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Title: Life and Death of Harriett Frean

 

Author: May Sinclair

 

Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9298]

[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]

[This file was first posted on September 18, 2003]

 

Edition: 10

 

Language: English

 

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND DEATH OF HARRIETT FREAN ***

 

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Richard Prairie and PG Distributed Proofreaders

LIFE AND DEATH OF HARRIETT FREAN

1922

BY MAY SINCLAIR I

“Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?”

“I’ve been to London, to see the Queen.”

“Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there?”

“I caught a little mouse under the chair,”

 

Her mother said it three times. And each time the Baby Harriett laughed.

The sound of her laugh was so funny that she laughed again at that; she

kept on laughing, with shriller and shriller squeals.

 

“I wonder why she thinks it’s funny,” her mother said.

 

Her father considered it. “I don’t know. The cat perhaps. The cat and the

Queen. But no; that isn’t funny.”

 

“She sees something in it we don’t see, bless her,” said her mother.

 

Each kissed her in turn, and the Baby Harriett stopped laughing suddenly.

 

“Mamma, did Pussycat see the Queen?”

 

“No,” said Mamma. “Just when the Queen was passing the little mouse came

out of its hole and ran under the chair. That’s what Pussycat saw.”

 

Every evening before bedtime she said the same rhyme, and Harriett asked

the same question.

 

When Nurse had gone she would lie still in her cot, waiting. The door

would open, the big pointed shadow would move over the ceiling, the

lattice shadow of the fireguard would fade and go away, and Mamma would

come in carrying the lighted candle. Her face shone white between her

long, hanging curls. She would stoop over the cot and lift Harriett up,

and her face would be hidden in curls. That was the kiss-me-to-sleep kiss.

And when she had gone Harriett lay still again, waiting. Presently Papa

would come in, large and dark in the firelight. He stooped and she leapt

up into his arms. That was the kiss-me-awake kiss; it was their secret.

 

Then they played. Papa was the Pussycat and she was the little mouse in

her hole under the bed-clothes. They played till Papa said, “No

more!” and tucked the blankets tight in.

 

“Now you’re kissing like Mamma–-”

 

Hours afterwards they would come again together and stoop over the cot and

she wouldn’t see them; they would kiss her with soft, light kisses, and

she wouldn’t know.

 

She thought: To-night I’ll stay awake and see them. But she never did.

Only once she dreamed that she heard footsteps and saw the lighted candle,

going out of the room; going, going away.

 

The blue egg stood on the marble top of the cabinet where you could see it

from everywhere; it was supported by a gold waistband, by gold hoops and

gold legs, and it wore a gold ball with a frill round it like a crown. You

would never have guessed what was inside it. You touched a spring in its

waistband and it flew open, and then it was a workbox. Gold scissors and

thimble and stiletto sitting up in holes cut in white velvet.

 

The blue egg was the first thing she thought of when she came into the

room. There was nothing like that in Connie Hancock’s Papa’s house. It

belonged to Mamma.

 

Harriett thought: If only she could have a birthday and wake up and find

that the blue egg belonged to her–-

 

Ida, the wax doll, sat on the drawing-room sofa, dressed ready for the

birthday. The darling had real person’s eyes made of glass, and real

eyelashes and hair. Little finger and toenails were marked in the wax, and

she smelt of the lavender her clothes were laid in.

 

But Emily, the new birthday doll, smelt of composition and of gum and hay;

she had flat, painted hair and eyes, and a foolish look on her face, like

Nurse’s aunt, Mrs. Spinker, when she said “Lawk-a-daisy!” Although Papa

had given her Emily, she could never feel for her the real, loving love

she felt for Ida.

 

And her mother had told her that she must lend Ida to Connie Hancock if

Connie wanted her.

 

Mamma couldn’t see that such a thing was not possible.

 

“My darling, you mustn’t be selfish. You must do what your little guest

wants.”

 

“I can’t.”

 

But she had to; and she was sent out of the room because she cried. It was

much nicer upstairs in the nursery with Mimi, the Angora cat. Mimi knew

that something sorrowful had happened. He sat still, just lifting the root

of his tail as you stroked him. If only she could have stayed there with

Mimi; but in the end she had to go back to the drawing-room.

 

If only she could have told Mamma what it felt like to see Connie with Ida

in her arms, squeezing her tight to her chest and patting her as if Ida

had been her child. She kept on saying to herself that Mamma didn’t

know; she didn’t know what she had done. And when it was all over she took

the wax doll and put her in the long narrow box she had come in, and

buried her in the bottom drawer in the spare-room wardrobe. She thought:

If I can’t have her to myself I won’t have her at all. I’ve got Emily. I

shall just have to pretend she’s not an idiot.

 

She pretended Ida was dead; lying in her pasteboard coffin and buried in

the wardrobe cemetery.

 

It was hard work pretending that Emily didn’t look like Mrs. Spinker.

II

She had a belief that her father’s house was nicer than other people’s

houses. It stood off from the high road, in Black’s Lane, at the head of

the town. You came to it by a row of tall elms standing up along Mr.

Hancock’s wall. Behind the last tree its slender white end went straight

up from the pavement, hanging out a green balcony like a bird cage above

the green door.

 

The lane turned sharp there and went on, and the long brown garden wall

went with it. Behind the wall the lawn flowed down from the white house

and the green veranda to the cedar tree at the bottom. Beyond the lawn was

the kitchen garden, and beyond the kitchen garden the orchard; little

crippled apple trees bending down in the long grass.

 

She was glad to come back to the house after the walk with Eliza, the

nurse, or Annie, the housemaid; to go through all the rooms looking for

Mimi; looking for Mamma, telling her what had happened.

 

“Mamma, the red-haired woman in the sweetie shop has got a little baby,

and its hair’s red, too…. Some day I shall have a little baby. I shall

dress him in a long gown–—”

 

“Robe.”

 

“Robe, with bands of lace all down it, as long as that; and a white

christening cloak sewn with white roses. Won’t he look sweet?”

 

“Very sweet.”

 

“He shall have lots of hair. I shan’t love him if he hasn’t.”

 

“Oh, yes, you will.”

 

“No. He must have thick, flossy hair like Mimi, so that I can stroke him.

Which would you rather have, a little girl or a little boy?”

 

“Well—what do you think–-?”

 

“I think—perhaps I’d rather have a little girl.”

 

She would be like Mamma, and her little girl would be like herself. She

couldn’t think of it any other way.

 

The school-treat was held in Mr. Hancock’s field. All afternoon she had

been with the children, playing Oranges and lemons, A ring, a ring of

roses, and Here we come gathering nuts in May, nuts in May,

nuts in May: over and over again. And she had helped her mother to

hand cake and buns at the infants’ table.

 

The guest-children’s tea was served last of all, up on the lawn under the

immense, brown brick, many windowed house. There wasn’t room for everybody

at the table, so the girls sat down first and the boys waited for their

turn. Some of them were pushing and snatching.

 

She knew what she would have. She would begin with a bun, and go on

through two sorts of jam to Madeira cake, and end with raspberries and

cream. Or perhaps it would be safer to begin with raspberries and cream.

She kept her face very still, so as not to look greedy, and tried not to

stare at the Madeira cake lest people should see she was thinking of it.

Mrs. Hancock had given her somebody else’s crumby plate. She thought: I’m

not greedy. I’m really and truly hungry. She could draw herself in at the

waist with a flat, exhausted feeling, like the two ends of a concertina

coming together.

 

She was doing this when she saw her mother standing on the other side of

the table, looking at her and making signs.

 

“If you’ve finished, Hatty, you’d better get up and let that little boy

have something.”

 

They were all turning round and looking at her. And there was the crumby

plate before her. 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.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me you hadn’t finished?”

 

“Finished? I hadn’t even begun”

 

“Oh-h, darling, why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“Because I—I don’t know.”

 

“Well, I’m glad my little girl didn’t snatch and push. It’s better to go

without than to take from other people. That’s ugly.”

 

Ugly. Being naughty