1
HARRIET leaned across the scullery sink, where dirty plates were soaking, in order to get a better view of the moon. Her sleeves were turned up to the elbow. Her right hand grasped a ball of dishcloth from which slimy water oozed between her red fingers to float, in black spots, upon the surface of the water. Upon that water, through which projected a tureen, like the bows of a wrecked ship, the moonlight fell. The three and elevenpenny alarum clock in the kitchen began striking nine.
All Harriet’s spiritual crises had had for their mise-en-scène this scullery, or so it seemed to Harriet herself. Seven years earlier she had stood where she was now standing and had wrestled with overmastering fear, to the accompaniment of that same ticking clock and to the drip-drip from the plate-rack upon already washed spoons. She had leaned then across the sink, as she was leaning now, and stared in terror at an unearthly glow in the sky that could scarcely fail to mean the end of the world and the coming of God in judgment. She shuddered to picture the dead bodies, putty-coloured, rising in their shrouds to confront—with her and Mamma and Alice and Maud—an implacable Creator. ‘O God, don’t come yet!’ It had been the most spontaneous of all her prayers. She had heard too much of this God to trust herself readily to His mercy; and she, the most wicked of girls, had little enough to hope from mere justice. She had too often deceived her teacher and been unsympathetic with her poor mother; and far too often had she resented having to drudge in the house—sweep and dust, make beds, empty slops, and wash dirty dinner-things—while still at school, and to the neglect of her home-lessons.
Whether in answer to her prayer, or from come other cause, God had stayed His coming on that occasion, and to-night, within a week of her twentieth birthday, she was thinking of quite other things: not of God, but of the moon. There was something placid and sisterly to-night about that celestial presence, and Harriet was deliciously aware of a bond between them, ‘Because Geoff likes us both,’ she said in her heart. What had been his phrase, the phrase that had astonished her first to gladness? ‘Gentle as moonlight, soft and gentle as moonlight.’ The words haunted her memory like singing birds. Geoff’s liking was in itself strange enough: the degree of his liking was scarcely credible. Why had he no eyes for Alice, the acknowledged beauty of the family?—or for Maud, with her brains? ‘Cinderella and the Ugly Sisters,’ Geoff had said. But Cinderella had been a pretty girl, and she, Harriet, was all too plain. It could only have been kindness or perverse obstinacy that had made him deny that. She glanced into the tiny mirror that hung from a nail on the pink distempered wall, and examined with some distaste the oval olive face, the fair hair, and the large brown eyes that looked out at her. Tears began to form in those eyes. ‘Now don’t start that silliness!’ she admonished herself. And she returned to the practical world and to the washing of the things dirtied at supper. ‘I do wish mamma wouldn’t leave all her fat,’ she thought, as with her scullery knife she sped three quivering fragments into the waste-pail.
There remained the undeniable fact that Geoff wanted to marry her: that is, he liked her so much that he wished her to share his home, when he acquired one, and wash his dishes instead of her mother’s. She could cook, too: she could make him nice things; and she would indeed have cheerfully slaved for his comfort in gratitude for that pity which, as she supposed, had made his glance linger in kindness upon her. But that was not to be. Even in that wonderful moment when he praised her gentleness she had realized how impossible it was that she should leave mamma; and her sisters had been not slow to emphasize that impossibility. ‘Boy and girl flirtation,’ said Alice with genial contempt—unaccountably, since Geoff was twenty-six and considered to be rather a clever young man. He was a poet—a bank-clerk in his spare time—and his knack of finding rhymes should alone have earned him some respect. To Geoff himself Alice had always been conspicuously friendly; and as for Maud—he had been her friend in the first place (she had met him in the city), and it had always been assumed that it was Maud whom he came to see. But about Geoff’s intentions now there could be no doubt at all. He had even wanted, the dear silly, to help Harriet wash up, but she had not dared to allow that, and he, making a virtue of necessity, was at this moment closeted with the family, perhaps urging once more his extravagant claim.
The last dish dried, the last fork placed in its proper section of the plate-basket, she returned, rather shamefaced, to the sitting-room. As the door closed behind her an ominous hush fell. A smile upon the proud plump face of Alice froze hard and thawed suddenly. Maud swung round upon the revolving music-stool and began turning the pages of Mendelssohn’s Lieder. Her mother, perched insecurely on the edge of her chair, visibly suffered. She was always visibly suffering.
‘Girls!’ said mamma plaintively.... It was enough. Harriet’s sisters rose without a word and left the room. Mamma looked at the young man, but he made no movement. ‘Geoffrey!’ she said, a world of pathos in her voice. But Geoffrey was deaf to it. ‘This concerns me too,’ he said. ‘May I smoke?’
‘Very well. Stay, if you wish to be cruel....’ But this man, lost to all sense of humanity, only replied: ‘I’m vulgarly persistent, no doubt, but you see I happen to want Harry.’
Harry’s mother turned twin orbs of suffering upon her daughter, and began reciting the speech she had prepared.
‘I’m sorry, Harriet, to disappoint you. I understand your desire to get away from a troublesome invalid mother and your two bread-winning sisters. But you are God’s charge to me and I must protect you.’
‘From me?’ inquired Geoffrey.
She did not heed the interruption.
‘I say nothing against Geoffrey, but I can’t consent to anything in the shape of an engagement between you. For one thing you are as yet a mere girl; you know nothing of life and nothing of marriage. And that isn’t all. Geoffrey has told me something very sad. He has been very open and frank with me: I will say that for him. We all like Geoffrey. But he’s told me that he would wish to be married in an office. He has queer views, my dear. He even tells me that he only goes to church to please his mother and father. I’m afraid he’s let go of the Saviour’s hand altogether. After that, I need hardly say more. I know my little Harriet too well to believe that she can wish to give mother pain. I already have my Cross to bear.’
‘Very well, mamma.’ Harriet’s eyes were luminous with tears.
At that Geoffrey rose. ‘Then I’d better clear off home at once.’
‘My dear Geoffrey,’ protested his hostess, ‘I know you are thinking to spare my feelings after this upset. You’re very good to me always. But you’ll please stay your week-end. We mustn’t part in unfriendliness—and you know how I should hate you to travel on Sunday.’
He could not keep bitterness out of his smile, but he replied cheerfully enough:
‘Well, Mrs. Mason, since Harry is not to be engaged to me there’ll be no harm in my taking her out for half an hour before bed? Would you care to come, Harry?... Thanks awfully.’