Authors: Nevil Shute
“Good night, madam.”
They walked off into the shadows of the casuarina trees, and he stood waiting for the boat. Presently he was walking slowly back along the beach with Rosemary. “How did your party go off?”
“Oh, all right,” she replied. “They’re quite nice people, but of course they just can’t understand that she’s got to have a rest sometimes, and muck about like other people, and do what she wants. She was terribly good with them, of course—she always is. And they were so excited at meeting her …” She paused. “One couldn’t be bad tempered,” she said quietly. “It’s just the way things are.”
He looked down at her as they strolled together in the moonlight. “I don’t believe that you could be bad tempered any time at all,” he said.
“You’re wrong there,” she replied. “I had a vile temper when I was a child, and I’ve got it still.”
They strolled along the beach a little way in silence. “The Queen wants us to go and play tennis with her one evening when she gets to Tharwa,” he said presently.
“The Queen does? When did you see her?”
“Just now, while I was waiting for you to come ashore. She walked out with Philip to the jetty.”
“She wants both of us to go?”
“That’s right. Tennis and supper.”
The girl said in wonder, “But she hardly knows my name. It’s all right here, of course. But Tharwa—well, it’s different. It’s more like the Palace.”
“She said that you’d been such a help to her today,” the pilot said. “You’ve got to allow her to be grateful.”
“I know. It’s just that it takes a bit of getting used to.
I mean, I’d never have thought of such a thing in London.”
He smiled. “Nor would I. I don’t know what Aunt Phoebe at Chillagoe would say if she knew that I was having supper with the Queen. Maybe they’d promote her to serve in the bar.”
She stopped, and laid her hand upon his arm. “I don’t like to hear you talk like that, David,” she said. “Aunt Phoebe’s your mother’s sister, so she’s almost certainly a nice old thing, half caste or not. But anyway, she’s just a measure of what you’ve achieved. You started further back than most people, and you’ve worked up to the point when your own country puts you forward as the best man that they’ve got to serve the Queen. If she wants you to have supper with her, it’s because she wants to know you better, for the sake of your achievements. Don’t be cynical about it.”
He turned and faced her, and took both her hands in his. “Look,” he said huskily, “I think it’s time we had a talk about things.”
She raised her eyes to his. “What sort of things, David?”
“I want to clear the air about this colour business,” he replied. “I want to know if you could ever bring yourself to think of marrying me.”
S
HE stood in the slanting light of the low moon, looking up at him. “If I wanted to marry you, I’d marry you for what you are and what you’ve done, David,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind about the colour. But I’m not marrying anybody yet.”
He smiled down at her. “How long is Yet?” he asked.
She looked down at her hands that he was holding. “It’s a long, long time,” she said. There was a pause, and then she raised her head and faced him. “I don’t want to make things difficult for you, David,” she said. “I know you’re fond of me. A girl knows that, and it’s made me very proud that you should like me. But now I’ve got to tell you I’m not marrying, not for a long time, anyway. Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t go about so much together.”
“I think it would be worse,” he said.
“I’m not so sure,” she replied. “You
must
try and understand that I’m not marrying anybody, David—anybody at all. If I was, I’d probably jump at the chance of marrying a man like you. But there’s no question of it. So far as I’m concerned, marrying is out.”
He stood looking down at her, holding her hands, puzzled by her attitude. At last he asked her, “Can you tell me honestly and truthfully that it’s not the colour? If that’s really in the back of your mind, I’d like you to tell me now.
Because that would be definite and final, and I wouldn’t worry you again.”
She shook her head. “It’s not the colour.”
He felt he had to press the point, to search her mind before they went on any further. “Suppose some day you were to marry me, and we had a kid,” he said. “You might have a dark baby.”
She nodded. “I’ve thought of that. I don’t think that would worry me, David. Honestly, I don’t think the colour comes into it.” She paused. “You see, if I were to marry you—ever—it would be because I was proud of you, and because I was in love with you. I’d be marrying one of the coming men in the Royal Australian Air Force. I don’t believe I’d care about the colour any more than you do. I’d probably be more troubled about leaving England to go and live with you in Australia than I would be about the black baby.”
“Brown,” he corrected. “I’m not as black as all that.”
She said seriously, “But you can get a throw-back.”
“Well …” She looked up at him, and became aware to her amazement that he was laughing at her. “That depends on you.”
“On me?”
“You want to read up your genetics, if you’re thinking of marrying a quadroon,” he said.
“I’m not. But if I was, what ought I to read?”
“A gentleman called Edward M. East. You can only get a really dark child if both parties have a touch of the tarbrush.” He grinned down at her. “I didn’t think you had.”
“I haven’t—not that I know of, anyway.”
“Too bad. If you married me and we had a kid, it couldn’t possibly be darker than me. It’ld probably be a good bit lighter.”
“But you’re not dark at all!” she exclaimed.
“Perhaps you’ve got a touch of the tarbrush you don’t know about,” he suggested helpfully. “You could get a black baby that way, but you won’t get it any other.” He paused. “Not unless you adopt one.”
“I don’t know that this is very desirable conversation,” she remarked. “But tell me David—if a throwback doesn’t happen, why does everyone believe it does?”
“It’s been a useful superstition to a lot of half caste women living in coloured countries,” he said. “It explains a lot of things that might want a bit of explaining any other way.”
She burst out laughing. “Oh David! Do you mean to say that’s all there is to it?”
“That’s right.” And then, more seriously, he said, “It’s true, Rosemary. If we had a lot of kids, most of them would be light in colour probably, but one or two of them might be as dark as me.”
She laughed up at him. “You’re going too fast, Nigger. It was only one just now. But I’m telling you there aren’t going to be any at all.”
He drew her a little closer to him. “Why not?”
She stood quietly in his arms, watching the yellow path of moonlight on the calm water of the lagoon. “If I married anyone I’d want to make a job of it, and make a home, and have kids like a normal girl,” she said. “I’d have to give up my job at the Palace to do that—one couldn’t possibly do both. And this isn’t a good time to chuck that up.”
“You’ll have to chuck it up some day, if you’re ever going to marry,” he said. “Of course, you’d have to give a good long notice, so that they could get someone else of the right sort.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t do it.”
They stood in silence for a minute. Then she turned back to him, and put her hand upon his shoulder. “I want you to
understand about things, Nigger,” she said quietly. “I know you’ve been getting fond of me, and perhaps I’m a bit fond of you. If we gave up thinking about anybody but ourselves—if we turned thoroughly selfish and behaved like people on the movies—we might get to feeling we were passionately in love, and then we’d have to marry or do the other thing. I’m not going to relax like that. I’m not going to leave Major Macmahon’s office at a time like this, or any time until this thing is over. As far as I can see, it may go on for years.”
“They could get someone to replace you,” he said. “I could be replaced in my job. No one’s indispensable.”
“I know,” she said. “That wouldn’t stop me hating myself if I left them now.” She raised her head. “I don’t know if you realise quite all that’s going on, Nigger,” she said. “The Queen’s in the middle of a first class constitutional crisis. The job of ruling England has become so unattractive that her children won’t take it on—not one of them. That’s the long and the short of it.”
“Is that really true?” he asked.
She nodded. “If she was to die tonight, there’d be abdications—one after another, and the Monarchy in England would come to an end. You just can’t treat people the way she’s been treated. If you could see some of the things I’ve seen in the State papers in the office—the way these stinking little politicians write to her, as if she was nobody at all …” She paused, and then she said, “She must love England very, very much, or she’d have chucked her hand in before this. It’s not as if she was a coward.”
“I didn’t know it was as bad as that,” he said.
“Of course you didn’t. I wouldn’t have talked about it now, Nigger, but for us—personally. I want you to understand why I’m not even thinking of marrying anybody till all this is over. I know they could replace me. I’m only a
cog in the machine, but I’ve been there three years and I’m run in now, and working smoothly. If I left, it would be one more worry for them. And there’s another thing—I’ve got to know so much. If I left, they’d be anxious that I might start gossiping, perhaps, or they’d be worried that the new girl might not be discreet.” She turned, and looked out over the still lagoon. “I couldn’t have that happen. If I miss the chance of marrying you I may be sorry for it all my life, and that’s just something that’ll have to be borne. But I’m not leaving the party at a time like this.”
He stroked the soft, shingled hair at the back of her head. “How long do you think it’s likely to go on for?”
There was a pause, and then she said thoughtfully, “She’s got something that she’s working at. Some constitutional change. I don’t know what it is, or how long it will take her to get the Monarchy into a state when Charles will agree to take it on after her time. I don’t know what’s in the wind, or how long it will take her to achieve it.” There was a little silence, and then she said, “She had several long talks in Ottawa with Mr. Delamain and with the Leader of the Opposition—Mr. Macdonald, and with the Governor-General. Now I suppose she’s going to Canberra to do the same things there. She’s got something in her mind that she’s discussing with the senior politicians all around the Commonwealth. Some constitutional change to make the Monarch’s life more bearable in England. I don’t know what it is, David. If I did know, I don’t think I could tell it, even to you.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “The less said about these things the better.”
She smiled up at him. “I had to talk to you about it,” she said. “I know you thought I wouldn’t marry you because of the black baby.”
“Brown,” he corrected her. “Not browner than me.”
“That’s hardly brown at all,” she said. “There’s nothing in that one. You do believe that now, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“If I’ve been talking about things I ought not to have repeated, please try and forget them, David. I had to tell you, to explain why I’m not marrying now, or for some quite indefinite time. Otherwise, I know you’d have thought it was something to do with you.”
“I shan’t talk,” he said. He looked down at her, smiling. “Do you know this is the first time I’ve ever asked a girl to marry me?”
“Is it, David?”
He nodded. “I’ve never met anyone before that I thought wouldn’t mind about the colour. I’ve never been certain, like I’ve been with you.” He touched the hair at the back of her head again. “You needn’t be afraid I’ll run away,” he said. “This thing can’t drag on for longer than a year or so. I’ll be here when you feel you’re free enough to marry.”
“I may never feel that, David.”
“Too bad,” he said quietly. “But that’s one of the chances people like us take, when we start working for a Queen.”
Presently she stirred in his arms. “We’ve got to get to bed,” she said. “You’ve a long way to fly tomorrow.”
He released her a little, and they stood looking at the moonlit scene. “Just look at it!” he said. “We’ve got everything laid on—a coral island, a moon, a calm lagoon—everything you’d want for a stage love scene. We’re a couple of silly mutts, if you ask me.”
She laughed with him, and freed herself from his arms. “I don’t want a stage love scene,” she said. “When I get it, if I ever do, I want it to be real.”
Presently they walked back slowly to the camp through the deep shadows of the casuarina trees, hand in hand.
David was up early next morning, preparing for the flight to Canberra. They ran the engines of the Ceres at about seven o’clock, shut down after the test, and topped up the machine with fuel; then they went to breakfast. At half past eight the passengers began to assemble on the airstrip, a long business because there was only the one motor vehicle upon the island. At nine o’clock the Queen and the Consort drove up with Macmahon; they said goodbye to the District Officer and Flight Lieutenant Vary, and the little crowd of onlookers, and got into the aircraft. The door shut, the engines started up, David swung the Ceres towards the far end of the airstrip and presently took off. Ten minutes later Christmas Island had faded into the grey haze on the horizon behind them.
The flight to Canberra was uneventful. David saw nothing of the Queen or the Consort during the flight; Rosemary came forward to the cockpit for a few minutes, but there was nothing to be seen but wastes of cobalt and grey sea, and she spent most of the flight dozing in her chair. They passed a little to the north of Fiji about lunch time and spoke to the control by radio telephone, and went on across an empty sky. At half past three by Christmas Island time, in the vicinity of Lord Howe Island, David began a slow let down as they approached the coast of Australia in the vicinity of Newcastle. He was warned by radio to expect a fighter guard of honour, and shortly before they reached the coast he made contact with the fighter leader on the radio telephone; the twelve machines appeared and took station on each side of the Ceres, six to port and six to starboard, so that they flew on across Australia in a V formation with the Ceres leading at the apex of the V. He dismissed the escort as he came in to Canberra in its bowl of hills, and they peeled away up into the clear blue sky and formed a circle over Fairbairn airport six thousand feet above him as he came on
to the circuit for the landing. From the cockpit as he moved around the circuit he could see a great crowd of people in the enclosures, waiting to greet the Queen. He lined up on the runway, brought the Ceres in on a long, slow descent, and touched the wheels down gently on the tarmac, seven and a half hours out from Christmas Island. Ryder stuck the Royal Standard up through the hatch, and they taxied in to the ceremonial welcome.