“I saw you out in the grass this morning. I saw what you were doing, both of you.”
Harry found Perdita in the music room, sitting in front of the piano with her hands clasped on the closed cover. “What we were doing this morning?” It was last night that she should have been accused of; later last night, when she had played the piano in spite of having promised Harry. “We talked, Harry.”
“About cheating on me?”
“What? Harry!” she protested.
“I saw how he looked at you. What have you two done together? Pretended he was me?”
“Harry!”
“Get away from that piano.” He took her by the shoulders and shook her, half lifted her away from the piano bench. “What happened to your promise? You’re supposed to stay away from the piano. Did he let you off it? What did he do to you? Has he got everything he wanted?”
She could not misunderstand him. She backed away, blushing fiercely. This was not kissing at a dance. “Harry, you have got to say what you mean.”
“Why don’t you say what you mean?” She heard the sound of the piano cover being thrown back. Harry began to hit the piano notes one at a time, thudding his finger down on the low notes. “You always liked me. I thought it was me. Now he’s got the money. And all of a sudden—” He hit a whole fistful of notes at once. “You’re all around him. He says you can do everything—” Another fistful of notes, he was banging against the keyboard now. “Be my wife and go off to New York too. And he can say that, can’t he, because he’s Richard Knight and he’s everything. He’s nothing. I can send him away. Does he take you with him to New York? He won’t, I can tell you that. What did he get from you, you fool?”
“Harry,” she said, half crying, “I love you.” But she wanted him to stop banging against the keyboard.
“You love your music! You’re selfish, that’s all you care about. It would serve you right if I didn’t care about you. You could keep on with your career, just like you want. Just stop thinking about getting married to me. Would that make you happy? You could give music lessons, and everyone would come to take music lessons from you because you’re such a good pianist. And you wouldn’t ever have to get married, or have children, they wouldn’t get in your way.”
“No, it wouldn’t make me happy,” she said in a low voice. But stop hurting my piano, Harry. Stop hurting me.
“Isn’t that what he’s been saying? Forget your marriage and get on with your career, isn’t that what he says?”
He took her by the shoulders. His voice deepened and lost its sarcastic tone. “Pet, you can’t go on like this. I don’t think you’ve gone too far—look at you! blushing like a dear!—I didn’t mean to talk to you like that, it’s just that he’s playing with you and that hurts me. Anyone can see he doesn’t care anything about you. I care. I want you for my own, forever, all my own. You’re the sweetest girl in the world. I want to marry you. Don’t cry like that, Pet.” He put his arms around her and kissed her cheek.
She wasn’t crying. She wanted to cry but she could not.
“I don’t have to choose between you and music,” she said, rigid in his arms. “Harry, it’s you who say I do.”
“I do say so.” Harry took her left hand and tugged at the engagement ring as if he were going to pull it off. “This means something, Pet. You can’t get married and expect to be who you were. I won’t have any wife of mine pay more attention to some sticks and wire than to me, and I’ll say it plain, I won’t have any other man as much as think he can look at you. We’re engaged and you’re mine. Stop thinking like you could do anything and be anybody. Just love me. That’s all I want you to do. I don’t want you to love anybody but me.”
He left her. She sat down on the piano bench again. These were his terms for loving her. I don’t have any terms, she thought. I’m not allowed any, I’m only supposed to love him. Under her fingers the piano keys were quiet and familiar. She wondered if Harry had done the piano any harm by slamming his fist on it. She could check it, just by running a set of scales up it, but that would break her promise too.
Didn’t she have terms for loving Harry?
If she loved Harry enough, she would close the piano cover now and wouldn’t even check if there had been harm to it. She wouldn’t need it anymore.
She had already gone beyond that.
After a moment she touched the lowest notes and then, one by one, each of the eighty-eight keys, and every note sounded familiar and true.
She could not marry Harry.