Of course he knew—no man better—that he hadn’t a ghost of a
chance, he hadn’t an earthly. The very idea of such a thing was
preposterous. So preposterous that he’d perfectly understand it if her
father—well, whatever her father chose to do he’d perfectly
understand. In fact, nothing short of desperation, nothing short of the fact
that this was positively his last day in England for God knows how long, would
have screwed him up to it. And even now.... He chose a tie out of the chest of
drawers, a blue and cream check tie, and sat on the side of his bed. Supposing
she replied, “What impertinence!” would he be surprised? Not in the
least, he decided, turning up his soft collar and turning it down over the tie.
He expected her to say something like that. He didn’t see, if he looked
at the affair dead soberly, what else she could say.
Here he was! And nervously he tied a bow in front of the mirror, jammed his
hair down with both hands, pulled out the flaps of his jacket pockets. Making
between £500 and £600 a year on a fruit farm in—of all
places—Rhodesia. No capital. Not a penny coming to him. No chance of his
income increasing for at least four years. As for looks and all that sort of
thing, he was completely out of the running. He couldn’t even boast of
top-hole health, for the East Africa business had knocked him out so thoroughly
that he’d had to take six months’ leave. He was still fearfully
pale—worse even than usual this afternoon, he thought, bending forward
and peering into the mirror. Good heavens! What had happened? His hair looked
almost bright green. Dash it all, he hadn’t green hair at all events.
That was a bit too steep. And then the green light trembled in the glass; it
was the shadow from the tree outside. Reggie turned away, took out his
cigarette case, but remembering how the mater hated him to smoke in his
bedroom, put it back again and drifted over to the chest of drawers. No, he was
dashed if he could think of one blessed thing in his favour, while she....
Ah!... He stopped dead, folded his arms, and leaned hard against the chest of
drawers.
And in spite of her position, her father’s wealth, the fact that she was
an only child and far and away the most popular girl in the neighbourhood; in
spite of her beauty and her cleverness—cleverness!—it was a great
deal more than that, there was really nothing she couldn’t do; he fully
believed, had it been necessary, she would have been a genius at
anything—in spite of the fact that her parents adored her, and she them,
and they’d as soon let her go all that way as.... In spite of every
single thing you could think of, so terrific was his love that he
couldn’t help hoping. Well, was it hope? Or was this queer, timid longing
to have the chance of looking after her, of making it his job to see that she
had everything she wanted, and that nothing came near her that wasn’t
perfect—just love? How he loved her! He squeezed hard against the chest
of drawers and murmured to it, “I love her, I love her!” And just
for the moment he was with her on the way to Umtali. It was night. She sat in a
corner asleep. Her soft chin was tucked into her soft collar, her gold-brown
lashes lay on her cheeks. He doted on her delicate little nose, her perfect
lips, her ear like a baby’s, and the gold-brown curl that half covered
it. They were passing through the jungle. It was warm and dark and far away.
Then she woke up and said, “Have I been asleep?” and he answered,
“Yes. Are you all right? Here, let me—” And he leaned forward
to.... He bent over her. This was such bliss that he could dream no further.
But it gave him the courage to bound downstairs, to snatch his straw hat from
the hall, and to say as he closed the front door, “Well, I can only try
my luck, that’s all.”
But his luck gave him a nasty jar, to say the least, almost immediately.
Promenading up and down the garden path with Chinny and Biddy, the ancient
Pekes, was the mater. Of course Reginald was fond of the mater and all that.
She—she meant well, she had no end of grit, and so on. But there was no
denying it, she was rather a grim parent. And there had been moments, many of
them, in Reggie’s life, before Uncle Alick died and left him the fruit
farm, when he was convinced that to be a widow’s only son was about the
worst punishment a chap could have. And what made it rougher than ever was that
she was positively all that he had. She wasn’t only a combined parent, as
it were, but she had quarrelled with all her own and the governor’s
relations before Reggie had won his first trouser pockets. So that whenever
Reggie was homesick out there, sitting on his dark veranda by starlight, while
the gramophone cried, “Dear, what is Life but Love?” his only
vision was of the mater, tall and stout, rustling down the garden path, with
Chinny and Biddy at her heels....
The mater, with her scissors outspread to snap the head of a dead something or
other, stopped at the sight of Reggie.
“You are not going out, Reginald?” she asked, seeing that he was.
“I’ll be back for tea, mater,” said Reggie weakly, plunging
his hands into his jacket pockets.
Snip. Off came a head. Reggie almost jumped.
“I should have thought you could have spared your mother your last
afternoon,” said she.
Silence. The Pekes stared. They understood every word of the mater’s.
Biddy lay down with her tongue poked out; she was so fat and glossy she looked
like a lump of half-melted toffee. But Chinny’s porcelain eyes gloomed at
Reginald, and he sniffed faintly, as though the whole world were one unpleasant
smell. Snip, went the scissors again. Poor little beggars; they were getting
it!
“And where are you going, if your mother may ask?” asked the mater.
It was over at last, but Reggie did not slow down until he was out of sight of
the house and half-way to Colonel Proctor’s. Then only he noticed what a
top-hole afternoon it was. It had been raining all the morning, late summer
rain, warm, heavy, quick, and now the sky was clear, except for a long tail of
little clouds, like ducklings, sailing over the forest. There was just enough
wind to shake the last drops off the trees; one warm star splashed on his hand.
Ping!—another drummed on his hat. The empty road gleamed, the hedges
smelled of briar, and how big and bright the hollyhocks glowed in the cottage
gardens. And here was Colonel Proctor’s—here it was already. His
hand was on the gate, his elbow jogged the syringa bushes, and petals and
pollen scattered over his coat sleeve. But wait a bit. This was too quick
altogether. He’d meant to think the whole thing out again. Here, steady.
But he was walking up the path, with the huge rose bushes on either side. It
can’t be done like this. But his hand had grasped the bell, given it a
pull, and started it pealing wildly, as if he’d come to say the house was
on fire. The housemaid must have been in the hall, too, for the front door
flashed open, and Reggie was shut in the empty drawing-room before that
confounded bell had stopped ringing. Strangely enough, when it did, the big
room, shadowy, with some one’s parasol lying on top of the grand piano,
bucked him up—or rather, excited him. It was so quiet, and yet in one
moment the door would open, and his fate be decided. The feeling was not unlike
that of being at the dentist’s; he was almost reckless. But at the same
time, to his immense surprise, Reggie heard himself saying, “Lord, Thou
knowest, Thou hast not done much for me....” That pulled him up;
that made him realize again how dead serious it was. Too late. The door handle
turned. Anne came in, crossed the shadowy space between them, gave him her
hand, and said, in her small, soft voice, “I’m so sorry, father is
out. And mother is having a day in town, hat-hunting. There’s only me to
entertain you, Reggie.”
Reggie gasped, pressed his own hat to his jacket buttons, and stammered out,
“As a matter of fact, I’ve only come... to say good-bye.”
“Oh!” cried Anne softly—she stepped back from him and her
grey eyes danced—“what a very short visit!”
Then, watching him, her chin tilted, she laughed outright, a long, soft peal,
and walked away from him over to the piano, and leaned against it, playing with
the tassel of the parasol.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “to be laughing like this. I
don’t know why I do. It’s just a bad ha-habit.” And suddenly
she stamped her grey shoe, and took a pocket-handkerchief out of her white
woolly jacket. “I really must conquer it, it’s too absurd,”
said she.
“Good heavens, Anne,” cried Reggie, “I love to hear you
laughing! I can’t imagine anything more—”
But the truth was, and they both knew it, she wasn’t always laughing; it
wasn’t really a habit. Only ever since the day they’d met, ever
since that very first moment, for some strange reason that Reggie wished to God
he understood, Anne had laughed at him. Why? It didn’t matter where they
were or what they were talking about. They might begin by being as serious as
possible, dead serious—at any rate, as far as he was concerned—but
then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, Anne would glance at him, and a
little quick quiver passed over her face. Her lips parted, her eyes danced, and
she began laughing.
Another queer thing about it was, Reggie had an idea she didn’t herself
know why she laughed. He had seen her turn away, frown, suck in her cheeks,
press her hands together. But it was no use. The long, soft peal sounded, even
while she cried, “I don’t know why I’m laughing.” It
was a mystery....
Now she tucked the handkerchief away.
“Do sit down,” said she. “And smoke, won’t you? There
are cigarettes in that little box beside you. I’ll have one too.”
He lighted a match for her, and as she bent forward he saw the tiny flame glow
in the pearl ring she wore. “It is to-morrow that you’re going,
isn’t it?” said Anne.
“Yes, to-morrow as ever was,” said Reggie, and he blew a little fan
of smoke. Why on earth was he so nervous? Nervous wasn’t the word for it.
“It’s—it’s frightfully hard to believe,” he
added.
“Yes—isn’t it?” said Anne softly, and she leaned
forward and rolled the point of her cigarette round the green ash-tray. How
beautiful she looked like that!—simply beautiful—and she was so
small in that immense chair. Reginald’s heart swelled with tenderness,
but it was her voice, her soft voice, that made him tremble. “I feel
you’ve been here for years,” she said.
Reginald took a deep breath of his cigarette. “It’s ghastly, this
idea of going back,” he said.
“Coo-roo-coo-coo-coo,” sounded from the quiet.
“But you’re fond of being out there, aren’t you?” said
Anne. She hooked her finger through her pearl necklace. “Father was
saying only the other night how lucky he thought you were to have a life of
your own.” And she looked up at him. Reginald’s smile was rather
wan. “I don’t feel fearfully lucky,” he said lightly.
“Roo-coo-coo-coo,” came again. And Anne murmured, “You
mean it’s lonely.”
“Oh, it isn’t the loneliness I care about,” said Reginald,
and he stumped his cigarette savagely on the green ash-tray. “I could
stand any amount of it, used to like it even. It’s the idea
of—” Suddenly, to his horror, he felt himself blushing.
“Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!”
Anne jumped up. “Come and say good-bye to my doves,” she said.
“They’ve been moved to the side veranda. You do like doves,
don’t you, Reggie?”
“Awfully,” said Reggie, so fervently that as he opened the French
window for her and stood to one side, Anne ran forward and laughed at the doves
instead.
To and fro, to and fro over the fine red sand on the floor of the dove house,
walked the two doves. One was always in front of the other. One ran forward,
uttering a little cry, and the other followed, solemnly bowing and bowing.
“You see,” explained Anne, “the one in front, she’s
Mrs. Dove. She looks at Mr. Dove and gives that little laugh and runs forward,
and he follows her, bowing and bowing. And that makes her laugh again. Away she
runs, and after her,” cried Anne, and she sat back on her heels,
“comes poor Mr. Dove, bowing and bowing... and that’s their whole
life. They never do anything else, you know.” She got up and took some
yellow grains out of a bag on the roof of the dove house. “When you think
of them, out in Rhodesia, Reggie, you can be sure that is what they will be
doing....”
Reggie gave no sign of having seen the doves or of having heard a word. For the
moment he was conscious only of the immense effort it took to tear his secret
out of himself and offer it to Anne. “Anne, do you think you could ever
care for me?” It was done. It was over. And in the little pause that
followed Reginald saw the garden open to the light, the blue quivering sky, the
flutter of leaves on the veranda poles, and Anne turning over the grains of
maize on her palm with one finger. Then slowly she shut her hand, and the new
world faded as she murmured slowly, “No, never in that way.” But he
had scarcely time to feel anything before she walked quickly away, and he
followed her down the steps, along the garden path, under the pink rose arches,
across the lawn. There, with the gay herbaceous border behind her, Anne faced
Reginald. “It isn’t that I’m not awfully fond of you,”
she said. “I am. But”—her eyes widened—“not in
the way”—a quiver passed over her face—“one ought to be
fond of—” Her lips parted, and she couldn’t stop herself. She
began laughing. “There, you see, you see,” she cried,
“it’s your check t-tie. Even at this moment, when one would think
one really would be solemn, your tie reminds me fearfully of the bow-tie that
cats wear in pictures! Oh, please forgive me for being so horrid,
please!”
Reggie caught hold of her little warm hand. “There’s no question of
forgiving you,” he said quickly. “How could there be? And I do
believe I know why I make you laugh. It’s because you’re so far
above me in every way that I am somehow ridiculous. I see that, Anne. But if I
were to—”
“No, no.” Anne squeezed his hand hard. “It’s not that.
That’s all wrong. I’m not far above you at all. You’re much
better than I am. You’re marvellously unselfish and... and kind and
simple. I’m none of those things. You don’t know me. I’m the
most awful character,” said Anne. “Please don’t interrupt.
And besides, that’s not the point. The point is”—she shook
her head—“I couldn’t possibly marry a man I laughed at.
Surely you see that. The man I marry—” breathed Anne softly. She
broke off. She drew her hand away, and looking at Reggie she smiled strangely,
dreamily. “The man I marry—”
And it seemed to Reggie that a tall, handsome, brilliant stranger stepped in
front of him and took his place—the kind of man that Anne and he had seen
often at the theatre, walking on to the stage from nowhere, without a word
catching the heroine in his arms, and after one long, tremendous look, carrying
her off to anywhere....
Reggie bowed to his vision. “Yes, I see,” he said huskily.
“Do you?” said Anne. “Oh, I do hope you do. Because I feel so
horrid about it. It’s so hard to explain. You know I’ve
never—” She stopped. Reggie looked at her. She was smiling.
“Isn’t it funny?” she said. “I can say anything to you.
I always have been able to from the very beginning.”
He tried to smile, to say “I’m glad.” She went on.
“I’ve never known anyone I like as much as I like you. I’ve
never felt so happy with anyone. But I’m sure it’s not what people
and what books mean when they talk about love. Do you understand? Oh, if you
only knew how horrid I feel. But we’d be like... like Mr. and Mrs.
Dove.”
That did it. That seemed to Reginald final, and so terribly true that he could
hardly bear it. “Don’t drive it home,” he said, and he turned
away from Anne and looked across the lawn. There was the gardener’s
cottage, with the dark ilex-tree beside it. A wet, blue thumb of transparent
smoke hung above the chimney. It didn’t look real. How his throat ached!
Could he speak? He had a shot. “I must be getting along home,” he
croaked, and he began walking across the lawn. But Anne ran after him.
“No, don’t. You can’t go yet,” she said imploringly.
“You can’t possibly go away feeling like that.” And she
stared up at him frowning, biting her lip.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Reggie, giving himself a shake.
“I’ll... I’ll—” And he waved his hand as much to
say “get over it.”
“But this is awful,” said Anne. She clasped her hands and stood in
front of him. “Surely you do see how fatal it would be for us to marry,
don’t you?”
“Oh, quite, quite,” said Reggie, looking at her with haggard eyes.
“How wrong, how wicked, feeling as I do. I mean, it’s all very well
for Mr. and Mrs. Dove. But imagine that in real life—imagine it!”
“Oh, absolutely,” said Reggie, and he started to walk on. But again
Anne stopped him. She tugged at his sleeve, and to his astonishment, this time,
instead of laughing, she looked like a little girl who was going to cry.
“Then why, if you understand, are you so un-unhappy?” she wailed.
“Why do you mind so fearfully? Why do you look so aw-awful?”
Reggie gulped, and again he waved something away. “I can’t help
it,” he said, “I’ve had a blow. If I cut off now, I’ll
be able to—”
“How can you talk of cutting off now?” said Anne scornfully. She
stamped her foot at Reggie; she was crimson. “How can you be so cruel? I
can’t let you go until I know for certain that you are just as happy as
you were before you asked me to marry you. Surely you must see that, it’s
so simple.”
But it did not seem at all simple to Reginald. It seemed impossibly difficult.
“Even if I can’t marry you, how can I know that you’re all
that way away, with only that awful mother to write to, and that you’re
miserable, and that it’s all my fault?”
“It’s not your fault. Don’t think that. It’s just
fate.” Reggie took her hand off his sleeve and kissed it.
“Don’t pity me, dear little Anne,” he said gently. And this
time he nearly ran, under the pink arches, along the garden path.
“Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!” sounded from the
veranda. “Reggie, Reggie,” from the garden.
He stopped, he turned. But when she saw his timid, puzzled look, she gave a
little laugh.
“Come back, Mr. Dove,” said Anne. And Reginald came slowly across
the lawn.
