Read Online The Lotus House by Katharine Moore - Free Book Online Page B

were mostly the older ones. Harriet did not dare to be seen by any of these. They fought and shouted and threw things about; once they were throwingthings at a poor cat, but it escaped, and scrambling over the fence in its desperation, rushed into Miss Cook’s part of the garden and then disappeared. The boys continued to throw a few stones after it over the fence — one nearly hit Harriet and so she dared not go in search of the cat until they had all gone away, but she could not find it. Instead Miss Cook found her and was cross with her for “trespassing”, as she called it.
    Of the other younger group Ben was the leader. Harriet, worshipping from afar, saw with approval that it was he who arranged all the games and that the others did what he told them. He was nearly always the centre of a crowd, but sometimes he would come out later, just before the “Terribles”, and practise by himself with a ball. One never-to-be-forgotten day he was there alone when Harriet came out and he actually looked over the fence and hailed her.
    “Hullo, kid, I’ve sent my ball over by mistake. Can I come and look for it?”
    Harriet nodded, she was speechless with shyness and emotion. She stood stock still until Ben appeared again on her side of the fence.
    “There’s an awful lot of long grass and bushes,” he said, “I didn’t see where it went. Can you help? You look along here and I’ll start further off.”
    Harriet began to look but without hope, her mother always said she could never find anything. And then she saw it, something red, half-hidden in the undergrowth and almost at her feet. But no, it couldn’t be, such a thing could never happen, it couldn’t actually be Ben’s ball. Transfixed with excitement and disbelief, she couldn’t move, she simply couldn’t stoop down and see for certain, and then Ben came up and saw it too.
    “Why, there it is, staring at you. You are a blind bat!” he said kindly but contemptuously. He picked it up and ran away tossing it in the air.
    “I might have found it for him, I could have been the girl who found Ben’s ball. It’ll never, never happen again, Why didn’t I, oh, why?”
    She ran blindly into the house, on the way nearly knocking over Mrs Sanderson who, seeing the look on the child’s face, was troubled. She had not made much headway with Harriet as yet, although summer was now at hand. On several occasions Margot, with many pretty apologies and expressions of gratitude, had asked her if she would give an eye to Harriet when she and Andrew were going out for the evening. At first Letty had suggested stories and games, but Harriet had so obviously preferred any and every television programme and taking herself off to bed without help at the stipulated time, that she had not persevered. There was no denying that she found Harriet unattractive and unresponsive, a definite disappointment, but, displeased with herself for feeling like this towards the child, she had determined to make a more positive approach one day. Now she decided she would not put this off any longer. The doll’s house would be her trump card of course, and yet it was something of an effort to play it. It would be good to rescue it from being a mere museum piece, to witness again a child’s delight in the previous object, yet she was conscious of a wish to keep it sacrosanct, secure in the past.
    But with the impression of Harriet’s stricken look as she had rushed past her, Letty dealt firmly with this sentimental weakness and wrote a note to Margot which she pushed into the Royces’ letterbox.
    “Harriet,” said Margot the next morning. “Mrs Sanderson has kindly invited you to tea today to see her doll’s house.”
    “Doll’s houses are for babies,” said Harriet indignantly. “The Queensmead one was kept in the nursery and I never played with it even when I was only five.”
    “Well, it’s very kind of Mrs Sanderson anyhow,” saidMargot, “and it wouldn’t be polite or nice not