The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog Read Online Free PDF Page A

her pessimism had infected me. Nefret seemed to be getting on quite well. She had learned to manipulate a knife and fork, a buttonhook and a toothbrush. She had even learned that one is not supposed to carry on conversations with the servants at the dinner table. (That put her one step ahead of Emerson, who could not, or would not, conform to this rule of accepted social behavior.) In her buttoned boots and dainty white frocks, with her hair tied back with ribbons, she looked like any pretty English schoolgirl. She hated the boots, but she wore them, and at my request she folded away her bright Nubian robes. She never breathed a word of complaint or disagreed with any of my suggestions. I therefore concluded it was time to take the next step. It was time to introduce Nefret into society. Of course the introduction must be gradual and gentle. What better, gentler companions, I reasoned, could there be than girls of her own age?

In retrospect, I would be the first to admit that this reasoning was laughably in error. In my own defense, let me state that I had had very little to do with girls of that age. I therefore consulted my friend Miss Helen Mclntosh, the headmistress of a nearby girls' school.

Helen was a Scotswoman, bluff, bustling and brown, from her grizzled hair to her practical tweeds. When she accepted my invitation to tea she made no secret of her curiosity about our new ward.

I took pains to ensure that Nefret would make a good impression, warning her to avoid inadvertent slips of the tongue that might raise doubts as to the history we had told. Perhaps I overdid it. Nefret sat like a statue of propriety the whole time, eyes lowered, hands folded, speaking only when she was spoken to. The dress I had asked her to wear was eminently suitable to her age— white lawn, with ruffled cuffs and
a wide sash. I had pinned up her braids and fastened them with big white bows.

After I had excused her, Helen turned to me, eyebrows soaring. "My dear Amelia," she said. "What have you done?"

"Only what Christian charity and common decency demanded," I said, bristling. "What fault could you possibly find with her? She is intelligent and anxious to please—"

"My dear, the bows and the ruffles don't do the job. You could dress her in rags and she would still be
as exotic as a bird of paradise."

I could not deny it. I sat in— I confess— resentful silence while Helen sipped her tea. Gradually the lines on her forehead smoothed out, and finally she said thoughtfully, "At least there can be no question as to the purity of her blood."

"Helen!" I exclaimed.

"Well, but such questions do arise with the offspring of men stationed in remote areas of the empire. Mothers conveniently deceased, children with liquid black eyes and sun-kissed cheeks . . . Now don't glower at me, Amelia, I am not expressing my prejudices but those of society, and as I said, there can
be no question of Nefret's . . . You must find another name for her, you know. What about Natalie? It
is uncommon, but unquestionably English."

Helen's remarks induced certain feelings of uneasiness, but once her interest was engaged she entered
into the matter with such enthusiasm that it was hard to differ with her. I am not a humble woman, but
in this case I felt somewhat insecure. Helen was the expert on young females, having asked her opinion
I did not feel in a position to question her advice.

It should have been a lesson to me never to doubt my own judgment. Since that time I have done so
only once— and that, as you will see, almost ended in a worse catastrophe.

Nefret's first few meetings with Helen's carefully selected "young ladies" seemed to go well. I thought them a remarkably silly lot, and after the first encounter, when one of them responded to Emerson's
polite greeting with a fit of the giggles and another told him he was much handsomer than any of her teachers, Emerson barricaded himself in the library and refused to come out when they were there. He