'Yes, isn't it!'
'How softly the breeze caresses yonder water.'
'Yes, doesn't it!'
'How fragrant a scent of wild flowers it has.'
'Yes, hasn't it!'
They were silent again.
'On such a day,' said Aubrey, 'the mind seems to turn irresistibly to Love.'
'Love?' said Charlotte, her heart beginning to flutter.
'Love,' said Aubrey. 'Tell me, Miss Mulliner, have you ever thought of Love?'
He took her hand. Her head was bent, and with the toe of her dainty shoe she toyed with a passing snail.
'Life, Miss Mulliner,' said Aubrey, 'is a Sahara through which we all must pass. We start at the Cairo of the cradle and we travel on to the – er – well, we go travelling on.'
'Yes, don't we!' said Charlotte.
'Afar we can see the distant goal . . .'
'Yes, can't we!'
'. . . and would fain reach it.'
'Yes, wouldn't we!'
'But the way is rough and weary. We have to battle through the sand-storms of Destiny, face with what courage we may the howling simoons of Fate. And very unpleasant it all is. But sometimes in the Sahara of Life, if we are fortunate, we come upon the Oasis of Love. That oasis, when I had all but lost hope, I reached at one-fifteen on the afternoon of Tuesday, the twenty-second of last month. There comes a time in the life of every man when he sees Happiness beckoning to him and must grasp it. Miss Mulliner, I have something to ask you which I have been trying to ask ever since the day when we two first met. Miss Mulliner . . . Charlotte . . .Will you be my . . . Gosh! Look at that whacking great rat! Loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo!' said Aubrey, changing the subject.
Once, in her childhood, a sportive playmate had secretly withdrawn the chair on which Charlotte Mulliner was preparing to seat herself. Years had passed, but the recollection of the incident remained green in her memory. In frosty weather she could still feel the old wound. And now, as Aubrey Bassinger suddenly behaved in this remarkable manner, she experienced the same sensation again. It was as though something blunt and heavy had hit her on the head at the exact moment when she was slipping on a banana-skin.
She stared round-eyed at Aubrey. He had released her hand, sprung to his feet, and now, armed with her parasol, was beating furiously in the lush grass at the waterside. And every little while his mouth would open, his head would go back, and uncouth sounds would proceed from his slavering jaws.
'Yoicks! Yoicks! Yoicks!' cried Aubrey.
And again,
'Tally-ho! Hard For'ard! Tally-ho!'
Presently the fever seemed to pass. He straightened himself and came back to where she stood.
'It must have got away into a hole or something,' he said, removing a bead of perspiration from his forehead with the ferrule of the parasol. 'The fact of the matter is, it's silly ever to go out in the country without a good dog. If only I'd had a nice, nippy terrier with me, I might have obtained some solid results. As it is, a fine rat – gone – just like that! Oh, well, that's Life, I suppose.' He paused. 'Let me see,' he said. 'Where was I?'
And then it was as though he waked from a trance. His flushed face paled.
'I say,' he stammered, 'I'm afraid you must think me most awfully rude.'
'Pray do not mention it,' said Charlotte coldly.
'Oh, but you must. Dashing off like that.'
'Not at all.'
'What I was going to say, when I was interrupted, was, will you be my wife?'
'Oh?'
'Yes.'
'Well, I won't.'
'You won't?'
'No. Never.' Charlotte's voice was tense with a scorn which she did not attempt to conceal. 'So this is what you were all the time, Mr Bassinger – a secret sportsman!'
Aubrey quivered from head to foot.
'I'm not! I'm not! It was the hideous spell of this ghastly house that overcame me.'
'Pah!'
'What did you say?'
'I said ''Pah!''.'
'Why did you say ''Pah!''?'
'Because,' said Charlotte, with flashing eyes, 'I do not believe you. Your story is thin and fishy.'
'But it's the truth. It was as if some hypnotic influence had gripped me, forcing me to act against all my higher inclinations. Can't you understand? Would you condemn me for a moment's passing weakness? Do you think,' he cried passionately, 'that the real Aubrey Bassinger would raise a hand to touch a rat, save in the way of kindness? I love rats, I tell you – love them. I used to keep them as a boy. White ones with pink eyes.'
Charlotte shook her head. Her face was cold and hard.
'Good-bye, Mr Bassinger,' she said. 'From this instant we meet as strangers.'
She turned and was gone. And Aubrey Bassinger, covering his face with his hands, sank on the bench, feeling like a sandbagged leper.
The mind of Charlotte Mulliner, in the days which followed the painful scene which I have just described, was torn, as you may well imagine, with conflicting emotions. For a time, as was natural, anger predominated. But after awhile sadness overcame indignation. She mourned for her lost happiness.
And yet, she asked herself, how else could she have acted? She had worshipped Aubrey Bassinger. She had set him upon a pedestal, looked up to him as a great white soul. She had supposed him one who lived, far above this world's coarseness and grime, on a rarefied plane of his own, thinking beautiful thoughts. Instead of which, it now appeared, he went about the place chasing rats with parasols. What could she have done but spurn him?
That there lurked in the atmosphere of Bludleigh Court a sinister influence that sapped the principles of the most humanitarian and sent them ravening to and fro, seeking for prey, she declined to believe. The theory was pure banana-oil. If such an influence was in operation at Bludleigh, why had it not affected her?
No, if Aubrey Bassinger chased rats with parasols, it could only mean that he was one of Nature's rat-chasers. And to such a one, cost what it might to refuse, she could never confide her heart.
Few things are more embarrassing to a highly-strung girl than to be for any length of time in the same house with a man whose love she has been compelled to decline, and Charlotte would have given much to be able to leave Bludleigh Court. But there was, it seemed, to be a garden-party on the following Tuesday, and Lady Bassinger had urged her so strongly to stay on for it that departure was out of the question.
To fill the leaden moments, she immersed herself in her work. She had a long-standing commission to supply the
Animal-Lovers' Gazette
with a poem for its Christmas number, and to the task of writing this she proceeded to devote herself. And gradually the ecstasy of literary composition eased her pain.
The days crept by. Old Sir Alexander continued to maltreat magpies. Reginald and the local rabbits fought a never-ceasing battle, they striving to keep up the birthrate, he to reduce it. Colonel Pashley-Drake maundered on about gnus he had met. And Aubrey dragged himself about the house, looking licked to a splinter. Eventually Tuesday came, and with it the garden-party.
Lady Bassinger's annual garden-party was one of the big events of the countryside. By four o'clock all that was bravest and fairest for miles around had assembled on the big lawn. But Charlotte, though she had stayed on specially to be present, was not one of the gay throng. At about the time when the first strawberry was being dipped in its cream, she was up in her room, staring with bewildered eyes at a letter which had arrived by the second post.
The
Animal-Lovers' Gazette
had turned her poem down!
Yes, turned it down flat, in spite of the fact that it had been commissioned and that she was not asking a penny for it. Accompanying the rejected manuscript was a curt note from the editor, in which he said that he feared its tone might offend his readers.
Charlotte was stunned. She was not accustomed to having her efforts rejected. This one, moreover, had seemed to her so particularly good. A hard judge of her own work, she had said to herself, as she licked the envelope, that this time, if never before, she had delivered the goods.
She unfolded the manuscript and re-read it.
It ran as follows:
GOOD GNUS
(
A Vignette in Verse
)
BY
C
HARLOTTE
M
ULLINER
When cares attack and life seems black,
How sweet it is to pot a yak,
Or puncture hares and grizzly bears,
And others I could mention:
But in my Animals' 'Who's Who'
No name stands higher than the Gnu:
And each new gnu that comes in view
Receives my prompt attention.
When Afric's sun is sinking low,
And shadows wander to and fro,
And everywhere there's in the air
A hush that's deep and solemn;
Then is the time good men and true
With View Halloo pursue the gnu:
(The safest spot to put your shot
Is through the spinal column).
To take the creature by surprise
We must adopt some rude disguise,
Although deceit is never sweet,
And falsehoods don't attract us:
So, as with gun in hand you wait,
Remember to impersonate
A tuft of grass, a mountain-pass,
A kopje or a cactus.
A brief suspense, and then at last
The waiting's o'er, the vigil past:
A careful aim. A spurt of flame.
It's done. You've pulled the trigger,
And one more gnu, so fair and frail,
Has handed in its dinner-pail:
(The females all are rather small,
The males are somewhat bigger).
Charlotte laid the manuscript down, frowning. She chafed at the imbecility of editors. Less than ever was she able to understand what anyone could find in it to cavil at. Tone likely to offend? What did the man mean about the tone being likely to offend? She had never heard such nonsense in her life. How could the tone possibly offend? It was unexceptionable. The whole poem breathed that clean, wholesome, healthy spirit of Sport which has made England what it is. And the thing was not only lyrically perfect, but educational as well. It told the young reader, anxious to shoot gnus but uncertain of the correct procedure, exactly what he wanted to know.
She bit her lip. Well, if this
Animal-Lovers'
bird didn't know a red-hot contribution when he saw one, she would jolly well find somebody else who did – and quick, too. She . . .
At this moment, something occurred to distract her thoughts. Down on the terrace below, little Wilfred, complete with airgun, had come into her line of vision. The boy was creeping along in a quiet, purposeful manner, obviously intent on the chase: and it suddenly came over Charlotte Mulliner in a wave that here she had been in this house all this time and never once had thought of borrowing the child's weapon and having a plug at something with it.
The sky was blue. The sun was shining. All Nature seemed to call to her to come out and kill things.
She left the room and ran quickly down the stairs.
And what of Aubrey, meanwhile? Grief having slowed him up on his feet, he had been cornered by his mother and marched off to hand cucumber sandwiches at the garden-party. After a brief spell of servitude, however, he had contrived to escape and was wandering on the terrace, musing mournfully, when he observed his brother Wilfred approaching. And at the same moment Charlotte Mulliner emerged from the house and came hurrying in their direction. In a flash, Aubrey perceived that here was a situation which, shrewdly handled, could be turned greatly to his advantage. Affecting to be unaware of Charlotte's approach, he stopped his brother and eyed the young thug sternly.