I took Clementina to Hill House and left her there. I was all alone now in the big empty Manor, waiting for Garth’s diary to arrive, so that I could start the book. I was used to being alone, but I was not used to idleness. I had always had as much to do as I could accomplish; ever since I was a small child my days had been full. In my parents’ house I had helped old Martha to make beds and puddings, and when father grew older, a considerable amount of parish work had fallen quite naturally upon my shoulders. In London I had my job and small household tasks as well, and latterly Clementina had filled my days and occupied my mind. This was the first time in my life that I found myself a lady of leisure.
The Manor was now running on oiled wheels, it required little or no supervision—my housekeeping took me about an hour in the morning, and for the remainder of the day I was absolutely free. I spent as much time as possible in the rock garden, and I rode, of course, but the weather was too cold and wet to spend many hours out of doors, and the evenings were long and empty. It was then that the idea came to me that I should write the third part of my life story for you, Clare. To beguile the long winter evenings and to bring you here to keep me company and listen to my tale. I had the old schoolroom bureau brought down to the library—Garth’s desk was too big and shiny, it took my mind off my work—and settled down to write the story of Clementina’s father.
It is strange how the figure of Garth has dominated my life. He dominates this third part of my story—I see that quite clearly—even though he only appears in it at the very beginning. Garth is still here: death has not obliterated him; the house and garden are redolent of his personality. Perhaps it is because he loved his home so dearly that his spirit returns to watch over it and see that all’s well; I don’t know. But I do know that he is here. When I come into the library I have a feeling that Garth has just left the room, I can almost smell the sharp tang of smoke from his pipe, and the strange, peaty perfume of his Harris tweeds. When I work in the garden he is with me in spirit guiding my choice so that the rock garden which he planned shall be as he imagined it.
The thread of my life has been tangled with Garth’s, and, even now, when he is dead, I cannot escape from him. Even now I am waiting for Garth, waiting for his diary to come, so that I may write his book—the task that he entrusted to me. Everything is prepared, and I am waiting impatiently to begin. How much of the real Garth shall I find in the diary, how much editing will the diary require?
Once before, long years ago, I waited for Garth to come. It was spring then, and the flowers put on their brightest colors to welcome him home; it is winter now, and the branches are bare—that is how it should be. I hope that the diary will not disappoint me, as Garth did, long ago. He would not be welcomed then; he had turned from me; his face had changed. That dreadful change in Garth’s face still haunts me. I looked for love and found hatred; I found lines of cynicism where gentleness and kindness had been—it still haunts me. I shall never know, now, what changed him. I want to put the old Garth in the book that I am going to write—if the diary will let me—want to wash out the memory of that bitter, ruthless man who came home from the war, who looked upon the world through distorted lenses and would believe good of nobody. He tortured himself as well as others; he twisted his life out of shape. Why did he do this, why? Oh, Clare, I wish I could find the answer to that question! Even if it were a terrible answer—some dark secret that preyed upon his mind and changed his nature—I could face it better than the uncertainty; better than the possibilities conjured up in my imagination. The scales swing this way and that. One part of me argues that Garth would do nothing shameful, he was so straight, so clean; he detested lies and deceit with every fiber of his being. And then another part of me replies: “What was it that changed him then? It must have been something terrible to change a man like that. Men have temptations that we can never know.” So the scales swing this way and that, and I shall never know the answer to the question. The third part of my story is finished, and still the diary has not come. I shall read over all that I have written and put the papers together—with the first and second parts of my story—in the bottom drawer of the old bureau.