"Downstairs I laugh and sport and jest with all,But in my solitary room aboveI turn my face in silence to the wall:My heart is breaking for a little love."
"Downstairs I laugh and sport and jest with all,But in my solitary room aboveI turn my face in silence to the wall:My heart is breaking for a little love."
"Downstairs I laugh and sport and jest with all,But in my solitary room aboveI turn my face in silence to the wall:My heart is breaking for a little love."
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 writermusthave 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.
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 itwas 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.
"While Nature op'ed her lavish handAnd fairest flowers displayed,'Twas his to taste of sunny joys,'Twas mine to sit in shade."Oh, talk not to me of a lasting devotion!It shrivels, it ceases, it fades and it dies.In the heart of a man 'tis a fleeting emotion;Alas, in a woman eternal it lies!"
"While Nature op'ed her lavish handAnd fairest flowers displayed,'Twas his to taste of sunny joys,'Twas mine to sit in shade."Oh, talk not to me of a lasting devotion!It shrivels, it ceases, it fades and it dies.In the heart of a man 'tis a fleeting emotion;Alas, in a woman eternal it lies!"
"While Nature op'ed her lavish handAnd fairest flowers displayed,'Twas his to taste of sunny joys,'Twas mine to sit in shade.
"Oh, talk not to me of a lasting devotion!It shrivels, it ceases, it fades and it dies.In the heart of a man 'tis a fleeting emotion;Alas, in a woman eternal it lies!"
A poet would have said that anyone capable of writing that was incapable of feeling, but he would have been wrong.
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 (forit disturbed her mother if she went to bed before eleven), or the summer sun that would not go down.
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.
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 onher, 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.
Andnow 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.
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.
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,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, andteasingof a kind, complimentary sort, which was new and very delightful to Henrietta.
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.
"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."
"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 hertriumphant 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.
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.
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 promptlyanswered 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.
Evelyn came home from her visits very much excited and interested about herself, but still not unmindful of Henrietta.
"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."
"My dear Etta," the note ran,
"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, andit 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.
Your affec.,L. N. Carrington."
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.
"Don't go to-morrow, Etta—stay here. There's the Steeplechase on Friday; I want you to see that."
"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."
"Now, that really is nonsense, Etta. Motherhas Ellen, and she has father, and she is pretty well for her; you said so yourself."
But Henrietta persisted in her refusal, for she had all the strong, though sometimes unthinking, sense of duty of her generation.
"Well, if you will go, you must. But now you have begun coming, come often. Write a line whenever you like and propose yourself."
As they said good-night, Louie whispered, "Have you forgiven me, Etty?"
"Yes," said Henrietta, "that's all past and gone."
"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."
"Oh, I am sorry," said Henrietta, but she was not displeased.
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."
When Evelyn came home a week or so later, she had an announcement to make. She hadbecome 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.
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.
"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."
"No, no, Etty darling; you will come and stay with us for months and months."
"No, I shan't. When you have got him you won't want me."
"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?"
Henrietta was a little comforted, and did not realize that though Evelyn's tenderness was absolutely sincere, it came from the strangeexpansion of the heart which accompanies true love, and was not habitual.
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.
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.
Thehousehold 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 herplace 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.
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——!"
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.
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,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.
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.
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 thehabit from her mother, and he had never thoughthernagging silly.
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.
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.
They were not intimate friends. Perhaps the women of fifty years ago did not have the faculty of staunch and close friend-makingpossessed 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.
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. "Whatwith 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.
Minna and Louie often came on visits with their children. The three sisters got on much better than formerly, though Minna and Louie were bothtoomuch 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 gaveup talking of "poor Henrietta," and "Really Henrietta has done very well for herself," was a remark frequently exchanged.
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.
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.
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.
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.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.
"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."
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 theywould 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 costlythanhe felt prepared to face just then.
She said she would go alone.
"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."
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 herfather 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."
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.
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.
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,but for Henrietta it almost seemed a little exaggerated."
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.
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.
One afternoon she received a letter from her father.
"My dear Henrietta," it ran,
"Ido 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 welcometo our family. She will, I am sure, be both mother and sister to you, etc."
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.
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 shecould."
After she had written the letter, as usual shewas very much ashamed. She wrote again unsaying all she had said, but her father had been too much wounded to reply.
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.
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.
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.
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 owndog 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.
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.
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.
Now that it became evident that she wouldbe 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 someinaccessibleforeign place. Evelyn and Herbert were also far out of reach. He had exchanged into a regiment which was quartered at Halifax, in Canada.
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:
"Evelyn is very ill from all she has been through, and the doctor says it is most important that she should be kept from everysort 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."
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.
Evennow, 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.
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.
She never had had much to do with poorpeople. 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.
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.
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 gentlestway 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.
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.
"Can't she be asked to give up meddling in the parish?" he said to his wife.
"No dear, you know she can't, and she isvery generous, even if she is tiresome. She has often been very helpful to you. You ought to be grateful."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I think you're too hard on her."
"Am I? I expect I am. I know I'm fagged to death. She gives Mrs. Wilkinspounds 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."
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.
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.
The Vicar's wife might have become friendswith 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.
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.
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?"
She said to Mr. Wharton in her farewellinterview: "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."
He heard a quiver in her voice, and the dislike and irritation he had felt all the six months faded away.
"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."
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."
As she walked home she wondered what the other plans were.
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.
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."
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 magnificentcoup d'œilwas no sort of pleasure to her.
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.
Justas 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.
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—shecould not think of anything else they were—a novelty must be their claim to distinction.
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.
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.
Henrietta listened for five minutes, then suddenly her thoughts darted to her portmanteau: she had lost the key at Dieppe. Theywent 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.
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 bookshopto 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.
"Ahthatwas 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."
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, ProfessorAmery, 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.
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 subconsciousself which discovered a vast arrear of letters which it was incumbent on her to answer before she thought of anything else?
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),Henrietta received a most cordial invitation to tea.
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.
"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.
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 themorning 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.
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.
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 wasto happen in the twenty years of life that she might reasonably count upon as still before her?
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."
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.
She began a paper on the sly, and with much sweat of brow the following sentence emerged:"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.
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."
"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."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear. Well, if you should think of doing the paper, you mustread this article, it's such a help, it really puts all one wants to say."
"Oh no, I shouldn't care to read that at all."
"Oh do. Let me put it here, and then you can look at it."
"No, thank you."
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.
"How are you getting on with your paper, dear? Can I be of any help?"
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.
There would have been more chance for her, if only she could have become in the leastinterested. 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.
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.
Henriettapaid 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."
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.
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.
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:table d'hôteluncheon, 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 specialtable d'hôtekept for them in thesalle à manger. 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 tocomplain 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.
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 cheappensionto another in Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, or Switzerland.
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 thesalle à mangerwould 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.
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 thesalle à manger, 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 ofchanting Amen, but later she did not see why there should be a reason, and left her conscious to its remorse.
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.
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.
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 withone 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.
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 hershow, 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.
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.
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,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-thinkingand 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.
"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!"