We laugh together over the nonsense, but even as we laugh I am aware that it is not nonsense at all, but something fine and wonderful, and that this young man has dedicated himself like a knight of old to the service of his fellow human-beings in distress.
Presently Mrs. Daulkes comes in with a tray of coffee and biscuits and I realise it must be eleven o’clock. This brings me to my senses. I have been chatting to my new friend for nearly an hour and still I have no idea who he is. He must be about twenty-five; too old to be a friend of Bryan’s and too young to be a friend of Tim’s. Could I have met him in London during the hectic week which I spent with Richard and Mary? Could I have met him abroad? Have I ever met him—and, if not, how does he know me?
My visitor accepts a cup of coffee. The elation produced by “Jabberwocky” has vanished and we converse sanely and sensibly.
“We’re very comfortable,” he says. “It’s a fascinating old place, isn’t it? Of course you know it well. Parts of the house must date from the sixteenth century, I should think. I love that cobbled yard, it makes one think of coaches clattering up to the door and ostlers running out to change the horses. My room is in the old part of the house and has walls at least three feet thick which makes it very quiet. There’s a sort of peaceful, safe feeling about old houses, isn’t there?”
“Yes—yes there is.”
“I find I can work much better,” he adds, stirring his coffee thoughtfully.
I gaze at my friend with dawning comprehension.
“You see, Mrs. Christie,” he continues confidentially. “You see it really is frightfully important for me to get an honours degree and unfortunately I’m not particularly clever. I have to work hard. Some fellows seem to pass exams without any bother,” says my new friend ruefully. “Some fellows seem to absorb knowledge like a sponge. Some fellows can work anywhere or in any conditions. I’ve seen people reading anatomy with the wireless going full blast. It’s absolutely amazing. Gosh, I wish I could!” he adds with a sigh.
“I’m glad you find you can work—now,” I tell him. It was on the tip of my tongue to say I was glad he found conditions favourable at the Bull and Bush, but I am still not quite certain.
“Oh yes,” he replies. “Yes, they’re most awfully good to me, especially Mrs. Bollings. She is a dear, isn’t she? I really was getting desperate; you can’t shut yourself up and work in other people’s houses. What I wanted to do was to go off to Cornwall with a friend, but of course Mother didn’t want me to do that.”
“But it’s all right now?” I ask anxiously; for the fact is I have become very anxious indeed that the vorpal blade should be sharpened.
“Yes,” he says; but he says it a trifle doubtfully. “Yes. The only thing is I wish Mother would—I mean I wish she wouldn’t worry about me.”
“I expect it’s difficult.”
“Terribly difficult. Mother means so well but she doesn’t quite understand. She thinks I ought to have set hours and stick to them, and perhaps she’s right, but somehow I can’t do it that way. People are different, aren’t they?”
“Of course they are.”
“She thinks I’m working now,” says Mrs. Alston’s son with a conspiratorial air.
It is a little difficult to find the right comment. “But you can’t stick to set hours,” I suggest, for as these are practically his own words it seems fairly safe to repeat them.
“No,” he agrees frowning. “No, I can’t. I was reading until nearly three this morning and I felt I couldn’t start in again directly after breakfast. But I don’t always do that. Sometimes I go to bed early and go out for a walk before breakfast and then settle down and read. I believe that’s the best, really . . .” He smiles suddenly and charmingly. “It is good of you to listen to all this,” says Edmond Alston, rising to go.
“But I’ve enjoyed it!”
“I know—that’s what makes it so marvellous. I feel tons better. I shall go galumphing back and wade into those books. You know, Mrs. Christie, I really came just to say ‘thank you’ and I’ve stayed hours.”
He walks down the path and then hesitates and comes back. “There’s just one thing,” he says. “I wondered . . . there’s a girl who rides. I don’t suppose you know her, do you?”
“A girl who rides?”
“Rides a horse,” says Edmond Alston nodding and looking at me anxiously. “With fair hair—I mean the girl has fair hair. I’ve seen her twice. She rides in the early morning before breakfast. Yesterday I opened a gate for her and she said thank you.”
This seems quite natural to me (mere common politeness) but it is obvious from Edmond’s manner that he thinks otherwise.
“With fair hair?” I ask in a thoughtful voice.
“Yes,” he says, warming to his theme. “Slender and straight with hazel eyes and a halo of golden curls.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t an angel?”
Edmond laughs a trifle self-consciously.
“I might know her,” I tell him. “I’m not sure, of course, but I think I might be able to find her.”
“Mrs. Christie, you are a brick! Honestly—I mean—”
“Away with you,” I tell him, laughing. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll send you a message through Mrs. Bollings if I can find your angel for you.”
Sunday, 22nd July
Miss Carlyle has not forgotten her promise to come and help me to pick the violas. She arrives after lunch, when I have just settled myself comfortably in the garden to read. I have now moved my garden chair to the other side of the lawn beneath the shade of a smaller but no less beautiful beech. Here I am out of sight of Miss Crease if she happens to look out of her bedroom window. Miss Carlyle comments on the change and says Lorna Stroude always sat here—not under the other tree. She adds that if I will lend her a basket she will start on the violas at once.
I remonstrate with Miss Carlyle, for not only is this the hottest time of the day but the mere idea of stooping and bending immediately after my mid-day meal gives me indigestion.
Miss Carlyle says she forgot I was used to the tropics where, of course, everyone rests in the middle of the day. “What an interesting life you must have had!” she exclaims, sitting down on the grass and looking at me with her bright eager eyes. “You have seen so much of the world and met so many different kinds of people. I often wish I could travel. Epictetus said ‘you are a citizen of the world, and a part of it,’ but how can one be a part of the world unless one can travel and see it for oneself?”
“Lots of people travel and see nothing,” I tell her.
“Oh, I know . . . ‘eyes have they and see not,’” she agrees.
My one idea at the moment is to keep my visitor sitting beside me, for if she rises and begins her task I shall be obliged to join her. It would be impossible to remain sitting comfortably in the shade and watch my visitor at work. This being so I begin to speak of my travels and my life in Kenya, hoping to keep her happy and interested so that she will forget about the violas until I have digested my lunch.
The experiment succeeds. Miss Carlyle is a very good listener (a quality which I had not expected to find in a schoolmistress). She listens entranced: not interrupting when I am in full flow but encouraging me with intelligent questions when the fount begins to run dry. I am no polished raconteuse but with such an audience hanging upon my words I gain confidence and burble on happily.
I discover that Miss Carlyle knows all the facts already, and knows them better than I. Her brain is stored with facts about Kenya. She knows about the warm damp climate of the coast and the high dry plains of the interior; she knows about the great glaciers of Mount Kenya and the tropical forests surrounding Lake Victoria. (She knows the height of the former and the area of the latter which I did not know, myself.) She knows what Kenya produces and what it exports, and she knows all about the animals and birds and plants. What she does not know is the feel of the place and the hundred and one unimportant details which make up the life of its inhabitants.
What she wants to know is the effect of the place upon me.
Lying back in my chair I shut my eyes to the cosy English garden and conjure up a land so different that it scarcely seems real. It is a land of contrasts and paradoxes; there is brilliant golden sunshine and drenching silver rain; rain which falls from the lowering skies in a solid mass of water and changes every little wandering stream into a rushing torrent. There are bare plains and undulating hills; there are mountains which cut the bright blue sky with their jagged contours. There are forests and jungles full of strange lush plants and teeming with beasts and birds, silent by day but waking in the darkness so that in the vast velvety stillness you can hear their eerie cries echoing through the night: the roar of a lion, the shrill scream of its prey and a hundred other voices. And in the night sky there are thousands of millions of stars, bright as diamonds. There are parts of Kenya which in an odd way remind me of the Border Country of Scotland, rolling hills of greenish-brownish grass with sheep grazing . . . but the shepherd-boys destroy the illusion for they are as brown as well-polished mahogany and scantily attired in brightly coloured rags.
The bungalow where Tim and I lived was long and low, set in a garden full of strange plants and gorgeous flowers, but we had our kitchen-garden too, and I never got used to the sight of a line of peas and homely cabbages and other familiar vegetables fraternising with the paw paw and the avocado pear. The black boys, who looked after us and made our life comfortable and leisurely, were warm and friendly children. They wore long white robes from neck to ankle and padded about noiselessly on their bare, black feet. When one spoke to them they smiled happily displaying their beautiful teeth, which looked so much whiter in contrast with their shining black faces.
Miss Carlyle is interested to hear that they spoke English fluently. Their accents and the rhythm of their speech was lilting and pleasant to the ear.
By this time I am beginning to feel like Scheherazade who was obliged to amuse the Sultan Schahriah with a thousand and one tales and my sympathy for that beautiful, talented creature—always strong—is considerably strengthened.
Miss Carlyle is insatiable. “Tell me about Nairobi,” she says eagerly. “What does it look like?”
So I tell her about Nairobi, about the European part of the town with its wide streets and fine buildings and shops and parks . . . and I describe the native quarter which is dirty and squalid with little wooden shacks full to overflowing with black families. In front of these shacks, which open onto the street, you may sometimes see a charcoal fire burning and women cooking a meal. Old grandmothers sit by these fires, smoking clay pipes, and there are dozens of black naked babies rolling about in the dust. These people wear every sort of garment without regard to age or sex; you may see women with long hair, wearing nothing but a pair of trousers, and men wearing nothing but a shirt. I remember seeing a boy of about fourteen wearing nothing but a child’s pinafore—his back view was very funny indeed—and I remember seeing an old black man with a white beard, wearing a girl’s summer frock—quite a pretty pink and white frock with short sleeves and a flared skirt. He had very thin black legs and very large black feet and he was carrying a large black umbrella to shield him from the sun.
The afternoon wears on. The shadows of the beech trees move slowly across the lawn and still we go on talking. By special request I am now calling my new friend “Anne.” This seems quite natural to me, for although she is probably a good deal older than myself she seems younger (she seems virginal, which perhaps is a strange word to describe a middle-aged school mistress but I can find no other). Anne, I notice, has considerable difficulty in calling me “Hester” and avoids the use of my name.
Anne is an enigma to me. She is not really my kind of person and her life has been entirely different from mine. Obviously she is very clever indeed—Tim would dub her a blue-stocking and flee from her in terror—but beneath the slightly pedantic manner I have discovered a very human person; a lonely person, brave and proud and humble, and I find myself warming to her more and more.
It is now Anne’s turn to talk and I question her about her work. She tells me about the children and repeats some of the funny things they say.
“Some of them have no background,” she explains. “They know nothing but what they learn at school; I try to give them a little general knowledge but it is not easy. The other day I was informed that an osteopath was a curious bird with a long bill.”
“Rather a neat definition!”
Anne smiles and says, “But not the one I wanted . . . so then I asked if anyone could tell me any more about the osteopath. Winnie Seager said it had long legs and could run very fast, and Tom Rogers said it waited for you behind a tree in the jungle and sprang on your back and twisted your neck! Someone else objected strongly to the statement, saying, ‘A bird ain’t got no ’ands, so ’ow could it twist your neck?’ Some children said it was a ‘griller’ others declared it was ‘all over spots’ . . . possibly they were confusing it with an ocelot,” says Anne. “By the time we had finished, and all had said their say, the osteopath had become real and horrible to me—half-bird and half-animal with a long bill and skinny arms and a spotted hide. I could have drawn its picture. Of course I should not have let them do it; I should have stopped them at once,” says Anne with a rueful smile. “But one must have a little fun sometimes or one would go mad.”
“Some of the children are much brighter than others, I suppose?”
“They vary tremendously, not only because some are naturally more intelligent than others but also because they have better homes.”
“Do many of them come from that huddle of old homes down near the river?”
Anne looks at me in surprise. “You’ve been there? Many people live here for years without knowing anything about that dreadful place . . . Yes, I mean dreadful. All sorts of horrible things emanate from that huddle of houses.”
“You mean disease?”
Anne does not reply. Obviously she is unwilling to continue, but I have no intention of quitting the subject until I have got to the bottom of it. At last Anne is persuaded to explain.
“Well, if you must know,” she says, “there are people in that old village who practise witch-craft.”
“Witch-craft! But that’s nonsense!” I exclaim.
“You felt there was something evil there, didn’t you?” she asks.
“Yes, but—”
“Why should you find it incredible? The power of evil is as real as the power of good. There is constant warfare between them.”
“But you don’t really believe in witch-craft, Anne!”
She hesitates and then says, “I think we’re talking about different things. Of course I don’t believe in witches riding on broomsticks and turning themselves into hares, but I do believe that people can get into touch with evil forces.”
“Black magic?”
“You can call it that.”
“What do they do?” I ask.
“Nothing very spectacular,” she admits. “But that isn’t the point. The point is that these people are wicked and exert an evil influence. Even if they aren’t really in league with evil powers they think they are, which is almost as bad.”
“But you believe they really are!”
Anne does not answer this. She says, “Whether or not I believe it doesn’t matter. My responsibility is the children. If I can teach them to know God and serve Him faithfully He will give them the power to tread upon scorpions. It is a tremendous responsibility but I am sustained by the knowledge that I am led by God’s hand.”
Anne looks up at me as she speaks. Her eyes are clear and steadfast and she is absolutely unself-conscious. How few of us can speak of such things without self-consciousness!
“Go on,” I tell her, nodding encouragingly.
“I don’t know what else to say,” she declares, hugging her knees and looking across the garden. “My life has made me what I am. It hasn’t been easy, sometimes I have found it almost unbearable, b
ut suffering can be transmuted into strength—as a rod is tempered by passing through a furnace—and all my hard work, all my anxieties and failures and disappointments have made me what I am. When the rod is tempered it has to be polished and made fit for service . . . everything that happens as one goes through life helps to polish the rod. If I didn’t feel sure of that I couldn’t go on; I couldn’t face the future.”
My own life seems aimless in comparison with Anne’s philosophy. I have worstled through without any clear idea of where I am going. I have not been trained for any special purpose, nor do I feel that I am being used.
Anne smiles when I tell her this: “Of course you’re being used,” she says. “Your life has certainly been more pleasant than mine but rods can be polished in different ways and no two are alike.”
“You and I are certainly very different!” I exclaim. “You’re so clever and intelligent. Your brain is so—so tidy compared with mine.”
Most people would have protested that this was not so and assured me that I was mistaken; but Anne, unlike most people, is absolutely sincere. She looks at me thoughtfully and says, “Your mind is undisciplined and untrained but that doesn’t mean you are unintelligent.”
This is true, of course. I know quite well that my mind is undisciplined and untrained, but it gives me a shock to hear the fact stated so frankly, and while I am recovering from the shock Anne goes on to say that it would be interesting to ascertain the level of my intelligence and to propose that she shall bring a book upon psychology (which she uses to grade the intelligence of her pupils) and put me through a test.
The proposal does not appeal to me at all and I say so uncompromisingly.
“But why?” asks Anne in surprise. “It would be very interesting. As a matter of fact I feel sure that your intelligence is well above the average.”
“Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t,” I reply mulishly.
Mrs. Tim Flies Home Page 13
