Read Online Life and Death of Harriett Frean by May Sinclair - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: May Sinclair
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and been happy and been right?
"I don't care. If it was to be done again to-morrow I'd do it."
But the beauty of that unique act no longer appeared to her as it once was, uplifting, consoling, incorruptible.
The years passed. They went with an incredible rapidity, and Harriett was
now fifty.
The feeling of insecurity had grown on her. It had something to do with Mona, with Maggie and Maggie's baby. She had no clear illumination, only a mournful acquiescence in her own futility, an almost physical sense of shrinkage, the crumbling away, bit by bit, of her beautiful and honorable self, dying with the objects of its three profound affections: her father, her mother, Robin. Gradually the image of the middle-aged Robin had effaced his youth.
She read more and more novels from the circulating libraries, of a kind demanding less and less effort of attention. And always her inability to concentrate appeared to her as a just demand for clarity: "The man has no business to write so that I can't understand him."
She laid in a weekly stock of opinions from The Spectator , and by this means contrived a semblance of intellectual life.
She was appeased more and more by the rhythm of the seasons, of the weeks, of day and night, by the first coming up of the pink and wine-brown velvet primulas, by the pungent, burnt smell of her morning coffee, the smell of a midday stew, of hot cakes baking for tea time; by the lighting of the lamp, the lighting of autumn fires, the round of her visits. She waited with a strained, expectant desire for the moment when it would be time to see Lizzie or Sarah or Connie Pennefather again.
Seeing them was a habit she couldn't get over. But it no longer gave her keen pleasure. She told herself that her three friends were deteriorating in their middle age. Lizzie's sharp face darted malice; her tongue was whipcord; she knew where to flick; the small gleam of her eyes, the snap of her nutcracker jaws irritated Harriett. Sarah was slow; slow. She took no care of her face and figure. As Lizzie put it, Sarah's appearance was an outrage on her contemporaries. "She makes us feel so old."
And Connie--the very rucking of Connie's coat about her broad hips irritated Harriett. She had a way of staring over her fat cheeks at Harriett's old suits, mistaking them for new ones, and saying the same exasperating thing. "You're lucky to be able to afford it. I can't."
Harriett's irritation mounted up and up.
And one day she quarreled with Connie.
Connie had been telling one of her stories; leaning a little sideways, her skirt stretched tight between her fat, parted knees, the broad roll of her smile sliding greasily. She had "grown out of it" in her young womanhood, and now in her middle age she had come back to it again. She was just like her father.
"Connie, how can you be so coarse?"
"I beg pardon. I forgot you were always better than everybody else."
"I'm not better than everybody else. I've only been brought up better than some people. My father would have died rather than have told a story like that."
"I suppose that's a dig at my parents."
"I never said anything about your parents."
"I know the things you think about my father."
"Well--I daresay he thinks things about me."
"He thinks you were always an incurable old maid, my dear."
"Did he think my father was an old maid?"
"I never heard him say one unkind word about your father."
"I should hope not, indeed."
"Unkind things were said. Not by him. Though he might have been
forgiven----"
"I don't know what you mean. But all my father's creditors were paid in full. You know that."
"I didn't know it."
"You know it now. Was your father one of them?"
"No. It was as bad for him as if he had been, though."
"How do you make that out?"
"Well, my dear, if he hadn't taken your father's advice he might have been a rich man now instead of a poor one.... He invested all his money as he told him."
"In my father's things?"
"In things he was interested in. And
"I don't care. If it was to be done again to-morrow I'd do it."
But the beauty of that unique act no longer appeared to her as it once was, uplifting, consoling, incorruptible.
The years passed. They went with an incredible rapidity, and Harriett was
now fifty.
The feeling of insecurity had grown on her. It had something to do with Mona, with Maggie and Maggie's baby. She had no clear illumination, only a mournful acquiescence in her own futility, an almost physical sense of shrinkage, the crumbling away, bit by bit, of her beautiful and honorable self, dying with the objects of its three profound affections: her father, her mother, Robin. Gradually the image of the middle-aged Robin had effaced his youth.
She read more and more novels from the circulating libraries, of a kind demanding less and less effort of attention. And always her inability to concentrate appeared to her as a just demand for clarity: "The man has no business to write so that I can't understand him."
She laid in a weekly stock of opinions from The Spectator , and by this means contrived a semblance of intellectual life.
She was appeased more and more by the rhythm of the seasons, of the weeks, of day and night, by the first coming up of the pink and wine-brown velvet primulas, by the pungent, burnt smell of her morning coffee, the smell of a midday stew, of hot cakes baking for tea time; by the lighting of the lamp, the lighting of autumn fires, the round of her visits. She waited with a strained, expectant desire for the moment when it would be time to see Lizzie or Sarah or Connie Pennefather again.
Seeing them was a habit she couldn't get over. But it no longer gave her keen pleasure. She told herself that her three friends were deteriorating in their middle age. Lizzie's sharp face darted malice; her tongue was whipcord; she knew where to flick; the small gleam of her eyes, the snap of her nutcracker jaws irritated Harriett. Sarah was slow; slow. She took no care of her face and figure. As Lizzie put it, Sarah's appearance was an outrage on her contemporaries. "She makes us feel so old."
And Connie--the very rucking of Connie's coat about her broad hips irritated Harriett. She had a way of staring over her fat cheeks at Harriett's old suits, mistaking them for new ones, and saying the same exasperating thing. "You're lucky to be able to afford it. I can't."
Harriett's irritation mounted up and up.
And one day she quarreled with Connie.
Connie had been telling one of her stories; leaning a little sideways, her skirt stretched tight between her fat, parted knees, the broad roll of her smile sliding greasily. She had "grown out of it" in her young womanhood, and now in her middle age she had come back to it again. She was just like her father.
"Connie, how can you be so coarse?"
"I beg pardon. I forgot you were always better than everybody else."
"I'm not better than everybody else. I've only been brought up better than some people. My father would have died rather than have told a story like that."
"I suppose that's a dig at my parents."
"I never said anything about your parents."
"I know the things you think about my father."
"Well--I daresay he thinks things about me."
"He thinks you were always an incurable old maid, my dear."
"Did he think my father was an old maid?"
"I never heard him say one unkind word about your father."
"I should hope not, indeed."
"Unkind things were said. Not by him. Though he might have been
forgiven----"
"I don't know what you mean. But all my father's creditors were paid in full. You know that."
"I didn't know it."
"You know it now. Was your father one of them?"
"No. It was as bad for him as if he had been, though."
"How do you make that out?"
"Well, my dear, if he hadn't taken your father's advice he might have been a rich man now instead of a poor one.... He invested all his money as he told him."
"In my father's things?"
"In things he was interested in. And
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