Life and Death of Harriett Frean | Page 8

arm when she hung on it leaning towards him, and his "There
we are" as he drew her closer. Her mother would look up from the sofa
and ask always the same question, "Well, did anything nice happen?"
Till at last she answered, "No. Did you think it would, Mamma?"
"You never know," said her mother.
"I know everything."
"_Every_thing?"
"Everything that could happen at the Hancocks' dances."
Her mother shook her head at her. She knew that in secret Mamma was
glad; but she answered the reproof.
"It's mean of me to say that when I've eaten four of their ices. They
were strawberry, and chocolate and vanilla, all in one."
"Well, they won't last much longer."
"Not at that rate," her father said.
"I meant the dances," said her mother.
And sure enough, soon after Connie's engagement to young Mr.
Pennefather, they ceased.
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. And Harriett felt again her shock of
resentment. She hated to think of her mother subject to change and
time.
And Priscilla came year after year, still loving, still protesting that she
would never marry. Yet they were glad when even Priscilla had gone
and left them to each other. Only each other, year after year the same.

V
Priscilla's last visit was followed by another passionate vow that she
would never marry. Then within three weeks she wrote again, telling of
her engagement to Robin Lethbridge.
"... I haven't known him very long, and Mamma says it's too soon; but
he makes me feel as if I had known him all my life. I know I said I
wouldn't, but I couldn't tell; I didn't know it would be so different. I
couldn't have believed that anybody could be so happy. You won't
mind, Hatty. We can love each other just the same...."
Incredible that Priscilla, who could be so beaten down and crushed by
suffering, should have risen to such an ecstasy. Her letters had a
swinging lilt, a hurried beat, like a song bursting, a heart beating for joy
too fast.
It would have to be a long engagement. Robin was in a provincial bank,
he had his way to make. Then, a year later, Prissy wrote and told them
that Robin had got a post in Parson's Bank in the City. He didn't know a
soul in London. Would they be kind to him and let him come to them
sometimes, on Saturdays and Sundays?
He came one Sunday. Harriett had wondered what he would be like,
and he was tall, slender-waisted, wide-shouldered; he had a square,
very white forehead; his brown hair was parted on one side, half curling
at the tips above his ears. His eyes--thin, black crystal, shining, turning,
showing speckles of brown and gray; perfectly set under straight

eyebrows laid very black on the white skin. His round, pouting chin
had a dent in it. The face in between was thin and irregular; the nose
straight and serious and rather long in profile, with a dip and a rise at
three-quarters; in full face straight again but shortened. His eyes had
another meaning, deeper and steadier than his fine slender mouth; but it
was the mouth that made you look at him. One arch of the bow was
higher than the other; now and then it quivered with an uneven,
sensitive movement of its own.
She noticed his mouth's little dragging droop at the corners and thought:
"Oh, you're cross. If you're cross with Prissie--if you make her
unhappy" --but when he caught her looking at him the cross lips drew
back in a sudden, white, confiding smile. And when he spoke she
understood why he had been irresistible to Priscilla.
He had come three Sundays now, four perhaps; she had lost count.
They were all sitting out on the lawn under the cedar. Suddenly, as if he
had only just thought of it, he said:
"It's extraordinarily good of you to have me."
"Oh, well," her mother said, "Prissie is Hatty's greatest friend."
"I supposed that was why you do it."
He didn't want it to be that. He wanted it to be himself. Himself. He
was proud. He didn't like to owe anything to other