Their child will come—throwing even the support of him off and away, making her monstrous … and then born into life between them, forever, “drawing them together,” showing they were separate; between them, forever. There was no getting away from that.
The strange strong crude odours breathing quietly out from the open lid of the new piano seemed to support them, to make them more mockingly inexorable.
The smell of the piano would go on being there while inexorable things happened.
Voices were sounding in the garden. …
Hanging on either side of the mantelpiece were two more pictures—square green garden scenes. … There was relief in the deeps of the gardens and in under the huge spreading trees that nearly filled the sky. There were tiresome people fussing in the foreground … Marcus Stone people—having scenes—not noticing the garden; getting in the way of the garden. But the garden was there, blazing, filled with some particular time of day, always being filled with different times of day.
There would be in-between times for Harriett—her own times. Times when she would be at peace in this room near the garden. Away from the kitchen and strange-eyed servants, and from the stern brown and yellow pigskin dining-room. In here she would have fragrant little teas; and talk as if none of those other things existed. There were figures standing at the French window.
She opened the window upon Harriett and Gerald. Standing a little aloof from them was a man. As Harriett spoke to her Miriam met his strange eyes wide and dark, unseeing; no, glaring at things that did not interest him … desperate, playing a part. His thin squarish frame hung loosely, whipped and beaten, within his dark clothes.
His eyes passed expressionlessly from her face to Harriett.
A great gust of laughter sounded from the open kitchen window away to the left, screened by a trellis over which the lavish trailings of a creeper made a bright green curtain. It was Bennett’s voice. He had just accomplished something or other.
“Ullo,” said Harriett. The strange man was holding his lower lip in with his teeth, as if in horror or pain. … They stood in a row on the gravel.
“Let me introduce Mr. Grove,” said Harriett, with a shy movement of her head and shoulders, keeping her hands clasped. Her face was all broken up. She could either laugh or cry. But there was something, a sort of light, chiselling it, holding everything back.
Miriam bowed. “What’s Bennett doing?” she said hurriedly.
“The last time I saw him he was standing on the kitchen table fighting with the gas bracket,” said Gerald.
The sallow man drew in his breath sharply and stood aside, staring down the garden. Miriam glanced at him, wondering. He was not criticising Gerald. It was something else.
“I say, Mirry, what did you do to old Tremayne this morning?” went on Gerald.
“What do you mean?” said Miriam interested. This was the novel going on. …
She must read it through even at this strange moment … this moment was the right setting to read through Gerald that little exciting faraway finished thing of the morning, to know that it had been right. She felt decked. Gerald stood confronting her and spoke low, fingering the anemones in her belt. The others were talking. Harriett in high short laughing sentences, the man gasping and moaning his replies, making jerky movements. He was not considering his words, but looking for the right, appropriate things to say. Miriam rejoiced over him as she smiled encouragingly at Gerald.
“Well, my dear, he wanted to know—who you were; and he swears he’s going to be engaged to you before the year is out.”
“What abominable cheek,” said Miriam, flushing with delight. Then she had taken the right line. How easy. This was how things happened.
“No, my dear, he didn’t mean to be cheeky.”
“I call it the most abominable cheek.”
“No you don’t”; Gerald was looking at her with fatherly solicitude. “That’s what he said anyhow—and he meant it. Ask Harry.”
“Frivolous young man.”
“Well, he’s an awful flirt, I warn you; but he’s struck this time—all of a heap … came and raved about you the minute he’d seen you, and when he heard you were Harry’s sister that’s what he said.”
“I’m sure I’m awfully obliged to his majesty.”
Gerald laughed and turned, looking for Harriett and moving to her. Miriam caught at a vision of the well-appointed man, a year … a home full of fresh new things, no more need to make money; a stylish contented devoted sort of man, who knew nothing about one. It would be a fraud, unfair to him … so easy to pretend to admire him … well, there it was … an offer of freedom … that was admirable, in almost any man, the power to lift one out into freedom. He wanted to lift her out—her, not any other woman. It was rather wonderful, and appealing. She hung over his moment of certainty in pride and triumph. But there was something wrong somewhere; though she felt that someone had placed a jewel in her hair. Gerald had drawn Harriett through the doorway into the drawing-room. The sunlight followed them. They looked solid and powerful. The strange terrors of the room were challenged
