The Young Clementina

by D. E. Stevenson

  “Who told him?” said Nanny at last.

  I hesitated a moment, and then I said, “Kitty told him.” It was no use to hide anything from Nanny. She was too deeply interested in us all, and I wanted a confidante so badly.

  I heard her draw in her breath. “I see it all now,” she said. “I see it all as plain as plain—him going off by himself that night when Mr. Senture came to dinner. Yes, I’ll tell you about it, Miss Char. It all started from that night—the quarrels and the bitterness. They were happy enough till that night, the two of them, and then Mr. Wisdon (old Mr. Wisdon, I mean) asked Mr. Senture to dinner and Mrs. Wisdon was angry with him for asking him. Mr. Senture had come back for a few days to draw something else in the church for his book. Well, old Mr. Wisdon wouldn’t put him off, not for all Mrs. Wisdon’s wheedling (though he usually did give in to her), and Mr. Senture came. Mrs. Wisdon was taken ill in the middle of it, and I got her to bed. Then we found Mr. Garth had gone—just disappeared, without saying a word to nobody. He stayed away nearly a week, and we were all scared to death about him. (He wasn’t the sort of gentleman who did things like that; he was always so considerate, so thoughtful and kind.) Nobody said much, we just looked at each other’s faces and looked away. It was awful. It seemed like a year. None of us knew where he was, but Mrs. Wisdon suspected something—I was sure of it. I thought at the time they’d quarreled, and I was angry with Mr. Garth for going off like that, and her in the condition she was in. And then one night he just walked in, as if he had been out for a walk in the park, and nothing was said—nothing that I heard. I meant to speak to him, but when I saw his face I couldn’t get up the courage—it wasn’t Mr. Garth’s face at all, it was so hard and bitter, so lined. He looked as if he had been ill for weeks. I never saw such a change in a person. He moved his things out of her bedroom and they were never moved back. It nearly broke my heart to see it all going wrong and not be able to do anything.”

  “Oh, Nanny!”

  “It all went wrong after that—worse and worse. He never went near her, never gave her a kind word. I was sorry for her, she was a young, pretty thing and she loved a good time. It was a dreadful house! Oh, Miss Char, it was a dreadful house! The maids felt it too. They wouldn’t stay, they said they couldn’t settle; they said it was haunted. It was the secret between those two that haunted the house—no ghost, just hatred.”

  “Not hatred,” I whispered.

  “Yes, hatred. You could feel it in the room when they were there together—a black cloud. He went away a lot. I was glad when he went away—I loved Mr. Garth like my own son, but I was glad when he went away.”

  She paused for a few moments, and then she went on again in a low hurried tone, “And then she began to be friendly with other gentlemen—it was very wrong, of course—there were others before Mr. Hamilton. Oh, it was wrong, I knew that, but how could you blame her? She was young and pretty—such a pretty thing—and she loved company, and she loved to be gay.”

  I clung to her hard old hand in the darkness. I couldn’t speak. I felt broken, utterly exhausted.

  “Come to bed, Miss Char,” Nanny said. “It’s all over long ago. They’re both dead—God rest them—and they’re not suffering anymore. Come to bed, my dear.”

  I let her put me to bed, and fuss over me with hot-water bottles and eau de Cologne. She brought me some soup for my dinner and made me take it, and she came and sat by my fire with her knitting until I went to sleep. It was very comforting to be fussed over by Nanny. She was a well of tenderness.

  Chapter Nine

  The County Calls

  The next morning was sunny and bright; I got up as usual and went into the garden. I felt strangely shaky. I felt as if I had been ill and was just recovering. I felt as if my whole life had been riven by an earthquake. The foundations of my being were disturbed. I had built up my life upon the assumption that Garth had ceased to care for me, that his heart had changed. I knew now that he had loved me always, that he had never changed. He was all mine, had always been mine. I could think of him as mine without shame. He had never been Kitty’s at all; she had stolen him from me by a trick.

  I understood, now, the satisfaction that George Hamilton had derived from the fact that Kitty belonged to him. When he had said, “I’m glad we were married, she belongs to me,” I had thought it strange, I had not really understood; but now I understood what he had meant. Garth was dead, too, but he belonged to me. We had been tricked out of our life together but he was mine in death.

  I walked slowly round the garden; my legs felt weak, and the sunshine hurt my eyes, but there was a strange happiness in my heart. I scarcely understood why I should be happy, nothing had changed. My future was still a lonely road—can one have happiness without hope? It appeared that one could. I had had so little in life to make me happy—perhaps this was the explanation.

  I knew it was useless to try to write, useless to work at Garth’s book until my mind had adjusted itself to the new ideas. The book must wait. There was so much to think of. I had to go back down the years and look at every incident in the new light which Garth’s diary shed upon it. That night when I had worn the yellow frock and Garth had been so heartless—how differently I saw it now! He had been suffering as much as I; he had been tortured. The weekend that I had spent at the Manor for Clementina’s christening wore a completely different complexion, seen from Garth’s point of view. He had been cruel, not because he had ceased to care for me, but because he cared too much. How easy it was to forgive, now that I knew the truth.

  I walked down to the rock garden and sat on a sun-warmed stone. It was Sunday, so I had the garden to myself. The birds sang in the woods and a golden light filtered through the budding trees. What would have happened, I wondered, if Garth had come to me, all those long years ago, and told me the whole story, had bared his heart to me as he had so wanted to do, had laid his head upon my shoulder. Oh God, how I wished he had! I could have borne to lose him if I had known of his love; I would have asked nothing more than to be allowed to love him in secret all the days of my life. This would have been enough for me, I thought; I would have asked no more, not even to see him sometimes. I realized, vaguely, however, that this would not have been enough for Garth; he could not have been content with this pale shadow of love. He must have known that; he must have known himself and seen that it could never content him. He had written so often of the danger—“dangerous to be friendly with Char.” The danger must have been very clear to his mind. How differently we were made, Garth and I, for he must have all or nothing, while I would have been content with the touch of his hand. I did not see, then, as I see now, that it was the difference between a woman and a man.

  At first I felt very bitter against Kitty. I told myself that she had always wanted Hinkleton Manor and the position and luxury that would be the portion of Garth’s wife. It was not Garth she wanted, just to be Lady of the Manor. She had made up the whole story with the intention of gaining her end by any means in her power—this was a dreadful thought. I could not bear to think it. I went back over what had happened very carefully. I thought of Kitty’s message to me as she lay dying, the message she had left with George Hamilton. “Tell her it was such a little lie,” she had said, “such a little lie to start with and then it grew and grew,” and she had gone on to say that it had grown into a tree and we were all hanging on it. Poor Mr. Hamilton had thought her delirious, and it had certainly seemed so to me at the time, but now I understood the words, and saw that Kitty had not uttered them in delirium. The lie had grown into a tree and we were all hanging on it, Garth and Kitty and George Hamilton and I. It was a gruesome thought, horribly gruesome, but that was how Kitty saw it, and, now that I knew the facts, I saw that the simile was true. We had all been ruined by Kitty’s lie—we had all been hanged on the tree she had planted.

  “It was such a little lie at first”—what had she meant by that? What could she have meant! I beg
an to see, as I thought about it and cast my mind back, how the thing might have started. The talk was loose at the Eltons’; it was mischievous talk, the kind of talk that I could never achieve if I tried. It was always full of laughing allusions and sly innuendoes. How easy it might have been for Kitty to hint that I was occupying myself very pleasantly at Hinkleton! It would only have needed a hint, a few joking words, a knowing look and the lie was told. Kitty always took color from the people she was with. At the Eltons’ she outdid the Eltons at their own game. I visualized it all quite clearly. It was possible that Kitty half believed in the story herself. She knew very little about Mr. Senture. I remembered that she had only seen him once, in the half darkness of the church. She could not have known he was married. Once it had started, the lie would grow, and it would be difficult to stop it growing. It would grow and grow until it became a tree. It was less difficult to excuse her for the other lie—for saying, or at any rate allowing Garth to think that I had known he was to be there when I refused the Eltons’ invitation—perhaps she really thought I knew that Garth was coming, perhaps she thought Mrs. Elton had told me in her letter.

  This reasoning was far-fetched, but it comforted me strangely. I was glad to find an excuse for Kitty; it is a terrible thing to be angry with the dead. I could forgive her now, and I wanted to forgive her, I had said long ago that I forgave her (before I had known what it was I had to forgive), and I wanted to hold myself to that. I wanted to sweep all the bitterness away and go forward feeling free and clean. It was easier to forgive Kitty when I remembered that she had ruined her own life too. She had been punished enough, I thought (remembering what her life with Garth had been); even Nanny had pitied her, and condoned her sin, Nanny, who loved Garth like her own son, and was the soul of propriety.

  The days passed. March went out like a lamb and April came. My strength returned. I had put Garth’s book aside in the meantime and I decided to leave it where it was. Clementina was coming home for the holidays in a few days’ time, and I could do no work while she was here. The book must wait until the holidays were over and I could settle down to it with an easy mind. It was better to wait than to spoil the book by forcing myself to work at it when I felt so restless and distraught. The book was too good to spoil. I knew it was good. I knew that I had found something I could do, something that would fill the empty years of the future, and fill them pleasantly. When Garth’s book was finished I would write a book of my own, a book about the country, for country people who had to live in towns. I would make a bunch of country flowers for women who lived in basements. But, just at the moment, I could write nothing worthwhile, nothing that had any life in it, any verve. And I could not read either. The thoughts and emotions stirred up by the revelations in Garth’s diary came between me and the printed page. I read pages, and found that I had made no sense of them, had not the slightest idea what they contained—it was hopeless.

  The only thing which was any use to me at this time was the garden. Fortunately the weather was good so I was able to spend long hours digging and hoeing and planting among my rocks. The work was good for me, it turned my mind outward, and the fatigue and the fresh air helped me to sleep.

  Lady Bournesworth came to tea as she had promised and admired my bulbs. The daffodils were nearly over now, and the tulips were opening. I had planted groups of them in my rock garden to cover the bare patches, and the effect was very fine. Lady Bournesworth’s visit was followed by a stream of callers. The County had forgiven Garth because he was dead, and because he had died spectacularly. I found it difficult to be agreeable to my unwanted guests. They wasted my time and exhausted me with small talk—I was not used to small talk and tea-table conversation and I was too old a dog to learn new tricks. I walked them solemnly round the garden and listened to the same comments, and answered the same questions—or forbore to answer. These people had nothing to give me, and I had nothing to give them; their thoughts moved in a different orbit, they had different values, different pleasures, different cares from me. When the subject of gardens failed they discussed their servants and their clothes—what a waste of time it was, what a waste of energy!

  Barling was the only person who enjoyed my visitors—after the long eclipse of the Manor it had once more taken its rightful place in the County. He ushered in the callers with pomp and circumstance, and delved in the plate chest for the largest and most ornate silver tea-service that he could find. My stock went up with leaps and bounds—he had always been respectful, but now he was positively obsequious—I saw the humor of it all but I was too annoyed and bewildered to be amused.

  At last, after three days of County calls, I decided that I had had enough. If I had to go round the garden again and listen to another set of people saying the same things I should scream from sheer boredom. I told Barling to say I was “not at home,” and, donning my oldest clothes, went down to the rock garden to do some planting. A case of small alpine plants had arrived and I wanted to get them in before Clementina came home. I wanted to give Clementina all my time and attention during the holidays. I was looking forward to the holidays eagerly, and had planned all sorts of jaunts and pleasures to fill the time.

  I thought of many things as I sorted out the plants, and dug, and planted, and watered. What a much more useful and enjoyable afternoon I was spending than trailing round the place with chattering strangers! The sun shone warmly upon my back, and the perspiration trickled down my nose. I was muddy and dirty, but quite happy and busy and useful.

  I stood up and stretched my back—a long back is a disability to a gardener—and suddenly I saw a woman approaching; it was Lady Vera. She waved to me cheerily.

  “It’s not the man’s fault,” she called out, when she was still some distance away. “He said ‘not at home’ quite nicely, but I wanted to see you, so I took a snoop round on my own. What are you doin’ here, Miss Dean?”

  “Trying to make a rock garden,” I told her, not very amiably I’m afraid.

  “I like it,” she said. “Those rough stones are jolly. They look natural. As if they’d grown there. Most people’s rock gardens look as if they’d ordered a car-load of stones from the nearest builder’s yard and dumped them down.”

  “Yes.”

  “I like the way you’ve made that path curvin’ round and disappearing among the trees. Never could stand gardenin’ myself, but I like seein’ good results. Must have taken some doin’ getting’ those stones into place!”

  “Yes, they are frightfully heavy,” I told her. The woman was so altogether unconscious of my ill-humor that I could not continue to be angry with her for invading my solitude. Besides there was something very likeable about her—perhaps it was her naturalness—she had no airs, and you felt she really meant what she said. If she had disliked the effect of my rock garden she would have expressed her views just as frankly. I was convinced of that, and it made her praise worth having. My other visitors had admired everything that they saw—it was no wonder that they had to coin new expressions of admiration and ecstasy, they had used up all the old ones in the first ten minutes.

  “Everybody’s talkin’ about you,” said Lady Vera suddenly and surprisingly.

  “How dull for them!”

  “It’s a change from clothes and servants. Don’t get bitter about them—they’re not worth it.”

  “I don’t think I’m bitter,” I said frankly, “only bored.”

  Lady Vera laughed; I liked her laugh, it was a deep, chuckling sound of real enjoyment.

  “You’ll do,” she said. “And now to business. I don’t pay afternoon calls for pleasure—what about that geldin’? Anythin’ doin’? Come over to Pollen Lodge and see him—or I’ll send him over for you to try, if you like. Just suit you. I’ll let you have him cheap.”

  “I don’t really want another—”

  “Nobody does,” she interrupted. “This depression’s gettin’ on my nerves—not that I have any to s
peak of. Been breedin’ horses for twenty years, and sellin’s never been so stiff.” She sat down on a rock and lit a cigarette with the flick of a nickel lighter. “Brown Betty doin’ you well?” she inquired, the smoke pouring from her mouth as she spoke.

  “She’s perfect.”

  “Where d’you get her?”

  “My brother-in-law bought her for me.”

  “You couldn’t swindle Garth,” she said. “Garth knew a good horse when he saw it. D’you mind talkin’ about him?”

  “No, why should I?”

  “I wondered. Lady B. says you’re writin’ a book about him.”

  She was looking over toward the house and her eyes were dreamy. Her hair (she had taken off her beret and thrown it carelessly on the ground) was dark brown, liberally sprinkled with gray. It was closely cropped about her well-shaped head. Her tweeds were shabby but well cut—probably by a man’s tailor—they had that indefinable look of belonging to her, and to her alone. Her hands were long and thin—the fingers stained with nicotine. Her feet matched her hands; they were long and thin and encased in well-cut dark-brown brogues. She had crossed one thin long leg over the other and was swinging the crossed foot idly to and fro.

  “Yes,” I said, “I am writing a book about Garth—a biography—I find it—difficult.”

  “Why? You knew him well, didn’t you?”

  “Almost too well,” I said slowly. “He’s too near for me to see him properly. You know what I mean—when you are close up to a wood you can’t see it. You can only see the individual trees.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I’ve never done anythin’ of that kind—writin’, I mean—but I see the point. You want to stand back from a horse to see its paces.” She sat and thought for a few moments and then she said, “I liked Garth. He was a good sort. I could have talked to Garth, but he never gave anyone the chance of gettin’ near him. He was a strange man, Miss Dean, a secret man.”