The Young Clementina Read Free

minor key. Everybody knew it as Jeremiah; even Mother, who thought the joke was unbecoming in a parson, had been heard to refer to it as Jeremiah in times of stress. “It’s a quarter to one by Jeremiah, and Martha has not got the potatoes on!”
    So Jeremiah came to me, in spite of the fact that Kitty wanted him, and that he would have looked well in Kitty’s spacious mansion, and blocked the hall of my tiny flat. Kitty had so much, she had taken so much from me, that I felt I was justified in refusing her Jeremiah—she did not want Jeremiah as much as I did.
    I took a few other things when the old home was broken up; things that Kitty didn’t want; shabby things that had been in my life ever since I could remember—the old schoolroom chair, with its creaking basketwork frame and knobby cushions, the old schoolroom bureau, scored with the thoughtless kicks of childish feet—these were the things I wanted. They were familiar things, kind and friendly, I took them with me to cheer my loneliness and lighten my exile. It is curious, isn’t it, that things you know well never look dirty and dilapidated—other people’s old furniture looks shabby and moth-eaten. “I would never have that horrible old couch in my room,” you say. But your own old couch is every bit as bad and you are not disgusted with its appearance; it is your friend, you see, and you remember it when it was new and smart. Friends that you have known for a long time and love very dearly never seem to grow old.
    I’m afraid my flat must look very shabby in your eyes, Clare, but I hope it looks comfortable and cozy. Mrs. Cope lighted the fire before she left, there is a nice red glow in its heart and the yellow flames shoot up cheerfully. Pull in your chair, my dear, and let us be comfortable. It is cozy, isn’t it, Clare? Tonight, it seems to me more comfortable and cozy than it has ever done, because I may be leaving it. I may be leaving all these things which have been in my life for twelve years—I’ve got to decide whether I am leaving it or not and I haven’t very long.
    If this had happened ten years ago—even five years ago—I should not have needed anybody’s help to decide what to do. I was a rebel then; I pined for freedom. I would have shaken the dust of Wentworth’s from my feet at anybody’s bidding and fared forth to any job which promised luxury and leisure and the right to walk out of doors when the sun shone. But now I am deeply sunk in a groove and I shrink from any change. I have led the life of a hermit in the heart of a city—you can, you know—and I find, somewhat to my surprise, that I don’t want to leave my cell.

Chapter Three
Days of Friendship
    We must go back—right back to my childhood at Hinkleton Parsonage—I must try to make you see those days because the seeds which were sown then have grown into trees and are now bearing fruit. The seeds were sown, and the trees grew up, there was blossom, and then fruit—bitter fruit some of it.
    I was born in the Parsonage at Hinkleton, a big old-fashioned rambling parsonage, with a huge garden—untended for the most part since father’s stipend would not stretch itself to cover the wages of a competent gardener. It was a paradise for children, a paradise of old trees with low branches inviting the most timid climber to the perils of ascent; of wild flowers growing like weeds through feathery grasses; of moss-covered paths winding among dense shrubberies where one could play at brigands or big game hunting without fear of interruption. I was the eldest child, and, four years after, came Kitty. Mother nearly died when Kitty was born, she was warned that there must be no more babies, so the little son that Mother wanted so desperately could never be hers. She withdrew into herself after that—so father told me during those last four years that he and I spent alone