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By Root 549 0

though she gave no sign of interest at the time, after a few days Adrienne noticed that whenever Clemmie had a spare moment she would get out the pencils and start making strange designs with them. She never made any attempt at figures – the sort of awkward men and animals that other children did – but instead would carefully and deliberately draw exaggerated coloured contour lines around the capital letters of her books, contours that were filled in with backgrounds of blue, red or green and which were sometimes three times as large as the original letters. Sometimes she would add meticulously drawn hatching to give solidity and depth, and here and there would add a huge eye or some horns. A little later she started doing similar drawings in her school copybooks, all just as precise and careful as if they had been part of her school work. However, if someone called her she would put it down at once, as if she had no real interest in it, and if her mother tried to make some light-hearted comment, or enquire why she was doing it and what it meant, the child would merely reply with cold indifference ‘I just do it’ or ‘It doesn’t mean anything’ or even, with studied politeness, ‘I don’t know why, I just do it!’

Clemmie never said anything about herself or her feelings. She never confided in anyone and it seemed as if nothing ever stirred her heart. She was never anything but polite and well-mannered; but she was always reserved and distant. The expression on her pretty, slightly Tartar-like features never changed and she always kept her brown eyes half closed, as if she were being careful not to reveal anything of herself. Her hair was very black and straight, just like her father’s; and indeed she seemed to be completely Pal Uzdy’s daughter not only in physical resemblance but also in character. In her there was nothing of her mother and nothing of that robust joy of life that characterized her mother’s family.

For nearly a year Adrienne fought hard to find the way to her daughter’s heart. She fought with love and tenderness and she sacrificed every minute of every day to gain her daughter’s love and confidence. Eventually Adrienne realized that all these months of emotional struggle and effort had produced no result at all except perhaps to make matters worse between them. Everything she had done had been in vain and it seemed as if in some way it was those same efforts, that constant care and constant attention, that had somehow provoked even more withdrawal on her daughter’s part. Adrienne could not put her finger on whatever it was that was wrong: she could sense it but she could find no reason.

It was then that she had made the painful decision to separate herself from little Clemmie and send her to school in Lausanne.

Now, coming back from her first visit to her daughter, she knew that it had been a wise decision, and not only because for the first time Clemmie had seemed pleased to see her mother; she had also shown signs of real affection. It had clearly done her good to be among girls of her own age who enjoyed life and played boisterously all around her.

What the head-mistress had reported to her had been reassuring, even if not completely so.

Clemmie, she had been told, was an excellent pupil, obedient and industrious. At first, the head-mistress said, she had been worried that, although always polite, Clemmie had been exceptionally unfriendly towards the other girls, but this had gradually begun to disappear, especially after she had begun to take part in the school sports. The girl had been taught tennis, rowing and a number of other ball-games and, so as to put her more at her ease, she had been given five companions of her own age and it had been with the same five that all the games were played. These other girls had been specially picked because they were quiet and well-behaved and even-tempered. Clemmie played tennis with them, rowed with them and indeed spent most of her leisure time with the same little band. And, if this companionship had not actually ripened into real friendship, it was still companionship