May Sinclair

“ Sometimes she or her mother read aloud, Mrs. Browning or Charles Dickens; or the biography of some Great Man, sitting there in the velvet-curtained room or out on the lawn under the cedar tree. A motionless communion broken by walks in the sweet-smelling fields and deep, elm-screened lanes. And there were short journeys into London to a lecture or a concert, and now and then the surprise and excitement of the play.
One day her mother smoothed out her long, hanging curls and tucked them away under a net. Harriett had a little shock of dismay and resentment, hating change. ”

“ Harriett and Robin Lethbridge were walking up Black’s Lane. The hedges were a white bridal froth of cow’s parsley. Every now and then she swerved aside to pick the red campion.
He spoke suddenly. “Do you know what a dear little face you have, Hatty? It’s so clear and still and it behaves so beautifully.”
“Does it?”
She thought of Prissie’s face, dark and restless, never clear, never still.
“You’re not a bit like what I expected. Prissie doesn’t know what you are. You don’t know yourself.” ”

“ When the friends—Mrs. Hancock, Connie Pennefather, Lizzie, and Sarah—called to inquire, Harriett wouldn’t tell them what it was; she pretended that she didn’t know, that the doctors weren’t sure; she covered it up from them as if it had been a secret shame. And they pretended that they didn’t know. But they knew.
They were talking now about an operation. There was one chance for her in a hundred if they had Sir James Pargeter: one chance. She might die of it; she might die under the anæsthetic; she might die of shock; she was so old and weak. ”

“ She tried to reinstate herself through grief; she sheltered behind her bereavement, affecting a more profound seclusion, abhorring strangers; she was more than ever the reserved, fastidious daughter of Hilton Frean. She had always thought of herself as different from Connie and Sarah, living with a superior, intellectual life. She turned to the books she had read with her mother, Dante, Browning, Carlyle, and Ruskin, the biographies of Great Men, trying to retrace the footsteps of her lost self, to revive the forgotten thrill. ”

“ Lizzie Pierce had a provoking way of smiling at Harriett, as if she found her ridiculous. And Harriett had no patience with Lizzie’s affectation in wanting to be modern, her vanity in trying to be young, her middle-aged raptures over the work—often unpleasant—of writers too young to be worth serious consideration. They had long arguments in which Harriett, beaten, retired behind The Social Order and the Remains.
“It’s silly,” Lizzie said, “not to be able to look at a new thing because it’s new. That’s the way you grow old.” ”

“ Harriett was silent. She didn’t understand. Her mother was looking at her with a serene comprehension and compassion.
“Poor Hatty,” he said, “she can’t tell a lie to save my life.”
“Oh—Papa——”
He smiled as if he was thinking of something that amused him.
“You should consider other people, my dear. Not just your own selfish feelings.... You ought to write and tell Mr. Hichens.” ”

“ But I came to you, ma’am, because you seemed to sort of need me most. I dearly love looking after people. Old ladies and children. And gentlemen, if they’re ill enough,” Maggie said.
“You’re a good girl, Maggie.”
She had forgotten. The image of Maggie’s baby was dead, hidden, buried deep down in her mind. She closed her eyes. Her head was thrown back, motionless, ecstatic under Maggie’s flickering fingers as they plaited her thin wisps of hair.
Out of the peace of illness she entered on the misery and long labor of convalescence. The first time Maggie left her to dress herself she wept. ”

“ Harriett felt a sudden yearning for Dorothy. She saw a pleasure, a happiness, in her coming. She wasn’t going to call, but she sent little notes in to Dorothy asking her to come to tea.
Dorothy declined.
But every evening, towards bedtime, she came into the garden to catch Mimi. Through the window Harriett could hear her calling: “Mimi! Mimi!” She could see her in her white frock, moving about, hovering, ready to pounce as Mimi dashed from the bushes. She thought: “She walks into my garden as if it was her own. But she won’t make a friend of me. She’s young, and I’m old.” ”

“ Harriett said, “We should have enjoyed Rome more if we had read Gibbon,” and her mother replied that they would not have enjoyed Gibbon so much if they had not seen Rome. Harriett did not really enjoy him; but she enjoyed the sound of her own voice reading out the great sentences and the rolling Latin names.
She had brought back photographs of the Colosseum and the Forum and of Botticelli’s Spring, and a della Robbia Madonna in a shrine of fruit and flowers, and hung them in the drawing-room. ”

“ And the three friends, Connie and Sarah and Lizzie, came and went. She loved them; and yet when they were there they broke something, something secret and precious between her and her father and mother, and when they were gone she felt the stir, the happy movement of coming together again, drawing in close, close, after the break.
“We only want each other.” Nobody else really mattered, not even Priscilla Heaven.
Year after year the same. Her mother parted her hair into two sleek wings; she wore a rosette and lappets of black velvet and lace on a glistening beetle-backed chignon. ”

“ There was something voluptuous about the beginning of this state; she would give herself up to it with an animal pleasure and content.
Sometimes, for long periods, her mind would go backwards, returning, always returning, to the house in Black’s Lane. She would see the row of elms and the white wall at the end with the green balcony hung out like a birdcage above the green door. She would see herself, a girl wearing a big chignon and a little round hat; or sitting in the curly chair with her feet on the white rug ”

“ The strange face of Miss Walker chilled her. A strange young woman, living close to Robin, protecting him, explaining Robin’s ways.
The sound of hammering ceased. Through the long, open window she saw a woman rise up from the floor and shed a white apron. She came down the lawn to them, with raised arms, patting disordered hair; large, a full, firm figure clipped in blue linen. A full-blown face, bluish pink; thick gray eyes slightly protruding; a thick mouth, solid and firm and kind. That was Robin’s wife. Her sister was slighter, fresher, a good ten years younger, Harriett thought. ”

“ I wish you’d give him a hint. Tell him she isn’t strong. I can’t. She’d snap my head off. Would you mind?”
Harriett didn’t mind. She didn’t mind what she said. She wouldn’t be saying it to Robin, but to the contemptible thing that had taken Robin’s place. She still saw Robin as a young man, with young, shining eyes, who came rushing to give himself up at once, to make himself known. She had no affection for this selfish invalid, this weak, peevish bully.
Poor Beatrice. She was sorry for Beatrice. She resented his behavior to Beatrice. ”

“ He would want to marry a young woman. He had been in love with this Walker woman, and Prissie had known it. She could see Prissie lying in her bed, helpless, looking at them over the edge of the white sheet. She had known that as soon as she was dead, before the sods closed over her grave, they would marry. Nothing could stop them. And she had tried to make herself believe it was her wish, her doing, not theirs. Poor little Prissie.
She understood that Robin had been staying in Sidmouth for his health.
A year later, Harriett, run down, was ordered to the seaside. She went to Sidmouth. ”

“ As long as she loves you. She hasn’t anybody but you. She was so happy. So happy. Think of the cruelty of it. Think what we should send her back to.”
“You think of Prissie. You don’t think of me.”
“Because it would kill her.”
“How about you?”
“It can’t kill us, because we know we love each other. Nothing can take that from us.”
“But I couldn’t be happy with her, Hatty. She wears me out. She’s so restless.”
“We couldn’t be happy, Robin. We should always be thinking of what we did to her. How could we be happy?” ”

“ Hancock,” she said.
“I didn’t know he cared for him like that, Mamma.”
“Oh, well, he’s known him thirty years, and it’s a very dreadful thing he should have to give up his house.”
“It’s not worse for him than it is for Papa.”
“It’s ever so much worse. He isn’t like your father. He can’t be happy without his big house and his carriages and horses. He’ll feel so small and unimportant.”
“Well, then, it serves him right.”
“Don’t say that. It is what he cares for and he’s lost it.”
“He’s no business to behave as if it was Papa’s fault,” said Harriett. ”

“ Robin ...
“I minded most because of Robin. It’s such an awful illness, Hatty. I can’t move when I’m in bed. Robin has to get up and turn me a dozen times in one night.... Robin’s a perfect saint. He does everything for me.” Prissie’s voice and her face softened and thickened with voluptuous content.
“... Do you know, Hatty, I had a little baby. It died the day it was born.... Perhaps some day I shall have another.”
Harriett was aware of a sudden tightening of her heart, of a creeping depression that weighed on her brain and worried it. She thought this was her pity for Priscilla. ”

“ She could talk to Robin Lethbridge as she couldn’t talk to Connie Hancock’s young men. She wasn’t afraid of what he was thinking. She was safe with him, he belonged to Priscilla Heaven. He liked her because he loved Priscilla; but he wanted her to like him, not because of Priscilla, but for himself.
She talked about Priscilla: “I never saw anybody so loving. It used to frighten me; because you can hurt her so easily.”
“Yes. Poor little Prissie, she’s very vulnerable,” he said. ”

“ She was a good nurse, Harriett, before she was my wife.”
“My dear, your nurse had nothing else to do. Your wife has to clean and mend for you, and cook your dinner and mow the lawn and nail the carpets down.” While she said it she looked at Robin as if she adored him. ”

“ Harriett said, “to be always running after new things because you think that’s the way to look young. I’ve no wish to appear younger than I am.”
“I’ve no wish to appear suffering from senile decay.” ”

“ She wanted to keep the young, shining Robin to herself. She also wanted to show that she had known him, that she had known a Robin that Beatrice would never know. Therefore she told her.
“My poor Robin.” Beatrice gazed wistfully, trying to see this Robin that Priscilla had taken from her, that Harriett had known. Then she turned her back.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve married the man I wanted.” She let herself go. “Cissy says I’ve spoiled him. That isn’t true. It was his first wife who spoiled him. ”

“ And their time went as it had gone before: in sewing together, reading together, listening to lectures and concerts together. They had told Sarah that they didn’t want anybody to call. They were Hilton Frean’s wife and daughter. “After our wonderful life with him,” they said, “you’ll understand, Sarah, that we don’t want people.” And if Harriett was introduced to any stranger she accounted for herself arrogantly: “My father was Hilton Frean.” ”

“ Mrs. Lethbridge wondered why he hadn’t come out again.
“I think,” Harriett said, “perhaps he’ll come if I go.”
“Oh, you mustn’t go. It’s good for him to see people. Takes him out of himself.”
“He’ll turn up all right,” Miss Walker said, “when he hears the teacups.”
And at four o’clock when the teacups came, Robin turned up, dragging himself slowly from the house to the lawn. He blinked and quivered with agitation; Harriett saw he was annoyed, not with her, and not with Miss Walker, but with his wife.
“Beatrice, what have you done with my new bottle of medicine?”
“Nothing, dear.” ”

“ She oughtn’t to be doing what she does.”
“Doesn’t Robin see it?”
“He doesn’t see anything. He never knows when she’s tired or got a headache. She’ll drop dead before he’ll see it. He’s utterly selfish, Miss Frean. Wrapt up in himself and his horrid little ailments. Whatever happens to Beatie he must have his sweetbread, and his soup at eleven and his tea at five in the morning..
“... I suppose you think I might help more?”
“Well——” Harriett did think it.
“Well, I just won’t. I won’t encourage Robin. He ought to get her a proper servant and a man for the garden and the bath chair. ”

“ You couldn’t if you would, Hatty. You would always behave beautifully. But are you so sure about Robin?”
“Oh, he couldn’t care for anybody but Prissie. It’s only because he’s so safe with me, because he knows I don’t and he doesn’t——.” ”

“ When Harriett got back her father was making plans for his removal.
“Why have you all made up your minds that it’ll kill me to remove me? It won’t. The men can take everything out but me and my bed and that chair. And when they’ve got all the things into the other house they can come back for the chair and me. And I can sit in the chair while they’re bringing the bed. It’s quite simple. It only wants a little system.” ”

“ They were thinking: “That greedy little girl has gone on and on eating.” She got up suddenly, not speaking, and left the table, the Madeira cake and the raspberries and cream. She could feel her skin all hot and wet with shame.
And now she was sitting up in the drawing-room at home. Her mother had brought her a piece of seed-cake and a cup of milk with the cream on it. Mamma’s soft eyes kissed her as they watched her eating her cake with short crumbly bites, like a little cat. Mamma’s eyes made her feel so good, so good. ”