Life and Death of Harriett Frean Part 5

"And, of course, the risk." He liked him.

She could talk to Robin Lethbridge as she couldn't talk to Connie Hanc.o.c.k'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.

When Priscilla came to stay it was almost painful. Her eyes clung to him, and wouldn't let him go. If he left the room she was restless, unhappy till he came back. She went out for long walks with him and returned silent, with a tired, beaten look. She would lie on the sofa, and he would hang over her, gazing at her with strained, unhappy eyes.

After she had gone he kept on coming more than ever, and he stayed overnight. Harriett had to walk with him now. He wanted to talk, to talk about himself, endlessly.

When she looked in the gla.s.s she saw a face she didn't know: bright-eyed, flushed, pretty. The little arrogant lift had gone. As if it had been somebody else's face she asked herself, in wonder, without rancor, why n.o.body had ever cared for it. Why? Why? She could see her father looking at her, intent, as if he wondered. And one day her mother said, "Do you think you ought to see so much of Robin? Do you think it's quite fair to Prissie?"

"Oh--_Mamma!_ ... I wouldn't. I haven't----"

"I know. 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----."

The wedding day was fixed for July. After all, they were going to risk it. By the middle of June the wedding presents began to come in.

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."

"I know what _she_ is."

His mouth's uneven quiver beat in and out like a pulse.

"Don't talk to me about Prissie!"

Then he got it out. He tore it out of himself. He loved her.

"Oh, Robin----" Her fingers loosened in her dismay; she went dropping red campion.

It was no use, he said, to think about Prissie. He couldn't marry her.

He couldn't marry anybody but Hatty; Hatty must marry him.

"You can't say you don't love me, Hatty."

No. She couldn't say it; for it wouldn't be true.

"Well, then----"

"I can't. I'd be doing wrong, Robin. I feel all the time as if she belonged to you; as if she were married to you."

"But she isn't. It isn't the same thing."

"To me it is. You can't undo it. It would be too dishonorable."

"Not half so dishonorable as marrying her when I don't love her."

"Yes. 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?"

"You know how."

"Well, even if we were, we've no right to get our happiness out of her suffering."

"Oh, Hatty, why are you so good, so good?"

"I'm not good. It's only--there are some things you can't do. We couldn't. We couldn't."

"No," he said at last. "I don't suppose we could. Whatever it's like I've got to go through with it."

He didn't stay that night.

She was crouching on the floor beside her father, her arm thrown across his knees. Her mother had left them there.

"Papa--do you know?"

"Your mother told me.... You've done the right thing."

"You don't think I've been cruel? He said I didn't think of him."

"Oh, no, you couldn't do anything else."

She couldn't. She couldn't. It was no use thinking about him. Yet night after night, for weeks and months, she thought, and cried herself to sleep.

By day she suffered from Lizzie's sharp eyes and Sarah's brooding pity and Connie Pennefather's callous, married stare. Only with her father and mother she had peace.