65 Short Stories (65 page)

He went out to take Guy’s hat from him. His quick ears had caught the footsteps before they were audible to her. Guy did not as usual come up the steps immediately; he paused, and Doris at once surmised that the boy had gone down to meet him in order to tell him of the morning’s incident. She shrugged her shoulders. The boy evidently wanted to get his story in first. But she was astonished when Guy came in. His face was ashy.

‘Guy, what on earth’s the matter?’

He flushed a sudden hot red.

‘Nothing. Why?’

She was so taken aback that she let him pass into his room without a word of what she had meant to speak of at once. It took him longer than usual to have his bath and change his clothes and luncheon was served when he came in.

‘Guy,’ she said, as they sat down, ‘that woman we saw the other day was here again this morning.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ he answered.

‘The boys were treating her brutally. I had to stop them. You must really speak to them about it.’

Though the Malay understood every word she said, he made no sign that he heard. He handed her the toast.

‘She’s been told not to come here. I gave instructions that if she showed herself again she was to be turned out.’

‘Were they obliged to be so rough?’

‘She refused to go. I don’t think they were any rougher than they could help.’

‘It was horrible to see a woman treated like that. She had a baby in her arms.’

‘Hardly a baby. It’s three years old.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘I know all about her. She hasn’t the least right to come here pestering everybody.’

‘What does she want?’

‘She wants to do exactly what she did. She wants to make a disturbance.’

For a little while Doris did not speak. She was surprised at her husband’s tone. He spoke tersely. He spoke as though all this were no concern of hers. She thought him a little unkind. He was nervous and irritable.

‘I doubt if we shall be able to play tennis this afternoon,’ he said. ‘It looks to me as though we were going to have a storm.’

The rain was falling when she awoke and it was impossible to go out. During tea Guy was silent and abstracted. She got her sewing and began to work. Guy sat down to read such of the English papers as he had not yet gone through from cover to cover; but he was restless; he walked up and down the large room and then went out on the veranda. He looked at the steady rain. What was he thinking of? Doris was vaguely uneasy.

It was not till after dinner that he spoke. During the simple meal he had exerted himself to be his usual gay self, but the exertion was apparent. The rain had ceased and the night was starry. They sat on the veranda. In order not to attract insects they had put out the lamp in the sitting-room. At their feet, with a mighty, formidable sluggishness, silent, mysterious, and fatal, flowed the river. It had the terrible deliberation and the relentlessness of destiny.

‘Doris, I’ve got something to say to you,’ he said suddenly.

His voice was very strange. Was it her fancy that he had difficulty in keeping it quite steady? She felt a little pang in her heart because he was in distress, and she put her hand gently into his. He drew it away.

‘It’s rather a long story. I’m afraid it’s not a very nice one and I find it rather difficult to tell. I’m going to ask you not to interrupt me, or to say anything, till I’ve finished.’

In the darkness she could not see his face, but she felt that it was haggard. She did not answer. He spoke in a voice so low that it hardly broke the silence of the night.

‘I was only eighteen when I came out here. I came straight from school. I spent three months in Kuala Solor, and then I was sent to a station up the Sembulu river. Of course there was a Resident there and his wife. I lived in the court-house, but I used to have my meals with them and spend the evening with them. I had an awfully good time. Then the fellow who was here fell ill and had to go home. We were short of men on account of the war and I was put in charge of this place. Of course I was very young, but I spoke the language like a native, and they remembered my father. I was as pleased as punch to be on my own.’

He was silent while he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and refilled it. When he lit a match Doris, without looking at him, noticed that his hand was unsteady.

‘I’d never been alone before. Of course at home there’d been father and mother and generally an assistant. And then at school naturally there were always fellows about. On the way out on the boat, there were people all the time, and at K.S., and the same at my first post. The people there were almost like my own people. I seemed always to live in a crowd. I like people. I’m a noisy blighter. I like to have a good time. All sorts of things make me laugh and you must have somebody to laugh with. But it was different here. Of course it was all right in the day time; I had my work and I could talk to the Dyaks. Although they were head-hunters in those days and now and then I had a bit of trouble with them, they were an awfully decent lot of fellows. I got on very well with them. Of course I should have liked a white man to gas to, but they were better than nothing, and it was easier for me because they didn’t look upon me quite as a stranger. I liked the work too. It was rather lonely in the evening to sit on the veranda and drink a gin and bitters by myself, but I could read. And the boys were about. My own boy was called Abdul. He’d known my father. When I got tired of reading I could give him a shout and have a bit of a jaw with him.

‘It was the nights that did for me. After dinner the boys shut up and went away to sleep in the kampong. I was all alone. There wasn’t a sound in the bungalow except now and then the croak of the chik-chak. It used to come out of the silence, suddenly, so that it made me jump. Over in the kampong I heard the sound of a gong or fire-crackers. They were having a good time, they weren’t so far away, but I had to stay where I was. I was tired of reading.

I couldn’t have been more of a prisoner if I’d been in jail. Night after night it was the same. I tried drinking three or four whiskies, but it’s poor fun drinking alone, and it didn’t cheer me up; it only made me feel rather rotten next day. I tried going to bed immediately after dinner, but I couldn’t sleep. I used to lie in bed, getting hotter and hotter, and more wide awake, till I didn’t know what to do with myself By George, those nights were long. D’you know, I got so low, I was so sorry for myself that sometimes-it makes me laugh now when I think of it, but I was only nineteen and a half-sometimes I used to cry.

‘Then, one evening, after dinner, Abdul had cleared away and was just going off, when he gave a little cough. He said, wasn’t I lonely in the house all night by myself? “Oh, no, that’s all right,” I said. I didn’t want him to know what a damned fool I was, but I expect he knew all right. He stood there without speaking, and I knew he wanted to say something to me. “What is it?” I said. “Spit it out.” Then he said that if I’d like to have a girl to come and live with me he knew one who was willing. She was a very good girl and he could recommend her. She’d be no trouble and it would be someone to have about the bungalow. She’d mend my things for me .... I felt awfully low. It had been raining all day and I hadn’t been able to get any exercise. I knew I shouldn’t sleep for hours. It wouldn’t cost me very much money, he said, her people were poor and they’d be quite satisfied with a small present. Two hundred Straits dollars. “You look,” he said. “If you don’t like her you send her away.” I asked him where she was. ‘She’s here,” he said. “I call her.” He went to the door. She’d been waiting on the steps with her mother. They came in and sat down on the floor. I gave them some sweets. She was shy, of course, but cool enough, and when I said something to her she gave me a smile. She was very young, hardly more than a child, they said she was fifteen. She was awfully pretty, and she had her best clothes on. We began to talk. She didn’t say much, but she laughed a lot when I chaffed her. Abdul said I’d find she had plenty to say for herself when she got to know me. He told her to come and sit by me. She giggled and refused, but her mother told her to come, and I made room for her on the chair. She blushed and laughed, but she came, and then she snuggled up to me. The boy laughed too. “You see, she’s taken to you already,” he said. “Do you want her to stay?” he asked. “Do you want to?” I said to her. She hid her face, laughing, on my shoulder. She was very soft and small. “Very well,” I said, “let her stay’

Guy leaned forward and helped himself to a whisky and soda.

‘May I speak now?’ asked Doris.

‘Wait a minute, I haven’t finished yet. I wasn’t in love with her, not even at the beginning. I only took her so as to have somebody about the bungalow. I think I should have gone mad if I hadn’t, or else taken to drink. I was at the end of my tether. I was too young to be quite alone. I was never in love with anyone but you.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘She lived here till I went home last year on leave. It’s the woman you’ve seen hanging about.’

‘Yes, I guessed that. She had a baby in her arms. Is that your child?’

‘Yes. It’s a little girl.’

‘Is it the only one?’

‘You saw the two small boys the other day in the kampong. You mentioned them.’

‘She has three children then?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s quite a family you’ve got.’

She felt the sudden gesture which her remark forced from him, but she did not speak.

‘Didn’t she know that you were married till you suddenly turned up here with a wife?’ asked Doris.

‘She knew I was going to be married.’

‘When?’

‘I sent her back to the village before I left here. I told her it was all over. I gave her what I’d promised. She always knew it was only a temporary arrangement. I was fed up with it. I told her I was going to marry a white woman.’

‘But you hadn’t even seen me then.’

‘No, I know. But I’d made up my mind to marry when I was home.’ He chuckled in his old manner. ‘I don’t mind telling you that I was getting rather despondent about it when I met you. I fell in love with you at first sight and then I knew it was either you or nobody.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you think it would have been only fair to give me a chance of judging for myself? It might have occurred to you that it would be rather a shock to a girl to find out that her husband had lived for ten years with another girl and had three children.’

‘I couldn’t expect you to understand. The circumstances out here are peculiar. It’s the regular thing. Five men out of six do it. I thought perhaps it would shock you and I didn’t want to lose you. You see, I was most awfully in love with you. I am now, darling. There was no reason that you should ever know. I didn’t expect to come back here. One seldom goes back to the same station after home leave. When we came here I offered her money if she’d go to some other village. First she said she would and then she changed her mind.’

‘Why have you told me now?’

‘She’s been making the most awful scenes. I don’t know how she found out that you knew nothing about it. As soon as she did she began to blackmail me. I’ve had to give her an awful lot of money. I gave orders that she wasn’t to be allowed in the compound. This morning she made that scene just to attract your attention. She wanted to frighten me. It couldn’t go on like that. I thought the only thing was to make a clean breast of it.’

There was a long silence as he finished. At last he put his hand on hers. ‘You do understand, Doris, don’t you? I know I’ve been to blame.’ She did not move her hand. He felt it cold beneath his.

‘Is she jealous?’

‘I daresay there were all sorts of perks when she was living here, and I don’t suppose she much likes not getting them any longer. But she was never in love with me any more than I was in love with her. Native women never do really care for white men, you know’

‘And the children?’

‘Oh, the children are all right. I’ve provided for them. As soon as the boys are old enough I shall send them to school at Singapore.’

Do they mean nothing to you at all?’

He hesitated.

‘I want to be quite frank with you. I should be sorry if anything happened to them. When the first one was expected I thought I’d be much fonder of it than I ever had been of its mother. I suppose I should have been if it had been white. Of course, when it was a baby it was rather funny and touching, but I had no particular feeling that it was mine. I think that’s what it is; you see, I have no sense of their belonging to me. I’ve reproached myself sometimes, because it seemed rather unnatural, but the honest truth is that they’re no more to me than if they were somebody else’s children. Of course a lot of slush is talked about children by people who haven’t got any.’

Now she had heard everything. He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing. She sat motionless.

‘Is there anything more you want to ask me, Doris?’ he said at last.

‘No I’ve got rather a headache. I think I shall go to bed.’ Her voice was as steady as ever. ‘I don’t quite know what to say. Of course it’s been all very unexpected. You must give me a little time to think.’