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 pa.s.sed, 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.

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.

With two babies, the youngest very delicate, Minna was completely absorbed. She was emphatically Mrs. Willard now, not Minna Symons. Mrs.

Symons had told her something of Henrietta's circ.u.mstances, 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 s.p.a.ce was left for him) father, there was nothing for her but to look on as an outsider.

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.

Her troubles made her peevish and disagreeable, as was apparent from Minna's kindly admonition.

"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."

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."

Louie felt more than her words conveyed, but she could not demean herself to show too much.

"Perhaps you didn't mean it unkindly," said Henrietta; "I shall try to believe you, but you've wrecked my life."

"Etta is so exaggerated and hysterical," said Louie afterwards, talking things over. But as a matter of fact Henrietta spoke only the sober truth.

CHAPTER IV

After 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.

She did her best to make the visit pa.s.s 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.

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 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.

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.

Henrietta saw that she was bracing herself to say something. At last out it came:

"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."

Henrietta knew that this una.n.a.lysable 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 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 circ.u.mstances 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.

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, decreed that it was not to be. No other suitor presented himself.

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.

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 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.

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 _de haut en bas_, 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.

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 pa.s.sed 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.

Fifty years ago the large majority of the girls of her cla.s.s 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.

At last she had a happy thought; she decided that she would read Italian, read Dante. Miss Arundel had taught her Italian, 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.

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 pa.s.sed 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?"

"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, the hottest I ever remember, and I had to come back early with her."

"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."

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.

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. But when there are no compet.i.tors 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.

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 acc.u.mulation 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.

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; it was a great pity for a girl to get too clever."

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:

"Downstairs I laugh and sport and jest with all, But in my solitary room above I 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 writer _must_ 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.

She made up verses too, and wrote them in a pretty alb.u.m she bought for the purpose. They relieved her heart a little--at any rate it 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.

"While Nature op'ed her lavish hand And 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.