The Young Clementina (23 page)

This would be easier if it were not for her friends (her friends can never be mine). The Eltons think me a dull dog. Perhaps I am! I cannot laugh at their jokes. Their jokes are often unkind or in bad taste. Their talk is wild and reckless, they dress extravagantly. They amuse Kitty but their influence is bad for her. I can only hope that once we are married she will settle down and be content to play her part as chatelaine of Hinkleton Manor.

***

January 12th, 1920. Hinkleton Manor.

Kitty is to have a child! It is almost too good to be true! Our son is to be called Charles Dean after his two grandfathers. God grant that he will resemble them in strength of character and integrity. I ask nothing better. Kitty is weak and shallow (I see that more clearly every day) but I am not blind to my own faults. I, too, am weak for I have allowed myself to brood over my troubles. Char's faithlessness broke something inside me—some vital spring. I was war-weary, of course, but that is a coward's excuse. I should have stood up to the blow and borne it like the attack of an enemy. Now, however, I shall have something to live for—I shall live for my children and seek fulfillment in their lives.

We have lost another tree: one of the old chestnuts—planted in the reign of Mary Tudor—came down last night in the storm. It always saddens me when we lose a tree. I am planting trees now for my children and my children's children. They will be green and growing long after I am dust.

***

January 14th. Hinkleton.

Father is overjoyed at Kitty's news. He and Kitty get on very well together. He has always liked Kitty. Father has the old-fashioned way of treating a pretty woman like a pretty toy—something brittle and valuable, something to look at and admire. He does not want friendship from women, so Kitty satisfies him. He is charmed by her playfulness.

I saw Banks about the tree and told him to get it sawn up, then I walked down to the village. Mr. Frale was coming out of the church when I passed and I stopped to speak to him. He is a poor substitute for Mr. Dean. He told me that Mr. Senture has returned to Hinkleton—he had some long story about the man's book on Hinkleton Church. I didn't listen. I hope I shall not see the man while he is here.

January 16th. The King's Head, Upper Pemblebury.

I could not write last night. My whole life fell to pieces. In a few moments of quiet conversation I saw an abyss open before my feet. Nothing happened and yet everything happened. I have lost everything that made life possible—all comfort in the present, all hope for the future.

This is raving. I must write sense. I must write the whole thing down in black and white and decide what to do. How am I to go on with life when it means nothing, when there is no use in anything anymore? How am I to believe in anybody when I have been sold, tricked, deceived? I left the Manor last night, after dinner—no, this is not the way to start. I must go back to the beginning and follow every step, and watch how my world tottered and crashed about my ears; how the awful suspicion that I had been tricked was born, and grew into a certainty.

I must be strong now. I need all my strength to bear this. I must be calm. Writing calms me.

How did it begin? It began that afternoon, the afternoon of the fifteenth—yesterday? (Good God, it feels a hundred years ago.) Father told us at teatime that he had invited Mr. Senture to dinner. “He's an interesting man,” father said. Kitty's face changed at the news. (I put it down to anxiety on my behalf. She knew it would be awkward for me to meet the man.) “I wish you hadn't asked him,” Kitty said petulantly, “I don't feel like meeting strangers just now…” Father was all concern; he reviled himself for his thoughtlessness and suggested that Kitty should dine upstairs. “Oh, I must just bear it, I suppose,” Kitty said. “He won't stay late, I hope.” “You must go to bed when you feel tired, my dear,” father told her. “Mr. Senture won't mind. He is coming to speak to me about the church—he wants some further information for his book. Don't trouble about the man, my dear. Just go off to bed.”

There was more talk on the subject; Kitty fretful, and father apologetic. She wanted father to put off Mr. Senture's visit, but father did not feel he could do that. “The man will have told them at the Hinkleton Arms,” said father reasonably. “I really think it would be very inconvenient for him. Why not have dinner in your room?”

I let them argue and said nothing. I wondered if I should make an excuse to absent myself, but I decided that I would not run away. I would stay and see the man who had usurped my place, the man whom Char loved. Kitty came to me and suggested that I should go up to town. “You don't want to meet the man,” she said. I wavered, and then something inside me decided the matter. “I think I do want to meet him,” I told her. She put her cheek against mine. “Let's go up to town together, just you and me. It's ages since we had a jaunt together.” “No, you're tired,” I told her. “You must take care of yourself, my dear, go to bed early and have a good sleep.” She did all she could to persuade me to go, but the more she persuaded me, the more I determined to remain and meet the man.

He came early. I found him talking to father in the library. He rose and bowed to me…a funny little old man…as old as father…rather frail…with little white whiskers and a fringe of white crinkly hair round his bald crown…rather a pathetic little man.

“Mr. Senture?” I asked incredulously.

He bowed again.

The suspicion was born then. It was a puny child. There was some mistake, of course, this was not Char's Mr. Senture, the man with whom she had gone to Canterbury, the man who had spent hours with her alone, the man who had lured her away from me. This must be the father of Char's man.

Kitty appeared, and we went in to dinner. Mr. Senture talked a great deal, he never ceased talking. Perhaps it was as well, for the rest of us were silent that night. Father never talked much; I was occupied with my thoughts; Kitty was—what was Kitty feeling? I would have given a lot to know what Kitty was feeling. She was silent and pale, her eyes avoided mine…

Mr. Senture talked about the church, and then he talked about his wife. He told us that she was delicate, had been delicate for years. He told us her symptoms, which specialists she had seen, and all that they had said and done. His voice trembled as he described the sufferings of his wife, and his poor old hands trembled so that he spilled his wine upon the table.

“You have a son?” I asked him.

No, he had no son, no children. His wife had always been delicate…the risk was too great…

“Perhaps you have a nephew?”

Yes, Mr. Senture had a nephew—his sister's boy. The lad was out in China…had been out there for years…was expected home almost immediately.

“Your book,” I said. “You are bringing out a book, I hear.”

Ah, that got him! His eyes glistened, he was only too ready to talk of his book, he talked about it interminably. I saw at last that unless I mentioned Char's name it would not be mentioned. I felt I must get to the bottom of the mystery. I was very near the bottom of it already, but I must clear it up completely. There had been enough mistakes, enough misunderstandings through lack of plain speech.

“I believe Miss Dean helped you with your book,” I said.

“Miss Dean?” he asked in a bewildered voice—I had pulled him up in the middle of his story about the leper window, and it took him a moment to adjust his mind to my question. “Oh yes, the parson's daughter. She was most kind, most helpful. I am glad you spoke of her, for it has reminded me that I must send her a copy of my book when it is published—I must really. Her patience was inexhaustible.” He took a notebook out of his pocket and continued, “Please excuse me if I make a note of it. My memory is deplorable, and Miss Dean was really so very kind. I must write it down at once or I shall forget, and Miss Dean will think me ungrateful—
a
copy
of
book
to
Miss
Dean, The Parsonage, Hinkleton
—there, I shall not forget her now.”

“She is not at the Parsonage now,” I said.

“Indeed,” he said. “She has left, has she? Of course, how stupid I am! Her father died and Mr. Frale is here in his place. I met Mr. Frale yesterday morning in the church so I ought to have realized that Miss Dean had left. Perhaps you could oblige me with her address.”

I gave it to him calmly. My world was shaking, but I could feel nothing yet. I was perfectly calm, my hand was steady as I filled up Mr. Senture's glass, my pulse beat normally. I have seen men mortally wounded carry on with what they were doing for a few seconds before realizing what had happened to them, before they fell down on the ground and died. It was like that with me. I glanced at Kitty and I saw that her face had gone quite gray…she had pushed her plate aside with the food upon it untouched…her hands were gripping the arms of her chair.

“Kitty!” said father's voice anxiously. “Kitty, you are feeling—unwell.”

“I feel—queer,” Kitty said and tried to rise from her chair.

“Garth!” cried father in alarm.

I rose and took her arm and helped her out of the room. She leaned upon me heavily. I took her across the hall and into the library. She sank into a chair. Father brought her some brandy and then went back to his guest; we were alone.

“So that is the man Char is going to marry!” I said quietly.

“Garth, don't look at me like that…you frighten me…Garth, for God's sake…I thought she was. I swear I thought so. I didn't know he was married…it was all true what I told you about Canterbury, and the hours they spent together in the church…How was I to know…? You said you didn't mind…”

Her voice died away, she lay there in the chair, whimpering.

“You liar,” I said.

I went upstairs and changed out of my dinner clothes into a tweed suit. I put a few odds and ends in my pocket—my comb, my toothbrush, my diary—and I walked out of the house. (I couldn't stay in the house any longer, I had betrayed the house. I couldn't stay near
her
, she had betrayed me.) I went out at the big gates and up the hill and away. It didn't matter where I went; I didn't know where I was going; my one idea was to get away as far as I could, to walk and walk until I could walk no longer.

The night was fine, but very dark. The cool air blew against my cheeks and temples but it could not cool them. I was burning all over with an inward fire. I walked and walked. I passed through country I knew, and found myself in a strange land. The moon came up over the hills, pure and cold, turning the whole world into black and white like a dry point etching. I felt no fatigue. I walked on. Sometimes I found myself on country roads, and a belated car passed me with a glare of light and fled away to be swallowed up in the darkness. Sometimes I took a field path, and passed through farms and set the dogs barking. It clouded over about 3 a.m. and there was a flurry of snow. It melted as it fell. I sheltered from it in a shed and then went on my way. There were hills above me. I took a path leading upward and found myself on a moor. The low walls of a sheep-fold threw black shadows on the tussocky grass. All at once I was tired and cold, the fever had left me. I sat down under a low wall out of the cool stream of wind. I had been here before, hunting, and I knew that there was a little village in the hollow with a small inn. I had had tea there after the hunt. It was too early to approach the inn yet, scarcely five o'clock, but I could go no farther. My body was tired, but my brain was active, more active now that I had stopped walking.

My thoughts were very bitter, Kitty had tricked me. I was married to a cheat. This was the woman I had taken into my house, whom I had chosen out of all the women in the world to be the mother of my son. A woman who could stoop to lie, and lie smiling, who had kissed me with a lie upon her lips. A woman who could live a lie, and only faltered when she was found out—this woman was to be the mother of my son. I flung myself upon my face. My rage against Kitty almost choked me, everything went black. I felt I could go to her and tear my child out of her body, she was not worthy to bear my child.

At six o'clock I went down to the village through the fields. My feet left black marks on the rimy ground. The inn was open and a girl with her hair in curl-papers was shaking rugs at the door. She looked at me with amazement. I suppose I looked wild, my whole appearance must have been disordered and dirty. I told her I had walked a long way, had been walking all night, and I wanted a room to rest in, and some breakfast later.

“You be the second gentleman lost on the moor this winter,” she said in a relieved voice.

I let it go at that. I had been lost. She was quite kind. She took me upstairs and showed me into a pleasant, clean room. She brought me hot water to wash in. I felt better after I had washed, calmer and saner. I climbed onto the big four-poster bed and slept.

I have spent all day at the inn. The food is clean and plain. I have the whole place to myself for nobody comes here in winter, it is too bleak. I went down to the bridge where a little stream flows beneath a gray stone arch and watched it for a long while. The monotony of the flowing water soothed me, its turbulence, and the splash and hurry of its course. I stayed there until some men came, and then I moved away, I could not speak to anybody yet, not even strangers. My thoughts were still colored by my anger, sometimes it rose like a red flood until it almost burst my brain, and sometimes it sank into a sort of misery, a sort of gnawing pain. I walked up the hill through the bare woods.

Until now I had not thought of Char. I had pushed the thought of Char away from me. I had pushed all softness away from me. I had given rein to my anger. I had raged against Kitty for tricking me and against myself for my foolishness in allowing myself to be tricked. But now, in the woods, the thought of Char came to me and would not be denied. We had roamed the woods of Hinkleton together so often, in summer and in winter, accepting each season as it came and enjoying its beauty. These woods were very like the woods round Hinkleton; there was the same mixture of trees, the same damp yellow undergrowth. The pale winter afternoon sunshine filtered through the bare branches of the trees.

I sat down on a log and rested my head in my hands—God, how my head ached! Char, what have I done to you, I thought. What had I done to her? I had failed Char, not Char me. If I had had faith in Char I would have gone to her and asked her if the story was true—if I had had a grain of faith! Instead of giving her a chance to defend herself I had believed at once that she was false. I had condemned her unheard. I had listened to a lying tale and believed it. I went over the whole affair painfully step by step. I remembered how she had tried to be friends with me when I returned from France, how she had gone out of her way to be friends with me. I remembered how I had repulsed her friendly advances—I would not be friends with her, it was all or nothing, and she had chosen another man. I would not be friends with Char. I had trampled on her feelings. I had hurt her deliberately—I knew exactly how to hurt her, for I knew her so well—I had crushed her, laughed at her, scorned her. Mad, crazy creature that I was! How she must hate me, how she must despise me!

I wanted her so much now—that was the next phase. I wanted her desperately. I started up thinking that I would go to her, go to her now and tell her everything. I would go on my knees to Char and ask her forgiveness—and then what? No, I must not do that. I must think it out first. I must see where that path would take me before I set my feet upon it. Where would that path take me?

I stayed in the woods until it was dark. Sometimes I sat on the log, and sometimes I strode about, crashing through the undergrowth like a madman. When it grew dark I came down to the inn. I shall stay here for a little, it is quiet here, and nobody speaks to me.

***

January
16th. The King's Head, Upper Pemblebury.