The Garden Party and Other Stories - Katherine Mansfield [48]
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 tomorrow that you’re going, isn’t it?’ said Anne.
‘Yes, tomorrow as ever is,’ said Reggie, and he blew a little fan of smoke. Why or earth was he so nervous? Nervous wasn’t the word for it.
‘It’s – it’s frightfally 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 ashtray. 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 it 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 ashtray. ‘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 goodbye 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