The Young Clementina (11 page)

We spoke of other matters until Nanny came for Clementina. I had expected trouble then, but there was none. Clementina rose at once, shut her book and came over to the fire to say good night to us. She waited quietly until Nanny was ready to go.

“Oh, Miss Char!” cried Nanny taking my hand. “It
was
nice of you to come!”

I was touched at the welcome, the first real welcome I had had. “It was nice of you to want me,” I replied. I saw that she had aged considerably since the last time I had seen her. There were flecks of gray among the smooth darkness of her hair. Her eyes had faded in color, and there was a blurring of the iris which one often sees in the old. She was thinner, and the red of her cheeks was not so smooth and healthy as of yore. I realized suddenly that the troubles of Garth and Kitty had laid their mark here also.

“You look as if you needed a good rest,” Nanny said. “I'll see you get your breakfast in bed. Clemmie and me have ours in the nursery.”

“You're going to spoil me,” I told her.

“You want a little spoiling, Miss Char,” she replied smiling. “You were always such a good child, so serious and conscientious.”

I laughed at that, and Garth laughed too. “Oh, Nanny,” he said, “you old fraud! You didn't think she was a good child at all.”

“I did indeed.”

“No, no. It was always Char who thought of the lovely, amusing, naughty things to do. You used to say you never had a peaceful moment when Char came to tea. You never knew what we would be up to next—it was always something different.”

“Never anything wicked,” Nanny said, laughing in spite of herself.

“Do you remember the day we dressed up as Red Indians, and Char took the feather out of your best bonnet?”

“She didn't do it a bit of harm!”

“You were awfully angry with me,” I reminded her, wiping my eyes. I had not laughed for so long that I felt quite hysterical.

“Oh well,” said Nanny, “we're all older now, and we've been through a good deal, one way and another. I don't mind so much about feathers and such-like nowadays. There's more important things than feathers even if they are out of your best bonnet.”

Clementina stood and listened to the conversation—or perhaps she did not listen, it was hard to tell. She did not look sullen, or impatient, she was simply uninterested in our reminiscences. When we had finished talking she kissed us both lightly, and followed Nanny out of the room.

It was not until after dinner that Garth and I had any private conversation. I had left him to consume his port in peace, in the time-honored manner, but he soon followed me into the library and stood in front of the fire, leaning against the mantelpiece and looking down at the fire.

“I didn't want to say too much before Clem,” he said, and I had the feeling that he was choosing his words carefully. “She's such a strange child. You never know whether she is listening or not. She picks up all sorts of information about things—you never can tell what is going on inside her head—and there's no doubt she knows—she knows all sorts of things she shouldn't know.”

“She's so quiet,” I said.

“Yes, it's unnatural, isn't it? I hope you will learn to understand her, Char.”

“I hope so,” I replied soberly.

He looked at me sharply. “You don't seem to be sure about it.”

“I should be a fool if I were. I shall do my best, of course, because that is what I have come for, but—”

“Oh, well,” he said. “Perhaps it is better to start by not being too sure. I don't know that I understand Clem myself if it comes to that. She is so different from what we were, when we were children. She is never naughty in an ordinary childish way. It wouldn't amuse Clem to take the feather out of Nanny's bonnet to dress up as a Red Indian.”

“No, I don't suppose it would.”

“You see that already,” Garth said eagerly. “Sometimes I wish that Clem would do mischievous things—it would be more natural—but she never does. She is never wild and troublesome. If she is disobedient it is in a considered way.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked him.

“I mean if you tell her to do something she doesn't want to do, she just doesn't do it. She neither flaunts her disobedience in your face, nor hides it. She simply goes her own way. It's very difficult to tackle. You'll find her quite amenable to discipline so long as your discipline does not inconvenience her or interfere with her affairs. If she wants a thing she asks for it, and if you refuse it to her you hear no more about it. If she can attain her object without your aid she simply attains it. She never tries to wheedle you—she has no charm, thank God!”

The last words were said with such a wealth of bitterness, such an intensity of feeling, that I was quite startled. I looked up at Garth; he was still standing on the hearthrug, gazing into the fire, and I saw that his face was drawn and haggard like the face of an old man. How he has suffered, I thought. I saw then, for the first time, that it was the mixture of strength and weakness in Garth's nature which made him so vulnerable to suffering. A weaker man would have bowed his head before the storm; a stronger man could have ridden it out. Garth was so fashioned that the storm twisted him, tortured him beyond bearing, left him maimed, but still upright, still rebellious. Everything that followed confirmed me in my opinion; I had found some sort of clue to Garth, if not to his daughter.

After a little silence Garth continued, “You can't drive Clem, you can't break her—she escapes from you into herself. She takes any punishment that you mete out to her without a word, simply accepts it. I'm telling you all this to help you. I want you to understand Clem, I want you to—to
find
her if you know what I mean. I love Clem dearly, she is all I have left out of the wreck, and I know she loves me, but to be quite honest I don't understand her. Perhaps it is difficult for a man to understand a girl-child. Sometimes when I think I have got her she slips through my fingers like a—like a ghost. But she has her good points: she is fearless, absolutely fearless, and I have never found deceit in her. I have searched for deceit in Clem, I have tried to trap her into a lie, but I have never succeeded.”

“Garth!” I exclaimed.

“It horrifies you,” he said, laughing unmirthfully, “that I should lay traps for a child.”

“But why?”

“Can't you guess? I was looking for her mother in her, that's all. I wanted to find out how much of Kitty had found its way into Clem. So I laid traps for her—it doesn't sound very nice but I am not a very nice person, you see.”

“You used to be—nice,” I said with difficulty.

“Pshaw! That was long ago when I was young and ignorant. I thought the world was a marvelous place. I know better now, I know what hell life can be, and I know women. Women will always lie to gain their ends, they are made crooked.”

“Not all,” I exclaimed.

“Yes, all,” he replied. “Thank God I shall be free from women for a year—you don't find women in the desert. For a whole year I shall live with men, reasonable beings who say what they mean and tell the truth. I'm sick of women, of their lies and subterfuges. Women clog the wheels of life—they take an unfair advantage of their reputed weakness. There is little weakness about a woman when she has a purpose to gain.”

“We are not all crooked, Garth,” I told him, in a low breathless voice—his violence frightened me. “You have just said that Clementina is straight, that you searched for deceit in her and found none.”

“Clem is not a woman yet,” replied Garth. “She will learn it all in time.”

I did not reply. His words had hurt me to the core. When had Garth found deceit in me, I wondered.

There was a long silence; he drifted into thought, his brow furrowed, his teeth gripping firmly the stem of his pipe. Presently he sighed like a person wakening from sleep and sat down in the big leather chair at the other side of the fire and stretched out his long legs. “Africa has always fascinated me,” he said. “That is why I went out there four years ago. The big game hunting was merely an excuse—it doesn't really amuse me to kill animals that have never harmed me—I wanted to meet Africa face to face. Of course I didn't because there wasn't time. I didn't know enough about it beforehand. I had engaged porters for a definite period, and I had not sufficient provisions. We were just approaching the really interesting part when I had to turn back. The porters were nervous, they thought I was cutting things too fine, they knew what it meant to be short of food—it meant death. But although I had not enough time to do what I wanted I saw enough to make me greedy for more. It is so wonderful to push off into the unknown, to leave civilization behind. You leave your troubles behind; they seem small in that immensity. A plain is more awe-inspiring than a mountain, because it seems limitless. The silence is healing, the stars—their brightness—they seem so much larger—oh, it is impossible to give you any idea of the unearthly beauty of it all. It is not really flat, you know. There are huge waves of sand. They stretch as far as you can see on every side—but it's no good. I can't
begin
to make you see it, Char. Just before we turned back a strange thing happened. One night I was sitting by the door of my tent—I was just going to turn in—when I heard a great jabbering of porters. I called the head boy and he told me that they had found the body of a man. It was half buried in the sand. I went over to have a look at it. The man had not been dead long. I was surprised at his appearance. He did not belong to any of the African races—at least none that I knew of. I am rather interested in physiology and I have studied the subject a bit so I knew enough to be fairly certain of my ground. After a brief examination I felt sure that the man belonged to some hitherto unknown tribe, it would take too long to tell you my reasons for this conclusion, suffice it to say he appeared to be higher in the social scale than the usual run of African. He differed from the known tribes in the measurements of his skull, and in the fine silky texture of his hair. His features were aquiline, his skin soft and pale brown. He wore bracelets of gold wrought with symbols and sights of which neither I nor any of the porters knew the meaning.”

“Did you bring the bracelets home?”

“I wanted to, but the porters made a terrific fuss when they saw what I meant to do. They are superstitious about robbing the dead. The head boy explained to me that the dead man's spirit would follow us and lead us astray and that we should all perish in the desert. I didn't care for that, of course, but the porters would not have stayed with me if I had taken the bracelets, and I didn't want to be left high and dry with no porters. That would have been the end of me, and not a pleasant end. I went back to my tent, meaning to try and get the bracelets later without being seen, I wanted them, not for their intrinsic worth, but for a proof that the man was real and not just a figment of my imagination. I knew that nobody would believe my story unless they saw the bracelets. The porters knew that I wanted the bracelets and they never gave me a chance to get them. In the morning the man had vanished, bracelets and all, vanished as mysteriously as he had come.”

“How exciting!” I exclaimed.

“You believe the story then,” he said, looking at me curiously. “It's pretty far-fetched. Sometimes I hardly believe it myself.”

“You never found out any more,” I said.

“No, I could do nothing. Time was short and the stores were running low. We had to go back. But I made up my mind to return when I could manage it and try to find traces of the tribe to which the man belonged—it might be interesting. The man can't have fallen from the skies—there must be some explanation of his presence there.”

“How would you explain it?”

“I don't know,” he said thoughtfully. “I should like to think that he belonged to an ancient civilized tribe, isolated in some fertile valley, but the real explanation is probably much less romantic. He might be some highborn Indian strayed from a caravan.”

“Oh no!” I cried. “I'm sure you'll find the Bracelet Men.”

“Good lord! Why do you call them that?” he said quickly. “That's what I call them when I think about them.”

I did not remind him that long ago we had been such close companions that our minds had constantly worked in unison—those days were dead. I could not speak of them. There were too many things about Garth that I did not understand; he was a man of mystery to me.

“Do you still keep a diary, Char?” he asked suddenly.

I said I did.

“So do I! The habit is rooted in me. I would as soon go to bed without brushing my teeth as omit to jot down the day's doings. It's funny how the diary habit persists. My last book was written entirely from my diary. I merely edited it, and added a few explanatory notes. I propose to do the same thing on this trip. I shall keep a full record of everything that happens and edit it on my return. I'm telling you this of set purpose, Char.” He laughed lightly and added, “If I don't return you can write my book for me.”

“I hope there will be no question of that?”

“Do you?” he said, smiling wryly. “I don't much care. Life isn't so damned wonderful.”

Garth filled his pipe again and puffed at it for a few moments in silence. The air was filled with a blue haze.

“Well, I think that's all,” he said at last. “Perhaps you will excuse me, Char I've got some things to see to and I shall be off early in the morning. If there's anything you want ask Ponsonby—you've got his address.” He rose and held out his hand. “Good-bye, Char. I'm sleeping tonight at the Parsonage. Rather funny, isn't it? Me at the Parsonage and you here.”

“At the Parsonage?” I exclaimed in amazement.

“Yes, at the Parsonage. Mr. Frale is old and deaf and a crashing bore, and the bed will probably be damp and stuffed with bricks but I'm not taking any chances. I've been the butt of the County for years—every gossip-monger in the place makes free with my name. I prefer not to have it said that I inveigled you down to this house of ill fame and went to bed with you.”

“Oh, Garth, don't be so bitter!”

“House of ill fame is good,” he went on, with a sort of wild incoherence that was frightfully alarming. “That motto in the hall—so appropriate don't you think—‘Valorous Men, Virtuous Women.' I thought at one time of tearing it down and putting a picture in its place—some biblical subject you know—but there were so many to choose from I couldn't make up my mind. I was deliberating whether to have David and Bathsheba, or Jezebel looking out of her window, when I suddenly saw the humor of it and decided to leave it as it was. It's the very thing to decorate a brothel, isn't it?”

“Don't torture yourself,” I said, or rather I tried to say it; he did not hear me or heed me.

“These things sound worse in plain language,” he continued with a wild laugh. “I thought it was marvelous how they steered their way round all the nasty words in court; they referred to me as ‘the petitioner'—it sounds much better than the cuckold, doesn't it? And respondent isn't really so offensive as whore—”

I felt as if I could not bear another word, it was cruel, cruel and disgusting. I think I hated Garth at that moment. I rose and made for the door without a word. He followed me and switched on the lights in the hall.

“Good night, Char,” he said when I was halfway upstairs. I looked down over the banisters and saw him standing in the doorway of the library. He was smiling at me kindly, sadly. The harshness and bitterness had disappeared. “Good night Char, and good-bye,” he said.