The Trouble with Harriet (4 page)

“Alas,” he managed, choking on a sob, “the only likeness I have of my exquisite angel is the one I carry in my broken heart.”

“Then what is it you want to show us?” I was growing just a little impatient.

“Who else but my Harriet?”

“In the flesh?” I plummeted onto the chaise longue. “All of her? Or just the odd finger or thumb?” I looked wildly around at Ben. There was no misreading his expression. It was equally clear to him that my father was urgently in need of professional help. Unfortunately, a highly accredited psychiatrist did not magically appear on the spot to spell out an unpronounceable diagnosis, although for a moment, when I saw one of the mullioned windows inch open, I thought we might be lucky.

Unfortunately I immediately recognized the long leg and disreputable boot as belonging to my cousin Freddy. A moment later, the rest of him, scraggy beard, ponytail, and skull-and-crossbones earring emerged over the sill. Tucked under one arm, looking mightily miffed, was our cat Tobias.

“This house is a burglar’s paradise; that window wasn’t even latched,” Freddy announced with his usual misplaced cheer. “I just returned from rehearsal and was sniffing around outside in hopes of inhaling a reviving breath of roast lamb and mint sauce, or at least a Welsh rabbit that had just been popped under the grill, when I spotted poor Tobias sitting forlornly under the lilac bush. Then a horrid thought occurred to me. Had you two starry-eyed lovebirds bunked off tonight instead of waiting for the morning? Didn’t I merit a kiss good-bye? But that’s me and my soppy insecurities! Since you’re still here, I’ll take you up on that unspoken offer of dinner, unless you were really serious about wanting to be alone once the children left. Afterwards, while Ben is doing the washing up, I could run through my lines for the play, Ellie.”

It was Tobias leaping out of his arms that caused Freddy’s head to jerk sideways so that he finally noticed my father sitting on the sofa.

“So this is what you get up to behind my back,” he lamented.

“Luckily playing Reginald in the play has improved my ego no end or I would be sobbing into my hanky at finding out you’ve got company for the evening and I wasn’t included in the invite.”

“Oh, stuff a sock in it!” My irritation was compounded by having to catch Tobias in mid-flight before he could land claws first in my lap. “Surely you remember my father.”

“Which one?” No one could act daft better than Freddy.

“My one and only father.”

“Well, if this isn’t a right turn up for the book.” He peered uncertainly at Daddy, who fortunately sat as if frozen in place by the click of a remote-control button. “I thought you were off riding camels in the Sahara or punting down the Nile. You were always something of a hero to me, ever since my father told me he hoped I wouldn’t grow up to be a ne’er-do-well like Morley. Really quite the mythic figure.” Tiptoeing over to me like a giant daddy longlegs, he lowered his voice to a conscientious whisper: “Wasn’t he thinner when we knew him of yore?”

“Here’s your drink.” Ben pressed a glass into his hand.

“Thanks, mate.”

“Freddy isn’t staying,” I said frigidly. “He’s just remembered he has to rush home and starch his underwear.”

“That’s a daughter in a million you’ve got.” My thick-skinned cousin approached the sofa and beamed a smile at Daddy’s blank stare. “Good to see you again, Morley. Here’s to many chummy times together,” he said, raising his glass.

“And you are?”

“Mummy’s sister Lulu’s son,” I said. “He was an experiment, and she didn’t have any more.”

“It’s because Ellie and I are both only children that we are so devoted to each other.” My cousin did his best to look and sound soulful.

And it was true. We were very close despite the fact that he daily drove me up the wall. There was very little Freddy wouldn’t have done for me or I for him, but even so, did I really want him to stay while my father continued to unburden himself? Or—and I wasn’t sure which was worse—clammed up on the subject of Harriet? But it became clear I wasn’t in charge of this family reunion.

“Stay put, my boy; don’t dream of running off.” Daddy was emerging from his trance. “Alas, given my melancholy state of mind, I cannot say the more the merrier. But I do find that congenial company enables me to face the impenetrable void with a semblance of courage. Before your arrival I was bracing myself to enlighten Giselle and ... her charming husband on the tragic circumstances that necessitated my return to England.”

“Did he always talk like that?” Freddy stage-whispered to me.

“Daddy,” I said, “weren’t you going to make a special introduction?”

“One that fills my heart to overflowing with prideful sorrow.” My father bowed his head before reaching reverently into the canvas bag and placing an object on the coffee table. “My beloved Harriet, meet your new family!”

There was a moment of profound silence.

“It’s a clay pot,” Freddy helpfully informed the room at large.

“A very handsome one.” Ben stood nodding over by the fireplace.

It was a rather ugly-shaped pot with a lid.

“It is not a pot.” My father fingered it tenderly. “It is an urn.”

“Oh, one of those!” Freddy cocked an artistically knowledgeable eyebrow.

“And it contains?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“The mortal remains of the love of my life.”

“Is that what she was?” I stood up but sat back down again. It wouldn’t do to give into a childish urge to hurl the urn at my father’s head. Even if it didn’t break, the contents would spill everywhere, and Mrs. Malloy would complain about the dust when she came tomorrow. Far better to behave like a grown-up and count my blessings. The situation might be morbid, but there was nothing sinister about it. No murder. Probably not even a customs violation. For I was sure Daddy had made the appropriate declaration. If for no other reason than he would have found it impossible not to break down when asked if he had packed the trunk himself and could attest to its whereabouts since that time.

Regaining my voice, I continued: “I do hope poor Harriet didn’t die a lingering, agonizing death of some rare tropical disease that they will find a cure for next week.” I avoided Ben’s eyes as I spoke but could feel his look.

“Harriet and I didn’t meet in the tropics.” Daddy folded up the canvas bag as if it were the Union Jack and laid it beside him on the sofa. “She entered my life on a glorious evening in September. But, alas, I little guessed how soon she would be taken from me.”

Settling his bulk into the sofa, my father began his story.

“On the very day I arrived in Schonbrunn, a small town in southern Germany, I was seated at a table for two in a biergarten recommended by my landlady, Frau Grundman. It was a
Student Prince
type of establishment, with flourishing window boxes and an old dog soaking up the sunset in the doorway. A man who looked as though he might be a goatherd by day was playing the accordion with all the usual zest of the breed. The rosy-cheeked waitress with the plait down her back had just set a foaming stein of the wheat-based Edingerbier at my elbow when in she walked.

“Oh, most heavenly creature! All heads turned. All eyes, including mine, watched her cross the cobblestones and wend her way between the rustic tables. She wore a soft, flowing dress of violet blue. It exquisitely denned her womanly figure and was the perfect foil for her platinum-blond hair. Just as she was about to glide past me, I found myself upon my feet. For the first time in my life I wished I spoke two words of German.

“
‘Sprechen sie
English?’ My voice drowned out the accordion. Or it may be that the chap had taken a well-earned beer break. All I knew was that I was lost in the glow of her brown eyes.

“ ‘Thank God!’ Her laugh was deliciously warm and throaty. ‘A voice from bloody home. It’s my birthday, and just like a stupid kid, I’ve been pining all day for everything that had me fed up to the gills when I left the U.K. On holiday, are you? Or did you come over for the international yodeling convention?’ As she spoke, she sidled onto the chair across from me and laid her white handbag on the table. ‘Is there a wife about?’ She smiled impishly. ‘Calm down; I promise to beat a quick retreat into traffic if she comes surging out of the loo with fire in her eyes and a toilet brush in her hands.’

“ ‘Regrettably, I am a widower,’ I heard myself telling her.

“ ‘Oh, one of those poor souls.’ Her expression changed from merriment to tender melancholy. ‘How brave of you to come abroad in your bereaved state.’

“ ‘She ... my wife has been gone a good many years.’

“ ‘Then you’re over the worst, I suppose. A man as handsome as yourself will have women throwing themselves at you from all angles even in Schonbrunn.’

“ ‘Indeed, no. I lead a solitary existence.’

“ ‘Not tonight you don’t.’ She tapped the table with a playful hand. Tonight you get to buy me a birthday beer. So sit yourself down, Mr.... ?’

“ ‘Simons.’ I lowered myself gingerly onto my chair, which seemed to want to go one way as I went the other.

“ ‘I’m Mrs. Brown. But let’s forget about being stiff and starchy and plunge right in. I’m Harriet. Sounds like a Victorian nursemaid, doesn’t it?’ Laughing and shrugging her violet-blue shoulders, she reached for my beer.

“ ‘Harriet!’ The very sound of it flooded my soul with music. ‘No other name would do you equal justice.’

“ ‘Aren’t you nice!’ Her eyes did not leave my face as she lifted a hand and flicked one finger, bringing the rosy-cheeked waitress over in a hurry to receive the order for another Edingerbier. ‘But you don’t seem eager to spill the beans. Surely it can’t be that bad. Let me guess?’ She tilted her platinum-blond head to one side and fixed me with a mischievous smile. ‘Horatio? Alginon? Rupert?’

“ ‘Morley.’

“ ‘Ideal.’

“ “You don’t think it’s just a little stuffy?’

“ ‘Not in the least. Distinguished, of course, but with playful overtones.’ Harriet laid her hand on mine.

“ ‘How kind.’ I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair. A soft breeze rustled the plum trees against the garden wall. The air was heady with the scent of oleander, and the moon hove into view as if bowled along by an unseen hand.

“ ‘I sense that you’re a romantic, Morley.’

“ ‘Do you?’ I stammered.

“ ‘Oh, yes!’ Her laugh was as light and frothy as the foam spilling down the sides of the stein that the waitress set on the table. ‘I’m very good at reading people, Morley. It’s one of my remarkable talents. But for now let’s talk about you and what I sense has been an extraordinarily fascinating life.’

“ ‘I have traveled a good bit,’ I told her.

‘ Tell me!’ She leaned forward to wrap my hands around the frosty stein. Her perfume was sultry and exotic, like hot sun on wild red flowers blooming triumphantly in a desert oasis. I found myself telling her about my travels in the Sahara. My meeting with Sheik Abu el-Pukabbi and how only the most privileged of his wives were allowed to use the oil from those red flowers to concoct ... certain lotions for nighttime use. Then I spoke of my days in the Australian bush, my sojourn in the Amazon, my trek through Nepal, and how I had idled away a summer in Hawaii.

“ ‘My sort of man! Indomitable and carefree.’ Harriet was starting a second beer and dabbed at the foam mustache she had grown that in no way diminished her charms.

“
‘After my wife’s death there was nothing to tie me to the flat in St. John’s Wood.’

“ ‘No children?’

“ ‘A daughter, Giselle. She was then of school-leaving age, eager to make her own way in the world. It would have been a crime to burden her with a widowed father. I packed a small bag one night, emptied the money box on the mantelpiece, and blew a kiss through her bedroom keyhole. Agony for a devoted father, but all for the best, as it turned out. She is married now, with one or two children, and living in a village called Chit... something.’

“ ‘How charmingly domesticated.’

“ ‘Fells.’

“ ‘What?’

“ ‘Chitterton Fells,” I explained.

“ ‘Really?’ Harriet took a deep sip of beer. ‘I think an aunt of mine lived in a place that sounded like that. We didn’t see much of her because of one of those silly family squabbles, but her name was Matilda Oaklands—yes, I’m sure that was her married name. I remember going to visit her once when I was a child. In a village near Dawlish in Devon.’

“ ‘That wouldn’t be where Giselle lives.” I experienced a wave of sorrow at this loss of a connection, however tenuous, with Harriet’s past. ‘Her home is on the coast, but not in Devon. The house is turn-of-the-century and stands on a cliff, with a church for its next-door neighbor.’

“Harriet sat looking reflective while I drained my stein. Then she laughed. ‘It was the house that was named Oaklands. Aunt Matilda’s married name was Dawlish, and she lived on the outskirts of Cambridge. That’s what age does to you; first the memory goes, and then it’s all to pot. Anytime now I’ll have to start dyeing my hair.’ She smoothed a hand over her shining platinum waves and, lips twitching mischievously, raised an enchanting eyebrow.

“ ‘I can’t believe you’re a day over thirty-five,’ I assured her with fierce sincerity.

“ ‘Then you’ve been stuck in the desert talking to the coconuts way too long.’ Her expression had changed to one of weary resignation. She had to raise her voice because the accordion player was heading our way as strains of ‘The Happy Wanderer’ engulfed us. Luckily the old dog bestirred itself from the doorway to come foraging at the fellow’s heels and send him skipping, with an accompanying yodel or two, in the opposite direction. ‘I enjoy a little flattery, Morley,’ Harriet continued sadly, ‘but I’m not a dumb blonde. So if you’re hoping to sweet-talk me into going to bed with you, I’ll be saying
au wiedersehn.’
She was on her feet, reaching for the white handbag.

“ ‘But I wasn’t ... I wouldn’t ... insult you for the world.’ My chair went down with a bang, taking off half my foot, but my eyes never left her face. ‘I beg you to believe that I am not that sort.’