Perdita

by Hilary Scharper

  I do not know how he found me or why he came, but Dr. McTavish was suddenly beside me, drawing me away from the trees; he was still dressed in his evening clothes and without a coat. He called my name and attempted to pull me back toward the house, but I resisted him.

  “What is happening?” I cried, pointing to the trees. “What is it that is trying to destroy them?”

  “Marged,” he shouted next to my ear. I could barely hear him, for the sound of the boughs tossing was overwhelming. “Let him go! You must let him go!”

  “What do you mean?” I cried. It seemed as if the whole forest was about to collapse upon us. The trees were moving with such wild agitation!

  “Let him go,” he insisted, this time as if beseeching me, and then somehow I knew he meant George, and I sank down as if some livid cord of fire had been extinguished in me. Then the trees quieted, and I knew they were out of danger—and though their boughs continued to move with a lingering restlessness, I knew them to be safe.

  Dr. McTavish led me back to the house and saw me safely into bed, covering me up as he would a small child and staying with me to see that I was settled. As he departed, he asked me if I wished him to leave the candle burning, but I told him that I wanted only darkness.

  April 11 [?] (One page missing.)

  …My eyes filled, and I turned away from him. Again, what was he asking me? I was not sure, but he grew so quiet and anxious. He took my hand and held it for a few moments, almost in a mournful manner. Then he just left—without saying a word. I am glad that he did not say good-bye. Somehow I am glad.

  I think I must be in love with George—or in love with the part of him that paints such beautiful pictures.

  April 15

  We are arrived at Owen Sound and will spend the evening in this hotel. I had hoped to see Tad, but he has not as yet arrived, for we were told that the water was quite rough yesterday and this may have delayed him.

  I am sure that I have been a wretched companion for Dr. McTavish; honestly, I do not know what possessed me to be so peevish with him! And he has been so kind and patient that I doubly feel remorse for my conduct.

  I think it was that he insisted upon interrogating me as to what birds I recognized as we stopped in each station, and then I must also name the trees that we saw through the window as the train moved northward. I was so enthralled to see the forests as they appeared and then grew suddenly frustrated at having to name the species for him, including, of course, all their Latinates. I am sure that Dr. McT. did this to distract me, for I have been most anxious about the trip and how Mother might take it. She, however, has done beautifully and seems quite content…but I grew aggravated, for I felt that I knew my trees quite well enough, though I do not possess his naturalist’s eye.

  I tried to explain that I do see them—not as he does, but I see the trees in their movement or form, as they stand together. Was it not enough that I should see them so?

  He said that I was now trained to see things differently—to develop new powers of observation—for such was how I could paint his illustrations and provide the detail that he desires for them. I grew peevish and declared my dissatisfaction with my painting of the grebe. I exclaimed that though it took so much care to render each of its feathers, yet to me it looks nothing like a real grebe! In my mind’s eye, I said, I see the bird as a shadow moving on the water—the outline of a head—and then I hear it calling and know it to be a grebe. I cannot see it without the sky and water…

  My thinking no doubt was all in a tumult—for I know Dr. McT. to be correct in teaching me to know the trees individually and to learn the habits of different birds so that I might identify them. Mr. Muir does the same, urging us to love nature as a teacher. Dr. McTavish said that if what one saw was “just trees,” then they belonged to no one, and that is why the timber companies cut them down and destroyed the forests without thought to preserving parts of them. He said that the naturalist must appreciate the trees and study their attributes, for in so doing, we show them to be the homes of birds and other animals.

  I responded that I did not disagree, but that it was not what I meant at all when I said that I saw them whole—to me their great beauty is in their collection, in the way they seem to tumble into each other. Dr. McT. shook his head and said that a forest is no “tumble” but rather a “system” that naturalists understood best. I suppose that he is right, but I was stubborn and closed up my lips, and would not speak further on it. And now I am truly sorry for my ill temper.

  Tad has come to meet us! I can hear his voice below!

  April 17

  Home! At last, I am home! Even now, Claude thrusts his great, lovely head into my lap, demanding all of my attention.

  April 18

  Beautiful and alive—there are a thousand things that I might write of and yet I cannot. I want to see everything at once—be everywhere at once. Auntie’s hairbrush always placed to one side of her dresser, the sound of distant waves stirring in the morning—the smell of Tad’s rags for cleaning his gun and the new grass as it whispers near the Basin. They are all exquisite to me, defying any order or description that I might give them in my journal. For once I am not drawn to writing, but only do so from a reluctance to abandon my habit.

  April 19

  Uncle Gil says that I have become quite a lady! He will not let me do my chores as I have done before, but instead takes the water pail and will carry it for me and will not allow me to carry the wood. Yesterday he lifted me onto Flore, but not at my request, for I have mounted her by myself many a time.

  Have I changed so?

  It is true that I wear my hair a little differently, and that my clothes are finer than before, but I am not changed. Each day I seem to find more and more of myself!

  April 20

  I am so happy to be here—and yet there is a restlessness in me that exists alongside a deep contentedness. It is George, of course: I think I am waiting for him to come with the boaters, and though I keep reminding myself that he will not, still I go to the Basin almost every evening to watch for him.

  April 21

  Tonight I walked the long way round to the Basin—away from the fishing camp, for already there are quite a number of the families there, and I can smell the smoke from their fires. I came to the clearing and saw two schooners and knew that the season was starting again—a season with all its familiarities and routines, its constants and continuities. But even so, I feel a hollowness—though my heart devours each blessing and each returning part.

  Claude followed me out to the Point and stayed close by my side as if to offer me his sympathy for a mood he discerned but did not understand. I looked at the Lodge thinking of George, and though the Stewarts will come and Allan is so dear to me, still it will be lifeless without him. I grew anxious, for I wondered if I might ever be happy here without George. As if George and this place were one and the same, and in denying me his heart, he had absconded with part of my soul and I should never be whole.

  I was angry with myself for such thoughts, and so I walked back along the coastline, and it did me good to walk across the stones and choose my footing carefully. I felt the quick alliance between foot and eye as I stepped briskly from rock to rock, and no jagged outcropping stopped me, for I mounted these and made my way across them undeterred.

  It did me much good, for the water was rough and restless, out of sympathy with the shore and dissatisfied with itself. Perhaps I was a fitting companion, for I am also out of sorts with myself.

  Yet even so, I think that I am perversely pleased that I might brew a storm for no apparent reason. I’d swig my storm down—like Dr. Stone and her whiskey! Perhaps that is why she drinks—not to quell but to nourish some inner storm that has no impassive shoreline and weathered rocks to endure it.

  April 22

  I am sending a letter to George—am I foolish to do so? Will it only pain him�
�or perhaps he will treat it as the foolish fancy of a young girl. And yet I must write to him. I am wrong to think of us as day and night! Perhaps George did try to cross the threshold—and it was I who withdrew.

  But do I possess the courage to send it to him?

  April 22, 1898

  Dear George,

  The last time we saw each other, you asked me if I might go away—with a man like yourself, you said, and travel all the world. I did not answer your question but instead evaded you.

  I am sorry for this. It was unworthy of you. I do not know your thoughts, and much of the time you seem to avoid me—and then you are there again, saying things I cannot fully fathom.

  Dr. McTavish has told me that you will be leaving soon, and I fear that I shall not see you for a long time. I cannot think that it will be forever; surely there will be a time when our paths might cross again.

  I am afraid that you might think that my regard for you is…so much less than it truly is. Perhaps this is my fault, for ever do I seem contrary in your presence. And yet, I do not mean to be so! I do not know how you mix your paints or indeed how you know to place your brush in such a way that the strokes convey the spirit of this place; it is only a part, but it is such that I can see the Bay in your canvases, living and real! I can see the trees, and I hear them moving, though your canvas is silent. I do not know how you do this, and it is a wondrous thing to me because I can do nothing like it. I can only be here—as a part of this place.

  Somehow I feel that everything about myself—all my strivings and even my stubborn perversities, but certainly all that is truly good in me—has been, is already here, out in the Bay. All that is myself has already been formed in the Bay, and it hardly matters what moment it is in which I breathe and live and die. I feel as if…I have already happened. I am already an echo of myself. I have already been lonely, restless, tranquil by these waters. They know me before I know myself.

  I think people come here sometimes—the boaters perhaps—and find a fragment of themselves. They do strange, incongruous things because it is only a piece, but nevertheless a piece of themselves. I cannot do this! I find everything here. All of me! There is nothing left behind, no other place that has a claim to me. Here my heart breaks whole. Here my soul is filled. Here my hate and anger are true storms—and here my love fills all the heavens and all the earth.

  Dearest George, may God bless you always.

  Yours,

  Marged

  April 30

  George has left for New York. Dr. McTavish told me as I unpacked my paints and arranged them. It is almost as if he has told me that George will marry Caroline Ferguson.

  I think he told me so that I might be busy and not have to show my face to him. The Stewarts will be here next week, but I cannot expect that George will be among them.

  I do not think that what I feel is jealousy, but my heart feels as if it were full of sharp knives and that, as I walk about, they shift and pierce me anew. It is not just that I feel he will not be happy. What I feel—what I sense—is something more! As if some cold-blooded thing were pushing him forward and I am powerless to release him from it. Surely he must know that it is wrong—so wrong! I cannot believe that he might love her…

  I am crying and I must not let the others see my red eyes. Now I am left to wonder if he received my letter before he departed. Perhaps I will never know.

  May 2

  Dr. McTavish says that I have become terribly brooding and that if I don’t smile at him at least once soon, he shall cast himself into the Bay.

  He is anxious for me—of this I am aware, but I am not quite sure that he fully understands my temperament, and this causes him some unrest. I asked him if he ever had something that he wished for, but knew that he could not have. He answered promptly with a firm yes! I was surprised and asked him if he could tell me what it was.

  “An ostrich,” he said. “I have always wished to perform an ostrich, but I am far too stout and could never pull it off.” He looked so solemn as he said this that I burst out laughing—and then I think I was crying. And then he said, “You see—I do not dwell on the dark things as you do, Marged. I hoped for a smile, but have been granted your laughter.”

  May 5

  Mother was asleep in her chair downstairs, and I came upon Auntie, though she did not hear me enter the room behind her. For once her hands were not busy, and she sat staring out the window and I could see that her thoughts were far away.

  I came up to her and put my arms around her, and in a slight, oh so slight movement, she rested her head against my arm. Somehow I knew she was thinking of Luke, of her little boy, so beloved, and whom she will not see again until her journey to the next life—and even in this, we are never spared all uncertainty.

  Of all of them—Mother and Tad and Uncle Gil—I think Auntie Alis would truly understand my sentiments. Though she hardly ever speaks of her own feelings, and her spoken words are often harsh and uncompromising—she would understand.

  May 7

  Tad has had a talk with me. I am glad, for I feel as if my own thoughts have become a torment to me, and there is so little that he does not see and perceive about me.

  He asked me outright. We took a walk down to the gate to see if the beavers were causing a flood again, and he said, taking his pipe from his mouth and in his quiet way, “Marged, is your heart set upon George Stewart then?”

  I started to cry, and we stood looking at the gate—I with my arm in his—and he waited patiently until I might finish and compose myself.

  “He’s a fine man,” Tad said finally, “but he knows not how to be content with being master of himself, but instead he wishes to rule all the world around him.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Tad?” I cried, for I found him to be so enigmatic, too!

  He pulled on his pipe a bit, and then, as I quieted, he said, “My own father always told me that ‘tis the man as is the master, but ‘tis the woman who rules. I never knew what he meant by it until I married your mother. George will find it out soon enough, Marged, but it’s a lesson no woman can teach him, nor any man either.”

  We were silent some moments, and then he asked me if I might leave off my writing for a bit and not let my thoughts sit so hard with me, but to let them come and go as they might.

  I was not so sure, but I have agreed to his request.

  Ten

  “Garth!”

  I jumped—it was Edna hurrying up the stairs behind me.

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t see Marged. She’s not up to a visit today.”

  I let her catch her breath. “Is everything all right?” I asked anxiously.

  “She’s been complaining about an owl hooting in the backyard and keeping her up nights, so we gave her a sleeping pill. She’s very eager to see you, though.”

  Edna leaned against me heavily as I helped her back down the stairs. “I’m glad I caught you, Garth. I’ve been so busy, but I wanted to ask you how it’s been going with that birth certificate.”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  “What do you think? Could she be the same Marged Brice?”

  “I’m certainly not saying she is,” I replied evasively.

  “I know, I know,” she grumbled. “But you’re not saying she absolutely isn’t, are you?”

  I said nothing.

  “Good!” Edna exclaimed. “Then we’re still in the game as far as the Longevity Project is concerned.” She paused on the bottom step. “Wait a minute. Take this before I forget.”

  She handed me a large manila envelope, then eyed me curiously, trying to peek inside as I opened it. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just something Miss Brice wants me to take a look at.”

  “Oh? I wonder what it could be?”

  I hesitated for a split second. “Actually, it’s one of Marged’s diaries. She’
s asked me to read some of them.”

  Edna gave me a shrewd look. “Marged mentioned she’d given you her journals. In fact, it was sort of my idea.”

  I reminded myself never to try to deceive Edna.

  “By the way—” She stopped me as I opened the front door. “Since you’re already here, would you mind saying hello to Walter Graham? We’re having a bit of a crisis today.”

  “What’s he been up to?” Walt happened to be my favorite veteran at the Clarkson.

  “He’s been upsetting the residents with some nonsense about a ghost in the home,” she said disapprovingly.

  “A what!”

  Edna laughed. “Believe me, this isn’t the first one he’s seen!”

  I found Walt dozing in a lawn chair out under the trees by the front porch. I coughed a few times and then waited patiently for him to wake up. After a minute or so, I stepped closer and gently shook him.

  A breeze suddenly pushed a branch forward, and it grazed the back of my shoulder, making me wince as its needles pierced through my shirt and pressed uncomfortably against my scar.

  “Perfessor, is that you?” Walt sat up and blinked at me from behind an enormous pair of sunglasses. “Where the heck you been? I’ve been waitin’ to finish that story about Perugia.”

  I apologized, saying that I had been busy doing something for Edna.

  Walt took off his glasses and rubbed his chin. “She sent you to read me the Riot Act, didn’t she?”

  I smiled. “What’s all this about a ghost?”

  “Is it my fault we got a new ghost?”

  “A new ghost?”

  “Yep. I been here eight years, but this one—it’s a doozy!”

  I tried to keep a straight face. “Tell me about it.”

  Walt looked at me hard. “Yer not pullin’ my leg, are you?”

  “No, Walt. I want to hear about it.”

  “Well, this one I never see, but I hear her. It’s a little kid. She pats my face. Tells me I’m still alive, first thing in the mornin’.”