long, dull life, Henrietta was always +cursed with her tidy little income.</p> + +<p>But interminable as the time seemed, it passed. It passed, so that +reading her old journal with the record of her happy month, she found +that it had all happened five years ago, and was beginning to be +forgotten. She felt as if it had not happened to her, but to some +ordinary girl who had ordinary prosperity. At the same time her lot did +not seem so bitter as it had done; she had become used to it. Though she +herself hardly realized it, and certainly could not have said when the +change had come, she was not now particularly unhappy. It was an +alleviation that her mother was more of an invalid, so that some of the +responsibilities of the household devolved on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> her, and her mother +leaned on her a little. She was certainly not the prop of the house, or +the lodestar to which they all turned for guidance, none of the +satisfactory things women are called in poetry, but she was not such an +odd-man-out as she had been.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><a name="v" id="v"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">And</span> now the even course of Henrietta's life was interrupted. Evelyn +returned home. She and her friend were both grown up into young ladies. +Many letters had passed between the sisters, but it was so long since +they had seen one another that each felt a little shy at the meeting.</p> + +<p>Evelyn was very lovely, made to please and be pleased, a regular +mid-Victorian heroine, universally courted. Though always courted she +was never spoilt, and was a most affectionate sister and daughter. But +the old particular bond which had attached her and Henrietta no longer +existed. She was equally affectionate to Minna and Louie.</p> + +<p>Still, her coming made a great difference to Henrietta. There was a +person of her own generation and way of thinking to converse with; they +could have jokes together, and Evelyn was still full of schoolgirl +enthusiasm. She had numberless schemes of occupation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> duets, French +readings, and splashwork. And when she went away on visits, there were +her letters, much more intimate than those of a year or two earlier, +full of allusions to their new occupations, and <a name="teazing" id="teazing"></a><ins title="original had teazing">teasing</ins> of a kind, +complimentary sort, which was new and very delightful to Henrietta.</p> + +<p>They were arranging flowers in the school-room one afternoon, roses +which had been brought to Evelyn by an admirer. They dropped some on the +floor, both stooped to pick them up, and they knocked their heads +together. Evelyn got up laughing, but felt her hand suddenly snatched, +and kissed with a long, eager kiss. She turned round, startled. "What is +it?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it," said Henrietta, half hysterically. "If you knew +what it is to me to have you back. I can't tell you."</p> + +<p>"Is it, dear?" said Evelyn. "I'm so glad." And she smoothed Henrietta's +forehead with a pretty gesture full of sweetness, but with a touch of +condescension in it. She had listened already to so many passionate +declarations about herself (one that very afternoon) that she was not so +much impressed by Henrietta's as most younger sisters would have been. +Still she could not help contrasting herself in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> triumphant youth +with Henrietta, disregarded by everyone and snubbed. Mr. and Mrs. Symons +never snubbed Evelyn, and she thought for a moment, "Oh, I'm thankful +I'm not her"; but she put the thought away as unkind, and supposed +vaguely that Henrietta was so good she did not mind.</p> + +<p>Now that Evelyn was come back, Mrs. Symons roused herself from her +invalidism to provide amusements for her. So little was possible at home +that almost at once a round of gay visits was arranged. Minna was less +engrossed now that the babies were older, and took her out to parties; +and Louie had all the officers of her husband's regiment at command. +These same attractions had been offered to Henrietta. Louie had been +most sincerely anxious to atone for the past, and had invited her again +and again, but Henrietta had always refused; for though the original +wound was healed, she still cherished resentment against Louie.</p> + +<p>Evelyn's was a career of triumph. Her letters, and Louie's and Minna's +were full of officers and parties. This roused Henrietta's old +discontent. Why was Evelyn to have everything and she nothing? She +promptly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> answered herself, "Because Evelyn is so sweet and beautiful, +she deserves everything she can get." But the question refused to be +snubbed, and asked itself again. She hated herself for envying, and +continued to envy.</p> + +<p>Evelyn came home from her visits very much excited and interested about +herself, but still not unmindful of Henrietta.</p> + +<p>"Let me come in to your room, Etty, and tell you everything. I had a +perfect time with Louie; she was a dear. She was always saying, 'Now, +who shall we have to dinner? You must settle;' so I just gave the word, +and whoever I wanted was produced. Louie wishes you would go too. Do go, +you would have such fun. She gave me a note for you."</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Etta</span>," the note ran,</p> + +<p>"The 9th is having a dance on the 28th. I wish you would come and stay +with us for it. Come, and bring Evelyn. I particularly want to have her +for it. There is a special reason. Everyone is enchanted with the dear +little thing. I shall be disappointed if you don't come too. It all +happened such years ago, surely we may forget it; and Edward is always +asking me why I do not have you, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> it seems so absurd, when I have no +proper reason to give. I shall really think it too bad of you, if you +don't come.</p> + +<p class="i4">Your affec.,<br /> +<span class="i2 smcap">L. N. Carrington.</span>"</p> + +<p>Henrietta, thinking over the matter, found there was no reason why she +should not go. At twenty-seven she felt herself rather older than this +generation at forty-eight, and thought it ridiculous that she should be +going to a dance. But once she was there, Louie made her feel so much at +home, she found her remarks were so warmly welcomed, and her few +hesitating sallies so much enjoyed, that she began to think that after +all she was not completely on the shelf.</p> + +<p>"Don't go to-morrow, Etta—stay here. There's the Steeplechase on +Friday; I want you to see that."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, Louie," said Henrietta; "I can't leave mother longer. +It's been very delightful, more delightful than you can realize, +perhaps—you're so much accustomed to it; but I must get back."</p> + +<p>"Now, that really is nonsense, Etta. Mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> has Ellen, and she has +father, and she is pretty well for her; you said so yourself."</p> + +<p>But Henrietta persisted in her refusal, for she had all the strong, +though sometimes unthinking, sense of duty of her generation.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you will go, you must. But now you have begun coming, come +often. Write a line whenever you like and propose yourself."</p> + +<p>As they said good-night, Louie whispered, "Have you forgiven me, Etty?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Henrietta, "that's all past and gone."</p> + +<p>"For a matter of fact," said Louie, "he is not very happy with her; they +don't get on. The Moffats know him, and Mrs. Moffatt told me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am sorry," said Henrietta, but she was not displeased.</p> + +<p>Evelyn stayed behind, and Louie talked Henrietta over with her. "Poor," +ever since her marriage Henrietta had been "poor" to Louie, "Poor Etta +really isn't bad-looking, and when she gets animated she isn't +unattractive. If I could have her here often, I believe I could do +something for her."</p> + +<p>When Evelyn came home a week or so later, she had an announcement to +make. She had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> become engaged to an officer, a friend of the +Carringtons, who had been staying in the house. He was delightful, the +engagement was everything that was to be desired, and Evelyn was +radiant.</p> + +<p>Henrietta knew that such an announcement was bound to come sooner or +later, but she had so longed for a few years' happy intercourse +together. She tried to think only of Evelyn, but she could not keep back +all that was in her mind.</p> + +<p>"Think of me left all alone. It was so dreary, and when you came you +made everything different. Now it will go back to what it was before."</p> + +<p>"No, no, Etty darling; you will come and stay with us for months and +months."</p> + +<p>"No, I shan't. When you have got him you won't want me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I shall. I shall want you all the more. I love you more than I've +ever done in my life, my darling sister. We've always been special, we +two, haven't we, ever since I can remember?"</p> + +<p>Henrietta was a little comforted, and did not realize that though +Evelyn's tenderness was absolutely sincere, it came from the strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +expansion of the heart which accompanies true love, and was not +habitual.</p> + +<p>The marriage took place almost at once, for the Captain's regiment was +ordered on foreign service, and Evelyn went away to regions where it was +not possible for Henrietta to visit her.</p> + +<p>But if she had lived in England, Henrietta would not have felt herself +at liberty to go away for long. After she got home, she felt glad she +had not extended her visit to the Carringtons, for Mrs. Symons was not +so well, and she died shortly afterwards, and Henrietta reigned in her +stead.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span><a name="vi" id="vi"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> household changed now; two new elements were introduced: William +came from London to be a partner in his father's firm, and lived at +home, and Harold, who had been employed by an engineer in the North, +found work in the neighbourhood and came back too. So that Henrietta's +life became at once much fuller of interest and importance than it had +been for years. As the only lady of the house, she was bound to be +considered, to make decisions, to have much authority in her own hands, +and at twenty-seven she greatly appreciated authority. If she was not to +have love, she would at any rate have position, and the servants found +her an exacting mistress. Mrs. Symons, though she had given over certain +duties to Henrietta, had kept herself head of the house to the time of +her death. She had a way with servants: they always liked her, and +stayed with her; but latterly she had let things slide, and when +Henrietta took her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> place she found much to criticize. Most of the +servants left, but some stayed, and agreed with Ellen that it was "just +Miss Henrietta's way; she was funny sometimes." However, they got used +to her, and things jogged along pretty quietly.</p> + +<p>When Ellen left to be married, and there was no one in the kitchen to +make allowances for her, she had much more difficulty, and Mr. Symons +was occasionally disturbed in his comfortable library by an indignant +apparition, which declared amid gulps that it had "no wish whatever to +make complaints, but really Miss Henrietta——!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Symons thought this very hard. "Can't you manage to make them +decently contented? We never used to have this sort of thing," he would +say. Henrietta would defend herself by counter-charges, and on the whole +felt the incident was creditable to her, as showing that she was a +power, and a rather dreaded power, in the house.</p> + +<p>The men thought also that they were under a needlessly harsh yoke. +Henrietta grumbled when they were late for meals, or creased the +chintzes, or let the dog in with muddy paws. From a combination of +kindness, weakness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> and letting things slide, they made no complaints. +Mr. Symons always remembered and felt sorry for the episode which +Henrietta herself had almost forgotten, and he was determined to make up +to her by letting her be as unpleasant as she liked at home.</p> + +<p>If only they had spoken strongly while there was yet time. They did not +realize, it is difficult for those in the same house to realize, where +things were tending. Henrietta's temper became less violent; there are +fewer occasions for losing a temper when one is grown up, but she took +to nagging like a duck to water.</p> + +<p>But if they made no complaints, the men left her to herself. Mr. Symons +spent many hours at his club, and her brothers entertained their friends +in the smoking-room. She was vaguely disappointed; she had an idea, +gleaned from novels and magazines, that as the home daughter to a +widowed father, the home sister to two brothers, she would be consulted, +leant on, confided in. Mr. Symons missed his wife at every turn, but he +never felt Henrietta could take her place. Her nagging shut up his heart +against her. He thought it silly, rather unfairly, perhaps, for she +inherited the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> habit from her mother, and he had never thought <em>her</em> +nagging silly.</p> + +<p>As to William and Harold, they had come to the ages of thirty-five and +twenty-six without any wish for confidence, and why should they wish to +confide in Henrietta? She was not wise and she was not sympathetic. The +mere fact that they lived in the same house with her caused no automatic +opening of the heart. Well on in middle life, William became engaged, +and suddenly poured out everything to his love, but for the present he +and Harold were content to go through life never saying anything about +themselves to anybody. In fact, they hardly ever thought of Henrietta. +She would have been astonished if she had known what an infinitesimal +difference she made in their lives.</p> + +<p>As mistress of the house, Henrietta was promoted to the circle of the +married ladies, and the happiest hours of her life were spent in visits +she and they interchanged, when they talked about servants, +arrangements, prices, and health.</p> + +<p>They were not intimate friends. Perhaps the women of fifty years ago did +not have the faculty of staunch and close friend-making<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> possessed by +our generation. And now Henrietta did not very much want to make +friends. She would have thought intimacy a little schoolgirlish, a +little beneath a middle-aged lady's dignity.</p> + +<p>Her parents had been a very ordinary couple in a country town. They and +the society they frequented were uncultivated, and uninterested in +everything that was going on in the world outside. The men, of course, +were occupied with their professions, and almost all the ladies had +large growing families, which gave full scope for their energies. +Henrietta had not their duties, and was better off than the majority of +them, but she did not find time hang heavy on her hands. Long ere this +she had learnt the art of getting through the day with the minimum of +employment. Now, of course, her various duties gave her a certain amount +to do, but not enough to occupy her mind profitably. She often said, "I +am so busy I really haven't a moment to spare," and quite sincerely +declined the charge of a district, because she had no time. If any +visitors were coming to stay, she spoke of the preparations and the work +they entailed, as if all was performed by her single pair of hands. +"What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> with Louie and Edward coming to-morrow, and Harold going to the +Tyrol on Wednesday, I cannot think how I shall manage, but I suppose," +with a resigned smile, "I shall get through somehow." She was persuaded +into visiting a small hospital once a fortnight for an hour, and the day +and hour were much dreaded by her entourage, so vastly did they loom on +the horizon, and so submissively must every other event wait on their +convenience.</p> + +<p>Minna and Louie often came on visits with their children. The three +sisters got on much better than formerly, though Minna and Louie were +both <a name="two" id="two"></a><ins title="original had two">too</ins> much absorbed in their own interests to give Henrietta a large +place in their thoughts. Minna's husband failed early in health, before +he had had time to fulfil his promising early prospects, while Louie's +Colonel, when he retired from the army, occupied his leisure in +speculation, and greatly diminished that attractive fortune of his. All +three sisters had a certain amount of money left to them by their +mother, but in spite of this Minna and Louie were now both, +comparatively speaking, poor, while Henrietta, with no one dependent on +her, and a large allowance from her father, was comfortably off. Louie +and Minna quite gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> up talking of "poor Henrietta," and "Really +Henrietta has done very well for herself," was a remark frequently +exchanged.</p> + +<p>Henrietta had always been generous, and her sisters soon came to expect +as a right that she should rescue them in times of domestic need: pay +for a nephew's schooling, send a delicate niece to the sea, and give +very substantial presents at birthdays and Christmas. Their point of +view seemed to be that if anyone had been so lucky as to keep out of the +bothers of marriage, the least she could do was to help her unfortunate +sisters. Still, they disliked being beholden to Henrietta, and, half +intentionally, set their children against her to relieve their feelings. +The children were not bad children, but Henrietta found their visits +burdensome. She was becoming a little set and unwilling to be disturbed, +and she said the children were spoilt. Minna and Louie had determined +they would not be the strict parents of the elder generation, whereas +Henrietta, who remembered all the snubbing of her youth, wanted to have +her turn of giving snubs, and this did not make her popular. She never +grew very fond of these children, but kept her affection for something +else.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>For it is not to be supposed that a heart with such peculiar longing for +love was to be satisfied with a life in which feeling played so little +part. She had put aside the desire for a lover now. She was not one of +the women whom nothing will satisfy but marriage; on the whole she did +not care very much for men. She wanted what she had always wanted, +something to love and something to love her. And she had good reason to +hope that at last that wish might be realized, for it was agreed between +her and Evelyn that if there were any children, she was to bring them up +while Evelyn was abroad. Round this hope she built many happy schemes.</p> + +<p>Henrietta had seen very little of Evelyn all this time—the regiment +went from one foreign station to another—but very affectionate letters +passed between the two.</p> + +<p>For some years no children were born. Then came a little girl. "She is +to be called Etta," said Evelyn's letter, "and you know she is your baby +as well as ours. Do you remember what you did for me in old days? I +think of how you will do the same for baby, and I could not bear for +anyone else to do it but you." The baby died in the first year.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> Then +came a little boy, who lived an even shorter time; then another little +girl. The parents and Henrietta hardly dared to hope this time. But the +perilous first year passed, then, although she was always very delicate, +a second, third, and fourth. Then, when the plans were maturing for her +coming home, she died too. It seems sometimes as if Death cannot leave a +certain family alone, but comes back to it again and again.</p> + +<p>"Evelyn is broken-hearted," her husband wrote, "and if she stays in this +horrible India I believe I shall lose her too. I am going to exchange if +I can to a home regiment, or I shall leave the army. I do not care what +we do as long as I get her away. In the midst of it all she keeps +thinking of how you will feel it. I believe a good cry with you is the +one thing that might comfort her."</p> + +<p>Henrietta took this letter to her father, and implored him to let her go +out to India at once. But this Mr. Symons, though kind and sympathetic +and truly sorry for Evelyn, could not bring himself to allow. He was +getting to the age when he shrank from violent upheavals. Herbert said +they were leaving India. By the time she arrived they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> would probably be +gone, and then what a wild goose chase it would be. Then, of course, she +could not go alone, and who was to go with her? Her brothers could not +spare the time, and he did not feel up to going, and she must have a man +with her. Edward? No, certainly not. Since his speculations, Edward was +in bad odour. No, it would be much better to write a kind letter—he +would write too—and drop this really foolish scheme, which would, among +other things, be very costly, more costly <a name="then" id="then"></a><ins title="original had then">than</ins> he felt prepared to face +just then.</p> + +<p>She said she would go alone.</p> + +<p>"Then you would go entirely without my sanction. It is a perfectly +impossible thing for a young lady to contemplate. You have never even +been on the Continent, and you think of travelling to India unattended."</p> + +<p>She had never acted in opposition to her parents, though she had often +been domineering to her father in small matters, when he had not +resisted. She was always weak, she could only fight when the other side +would not fight back. She said, "Oh, father, I must go," and when he +said, "Nonsense, I couldn't think of it," she collapsed, partly from +cowardice, partly from duty, though her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> father was not in the least +strong-willed either, and with a little serious resistance would have +been made to yield. She felt bitterly the reproach in Evelyn's letter, +"If only you could have come."</p> + +<p>She did not feel as wildly wretched as fifteen years ago, because now in +middle age what she passed through at the moment was not of the same +desperate importance; but then she had a small corner of hope hidden +away that perhaps something might happen, whereas now she realized +clearly that the prospect which had given her her chief interest and +delight was destroyed for ever.</p> + +<p>The trouble told on her, she caught a chill, which developed into +pneumonia. She was dangerously ill for some weeks, and when she was +better, she was long in getting up her strength, because she had no wish +to get well.</p> + +<p>Minna and Louie thought it odd that Henrietta should "fret so much about +Evelyn's children whom she had never seen. She has always seemed to make +so much more fuss over them than over her own nephews and nieces in +England. Of course, it was natural that dear Evelyn herself should be +distracted,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> but for Henrietta it almost seemed a little exaggerated."</p> + +<p>When she was well enough to travel, the doctor recommended the South of +France for the winter, and she went away with a married friend, the +Carrie Bostock of the Italian readings.</p> + +<p>It was all very pleasant and entertaining to Henrietta, who had never +been abroad, never even away from her own family. In the Riviera she +could to a certain extent drown thought, but she counted the days with +consternation, as each one in its flight brought her nearer to taking up +life again at home.</p> + +<p>One afternoon she received a letter from her father.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Henrietta</span>," it ran,</p> + +<p><span class="i2">"I</span> do not know if you will be surprised to hear that I am +engaged to be married to Mrs. Waters. We have not known one another very +long, but I must say I very soon felt that she would be one who could +take your dear mother's place. I think it is very possible that you may +have observed whither matters were tending. I feel certain that we shall +all be very happy together, and I hope you will write her a warm letter +of welcome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> to our family. She will, I am sure, be both mother and +sister to you, etc."</p> + +<p>The news was staggering to Henrietta. She had been so engrossed in her +own trouble that she had observed nothing of what was going on around +her. Mrs. Waters, a widow, who had lately settled in the neighbourhood, +had been several times to their house and had entertained them at hers, +but that she should be anything more than a friendly acquaintance had +never entered Henrietta's head. She was to be ousted, her mother was to +be ousted, and she was to give a warm welcome to the interloper. Her +forgotten temper burst forth. She wrote a violent letter to her father, +hurling at him all the ridiculous exaggerated things that most people +feel at the beginning of a rage, but which few are so mad as to commit +to paper. She refused altogether to write to Mrs. Waters.</p> + +<p>She also relieved herself by contradicting everything Carrie said, thus +giving her a good excuse for those long talks to a third party, which +frequently take place when friends have been abroad together, beginning, +"I really had no idea she <em>could</em>."</p> + +<p>After she had written the letter, as usual she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> was very much ashamed. +She wrote again unsaying all she had said, but her father had been too +much wounded to reply.</p> + +<p>She came back just a little before the wedding to see him in quite a new +light—a lover, for he at sixty-five and Mrs. Waters at forty-seven had +fallen in love.</p> + +<p>When Henrietta saw more of her stepmother to be, she had in honesty to +own that she liked her. She was not only very attractive, but she was so +thoroughly nice and kind, so intent on making people happy, so entirely +without airs of patronage, and Henrietta could see how everybody warmed +under her smile.</p> + +<p>Henrietta had settled that she would not live at home after the +marriage. Neither she nor her father could forget the letter, it was +better that they should part. She had again asked his forgiveness, but +neither felt at ease with the other.</p> + +<p>She stayed for a few weeks after Mr. and Mrs. Symons came back from the +honeymoon, and saw almost with consternation, how the spirit of the +house changed. It became peaceful, cordial, harmonious; it would not +have been known for the same house. The whole household liked Mrs. +Symons; even her own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> dog deserted Henrietta. It was not that she was +ousted from her place, it was that Mrs. Symons created a place, which +never had been hers. She had had no idea in all these twelve years how +little she had made herself liked. She had had her chance, her one great +chance, in life, and she had missed it.</p> + +<p>When she went away, there were kind good wishes for her prosperity, +interest in her plans, many hopes that she would visit them, but no +regret; with a clearness and honesty of sight she unfortunately +possessed she realized that—no regret.</p> + +<p>What was the use of twelve years in which she had sincerely tried to do +her best, if she had not built up some little memorial of affection? It +was the old complaint of all her life, "I am not wanted." The anguish +she had shared with Evelyn and her husband had been much sharper, but in +the midst of it there had been consolation in the exquisite union they +had felt with the children and with one another. Here there was nothing +to cheer her; there is not much consolation when one fails where it +seems quite easy for others to succeed.</p> + +<p>Now that it became evident that she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> be so little missed, she was +in haste to get the parting over and be gone. But her unadventurous +spirit shrank from going out in the world to manage by itself. She was +very doubtful what she should do. She would not have been welcomed by +Minna or Louie, even if she had wished to live with them. Her second +brother was in some <a name="inacessible" id="inacessible"></a><ins title="original had inacessible">inaccessible</ins> foreign place. Evelyn and Herbert were +also far out of reach. He had exchanged into a regiment which was +quartered at Halifax, in Canada.</p> + +<p>But the distance, however great, might have been faced, if she had not +had a miserable quarrel with Herbert. It began with some +misunderstanding about the tombstone on the youngest little girl's +grave, to which Henrietta had wished to contribute. She had written to +Evelyn from the Riviera in all the soreness of worn-out nerves and grief +from which the sublimity has gone. The very fact that they had been +drawn so close to one another made her specially irritable to Evelyn. +After one or two of her letters, an answer came from Herbert:</p> + +<p>"Evelyn is very ill from all she has been through, and the doctor says +it is most important that she should be kept from every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> sort of worry. +She was so much distressed at your last letter, and answering you took +so much out of her, that I have taken the liberty of keeping this one +from her. You have no right to write to her in this way, and I must ask +you to drop all correspondence for the present if your letters are to be +in the same strain."</p> + +<p>Henrietta declared that he was trying to come between her and her +sister, and that if that was the case she should never trouble them +again. She did not write at all for several weeks, then she felt +remorseful, but Herbert could not forgive her. He wrote coldly that +Evelyn was still so unhinged as to be incapable of receiving letters +without undue excitement.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span><a name="vii" id="vii"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Even</span> now, when there is a certain amount of choice and liberty, a woman +who is thrown on her own resources at thirty-nine, with no previous +training, and no obvious claims and duties, does not find it very easy +to know how to dispose of herself. But a generation ago the problem was +far more difficult. Henrietta was well off for a single woman, but she +was incapable, and not easy to get on with. She would have thought it +derogatory to do any form of teaching—teaching, the natural refuge of a +workless woman.</p> + +<p>Three or four courses presented themselves. First, philanthropy. She was +not really more philanthropic than she had been at twenty, when her aunt +had described to her the happiness of living for others. But she felt at +nearly forty that charitable work was a reasonable way of filling up her +time, on the whole, the most reasonable.</p> + +<p>She never had had much to do with poor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> people. Mrs. Symons had helped +the charwoman, and the gardener, and the driver from the livery-stables, +when they were in special difficulties, and Henrietta had continued to +do so, and had had her hour at the hospital. That was all. There were +the servants, of course, but with the exception of Ellen she looked on +servants more as machines made for her convenience, liable to get out of +order unless they were constantly watched.</p> + +<p>Entirely without enthusiasm, and with a dreary fighting against her lot, +she made inquiries among her acquaintances as to where she might find +charitable work. At length somebody knew somebody, who knew somebody who +was working in London under a clergyman. After further inquiries it was +found that the somebody was a lady, who would be very glad if Henrietta +would come and live with her, while she saw how she liked the work.</p> + +<p>The clergyman, the lady, and all the other workers, were earnest, +enthusiastic, high-minded, and full of common sense. Henrietta was not +one of these things. She was also very inaccurate, unpunctual, and +forgetful, and if her failings were pointed out to her in the gentlest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +way she took offence, not because she was conceited, but because at her +age she was beyond having things pointed out. She stayed at the work six +months, and during that time she was always offended with somebody, and +sometimes with everybody.</p> + +<p>The work was conducted more on charity organization lines than was usual +in those days; money was not given without due consideration and +consultation. This was difficult, and required more thinking than +Henrietta cared for, so she saved herself trouble by bestowing five +shillings whenever she wanted, feeling at the bottom of her heart that +if she could not be liked for herself, she would buy liking rather than +not be liked at all. The five shillings, however, did not buy either +gratitude or affection. She had always had a grudging way with people of +a different class from herself, and a conviction, in spite of +indiscriminate alms, that she was being taken in. This infringement of +the rules drove the Vicar to exasperation. His whole heart was in his +work, and Henrietta's disloyalty hindered him at every turn.</p> + +<p>"Can't she be asked to give up meddling in the parish?" he said to his +wife.</p> + +<p>"No dear, you know she can't, and she is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> very generous, even if she is +tiresome. She has often been very helpful to you. You ought to be +grateful."</p> + +<p>"I'm not grateful," he said, striding about the room; "and then she is +so petty, always these absurd squabbles. She hasn't got a spark of love +for God or man. That's at the root of it all. We don't want a person of +that sort here. If she cared about the people, even if she did pauperize +them, I might think her a fool, but I could respect her; but you know +she doesn't care for a soul but herself."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it is that, but she's in great trouble, I'm sure she is. +When you were preaching about sorrow last Sunday, I saw her eyes were +filled with tears."</p> + +<p>"Were they?" he said, "I'm sorry. But look here, dear, I don't think +this sort of work ought to be used as a soothing syrup, or as a +rubbish-shoot for loafers, who don't know what else to do. If people +aren't doing it because they think it's the greatest privilege in the +world to be allowed to do it, I can't see that they do much good."</p> + +<p>"I think you're too hard on her."</p> + +<p>"Am I? I expect I am. I know I'm fagged to death. She gives Mrs. +Wilkins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> pounds on the sly, which the old lady's been transforming into +gin, and then when I explain the circumstances and implore her to leave +well alone, she talks my head off with a torrent of incoherent +statements, which have nothing whatever to do with the point."</p> + +<p>It certainly was true that Henrietta did not do much good, and no one +was more aware of this than herself. She stood outside the community, +and looked in at them like a hungry beggar at a feast. How she envied +their happiness, but she did not feel that she was, or ever could be, a +partaker with them. As months passed on, she drew no nearer to them. +They were all so busy, so strong in their union with one another, they +did not seem to have time to stretch out a friendly hand to one who was +at least as much in need of it as Mrs. Wilkins.</p> + +<p>The lady she lived with found her trying. "A very trying person" was the +phrase that went the round about her, "always criticizing small +arrangements about the meals and the housekeeping," for Henrietta could +not at first reconcile herself to having no authority to exert, and this +jangling was not a good preparation for sisterly sympathy towards her.</p> + +<p>The Vicar's wife might have become friends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> with her, but during the six +months Henrietta was in the parish Mrs. Wharton was ill and hardly able +to see anyone. Besides, she was shy, and the only time that Henrietta +came to tea they never succeeded in getting beyond a comparison of +foreign hotels.</p> + +<p>Henrietta would have liked to confide her troubles, but as she grew +older she had become a great deal more reserved, and also these troubles +she was ashamed to speak of. To think that she had made her own sister, +ill and miserable as she was, more ill and more miserable, she could not +forgive herself; she was even harder on herself than Herbert had been.</p> + +<p>As Mr. Wharton had said, it was useless engaging in this arduous work +when her heart was elsewhere. When her six months of trial came to an +end, it was clear that the only thing for her was to go. No one could +pretend they were sorry, and as everyone imagined she was glad, there +seemed no reason to disguise their feelings. They would have been +surprised if they had known her thoughts as she sat at the evening +service on her last Sunday. "Whatever I do, I fail; what is the use of +my living? Why was I born?"</p> + +<p>She said to Mr. Wharton in her farewell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> interview: "I know I have been +very stupid at learning what was to be done, and I have not been willing +to take advice. Now I look back, I see the mistakes I have made, and I +have done harm instead of good. I want to give you"—she named a large +sum considering the size of her income—"to spend as you think right, I +hope that may help to make amends. I am very sorry."</p> + +<p>He heard a quiver in her voice, and the dislike and irritation he had +felt all the six months faded away.</p> + +<p>"This is much too generous of you," he stammered. "It is my fault, all +my fault. I have been so irritable, I haven't made allowances. My wife +tells me of it constantly. I wish you would forgive me and give us +another chance. Stay six months longer."</p> + +<p>His awkwardness and distress almost disarmed her, but she had felt his +snubs, and at nearly forty she was not going to be encouraged like a +child. So that though for many reasons she longed to stay, she answered: +"Thank you, it was a purely temporary arrangement; I have other plans."</p> + +<p>As she walked home she wondered what the other plans were.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>When in doubt, go abroad. She went abroad again for three months. Her +companion was picked up from nowhere in particular, an odd woman like +herself.</p> + +<p>They went to Italy. Neither of them cared in the smallest degree for +sculpture, architecture, painting, archæology, poetry, history, +politics, scenery, languages, or foreigners. These last Henrietta +regarded as inferior Anglo-Indians regard natives, referring to them +always as "those wretches."</p> + +<p>Like most women she loved certain aspects in her garden at home, which +were connected with incidents in her life. There was a path bordered by +roses, along which they had walked when Evelyn announced her engagement, +and a special old apple-tree reminded her of the night her mother died. +But to go and admire what Baedeker called a magnificent <em>coup d'œil</em> +was no sort of pleasure to her.</p> + +<p>However, she and Miss Gurney had one unending amusement, which Italy is +peculiarly able to supply. They could make short visits to different +towns, and fit sights into their days, as one fits pieces into a puzzle. +Henrietta found this sport most satisfying.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span><a name="viii" id="viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Just</span> as they were getting tired of tables d'hôte dinners, there came to +their hotel an enthusiast for learning. It was before the days of +women's colleges; they were established, but frequented only by +pioneers, in whose ranks no Henriettas are to be found. But courses of +lectures were so ordinary that not even the most timid could look +askance at them. As philanthropy had failed, and no one could pretend +that art could be a resource for Henrietta,—her career of sketches and +two part-songs had been phenomenally short (invaluable as it has proved +itself for many Englishwomen suffering from her complaint)—everything +pointed to study as the next solution on the list.</p> + +<p>Study. Henrietta had not read a book which required any mental exertion +since her dozen chapters of "I Promessi Sposi," fifteen years ago. +Still, the lectures sounded pleasant to her; they were a novelty, they +were—she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> could not think of anything else they were—a novelty must be +their claim to distinction.</p> + +<p>She and the travelling friend found a boarding-house near the +lecture-room. London and the lodgings both looked dismal after the +brightness of abroad, but they were excited at the prospect of +establishing themselves on their own account. It was enterprising, but +not too enterprising.</p> + +<p>Henrietta found a band of enthusiasts at the lecture; it seemed her fate +to run up against enthusiasm she could not share. Young ladies, +middle-aged ladies, even old ladies, all listening spellbound—at least +if not absolutely spellbound, spellbound compared to Henrietta—to an +elderly gentleman discoursing on Aristotle. For most of them Aristotle, +and the satisfaction of using their minds were sufficient, but a little +knot of middle-aged women in the front, with hair inclined to be short, +and eyes bursting with intelligence, used learning as a symbol of +emancipation. Lectures were their vote. Now they would be in prison.</p> + +<p>Henrietta listened for five minutes, then suddenly her thoughts darted +to her portmanteau: she had lost the key at Dieppe. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> went on to the +incivility at the Custom-house, the incivility of the waiter at Bâle, +the incivility of the gardener at her old home, the geranium bed in the +garden—would her stepmother attend to it?—her father, was his eyesight +really failing? She came back with a jump to find that the lecture had +moved on several pages. She listened with fair success for another five +minutes, then her mind wandered to her landlady at the lodgings; was she +perfectly honest, did her expression inspire confidence? There was that +pearl brooch Louie had given her; it was Louie's birthday to-morrow, she +must write, and hear also how Tom was getting on in this his second term +at school, she must send him a hamper. She had settled the contents of +the hamper when she found that someone was speaking to her. The lecturer +was asking whether she felt she would care to write a paper. He hoped as +many ladies as possible would make an attempt at the papers; it would be +a great pleasure and interest to him to look through them, etc.</p> + +<p>On the way back she found Miss Gurney entranced with everything; she +seemed to have picked up a great deal more than Henrietta. They went at +once to a library and a bookshop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> to get what they had been advised to +read, and Miss Gurney bought reams of paper. She was hard at work the +whole evening. Henrietta had one of the books open before her, but she +found the same difficulty in concentrating herself that she had done at +the lecture. Miss Gurney was rapidly filling an exercise book with an +abstract, and was keeping up a conversation as well.</p> + +<p>"Ah <em>that</em> was the piece I couldn't quite understand this morning. Yes I +see, now it is quite clear. Look, Miss Symons. Oh, I shall learn Greek, +I certainly shall, as he said, it will make it twenty times more +interesting."</p> + +<p>What were they all so excited about? Henrietta had never cared about +abstract questions, and she could not see that there was any object in +discovering what the ancient Greeks thought about them more than two +thousand years ago. The evening before, she and Miss Gurney had had an +interesting conversation on the weekly averages of house-books. Then she +felt comfortable and on the solid earth. Why then, was she attending +lectures on Aristotle? Well, because Miss Gurney had a friend whose +cousin had married the lecturer, Professor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> Amery, and in the difficult +problem of choosing a subject, when there was nothing she really cared +to know about, this was as good a reason as any other.</p> + +<p>Then Henrietta remembered how she and Emily Mence years ago at school, +had argued the whole of Saturday afternoon about Mary Queen of Scots, +and had not been on speaking terms the following day, because Emily had +called Mary frivolous. Had she ever really been that queer little girl? +Still she was anxious to give the lecturer a chance, most anxious, for +she had already had to suffer from Minna and Louie's sympathy that the +parish work was a failure. She read three chapters and fell asleep in +the middle of the fourth, and went to bed half an hour earlier than +usual. Next morning she could not remember a word of what she had read, +but for two dates and one sentence, which remained in her head. "Even +now, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, in spite of an +unparalleled advance in our knowledge of the natural sciences, the world +has not yet produced a mind, which can equal that of Aristotle in its +astounding versatility and profundity of learning." She determined to +persevere, but was it her subconscious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> self which discovered a vast +arrear of letters which it was incumbent on her to answer before she +thought of anything else?</p> + +<p>After the lecture there was a class at which everyone talked. Even the +dear old lady next to Henrietta was asking a quavering question. Yes, a +little delicate old lady had energy to keep the current of the lecture +in her head. She said that Aristotle's problem whether it was possible +for slaves to have ordinary virtues, made her think of the difference in +the Christian teaching of St. Paul's epistles. Had any of the other +Greek philosophers been more humane in their views on slavery? Then +another voice struck in, and compared the ancient idea of slavery with +the slave code of the United States. The voice was rather strident, but +not unpleasant. It had a great deal to say, and for some minutes seemed +likely to take the lecture altogether from the mouth of the lecturer. +Henrietta looked in its direction, and saw a small apple-cheeked elderly +lady. The voice and the face both set her thinking, and by the end of +the lecture she was certain that the elderly lady was Miss Arundel. She +spoke, and when Miss Arundel had recollected who she was (it took a +little time),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> Henrietta received a most cordial invitation to tea.</p> + +<p>Miss Arundel lived with a niece in a couple of rooms quite close to +Henrietta. Mrs. Marston was dead, and Miss Arundel had retired from the +school with just enough to live in decent comfort.</p> + +<p>"So now, after teaching all my life, I am giving myself the treat of +learning, and I can't tell you how I am enjoying it, Miss Symons. Ada +and I both like Professor Amery so much." And she prosed on about the +lecture and the books she was reading, and did not much care to talk +over the old times, which were still very dear to Henrietta. It amazed +Henrietta to think that she had once blushed and trembled at the look of +this fussy, garrulous little governess.</p> + +<p>She might be something of a bore, but there was no question of her +happiness, her interest in life. She had been getting up at six the last +three mornings that she might finish a book, a large book in two volumes +with close print, that had to be returned to the library. Henrietta +could imagine nothing in the world for which she would get up at six +o'clock. Then her thoughts went like lightning to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> morning when the +telegram had come telling of little Madeline's death. The wound she had +thought healed burst out afresh; for a few seconds she felt as if she +could hardly breathe. Get up at six o'clock, of course she would have +forfeited her sleep with joy, night after night. In the midst of envy, +she felt something like contempt for Miss Arundel as a child running +after shadows.</p> + +<p>On her way home, she compared her past with Miss Arundel's. Miss Arundel +could look back on busy, successful, happy years. Her room was filled +with tributes from old pupils, they were continually writing to her and +coming to see her, that Henrietta knew; she did not know how often they +had thanked her, and told her what they owed her.</p> + +<p>Then she envied Miss Arundel's powers of mind. After forty years of +unceasing and exhausting work she seemed as fresh as a schoolgirl, and +far more capable of learning, while Henrietta after twenty years of +rest, had not merely lost all the qualities she had had as a child, but +had gained none from age and experience to take their place. The +realization of this fact startled and humiliated her. If her powers had +already declined at forty, what was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> to happen in the twenty years of +life that she might reasonably count upon as still before her?</p> + +<p>She thought of Miss Arundel's words: "Etta Symons is a girl with +possibilities; I shall be interested to see how she will turn out." Miss +Arundel had long forgotten them, and now looked on Henrietta simply as a +co-member of the lectures, but she said to her niece after Henrietta had +been to tea, "What a very no-how person Miss Symons is; I should like to +shake her."</p> + +<p>Henrietta tried her hardest to work at the lectures, to recover if +possible what she had lost, but it was no use. A person of more +character and determination might have succeeded, in spite of the long +years of mental self-indulgence, so might a person more ready to take +advice. But at forty, as I have said, she felt she was beyond advice, so +she would not notice Miss Gurney's hints. She chose to despise her +numberings and brackets, though she was half-envious of them. And, +however contemptible these aids may be to a real student, they were +evidently the one hope for Henrietta's foggy mind.</p> + +<p>She began a paper on the sly, and with much sweat of brow the following +sentence emerged:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> "There are a number of celebrated writers in ancient +Greece, and among the number we may notice Aristotle, who wrote a number +of celebrated books, among which two called the 'Ethics' and 'Republic' +are very celebrated. He also wrote many other works, but none are so +celebrated as the two above mentioned." She had not written a paper for +twenty-three years, and she felt as helpless as if she were trying to +express herself in French. Her essays had been well thought of at +school.</p> + +<p>As she was floundering along, up came Miss Gurney and looked over her +shoulder. "Oh Miss Symons, I should have a margin if I were you; I know +Professor Amery likes a margin for the corrections, he said so himself. +Oh, and you don't mind my saying so, but Aristotle did not write a +republic. Shall I just scratch that out? That was Plato. And I should +have a new paragraph there; and I always find, I don't know if you will, +that it makes it easier to underline some of the words."</p> + +<p>"I am not at all certain that I am going to write a paper," said +Henrietta. "I just wrote a few notes down to amuse myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear. Well, if you should think of doing the paper, +you must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> read this article, it's such a help, it really puts all one +wants to say."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I shouldn't care to read that at all."</p> + +<p>"Oh do. Let me put it here, and then you can look at it."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you."</p> + +<p>Miss Gurney went out, and Henrietta sat at her paper for two hours and a +half. It was so bad, so unintelligible, that she actually cried over it, +and when she heard Miss Gurney's step, she carried it off to her bedroom +and locked the door. Miss Gurney was after her in an instant.</p> + +<p>"How are you getting on with your paper, dear? Can I be of any help?"</p> + +<p>She did finish it at last, and gave it to Mr. Amery. She knew it was +bad, but she was too ignorant to know quite how bad. Professor Amery, +with the extreme courtesy of elderly gentlemen, wrote: "I think there +are one or two points which I have not made quite clear. Would you care +to talk them over with me after the class?" But this offer was so +alarming that Henrietta "cut" her lectures for two weeks.</p> + +<p>There would have been more chance for her, if only she could have become +in the least<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> interested. She tried the French Revolution next term for +a change, but liked it no better than Aristotle. Intellectual life was +dead and buried in her long ago. What would have really suited her best +in the present circumstances would have been shorthand and type-writing, +but at that time no such occupation was open to her.</p> + +<p>She would perhaps have jogged on indefinitely at the lectures, if Miss +Gurney, whose great interest was novelty and change, and whose abstracts +of learned books had lately become much less voluminous, had not jumped +at a suggestion to take a delicate niece abroad, and proposed that +Henrietta should come too. So Henrietta consented, and with little +regret they gave up the lodgings, and said good-bye to learning.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span><a name="ix" id="ix"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Henrietta</span> paid her father a visit before they started abroad. The +promise of the first days was amply fulfilled; the whole house was +happy, and Henrietta was touched by the warmth of her welcome. After the +squalor of lodgings home was pleasant, and her father's invitation was +cordial: "Henrietta, why don't you stay with us? Mildred," with a fond +look at his wife, "never will allow your room to be used; it's always +ready waiting for you."</p> + +<p>It was a temptation to Henrietta, but she refused partly from pride, +from a feeling that she ought not to disturb the present comfort, but +also because it was getting a principle with her, as apparently with +many middle-aged Englishwoman, that she must always be going abroad. Yet +she knew that Miss Gurney did not particularly want to have her, and had +invited her more from laziness than from anything else.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>They went abroad—it was to the Italian Lakes—and a life of sitting in +the sun, walking up and down promenades, short drives, and making and +unmaking of desultory friendships began. They grumbled a good deal to +third parties, but still they were happy enough, according to their low +standard of happiness.</p> + +<p>As they were abroad for an indefinite period, there was none of the +feeling of rush, which they had enjoyed so much before, but sometimes +they played the Italian game, and had packed-in days; called, 6.45; +coffee, 7.30; train, 8.21; arrive at destination, 11.23; go to Croce +d'Oro for coffee, visit churches of Santa Maria and San Giovanni, and +museum: <em>table d'hôte</em> luncheon, 1.30; drive to Roman remains, back to +Croce d'Oro for tea; separate for shopping and meet at station, 5.20, +for train, 5.30; back for special <em>table d'hôte</em> kept for them in the +<em>salle à manger</em>. Henrietta would settle it all with Baedeker and the +railway guide the night before, and if she had felt apprehension at her +failing powers in history, her grasp of this kind of day could not have +been bettered. Everything was seen and everything was timed, and the +only person who might have something to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> complain of, was the delicate +niece, who went through her treat too exhausted to open her mouth, +counting the hours when she might go to her bed in peace.</p> + +<p>At last Miss Gurney and the niece decided to return to England. +Henrietta found some Americans who wanted to stay at Montreux, and they +asked her to join them. After Montreux came Chamounix, and in the autumn +Miss Gurney's niece came out again, and she and Henrietta stayed at +Como, and then at Mentone till April. Then came Switzerland again. Then +Henrietta went to England for a round of visits, and by the end of them +she was longing to be back abroad. She said that England was depressing, +and gave her rheumatism, and that she (in the best of health and prime +of life) could not face an English winter. The fact was she did not care +for the sharing of other people's lives which is expected from a +visitor, and her long sojourn in hotels with no one but herself to +consider, had made her less easy to live with. So without exactly +knowing how, she drifted into spending almost all her time abroad. Every +other year she came back for visits in the summer, but in the spring, +autumn, and winter she wandered from one cheap <em>pension</em><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> to another in +Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, or Switzerland.</p> + +<p>If she had led a half-occupied life as keeper of her father's house, she +now learnt the art of getting through a day in which she did absolutely +nothing. When she became accustomed to it, the very smallest service +required of her was regarded as a cross. Sometimes a relation would +commission her to buy something abroad, and then the <em>salle à manger</em> +would resound with wails, because she must go round the corner, select +an article, and give orders to the shopman to despatch it to England. +The friends who asked her to engage rooms for them at an hotel, had +cause to rue their request; they never heard the end of it.</p> + +<p>Many lonely women receive great solace from their church, and give +solace in return. Where would the church and the poor be without them? +But Henrietta was never long enough in her caravanserais to become +attached to the services of the chaplains in the <em>salle à manger</em>, and +she soon gave up churchgoing. At first she spent a great deal of time +inventing reasons to keep her conscience quiet, such as that it had +rained in the night and therefore might rain again, or that she did not +approve of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> chanting Amen, but later she did not see why there should be +a reason, and left her conscious to its remorse.</p> + +<p>Bad health is another resource for unoccupied women, and it certainly +occurred to her as an occupation, but she realized that it and roving +cannot be combined, and of the two she preferred roving.</p> + +<p>Her chief pastime was to skim through novels, any novels that could be +found, costume novels of English history by preference. This was how her +bent for learning satisfied itself. She never remembered the author, or +title, or anything of what she read, but at the same time she was +obsessed with the idea that she must always have something new, and +would constantly accuse her friends, or the library, of deceiving her +with books she had read before. "If you can't remember, what does it +matter?" her dreadfully reasonable nieces would exclaim, not realizing +that her sole interest in the novels was the collector's interest of +seeing how many new ones she could find.</p> + +<p>A second pastime was her patience, that bond which knits together our +occidental civilization. She was always learning new patiences, and +always mixing them up with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> one another. This was another source of +annoyance to efficient nieces. "But that is not demon, Aunt Etta," they +would explain, playing patience severely from a sense of duty. She +cheated so persistently that there was no room for skill. "I can't +conceive why you play," they said crossly. But the reason was perfectly +clear. It stared one in the face. During the patience the clock had +moved from ten minutes past eight to twenty-five minutes to ten.</p> + +<p>Henrietta also killed time now and then with sights; not churches or old +pictures, of course she never went near masterpieces now she had ample +leisure for seeing them, but Easter services, royal birthday +processions, or battles of flowers. As she seldom broke her routine of +idleness, these occasions excited her, not with pleasurable +anticipation, but with a nervous fluster that she might somehow miss +something; and the concierge, the porter, Madame, and the head-waiter, +would all be flying about the hotel half an hour before it was necessary +for her to start, sent on some perfectly useless errand connected with +her outing. If it rained, if something went wrong, how she grumbled. And +when she did see her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> show, it gave her very little pleasure. She had +not in the least a child's mind; she was not pleased by small events, +yet she grasped desperately after them, with an absurd, hazy idea that +she was defrauded of her rights, if she did not see them.</p> + +<p>Another interest was an enormous collection of photographs of places, +which she had not cared for at the time, and could not in the least +remember; another her address-book of pensions and hotels, to which she +was always adding new volumes; above all, grumbling. Favourite subjects +were her kettle and her methylated spirits, whether the hotel would +allow her to take up milk and sugar from breakfast, whether the +chambermaid abstracted the biscuits she brought from dessert overnight. +Everyone who came in contact with Miss Symons found they were made to +listen to an endless story of a certain Elise who had stolen the +biscuits and substituted other ones that were quite four days old, and +of Elise's brazen behaviour when charged with the offence.</p> + +<p>Her standard of comfort at a hotel was so impossible that she became an +object of terror and dislike to the waiters and chambermaids. She was +punctual in payment, but very grasping,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> and wrung many concessions from +the hotels by a persistence which no men and few women would have had +the courage to display. She was always seeking the ideal hotel, and for +this reason she was always wandering, and never was long enough in one +place to strike any roots and create a feeling of home. This life +corroded her character. She became more bad-tempered and nagging, always +up in arms, scenting out liberties, and thinking she was taken advantage +of. She was not a character which does well by itself, and under a +domineering manner she concealed her weakness, vacillation, and +timidity. She was divorced from every duty, every responsibility, every +natural tie, with no outlet for her interest or her sympathy. It seems +inconceivable that she should willingly have led such an existence. She +was however, much more satisfied with herself and with things in +general, than she had formerly been. She did not have stormy repentances +or outbursts against her lot; she no longer desired what was +unattainable. If she did not have a particularly high standard of +happiness or of character, neither, in her opinion, had the rest of the +world. Not that she thought much of these things. Over-thinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> and +over-longing had caused her much misery in early life, and she shrank +from opening all those wounds again. She faced facts as little as she +could. She lived from day to day, and her inner self was really very +much what her outer self seemed, absorbed in the very small round of +events which concerned her. The days passed, the months passed, the +years passed. She saw them go unregretted, and when they were gone, she +did not remember them. Nothing had happened in them, bad or good, to +mark their course.</p> + +<p>"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in +faculty, in form, in moving how express and admirable, in action how +like an angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, +the paragon of animals!"</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span><a name="x" id="x"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">It</span> has been shown that Henrietta had not much power of attracting +affection to herself, and she had long ceased to desire it. She was now +brought into contact with numbers of different people, and as travelling +acquaintances she liked them, but when they parted, she did not want to +see them again.</p> + +<p>There was, however, an exception to this rule. Henrietta found many +companions in misfortune, expatriated either from health, pleasure, or +poverty. An intelligent foreigner has inquired whether there are any +single elderly ladies left in England, so innumerable are the hosts +abroad. Some, like her, had worn their personalities so thin that it +seemed likely they would eventually become shadows with no character +left; others were nice and cheerful, and made little encampments in the +wilderness, so that the unfortunates might gather round them, and almost +feel they had got a home.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>It was in the room of a nice one that Henrietta met a Colonel. There are +fewer occupationless Englishmen abroad, but there is a fair +supply—half-pay officers, consumptives, and mysterious creatures, who +have no good reason for being there. They were a strange medley for +Henrietta to associate with, people whom in her palmy days, as mistress +of her father's house, she would have thought unspeakable. She had none +of this generation's tolerance and love of new sensations to attract her +to unsatisfactory people. She only really liked conventional +respectability.</p> + +<p>This Colonel was not respectable. He was not a Colonel in the English +army, and never would say much about himself. He was very pleasant and +polite, and Henrietta, as she walked back to table d'hôte, felt she had +spent a livelier afternoon than usual. It was at the beginning of the +season, and looking back six weeks later she was astonished to find how +often they had met.</p> + +<p>Shortly after, the lady in whose room Henrietta had first seen him, +asked her to tea. She did not seem quite so easy-going as usual, and at +last began: "You know, Miss Symons, my cousin, Colonel Hilton, is rather +a peculiar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> man. I've known him all my life, and I don't think there is +any harm in him, but money is his difficulty. He ought to be well off, +but it always seems to slip through his fingers."</p> + +<p>Henrietta realized that this was a warning.</p> + +<p>At the end of the season he proposed and she accepted him. She knew he +proposed for her money, and she knew that, besides being mercenary, he +was a poor creature in every way. Most people could not have borne long +with his society, but she, unaccustomed to companionship, felt that he +sufficed her. She did not think much of the future. When she did, she +realized that it was hardly possible they could marry. But meanwhile it +was something—she would have been ashamed to own how much—to have +someone call her "dear." Once he attained to "dearest," but he was +evidently frightened at his temerity, and did not repeat the experiment.</p> + +<p>She announced the engagement, and a letter from Minna came flying to the +Riviera, saying that all sorts of terrible things were known about the +Colonel, and imploring Henrietta to desist. She did not desist, but very +soon the Colonel did, having discovered that her fortune<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> was not so +large as he had been given to suppose. There was a solid something it is +true, but for Henrietta, quite middle-aged and decidedly cross (she +imagined she was never cross with him), he felt he must have a very +considerable something. He wrote a letter breaking off the engagement, +and left the Riviera abruptly, having made a good thing out of his +season. Henrietta had lent him, <em>he</em> said—given, others said—over +three hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>"And now we shall have a terrible piece of work," said Minna to Louie. +"You know what Henrietta always is—what she was about that other affair +with a man years ago, and again when Evelyn's little girl died. She gets +so excited and overwrought."</p> + +<p>But Henrietta quite upset their expectations. This, which most people +might have thought the most serious misfortune which had befallen her, +affected her very little. In her heart of hearts she was saying: "Well, +when all's said and done, I've had my offer like everyone else." She was +grateful for the "dears" too. She did not realize that there had been +absolutely nothing behind them. She answered the Colonel's speedy +application for more money,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> and continued to send him supplies from +time to time.</p> + +<p>Evelyn and Herbert had returned to England, and had settled on the South +Coast. Two boys had been born in Canada, and had grown and prospered. +Henrietta stayed with Evelyn for a fortnight whenever she was back in +England, but somehow the visits were not the pleasure they should have +been.</p> + +<p>Evelyn was still delicate, and Herbert had begged Henrietta when she saw +her to make no allusion to their loss. Evelyn was delighted at showing +her boys, and Henrietta was pleased for her that she should have them, +but to her they did not in the least take the place of the dead. They +were not hers; she was almost indignant with Evelyn for caring for them +so much, and accused her in her heart of forgetfulness. This made her +irritable, which Herbert resented, and then Evelyn was nervous because +Herbert and Henrietta did not get on well together. Evelyn's letters to +her were very affectionate, the only real pleasure, in any reasonable +sense of the word, in Henrietta's life.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Evelyn and her husband and boys came out to stay with +Henrietta. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> visits were not occasions of much happiness, and a +certain day remained for years as a mild nightmare in Evelyn's memory. +They were all in Milan one spring, when the patron of the hotel +announced that his lady cousin, who lived at some out-of-the-way little +country town, had heard from her friend, a priest in that same little +town, that on Tuesday there was to be a special festa in connection with +a local saint. Would the English ladies and gentlemen care to go? The +patron himself had the contempt of an enlightened man for saints and +festas, but he knew the curious attraction which such childishness +possesses for the English tourist.</p> + +<p>All was arranged. The railway company had never intended that the little +town should be reached from Milan, but with an early start and much +changing of trains it was possible to accomplish the journey in two +hours and a half.</p> + +<p>They arrived. There was no surprise among the hotel omnibuses at their +appearance, for the Italians have found that the English will turn up +everywhere; but to-day they were certainly the only representatives of +their nation.</p> + +<p>They reached the church where the festa was to take place. It was +sleeping peacefully,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> brooded over by a delicious, sweet smell of dirt +and stale incense. Not a soul was to be seen. But as the party marched +indignantly up and down the aisles, another smell comes to join the +incense—garlic. A merry, good-humoured little priest appears; it is the +friend of the lady cousin.</p> + +<p>He knew no English but "Yis, Yis"; they little Italian but the +essentials for travel: "Troppo, bello, antiquo." At the word "festa" he +shook his head very sadly, and he said "Domani" so many times that, with +the help of Henrietta's little phrase-book, they found it must mean +"To-morrow." They had come the wrong day. He was very much distressed +about it. To make up, if possible, for the disappointment, he showed +them all over the church and sacristy; he did not miss one memorial +tablet, not one disappearing fresco, and knowing the taste of the +English, he said, as each new item was displayed: "Molto, <em>molto</em> +antiquo."</p> + +<p>He was so much attracted by Evelyn's charming middle-aged beauty and her +sweet English voice that when Santa Barbara's was exhausted, he could +not resist showing them, what he cared for much more, his own little +brand-new mission church, with its brilliant rosy-cheeked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> images and +artificial wreaths. The boys, fifteen and seventeen, had had enough of +churches after two days at Milan, and Evelyn could hear from Herbert's +conscientious, stumping tread that he was examining the church because a +soldier must always do his duty.</p> + +<p>At length it was over; they came out into the sunshine, and the big town +clock struck a quarter to eleven. Their train home left at 5.30. The two +churches had only used up an hour and a quarter.</p> + +<p>"Now, dearest," said Herbert firmly, "I dare say you and Etta will like +a little rest. Suppose I and the boys get a walk in the country; and +don't wait lunch for us, you know. I dare say we can get something at +one of those little wine places one sees about."</p> + +<p>They managed to construct a sentence for the priest, who was standing +nodding by them: "Are there any pretty walks in the neighbourhood?"</p> + +<p>Smiling genially, he pointed to an answer which the phrase-book +translated: "The landscape presents a grandiose panorama."</p> + +<p>Evelyn gave the priest a contribution to his mission church. He was +overwhelmed with surprise and pleasure at this good action on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> part +of a heretic, it added to his pleasure that she was such a beautiful +heretic, and when, as they said good-bye, Evelyn wished that they might +meet again, he replied, with his face all over smiles, "I hope perhaps +in Paradise"; he could not speak with absolute certainty. Something in +the way he said it brought tears to Evelyn's eyes, and Henrietta, who +was looking on and listening, thought with a little envy that none of +the many priests or pastors, few even of the laity she had encountered +in her wanderings, had ever hoped to meet <em>her</em> again either in heaven +or on earth. After many affectionate bows, he said good-bye.</p> + +<p>The sisters were scarcely half an hour buying picture postcards (there +had been nothing else to do, so they had bought more picture postcards +than it seemed possible could be bought), when rain came on—not gentle +English rain, but the fierce cataracts of Italy, let loose for the rest +of the day. Back came Herbert and the boys, who had somehow missed the +grandiose panorama. It had, in fact, been created entirely out of +politeness by the priest.</p> + +<p>After lunch, which they prolonged to its farthest limit, there was +nothing for it but the salon, a small room, with its window darkened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> by +the verandah outside. Madame brought in yesterday's <em>Tribuna</em>, and they +found an illustrated catalogue of hotels in Dresden. Oh, that three +hours and a half! The boys and Herbert would have been content to sit +with their shoulders hutched up, staring at their boots, going every +quarter of an hour to the front-door to see if it were raining as hard +there as it was out of the salon window, and Evelyn only wanted to be +left in silence with her headache. But Henrietta would tease the boys. +Whatever they did do, or whatever they did not do, seemed an occasion +for criticism. Evelyn, to divert attention, burst into long +reminiscences of the days at Willstead. Henrietta combated each +statement with a kind of sneer, as though whatever Evelyn said was bound +to be worthless. Evelyn saw Herbert, who always treated her as if she +were a wonderful queen, casting black looks at Henrietta. At last his +anger came out:</p> + +<p>"I don't know why it seems impossible for you to talk to Evelyn with +ordinary civility, Henrietta."</p> + +<p>"My dearest boy," said Evelyn, going and patting Herbert's shoulder, +"Etty and I don't care about ordinary civility. We love having our +little spars together. Sisters don't bother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> to be as polite as men are +to one another; life would be much too much of a burden!"</p> + +<p>She gave Henrietta's hand a squeeze, as she went back to her seat, but +after this Henrietta would hardly talk at all, and the reminiscences +became a monologue from Evelyn.</p> + +<p>At last, at long last, the train came, and Henrietta forgot her +disappointment in sleep. The happy day she had looked forward to, and +planned, and paid for, was over.</p> + +<p>Louie and her Colonel did not thrive better as the years went on. Money +never seemed able to stay with them. Henrietta helped them long after +everyone else had become tired of them. She did not expect gratitude, +nor did she get it. In spite of her dependence, Louie managed to convey +the impression of Henrietta's inferiority, and the children spoke of her +as a butt.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's Aunt Etta's year; it really is rather a fag to think we shall +have her for three weeks. Ethel, it's your turn to take her in tow; I +had her all last time."</p> + +<p>"Poor Etta!" said Minna; "she is such an interminable talker, it does +worry Arthur so. She means very well; we all know that."</p> + +<p>Minna's children were very much of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> twentieth century, and were not +going to bear with a dull old maid, merely because she was their aunt +and had been kind to them. As one of them expressed it, "Never put +yourself out for a relation, however distant. That's an axiom."</p> + +<p>Little as the younger generation thought of her, she thought something +of them, and the second week in December, when she chose her Christmas +presents for all her nieces and nephews, was the pleasantest week in the +year to her.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span><a name="xi" id="xi"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Henrietta</span> had been fourteen years abroad, when she came to pay her +biennial visit to Evelyn.</p> + +<p>"Who do you think has come to live here, Henrietta?" said Evelyn, as +they sat talking the first evening. "Ellen."</p> + +<p>"Ellen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, our dear old Ellen—Mrs. Plumtree. She's a widow now. Her eldest +son is working here, and she is living with him and his wife. I went to +see her last week, and she was so delighted to talk over old times, and +when she heard you were coming, she was so excited. You were always her +favourite."</p> + +<p>A few days afterwards they went, to find Ellen a very hale old lady. In +spite of having brought up a large family of her own, she had the +clearest remembrance of apparently every incident of the childhood of +"you two young ladies" (so she still called them) as though she had +never had any other interest in life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>"Oh, and, Miss Etta," she said, "what a sight you did think of Miss +Evie! I never knew a child take so to anyone before. 'She's quite a +little mother,' I often used to say to Sarah. Do you remember Sarah? She +died only last year; she suffered dreadful with her heart. Do you +remember how you always would go to put your hand into the water before +I gave Miss Evie her bath, because you wanted to be sure it wasn't too +hot? Every evening you did it; and one day you were out late, and Miss +Evie was in bed before you came in, and you cried because you hadn't +been able to do it."</p> + +<p>Neither sister found it easy to speak, but Ellen wanted very little +encouragement.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes as a great treat, when you was a little older, Miss Evie, I +let you sleep in Miss Etty's bed, and she used to lay and cuddle you so +pretty. And the canary, Miss Etta—do you remember that? When Miss +Evie's dickie died, you went all the way to Willstead by yourself and +bought a new canary, so that she might never know her dickie died. Your +mamma was very angry with you, I remember; but there was nothing you +wouldn't do for Miss Evie."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>The sisters walked back in silence; their hearts were too full for +speech. There was no time for private conversation till night, when +Evelyn came into Henrietta's room, and flung her arms round her.</p> + +<p>"Darling, darling Etta," she said, "I could hardly bear it, when Ellen +was talking. To think of all that you were to me, all that you did for +me, and that I should have forgotten it. Oh, how is it that we've got +apart?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Henrietta; "I don't think there is anything much to +like in me. No one does care for me. I think if no one likes one, one +doesn't deserve to be liked."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing in this life goes by deserts."</p> + +<p>"People love you, and they're quite right; you ought to be loved. You +did care for me once, though. Herbert wrote—you know, when we lost—'A +good cry with you will be more comfort to Evelyn than anything else.' +Even then, in the middle of it all, it made me happy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Etta, what you were to me then!"</p> + +<p>Henrietta took Evelyn's hand and squeezed it convulsively. When she +could speak, she said: "Evelyn, do you ever think of our children?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>"Think of them—of course I do. Do you, Etta?"</p> + +<p>"I used to, but I tried not to—it was too bitter. The children were +what I lived for, and I don't think of them often now. It's past and +gone."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I couldn't live if I didn't. I don't think it is bitter now. These +dear boys, they're not quite the same to me as the ones that were +taken."</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd forgotten them."</p> + +<p>"I thought you had, Etta, and I couldn't help feeling it."</p> + +<p>"Herbert asked me never to speak about them to you."</p> + +<p>"Dear Herbert, he is so good—I can't tell you how good he is to me—but +he never will mention them. First of all I was so ill, I couldn't stand +talking of them, but now I can, and I do long for it. He doesn't forget +them, I know, but I think men live more in the present than we do; and +he has his work, which absorbs him very much, and it isn't quite the +same for a man. And then they were so delicate, particularly Madeline, +that I was wrapped up in them all their lives; and they were so small, +he couldn't see much of them."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>"Do you feel that you could tell me about them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should like to."</p> + +<p>They talked far into the night. Herbert was away, so that there was no +one to stop them, and when at last the dawn drove them to bed, Evelyn +said: "I can't tell you how much good you've done me. I seem to have +been living for this for fifteen years."</p> + +<p>They neither of them slept at all that night. Both were full of remorse, +but Henrietta's was the bitterest. The life which had seemed to do quite +well enough all these years, suddenly appeared to her as it was. She +contrasted her present self with the little girl Ellen had known. Like +Jane Eyre, she "drew her own picture faithfully without softening one +defect. She omitted no hard line, smoothed away no displeasing +irregularity." She had squabbled, that very afternoon, if it is possible +to squabble when only one party does the squabbling, all the way down to +Ellen's about various quite unimportant dates in William's life. The +incident was almost as much a part of her day's routine as eating her +breakfast. Now it seemed to her a manifestation of the degradation into +which she had fallen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>The power and vividness of her memory, magnified ten times by the +mysterious agency of midnight, brought back the words of advice of Emily +Mence, of Minna, and of her aunt, just as if they had been spoken last +week. She had entirely forgotten them for years. Now they kept rushing +through her head hour after hour.</p> + +<p>Before breakfast Evelyn came into her room, her eyes shining with +agitation, and looking so flushed that Henrietta saw what need there had +been for Herbert's caution.</p> + +<p>"Etty," she said, "I've been thinking all night; I can't bear your +living in this horrible way: no home, away by yourself, so that we see +nothing of you. Come and live here, live with us. We shan't interfere +with you; you shall come and go as you like. Or live in the village, +there is a dear little house just made for you. Only come and be near +us."</p> + +<p>Henrietta was sorely tempted, it was a great sacrifice to say no. But +she knew that Herbert only tolerated her for Evelyn's sake, and that the +boys, rather spoilt and self-important, found her a nuisance. She knew +also that she could not trust herself to be pleasant and good-tempered. +If she came, it would not be for Evelyn's happiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> So she refused, +and even in her fervour of love for Henrietta, Evelyn could not help +realizing it was best that she should.</p> + +<p>At the same time that talk was a turning-point in Henrietta's life. She +never felt after it that she was completely unwanted. Although she would +not live with Evelyn, she thought she might justifiably come and be much +nearer her, and she gave up the roving life and returned to England. It +had in fact satisfied her, only because she had felt so uncared-for that +she became insignificant even to herself.</p> + +<p>Where should she live? She knew that every place where she had relations +would not do, but this only ruled out four of the towns of the United +Kingdom. It must be a town; on that point she was clear. As she cared +for none of the special advantages of a town, its more lively society, +its greater opportunities for entertainment and intellectual interests, +she was particularly insistent that she could not do without them. What +she wanted was a house with room for herself, two maids, and a couple of +visitors. Such a house is to be found in tens and hundreds everywhere. +She went round and round England in a fruitless search.</p> + +<p>As a <em>pension habituée</em> the whole arrangement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> of her life had been +taken out of her hands; even her clothes had been settled for her by one +of those octopus London firms which like to reduce their customers to +dummies; and her transit from hotel to hotel, and from English visits +back to hotels, had become a mere automatic process. She had not made a +decision for so many years that though her nieces and nephews were witty +over her vacillation, and declared that she enjoyed being a nuisance, it +was a fact that she was trying her best to be sensible and competent. +She, with no go-between, no protector, must determine which was most +important—gravel soil or southern aspect. She felt as she had felt +years ago, when she wrote her paper for Professor Amery, only ten times +more bewildered, almost delirious.</p> + +<p>Of course, her nieces constantly talked her over, shaking their heads +and saying: "If only Aunt Etta would let us." But however weak she was, +she was firm in this: she would <em>not</em> be helped. The outward sign of her +bewilderment was extreme crossness, particularly to Evelyn, who was +allowed to accompany her in her search, and to hear her remarks without +making any suggestions. "I will thank you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> to let me decide about my own +house by myself." They had examined nine houses that day, and were both +almost weeping with exhaustion.</p> + +<p>Evelyn could not help feeling exasperated, but when Etta stumbled the +moment after from sheer nervousness, and Evelyn caught hold of her hand, +she realized from its hot trembling grasp how hard it is to come back to +life again.</p> + +<p>Henrietta would probably never have found the right spot, if a timely +attack of rheumatism had not persuaded her to fix on Bath. When she had +settled into her house at last, she hated it. She dismissed five +servants in two months. She was so dull, no one called; Bath was so +cold. If only she could let her house and go abroad for the winter. +Happily no suitable tenant appeared, and gradually Bath grew into a +habit and she became resigned. But it was long, very long, before she +would own that she liked it.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span><a name="xii" id="xii"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">And</span> now a happier and more useful course of life began. Henrietta had +just enough rheumatism to take a course of waters sometimes. She found a +doctor who had a great <em>flair</em> for elderly ladies; he knew when to bully +them, when to flatter them, and when to neglect them. He and the waters +made a centre round which the rest of her interests might group +themselves. Church. She found a vicar with nothing of Mr. Wharton's +enthusiasm and loftiness of aim, but with a greater realization of +people's capacities. He too had made a study of elderly ladies, who are +always such an important branch of congregations. He could see that what +Miss Symons was in his drawing-room, touchy, incompetent, and snappish +she would be in any work she did in the parish. But he was also made to +see her extreme generosity, of which she herself was entirely +unconscious. He liked and was touched by her humility. "Oh no,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> don't +trouble about asking me, Mr. Vaughan, nobody will want to talk to a dull +person like me. Get some nice young men for the girls, if you can." "No, +I can't have that pretty Miss Allan helping at my stall, I can get along +very well by myself. I shall bring Annie; we can manage together."</p> + +<p>The poor people, of course, did not like her, for as she grew older she +was more convinced than ever that the lower orders must be constantly +reproved. But poor people are very magnanimous, and they were sure of a +good many presents. She was also for ever bickering with her servants, +but "poor old lady" as they said, "she's getting on now, it makes her +worry," and she found in Annie one who knew how to give at least as good +as she got. Horror of being defrauded by servants and tradespeople was a +great resource, and though she continually deplored the pleasure of life +abroad, these years of muddling in and out of her house, her garden, and +her shops, were probably the happiest in her life.</p> + +<p>A certain conversation contributed not a little to this new happiness. +She was at a tea-party, for once she had been admitted into the circle +of tea-parties, she became much absorbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> in them, and she and a +neighbour were tracing an attack of influenza from its source to its +decline, when Henrietta's hostess came up to her.</p> + +<p>"I want to introduce you to Mrs. Manson," said she. "Mrs. Manson is a +cousin of that Mr. Dockerell you told me you knew, Miss Symons."</p> + +<p>There had been no sentiment in Henrietta's telling, she had quoted Mr. +Dockerell as an authority on Portugal laurels.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my cousin, Mr. Dockerell," said Mrs. Manson, "you knew him, did +you? He's dead, poor man, had you heard? He died last year."</p> + +<p>And once started upon Mr. Dockerell, she rambled away with his life's +history, being one without much feeling, who could say everything to +anybody.</p> + +<p>"Poor Fred, his marriage was such a mistake. She was older than him, and +a mass of nerves. She caught him. I always said it was that; anybody on +earth could have caught him. It was at Worthing; those seaside places in +the summer are very dangerous. My mother used to say: 'We must be +thankful it isn't worse.' No, he wasn't happy. There was a story that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +he really liked somebody else: a Miss Simon her name was—Simon, or +something like that. Where did she come from? Oh yes, Willstead; he had +some work there at one time. 'The beautiful dark Miss Simon.' At least, +she wasn't beautiful, that was our joke; there was a pretty sister, but +she was fair. My sister always insisted he was pining after her, but +that wasn't like Fred. We used to be hard-hearted, and declare it was +indigestion."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dockerell's death was not very much to Henrietta, he had passed so +entirely out of her life. But "a dark Miss Simon living at Willstead, +not beautiful"; she thought much of that. She could not but believe it +must be herself. "So perhaps after all he did care," she said to +herself, as she sat over the fire that evening, she had reached the age +when she liked a good deal of twilight thinking undisturbed by the gas. +But the news had come so late; if only she had known before. Those +months and years of unhappiness rose before her. Granted that Providence +had decreed they were not to marry, and looking back she did not feel as +if she wished they had married, it was all so far behind her, she +thought that she might have been given the happiness of a farewell +letter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> from him, telling her that she really was first in his heart. "I +should never have seen him or heard from him again; of course I should +not have wanted it, but it would have been so comfortable to have +known." She fell into her childhood's habit of daydreams, if one can +have daydreams of the past, and sat such a long time absorbed that Annie +came in at last with her matchbox. "Don't you want the gas lit, 'm? You +never rang, I was gettin' quite fidgettin' about you, your heart's not +very strong."</p> + +<p>Henrietta was composing his last letter, each moment making it more and +more tender. She came back with a start to ordinary life, and the +magazine article on "Beauties of George II.'s Court," which lay open +before her. She dismissed her picture of what might have been with "Of +course it was impossible, it's ridiculous wondering about it. How can +one be so foolish at nearly sixty?" But she did wonder, and there is no +doubt she was very much pleased. And after all the good news was false, +he had never thought of her again.</p> + +<p>She confided the little incident to Evelyn. Evelyn, adoring her husband +and adored by him, had been so much accustomed to men's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> admiration that +she did not attach great value to it. She had seen long ago her old +lovers pairing happily with somebody else: that side of life had been +over for herself many years since. Her interest now was in her sons' +possible marriages, and it was a little painful to her that Henrietta +should be so much excited about what had never after all been more than +a potential love affair. To tell the truth, she thought it a trifle +petty and not worthy the dignity of one on the verge of old age. She +wanted to be sympathetic, and she was too kind to say anything that +would wound, but Henrietta could see that Evelyn did not enter into her +feelings.</p> + +<p>Louie's children were now started in life, and the sons were getting on +so well that even Henrietta owned they might be expected to take the +burden of their parents upon themselves. She had her nieces and nephews +to stay; Minna and Louie also came to take the waters. One or two of the +nieces were of course collecting second-hand furniture, and used Bath as +a centre for expeditions to the little country towns. The visits were +very pleasant, if they did not last more than two nights; after two +nights there would be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> danger of friction, and sometimes friction +itself. Her nieces and nephews were all what she called "modern," the +harshest word but one she knew. A certain nephew and niece, alas, were +more than modern—they were the harshest word of all, "<em>Radical</em>." The +nephew had too profound a contempt for old ladies to talk about anything +more controversial than the local train service, but even that he +discovered was a topic beyond Henrietta's capacity. For it turned out, +after she had appeared to be talking very sensibly about the afternoon +trains, that she was referring to one marked with an "N.," a Thursday +excursion, which destroyed all the point of her remarks. Her nephew +explained this to her, but she would stick to her train, and declare +that the "N." was a misprint. A misprint in Bradshaw. What a mind! He +had not realized that even an aunt could be so childish. Of course she +knew she was wrong, but she tried to persuade herself that she was +right, because she was so much disappointed. She had wanted to make a +good impression on her nephew, even if he were a Radical. She thought +men superior to women, though throughout her life her affection and +veneration had been given to women—Miranda,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> Miss Arundel, Evelyn. She +had an innocent conviction that men knew more about everything, except +perhaps the youngest babies, and she was anxious for masculine good +opinion. Alas, to contradict her nephew several times running was not +the way to win him over.</p> + +<p>He felt that contradiction amply justified him in wrapping himself up in +his paper for the rest of the evening, vouchsafing "um" and "ah" +occasionally after imploring pressure from his aunt. He left first thing +next morning.</p> + +<p>Then his Radical sister came. She inspected something under Government, +and with a burning faith in womanhood hoped against hope that with time +her aunt must be converted "to think the right things." With a mere +niece Henrietta felt at liberty, and very competent, to correct. But she +little knew with whom she was reckoning.</p> + +<p>"Servants belong to a Trade Union, Annie and Emma" (the cook) "join a +Union. How perfectly ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>"But why ridiculous, Aunt Etta?"</p> + +<p>"Because it is."</p> + +<p>"No, but do tell me, Aunt Etta. I know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> there must be some solid reason, +and I should be so much interested to hear it."</p> + +<p>"You should have seen Annie's hat last Sunday: enormous pink roses in +it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered her niece, catching her aunt out very easily, "but as +far as that goes some ladies have enormous pink roses."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed. Why, when I was young we should never——"</p> + +<p>"And you don't object to their joining Trade Unions?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do."</p> + +<p>"But, after all, what is that Teachers' Society that Hilda belongs to" +(Hilda was another niece) "but a Trade Union? And you went on their +excursion, Hilda told me."</p> + +<p>"That has nothing to do with it" (a favourite refuge with old ladies +when they are getting the worst of a discussion). "Of course, if +Hilda——"</p> + +<p>"So I mean Annie's wearing garish hats is not really a reason against +her joining a Trade Union. You see my point, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I particularly dislike being interrupted. I hadn't finished what I was +going to say."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Aunt Etta, I am so sorry. What was it you were going +to say?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>Henrietta could not remember, and branched off to something else. +"Wearing all this jewellery in the day is so common. That girl at the +post office had two brooches and a locket, and she kept me waiting so +long; she always does."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I think we must leave them to judge what they like to wear; it +is not our business really, is it? But I did just want to speak to you +about this Servants' Union, Aunt Etta. I wonder if I might give Annie a +little pamphlet I have written about it. Of course, we don't want them +to be always striking or anything of that sort. The aim of my Society is +simply to try and rouse servants to a sense of what it is they're +missing—this great power of organization and solidarity which they +ought to have. I think Annie looks such a nice intelligent girl, who +would be sure to have an influence with her friends."</p> + +<p>"No, she's most tiresome and inconsiderate. She <em>would</em> go out this +evening just when you were coming, because she wanted to take her mother +to the hospital, so that I had to have Mrs. Spring, and it is all very +well for Annie to say——"</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I might read you a little piece<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> out of my pamphlet, Aunt +Etta, just to make a few points clear. You see, I want to get you in +favour of our Union so much, because we feel that mistresses ought to be +co-operating with the servants, helping them to help themselves, and +then we shall get a really influential body of public opinion, which +will do valuable work in improving servants' conditions."</p> + +<p>Henrietta writhed and struggled, and went off on frivolous pretexts, but +she could not escape the pamphlet, which was extremely able; so was the +author extremely able, but for a complete ignorance of human nature. +Henrietta heard all about Socialism, Land Taxes, and Adult Suffrage too, +and the more cross she became the more kindly and patiently Agatha +shouted, greeting any specially absurd ebullition with imperturbable +pleasantness, and "how interesting, I am <em>so</em> anxious to get exactly at +your point of view." That niece was not invited again.</p> + +<p>Henrietta often thought with affection and gratitude of the little old +aunt, who had died many years back; but, as she would have been the +first to own, her old age was not nearly so successful. Her house was +not a centre for everybody. She had some elderly ladies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> with whom she +exchanged visits, but young people disliked her, and children were +afraid of her.</p> + +<p>Ever since she settled in England, she had made earnest attempts to curb +her temper. But the companion of a lifetime is not easily shaken off at +fifty-five, and more often than not she was quite unaware of crossness, +from which all around were suffering severely. On the very rare +occasions that she did realize it, she went back to the self she had +been as a child, descended from the pedestal of her age and generation, +and said she was sorry.</p> + +<p>One day she and Annie had a long serious battle. The question in the +first instance was whether Annie had chipped off the nose of the china +pug-dog on the mantelpiece, a relic of the old house at Willstead; +Henrietta always had a tender feeling for relics. The arguments +marshalled by Annie were against Henrietta, but arguments never had much +weight with her. Besides, the battle passed on from the definite point +of the nose to vague but bitter attacks on character. Henrietta always +had in her mind an ideal servant, who accepted scolding not merely with +meekness but with gratitude, and was fond of quoting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> her, to the +exasperation of the real servants. After half an hour Annie began to cry +noisily, so that Henrietta's words were drowned. The interview came to +an end. Annie went downstairs and told Cook, but she wasted few tears or +thoughts on the matter, and almost at once they were laughing cheerfully +over their young men, as they sat at needlework.</p> + +<p>Henrietta did think, fidgeting about the room while she thought, taking +things out of their places and putting them where they ought not to be, +in a fuss of discomfort. At last she rang the bell.</p> + +<p>"The lamp, please, Annie."</p> + +<p>"The lamp 'm," said Annie; "but you don't want it for half an hour yet, +do you, 'm, it's such a beautiful evening?"</p> + +<p>It was impossible ever to quell Annie.</p> + +<p>"The lamp, please," repeated Henrietta, "and I should like to—I think +you ought to—I feel that in a—what I want you to realize is that you +should keep a great watch over your temper. When one comes to my age one +sees that there is—and you should not put it off till too late as +people sometimes—as I have done."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>Annie's sharp ears heard the last little murmur. Henrietta rather hoped +they would not, though it was for the sake of the murmur that she had +rung the bell.</p> + +<p>Annie said "Yes 'm," very pleasantly, and yielded about the lamp. She +told cook afterwards, with some amusement, "She's funny, I've always +said that, but," she added, "I've known some I should say was funnier."</p> + +<p>This opinion may be worth recording, as it was one of the highest +tributes to her character Henrietta ever received.</p> + +<p>On the whole during those latter years she improved, and in the general +reformation of her character she raised the standard of her reading. She +confined herself in the mornings and afternoon to mildly scandalous +memoirs of Frenchwomen and biographies of Church dignitaries, keeping +her costume novels for the evening.</p> + +<p>She often saw Evelyn, and they talked of the past, but they never +regained the almost heavenly intimacy of that night. They seldom met +without some disagreeableness from Henrietta, and she did not like the +boys, there was nothing of Evelyn in them, while they for their part +could not imagine why their mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> cared for their aunt Henrietta. It +was a continual struggle for Evelyn not to be impatient with her; much +as she longed to, she could not keep on the high plane of devotion, +which had brought such happiness to both.</p> + + + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span><a name="xiii" id="xiii"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Henrietta</span> died when she was sixty-three. Her father and stepmother were +long dead, also her second brother, whom none of the family had seen for +years. When her relations were sent for, it was very cold weather in +January, and Louie and Minna did not obey the summons. They deplored it +continually afterwards, and explained to one another how appalling the +wind had been, and what care they had to take for their children's sake, +and how Henrietta had frightened them so much the year before by sending +for them when there was no need, that they naturally could not be +expected to realize that this time it really was important.</p> + +<p>William came, looking more benevolent than ever with his very becoming +white hair. Henrietta said that she thought it was the last time she +should see him, but he assured her it was just the cold which had pulled +her down a little, and she would be all right again as soon as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> wind +changed. "It's wretched, knocks everybody up." He looked so hearty and +mundane that it almost seemed, when he was in the room, as if there +could not be such a thing as death.</p> + +<p>They talked about the drought last summer, and William's son, who was a +planter in Ceylon, and the noise of the motor-buses in London, until +William said he must go for his train. He was allowing a quarter of an +hour too much time, for he was able to stay and talk a little while with +the doctor, who called when he was there.</p> + +<p>"There isn't any chance, you say."</p> + +<p>"No, I am afraid not. Miss Symons' heart has been delicate for some +years; it gives her very little strength to stand against this attack."</p> + +<p>"Um! I was afraid so," said William, and he was glad to get out of the +house, and buy a <em>Pall Mall</em>.</p> + +<p>The inspector niece came down (uninvited), very energetic, and very kind +in using the last few days of her holidays in nursing a disagreeable +reactionary relation. She dominated the nurse, who was much meeker than +nurses usually are, and quite quelled her poor aunt, too weak to protest +even at attacks on the monarchy. But Henrietta was much happier when the +niece's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> holidays came to an end, and she was left to die quietly and +dully with the nurse.</p> + +<p>Evelyn was away in Egypt with Herbert for her health, and by a most +unfortunate accident she did not get the first telegram announcing +Henrietta's dangerous illness. Poor Henrietta asked constantly if there +was nothing from her, and as she got weaker, and a little wandering, she +kept on crying like a child: "I want Evelyn." They cabled again, and +when the answer came, "Starting home at once," it was too late, and +Henrietta was not sufficiently herself to understand it.</p> + +<p>As soon as Evelyn got home, she went to Bath. The little house was still +as it was, but for some legacies which a careful nephew had already +abstracted. But the place of the dead seemed to have been filled even +more quickly than usual. Annie, as she said, had only waited "till the +pore old lady was taken" to marry comfortably with a saddler, and the +parlourmaid was already established in a very smart town situation. +There was an unknown caretaker to look after the house, which was to +let. Evelyn saw the doctor and the clergyman, who both spoke kindly of +Miss Symons. "We shall miss your sister very much," said Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> Vaughan, +"she was always doing kind things,"—and he did miss her to a certain +extent, but there is a ceaseless supply of generous, touchy incapable +old ladies in England, and he could not be expected to miss her very +much. Evelyn went to see the nurse, and could hear from her more of what +she wanted. The nurse was a kind, sweet girl, the centre of an +affectionate family, and engaged to a devoted young clerk.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Ferrers, if only you could have come back in time," she said, +sobbing, "or if you could have written. She <em>did</em> want you so; every +time there was a ring it was, 'Is that from her?' and I heard her say to +herself: 'I thought she would be <em>sure</em> to come.' I simply had to go out +in the passage, I couldn't keep back my tears, and of course one must +always be bright before a patient; it is so bad for them if one isn't. +Some nieces and nephews came, and one of them stayed several days, and +two brothers, I think; and there were several members of the family +there for the funeral, and she had some simply lovely wreaths, and the +church was nice and full, numbers of her poor people were there," +brought there, as surely the kind nurse knew, not from love of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +Henrietta, but from love of funerals, "but when your wire did come I +cried for joy, though we couldn't make her take it in, poor dear; still +it seemed as if someone really cared for her. Oh, she looked so lovely +and peaceful at the end, all the trouble gone."</p> + +<p>This was a comforting deception, which the nurse thought it justifiable +to practise on relations, for in fact death had not changed Henrietta; +there had been no transfiguration to beauty and nobility, she looked +what she had been in life—insignificant, feeble, and unhappy.</p> + +<p>"Miss Symons asked me to give you this box," said the nurse. "She made +me promise I would give it you over and over again."</p> + +<p>Evelyn found it was an inlaid sandalwood box, which she had sent from +India as a present from the first baby. In it she found Herbert's letter +announcing the death of little Madeline, hers and the other two babies' +photographs, and a sheet of notepaper, tied with blue ribbon. On it was +written, "I can't tell you how much good you have done me, I seem to +have been living for this for fifteen years. <span class="smcap">Evelyn</span>, September 23, +1890." As she read it, Evelyn remembered, what she had long forgotten, +that this was what she had once said to Henrietta.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>When she walked to the hotel, it was a bright, sunny afternoon, and snow +was on the ground. She went to her room to take off her things, but she +stood instead at the window, too intent on what she had heard to be +capable of anything. Her heart was almost bursting to think that +Henrietta should have treasured all these years the little love she had +given her, crumbs, which she had as it were left over from her husband +and boys, love not even for Henrietta's own sake, but for the sake of +the dead children. She with all the riches of love poured on her, and +Henrietta with so little. "I was cold, selfish, self-absorbed, I didn't +think of her, I forgot her, I criticized her; it was all my fault."</p> + +<p>But even at this moment of exaltation Evelyn realized that it was not +her fault, but Henrietta's own; that it was because she was so unlovable +that she was so little loved.</p> + +<p>"But if she had had the chance she wouldn't have been unlovable. She was +capable of greater love than any of us, and she never had the chance. If +there is any justice and mercy in the world how can they allow a poor, +weak human creature to have so few opportunities, such hard temptations, +and when it yields to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> temptation to suffer so cruelly? And now I am to +go back, and be happy with Herbert and the boys, and to feel quite truly +that I did everything I could, <em>I can't bear it</em>."</p> + +<p>She was so much filled with her thoughts that she had not observed the +flight of time. She looked up, and was suddenly aware that the night had +come, and that the sky was shining with innumerable stars. At the same +moment she felt inextricably mingled with the stars, a rush of the most +exquisite sensation, emotion, replenishment she had ever known. She felt +through every fibre of her being that it was all perfectly well with +Henrietta, and that the bitterness, aimlessness, and emptiness of her +life was made up to her. This conviction was a thousand times more real +to her than the room in which she was standing, more real than the +stars, more real than herself. Tears of delight came raining down her +cheeks, and she found that she was saying over and over again, "Darling, +I am so glad"; poor childish words, but no more inadequate than the +noblest in the language to express her unspeakable comfort, beyond all +utterance, even beyond thought. How often she said these words, or how +long this bliss lasted she could not tell.</p> + +<p>A strange dream-like remembrance of it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> stayed with her for some days. +She told her husband, and he said, "I am very glad of anything that can +be a comfort to you, dearest;" but he looked at her anxiously, and +thought it was a sign that she was to be ill again. However, she +continued well and strong. She told no one else, but from henceforth she +was perfectly happy about Henrietta.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="noi center"><strong>Transcriber's Note</strong>:</p> + +<p class="noi center"> +Changes to the original have been made as follows:</p> + +<table summary="Changes to original"> +<tr > +<td class="left" colspan="2">Contents added.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="left">Page 42</td> +<td class="left"><a href="#accumalation">accumalation</a> of years changed to accumulation</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="left">Page 48</td> +<td class="left"><a href="#teazing">teazing</a> of a kind changed to teasing</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="left">Page 60</td> +<td class="left"><a href="#two">two</a> much absorbed changed to too</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="left">Page 64</td> +<td class="left"><a href="#then">then</a> he felt prepared changed to than</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="left">Page 70</td> +<td class="left"><a href="#inacessible">inacessible</a> foreign place changed to inaccessible</td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class="hr2" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Third Miss Symons, by Flora Macdonald Mayor + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRD MISS SYMONS *** + +***** This file should be named 27071-h.htm or 27071-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/0/7/27071/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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