Life and Death of Harriett Frean Part 12

Her heart's weak. 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. 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, s.h.i.+ning eyes, who came rus.h.i.+ng 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. She told herself she wouldn't be Beatrice, she wouldn't be Robin's wife for the world. Her pity for Beatrice gave her a secret pleasure and satisfaction.

After dinner she sat out in the garden talking to Robin's wife, while Cissy Walker played draughts with Robin in his study, giving Beatrice a rest from him. They talked about Robin.

"You knew him when he was young, didn't you? What was he like?"

She didn't want to tell her. She wanted to keep the young, s.h.i.+ning 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. She made a nervous wreck of him."

"He was devoted to her."

"Yes. And he's paying for his devotion now. She wore him out....

Cissy says he's selfish. If he is, it's because he's used up all his unselfishness. He was living on his moral capital.... I feel as if I couldn't do too much for him after what he did. Cissy doesn't know how awful his life was with Priscilla. She was the most exacting----"

"She was my friend."

"Wasn't Robin your friend, too?"

"Yes. But poor Prissie, she was paralyzed."

"It wasn't paralysis."

"What was it then?"

"Pure hysteria. Robin wasn't in love with her, and she knew it. She developed that illness so that she might have a hold on him, get his attention fastened on her somehow. I don't say she could help it. She couldn't. But that's what it was."

"Well, she died of it."

"No. She died of pneumonia after influenza. I'm not blaming Prissie. She was pitiable. But he ought never to have married her."

"I don't think you ought to say that."

"You know what he was," said Robin's wife. "And look at him now."

But Harriett's mind refused, obstinately, to connect the two Robins and Priscilla.

She remembered that she had to speak to Robin. They went together into his study. Cissy sent her a look, a signal, and rose; she stood by the doorway.

"Beatie, you might come here a minute."

Harriett was alone with Robin.

"Well, Harriett, we haven't been able to do much for you. In my beastly state----"

"You'll get better."

"Never. I'm done for, Harriett. I don't complain."

"You've got a devoted wife, Robin."

"Yes. Poor girl, she does what she can."

"She does too much."

"My dear woman, she wouldn't be happy if she didn't."

"It isn't good for her. Does it never strike you that she's not strong?"

"Not strong? She's--she's almost indecently robust. What wouldn't I give to have her strength!"

She looked at him, at the lean figure sunk in the armchair, at the dragged, infirm face, the blurred, owlish eyes, the expression of abject self-pity, of self-absorption. That was Robin.

The awful thing was that she couldn't love him, couldn't go on being faithful. This injured her self-esteem.

XI

Her old servant, Hannah, had gone, and her new servant, Maggie, had had a baby.

After the first shock and three months' loss of Maggie, it occurred to Harriett that the beautiful thing would be to take Maggie back and let her have the baby with her, since she couldn't leave it.

The baby lay in his cradle in the kitchen, black-eyed and rosy, doubling up his fat, naked knees, smiling his crooked smile, and saying things to himself. Harriett had to see him every time she came into the kitchen.

Sometimes she heard him cry, an intolerable cry, tearing the nerves and heart. And sometimes she saw Maggie unb.u.t.ton her black gown in a hurry and put out her white, rose-pointed breast to still his cry.

Harriett couldn't bear it. She could not bear it.

She decided that Maggie must go. Maggie was not doing her work properly.

Harriett found flue under the bed.