Ah King (20 page)

“Why didn’t you marry her?” I had asked him.

“I wanted to badly enough,” Featherstone answered at length. “But I hesitated to ask her. Although she was always so nice to me and so easy to get on with, and we were such good friends, I always felt that there was something a little mysterious in her. Although she was so simple, so frank and natural, you never quite got over the feeling of an inner kernel of aloofness, as if deep in her heart she guarded, not a secret, but a sort of privacy of the soul that not a living person would ever be allowed to know. I don’t know if I make myself clear.”

“I think so.”

“I put it down to her upbringing. They never talked of their mother, but somehow I got the impression that she was one of those neurotic, emotional women who wreck their own happiness and are a pest to everyone connected with them. I had a suspicion that she’d led rather a hectic life in Florence and it struck me that Olive owed her beautiful serenity to a disciplined effort of her own will, and that her aloofness was a sort of citadel she’d built to protect herself from the knowledge of all sorts of shameful things. But of course that aloofness was awfully captivating. It was strangely exciting to think that if she loved you, and you were married to her, you would at last pierce right into the hidden heart of that mystery; and you felt that if you could share that with her it would be as it were a consummation of all you’d ever desired in your life. Heaven wouldn’t be in it. You know, I felt about it just like Bluebeard’s wife about the forbidden chamber in the castle. Every room was open to me, but I should never rest till I had gone into that last one that was locked against me.”

My eye was caught by a chik-chak, a little brown house lizard with a large head, high up on the wall. It is a friendly little beast and it is good to see it in a house. It watched a fly. It was quite still. On a sudden it made a dart and then as the fly flew away fell back with a sort of jerk into a strange immobility.

“And there was another thing that made me hesitate. I couldn’t bear the thought that if I proposed to her and she refused me she wouldn’t let me come to the bungalow in the same old way. I should have hated that, I enjoyed going there so awfully. It made me so happy to be with her. But you know, sometimes one can’t help oneself. I did ask her at last, but it was almost by accident. One evening, after dinner, when we were sitting on the veranda by ourselves, I took her hand. She withdrew it at once.

“‘Why did you do that?’ I asked her.

“‘I don’t very much like being touched,’ she said. She turned her head a little and smiled. ‘Are you hurt? You mustn’t mind, it’s just a funny feeling I have. I can’t help it.’

“‘I wonder if it’s ever occurred to you that I’m frightfully fond of you,’ I said.

“I expect I was terribly awkward about it, but I’d never proposed to anyone before.” Featherstone gave a little sound that was not quite a chuckle and not quite a sigh. “For the matter of that, I’ve never proposed to anyone since. She didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she said:

“‘I’m very glad, but I don’t think I want you to be anything more than that.’

“‘Why not?’ I asked.

“‘I could never leave Tim.’

“‘But supposing he marries?’

“‘He never will.’

“I’d gone so far then that I thought I’d better go on. But my throat was so dry that I could hardly speak. I was shaking with nervousness.

“‘I’m frightfully in love with you, Olive. I want to marry you more than anything in the world.’

“She put her hand very gently on my arm. It was like a flower falling to the ground.

“‘No, dear, I can’t,’ she said.

“I was silent. It was difficult for me to say what I wanted to. I’m naturally rather shy. She was a girl. I couldn’t very well tell her that it wasn’t quite the same thing living with a husband and living with a brother. She was normal and healthy; she must want to have babies; it wasn’t reasonable to starve her natural instincts. It was such a waste of her youth. But it was she who spoke first.

“‘Don’t let’s talk about this any more,’ she said. ‘D’you mind? It did strike me once or twice that perhaps you cared for me. Tim noticed it. I was sorry because I was afraid it would break up our friendship. I don’t want it to do that, Mark. We do get on so well together, the three of us, and we have such jolly times. I don’t know what we should do without you now.’

“‘I thought of that too,’ I said.

“‘D’you think it need?’ she asked me.

“‘My dear, I don’t want it to,’ I said. ‘You must know how much I love coming here. I’ve never been so happy anywhere before!’

“‘You’re not angry with me?’

“‘Why should I be? It’s not your fault. It only means that you’re not in love with me. If you were you wouldn’t care a hang about Tim.’

“‘You are rather sweet,’ she said.

“She put her arm around my neck and kissed me lightly on the cheek. I had a notion that in her mind it settled our relation. She adopted me as a second brother.

“A few weeks later Tim went back to England. The tenant of their house in Dorset was leaving and though there was another in the offing, he thought he ought to be on the spot to conduct negotiations. And he wanted some new machinery for the estate. He thought he’d get it at the same time. He didn’t expect to be gone more than three months and Olive made up her mind not to go. She knew hardly anyone in England, and it was practically a foreign country to her, she didn’t mind being left alone, and she wanted to look after the estate. Of course they could have put a manager in charge, but that wasn’t the same thing. Rubber was falling and in case of accidents it was just as well that one or other of them should be there. I promised Tim I’d look after her and if she wanted me she could always call me up. My proposal hadn’t changed anything. We carried on as though nothing had happened. I don’t know whether she’d told Tim. He made no sign that he knew. Of course I loved her as much as ever, but I kept it to myself. I have a good deal of self-control, you know. I had a sort of feeling I hadn’t a chance. I hoped eventually my love would change into something else and we could just be wonderful friends. It’s funny, it never has, you know. I suppose I was hit too badly ever to get quite over it.

“She went down to Penang to see Tim off and when she came back I met her at the station and drove her home. I couldn’t very well stay at the bungalow while Tim was away, but I went over every Sunday and had tiffin and we’d go down to the sea and have a bathe. People tried to be kind to her and asked her to stay with them, but she wouldn’t. She seldom left the estate. She had plenty to do. She read a lot. She was never bored. She seemed quite happy in her own company, and when she had visitors it was only from a sense of duty. She didn’t want them to think her ungracious. But it was an effort and she told me she heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the last of them and could again enjoy without disturbance the peaceful loneliness of the bungalow. She was a very curious girl. It was strange that at her age she should be so indifferent to parties and the other small gaieties the station afforded. Spiritually, if you know what I mean, she was entirely self-supporting. I don’t know how people found out that I was in love with her; I thought I’d never given myself away in anything, but I had hints here and there that they knew. I gathered they thought Olive hadn’t gone home with her brother on my account. One woman, a Mrs Sergison, the policeman’s wife, actually asked me when they were going to be able to congratulate me. Of course I pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about, but it didn’t go down very well. I couldn’t help being amused. I meant so little to Olive in that way that I really believe she’d entirely forgotten that I’d asked her to marry me. I can’t say she was unkind to me, I don’t think she could have been unkind to anyone; but she treated me with just the casualness with which a sister might treat a younger brother. She was two or three years older than I. She was always terribly glad to see me, but it never occurred to her to put herself out for me; she was almost amazingly intimate with me, but unconsciously, you know, as you might be with a person you’d known so well all your life that you never thought of putting on frills with him. I might not have been a man at all, but an old coat that she wore all the time because it was easy and comfortable and she didn’t mind what she did in it. I should have been crazy not to see that she was a thousand miles away from loving me.

“Then one day, three or four weeks before Tim was due back, when I went to the bungalow I saw she’d been crying. I was startled. She was always so composed. I’d never seen her upset over anything.

“‘Hullo, what’s the matter?’ I said.

“‘Nothing.’

“‘Come off it, darling,’ I said. ‘What have you been crying about?’

“She tried to smile.

“‘I wish you hadn’t got such sharp eyes,’ she said. ‘I think I’m being silly. I’ve just had a cable from Tim to say he’s postponed his sailing.’

“‘Oh, my dear, I am sorry,’ I said. ‘You must be awfully disappointed.’

“‘I’ve been counting the days. I want him back so badly.’

“‘Does he say why he’s postponing?’ I asked.

“‘No, he says he’s writing. I’ll show you the cable.’

“I saw that she was very nervous. Her slow quiet eyes were filled with apprehension and there was a little frown of anxiety between her brows. She went into her bedroom and in a moment came back with the cable. I felt she was watching me anxiously as I read. So far as I remember it ran:

Darling, I cannot sail on the seventh after all. Please forgive me. Am writing fully. Fondest love. Tim.

“‘Well, perhaps the machinery he wanted isn’t ready and he can’t bring himself to sail without it,’ I said.

“‘What could it matter if it came by a later ship? Anyhow, it’ll be hung up at Penang.’

“‘It may be something about the house.’

“‘If it is why doesn’t he say so? He must know how frightfully anxious I am.’

“‘It wouldn’t occur to him,’ I said. ‘After all, when you’re away you don’t realize that the people you’ve left behind don’t know something that you take as a matter of course.’

“She smiled again, but now more happily.

“‘I dare say you’re right. In point of fact Tim is a little like that. He’s always been rather slack and casual. I dare say I’ve been making a mountain out of a molehill. I must just wait patiently for his letter.’

“Olive was a girl with a lot of self-control and I saw her by an effort of will pull herself together. The little line between her eyebrows vanished and she was once more her serene, smiling, and kindly self. She was always gentle: that day she had a mildness so heavenly that it was shattering. But for the rest of the time I could see that she kept her restlessness in check only by the deliberate exercise of her common sense. It was as though she had a foreboding of ill. I was with her the day before the mail was due. Her anxiety was all the more pitiful to see because she took such pains to hide it. I was always busy on mail day, but I promised to get up to the estate later on and hear the news. I was just thinking of starting when Hardy’s seis came along in the car with a message from the amah asking me to go at once to her mistress. The amah was a decent, elderly woman to whom I had given a dollar or two and said that if anything went wrong on the estate she was to let me know at once. I jumped into my car. When I arrived I found the amah waiting for me on the steps.

“‘A letter came this morning,’ she said.

“I interrupted her. I ran up the steps. The sitting-room was empty.

“‘Olive,’ I called.

“I went into the passage and suddenly I heard a sound that froze my heart. The amah had followed me and now she opened the door of Olive’s room. The sound I had heard was the sound of Olive crying. I went in. She was lying on her bed, on her face, and her sobs shook her from head to foot. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“‘Olive, what is it?’ I asked.

“‘Who’s that?’ she cried. She sprang to her feet suddenly, as though she were scared out of her wits. And then: ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. She stood in front of me, with her head thrown back and her eyes closed, and the tears streamed from them. It was dreadful. ‘Tim’s married,’ she gasped, and her face screwed up in a sort of grimace of pain.

“I must admit that for one moment I had a thrill of exultation, it was like a little electric shock tingling through my heart; it struck me that now I had a chance, she might be willing to marry me; I know it was terribly selfish of me; you see, the news had taken me by surprise; but it was only for a moment, after that I was melted by her awful distress and the only thing I felt was deep sorrow because she was unhappy. I put my arm round her waist.

“‘Oh, my dear, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Don’t stay here. Come into the sitting-room and sit down and we’ll talk about it. Let me give you something to drink.’

“She let me lead her into the next room and we sat down on the sofa. I told the amah to fetch the whisky and syphon and I mixed her a good strong stengah and made her drink a little. I took her in my arms and rested her head on my shoulder. She let me do what I liked with her. The great tears streamed down her poor face.

“‘How could he?’ she moaned. ‘How could he?’

“‘My darling,’ I said, ‘it was bound to happen sooner or later. He’s a young man. How could you expect him never to marry? It’s only natural.’