Life and Death of Harriett Frean Read Online Free PDF

wrote and told her of Prissie's illness. A mysterious paralysis. It had begun with fits of giddiness in the street; Prissie would turn round and round on the pavement; then falling fits; and now both legs were paralyzed, but Robin thought she was gradually recovering the use of her hands.
    Harriett did not cry. The shock of it stopped her tears. She tried to see it and couldn't. Poor little Prissie. How terrible. She kept on saying to herself she couldn't bear to think of Prissie paralyzed. Poor little Prissie.
    And poor Robin----
    Paralysis. She saw the paralysis coming between them, separating them, and inside her the secret pain was soothed. She need not think of Robin married any more.
    She was going to stay with them. Robin had written the letter. He said Prissie wanted her. When she met him on the platform she had a little shock at seeing him changed. Changed. His face was fuller, and a dark mustache hid the sensitive, uneven, pulsing lip. His mouth was dragged down further at the corners. But he was the same Robin. In the cab, going to the house, he sat silent, breathing hard; she felt the tremor of his consciousness and knew that he still loved her; more than he loved Priscilla. Poor little Prissie. How terrible!
    Priscilla sat by the fireplace in a wheel chair. She became agitated when she saw Harriett; her arms shook as she lifted them for the embrace.
    "Hatty--you've hardly changed a bit." Her voice shook.
    Poor little Prissie. She was thin, thinner than ever, and stiff as if she had withered. Her face was sallow and dry, and the luster had gone from her black hair. Her wide mouth twitched and wavered, wavered and twitched. Though it was warm summer she sat by a blazing fire with the windows behind her shut.
    Through dinner Harriett and Robin were silent and constrained. She tried not to see Prissie shaking and jerking and spilling soup down the front of her gown. Robin's face was smooth and blank; he pretended to be absorbed in his food, so as not to look at Prissie. It was as if Prissie's old restlessness had grown into that ceaseless jerking and twitching. And her eyes fastened on Robin; they clung to him and wouldn't let him go. She kept on asking him to do things for her. "Robin, you might get me my shawl;" and Robin would go and get the shawl and put it round her. Whenever he did anything for her Prissie's face would settle down into a quivering, deep content.
    At nine o'clock he lifted her out of her wheel chair. Harriett saw his stoop, and the taut, braced power of his back as he lifted. Prissie lay in his arms with rigid limbs hanging from loose attachments, inert, like a doll. As he carried her upstairs to bed her face had a queer, exalted look of pleasure and of triumph.
    Harriett and Robin sat alone together in his study.
    "How long is it since we've seen each other?"
    "Five years, Robin."
    "It isn't. It can't be."
    "It is."
    "I suppose it is. But I can't believe it. I can't believe I'm married. I can't believe Prissie's ill. It doesn't seem real with you sitting there."
    "Nothing's changed, Robin, except that you're more serious."
    "Nothing's changed, except that I'm more serious than ever.... Do you still do the same things? Do you still sit in the curly chair, holding your work up to your chin with your little pointed hands like a squirrel? Do you still see the same people?"
    "I don't make new friends, Robin."
    He seemed to settle down after that, smiling at his own thoughts,
appeased....
    Lying in her bed in the spare room, Harriett heard the opening and shutting of Robin's door. She still thought of Prissie's paralysis as separating them, still felt inside her a secret, unacknowledged satisfaction. Poor little Prissie. How terrible. Her pity for Priscilla went through and through her in wave after wave. Her pity was sad and beautiful and at the same time it appeased her pain.
    In the morning Priscilla told her about her illness. The doctors didn't understand it. She ought to have had a stroke and