Eden Burning Read Free Page B

insights.
    “Also, a lot of convicts were sent here. It was called transport.” He put the chisel down. “But you didn’t have to be a criminal to be a convict. You could go to prison for stealing a few pennies, or for being in debt. You could be innocent, really. The innocent poor,” he said queerly.
    In the pause that followed, the words repeated themselves in Tee’s head with a kind of grave dignity: the innocent poor.
    “Well,” she said, wanting to break this gravity that verged on sadness, “well, ancestors are fascinating, don’t you think? You must wonder about yours”—and instantly flushed with the awareness of having said something awkward, something
out of place.
She apologized: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” making it worse.
    “That’s all right, Miss Tee.” He picked up the chisel, setting to work again. “Yes, I wonder about mine. Not that it does any good.”
    “You could be a teacher,” she said after a minute, wanting to make amends. “I think you know as much as my teachers know.”
    “I left school too early. My mother got sick and couldn’t work, so I took to this trade.” He turned around, his shoulders gone proud. “There’s no shame in working with your hands, as middle-class people, even among my people, seem to think.”
    “No, there certainly isn’t. And has your mother got well?”
    “She died.”
    “Oh. And your father?”
    “I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead. I never saw him.”
    “Oh. My father died when I was six. Would you believe I still think about him? I feel as if—I miss him, even though I couldn’t have known him well. I suppose it’s because I’m not very close to my mother.”
    Clyde looked at her. His eyes were kind. “That’s a great loss for you. And for her.”
    “She has two new babies and a new husband, so it probably doesn’t matter.” Her voice sounded bleak in her own ears.
    “There have to be more reasons than that, Miss Tee.”
    “Oh, there are! We’re very different, you see. My mother cares about clothes and entertaining and being invited places. She knows what families are important and who’s going to marry whom and who’s going abroad next month. But I don’t care about that sort of thing at all!”
    “What do you care about, then?”
    “Oh, books and dogs—all kinds of animals, actually, and riding, and of course I’d like to go abroad, too, not to see the fashions but—”
    “To see how other people live. To see Rome and London, the crowds and the great buildings—Yes, I’d like all that, too! And I mean to do it, someday.”
    “But then you’d want to come back here, wouldn’t you? I know I’d always come back. This is home.”
    “It’s different for you than for me,” he said quietly.
    Yes. Of course it was. His life and hers, both lived upon this little island, were different, indeed. And she had those queer feelings again: pity and a certain guilt—which was absurd; none of this was her fault!
    Agnes remarked indignantly, “I never saw such an uppity boy, talking away with you by the hour—you’d think he was part of the family or something!”
    “He isn’t ‘uppity,’ Agnes. He’s very polite. And he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever known!”
    “Hmph,” replied Agnes.
    Agnes was jealous. Tee understood. Having no children of her own and having been scorned for it, Agnes had taken possession of Tee and couldn’t share her. Yes, she was jealous of Clyde.
    How strange it was that, outside of Père, a person like Clyde should be the easiest friend she had ever made! At school she had no deep friendships; there had once been a girl who read poetry with her, but she had gone to live in England and now there was no one.
    Clyde appreciated poetry.
    “Listen to this,” she said. “It’s by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and it’s the loveliest of all, I think. Listen.
    I thank all who have loved me in their hearts
With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all
Who paused