The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing)Young, E. H. (Emily Hilda)
General
The Misses Mallett (The Bridge Dividing)
Young, E. H. (Emily Hilda)
Fiction
“Yes, there’s the clock striking now.” The sound of the seven notes
whirred and then clanged above their heads. “We must go,” he said.
“They’re locking up.” The air was cold and damp after the warmth of
the church and Henrietta stood, shivering a little and looking round
her.
“I’m hungry,” Charles Batty said. “Will you come and have dinner with
me?”
“No,” she replied, “I shall stay here.”
“How long for?”
“I don’t know.” And sharply she turned on him and asked, “What are you
doing here?”
“I come here sometimes. There are concerts.”
“You’ll be late, then, if you are going to dine.”
“I know, but I’m hungry. You can’t listen to music if you’re hungry.
Let’s have dinner first.”
The square was deserted, the lights in the little shops, where old
furniture and lace and jewels were sold, were all put out and the large
policeman who had been standing at the corner had moved away.
“I don’t want anything to eat,” she said. She dropped the bag and
covered her face with both her hands. She was going to cry, but he was
not afraid; he was rather glad and, not without pleasure at his own
daring, he removed a hand, tucked it under his arm, and said, “Come
along.”
She struggled. “I can’t. I must go to London. If you want to help me
you’ll find out about the trains. I can go to Mrs. Banks. I can’t go
back to Radstowe.”
“Henrietta,” he said firmly, “come and have dinner and we’ll talk about
it.”
“If you’ll promise to help me.”
“There’s nothing I want to do so much,” he said. “We mustn’t forget the
bag.”
“Somewhere quiet, Charles,” she murmured.
“Somewhere good,” he emended.
She looked down, “Such old clothes.”
“It doesn’t matter what you wear,” he told her. “You always look
different from anybody else.”
“Do I? And I am! I am! I’m much worse, and nobody,” she almost sobbed,
“is so unhappy! Charles, will you wait here for a minute? I must
just—just walk round the square.”
“You’ll come back?”
She nodded, and he kept the bag as hostage.
The large policeman had strolled back. He saw the tall young man
standing over the bag and thought it would be well to keep an eye on
him, but Charles did not notice the policeman. His whole attention was
for Henrietta’s reappearance. She would come back because she had said
she would, but if she did not come alone there would be trouble. He did
not, however, expect to see Francis Sales: he gathered that Sales had
failed her, and he was sorry. He would have beaten him, somehow; he
would have conquered for the first time in his life, and now he felt
that his task was going to be too easy. He wished he could have sweated
and panted in the doing of it; and when Henrietta returned alone,
walking with an angry swiftness, he felt a genuine regret.
“Come along, Charles,” she said briskly. “Let us have dinner.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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