Harriet Hume: A London Fantasy

by Rebecca West

  “Ay, but the end of contemplating the eternal beauties, and doing nothing to yoke them with time,” mewed Harriet, “is smugness, and stagnation, and sterility!”

  He stared before him into the dark garden, tapping his forefinger against his upper lip. “You put an astonishing good face upon my destiny,” he said. “And what is as important, I feel as if the quarrel between us was over. I feel soothed already; and I have no doubt you could put me right about the universe did I but have the time to hear your exegesis complete. But these gentlemen will be growing impatient.” He rose to his feet and extended his wrists towards the policemen. “Come, officers! Take your prisoner!”

  They showed, however, not the least eagerness to obey. They looked towards the window and hesitated; and one of them said, “Do you wish to give him in charge, madam?”

  “It is for him to say that,” replied Harriet.

  “There you are wrong,” said Condorex sadly. “An attempt upon the life of another with firearms is not such a small matter that the assailant himself is allowed to say whether or not he shall pay for it. I fear that our two friends here will regard the matter in a very different spirit.”

  “Oh no, sir,” said the taller of the two policemen. “The lady is right. We will leave it to you to decide whether or not you shall be arrested.”

  “What,” exclaimed Condorex. “Do I hear that from the custodians of the law themselves! This is a very disorderly plot of ground, where that which keeps our Constitution rigid shows flagrant signs of laxity!”

  “Well,” said the same policeman, “You are the first prisoner I ever saw who was shocked because he was dealt out mercy instead of justice.”

  Harriet put her head out of the window so far that the light gleamed on her sleek parting. “Does it not show that there is something fine and unbendable in him?” she fondly enquired of the constables.

  “Oh, he is a leader,” agreed the taller one. “If I had to take part in a charge on a battlefield I would as soon follow him as anyone. And when one says that, one says so much that one is a fool if one does not leave a great many other things unsaid, no matter how just they may be. I hope the gentleman will understand that we are feeling nothing uncivil against him, whether he comes with us or not.”

  “What happens if I go with you?” he asked.

  “Why, we will go to a police-station, in a street off the Fulham Road, and there we will find a whitewashed room with a harsh light under a white porcelain shade, and a man writing at a high desk; and after all that goes by routine.”

  “And I have ever found routine dull work,” said Condorex dolefully.

  They all stood in silence for a moment, looking on the ground.

  The younger policeman, who had a very simple face, cleared his throat and spoke. “You would find a calendar standing on the desk where the man is writing,” he said helpfully. “It will tell you the day and the month, ay, and the year.”

  “True enough,” said the elder, “but it is the only thing he would learn quickly. Routine is the most roundabout stuff.”

  “I do not think I wish to go with you,” said Condorex, and he looked in a mortified way round the garden, which a nymph-flight of clouds across the moon was filling with graceful and volatile shadows. “But the truth is, I must dispose of myself somehow. I suppose I could walk the streets for a time.”

  “What!” blurted out the younger policeman. “A gentleman of your condition! And have the children scream at you, and be sprinkled with holy water!”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Condorex.

  No one answered him. Harriet drew back in the doorway. The two policemen had had their eyes fixed on him, but now they looked once more on the ground.

  “And I could, of course, go back to Portland Place,” he reflected.

  Harriet leaned forth into the light again. “I do not think I should do that,” she said quickly. “There is one there who has had an accident with a pistol as he sat at his desk, and they have carried him up to your room and laid him on your bed, and there is a great running to and fro of doctors and secretaries and messengers and such. Oh, no, I would not go back to Portland Place, if I were you. I think,” she ventured, timidly, “that you had better stay here.”

  “But surely you understand,” he answered, “that I am ashamed to do that? I should like nothing better. But you are well aware in what spiteful follies I have been engaged regarding yourself. I clean forgot your pretty image about the North and the South, which would have kept me from identifying difference with enmity, and I most maliciously pretended that the spiritual world had been infected by you with a condition of hatred that was entirely of my own making, and you know well what I was at when these two good fellows found me.”

  “What is a little matter of murder between friends?” responded Harriet. “Had all gone conveniently with us at the beginning no doubt you would have left me, and I would have had to write you that well-worn letter they read in court, which contains the phrase, ‘I will let bygones be bygones.’ But things being as they are, I have the words by me still for use, and I will use them now. And I hope you will give them in your turn to me.”

  She leaned so far forward from the step of the French window that he could see the swan line of her neck and shoulders.

  “Dear Harriet,” said Condorex. “If you will let me, I will stay.”

  She swayed backwards with the languor of contentment. “There is an end to my anxiety!” she breathed. “For I was not sure but you would find some reason for wandering from me in some new form of stately discomfort, and I am certain that what you want at the moment is some of the quietness we have here. But,” she said, her voice rising to the jesting firmness and her hands bringing the windows close together, so that the beam narrowed to a pointer, “I will not let you in at once, for I must tidy the house, which is something disordered, since I myself have returned only a little while from a long journey.”

  He felt so far easier in his spirit that he could feel in his pocket for his cigarette case. Why, it was now nearly as if it all had not happened. “You have been to your home in Cumberland, have you not?” he said, not wanting her to go so soon, and liking to have a little casual talk with her, as they used to have before all these upsets.

  “I was obliged to go there to assist at a religious ceremony,” replied Harriet, “since they informed me they could not well have it without me.”

  “I hope your mother was well,” he said, remembering the photograph behind the turtleshell box.

  Harriet popped her head far out of the window, and though he could not see her face through the night he felt that she was regarding him with some severity. “My mother is still very handsome,” she told him tartly, “but will you never learn to think of only one thing at a time?” With a snap she closed the window; but opened it again to call to the policemen, “I will bring you some refreshment, officers, in a few minutes.”

  “Would you not rather we went?” asked the elder.

  “I would much rather you kept my friend here company,” said Harriet, “for I think he has been too much alone of late. Here!” She flipped three cushions out into the darkness. “Sit on these and wait until I am ready.”

  They ranged themselves in a line on the stone flags, some little way from the window, and scrambled down on their haunches. It was easy to settle down very comfortably, with their backs against the wall.

  “An excellent lady,” said the elder policeman, “and many sided, for I can see that she is full of poetry and fancy and whatnot, and yet not unmindful of the consequences which may follow if the poor weak sons of Adam sit themselves down on cold stone.”

  “I have thought her perfection on and off these many years,” said Condorex, in the offhand manner of proud proprietorship, feeling again for his cigarette case. “Will you smoke?”

  “Thank you, sir, I do not mind if I do,” said the other. “Have you known this district long? The lady has lived here for many a year.”

  “I
t was the summer of the Great Comet I first came here,” said Condorex. “I remember we used to watch it trailing its diamond coat-tails over these tree-tops most nights.”

  “Why, that was twenty years ago,” said the other. “It was the very same year that I caught my pneumonia.”

  The younger policeman looked at the elder with respect. “Is it so long ago as that? It is but two years since I dived in to rescue that boy in Blackwall Reach.”

  “And a good job you did,” said the other, “for that is a likely boy. Is he about here to-night?”

  “He is waiting for me on the shadowed side of the wall,” said his junior; and he put his two thumbs in the corners of his mouth, and let out a kind of hooting whistle, to which there came instantly an answer from outside the garden.

  “Ah, these events make good faithful comrades,” pronounced the elder, and he turned towards Condorex. “That is what you will be finding out now, sir.”

  “I do not know what events you mean,” replied Condorex, “but I am sure you are right. And for that very reason I beg you to excuse me, for I cannot rest till I have said something to her that has just come into my mind.” He pushed to his feet, and ran to the middle window, which he tried to open. But it was secured by a chain which, he remembered, she used in the past to let down when she wished to make sure who stood at the door before she gave them entrance.

  “Harriet!” he called softly. “Will you not let me in? Of old, you would always take down this chain when you saw it was me that had come! Harriet, be kind!”

  “Nay, Condorex, I beg of you!” she whispered. Her voice sounded close to his ear, but he could see her nowhere, until he perceived that she had wrapped herself in the right-hand window curtain. “On this occasion it is appropriate that I should come to you with a clean new face, wearing a clean new gown, in a clean new house; and till I find myself in that condition I beg you to excuse me.”

  “You misread what I want,” said Condorex, “so grossly that I must suppose you have lost the power to read my thoughts.”

  “That I have!” That I have!” she crowed happily. “’Twas part of my gross pretensions to innocency, and ’tis gone! Decent veils hang between our minds to-day, for I lost the plaguy gift at the moment you pointed your pistol at me, and spurred me to consider our true positions in the universe.”

  “Had you not lost it, my pet,” said Condorex, “you would have seen that I do not care a fig how or when I see you. Have not my eyes had their fill o you time after time? All I wanted was to tell you that I have heard a certain noise, to wit, the rustling of the newspaper you have been picking off the floor, and that I perfectly comprehend what it means.”

  The curtain swayed, and she tittered in a guilty fashion.

  “You poor blind bat, you have been reading,” he told her in compassionate tones. “You came from your journey, whatever trivial pilgrimage to superstitious festival that may have been—”

  “Do not speak ill of it,” she bade him gravely, “for there were some there who were deeply affected, and the singing was very pretty for a village choir.”

  “Have it your own way,” he said, “but do not avoid the issue. When you came back from your journey you bought all the newspapers there are, since they were so full of my speeches and my doings and you spread them all over your house. And because you are so devoted you have run from room to room, and at each newspaper you have squatted down on your gazelle-like hams, and supported yourself on the poor little makeshift you have for a hand, so that your arm was curved like a scythe; and you have pored down to see what of my adventures your infirm irids could convey to your infirm intelligence—why, you poor winking, blinking, purblind thing, you dote on me, you dote on me!”

  She giggled. “So I do! So I do!” she confessed. “And because of this occasion I have opened three pots of jelly—the quince, the apple flavoured with orange-juice, and the bramble as well—though before you thought it the height of extravagance when I opened but two! And the dressing for the salad we are to have with the cold beef does not come out of a bottle, for I made it myself!” She began to whirl about on her columbine toes, with exultation, so that the curtain she hid behind dragged at its rings, and she stopped in great compunction. “But at this rate I will ruin my house instead of furbishing it. Go you back to your companions while I pursue my housewifery!”

  “So I will,” he agreed, and trotted away; but was back again at once, crying wistfully, “Harriet! Harriet! Give me but another word!”

  “What is it, my love?” she enquired, peering round the curtain.

  “I am flattered that you should be interested enough to read all that was written of me in the public prints,” he said sadly, “but did not what you read seem very discreditable to me? Have I not made a sorry fool of myself over the Mangostan affair?”

  “Oh, run along, run along, and think no more of it,” she told him. “You showed traces of a certain confusion, I admit. Throughout the whole business you applied to statecraft methods that are more appropriate to banking. The whole idea of Mondh, my love, was not at all unanalogous to the conception of credit which still prevails in Threadneedle Street. But run along! We will talk of this afterwards.”

  He made his way back to his seat between the two policemen, stepping over the sturdy legs of the younger. “I beg pardon for leaving you,” he said shyly, “but I had something important to say to the lady.”

  “Ay, now that one has no longer a game to play and points to score,” said the elder, “one can talk fair and above board. You will find you have never known such pleasure as this honest conversation with one’s dear ones.”

  A block of light stood out in the darkness, high up on their right-hand side. It showed the bare boughs of a lilac-tree glistening like the lean hands and arms of some iron-black native.

  “She has lit the lamp on the landing,” said Condorex, “it shines out too from the staircase window.”

  “Has she got up there so quickly?” marvelled the younger policeman.

  “She moves as quick as a mouse,” boasted Condorex, “and though she ran so quickly up the stairs, I dare swear they hardly creaked under her. Aha!” He shut his eyes and snuffed in the air. The wind that had been disposing the clouds very fantastically about the moon for some time past had now come to earth, and was fresh in his face. “Ay!” he said, opening his eyes. “This is the wind that Harriet was talking about the other day, that bears the Spring, no matter how aloof the trees and plants may keep themselves. Well, I am relieved of all uncertainty about the season; and I am glad to find it is the best of all seasons that is going to have its way with us.”

  “There is something a deal more dulcet about the aspect of the heavens than there has been of late,” said the elder policeman, pointing his cigarette towards the sky.

  All three stared above their heads, where a well in the clouds showed an æther not so black as it had been earlier in the night, and stars not so biting brilliant. Indeed their brightness seemed to soften, to swim, to melt.

  There was the sound of a casement being lifted above them. They tilted their heads still further back and saw a beam of light projecting from the right-hand window of the upper storey, with Harriet’s head and shoulders black against it.

  “Harriet! Harriet!” cried Condorex. “This is very irregular! There is a kind of sweetness dripping from the stars!”

  “Put out your tongue and taste it, please,” Harriet called down to him, “for I have always wanted to know what the flavour of starlight might be. In my youth I would have vowed it would be very sweet, but now I would be more inclined to wager that it tasted something like salted pineapple. But do you deal with the matter! I must put my house in order.”

  She withdrew from the window: but Condorex cried out, “Harriet! Harriet! There is the strangest sound in this garden, like rain hissing upwards.”

  “Oh, that,” said Harriet nonchalantly. “It is the grass and the flowers pressing up through the earth. This is the Spring.”
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  “But Harriet! Harriet! do not go! There is another strange sound, that is like kissing, though it comes from the branches of the trees, the boughs of the bushes, where no lovers can be?”

  “It is the buds that are opening,” said Harriet. “This is the Spring, I tell you, it is Spring.” As she turned away they could hear her singing to herself.

  Growth was working in the garden like yeast. There was a pattering like an inverted hailstorm, and it was the snowdrops that had come. Like slow lightning the cherry-blossom drew its white design along the wall. Closer at hand the black fingers of the lilac-bush clutched close together as if they had to part with a penny and knew the pain of avarice; grew gnarled and sticky with a disorder of buds; and suddenly spread wide gifts of green leaves and white blossom. They had not been stingy, they had been conjuring. At the far end the Ladies Frances, Georgiana, and Arabella Dudley were shaken with a sharp tremor of quickening twigs, and lo! had their leaf bodies full and well-fleshed, and a cable of foliage to which the moonlight gave an appearance of flowers. In the dark spaces behind them chestnuts upheld candles, that shone vaguely as though they were guttering, yet were steadfast.

  “’Tis better than the Park in May,” said the elder policeman.

  “Why, ’tis as good as one of those flower shows where we sometimes had to do duty,” said his junior, “and I always liked that better than anything. I am sure we are very grateful to you, sir, for giving us such a fine show.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” said Condorex. “You must thank the lady.”

  “Oh, no, sir,” chuckled the elder policeman, “you need not disclaim all credit. For do you think it would have entered her head to do it had it not been for you?”

  Condorex did not continue with his modesty, for just then there was the sound of another casement being lifted, and on looking up they saw that the left-hand window in the upper storey was now bright and open, and had Harriet leaning from it.