Life and Death of Harriett Frean | Page 4

brushing the flower borders.
She ran up to her, crying, "Mamma, I went up the lane where you told
me not to."
"No, Hatty, no; you didn't."

You could see she wasn't angry. She was frightened.
"I did. I did."
Her mother took the bunch of flowers out of her hand and looked at it.
"Yes," she said, "that's where the dark-red campion grows."
She was holding the flowers up to her face. It was awful, for you could
see her mouth thicken and redden over its edges and shake. She hid it
behind the flowers. And somehow you knew it wasn't your naughtiness
that made her cry. There was something more.
She was saying in a thick, soft voice, "It was wrong of you, my
darling."
Suddenly she bent her tall straightness. "Rose campion," she said,
parting the stems with her long, thin fingers. "Look, Hatty, how
beautiful they are. Run away and put the poor things in water."
She was so quiet, so quiet, and her quietness hurt far more than if she
had been angry.
She must have gone straight back into the house to Papa. Harriett knew,
because he sent for her. He was quiet, too.... That was the little, hiding
voice he told you secrets in.... She stood close up to him, between his
knees, and his arm went loosely round her to keep her there while he
looked into her eyes. You could smell tobacco, and the queer, clean
man's smell that came up out of him from his collar. He wasn't smiling;
but somehow his eyes looked kinder than if they had smiled.
"Why did you do it, Hatty?"
"Because--I wanted to see what it would feel like."
"You mustn't do it again. Do you hear?--you mustn't do it."
"Why?"
"Why? Because it makes your mother unhappy. That's enough why."
But there was something more. Mamma had been frightened.
Something to do with the frightening man in the lane.
"Why does it make her?"
She knew; she knew; but she wanted to see what he would say.
"I said that was enough.... Do you know what you've been guilty of?"
"Disobedience."
"More than that. Breaking trust. Meanness. It was mean and
dishonorable of you when you knew you wouldn't be punished."
"Isn't there to be a punishment?"
"No. People are punished to make them remember. We want you to

forget." His arm tightened, drawing her closer. And the kind, secret
voice went on. "Forget ugly things. Understand, Hatty, nothing is
forbidden. We don't forbid, because we trust you to do what we wish.
To behave beautifully.... There, there."
She hid her face on his breast against his tickly coat, and cried.
She would always have to do what they wanted; the unhappiness of not
doing it was more than she could bear. All very well to say there would
be no punishment; their unhappiness was the punishment.
It hurt more than anything. It kept on hurting when she thought about
it.
The first minute of to-morrow she would begin behaving beautifully; as
beautifully as she could. They wanted you to; they wanted it more than
anything because they were so beautiful. So good. So wise.
But three years went before Harriett understood how wise they had
been, and why her mother took her again and again into Black's Lane to
pick red campion, so that it was always the red campion she
remembered. They must have known all the time about Black's Lane;
Annie, the housemaid, used to say it was a bad place; something had
happened to a little girl there. Annie hushed and reddened and wouldn't
tell you what it was. Then one day, when she was thirteen, standing by
the apple tree, Connie Hancock told her. A secret... Behind the dirty
blue palings... She shut her eyes, squeezing the lids down, frightened.
But when she thought of the lane she could see nothing but the green
banks, the three tall elms, and the red campion pricking through the
white froth of the cow's parsley; her mother stood on the garden walk
in her wide, swinging gown; she was holding the red and white flowers
up to her face and saying, "Look, how beautiful they are."
She saw her all the time while Connie was telling her the secret. She
wanted to get up and go to her. Connie knew what it meant when you
stiffened suddenly and made yourself tall and cold and silent. The cold
silence would frighten her and she would go away. Then, Harriett
thought, she could get back to her mother and Longfellow.
Every afternoon, through the hours before her father came home, she
sat in the cool, green-lighted drawing-room reading Evangeline aloud
to her mother. When they came to the beautiful places they looked at
each other