“I bet you do.” Bond was lost in the picture of the little flaxen-haired girl pattering about the ruins with the obstinate old Negress watching over her and calling her in to do the lessons that must have been just as much a riddle to the old woman. “Your nanny must have been a wonderful person.”
“She was a darling.” It was a flat statement. “I thought I’d die when she did. It wasn’t such fun after that: Before, I’d led a child’s life; then I suddenly had to grow up and do everything for myself. And men tried to catch me and hurt me. They said they wanted to make love to me.” She paused. “I used to be pretty then.”
Bond said seriously, “You’re one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen.”
“With this nose? Don’t be silly.”
“You don’t understand.” Bond tried to find words that she would believe. “Of course anyone can see your nose is broken. But since this morning I’ve hardly noticed it. When you look at a person you look into their eyes or at their mouth. That’s where the expressions are. A broken nose isn’t any more significant than a crooked ear. Noses and ears are bits of face-furniture. Some are prettier than others, but they’re not nearly as important as the rest. They’re part of the background of the face. If you had a beautiful nose as well as the rest of you you’d be the most beautiful girl in Jamaica.”
“Do you mean that?” her voice was urgent. “Do you think I could be beautiful? I know some of me’s all right, but when I look in the glass I hardly see anything except my broken nose. I’m sure it’s like that with other people who are, who are-well-sort of deformed.”
Bond said impatiently, “You’re not deformed! Don’t talk such nonsense. And anyway you can have it put right by a simple operation. You’ve only got to get over to America and it would be done in a week.”
She said angrily, “How do you expect me to do that? I’ve got about fifteen pounds under a stone in my cellar. I’ve got three skirts and three shirts and a knife and a fishpot. I know all about these operations. The doctor at Port Maria found out for me. He’s a nice man. He wrote to America. Do you know, to have it properly done it would cost me about five hundred pounds, what with the fare to New York and the hospital and everything?” Her voice became hopeless. “How do you expect me to find that amount of money?”
Bond had already made up his mind what would have to be done about that. Now he merely said tenderly, “Well, I expect there are ways. But anyway, go on with your story. It’s very exciting-far more interesting than mine. You’d got to where your Nanny died. What happened then?”
The girl began again reluctantly.
“Well, it’s your fault for interrupting. And you mustn’t talk about things you don’t understand. I suppose people tell you you’re good-looking. I expect you get all the girls you want.
Well you wouldn’t if you had a squint or a hare-lip or something. As a matter of fact,” he could hear the smile in her voice, “I think I shall go to the obeahman when we get back and get him to put a spell on you and give you something like that.” She added lamely, “Then we should be more alike.”
Bond reached out. His hand brushed against her. “I’ve got other plans,” he said. “But come on. I want to hear the rest of the story.”
“Oh well,” the girl sighed, “I’ll have to go back a bit. You see all the property is in cane and the old house stands in the middle of it. Well, about twice a year they cut the cane and send it off to the mill. And when they do that all the animals and insects and so on that live in the cane fields go into a panic and most of them have their houses destroyed and get killed. At cutting time some of them took to coming to the ruins of the house and hiding. My Nanny was terrified of them to begin with, the mongooses and the snakes and the scorpions and so on, but I made a couple of the cellar rooms into sort of homes for them. I wasn’t frightened of them and they never hurt me. They seemed to understand that I was looking after them. They must have told their friends or something because after a bit it was quite natural for them all to come trooping into their rooms and settling down there until the young cane had started to grow again. Then they all filed out and went back to living in the fields. I gave them what food we could spare when they were staying with us and they behaved very well except for making a bit of a smell and sometimes fighting amongst each other. But they all got quite tame with me, and their children did, too, and I could do anything with them… Of course the cane-cutters found out about this and saw me walking about with snakes round my neck and so forth, and they got frightened of me and thought I was obeah. So they left us absolutely alone.” She paused. “That’s where I found out so much about animals and insects. I used to spend a lot of time in the sea finding out about those people too. It was the same with birds. If you find out what all these people like to eat and what they’re afraid of, and if you spend all your time with them you can make friends.” She looked up at him. “You miss a lot not knowing about these things.”