The Spanish Gardener

by A. J. Cronin

  In the dimness which ensued he slipped back, seated himself at the head of the bed, and placed his hand lightly on the little boy’s forehead.

  “We’ve known each other a long time, Nicholas.” He spoke quite gaily. “I’m sure you look upon me as a friend, rather than a physician. You’re not at all afraid of me?”

  Since an answer seemed to be expected of him, Nicholas, lying on his back with his eyes on the ceiling, mumbled:

  “No.”

  “Good,” rejoined the Professor, in a more tempered tone. “ I want you to feel, above all, that you can talk to me freely, just as you would to another boy.… Incidentally”—above the grey imperial the psychiatrist’s yellow teeth bared in that same confederate’s smile—“you are growing into a big boy yourself … which must make quite a difference to your ideas … your thoughts about life. It’s these thoughts I’d like to hear about … and you needn’t hesitate to tell me anything, the most shocking thing in the world. Now what, for example, are you thinking about now?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicholas answered after a moment.

  “Oh, come, my dear chap,” jested the Professor, but softly. “Nature abhors a vacuum. I’m sure that clever little head of yours is not completely empty. Tee! hee! In fact, it’s a Pandora’s box, out of which you and I are going to bring the most remarkable things. Just imagine you are lifting the lid of that box. What is it you see at this moment? What is it that you feel?”

  “I feel your fingers on my brow. They’re like cotton-wool,” Nicholas replied slowly, rather awkwardly. “And I see the bars of light on the ceiling. They come from the shutters.”

  “Excellent,” complimented the Professor. “Go on.”

  “About what?”

  “Anything you wish … tell me the train of your thoughts … after the shutters.…”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Nicholas said doubtfully. “ They sort of give me the impression as if I were in a prison. It’s so dark, you see, and these bars slanting all over the place rather make me want to get out.”

  “And if you were out, what would you do?”

  “Go fishing,” replied Nicholas without the slightest hesitation.

  “Fishing?” echoed the psychiatrist, in the tone of one whom nothing amazed.

  “Yes; that is what I’d do. I’d get on that lovely old creaky bus and drive right up into the mountains.” Under the stroking fingers, a dreamy smile passed over the little boy’s thin, upturned face. “Then I’d go down to the green valley and sit in the sun on the mill dam. I’d look at the cowslips and the wild irises, and the cork oaks. I’d bait my line and fish there in the pool all day long. And maybe I might catch an even bigger trout,”

  “You’d go alone, of course?” murmured the Professor, attentively.

  “Of course not.” The boy’s remote smile deepened; he spoke without embarrassment. “ José would come with me. He’s the one who showed me how to do it.”

  “To do what?” breathed Halevy quickly.

  “To fish, naturally. He’s a wonderful fisherman. And the best pelota player in San Jorge. Yet he’s so humble about it. And he works so hard, so awfully hard in the garden.…”

  “You are fond of José?” prompted the Professor with inexhaustible suavity.

  “Oh, yes, indeed I am …” cried the little boy. “José is my friend.”

  There was a brief silence in which the moted bars seemed to quiver with a strange pure light. The clairvoyant fingers maintained their measured rhythm, the murmurous voice resumed:

  “When your father was away, you went to this river with José. And when the fishing was over, what did you do?”

  “I had my siesta.”

  “With José?”

  “Oh, yes, José lay beside me on the grass. It was so nice there, so warm in the sun.”

  “Of course,” agreed this devil’s confessor with a secret grimace. “I understand. I am not shocked, my child. Do not be frightened by what you tell me.”

  “But why should I be frightened?” Nicholas answered immediately. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I am only telling you the truth.”

  The Professor bit his lip and exclaimed, with momentary irritation:

  “Surely you did wrong to disobey your father.”

  “I did not really mean to disobey him. It was chiefly because of Garcia.”

  “Ah!” said Halevy. “ We will return to that in a moment. But meanwhile … you admit you are fond of José.”

  “I cannot help my feelings,” Nicholas said seriously.

  “No one is blaming you, my child.” The psychiatrist’s manner altered, became soothing again, as though once more he felt himself on safe and familiar ground. “I know you like José to be near you, to touch you. You would, for instance, rather it was he beside you now, stroking your hair …”

  “Oh, much rather …” Nicholas exclaimed, and blushed suddenly for his unwitting rudeness.

  But the Professor, delighted by that sign of shame, took no offence. The routine of his work had long made him indifferent to the worst insults, the most infamous abuse which distorted minds could heap upon him. He sought only to turn this childish confusion to his own advantage.

  “And because you wished him to be near you … to touch you”—he smiled confidingly—“ that is why you went home with him?”

  Nicholas moved uncomfortably, as though wishing he might look his hidden questioner in the face. This great dim room, the golden slatted beams which danced above him, the soft, persistent massage of his temples, all conspired to produce in him a pressing sense of lassitude in which complete acquiescence to these puzzling questions seemed the easiest, indeed the only course. Yet something within himself, the inner core of his fragile, childish spirit, forced him to resist.

  “I do like José very much.…”

  “You mean you love him,” insinuated the Professor with a kind of holy gentleness.

  “Well, yes, I love him.” Nicholas’ flush deepened. “ But it was because of Garcia that I went home with him.”

  Halevy laughed shortly—how well he knew the value of that brief show of derision which, like an unexpected dagger thrust, had so often rent those veils of simulation which all his sympathy had failed to pierce.

  “Garcia … always Garcia!” he threw out contemptuously. “ I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “It does not matter whether you believe me or not,” Nicholas answered in a clear, proud voice, “ so long as it is true.”

  There was another silence, sudden, arresting; and a slow wave of animosity crept under the Professor’s impervious skin. This childish resistance, so unlooked-for, was exasperating in the extreme to a man of his experience. Not for an instant did he believe that Nicholas spoke the truth. In his universe, the world wherein he moved and breathed, normality had no place. Life was a steamy jungle, where unseen forces coiled and writhed in black and bitter mud. Well … he had dealt with delinquent children before, and cracked their armour in the end. He could entrap this stubbornness with a dozen tricks, each one of greater subtlety.

  His poise regained, he smiled winningly at Nicholas and, with an intensification of his ministering, his sacerdotal air, took possession of his arm.

  “My dear child … I am grieved that you should so misunderstand me. I am not thinking in terms of right and wrong. So why should you defend yourself? I am on your side. What is called wickedness is no more than instinct, the legacy of a million years of primeval existence. Perhaps these big words confuse you, and that’s the last thing we want. You must simply realise that angels no longer exist, that what you have done is only human. The danger lies in hiding it. If only you will lay it bare before me, then it becomes nothing … we can laugh at it together.”

  “Laugh at what?” asked Nicholas from between his teeth.

  “This, for instance,” murmured Halevy, casually producing the sheet of messages and holding it before the little boy’s gaze.

  Nicholas stiffened all over, as though braving himself
against a blow; then his body gradually grew limp and he turned his clouded eyes away.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” murmured the Professor quickly, with a pacifying gesture. “But when you wrote like this, why pretend? You must have said much nicer things to José when you were alone with him … when you went to his home, for instance … and you were together during the night.”

  “We didn’t say anything.” Nicholas spoke dully, with averted head.

  “But, my dear child,” whispered this satanic prelate, bringing his cheek close to the boy’s pillow, “you were there … just the two of you together … in the darkness.…”

  A shiver passed over the child as though vaguely he were conscious of some unknown yet monstrous evil looming out of the shadows, pressing down upon him with irresistible insistence, striking fear and repulsion into his heart. Into what shameful kingdom of darkness and disgust was he being led? He wanted to throw himself from the bed, to run from the room, to disappear. Yet an overwhelming fatigue held him there, made him want to yield, to sue for mercy. After all, what difference did it make? Why should he not accept this hidden meaning, eat of the poisoned fruit with which this man now enticed him? But at that moment an imperious order rose from the very depth of his being. He clenched his hands involuntarily and, with a great effort, wrenched himself free from the other’s clasp, sat up defiantly on the bed. His face was very pale, his heart beating like mad. But he looked the Professor in the face, with all his strength, as though he were defending his life.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. But I am not going to say it. I’ve told you I only went with José because Garcia scared me so badly. You can ask Magdalena, if you like. She will tell you. I wanted my father to ask her before.”

  The Professor concealed his mortification in a cold smile. He got to his feet, as though accepting a challenge he had long expected.

  “Very well. We shall ask Magdalena.”

  Seated upright, his breath coming fast, Nicholas saw the Professor pull the tasselled cord twice, heard the faint jangling of the bell in the far-off recesses of the house. After a few minutes of straining silence, the heavy, sluggish footsteps of the cook sounded on the service stairs. A knock on the door. She entered.

  “Magdalena,” said the Professor, “ it has been suggested that during the recent absence of your master, certain irregularities occurred in the household. In the first place, did Garcia remain in Barcelona on the night of Saturday?”

  The woman, planted heavily by the doorway, stared stolidly at the Professor from beneath her brows. Her hands, slightly smeared with flour, hung away from her black dress.

  “No,” she said. “All the time, Garcia was here.”

  An electric shock passed through Nicholas. His body came forward with a jerk. Stupefied, his mouth trembling so that he could scarcely pronounce the words, he entreated:

  “But, Magdalena …”

  “Silence, please.” Halevy returned his gaze to the cook. “ In the second place, did Garcia indulge in a drunken orgy on Sunday night?”

  “No, señor …” Her motionless features might have been hewn out of wood. “Garcia does not drink.”

  “So he did not strike you, or frighten Nicholas in any way?”

  She shook her head.

  “Garcia is a good man. It is well known. He never struck me in his life.”

  “Oh, Magdalena,” Nicholas burst out in a heartbreaking tone, “how can you? You know he hit you. In the pantry. You were crying like anything. It was horrible. And he had the knife …” He broke off, overcome by a panic which seemed to rise sickeningly from his stomach.

  “That will be all, Magdalena,” Halevy said. “Thank you for bearing with us.”

  The cook stood a moment, as though scarcely aware that she was dismissed. Throughout the interview her bovine eyes had remained fixed dully, immovably, upon the Professor, but now, for an instant, they flickered towards Nicholas. She did not lose countenance; the downward curve of her lips remained unaltered, yet, with unexpected abruptness, she swung round and shuffled out.

  With a cry of childish anguish, Nicholas collapsed on to the pillow, overwhelmed by this betrayal, tears pouring down his cheeks.

  “Oh, José …” he whispered brokenly to himself. “Where are you, José? … What do they mean to do to us?”

  Professor Halevy, his expression indecipherable, took one step forward, then halted. Several times he caressed his tufted chin, his narrow head cocked to one side, like a ferret ready to attack. No, he thought finally, not a word more. A little solitude, a few more tears, and the last resistance will vanish. Quietly, he reassured himself that the shutters were still tightly drawn, then, amidst that sound of muffled sobbing, he tiptoed from the room.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harrington Brande paid only a cursory visit to the Consulate that morning, remaining there in a state of mounting tension for about an hour, before hastening back, with nerves a-quiver, to have luncheon with his house guest. Now the mournful meal was over, the Professor had made his report, and the two men sat in the dining-room, where coffee had been served to them.

  “Then there is no doubt remaining in your mind.” The Consul, with haggard face and bitter mouth, stirring his cup broodingly, at last broke the silence which had fallen upon them.

  “None whatever.” The Professor swallowed his coffee with every appearance of satisfaction. “That transference of the guilt complex is quite typical … and his breakdown, when he was confronted with Magdalena.”

  Brande’s pale brow drew together in a sudden spasm.

  “I hope it was not too severe a trial for my son.”

  “My dear friend … what are a few childish tears, a temporary heartache, against the major issue at stake?”

  “He is not suffering now?” Again Brande groped for some alleviation of that anxiety which permeated the very marrow of his bones.

  “Probably he is sound asleep … that is the usual sequel to a successful catharsis. In any case, you must not go near him. Solitude … opportunity for reflection … these are essential components of my treatment. I repeat—at all costs, these abnormal tendencies, which already seem tenacious, must be torn out by the roots.”

  Beneath the table, the Consul compressed his napkin into a hard, tight ball. Not looking at Halevy, he said:

  “And José?”

  The Professor put down his cup with a reflective frown.

  “I cross-examined him at length this morning. A plausible rascal.” He hesitated. “ I know how you feel about him, my dear Brande, but actually what can we do? You cannot take proceedings against him without inflicting enormous damage on Nicholas and yourself. The publicity alone … it’s unthinkable.”

  “Something must be done.” In a tone of menace, Brande bit out the words, his head sunk deep in his shoulders.

  “Then be patient. If you give a fellow of that type enough rope, he’s sure to hang himself. Why, Garcia let out, quite by accident, when I talked with him before lunch, that lately he’s missed several small sums of money from his room. He didn’t say it in so many words—he’s too discreet for that—but I was sharp enough to see that he suspects José is the thief.”

  “What?” The Consul, absorbed in bitter brooding, spoke the word dully. Then gradually Halevy’s meaning seemed to penetrate. He drew himself erect, his injected eye lit by a slow gleam. “Money stolen from Garcia …” he repeated. “This must be seen to without delay.”

  Before Halevy could answer, he reached out and rang the small silver bell which stood before him on the table. A longish pause followed. Then the butler appeared, buttoning on his white mess jacket, swallowing a last morsel of food.

  “Forgive me, señor,” he murmured. “I thought you had finished. Magdalena and I …”

  “Yes, Garcia. I quite understand,” broke in the Consul. “And I am sorry to disturb you at your meal. But a matter of extreme importance has just been brought to my notice. Is it the case that you have recently lost certain s
ums of money?”

  “Lost, señor?” Garcia permitted himself the liberty of a slight shrug. “One does not lose money from a locked drawer in one’s room.”

  “Ah! Then the money was stolen.”

  “Undoubtedly, señor. The lock was skilfully picked.”

  The Consul drew a deep, quick breath, as though he scarcely dared to hope.

  “You take it very calmly, my good man.”

  Again Garcia shrugged, in a quiet yet disdainful manner.

  “It was not a fortune, señor. Altogether, perhaps thirty or forty pesos were stolen. My philosophy of life does not permit me to regard that as a great disaster. Moreover, I have lived in great houses, like that of the de Aostas where I was forced to associate with dishonest colleagues. Nevertheless …” He paused, his eyes, inscrutable in that impassive mask, bent unblinkingly upon the Consul’s face. “ Nevertheless, señor, I am not calm.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, señor,” Garcia answered, deliberately keeping those pale yet clouded eyes full upon the other, “I fear that some things of greater value have been stolen.”

  There was a dead silence. Brande’s mouth had fallen agape. Halevy leaned across the table with every sign of interest.

  “Yes,” the butler resumed, shifting his gaze courteously to include the Professor. “ I do not care to speak first; it is not my place. Nor do I desire to make trouble for another. But since you, yourself, raise the subject, I simply ask you, señor … what has become of those articles of value which you keep in the little box upon your dressing-table?”

  The Consul licked his lips. His voice came queerly:

  “You mean my evening studs—my cufflinks …?”

  “And your small flat watch with diamonds … the sapphire dress buttons … the signet ring.… all your choice possessions.” Garcia took up the enumeration gravely. “ I observe them when I am valeting you, señor. And I have never seen finer.”

  It was true enough. The Consul from his private means had amply indulged a definite fondness for elegant bijouterie which, worn with full dress at official functions, set off his classic features and imposing figure to advantage, invested him with an appearance of superior rank.