think of it!... I can hardly think of anything else. I do so love
giving people shocks. Do you remember our first meeting in the ruins,
when I sat quite still and watched you until you looked up?... That
was your shock!... You were frightfully disgusted with me, but I
didn't mind, I'd had my bit of amusement and no one was hurt; any
other silly girl would have coughed or walked away. Goodness!... how
black you looked!..." And again she laughed mirthfully.
He began to tell her he hoped she would be very happy, but she stayed
him and suddenly sobered.
"Not now. We haven't much time left, and we must plan something. Meryl
will come here and call for me soon in the motor. She knows I have
come to see a friend, but she does not know whom. She will not come in
herself, because she is shy about being seen just now. What shall we
do? When will you see her?"
He got up, and walked to the window with a grave face, and for some
time he did not speak.
"Are you still worrying about that absurd money? My dear good man, she
isn't stuffed with it, and she doesn't care tuppence about it. Isn't
it enough that you know she could love you as a Rhodesian
soldier-policeman? Why torture yourself unnecessarily?"
"If I were only a Rhodesian policeman I should not have come."
She looked at him with quick curiosity. Then something had happened!
There really was some great change in him. He smiled into her
questioning eyes. "Then Mrs. Grenville did not tell you?"
"Tell me what?..." with swift eagerness. "O, do be quick, I love
surprises. Have you found a gold-mine up there?... or the corpses in
the temple hung with gold ornaments?..."
"Neither."
She took his arm and gave it a little shake.
"Then what? O, do tell me quickly!..."
"It isn't very much, but it gives me courage to hope, where a
policeman might consider himself called upon only to renounce. And,"
he added, quietly, "I owe the knowledge of it to Mrs. Grenville."
"It must be a legacy?..."
"Not exactly. It is only that when the present Marquis of Toxeter dies
I shall succeed."
"O, my goodness!..." comically. "Am I going to be own cousin to a
marchioness?..."
"That is as your cousin decrees." Then with a little smile he added,
"So the shocks are not all given by you, you see."
At that moment a knock sounded on the door, and in reply to Carew's
"Come in," a hall-porter informed them that Miss Pym was waiting in
the motor.
"And we haven't decided what to do," said Diana, in dismay.
He was thoughtful a moment, then told her he would endeavour to find
Mr. Pym at his office and come to Hill Court later.
So Diana went downstairs alone. But on the way, with that mixture of
restlessness and level-headedness that was so characteristic of her,
she decided Carew's plan was much too prosaic and dull, and speedily
commenced to think out a better one. After which she accosted Meryl
with the words, "I want to introduce you to my friend. It won't keep
us long. She has a sitting-room upstairs, but she has a cold, and
could not come down to you."
Meryl looked unwilling, but finally yielded to persuasion and
alighted. Outside the door of Carew's room, Diana was so afraid her
face would betray her, she had to pretend to sneeze, in order to hide
it with her handkerchief. Quite suddenly it had occurred to her
humour-loving mind, that if shocks were the order of the hour, Carew
and Meryl were going to have the biggest all to themselves for that
day at least. Then she opened his door and half pushed Meryl in in
front of her. They saw only a broad back at the window first, then he
half turned. The next instant the door closed softly, and Meryl found
herself alone in the room, face to face with Peter Carew.
There were a few tense seconds in which they each seemed trying to
realise the other; and then she understood. She went slowly towards
him, seeing with unerring tuition all the love in his eyes, and
without knowing it held out both hands.
And across the long years, that self that he had thought for ever dead
seemed to reawaken by leaps and bounds. He would always be somewhat
quiet perhaps, a little grave, but the spirit of vigour and reckless
daring was in him still, if sobered by sixteen years and all that the
years had brought. He did not stop to explain. Quite suddenly it all
seemed unnecessary. Between these two the hours of probing were ended.
He took her outstretched hands in his and drew her into his arms.
It was some time before he told her of his changed position; there was
so much else to tell first. And when at last it was said she paid
little heed.
She only looked at him a trifle anxiously, saying, "But, of course,
you could never give up Rhodesia? You wouldn't let any claim come
before hers?"
He kissed the finger-tips of the hand imprisoned in his, and murmured,
"Bless you; it would have gone hard with me if you had wanted me to
leave Rhodesia for good."
"I shall never do that," softly. "It was the Rhodesian policeman I
loved first. The other does not greatly matter, except that perhaps it
brought us together." Then with one of her rare flashes of humour she
added, "I'm not sure that we shall even have time for a honeymoon. We
may have to go up there any time about this settlement scheme of
father's and mine. As Diana is going to help William van Hert to run
South Africa generally, we must get to work quickly with Rhodesia...."
And her smile was a very happy one.
FINIS.
And so in the end Diana had her little jest, and gave Johannesburg its
shock and its nine days' wonder, and was certainly the most surprising
bride of the year; though, of course, afterwards most people said they
were not surprised at all, and had expected it all along.
Before the wedding a sufficiently characteristic letter found its way
to a certain mission station in Rhodesia to delight the hearts of its
contented occupants. After duly relating all that had transpired and
how the problem had been solved, it added: "And now the only
difficulty seems to be how to relieve Meryl of her superfluous
fortune, in order that she and The Bear may live upon love and air,
and how to save me from appearing in the guise of a heroine!..."
To her old friend Stanley she wrote gaily of the perfectly splendid
surprise she had succeeded in administering to about half the
English-speaking population of South Africa.
And Stanley wrote back, with many regretful qualms tugging at his
heart: "The astonishment of South Africa is a mere detail. When the
news reached Zimbabwe, bones that have lain buried for three thousand
years rattled in their grave-clothes, and antiquities of the ages
crumbled to dust. In the morning, over our coffee, Moore and I ask of
the four winds and of the liquid butter and of the unyielding bread,
'Which did he actually marry in the end, and what became of whom?'"
...
* * * * *
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=AN AVERAGE MAN= Robert Hugh Benson
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=A RASH EXPERIMENT= Mrs. B. M. Croker
=WHAT SHE OVERHEARD= Mrs. B. M. Croker
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=Candytuft--I mean Veronica=
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