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Sad Love Stories
I was always a little in awe of Great-aunt Stephina Roos. Indeed,
as children we were all frankly terrified of her. The fact that
she did not live with the family, preferring her tiny cottage
and solitude to the comfortable but rather noisy household where
we were brought up - added to the respectful fear in which she
was held. She was a tiny little woman to inspire so much veneration. She
was always dressed in black, and her dark clothes melted into
the shadows of the voor-kamer and made her look smaller than ever.
But you feel it the moment she entered. The feeling is something
vital and strong and somehow indestructible had come in with her.
This was despite the fact that she moved slowly and her voice
was sweet and soft. Tante Sanna would bring in dishes that comprises of very sweet sticky candy or a great bowl of grapes or peaches and Great-aunt Stephina would converse gravely about happenings on the farm ,and, more rarely, of the outer world. When we had finished our sweetmeats or fruit she would accompany us to the stoep, bidding us goodbye and reminding us to thank our mother for her gift and sending quaint, old-fashioned messages to her and father. Then she would turn and enter the house, closing the door behind so that it became once more a place of mystery. As I grew older, I found rather to my surprise that I had become
genuinely fond of my aloof old great-aunt. But to this day, I
do not know what strange impulse made me take George to see her
and to tell her of our engagement before I had confided in another
living soul. To my astonishment, she was delighted. Still, she often appeared anxious about my love affair and would
ask questions that seemed to me strange, almost as though she
feared that something would happen to destroy my romance. But
I was quite unprepared for her outburst when I mentioned that
George thought of paying a lightning visit to England before we
were married.
When I arrived, I found her sitting on the stoep. She looked lonely and pathetic, and for the first time I wondered why no man had ever taken her and looked after her and loved her. Mother had told me that Great-aunt Stephina had been lovely as a young girl and although no trace of that beauty remained, except perhaps in her brown eyes, she still looked so small and appealing that any man would have wanted to protect her. She paused, as though she did not quite know how to begin. Then
she seemed to mentally give herself a little shake.
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