There Were Three Princes

by Joyce Dingwell

  "They love it, as we do. They like new things, as we do.

  Hence poor Uncle Bent's furniture." Another laugh. She was a happy person and laughed a lot.

  From the moment the Tank had pulled up at the rendezvous that had been chosen, Verity had known she would be as happy as she could be anywhere with this nice family. When Big Gunnar had joined them in Bathurst and taken over the wheel, she had felt more confident still.

  The homestead had proved a delight. Instead of the accepted spreading, leisurely one-storey edifice favoured in most instances, it had borrowed from native Sweden. It was a surprise to come across its three levels and its tucked-in attics and dormer windows, but it was a pleasant surprise.

  The boys were likeable, and she felt they liked her. Big Gunnar had built a swimming pool, she had a mount to go riding with Gunnar and Ulf, in fact she could think of nothing that she needed.

  Grete chatted about everything, but she never intruded into Verity's life. If Verity told her anything, she listened very eagerly, so Verity guessed she must be curious about her. But she never asked, and Verity never confided. Anyway, she thought, what would I have to say? You can't talk about emptiness.

  There was a mixed plate at Tetaparilly, as Gunnar Dahlquist put it. A little sheep. A few cattle. A lot of crops. Their new herbs. Then they had leased the western and southern sections to a cotton starter. It was two weeks before Verity met Chris Boliver.

  Grete had made only a superficial endeavour to hide her eagerness for Verity and Chris to like each other. "It is not good Chris living as he lives," she said. Then carefully, but still saying it : "It is not good for you, Verity."

  "I'm contented, thank you, Grete." Verity was. — Well, she was as contented, anyway, as she could hope to be. At times the enormity of the things she had done, that outrageous walking out from her marriage without an explanation, with only . "I have gone away. V," did appal her, as in all fairness she knew it should, but in between she knew a degree of serenity out in this serene western refuge, with its wide unclouded skies, its distant horizons, and its nice people, for already she liked them, parents and children, very much. She was aware that Grete wanted her to like their neighbour, too.

  Well, she was prepared . . . a little . . . for that. She was young, and at times she thought wistfully of younger company than Grete's and Big Gunnar's, yet older than the boys'. But it must stop at that. She knew it, but Grete didn't, and she listened rather uneasily as Grete explained how Chris was American, but had left his native cotton fields to start again in Australia after his young wife had died.

  "I know what you will be thinking now," Grete had babbled eagerly. "You will ask yourself what does this Grete want me to do, live with a ghost? And I would say yes, for I believe from what Chris has told me it is a happy ghost, and I believe from my own knowledge that it should be so. Male and female, Verity. Why do you think I left my children all those years for my mother to bring up? I missed them terribly, but I knew, anyway, they were only on loan to me, but that my husband was forever. Two people together is as it should be. Don't you think ?"

  "But, Grete, you don't understand . . . and I'm afraid I can't tell you."

  "Then you, too, have thoughts behind you. Then I think it could be very good for you and Chris to —"

  "Grete!"

  "I'm sorry. Big Gunnar always says I rush in. It is just that I'd like you for a neighbour one day, Verity."

  "I'd like you, Grete, but —"

  "Then do not say any more. Wait till you meet our Chris."

  With a sigh Verity had decided to leave it at that.

  Chris Boliver came riding up one morning just before Verty's hour of conversation with Gunnar and Ulf.

  "Look at him," said Grete as the fair American on the grey gorse approached, "he has a large car and a landrover, but he rides." An inspiration came to her. "Why don't you ride with him, Verity ?"

  Verity burst out laughing.

  "You are supposed to be asked," she pointed out. "I could hardly go up to Mr. Boliver and say 'Come riding with me.' "

  "No," agreed a soft American drawl, and Verity realized her voice had carried in the clear air, "but you could say to Chris Boliver, 'Come riding with me.' "

  "And your answer, Chris ?" Grete came in eagerly.

  "Yes, please," said Chris at once, his hazel eyes appreciatively on Verity.

  He said he could do with English conversation, too, after all he also was a foreigner, and he followed Gunnar and Ulf into the schoolroom. Embarrassed at first, Verity found herself enjoying the hour. They compared their brands of English, the American way, the English way, the Swedish—Australian variety, for Gunnar and Ulf talked a mixture of what they had picked up from the farm hands and their parents' native tongue.

  It became an established thing in the week that followed for Chris to "happen" along. That was what he always said. "I happened along."

  When she laughed at him, he asked, "What would you say?" "I came."

  "I came, I saw . . . I conquered ?"

  Flushing, Verity started on other varieties of differences

  paraffin where the Australian said kerosene, supper that meant

  a snack before bed in Australia but in England and America

  meant what the Australians called tea. She was aware that Chris was looking at her and not listening as attentively as she liked Gunnar and Ulf to listen. — She was aware, too, of her awareness of him. I must stop it, she knew.

  A few days afterwards he said diffidently, "Knowing Grete, I have no doubt she has spoken about me, Verity."

  "Well — yes."

  "I was married. When Elvie died I knew I must get away. There will never be anyone like Elvie, yet would I want that? — Yet more important, would the one I now want want that?"

  "I wouldn't know, Chris," she said honestly.

  "Then I'm asking you to think about it, Verity. I can't offer you what I had for Elvie, but I can offer you what Elvie never had of me. She was my morning time, something that happens only once in a man's life. But a day can grow as lovely in a different way. The thing is whichever view you take, the day will grow, will reach night. So all the trying in the world to hold time back still will never hold it. Life must go on. Do you follow me, Verity?

  "Yes. — Grete has been talking to you."

  "She has," he admitted, "but I think I would still have reached this knowledge of my own accord, this acceptance that I can't live the rest of my days on only a dream. I've a lot of days yet, you see."

  "I hope so, Chris. But Chris —"

  "Yes, I know. There is something, too, with you. I could tell it at once when I first met you. Perhaps you're only at the stage that I was when I came out here. Still withdrawing from it all. But it will pass, Verity. And then —"

  It will pass. Verity gave a bleak little smile. Oh, Chris dear, if you only knew !

  He took her silence for thoughtfulness, and touched her shoulder gently.

  "Think about it, anyway, Verity."

  She could not reply to that.

  The Dahlquists had taken delivery of some more of their chosen furniture. Plain, unpolished, simple to sparse in line though it was, Verity had to admit that the almost Biblical quality of this remote western terrain set off the uncluttered designs in cool perfection.

  "I knew you would see it in time," Grete nodded eagerly. "To put scrolls and curlicues in this basic land would be very wrong."

  "Your uncle did it."

  "Big Gunnar's dear old Uncle Bent. But that was years ago. Now his nephew is selling it."

  "Surely not to anywhere at all?" asked Verity, shocked.

  "Oh, no, we have our own dear man, our very dear man, and he has made us promise that we sell only to him. Each time we have a few pieces to let go to make room for the new, he comes and buys it."

  "That is good." Verity felt relieved. She was still sufficiently the connoisseur to shudder at any indiscriminate disposal of such lovely stuff.

  It was a month now since
Robin had died . . . so a month since she had married Bart Prince. Common sense told her that she must make a move soon, she had had her respite, had her time for constructive thought . . . even though she had done very little of that . . . and she could not go on like this. She must contact Bart, tell him he could start procedures, or whatever one did to begin a release. A release so he could go to Adele.

  As it always did when she thought of Bart and Adele, the picture of Priscilla came to Verity's mind. Dear background Priscilla, whom once she had coupled with Bart, when all the time it had been her brother's wife. But even Mrs. Prince had assumed it was Bart and Priscilla, Verity recalled.

  Priscilla was too worthwhile not to belong to someone, Verity's thoughts ran on. Then she smiled reprovingly at herself. I'm becoming a Grete, she accused.

  Yet with little else to think about out here, it was a diversion, and she even got to the extent of bringing Priscilla and Chris together in her mind. — But at that she stopped, stopped at the thought of Chris's fair good looks, his serious gold-green eyes.

  I am beginning to like him, she thought, appalled, and I can't, I mustn't.

  She knew she could not go on much longer like this. But before she could do anything, admit what she should have told Gunnar and Grete . . . and Chris . . . right from the beginning something else happened to put any telling back for yet another day.

  And a night. . . .

  As Chris smilingly put it as he extended one arm of his jacket to include Verity, in olden days . . . as younger Gunnar and Ulf always expressed anything further back than their own years . . . this episode certainly would have "fixed things."

  — "Even still does in some straitlaced New England towns," he admitted.

  "How do you mean fixed ?" Verity had been fastening herself in from the breeze biting at the other side from Chris.

  "You shock me, Verity," he had teased. "Us, of course. This is unconventional, to say the least."

  "Your coat? I find it warm and necessary."

  "Can you find me necessary, too?" Chris had said then.

  Before their predicament he had taken her out to see, and understand, he hoped, the cotton. "Elvie understood the process perfectly." He had pulled himself up sharply. "I'm sorry,Verity," he had apologized at once.

  "For what?"

  "For bringing in Elvie."

  "Oh, Chris, don't feel like that, keep keeping her in your mind."

  "You don't mind ?"

  "I want you to."

  "But if we —"

  "Not now, Chris," she had evaded, reading his thoughts. But it had to be some time, her own thoughts had warned. She must not keep on like this.

  They had gone through the different processes of the cotton. Chris even had shown Verity where he planned a future ginnery. He had said deprecatingly, "And I can have it, Verity. I really mean I have the means . . . I think you have the right to know that. You wouldn't be . . . well, I'm not a poor man."

  And you, knew Verity wretchedly, have the right to know that I have a husband with more than just means, a rich husband, only he isn't really, because we — because I —

  "Verity, didn't you like me telling you that?" Chris had asked with concern at her preoccupied silence.

  "Telling me what?" She realized she had not been listening with attention, she had been thinking of something else. "Money."

  "Of course I didn't mind. And Chris, I love the source of your money. I love the cotton. I love those fluffy balls."

  "Bridal," he had agreed, and as it often . . . unbidden .. . seemed to happen, he seemed to withdraw from her into another world. Poor Chris !

  They had had a happy meal at his house before they had set out on the ride to the distant rocks that Verity always had wanted to see.

  "I'm going to give you some good American fare," Chris had

  told her. "I thought it would make a change from Swedish."

  "And Australian — don't forget we have Australian hands, and to them all the choice Swedish offering in the world would not come up to steak and damper. But this looks wonderful, Chris. Is it —" She had examined the perfectly baked pie.

  "Blueberry. From a can. But the pastry is my own doing. If it adds a few points to my score, it will be worth my having thrown out four pies before this one."

  "Did you, Chris ?"

  "Yes. I remember once we were having a blueberry contest, Elvie and I, and —" As before, he stopped abruptly.

  "It's a beautiful pie," Verity had come in quickly. Then she had said spontaneously : "You're wonderful husband material, Chris." As abruptly as he had, she had stopped, too.

  They had both looked at each other, then smiled ruefully. He is completely nice, Verity had thought with a little catch at her heart.

  The Outcrop was the only higher point in a vast world of plain. Once, Verity had been told, it would have been a mountain, but centuries of centuries had worn the mountain down to the small but in this flat country salient rise that it was now.

  Because of its position it seemed to entrap every colour that the day chose to wear. Crimson in the morning. Pure amber at noon. Purples and deep burgundies at night. Verity had never got over turning to gaze at it and wondering what it would be like to gaze back from.

  "Probably," Grete had warned, "it will be the same as the house with the golden windows, and we will have the colours."

  "It must still be fine to stand there and look around."

  Chris must have heard her say that, for as soon as the meal was over after the cotton inspection, he had said they would go across.

  At first he had suggested taking his Rover to the closest point, then they could climb up, but Verity had wanted to ride. If she had listened to him, she told him ruefully as later he had apportioned out his jacket, they would not be up here like this.

  "I'm not complaining."

  "But you did say about this 'fixing' it," she reminded him with a giggle.

  "Perhaps wishfully," he suggested.

  They had ridden as far as they could, then left their horses cropping. That, Chris had said, was where he had to take the blame, but Nomad had never needed before to be tethered. However, something must have scared the horse, he was a highly sensitive animal, and suddenly he had galloped down the hill. Before Verity could reach her mare, Sally had followed Nomad.

  The sun had been well to the western rim. Even as they had stood looking at the retreating horses, it had started to sink. Verity knew, even though she had only been here some weeks, that dusk would only be a matter of minutes. It was instant night out here in the west.

  Also, although the days were warm, it would be cold with the plain all around them. She had only a thin blouse on, and she shivered at the thought of what lay ahead. — That was when Chris had apportioned out his jacket ... one arm each, which meant they had to sit very close together, as close as one, not two.

  The darkest moment had been just after the sun had slipped away and after elf light had deepened into night. For this was the time of no stars, once the stars pricked out it would be almost like putting on a lamp, for out here the heavens fairly blazed.

  "Verity."

  She had known it was coming, but the knowledge didn't

  help her now. But before Chris said anything, Verity knew what she had to say.

  She took a deep breath.

  But finally it had been hours before she could tell him. All that time he had waited sympathetically, sensing her desperate need to spill out the words, appreciating the difficulty she found in doing so. When at length she had blurted the story, he had tightened his grasp on her hand.

  "I felt there was something important."

  "Not really important, Chris, although we were married we're not married. I mean —"

  "I know, I know." He spared her. Then, after a pause : "But does it really finish at that, Verity?"

  "Chris?"

  "It doesn't, does it, girl?"

  "Chris, I don't understand you."

  "I believe deep down you do,
but you just won't let yourself believe it. But it's still there, Verity, and even if you don't, or won't, know it, then I still do. If I didn't, then ..." He gave a little smile.

  "If you didn't know what, Chris ?" she asked directly. "Your love."

  "What love ?"

  "For this man."

  "You're wrong."

  "I'm not wrong, girl, and if I didn't know it, I would wait and marry you. But what would be the use of marrying half a heart."

  Now she did understand him. She understood that he was telling her that only that he sensed the impossibility of what Grete in her goodness had tried to bring about, that he would not be saying all this now, that instead he would be —

  But ... and Verity knew it with a sudden sure perception... Chris Boliver would not.

  Calmly, she told' im so.

  He listened to her silently. He heard her say, "You still would not have married me, dear Chris, because in your heart you're still married to Elvie. Some marriages are like that." He listened to her say it in different words once again.

  There was a silence. It was such a long one it seemed hours before he spoke.

  Then : "Thank you, Verity," Chris said.

  After a while he blurted, "I just didn't know . . . I was confused . . . I just accepted what Grete advised, and she said —" "There should be someone again?"

  "Yes."

  "Yet in your heart you didn't feel it?" Now it was Verity's turn to probe.

  "No."

  "Then —?"

  "Then it doesn't have to be." He nodded at her in the dark. "You are right. Grete was wrong. Oh, she's kind, and she means well, but . ." Another pause. "Thank you, Verity."

  After that they just sat close together, each intent on their own thoughts. At times they spoke companionably, but that was all it was. Yet Verity saw that Chris had reached a new peace of mind. Probably what Grete in her kindness had urged would do for a lot of men, most men, but not Chris. He had been uncertain, but now he had found himself There was a tug of sadness to his mouth, that would always be there, but there was a serenity and an acceptance he had not had before.