2
Harriet went to her room in a trembling ecstasy, struggling against odds to believe that she was indeed beautiful, as he had said. While she moved about, within the pink beflowered walls of her very own room (as in her heart she was wont to call it), his voice still made music in her memory.
‘Why will you submit to be boxed up in that prison? Can’t you understand how I want you? Can’t you understand how lovely you are?’ He had never before been so passionate in his iterations. And she could only shake her head, elated, yet with secret misgiving. He had very queer ideas, mamma had said. Was this obsession by the thought of beauty perhaps one of them? But there was worse to follow.
‘Harry, are you determined to give me up?’
She replied miserably: ‘I can’t go against mamma. You wouldn’t have me go against mamma. Oh, Geoff, I would do anything else for you.’
The words were like a match dropped in dry stubble. ‘Then you do love me? You do! You do!’
His violence frightened and braced her. ‘You know I like you tremendously,’ she said, grappling with the unknown, ‘better than anyone else in the world.’
‘Except your mother,’ he retorted bitterly, and then added in a changed tone: ‘Harry darling, we’ve never kissed. Do you like me enough for that? We may never have another moment alone.’
‘Of course, you funny boy!’
He bent towards her, and she kissed him, in friendly fashion, on the cheek. ‘Happy now?’ she asked, almost merrily, hoping to drive away his tragic air.
He smiled. ‘Not exactly.’ An odd smile it was. And at the bend of the road, under the shadow of Mrs. Lavender’s lime trees, he took her face suddenly between his hands and kissed her mouth. Something stirred in her but did not awake. She could not understand his emotion.
‘Harry, you said you’d do anything for me. Did you mean it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll think me strange. Perhaps you’ll be shocked. It’s this: let me see you. If I’m to go away from you, as I must, let me see you just once, as you really are. Give me a memory to take with me.’
Was he indeed mad? Poor Geoff! ‘But, dear, you can see me now.’
‘Your face, your clothes. Let me see you, all your beauty. Venus Anadyomene....’
She burned with shame as something of his meaning dawned on her ... and now, as she stood in her bedroom re-living the scene, the plan he had unfolded seemed both wild and wicked. Wild and wicked, yes: yet shot through with a flash of poetry. An illuminated ‘Thou God seest me’ gleamed at her from one wall, and a pledge to abstain by God’s help from all intoxicating liquors as beverages, signed in childish caligraphy Harriet Mason, accused her from another. Wild and wicked; but in a passion of gratitude for being loved, and for the spark kindled within her, she had yielded her promise.
‘Thou God seest me.’ Blushing hotly, very conscious of that inquisitive eye, she took down her hair. With a miniature clatter the pins fell from nerveless fingers on to the glass surface of the dressing-table. Slowly she undressed; paused a moment, shyly stroking her slim nude body; and then with a gesture of resolve slipped into her kimono. The eye of God was still upon her, but she had given her word.
Her woolly slippers made no sound on the oilcloth floor. She opened her door and stepped into the passage. Opposite her was Geoff’s door, left purposely ajar. Tremblingly, but swiftly lest fear should make her false, she crossed and entered. Geoff made no sound. She stood, too ashamed to look up, pushing his door to with a nervous backward movement of the hand. It closed, not without noise.
Her lips moved, as in prayer. She lifted her arms high, and her garment, slipping from white shoulders, fell and clustered at her feet, a diaphanous shimmering mass.
‘Lovely, lovely ... O God!’ The scarce-heard whisper made her heart leap in exultation. She raised her head and looked steadfastly at her love. He sat up in bed, still as an image of adoration, the moonlight making visible the worship in his eyes. She stooped, gathered up her gown, and went out into the passage ... into the arms of Alice.
‘I heard a door slam,’ said Alice. ‘What’s the matter? Why, you’ve—— That’s Geoff’s room!’
Alice became pale and for a moment speechless with anger. When she recovered her tongue it was to use a language strange to the ears of Harriet.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ cried Harriet, starry-eyed, ‘and I don’t care. He loves me, Alice, because I am so beautiful, beautiful. Why didn’t you tell me I was beautiful?’
She pushed past Alice and locked herself in her bedroom. Those bitter reproaches had no sting for her. Even had she understood them they would have been less than a feather’s weight against the joy now born in her heart. For her the world was made new, clean and new. With beauty, seen hitherto through a glass darkly, she was now face to face. She fell asleep exhausted with happiness, and when in the morning mamma came to her room and sobbed, and raved, she could understand not a word of it.
‘You’ve brought disgrace and shame upon us all, you wretched child!’ And to this Harriet, in her profound innocence, could only answer: ‘But we love each other, mamma. What harm have we done?’
‘You shall leave my house as soon as that man can be made to marry you, and never come back again.’
‘Am I to marry Geoff after all, then, mamma?’
Yes, it appeared that she was, and that her daring to ask the question was further proof of her shamelessness. It was all very baffling.
THE ENCHANTED MOMENT