The Misses Mallett | Page 5

his father drove him
off with a laugh.
'Says he can't bear parties,' Mr. Sales remarked genially to Rose. 'What
do you think of that?'
'I like pigs, too,' Rose answered, to be surprised by his prolonged
chuckle.
Mr. Sales, in the intervals of his familiar conversation with the pigs,
wanted to know why Rose had not brought her father with her.
'Oh, he's too old,' Rose said, rather shocked. Her father had always
seemed old to her, as indeed he was, for she was the child of his second

marriage, and her young mother had died when she was born. Her
stepsisters, devoted to the little girl, and perhaps not altogether sorry to
be rid of a stepmother younger than themselves, had tried to make up
for that loss, but they were much occupied with the social activities of
Radstowe and they belonged to an otherwise inactive generation, so
that if Rose had a grievance it was that they never played games with
her, never ran, or played ball or bowled hoops as she saw the mothers
of other children doing. For such sporting she had to rely upon her
nurse who was of rather a solemn nature and liked little girls to behave
demurely out of doors.
General Mallett saw to it that his youngest daughter early learnt to ride.
Her memories of him were of a big man on a big horse, not talkative,
somewhat stern and sad, becoming companionable only when they rode
out together on the high Downs crowning the old city, and then he was
hardly recognizable as the father who heard her prayers every night.
These two duties of teaching her to ride and of hearing her pray, and his
insistence on her going, as Caroline and Sophia had done, to a convent
school in France, made up, as far as she could remember, the sum of his
interest in her, and when she returned home from school for the last
time, it was to attend his funeral.
She was hardly sorry, she was certainly not glad; she envied the
spontaneous tears of her stepsisters, and she found the lugubriousness
of the occasion much alleviated by the presence of her stepbrother
Reginald. She had hardly seen him since her childhood. Sophia always
spoke of him as she might have spoken of the dead. Caroline
sometimes referred to him in good round terms, sometimes with an
indulgent laugh; and for Rose he had the charm of mystery, the
fascination of the scapegrace. He was handsome, but good looks were a
prerogative of the Malletts; he was married to a wife he had never
introduced to his family and he had a little girl. What his profession
was, Rose did not know. Perhaps his face was his fortune, as certainly
his sisters had been his victims.
After the funeral he had several interviews with Caroline and Sophia,
when Rose could hear the mannish voice of Caroline growing gruff
with indignation and the high tones of Sophia rising to a squeak. He
emerged from these encounters with an angry face and a weak mouth
stubbornly set; but for Rose he had always a gay word or a pretty

speech. She was a real Mallett, he told her; she was more his sister than
the others, and she liked to hear him say so because he had a kind of
grace and a caressing voice, yet the cool judgment which was never
easily upset assured her that a man with his mouth must be in the
wrong. He was, in fact, pursuing his old practice of extracting money
from his sisters, and he only returned, presumably, to his wife and child,
when James Batty, the family solicitor, had been called to the ladies'
aid.
But they both cried when he went away.
'He is so lovable,' Sophia sobbed.
'My dear, he's a rake,' Caroline replied, carefully dabbing her cheeks.
'All the Malletts are rakes--yes, even the General. Oh, he took to
religion in the end, I know, but that's what they do.' She chuckled.
'When there's nothing left! I'm afraid I shall take to it myself some day.
I've sown my wild oats, too. Oh, no, I'm not going to tell Rose anything
about them, Sophia. You needn't be afraid, but she'll hear of them
sooner or later from anybody who remembers Caroline Mallett in her
youth.'
Rose had received this confession gravely, but she had not needed the
reassurance of Sophia; 'It isn't so, dear Rose--a flirt, yes, but never
wicked, never! My dear, of course not!'
'Of course not,' Rose repeated. She had already realized that her
stepsisters must be humoured.
* * * * *

Riding slowly, Rose recalled that haymaking party and her gradual
friendship, as the years went by, with the unsociable young