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 began 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 speak 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.”
I did not answer that. I knew that Garth was a secret man, nobody knew better than I the load of secret trouble that he had carried for so many years.
“I’ll tell you somethin’ about Garth,” she said suddenly. “It’s so typical of him, of the strangeness and secrecy of him. But you mustn’t put me in the book.” She dropped the butt of her cigarette and extinguished it with her heel like a man. Then she looked up at me and smiled. “You mustn’t put me in the book, Miss Dean. I’ve got my reputation to think of—the reputation of bein’ as tough as leather and as hard as nails. ‘It’s no use tryin’ to get the better of Lady Vera,’ people say, so they don’t. If they thought I was soft—I’ll tell you this, though, in strict confidence, I’m not as tough as I’d have them believe. Life’s a bit of a battle at times.” She broke off and said, “Look at that blackbird lookin’ for worms where you’ve been diggin’—I like blackbirds, they’re so cocky and independent, so full of spunk. Where was I?”
“You’re not so tough as you would have them believe,” I prompted her.
She threw back her head and laughed. “That’s right,” she said. “But you keep that to yourself, young woman, or you’ll find I’m tougher than you thought. Well, one day I was huntin’ a mare that I’d sold to a man from Leicestershire. I’d only sold her that morning and I was a fool not to go straight home, but when I’m huntin’ I get crazy, and I wanted to see the finish. We were crossin’ a road, and I let her down, and broke her knees. My God, I was sick! It broke me all up when I saw her knees. I was sailin’ pretty near the wind at the moment—things looked as black as hell for I’d banked on the mare to pay my rent and fodder bill. When I saw her knees I just burst out at the nearest person—burst out about all my troubles (it was yellow, but I couldn’t help it, I was half-crazy). I’d have burst out at anybody, it was just chance that the nearest person happened to be Garth. ‘What were you gettin’ for the mare?’ Garth wanted to know, when I’d finished makin’ a fool of myself. ‘Two hundred,’ I told him, ‘and I’ll be lucky if I get sixty now.’ ‘I’ve always liked that mare. I’ll give you three hundred for her,’ he said, just casually like that.
“I thought at first he was jokin’ and I told him I wasn’t in the mood for it. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you three hundred for the brute. When I say a thing I mean it,’ and he did mean it. He sent a groom over next day with a check and a box and orders to bring the mare over. I told him I wouldn’t take it, and he told me to go to hell. He got a vet down from town and they mended her up—you’d scarcely have known she’d been let down. That was Garth all over. People said he was hard-hearted and cynical—well, he wasn’t full of soft sawder, I’ve heard him say pretty brutal things myself. You had to be down and out before you saw what he was like inside.”
I recognized Garth in the story; it was like him to do a generous thing, and to do it roughly, ungraciously. He hated gratitude, he hated softness and sentimentality. He tried, all the time, to be hard and cynical, but sometimes he couldn’t manage it, and the true kindness and generosity of his nature showed through.
Lady Vera and I walked down to the stables together and fed the horses with apples. Sim was very respectful to my companion; he asked her advice about the gray’s off-fore which was still causing trouble. She felt it with her thin, capable hands and discoursed gravely about the respective merits of cold compresses and hot fomentations. When she left I found, somewhat to my surprise, that I had promised to take Clementina over to Pollen Lodge in the holidays.