FullReads

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 cluster 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.