Eva Ibbotson

But she had shaken her head and as day followed wretched day she neither broke down nor admitted her wrong.

Harriet endured because she had been loved by Rom. This honor had been accorded her, this ultimate benison, and she must not let them break her because to do so would be to denigrate his love.

So she kept herself sane and she did it by remembering. Not a haphazard wallowing in past happiness, but a disciplined, orderly progression through the rooms of Follina, through its gardens… along the banks of the river. Waking hungry in her cold and dismal room Harriet, in her mind, rose from the cloud-netted bed where Rom still slept, felt the softness of the carpet beneath her feet… took three steps—exactly three—to the brocaded chair to trace the pattern of the golden fleur de lys… read the titles of the books on the low table: The Collected Works of John Donne; The Stones of Venice; The Orchid Grower’s Manual… moved to the window to draw aside the curtains and name, with the same rigorous precision she had once accorded her work at the bane, the plants that grew on the terrace beneath.

While she could do this—while she could drift in the Firefly past the bank where the otters played and see the sun bittern fly into the light—they could not touch her, and knowing she had to keep well so as to garner these memories, to make them part of her forever, she ate every morsel of the food she was given and kept her muscles active with exercises as she well knew how to do.

And so the days passed and nothing the Mortons could do deflected her, though her stricken eyes seemed to grow ever larger in her face. Then, during the fifth week of her incarceration, she woke as usual and in her mind walked as usual across Rom’s room, drew aside the curtains, turned to cross the Persian rug so as to make her way back to the bed where he waited… and found that she could not remember the pattern of that rug. She had known it would be hard to remember, but she had studied it so carefully—so very carefully. Was it the outer border that was amethyst, with diamonds and zig-zags of bronze? Or was it the pearl-gray rim with its stylized flowers that came first? Desperate, she sat up in bed, her heart pounding. She had to remember, she had to! If she could forget one thing, she could forget it all—she could forget even Rom, and then there would be nothing left to live for in the world.

But the pattern would not be recalled. In her exhausted brain shapes and colors swam in an indistinguishable blur and whatever she did she could not reassemble them.

It was Hermione Belper who came that day to remove Harriet’s luncheon tray, and when she came down again she had good news for Louisa who was returning from the shops.

“She is weeping uncontrollably, Louisa—and she has not touched her rood. It seems her spirit is broken at last. How thankful you must be!”

And the Mortons were thankful. But if Harriet now lay listlessly on the pillow and showed none of her former defiance, she still did not speak of her time in Manaus and she was growing so thin that it was not easy to see how she could, as it were, be “produced” again in public. Moreover they themselves were being subjected to an increasing amount of unpleasantness. It was easy enough to discount the smear campaign of a woman like Madame Lavarre, but when the Provost of St. Anne’s crossed the road rather than speak to the Professor, the Mortons were increasingly compelled to seek ways out of their dilemma.

It was at this point—just two weeks before the beginning of the Michaelmas term—that the Professor came home in a state of more than usual indignation.

“Do you know who I met today? Edward Finch-Dutton! He was creeping around the walls of the Fountain Courtyard and trying to avoid me, I’m sure.”

“Good heavens! But why has he not been in touch with us?”

“I have no idea. Apparently he tried to bring Harriet back and it went wrong. He had a black eye and his nose was covered in sticking-plaster; I can only conclude that he has taken to the bottle. But I will tell you this, Louisa. I asked him what had made him send that second cable and he said it was because Harriet came out of a cake. In her underclothes.” And as Louisa stared at him, speechless with incredulity: “That’s what he said. In her underclothes. Then he mumbled some nonsense about her perhaps not having meant any harm and bolted. I tell you the fellow was drunk; he will have to resign his Fellowship, no doubt about that.”