The thirteenth tale (43 page)

Emmeline I have made good progress with, and my experience with
her fits the pattern of behavior I have seen in other difficult children. She
is not, I think, as badly disturbed as was reported, and with my influence will
come to be a nice child. She is affectionate and sturdy, has learned to
appreciate the benefits of hygiene, eats with a good appetite and can be made
to obey instructions by kind coaxing and the promise of small treats. She will
soon come to understand that goodness rewards by bringing the esteem of others
in its wake, and then I will be able to reduce the bribery. She will never be
clever, but then I know the limits of my methods. Whatever my strengths, I can
only develop what is there to start with.

I am content with my work on Emmeline.

Her sister is a more difficult case. Violence I have seen
before, and I am less shocked than Adeline thinks by her destructiveness.
However, I am struck by one thing: In other children destructiveness is
generally a side effect of rage and not its primary objective. The violent act,
as I have observed it in other charges, is most frequently motivated by an
excess of anger, and the outpouring of the anger is only incidentally damaging
to people and property. Adeline’s case does not fit this model. I have seen
incidents myself, and been told of others, in which destruction seems to be
Adeline’s only motive, and rage something she has to tease out, stoke up in
herself in order to generate the energy to destroy. For she is a feeble little
thing, skin and bone, and eats only crumbs. Mrs. Dunne has told me of one
incident in the garden, when Adeline is known to have damaged a number of yews.
If this is true, it is a great shame. The garden was clearly very beautiful. It
could be put to rights, but John has lost heart over the matter, and it is not
only the topiary but the garden in general that suffers from his lack of
interest. I will find the time and a way to restore his pride. It will do much
to improve the appearance and the atmosphere of the house if he can be made
happy in his work and the garden made orderly again.

Talking of John and the garden reminds me—I must speak to him
about the boy. Walking about the schoolroom this afternoon, I happened to come
near the window. It was raining, and I wanted to close the window so as not to
let any more damp in; the window ledge on the inside is already crumbling away.
If I hadn’t been so close to the window, nose almost pressed to the glass, in
fact, I doubt I’d have seen him. But there he was: a boy, crouching in the
flower bed, weeding. He was wearing a pair of men’s trousers, cut off at the
ankle and held up with a pair of braces. A wide-brimmed hat cast his face in
shadow, and I was unable to get a clear impression of his age, though he might
have been eleven or twelve. I know it is common practice in rural areas for
children to engage in horticultural work, though I thought it was more commonly
farmwork they did, and I appreciate the advantages of their learning their
trade early, but I do not like to see any child out of school during school
hours. I will speak to John about it and make sure he understands the boy must
spend school hours in school.

But to return to my subject: Where Adeline’s viciousness to her
sister is concerned, she might be surprised to know it, but I have seen it all
before. Jealousy and anger between siblings is commonplace, and in twins
rivalries are frequently heightened. With time I will be able to minimise the
aggression, but in the meantime constant vigilance is required to prevent
Adeline hurting her sister, and this slows down progress on other fronts, which
is a pity. Why Emmeline lets herself be beaten (and have her hair pulled out,
and be chased by Adeline wielding the fire tongs in which she carries hot
coals) I have yet to understand. She is twice the size of her sister and could
defend herself more vigorously than she does. Perhaps she flinches from
inflicting hurt on her sister; she is an affectionate soul.

My first judgment of Adeline in the early days was of a child
who might not ever come to live as independent and normal a life as her sister,
but who could be brought to a point of balance, of stability, and whose rages
could be contained by the imposition of a strict routine. I did not expect ever
to bring her to understanding. The task I foresaw was greater than for her
sister, but I expected far less thanks for it, for it would seem less in the
eyes of the world. But I have been startled into modifying that opinion by
signs of a dark and clouded intelligence. This morning she came into the
classroom dragging her feet, but without the worst displays of unwillingness,
and once in her seat, rested her head on her arm just as I have seen before. I
began the lesson. It was nothing more than the telling of a story, an
adaptation I had made for the purpose of the opening chapters of Jane Eyre, a
story loved by a great many girls. I was concentrating on Emmeline, encouraging
her to follow the story by animating it as much as possible. I gave one voice
to the heroine, another to the aunt, yet another to the cousin, and I
accompanied the storytelling with such gestures and expressions as seemed to
illustrate the emotions of the characters. Emmeline did not take her eyes off
me, and I was pleased with my effect.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement. Adeline had
turned her head in my direction. Still her head rested on her arm, still her
eyes appeared closed, yet I had the distinct impression she was listening to
me. Even if the change of position was meaningless (and it was not; she has
always turned away from me before), there is the alteration in the way she held
herself. Where she normally slumps over her desk when she sleeps, in a state of
animal unconsciousness, today her whole body seemed alert: the set of the
shoulders, a certain tension. As if she was straining toward the story, yet
still trying to give the impression of inert slumber.

I did not want her to see that I had noticed anything. I
continued to look as if I was reading only to Emmeline. I maintained the
animation of my face and voice. But all the time I was keeping an eye on
Adeline. And she wasn’t only listening. I caught a quiver of her lids. I had
thought her eyes closed, but not at all—from between her lashes, she was
watching me!

It is a most interesting development, and one that I foresee
will be the centerpin of my project here.

Then the most unexpected thing happened. The doctor’s face
changed. Yes, hanged, before my very eyes. It was one of those moments when a
face comes suddenly into new focus, when the features, all recognizably as they
were before, are prone to a dizzying shift and present themselves in an
unexpected new light. I would like to know what it is in a human mind that
causes the faces of those we know to shift and dance about like that. I have
ruled out optical effects, phenomena related to light and so on, and have
arrived at the conclusion that the explanation is rooted in the psychology of
the onlooker. Anyway, the sudden movement and rearrangement of his facial
features caused me to stare at him for a few moments, which must have seemed
very strange to him. When his features had ceased their jumping about, there
was something odd in his expression, too, something I could not, cannot fathom.
I do dislike what I cannot fathom.

We stared at each other for a few seconds, each as awkward as
the other, then rather abruptly he left.

I wish Mrs. Dunne would not move my books about. How many times
shall I have to tell her that a book is not finished until it is finished? And
if she must move it, why not put it back in the library whence it came? What is
the point of leaving it on the staircase?

I have had a curious conversation with John the gardener.

He is a good worker, more cheerful now that his topiary is
mending, and a helpful presence generally in the house. He drinks tea and chats
in the kitchen with Mrs. Dunne; sometimes I come across them talking in low
voices, which makes me think she is not as deaf as she makes out. Were it not
for her great age I would imagine some love affair going on, but since that is
out of the question I am at a loss to explain what their secret is. I taxed
Mrs. Dunne with it, unhappily, because she and I have a friendly understanding
about things for the most part; I think she approves of my presence here—not
that it would make any difference if she didn’t—and she told me that they talk
of nothing but household matters, chickens to be killed, potatoes to be dug and
the like. “Why talk so low?” I insisted, and she told me it was not low at all,
at least not particularly so. “But you don’t hear me when I talk low, ” I said,
and she answered that new voices are harder than the ones she is used to, and
if she understands John when he talks low it is because she has known his voice
for many years and mine for only a couple of months.

I had forgotten all about the low voices in the kitchen, until
this new odd-ness with John. A few mornings ago I was taking a walk just before
lunch in the garden when I saw again the boy who was weeding the flower bed
beneath the schoolroom window. I glanced at my watch, and again it was in
school hours. The boy did not see me, for I was hidden by the trees. I watched
him for a moment or two; he was not working at all but sprawled across the
lawn, engrossed in something on the grass, right under his nose. He wore the
same floppy hat as before. I stepped toward him meaning to get his name and
give him a lecture on the importance of education, but on seeing me he leaped
to his feet, clamped his hat to his head with one hand and sprinted away faster
than I have seen anyone move before. His alarm is proof enough of his guilt.
The boy knew perfectly well he should be at school. As he ran off he appeared
to have a book in his hand.

I went to John and told him just what I thought. I told him I
would not allow children to work for him in school hours, that it was wrong to
upset their education just for the few pence they earn, and that if the parents
did not accept that, I would go and see them myself. I told him if it was so
necessary to have further hands working on the garden that I would see Mr.
Angelfield and employ a man. I had already made this offer to get extra staff,
both for the garden and the house, but John and Mrs. Dunne were both so against
the idea I thought it better to wait until I was more acquainted with the
running of things here.

John’s response was to shake his head and deny all knowledge of
the child. When I impressed upon him the evidence of my own eyes, he said it
must be a village child just come wandering in, that it happened sometimes,
that he was not responsible for all the village truants who happened to be in
the garden. I told him then that I had seen the child before, the day I
arrived, and that the child was clearly working. He was tight-lipped, only
repeated that he had no knowledge of a child, that anyone could weed his garden
who wanted to, that there was no such child.

I told John, with a little anger that I cannot regret, that I
intended to speak to the schoolmistress about it, and that I would go directly
to the parents and sort the matter out with them. He simply waved his hand, as
if to say it was nothing to do with him and I might do as I liked (and I
certainly shall). I am sure he knows who the boy is, and I am shocked at his
refusal to help me in my duty toward him. It seems out of character for him to
be obstructive, but then I suppose he began his own apprenticeship as a child
and thought it never did him any harm. These attitudes are slow to die out in
rural areas.

I was engrossed in the diary. The barriers to legibility forced
me to read slowly, puzzling out the difficulties, using all my experience,
knowledge and imagination to flesh out the ghost words, yet the obstacles
seemed not to impede me. On the contrary, the faded margins, the eligibilities,
the blurred words seemed to pulse with meaning, vividly alive.

While I was reading in this absorbed fashion, in another part of
my mind entirely a decision was forming. When the train drew in at the station
where I was to descend for my connection, I found my mind made up. I was not
going home after all. I was going to Angelfield.

The local line train to Banbury was too crowded with Christmas
travelers to sit, and I never read standing up. With every jolt of the train,
every jostle and stumble of my fellow passengers, I felt the rectangle of
Hester’s diary against my chest. I had read only half of it. The rest could
wait.

What happened to you, Hester, I thought. Where on earth did you
go?

DEMOLISHING THE PAST

The windows showed me his kitchen was empty, and when I walked
back to the front of the cottage and knocked on the door, there ‘as no answer.

Might he have gone away? It was a time of year when people did
go away. But they went to their families, surely, and so Aurelius, having no
family, would stay here. Belatedly the reason for Aurelius’s absence occurred
to me: He would be out delivering cakes for Christmas parties. Where else would
a caterer be, just before Christmas? I would have to come back later. I put the
card I had bought through the mail slot and set off through the woods toward
Angelfield House.

It was cold; cold enough for snow. Beneath my feet the ground
was frost-hard and above the sky was dangerously white. I walked briskly. With
my scarf wrapped around my face as high as my nose, I soon warmed up.

At the clearing, I stopped. In the distance, at the site, there
was unusual activity. I frowned. What was going on? My camera was around neck,
beneath my coat; the cold crept in as I undid my buttons. Using my long lens, I
watched. There was a police car on the drive, builders’ vehicles and machinery
were all stationary, and the builders were standing in a loose cluster. They
must have stopped working a little while ago, for they were slapping their
hands together and stamping their feet to keep warm. Their hats were on the
ground or else slung by the strap from their elbows. One man offered a pack of
cigarettes. From time to time one of them addressed a comment to the others,
but there was no conversation. I tried to make out the expression on their unsmiling
faces. Bored? Worried? Curious? They stood turned away from the site, facing
the woods and my lens, but from time to time one or another cast a glance over
his shoulder to the scene behind them.