King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays Part 14

SHE. (_cheerfully_) Isn't he _just_ the sort of man who would be interested in family portraits?

HE. (_confused_) Well--since you ask me--

SHE. Oh, that's all right. Tubby's a dear, in spite of his funny old ideas. I like him very much.

HE. (_gulping the pill_) Yes....

SHE. He's so anxious to please me in buying this house. I suppose it's all right to have a house, but I'd like to become acquainted with it gradually. I'd like to feel that there was always some corner left to explore--some mystery saved up for a rainy day. Tubby can't understand that. He drags me everywhere, explaining how we'll keep this and change that--dormer windows here and perhaps a new wing there.... I suppose you've been rebuilding the house, too?

HE. No. Merely decided to turn that sunny south room into a study. It would make a very pleasant place to work. But if you really want the place, I'd hate to take it away from you.

SHE. I was just going to say that if _you_ really wanted it, _I'd_ withdraw. It was Tubby's idea to buy it, you know--not mine. You _do_ want it, don't you?

HE. I can't say that I do. It's so infernally big. But Maria thinks I ought to have it. (_Explanatorily_)--Maria is--

SHE. (_gently_) She's--the one who is interested in furnaces. I understand. I saw her with you at the real-estate office yesterday.

Well--furnaces are necessary, I suppose. (_There is a pause, which she breaks suddenly_.) Do you see that bee?

HE. A bee?

_He follows her gaze up to a cl.u.s.ter of blossoms_.

SHE. Yes--there! (_Affectionately_)--The rascal! There he goes.

_Their eyes follow the flight of the bee across the orchard. There is a silence. Alone together beneath the blossoms, a spell seems to have fallen upon them. She tries to think of something to say--and at last succeeds_.

SHE. Have you heard the story of the people who used to live here?

HE. No; why?

SHE. The agent was telling us. It's quite romantic--and rather sad. You see, the man that built this house was in love with a girl. He was building it for her--as a surprise. But he had neglected to mention to her that he was in love with her. And so, in pique, she married another man, though she was really in love with him. The news came just when he had finished the house. He shut it up for a year or two, but eventually married some one else, and they lived I here for ten years--most unhappily. Then they went abroad, and the house was sold. It was bought, curiously enough, by the husband of the girl he had been in love with. They lived here till they died-hating each other to the end, the agent says.

HE. It gives me the shivers. To think of that house, haunted by the memories of wasted love! Which of us, I wonder, will have to live in it? I don't want to.

SHE. (_prosaically_) Oh, don't take it so seriously as all that.

If one can't live in a house where there's been an unhappy marriage, why, good heavens, where is one going to live? Most marriages, I fancy, are unhappy.

HE. A bitter philosophy for one so young and--

SHE. Nonsense! But listen to the rest of the story. The most interesting part is about this very orchard.

HE. Really!

SHE. Yes. This orchard, it seems, was here before the house was. It was part of an old farm where he and she--the unhappy lovers, you know-- stopped one day, while they were out driving, and asked for something to eat. The farmer's wife was busy, but she gave them each a gla.s.s of milk, and told them they could eat all the cherries they wanted.

So they picked a hatful of cherries, and ate them, sitting on a bench like this one. And then he fell in love with her. . . .

HE. And . . . didn't tell her so. . . .

_She glances at him in alarm. His self-possession has vanished. He is pale and frightened, but there is a desperate look in his eyes, as if some unknown power were forcing him to do something very rash. In short, he seems like a young man who has just fallen in love_.

SHE. (_hastily_) So you see this orchard is haunted, too!

HE. I feel it. I seem to hear the ghost of that old-time lover whispering to me. . . .

SHE. (_provocatively_) Indeed! What does he say?

HE. He says: "I was a coward; you must be bold. I was silent; you must speak out."

SHE. (_mischievously_) That's very curious--because that old lover isn't dead at all. He's a Congressman or Senator or something, the Agent says.

HE. (_earnestly_) It's all the same. His youth is dead; and it is his youth that speaks to me.

SHE. _quickly_ You mustn't believe all that ghosts tell you.

HE. Oh, but I must. For they know the folly of silence--the bitterness of cowardice.

SHE. The circ.u.mstances were--slightly--different, weren't they?

HE. (_stubbornly_) I don't care!

SHE. (_soberly_) You know perfectly well it's no use.

HE. I can't help that!

SHE. Please! You simply mustn't! It's disgraceful!

HE. What's disgraceful?

SHE. (_confused_) What you are going to say.

HE. (_simply_) Only that I love you. What is there disgraceful about that? It's beautiful!

SHE. It's wrong.

HE. It's inevitable.

SHE. Why inevitable? Can't you talk with a girl in an orchard for half an hour without falling in love with her?

HE. Not if the girl is you.

SHE. But why especially _me_?

HE. I don't know. Love--is a mystery. I only know that I was destined to love you.

SHE. How can you be so sure?

HE. Because you have changed the world for me. It's as though I had been groping about in the dark, and then--sunrise! And there's a queer feeling here. (_He puts his hand on his heart_.) To tell the honest truth, there's a still queerer feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It's a gone feeling, if you must know. And my knees are weak. I know now why men used to fall on their knees when they told a girl they loved her; it was because they couldn't stand up. And there's a feeling in my feet as though I were walking on air. And--