It was raining—raining with a sort of dreary, hopeless persistence that meant that it was going on raining all day. It came slashing against the windows in cutting blasts, and then streamed down to the bottom of the glass panes, and began to ooze slowly in under the wooden framework. The road was soaking; it was a tarred road, so it shone with wet, and at the sides of it, by each curb, a small, dust-coloured stream tore down to the drain at the end of it. Monica sat a little forward and pressed her nose against the glass, that was also wet. It was wet inside, because the room was so hot and it was fairly cold outside, and the wet distilled on the inside of the glass; and where Monica’s nose had been, when she drew back, was a small round, clear space instead of the ripply film of steam. One of the drains at the end of the road was blocked—she had noticed that as she sat forward—and a large, slowly creeping lake was forming where the tall lamp-post stood. It would be fun to splash through it, she suddenly thought, as she saw a tradesman’s boy coming eagerly nearer. There! he was in the middle of it, with his black circular cape, sheltering the basket of groceries, and his dripping leather cap. He loved it, evidently; he was kicking up the khaki-coloured water with the toes of his very solid boots, and stamping so that it splashed up the legs of his black gaiters. Lucky boy! he could do what he liked, thought Monica. Monica sat back abruptly and stopped looking out of the window.
Monica Field lived at Maygate with three maiden Aunts. Maygate was a seaside place on the Kentish coast. They lived in one of the older houses in one of the roads that run straight down to the promenade from the slight ridge on which the greater part of Maygate is built, and they had taken it at a very auspicious time, during the war, when property at Maygate was at a discount, because of the air raids and the possibility of invasion or bombardment. As neither of Monica’s three Aunts had any nerves, or shall we say imagination? they had not felt it at all a disadvantage that at any moment they might be flung into Eternity in small pieces. Monica had felt it a disadvantage, and during her holidays from her pleasant boarding-school in Surrey she had suffered tortures in imagination, seeing herself disfigured for life, with one side of her face gone, or lying chained to a couch with a half-shattered spine. But the Aunts did not notice that she got to look peaked and shivery, or if they did, they only thought that she needed a little iron; so they bought her hard black pills like boot-buttons, and made her swallow them after every meal, and sent her out long walks with Patch, the wheezy, overfed fox-terrier. But Monica would stare out with tormented eyes to where the grey sea met the greyer sky, and wonder what she would do if she saw the tiny dark speck like a hovering vulture coming straight for the unprotected town—for the North Sea and Germany lay beyond that grey horizon; in fact, nothing much but them lay between Maygate and the North Pole. Monica had often heard one Aunt tell another that. Then Patch, on his lead, would make a mad rush at another dog—he was desperately bad tempered—and the lead would get all wound round her legs, and the irritation of that and the consequent difficulty of disentangling herself would in some measure detract from the hovering terror of what might after all never happen, at any rate while she was there. And it never did happen while Monica was there, although it did happen while she was at school—the front of a boarding-house was blown in, and several well-meaning young men who were trying to amuse the ladies of the party by singing comic songs were turned into ugly, bleeding lumps of flesh. However, as they ought to have been at the Front, it was not a matter of so much regret as it might have been. But not even this upset the Aunts, and, as a little later the Armistice was declared, they bought the house, the wife of the landlord having declared that nothing in the world would ever make her return to Maygate, and they settled down there in complete happiness.
Aunt Ellie, the Aunt for whom the migration to Maygate had originally been made, because her throat was not quite so strong as it might have been, was perfectly happy, because she had just been asked to sing in the choir of the chapel that they all attended, and her doctor had said that she might. Aunt Hilda, who was the second in age of the Aunts, was mad on knitting and collecting stamps, and she had found a little shop tucked away in one of the dark streets that lie near the harbour where they kept all Head’s things—silks, real and artificial, and every conceivable kind of wool. Also, she had found out that there was a local philatelic club with a purely nominal subscription, so Aunt Hilda was all right. Aunt Fanny, the youngest of the three sisters—her forty-ninth birthday had fallen on the very day that Monica had come back from school for good—adored shopping. She was the housekeeper of the party, and as she and her sisters were residents—for Maygate, being a seaside town, had a floating population—the shop-people made much of them, and the butcher would smack the meat when she came into the shop and say something like this: “I can give you a beautiful little piece of rump this morning, Miss Fisher; I’ve been hoping you’d pop in.” So Aunt Fanny was also all right.
Only Monica was not all right, and as she was only a girl—at the time of which we write she was just twenty—it was not supposed to matter whether she was all right or not. For the three Miss Fishers belonged to a generation when younger women found their happiness in looking after their older relations, and if they did not, they ought to have done, and no yearnings, or longings, or aspirations were countenanced for a single moment. But Monica had longings, and aspirations, and yearnings, and she suffered torments of loneliness, and agonies of wondering whether she would ever have any happiness or fun like other girls did before she became too old really to enjoy them.
Although, in the face of the perfect contentment of the Aunts, it seemed wrong to want anything more than the trivial round, the common task, that was supposed to furnish all you ought to ask, but certainly did not in Monica’s case, on this dismal afternoon, when the rain streamed and slashed at the windows and the whole place seemed to steam with the four human beings seated in one room, she felt a tearing resentment at her heart that she should be condemned to such stodginess for the rest of her life. For when you are twenty and cannot definitely count on any particular piece of happiness coming your way, you cannot take short views; even so short a period as a week is the rest of your life!
“Monica, if you are not doing anything particular, would you come and hold this skein of wool for me?” It was Aunt Hilda’s voice from the easy-chair on one side of the fire; since lunch, she had been bending absorbed over “Needle-Craft,” quite the best book on fancy work at the moment, and a book which had just been recommended to Aunt Hilda by the funny little dried-up maiden lady who kept the wool shop near the harbour. “Ever since I saw it I have been thinking of you, Miss Fisher,” she had said, and Aunt Hilda who had not had many people to think about her in her uneventful life, because she had always been so occupied in thinking about herself that they had not cared to, had beamed and had almost leaned over the counter and shaken hands with the little dried-up maiden lady, but had refrained in case it might be considered to be going to become a habit.
“Certainly, Aunt Hilda.” Monica had trained herself to say “Certainly, Aunt,” whichever it was, in a voice entirely expressionless. When she had first come back from school she had been wont to answer in a soft, eager voice, saying things like, “Oh, must I just this minute? I’m just in the middle of . . . “ or, “Half a minute, darling Aunt Ellie, while I just . . .” But she had soon seen that that did not do at all. Whichever Aunt it was who wanted something had sort of drawn herself up and quivered, not with anger, but with a sort of grieved surprise. And as Monica then had been a very sensitive, passionately loving little soul, she had hated to grieve anybody, and had hastened to apologize for not having instantly put down, or stopped doing, whatever it was that had happened to be occupying her at the moment. All three Aunts had traded on this gentleness of spirit; they did not know that they had, but they had. So Monica had now become hard and rather deceitful, in that she never betrayed her real feelings about anything, so she had learnt to say, “Certainly, Aunt,” whichever it was, in a voice that only sounded like the voice of some one entirely acquiescent. But she often wondered what they would think if she suddenly did not say that at all, but only something like she felt, like “No, I shan’t, you stupid, cramping woman who has ground me down to what I am now; I hate the way you put your fork into your mouth when you eat.” What would happen then? Monica, in the solitude of her small bedroom under the roof, would wonder. She felt, as she wondered, that she was hideously unnatural in her feelings towards these relations, who had really done a great deal for her. For Monica was an orphan; she was the child of missionaries, and her father had really been a very wonderful man, and had gone, straight from a Theological College, fired with enthusiasm, to try and convert the inhabitants of one of the islands in the Indian Ocean. He had come home, on a brief leave, and had then very unfortunately met, and eventually married, the prettiest and youngest Miss Fisher, who was no more fitted to be the wife of a man on fire for the souls of men than she was fitted to be the wife of the Prime Minister—in fact, she would have done much better as the latter. So the marriage had been a pitiful failure. Dr. Field had flung himself more and more into his work so as to get away from the niggling pettiness of his wife, and Mrs. Field had followed him about grumbling, and asking why she need stay in such a horrid place as this desert island, where you only got a mail once a fortnight. So eventually he had sent her Home, she and the tiny baby that he adored, because somehow he felt in his soul that when it was grown up it would be like him; and he had died soon afterwards from blackwater fever, brought on really because he had no one to take care of him or to make him change his clothes when he came in from his long day’s itinerary, and she died soon afterwards, too, because the English climate did not suit her at all; the humid warmth of the leafy island had really been the very thing for her rather thin vitality.
So Monica was left to her three maiden Aunts, and at first she had not noticed that they were cramped and niggling. Then she did notice it a little—just before she was old enough to go to boarding-school she began to see how they fussed at meals and harried the servant when she was obviously doing her best. Then, when she came home for her holidays she noticed it more; things were looked at more broadly at school, although there too the atmosphere was entirely feminine, but you weren’t allowed to niggle. And then, when she had been at home from school a year, she noticed it more than ever, desperately more than ever—it was unceasing, the pettiness of it all. All the things that really did not matter at all did matter to the Aunts, things like who went in and out of the houses opposite; whether Cynthia was “dressed” when she had to open the front-door after lunch; how you held your spoon when you stirred your tea—all three Aunts held theirs with the little finger stuck out a little, crooked; whether you had on your very best clothes when you went to chapel—that was absolutely vital: you had to begin Sunday in a dress; you could not, for some obscure reason, wear a blouse and skirt, and so you came down to breakfast feeling bottled up and frantic, and ready to scream when you saw Aunt Ellie sitting up very straight at the end of the table in front of a dish of sausages, with the spoon stuck in a jug of hot water so that the gravy should not stick to it. All these things fermented in Monica’s brain, so that now, when she said “Certainly, Aunt Hilda,” the blood seemed to bubble in front of her eyes for an instant, before she got up and walked quietly across the room and, sitting down, held out her two small hands to receive the hank of wool.
Aunt Hilda had a rather flat face with very pale blue eyes, and she allowed her filbert-shaped nails to grow long, so that she reminded Monica of a bird, as she pecked in amongst the strands of wool for the loose end. She spoke quietly, so as not to wake Aunt Fanny, who was lying along the sofa at the other side of the room, sweetly dozing. Aunt Ellie always retired to her room for her afternoon rest, as she was the eldest, and was therefore entitled to a certain amount of latitude in her movements; and she used it as regards her afternoon siesta by regularly settling in with a hot-water bottle from half-past two until half-past four. But the other Aunts distributed themselves about the room, and as the sitting-room was the dining-room (the drawing-room was never used and always smelt of dried hay, probably because the grate was filled with tropical grasses), they slept in an aroma of cabbage and beef gravy, or, if there had not been a hot joint, a flavour of cheese and water in which potatoes had been boiled. Monica as a rule went out for a walk in the afternoons to escape this, and took the bad-tempered dog with her. But to-day it was too wet, so she had to remain in the dining-room, because if she had retired to her room she would probably have found Aunt Hilda flumping up her mattress afterwards, a sort of silent reproach because Monica had lain down on her bed in the middle of the day.
“I don’t think this wool is quite so pliable as the last I got from Miss Burr.” Aunt Hilda spoke in a hissing whisper as she pecked. “Perhaps if it clears we might walk as far as the harbour after tea, Monica.”
Monica had other plans, and as she was not the transparently honest girl that she had been when she left school, she dissembled. “Yes, perhaps we might, Aunt Hilda; that is to say, if you don’t think Patch ought to go for a good long walk. You see, he behaves rather oddly when he gets in among the traffic.”
“Yes, so he does;” Aunt Hilda’s long nose was almost touching the wool. “Yes, perhaps it would be wiser not; perhaps Aunt Fanny would enjoy the turn. I will ask her when she wakes. Aha!” Aunt Hilda had run the elusive end to earth; she smiled, showing a row of very white teeth that moved a little, as her lips parted.
“Joy! “ Monica also smiled, showing little square teeth that were not set quite straight. But the slight irregularity gave her mouth a Puckish look, and she smiled again as she sank back into the curved back of the low chair on which she was sitting.
But Aunt Hilda was quick to improve the occasion. “Don’t loll, dear,” she said, unconsciously straightening her own straight back as she spoke; “it is so bad for your figure, and bad for you morally, too. You know we must always be alert mentally and physically if we are ever to do anything in this life. That’s better!” Aunt Hilda smiled brightly as Monica sat instantly upright.
“And now we shall soon be having tea.” A beautiful almond-shaped ball had taken the place of the skein across Monica’s fingers. “Thank you, dear. And now, if I were you, I should just run to the bathroom and rinse your fingers. Often the wool soils, although it appears quite clean. And I think there is a little smudge on the end of your nose—yes, there is. How does it come to be there, I wonder?” Aunt Hilda touched Monica’s face playfully with one desiccated nail.
“I was looking out of the window and stuck my nose against it, that’s how it comes to be there,” replied Monica, getting up and staring at her Aunt with a sort of dumb resentment in her eyes. “In thirty-three years I shall be like this,” she was thinking vaguely. “My nose will be flat and my eyes pale, and I shan’t have lived at all. At least, not what I call lived—only sort of paddled along to old age without feeling anything, except being sleepy and hungry and thirsty—and perhaps sometimes toothache,” she added, mentally remembering various strange times when each Aunt in turn had been confined to her room and had emerged at the end of them looking quite different. . . .
But Aunt Hilda was shaking her head playfully. “Not stuck, dear Monica,” she was saying quietly, “not stuck. Placed, or put, even, but never stuck.”
“Stuck,” replied Monica under her breath, as she walked out of the room on her way to go and rinse her fingers.
Maygate possessed a very beautiful parade—an asphalted parade that ran continuously for about three miles along the edge of white chalk cliffs. The promenade was famous all over England for its length, and for the wonderful situation that it commanded right on the edge of cliffs—cliffs that at high tide caught in their long, mysterious, shingly caves the green swirls of the North Sea and sent them out again with the long, sucking roar of water trapped against its will. That roar had always seemed to Monica the most dreadful thing in the world, and she had often imagined what it would be like to be caught at the back of one of these caves, reading perhaps, perched up on a ledge, forgetting that the tide was coming in; then to look down and see one of those evil, tongue-like swirls licking the foot of the rock on which you were, and then to scramble down, sick with fear, and splash and stumble your way towards the opening, only to find it blocked with a greenish wall of water, heaving but immovable. Then how you would rush back from where you came, floundering through water that was a little deeper now, and hoist yourself up, chattering with mortal fear, back to where you had sat before. And you would lean over and try to see where the high-water mark came on the rock; and if it was above your head, you would pray for strength to throw yourself over before the dreadful suffocating end came; and if it was not, you would go through torments, thinking that perhaps to-day the tide would be higher than usual, or that perhaps, because it was not always equally high, the highest-water mark did not show. At the thought of that agony of terror, Monica’s soft lips would open, and if she was alone, she would cry out a little, and then look round in terror in case some one had been within earshot.
For Monica spent a great deal of her life in imagination, and she was always afraid of being found out at it. She had inherited that very doubtful gift from her father, who, when he had found out the disastrous mistake he had made in his marriage, had dwelt a good deal in the world made from within: and it had comforted him. Monica thought that it comforted her too . . . but in reality it was extremely bad for her, because an uncontrolled imagination is a very dangerous thing to possess. Fortunately, Monica was almost entirely innocent; the boarding-school to which the Aunts had sent her had been a very first-class one, so she had not absorbed, as have most girls of her age, the morbid slime of half-knowledge that grows like duckweed on the surface of the average boarding-school. So her thoughts were sweet and pure. But they always concerned themselves with sex; she had not the least idea that they did, but they did. There was always a man in the long, rambling story that she was generally telling herself—at least, it was more like a play than a story; it went on and on and had wonderful excitements and dénouements, and she and this man were always the principal characters in it. She was his wife—was she, or wasn’t she?—-that part was vague; but anyhow she belonged to him, a tremblingly rapturous, slavish belonging. He was cruel, brutally so; in real life Monica would have loathed the sight of him, but in this dream-life it was heaven. He would stand over her twitching a flexible cane between his fingers, and when she implored him with streaming eyes to forgive her, he would say that until she had been punished it was impossible, and he would then proceed to chastise her until she fell sobbing at his feet. Then he would throw the cane into the farthest corner of the room and lift her up into his arms and kiss her wet eyelids and proceed to be really very attractive. Then there were other scenes; one was better than any: it was when after one of these terrible chastisements she would rush in floods of tears to her bedroom. There she would cower down under the bed-clothes. She would lie there heaving with sobs until it was just about midnight, and then she would hear the well-known firm tread on the stairs. The door would open and close very quietly, and he would walk across the room to the bed. “Get up, Monica.” His voice was stern (it was always stern). She would get up, still weeping—tears played a very important part in these dream stories—and stand before him, her head hanging. And then he would kiss her. The kiss was what made Monica thrill and tremble, and if you put two of your fingers together and held them horizontally against your mouth, they were almost as good as a kiss—at least, so thought Monica in her innocence. And this story so grew on her imagination that she would often make an excuse to go to bed early, so that she could act it all through again and again. Lying face downwards on her pillow, she would sob and hold her throat and listen; and then he would come, and she would bury her face deeper, and then at last she would slip from the bed and hold up her face to be kissed, and she could almost see the dear face that bent over her so forgivingly. And all this was very bad for Monica, in that it kept awake in her a ceaseless longing for romance and passion, and she had not the young companionship and the usual round of innocent amusement that would otherwise have kept it dormant. For the Aunts went out very little; all their social intercourse began and ended at the chapel, and Monica had not even the ordinary duties of a young and healthy attendant at an English church to occupy her mind. For the chapel got very much wrought up at a Pastor’s Anniversary (it did not concern itself much with the anniversaries of the Founder of all religion) and a Harvest Festival, and sometimes a Social, but it did not concern itself much either with the slums that lay close to its doors—the nearest church generally undertook those. So Monica’s mind fed on itself, and in so feeding her whole self became secretive, and she became also a little underhand, and the Aunts had not the slightest idea how she behaved when she got away from them and was out on her own.
And now she was out on her own, walking along the wet, shining promenade, the February wind keen on her face, the dying sun splashing the big pools in the asphalt with palest lemon as it sank behind a big bank of grey cloud. It was low tide; the long spurs of black rock, covered with wrack, stretched far out into the sea—only at the very end of them the white-topped breakers rolled in and broke. It was cold; under the soft black velvet tam-o’-shanter that came down low over Monica’s grey eyes the white forehead stung with the whip of the wind, and the promenade was almost deserted. Only the usual silent procession of spinal and Bath chairs that was always to be found on that promenade passed along it, because Maygate, in addition to its uninterrupted three miles of noiseless asphalt, possessed air with the revivifying qualities of champagne, and since the war it had also been found to possess very excellent qualifications for the restoration of the shell-shocked and broken-spirited. But the spinal carriages and Bath chairs still held the field, and as they passed along now with their sucking kiss of well-tyred wheels, Monica turned a pitying glance on them. How awful to have to spend your life on your back, she thought, as she suddenly caught sight of a brown hand lying along the padded edge of one of them. A man, too; it would be worse for him. A woman could sort of feel that perhaps if she had not had that to bear she would have had something else, but a man was meant to be active and out and about doing things. And this man was young. Monica guessed that that brown hand belonged to a man she knew very well by sight. He was always attended by a rather short, stoutish man with a clean-shaven face, and always the same old Bath-chair man; the two would push and pull the long spinal carriage together. The old man would draw it and the younger man would stand at the back and keep a hand on the straight handle that stuck out from under the hood. He had a nice face, the younger man, very pale and solemn, but he had very kind eyes, and Monica had often seen him bend over the long, still figure and settle the soft leather cushion. He must be a sort of attendant, Monica gathered, because once, when the carriage had passed very close to her, she had heard him say “Sir.” The man in the spinal carriage was very tanned and had very blue eyes; more she had not been able to find out, because she never liked to stare, in case he thought she was inquisitive or pitying him. But she always felt a vague curiosity about the little party of three, because they had been there for at least three winters, and often when Monica had been almost the only person on the icy, wind-swept parade, they had come along, the long carriage with its sucking well-tyred wheels, the little old Bath-chair man, the long, still figure with the brown face upturned to the sky, muffled to the neck in a fur coat with big beaver gloves on the steady hands, and the solemn pale-faced man in a bowler hat and with a white silk handkerchief close up under the collar of his heavy overcoat. And they would pass by very noiselessly—they were hardly ever talking—and Monica would see them receding into the distance; right away to the farthest point they would go, the man at the back having to stoop forward and lean on the handle when they came to one of the bridges that span the chalk cuttings that intersect the cliffs from time to time. They must be dull and desperately cold, Monica would think, hugging her fur close up to her throat and holding her muff over her very pink nose.
But to-night Monica did not waste very much thought on the little trio; she had an appointment to keep and she was rather late for it. She had gone through ten minutes’ torment, too, before she started. Aunt Fanny had not been very keen on the walk to the wool shop, and Aunt Hilda had hummed and hawed and glanced rather pointedly at Monica, evidently thinking that she ought to offer to go with her. But then, mercifully, Aunt Fanny had remembered that often on rainy days fish was sold cheaply from the boats round the harbour, so she had scurried upstairs for her hat and coat and shopping basket, and Monica had only waited to see them safely off the premises (Aunt Ellie had gone to a choir practice), and had then run like a hare across the deserted oval with the gaunt empty band-stand in the centre of it, on to the Parade. There she slackened her pace a little; she must not arrive panting and breathless, she thought, smiling a little.
Mr. Alexander Fellowes, who was a gentleman by birth, but who had been knocked a little edgeways by failing in the desperately exacting examination for the Civil Service, got up from the corner of the glazed green-painted shelter, and threw away the cigarette that he held between his not too steady lips.
“Late,” he said, as Monica came up close to him.
“Yes, I know; but it is so frightfully difficult to get away.” Monica’s grey eyes were lifted confidingly. “And, you know, I believe they have a sort of idea that I come out to meet somebody.”
“Have they, though? Well, don’t let them find out for certain,” said Mr. Fellowes, drawing Monica down on to the seat next to him, “otherwise all our nice talks and walks would be put an end to. ‘Madam, will you walk; Madam, will you talk; Madam, will you walk and talk with me?’” he shrilled suddenly in rather a high falsetto.
“How odd that sounds; is it a song?” asked Monica, glancing up with one of the funny stabs of uneasiness that sometimes assailed her when she was with this young man. She loved being with him; there was something so madly exciting about thinking that nobody knew—it was her own wonderful secret—and she had got to know him so oddly, too.
It had been one day when she had been out with Patch, and he had made a dive at another dog, and the leather lead had got all entangled round her legs; and when she had looked up desperately, wondering how much farther above her head her skirt would go, she had seen this young man sitting in a shelter staring at her and laughing in a funny sort of silent way. And then he had got up and come forward to help her, and she had heard that he had a voice like a gentleman, and had felt reassured; at first she had thought that he looked rather mad, as he sat and laughed at her. Since then they had got quite friendly, and they met constantly on the deserted Parade and he told her all about his life, and his disappointment at his failure in the exam., because now he would have to go into a beastly lawyer’s firm belonging to his uncle. And she told him about how dull she was, living with her Aunts, and how she longed for something exciting to happen; and when she had said that he had looked at her queerly, with his head a little on one side like a bird, and said that you never knew your luck. And since then they had got more friendly still, and sometimes he put his arm round her and gave her a little squeeze, and when he did that Monica noticed that his eyes got a sort of funny red glow in them, and she got rather to enjoy the feeling that she could bring it there. It was not a bit the sort of worshippy feeling that she got for her Dream Man—the sort of feeling that made her want to bow her head and cry; but it was a feeling all the same, and when you lived a life where there were not any feelings at all, any feeling was worth having.
“Yes, it’s a song,” replied Mr. Fellowes, who had his hand on Monica’s round knee, which showed very plainly below the rather skimpy blue serge skirt. “It’s a song,” he repeated, and his eyes were very decidedly glowing. “It’s a song,” he said again, and his fingers closed convulsively on the rounded knee-cap.
“Oh, you pinched me!” Monica jumped with the sudden pain of the grip. “Why did you do that?” she asked, her eyes on the dark face that suddenly seemed to loom over her.
“I liked the feeling of it,” said Mr. Fellowes, and he slipped a hand round the back of the wooden-partitioned seat. “I like the feeling of you altogether,” he said, and his mouth seemed to be very close to her ear. “I say, let’s go down on the sands to-morrow and explore the caves a bit, shall we?” he said suddenly.
“What, do you mean all by ourselves?” asked Monica, lifting her eyes, which were suddenly rather doubtful. She had an odd feeling now that this man was so very close to her, a sort of squirmy, shrinking feeling—a sort of ashamed feeling, as if she was not doing the right thing. Like she had when she went to chapel and the minister got excited in his sermon and cried. He had done that once or twice lately, preaching about purity, and Aunt Ellie had come back last night from having tea with the wife of one of the deacons with the news that he was going away for a change. And now, here was the feeling again—only for something quite different, this time, a man’s arm stealing round her waist. “But if he had grabbed me, I expect I shouldn’t have felt it,” thought Monica, going over the incidents of the evening that night as she lay wakeful in bed.
“Yes, there wouldn’t be much fun having somebody else there, would there?” replied Mr. Fellowes, and he dropped his hand from the back of Monica’s coat and brought it round to the front. “I say, how nicely that coat fits you,” he said abruptly, and Monica suddenly sprang backwards with a cry.
“Don’t!” she said, her face flaming.
“Why, what have I done?” said Mr. Fellowes. But his tremulous hand was back in his coat pocket feeling for his cigarette-case.
“You . . . you touched me, and I don’t like it,” stammered Monica, feeling oddly inclined to cry for some reason.
“Well, I’m sure I’m very sorry if I have offended you,” said Mr. Fellowes, leaning a little forward and trying to strike a match with a very shaking hand. “But I fail to see what I have done to make you suddenly get so very upset.”
“Is it usual to touch people on the front of them, then?” asked Monica tremulously, feeling that perhaps she was all wrong in her sudden recoil from the touch of this man that she really rather liked. And if she offended him he would never come out to meet her any more, and then what?
“Quite,” said Mr. Fellowes. “Besides, I didn’t touch you for nothing; there was one of those big fly things on your coat. What did you suppose I was doing it for?” he queried abruptly, his weird, greedy eyes on her face.
“Oh, I didn’t know,” stammered Monica, suddenly desperately ashamed of herself. It had been in her mind, then, that the ugly feeling had originated. “Thank you for taking it off,” she said humbly; “I am sorry that I shouted at you. And what did you say about the caves to-morrow?”
“Well, I’m not so sure that we’ll go now,” replied Mr. Fellowes rather grumpily, for he was also ashamed of himself, and the feeling made him grumpy. Also, the air of Maygate was doing him good, and the intervals of not feeling quite sure of what he was doing were becoming more rare.
“Oh, yes, do let’s,” said Monica, breathless and eager. “I should love it, and it will be quite easy to get away to-morrow, because it is the chapel working party and all the Aunts go to it.”
“Oh, very well then; we’ll say about the same time, here,” replied Mr. Fellowes. But he dropped his voice suddenly. The long spinal carriage was passing, with its sticky kiss of tyres on wet asphalt, and the hood was down, and the brown face on the leather pillow was turned towards the shelter. But perhaps the man was asleep, thought Monica, watching; the dark eyelashes lay very close to the thin cheek. No, he wasn’t . . . there was a thin line of something shining between the dark lashes and the brown face, and there—he had turned his head away again. Monica suddenly felt more uncomfortable than ever; it was the young man she knew so well by sight, and he had been looking at them.
But Mr. Fellowes had got up and was looking at the watch on his wrist. Then he glanced out to where the sky was just stained with the faintest pink, and then he looked back at Monica. “Supposing we say the same time to-morrow evening?” he said. “ Here; I’ll be in the same corner.”
“But isn’t it rather late to go down on the sands?” queried Monica, still feeling vaguely uneasy and wondering why she did.
“Not a bit, it makes it more fun,” replied Mr. Fellowes, fumbling in his pocket and giggling a little.
“Damn you, Mason; leave me alone, can’t you?” There was a tormented note in the muffled voice.
“Only another ten minutes, sir.” But the perspiration was rolling down the white forehead as the stoutish figure stooped over the long couch. “I think it’s a little warmer to-day, sir,” he said, as the powerful fingers went on with their relentless work.
“It’s as hot as hell and as putrid! Leave me alone, I tell you!” The reluctant tears were gathering in the blue eyes, and Mason turned aside and stopped working, and blew his own nose.
“As if it didn’t tear me ’art in ’alf to ’urt ’im,” as he confided to the kindly landlady afterwards. “But ’e was that insistent on it, the big man we saw in London. ‘Never let a day pass but what you don’t give ’im a real doing from his waist downwards,’ he said, ‘and one day you may be glad you done it.’ Those were his very words.”
“Reely!” Mrs. Mannering was garrulous, and she also thought very highly of her wealthy lodger. He and his man stayed on and on, and Major Fanshawe was evidently a man of means, because he had taken the whole house, although he and his masseur—masseur and valet in one—only occupied four rooms of it. But, as he had said, lying in his long spinal chair at the foot of the front-door steps, “I must be quiet . . . and I like the look of your house; it faces the way I want it to, and my man says that there is a large room on the first floor, only divided by a folding door, that would do for my bedroom and sitting-room. So if your terms are in any way reasonable, I will take the whole of it at once; say what you want.” And Mrs. Mannering had said, and as Major Fanshawe was a wealthy man and Mrs. Mannering had really not overreached herself, an agreement was very easily come to. So the square house on the Parade, facing the North Sea, was taken possession of by these two men only, and tactfully and gradually the paralysed man had got the lodging-house monstrosities cleared out of the rooms in which he lived, and in their place were beautiful cretonnes, and low chairs, and a couple of Chesterfield couches, and two glass-fronted bookcases, full of books; and flowers, always flowers, masses of them, in squat glass vases that did not budge when the wind swept in keen and searching, straight from the North Pole. And in place of the brass bedstead with the blobby knobs at each corner that had stood against the wall in the room behind the dividing doors, stood a narrow invalid couch, the very latest invention of a world made keen by necessity to relieve the suffering of thousands that it could not help otherwise.
But Mrs. Mannering was still standing there, waiting for the valet to go on talking. Although her lodgers had been there some time, she had never really got to the bottom of what had condemned Sir Gregory Fanshawe to this living death. “Reely!” she said again.
“Yes; but not what I don’t think ’e was ’olding out false ’opes,” responded Mason. “Such a crash as ’e came, as never was; no man could survive it. ’Is sixtieth machine—sixtieth accounted for, mind you, not sixtieth by unofficial figgers; more like two ’undred that would be, if the truth was known. Down ’e came like a stone, wrong way up too, until just before ’e touched the ground. ‘I want to go ’ome—I want to go ’ome!’ he was screaming like a child as ’e came to. And I was the first to get to ’im,” concluded Mason with pride.
“Was you there?” breathed Mrs. Mannering, just lifting the lid of the kettle: Mason had come down for a jug of boiling water.
“Was I not there! Been with ’im ever since he came out of Sand’urst. And got sent out there as ’is batman too. And when they told him ’e’d never walk again, I saw the big doctor misself, and ’e told me ’e’d ’ave to ’ave this here massage. And I went and learned it—passed me exam, in record time too. And now I’ll never leave ’im, not if I know it,” concluded Mason, sniffing vigorously.
“Well, I never!” The water was hot, and Mrs. Mannering stood and poured it out, one hand tucked under her apron. “But where’s ’is family?” she asked.
“What there is of it, in London,” replied the valet. “Only ’is mother at that, and a fine lady of fashion she is too. None of that walking along by an invalid carriage for ’er. Ascot and a pink lampshade, that’s ’er measure,” said the valet viciously. For he loathed Lady Fanshawe, after one terrible day soon after his master’s final interview with the great specialist. He had come back to the little house in Hill Street flushed with the excitement of his first lesson in massage, to find that his master had been carried upstairs. And he had swiftly followed him there. And there he lay—the tall, powerful man who had been known as “Rough on Rats” in Flanders, because of his unerring deadly aim for the Hun, sobbing like a despairing child. “Mason, let me die, let me die!” he had clung to his valet’s hand, and cursed with awful violence the God who had so brutally struck him down, thereby condemning him to a living death. Mason had listened and soothed and cried too, big, despairing tears rolling down a pallid face, and at last the tall soldier had rallied, and brushing a wet face with the back of a shaking hand, had laughed weakly. “I deserve to be kicked for letting go like that,” he had said; “forget it, there’s a good fellow.” Mason’s pale face had been oddly twisted with his effort for self-control. “If I could only have got it instead of you, sir,” he had choked, and had then rushed out of the room. But later he found out that while he was out Lady Fanshawe had been for an hour with her only son, and a few weeks afterwards the two left for Maygate, the master and valet, and the little house in Hill Street resumed its usual flow of uninterrupted pleasure. For to have a helpless cripple lying about made Lady Fanshawe feel uncomfortable; you couldn’t really enjoy yourself with despair in the house, even although it crouched under bedclothes and hid itself behind smiling white lips. So she was glad when the costly motor ambulance slid down the narrow street and lost itself in the traffic of Piccadilly and she was free to return to her littered writing-table, and to the sheaf of stiff white invitation cards that was stuck in the back of her elaborate desk.
So the life that these two men led together had a queer stupefied contentment of its own. Gregory Fanshawe knew that life, as life, was over for him, but he could still take pleasure in little things, such as the grey sea rolling in, cold and relentless, and the rattle of spray as it fell on the asphalt Parade, and the bite of the north wind, as it swept in under the hood of his spinal carriage and stirred the tweed cap pulled down low over his eyes. For Major Fanshawe never looked up if he could help it; the scud of the grey masses of cumulus cloud across the blue, and perhaps the wheel of a seagull as it beat up against the wind, were more than he could contemplate without a scream of despair in his soul. That had been life: that plunge through the air; that riding triumphant on the wind. So the waterproof hood was generally up when the long spinal carriage slid along the Parade: or there was a book under the hand that lay so still on the fur rug. But on the whole, except for intervals of despair, Major Fanshawe faced this death in life, as he had faced death above the battlefields of Flanders, with fortitude and resolution, worthy of an Englishman and a good soldier.
But the daily punishment under the capable fingers of his masseur sometimes broke down his fortitude, and on the day of which we write it broke it down more than usual. It was the futility of it all, as he stormed; if it had been going to do the faintest good he would have gone through hell. But to be drummed at and tortured every day, just because some besotted old fool of a specialist had drivelled out some platitude about some day he might be glad of it. . . . “I believe you like to feel you’ve got me under your thumb, Mason—you like torturing me. Damn you, you can walk; isn’t that enough for you!”
“Sir Gregory, don’t, sir!” Mason’s large brown eyes filled again with tears, and he blew his nose again unobtrusively. “I’ll just get your hot water, sir, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, and he escaped from the room, leaving the man on the couch rent with remorse.
They did not often take place, these scenes with his valet, but when they did they left him shaken and repentant. Mason was a trump in the way he looked after him, and he was only doing what he considered his duty. And it was not an easy duty either—it was damned hard work; during the summer his valet had often been quite done up after half an hour of it. He watched the door like an attentive dog, and when, after a discreet tap, the valet came in again, he spoke before his servant was half way across the floor.
“I’m sorry, Mason,” he said, and the rather sad mouth was relaxed over beautiful teeth.
“Sir!” Mason went scarlet and then pale. “Sir, don’t mention it, sir,” he said, and he drew himself up to attention.
“Well, it’s nice of you to take it like that, Mason. Now, get me into some clothes and we’ll get out. It’s a divine day, and the Parade will be at its best. We’ll see if we can get right to the point to-day, shall we?” Gregory Fanshawe made an effort to smile under his short moustache; Mason was knocked all of a heap by his apology. But it had been due to him; you can’t treat a servant like a dog, even though he doesn’t resent it. And he owed to Mason more than he could repay—his sanity, his ability to pick up the tattered shreds of life again, and last, but not least, his daily well-being. No; Mason must be treated decently, whatever he felt like himself.
They went twice all the way to the farthest point that day, the valet with his firm hand on the handle under the hood, the little old Bath-chair man with his deliberate tread and his back bent double when he came to the bridges. Major Fanshawe was restless for some reason or other, and the bleak February greyness had given place to a pale sunniness that showed up the white cliffs and black rocks in all their broken beauty and made him long to get out of the house. The tide was high, and it came in with a roar and a spreading rush of fan-shaped foam on the hard yellow sand, and the wheeling seagulls dipped and screamed and then settled tossingly on the heaving water, till Gregory Fanshawe bit his lips and turned away his eyes, and taking his will in both hands, stamped down the rising thoughts of bitterest rebellion that surged up into his throat and made him want to do one thing only—curse God and die.
They spent the whole of the morning in the open air; then in the afternoon he slept, spread out on the ingenious invalid couch that lay right across the wide bow of the window, for part of his torment was an almost invariably bad night, and then, after a beautifully served tea, brought him by his valet on the whitest of white tray-cloths with the gayest of hand-painted china cups and the squattest and most gleaming of James I teapots, they started off again for the same long trek. The sun was going down in a flurry of rose-coloured cloud; it looked like spring, thought Gregory Fanshawe, staring out to where the crimson met the grey water. It was altogether a beautiful evening, and somehow, for some reason or other, he felt a faint awakening of interest in what was going on around him. The other occupants of invalid chairs, for instance; as a rule, he had a morbid distaste for them as too much like himself, cumberers of the ground. But to-night he glanced at them from time to time, as they passed, from under the peak of his cap, which was as usual pulled low over his eyes, and he half made up his mind to join the little group that circled round a collection of dud guns that decorated one of the open patches of ground on a promontory. But he thought better of it and did not stop; as Mason thought he was going to do when he saw his master’s hand move on the fur rug.
It was nearly seven when the trio got back within view of the tall spire of the Maygate parish church, and Gregory Fanshawe was weary. But he was not too weary to consider the feelings of the two men who had hauled and pushed him so far, and he looked back a little over his shoulder and spoke to his valet.
“Shove me up a little against that wall. Mason,” he said, “and you and Barrett cut off for a smoke. If you’re back in twenty minutes it’ll do; it’s keeping light longer to-night.”
“Thank you, sir.” Mason’s capable fingers had already several times curled and uncurled themselves round a packet of cigarettes in his overcoat pocket, and he smiled discreetly as he passed the welcome news on to Barrett. Gregory Fanshawe watched them go with a passion of envy in his soul. To be able to go—to be able to move—get from one place to another without being hauled there. God! why had he ever grumbled, regretted, lost his temper even, in the life that was gone before? He forced his lean fingers down into his pocket in search of his cheroot case; he would smoke—that often took it off a bit; it was madness to start that sort of thought at this hour in the evening.
As he held his two hands curved over the blue flame of the match, a girl walked quickly past his chair. He shook the match out, drew in a long gulp of smoke, and stared at the back of her. She was making for the shelter in the corner—the shelter in the back portion of which Mason and Barrett had discreetly taken cover for their smoke. It was that girl that he knew very well by sight, small and generally rather badly dressed in things that did not fit her. Funny stockings with ribs in them, and shoes that never fitted tightly round her thin ankles. She was nearly always out with a beast of an overfed dog, too: to-night she had not got it. She had a small, pointed face with huge eyes that looked hungry; she was rather freckled and had a mouth that shut very firmly. And several times lately he had seen her with a rather unpleasant looking young man—a sort of hang-dog young man that looked as if he had got bad nerves, and was not doing the best thing to put them right. Gregory Fanshawe’s blue eyes followed Monica with a kindling of interest in their depths—what was she up to, meeting that worm at this hour of the evening, he wondered; because she was obviously a lady. He watched her get to the shelter, look round the corner of it, and then say something, evidently with relief. Then she vanished, sinking down, as Gregory Fanshawe guessed, into one of the rather low wooden seats.
He waited for about twenty minutes, his eyes never leaving the shelter, until all at the same moment the four seated in it came out—Mason and Barrett together, walking alertly; the tall young man, hanging a little sideways, his arm loosely threaded through that of the girl by his side. They turned away, the girl and the man, and started to walk in the direction of one of the deep chalk cuttings spanned by a bridge that led down to the sands.
“Are you ready, sir?” Mason had his hand on the side of the carriage as he bent over it and spoke to the man under the rug.
“No; as a matter of fact, I’m not. Look here, Mason, do you think you can get me home without Barrett for once, if I guide this beastly thing? There aren’t any bridges now; it’s all on the flat. And I’m rather keen to stay here for a bit, and I don’t want Barrett hanging about. Tell him the usual time to-morrow and bustle him off, will you?—that is, if you think you can manage me alone.”
“Certainly, sir.” Mason spoke in an authoritative aside, and the little old man touched his hat and shambled off along the asphalt.
Gregory Fanshawe waited until he was out of earshot and then spoke quickly to his valet. “Look here, Mason,” he said; “you saw those two sitting in the shelter—the young lady that we often meet on the Parade—you know her by sight as well as I do—and the man with her. Well, for some reason or other I don’t like the look of the man. Follow them down on to the beach, will you, and keep an eye on them. Leave me here; I shall be all right. Don’t say anything, of course, but just hang about near them.”
“Right-you are, sir.”
Mason turned away and swung off towards the wide cutting, leaving Major Fanshawe for some reason or other oddly uneasy in the long chair. Perhaps it was something to do with the evening light, he thought irritably, but it all seemed suddenly to have become ominous. A seagull screamed discordantly above his head, the waves on the yellow sands far below seemed to boom as they broke; and there was Mason back again. What the hell had he come so quickly for? “Well?” he said as the valet came again within earshot.
“I don’t notice either the young man or the young lady on the sands, sir,” said Mason, breathing rather heavily; the cutting had been steep and he had hurried back. “Must have got into one of the caves, I think, sir; there are several at the bottom of the cliffs.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you go into one of the caves too, you damned fool?” Gregory Fanshawe spoke furiously, and his face turned a little white as he clenched his hands under the rug. Curse, ten thousand times curse this blasted foul inactivity of his; anything might happen to that girl; she had the face of a child of ten, and the man was one of those filthy-looking specimens that you see hanging about the Parks. “Go back, you silly idiot,” he said, “and don’t come back till you’ve located them do you hear? . . . run!”
“Very good, sir!” Mason had already turned to go and was running. The anger of his master fell on unheeding ears—this was the first time during the last three years that Sir Gregory had shown keen interest in anything—anything, that is, except death. And there was a chant of thanksgiving in Mason’s soul as he steadied his discreet bowler with one hand and swung round the corner of the iron fence that guarded the entrance to the cutting with the other.
“Don’t you think it may be rather stuffy in there?” Monica hung back a little as Mr. Fellowes led the way to the shingly opening of one of the caves that loomed a little gloomily in the evening fight.
“Not a bit of it. The tide’s only just gone down; it’ll be as clean as anything.” Mr. Fellowes had a rather twitching hand on Monica’s shoulder.
“But why a cave? Wouldn’t it do if we just walked along a bit and then went up the next cutting; that would bring us out quite near our road, and I mustn’t be too long away or they’ll wonder.” Monica spoke uneasily; there was something that she didn’t quite like in the touch of Mr. Fellowes’s fingers; they seemed to be feeling her, not only touching her, but knowing what bit of her it was that they were touching.
“Oh no, a cave’s much nicer; there’s something weird and creepy about a cave. Come on.” Mr. Fellowes had got Monica by the elbow now and was almost dragging her. “We’ll just sit down a bit and I’ll show you something—or rather, tell you something,” said Mr. Fellowes, correcting himself.
“What sort of a thing?” asked Monica, allowing herself to be propelled into the dark opening of the cave.
“Something fearfully interesting. Now, here we are.” Mr. Fellowes was still pulling Monica along. “Further in; don’t stop here, anyone could see us . . . right along; mind the pool, you were almost in it.”
“I can’t see anything”—Monica was blinking in the sudden transition from light to semi-darkness; “don’t drag me like that or I shall tumble over. Mind, I am tumbling over,” she cried, and caught at his arm.
“Little sweet soft thing caught in a trap, little lovely soft thing,” Mr. Fellowes was humming as he held Monica with one nervous hand and felt round her with the other. “Little darling thing, lie down here, and we’ll tell each other our love all in the dark—all in the dark. Come, come!” Mr. Fellowes’s long fingers suddenly began to feel like steel bands to Monica.
“Lie down where? . . . no, I don’t want to; I loathe the idea of lying down.” Monica tried to struggle to her feet in the yielding sand. Why had she come into this horrible cave? The opening of it was such miles away; she saw it, like a round silver blob, far, far away in the distance. “Let me get up, I tell you; I shall get all over sand and they’ll see. Let me get up!” Monica suddenly began to struggle.
“Lie still in my arms.” Mr. Fellowes’s voice had a sort of husky quality in it now, and Monica realized to her terror that he was a good deal stronger than he had appeared. His arms were well round her, and she was being pressed back and back. The sand scrunched under the heels of her shoes as she dug them in, trying to get a grip, so that she could perhaps wrench herself up. Innocent as she was, this struggle had a horrible clinging terror in it; there was something beyond it all—danger, hideous, and somehow too horrid. Like the feeling she had had once on a Bank Holiday when, looking for shells, she had strayed very slowly and quietly round a jutting peak of rock and had found two people there. She had almost run back in her terror—they had been so close and so still, and yet only close and still—what was there wrong in that? Anyhow, it had given her the sort of feeling that she had now: only this—this was far worse, because it was she who was—who was—— “Let me go—let me go!”
She suddenly began to shriek and fight.
“Be quiet!” Mr. Fellowes had been prepared for this, and he grabbed up a handful of sand and tried to stuff it into Monica’s mouth. On a long indrawn breath it was flung down her throat, and she rolled her head from side to side suffocating. “Help me, help me, God!” she screamed out in frantic supplication of her soul. The little house so dull! . . . the Aunts! . . . haven! . . . sanctuary! “God, if you let me get away now I will never grumble again—or be selfish . . . God!” Monica’s strength was going, and Mr. Fellowes was aware of it.
“‘Overseas there came a pleading, help a nation in distress!’” Mason had quite a nice voice, and as always, when he did not quite know what to do, he began to sing. He came slowly now through the blob-like opening of the tunnel-like cave and his voice carried far ahead of him, and Mr. Fellowes heard it and swore, and began to struggle back on to his heels. “‘Keep the home fires burning.’” Mason began to sing louder because he was feeling very uncomfortable, and Monica was lying so still, and also it was an awkward situation, take it as you would. After all Mason had the rather indulgent morality of his class, and Monica was old enough to know her way about. “A dirty-looking fellow like that—well, you were asking for it! “ Mason felt apologetically uncomfortable as he came nearer.
“Good evening!” He lifted his bowler and stared at Mr. Fellowes. But Mr. Fellowes did not feel inclined for even the most amiable of salutations, and he ducked his head and steadied himself against the green, weedy rock, and then started to run like a hare down the dark tunnel. For one second he blotted out the pale opening of it, and then he was gone. Mason stooped over the still figure, and then, with the precision of the born nurse, he took a few steps back to the pool, scooped up some water, and walked back with it.
“Has he gone?” Monica’s first words were agonized as she choked and flung out a hand as the cold water ran down her neck.
“Yes, he’s gone, miss.” Mason’s voice was suddenly respectful. Monica was a lady, he could tell that at once. He knelt down and put a hand under her neck.
“It was awful! He—he. . . .’’ Monica suddenly began to sob wildly. “How did I know he would squash me right down directly we got into a cave?” she cried. “It was frightful. I think he must be a mad person; are there mad people like that about?” she queried, terrified, her eyes glancing from side to side.
“Plenty of them,” said Mason briefly, his experienced finger for one minute on Monica’s pulse. No, she was all right now, and her scream had brought him in in the nick of time. And she would regret it afterwards if she said anything more to him now, as she would be certain to find out later that he was only a servant. “Get along up now, miss,” he said soothingly, and gently began to lift her.
“Who do you belong to? Are you the man who goes about with the man in the long chair?” Monica lurched as she got up, and steadied herself as she spoke. She was beginning to locate the pale face; it was the same man who was always beside the brown man who lay so still under the rug. And now he would know all about it too—how perfectly dreadful! Her lips were white and trembling as she stumbled out of the darkness into the fading fight of the cold sands, her hand on Mason’s steady arm.
“Yes, that’s right, miss”—Mason’s voice was very matter-of-fact, as he guided Monica a little way along and then let go of her. “Now you’ll be all right, miss; let me just brush off a bit of that sand; stand still, will you? and put your hand on my shoulder if you feel a bit unsteady-like.” Mason stooped and gave Monica a very thorough dusting down as she wavered beside him.
“Supposing he suddenly jumps out on us?” The small figure was looking round in a frenzy of anxiety. “Mad people do things suddenly, and I feel more and more sure he was mad.”
“He won’t do any jumping with me anywhere about,” replied Mason rather grimly, standing upright again and straightening his bowler. “Now then, miss, if you feel equal to walking on a bit I’d like to get back to Sir Gregory,” he said; “I’ve left him alone, and I never feel easy when I do that.”
“Have you been with him very long?” asked Monica, trying to walk straight, and wishing that her knees would regain their usual stability. They wobbled and had a feeling as if they were filled with water, instead of bones that were supposed to hold you up.
“Just on three years, miss.”
“And have you been here all that time?”
“Most of it, miss,” replied Mason laconically, for, like all good servants, he disliked being questioned about his master.
“Is he ill? Would you mind just telling me that, and then I won’t ask any more,” queried Monica shyly, sensing Mason’s reluctance to impart information about the man that he served.
“He hurt his back falling ten thousand feet head downwards in an aeroplane,” replied Mason.
“In the war?” Monica was breathless.
“Yes, miss.”
“But why wasn’t he killed, then?”
“Righted the machine two hundred feet from the ground,” replied Mason.
“Oh . . .!” Monica walked on silently. To have done that great thing and then to be struck helpless for the rest of your life. Oh, poor, poor man! The ready tears began to well up again. And it was for people like her that he had done this thing—women like her, useless cumberers of the ground. Because men could defend themselves; if Germans, hoggish and foul, had landed in England to deal only with men, it would not have mattered; they would soon have been beaten to the ground on which they were only fit to crawl. But with women about it was different—you had to keep them safe from—from—from what? Monica’s mind began to grope again; well from being kissed rudely and perhaps from being squashed about like she had just been . . . the tears fell softly on her serge coat.
“Can you manage the cutting, miss?” They had trodden across the space of yielding sand and were at the foot of the stone incline.
“Well, I don’t know that I can, very well”; Monica was blinded with tears again and drawing her breath with long sniffs.
“Take my arm, miss.” Mason, feeling extremely uncomfortable, crooked a black elbow and spoke very respectfully, but he wondered in his rather humorous soul what his master would think when he saw what was approaching him. “Not as if he was very ready with the ladies,” as he expressed it to himself, wishing he could break out into song again and knowing that he must not.
“Just wait while I blow my nose before he sees me”; Monica stopped at the top of the cutting and dragged her handkerchief out of her coat pocket. “Don’t mention my having cried,” she said anxiously, feeling that Mason held her utterly in the hollow of his hand and hoping that he would not take advantage of it.
“Not a word, miss,” replied Mason promptly, not a quiver of his well-trained face betraying his inward amusement. Monica’s face was scarlet and her eyes swollen patches in the scarlet. “Not much doubt about what she’s been doing,” as he thought humorously.
But it was much darker than it had been when Monica and her companion had gone down on to the sands, and Gregory Fanshawe, lying quivering with impatience in the long chair, only got an impression of general disorder and flushed hurriedness, as Monica bent over him. “Your servant tells me that your name is Sir Gregory Fanshawe,” she said with stammering and trembling lips; “thank you for sending him after me, as I think you did, because that man was a mad one—I feel quite sure he was. It was too awful; he—he . . .” Monica suddenly began to cry again.
“I am afraid you made a mistake when you went down on to the sands with him,” said Gregory Fanshawe, feeling suddenly quite at his ease. He had rather dreaded meeting Monica face to face—he had not much use for the average girl; but this was a child with her trembling mouth, and shaking hands dug suddenly into her pockets to hide their shaking.
“Yes; but why should he suddenly want to squash me down into a cave? We have always been rather friendly,” cried Monica, suddenly relinquishing any effort at self-control and beginning to sob out loud.
Gregory Fanshawe turned his head a little on the leather cushion. No; Mason had already retreated a little way away and was standing looking over the iron fence down into the cutting; he put out a brown hand and took one of Monica’s shaking ones in his. “Don’t cry,” he said, and Gregory Fanshawe’s voice was one of his great charms; “no harm has been done—mercifully. But don’t, whatever you do, go off into a lonely place again with a man that you pick up on a Parade in a seaside town; it honestly is not safe.”
“But harm has been done,” cried Monica, still sobbing, and not listening to the little homily that finished the sentence; “it’s degrading to be dragged into a cave and flattened out on the ground by somebody that you don’t know. To begin with, what shall I do if I ever see him again? I am sure to. And the next time he tries to do it you mayn’t be there . . . then what?” said Monica, her eyes wide.
But for the first time that Gregory Fanshawe could remember since life ceased to be life for him, he was laughing—laughing hopelessly, his eyes closed under the deep peak of his cap. Flattened out on the ground by somebody that you didn’t know! Gad, if he only had one of his old pals there to tell it to. He opened his eyes again and groped for the gay silk handkerchief in his overcoat sleeve, then met Monica’s eyes amazed. “I am so sorry,” he said repentantly; “I had no business to laugh. But I honestly couldn’t help it”; his lips twitched again under his short moustache.
“Did I say something funny?”
“Desperately funny.” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were all alight with laughter.
“Well, I don’t know what it can have been, because I only feel most frightfully wretched,” said poor Monica, weeping. “And it is late, and the Aunts will wonder where I am. I must go home, and yet I daren’t, in case I see him again.” She looked round affrightedly.
“We’ll see you home. Mason!” Mason turned at the call. “Mason, we will take the young lady home first. Where do you live, Miss . . . Miss . . .?”
“Monica Field,” supplied Monica promptly.
“Miss Monica Field, we will see you safely to your gate,” said Gregory Fanshawe, smiling again. “Carry on, Mason.”
The trio walked rather quickly along the silent asphalt Parade, now entirely deserted. Gregory Fanshawe was thinking as he lay. Who was she? he wondered. Very young, quite pretty, in a sort of elusive way, and with a very sweet, rather low voice. And obviously a lady. He turned his head a little on his pillow and glanced up at her a little shyly: could he ask her who she was? he wondered. Yes, he could, he concluded, after a little cogitation: the circumstances under which they had met were exceptional, and also it was necessary for him to know a little about her late companion.
“I say, don’t think me awfully curious,” he said, “and don’t be afraid that my servant can hear—you can’t hear anything when you are away out there in front with that handle. But would you tell me how it was that you got to know that fellow? You see, I know you very well by sight, and that makes me keen to know a little about it. I’ve seen you quite a number of times with him, and somehow I have always felt uneasy. He isn’t the sort of man that a girl can go safely about with; he’s got it written all over him. Who is he?—do you mind telling me; and who are you?—do you mind telling me that too?”
“Of course I don’t mind.” Monica, with her hand securely on the padded edge of the luxurious chair, was rapidly recovering her usual equanimity. There was something so solid in Mason’s slightly bent back, and so reassuring in the quiet voice from the depths of the invalid carriage. “I live in Sweyn Road, in a house near the top, called The Laurels, with three Aunts; they are elderly ladies, and look after me. I haven’t any parents—they died a long time ago; father first, from a sort of fever he caught on a little island in the Indian Ocean, where he was a missionary, and mother a little time afterwards, from a frightful cold she got when she came home to England. I can tell you quite ordinarily like this because I was only five when they died, so it isn’t very clear to me,” concluded Monica, feeling that perhaps a cold-blooded recital of her parents’ demise would give a bad impression.
“I see; thank you. And now, this young man—can you tell me his name and where he lives? Don’t if you’d rather not,” added Major Fanshawe hurriedly.
“I don’t mind a bit. His name is Alexander Fellowes, and he is staying at the big hotel on the front—the Bristol, I think it is called.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Gregory Fanshawe was silent for a minute or two. He must get Mr. Alexander Fellowes rounded up, somehow or other, but it would be difficult—it always was in anything of the kind, because you could not have the girl dragged into it. But probably Mason would be able to help. He had a great pal in the police force, some sergeant or other whom he had known in France—at least, so he believed. But in any event . . . He turned his head again. “I say,” he said, “don’t think me very impertinent, but will you give me your word that you will never have anything to do with Mr. Fellowes again? Believe me, it would be most unwise. You are very young—at least, you look very young; I haven’t the ghost of an idea how old you are—and anyone as young as you doesn’t know their way about properly. Promise me, will you? or I shall be dreadfully uneasy; such beastly things can happen in places like this.”
“I promise you,” said Monica solemnly, and her heart suddenly gave a mad leap. For, for one stupefying moment she had thought it was the Dream Man speaking. It was the same sort of deep, compelling voice and the same sort of look. Not a look that you could jeer at and flout, but a look that made you do a thing. Heavenly, heavenly joy! Monica bent her head and answered in the same sort of voice that she always used in the telling of her stories to herself, rather weak and quavery: “I promise you,” she said again.
“Good. Thanks!” Gregory Fanshawe replied in a voice entirely free from the faintest tinge of romanticism and smiled cheerfully. “Now, which is your road?” he said; “we turn off here.”
“This one.” But the flash of sudden joy had vanished, and Monica’s heart was heavy as lead again. The Aunts, would she have to tell them? She put the question breathlessly. Gregory Fanshawe deliberated for a moment. The Aunts . . . probably three fussy old maids without the remotest knowledge of the world. Monica would be a prisoner for the rest of her natural life. Or they would feel it their duty to enlighten her, and that would knock edgeways that droll, childish insouciance that had so amused him. It would not be likely to happen again; she had had too bad a fright for that . . . no, he should say that it would be better not to tell the Aunts. He said so, briefly.
“Oh, joy!” Monica’s brow was clear again; they went a little way up the steep road in silence. Mason was panting a little—it was too steep for him alone; Monica saw it. “Let me go on this little bit alone,” she said; “my house is that one, by the pillar-box. I would rather; if you will stop here and just watch me go I shall be perfectly all right. If the Aunts saw, they might wonder,” she ended very shyly.
“All right—hold on, Mason.” Gregory Fanshawe was relieved; the same thought had occurred to him. “Well, good-bye,” he said, and he smiled very pleasantly as he held the very small and very soft hand in his; “don’t forget: no wandering again on sands alone with strange men. And I say—rub round your mouth a bit, it’s stuck all over with sand.”
“He stuffed it down my throat,” said Monica, hunting for her handkerchief.
“Did he, though?” Gregory Fanshawe’s mouth went suddenly hard. “Well . . . yes, that’s better! Now then, good-bye again . . . Yes, what did you want to say?”
“Do I know you now?” stammered Monica, scarlet.
“How do you mean, do you know me?”
“I mean, can I smile at you if I meet you in the road?”
“Yes, of course you can.” Gregory Fanshawe smiled with a flash of white teeth. “This has been a champion introduction; nothing can prevent us from knowing one another now. Good-bye again.”
But Monica still lingered, and held the brown hand. “Your having a title makes it a little awkward,” she said, and she blushed scarlet under the cover of the darkness.
“Oh, I don’t see that!” Gregory Fanshawe’s lips twitched, and he gripped the padded edge of the chair to prevent himself from laughing out loud. “A title is really a very common thing nowadays,” he said; “they are like black currants on a bush—too many of them. Don’t worry about that.”
“The Aunts would think it desperately grand,” said Monica.
“Well then, all the more reason for not telling the Aunts,” replied Gregory Fanshawe.
“There is no doubt my clothes are ghastly!” Monica, propped up against the chest of drawers, her hands behind her, was staring at a collection of garments distributed over the room; dresses on the bed, shoes in a row by the side of the bed, hats on each knob of the bed, and stockings on the towel-horse. She surveyed the hats first—they were all dreadful except the velvet tam-o’-shanter; that had come in a parcel of things from her godmother, who sometimes remembered her existence in this way, and sent her clothes that her own daughter had either cast aside or outgrown. The daughter, as a matter of fact, had just got engaged to a man in India, so she would soon be going out to marry him, and because of this Monica had vague hopes that another parcel of clothes would come her way sometime within the near future. But meantime, like all young people, she felt the need of nice clothes now, not at some distant date that might never come. She went nearer to the bed and took up her Sunday hat. That was too frightful for words; Aunt Ellie had chosen it. There was a woman at the chapel who had a hat-shop, and most of the chapel people went to her. This hat matched the Sunday dress, which was a stiff-looking thing made of grey beige with a lace collar round the V-shaped neck. The idea of it wasn’t so bad, only it was so frightfully made—the skirt gathery where it should have been plain, and the armholes not absolutely in the right place. It did not cling either, as it ought to have done; it stuck out. And the hat was of that rather papery-looking crinoline straw, bent up where it ought to have been turned down, and turned up where it ought to have been bent down, and only trimmed with a rather dejected-looking bow; it wasn’t right—Monica was hopelessly conscious of that. As a matter of fact, Monica had very little idea about clothes, but now, as she disgustedly surveyed the whole collection, she began to see how desperately wrong they all were—the stockings, lumpy and ribby and all black; the shoes, some of them rather bent over on one side, and all very wide and gapey where the foot went in; the dresses—well, there was only one dress, but the rest, blouses and skirts, dowdy, hopeless at the collar. Wrong, that was it, wrong. One evening garment, more wrong than any, Monica felt despairingly sure, black lace over white, with a sort of strip of folded white silk round the half low neck. Her only evening dress. Not that she ever wanted an evening dress, but still, not to have one was desperate. And the woman that she had seen on the Parade that morning, walking so lightly, with her hand on the padded edge of the invalid carriage, had been so perfectly dressed. Not very young—Monica had seen that she was a middle-aged woman—but it was all so perfect. Toque with fur round it, right down over her eyes; long Russian coat with a belt round the waist, heavily trimmed with fur to match the toque; huge muff, and silk stockings just showing above the suède shoes, although it was February. Nothing stodgy or lumpy about that. It must have been Lady Fanshawe, thought Monica, sick with a sudden wave of self-consciousness, in case the man in the long chair would show that he knew her. She would hate to have been eyed by a woman like that, some one knowing to the tiniest detail how wrong she was. And, as a matter of fact, Gregory Fanshawe did see Monica, but he knew his mother well, and he knew the detailed account he would have to give of Monica’s antecedents and belongings, so he just stared straight ahead of him, and Monica scurried by, breathing hard with relief. Lady Fanshawe was only down for the day, so meditated the man on his back, so really it did not concern her who he knew and who he did not. Also, he himself had only met Monica once to speak to since the affair of the sands, so he was hardly in a position to introduce her to anybody.
But the vision of the perfectly dressed mother of the man she had just got to know floated very persistently before the eyes of the girl in the little bedroom under the roof, and she sighed and bit her lip, and then abruptly darted to the door and opened it. “I say, Cynthia, come in here, will you?” she said rather low under her breath; “put the hot-water can down and come quietly.”
“Very well, miss.” Cynthia, who was on her way up to her still smaller bedroom to “dress,” went in at the door opposite Monica’s, deposited a pile of something clean on the unmade bed—this was the spare room—put down the hot-water can, and came back to Monica’s door.
Monica shut it with the scurry of a disturbed and alarmed mouse, and then looked at the dishevelled figure by her side. “Cynthia, if those were your clothes, what would you do with them?” she asked.
Cynthia, who off-duty was one of the smartest girls in Maygate, followed the wave of Monica’s hand with a sympathetic smile. “I wouldn’t wear them, miss,” she said quietly.
“But what would you do with them if you hadn’t any others?” persisted Monica.
“Well, I don’t know what I should do, miss,” replied Cynthia, and she walked a little forward and, taking the Sunday hat on her forefinger, stared at it as if it had been some queer animal.
“Help me, Cynthia!” Monica suddenly forgot that the girl beside her was a servant, and felt that she was only another girl who liked nice clothes.”I have got the feeling suddenly that I must have some nicer clothes,” she said. “It’s so frightful to always be dowdy and badly dressed. What can I do? You tell me. You always look frightfully nice on your afternoons out.”
“But you’ve got to think of the Miss Fishers,” replied Cynthia dreamily; she had taken the Sunday hat between her fingers and was giving the brim and bow violent twitches. “Try it now, miss,” she said suddenly; “I’ve pulled it a bit.”
“Oh, Cynthia, it’s far better! “ Monica’s face flushed scarlet as she stood in front of the glass. “Oh, I say, do pull some of the others!”
“I haven’t the time now, miss,” said Cynthia, beaming at this tribute to her skill. “But I tell you what, if you’ll leave the things just as they are, I’ll slip up after lunch, when they’ve gone for their rests, and we’ll go through them together. I think a little alteration would do wonders, and I love dressmaking—served my apprenticeship too, so I know a bit about it.”
“Oh, Cynthia, will you really? Thank you most awfully.” Monica was all aglow with joy and excitement. To have her clothes made to look generally less hopeless—why, it made her feel quite different already. “Thank you most awfully, Cynthia,” she said again.
“Don’t mention it, miss.” Cynthia was pleased at Monica’s unfeigned gratitude, and also she was always very sorry for her: “To live with those three old tabbies, why, it fair gives me the ’ump,” as she was wont to confide to her great friend, “and I gets my days out and has me kitchen to meself. But that Monica, she never gets quit of them.”
“Why don’t you leave and get in with something more lively then?” queried the friend, who was one of the chambermaids at “Sands Peep,” and enjoyed life.
“Because boarding-houses in a place like Maygate is common,” replied Cynthia, who was engaged to a guard who ran between London and Maygate, and who considered that the young men who frequented “Sands Peep” compared very unfavourably with him. Also, she was fond of Monica, and she felt that her being there made it a little less deadly for her, although they saw very little of each other, for the Aunts were of the type that thinks a servant is some strange animal who needs to be addressed in quite a different sort of voice to the one you employ to your own friends. Also that a servant does not need to be fed as much as you do. But Cynthia had her own way of dealing with these little idiosyncrasies, and knowing her own value, had gradually reduced the Aunts to a state of trembling terror lest she should “go.” So Cynthia’s life was a moderately cheerful one, and quite comfortable so far as material things were concerned. But she was always sorry for Monica, so now she was unfeignedly glad that a way had presented itself by which she could help her.
“And if you’ll be here at about half-past two, miss,” she said, as she backed out of the door with a mysterious smile, “we’ll go through the whole bang lot and see what we can do.”
“Oh, thank you, Cynthia,” said Monica again, beaming.
But Lady Fanshawe looked even nicer indoors than she did out; and Monica, in the middle of a collection of dowdy clothes, would have felt even more depressed than she did if she could have seen her as she was then, half lying and half sitting along a flowered Chesterfield, drawn up close to the long invalid couch on which her son lay smoking.
“But, my dear boy, you must remember that that all happened years ago,” she was saying, and she ran her slender manicured finger-tips in under the hair over her ears and pulled it down a little lower.
“I know it did, but it is none the less clear in my memory for all that,” responded Gregory Fanshawe, and he drew his brows a little closer together.
“Dear Aline has regretted it bitterly, many, many times.” Lady Fanshawe leant forward and picked a cigarette daintily out of the big silver box that lay close to the invalid’s elbow.
“She may have done, and so have I. But now I hope I am wiser, and I am certainly a good deal older, and I see that Aline did the only thing possible under the circumstances. You cannot marry a helpless log . . . at least, you cannot unless it is very well off”—Gregory Fanshawe smiled a little cynically—“and I wasn’t in those days. Now I am, and of course Aline knows it. It sounds brutal, but it is the truth. Let me light your cigarette for you, mother.”
“Thank you, darling.” Lady Fanshawe leant forward and drew in a couple of rather hurried, gasping breaths. She never really enjoyed smoking—she had begun it too late. She sat back and gazed at her son. How really extraordinarily good-looking he was. No wonder the girl she had left in London hankered after him. Of course, she had thrown him over when the great specialist had delivered his ultimatum, but still . . . that was excusable. A girl naturally goes all adrift when she finds that what she has been led to expect can never come off—life by the side of an invalid chair is not life in India or Egypt, with all its attendant joys. But still . . . Aline had had five good years, crammed full of everything with which the life of a good-looking girl in Society is crammed. She had lived her life, and would now be content to settle down and be a pleasant companion to the man whose life, as life, was over. Lady Fanshawe, in rather modified terms, tried to express this to the man who lay listening, with rather a hard look on his mouth.
“But I am not sure that I require a pleasant companion,” he said, and he turned his head a little on the leather cushion.
Lady Fanshawe hesitated, and fidgeted a little with one pink nail. “Gregory, I am always afraid that you will be caught,” she said. “Cripples are, sometimes. Supposing you ever had to have a nurse, she might involve you somehow.”
“I wish you would not call me a cripple, mother.” Gregory Fanshawe’s brown face had blanched a little, and he turned it away again. How his mother always seemed to rub salt into his wounds.
“I am sorry, dear, but it seemed the only word to express what I meant”—Lady Fanshawe had the impervious hide of the rhinoceros. “You see, Gregory, you are one,” she went on, “and that being so, you will find a difficulty in obtaining a wife. Now, Aline is anxious to fill that role, and a pretty girl like that might have anyone. You ought to be very grateful for her eagerness.”
“I should be more grateful if I did not think that her eagerness was prompted by anxiety to find a father—however improbable a one—for the child that is probably coming, and which has no business to come,” said Gregory Fanshawe suddenly and brutally.
“Gregory!” Lady Fanshawe was genuinely shocked.
“Yes; well, you drive me to it, mother! What other damned motive could a girl like Aline Hervey have for wanting to be the wife of a helpless crippled log? It makes me sick to hear it. When I was in hell she deserted me: now she has got her own hell and she may keep it. I’m sorry, mother,” for Lady Fanshawe was trembling, “but it’s better to be frank. You can’t see through Aline: I can. She’s got caught, like many of these modern girls do get caught. Very well, I’m extremely sorry for her, but I don’t want her for my wife, that’s all! Now we’ll have tea before you have to start.” Gregory Fanshawe pressed with a trembling finger the bell let into the arm of his couch.
Tea was brought by the impassive Mason. But his veiled eyes saw the few drops of perspiration under the cropped moustache, and his quick ears caught the rattling of the cup in the flowered saucer as it was set down. And he fiercely hated the beautifully dressed woman who sat so erect by the side of the invalid couch, the powder a little smudged on the smooth cheek. “Ugly ’ag!” as he vitriolically expressed her to himself.
He confided a little of his soreness of soul to the sympathetic woman who waited for him below-stairs with an excellent brew of tea and a plateful of freshly boiled shrimps. “Comes down ’ere, nobody wants ’er; comes down ’ere, nobody wants ’er, as I say, and then ’e don’t sleep for a week. Why don’t she stay where she is wanted—that’s what I want to know,” said Mason, between huge gulps of tea, staring across the table into Mrs. Mannering’s round face.
“Reely!” Mrs. Mannering was consumed with interest. Mason so rarely discussed his master or his master’s affairs.
“Yes, reely! And that’s what I’ll tell her too, one day!” replied Mason, suddenly relapsing disappointingly into taciturnity. He had forgotten himself for a moment, but Mrs. Mannering’s face had brought him to himself again. Never tell a woman anything unless you want it repeated, was Mason’s maxim. And on the whole an excellent one. Mason knew the sex!
Aline Hervey went up and down the beautiful drawing-room on the first floor of the little house in Hill Street like an animal in a cage. Six o’clock, the blue enamel clock on the satin mantelpiece chimed it out; well, surely . . . she took a few desperate steps to the bell let in the striped wall and pressed it.
“Yes, miss?”
“Let me have the ABC, will you, Stephens, please?”
“Yes, miss.” Stephens went out again, looking exactly like a footman in a musical comedy. Lady Fanshawe liked her servants distinctively dressed; as she told her friends, it gave the house an atmosphere of its own. But Mason did not think so. “Lot of blooming monkeys, and there you’ve got ’em,” as he expressed it to his friend in the police force at Maygate.
“Thank you.” Aline Hervey’s well manicured hand was fumbling with the yellowy cover; where was it? Oh yes, M—M—M—Maygate, 4.45, Charing Cross, 6.30. Another forty minutes to wait. “Stephens, I should like a small brandy and soda, please,” she said abruptly.
“Yes, miss.” Stephens went out again, but this time with rather a stiff look on his elaborate back. He did not approve of all this odd drinking. “All very well to your meals,” as he told the head housemaid, with whom he was walking out, “but that’s enough. And for a girl like that Aline . . . well I think its just hawful.” But he brought the half inch of golden liquid notwithstanding, only he pretended not to hear when the girl in furs made a sound that meant that he was to stop pouring in the soda. So the brandy and soda was weaker than it need have been. But all the same it revived, and took away the feeling of half-mad despair that was beginning to settle down on the girl’s heart.
“Anything more, miss?” Stephens was an excellent servant, and his very attitude breathed respect.
“No, thank you, Stephens.”
Stephens retired quietly and Aline Hervey flung to the window again. Surely Lady Fanshawe could not be much longer now. There was a taxi rounding the corner at that very moment—that would be it. No; it couldn’t be: the blue enamel clock only sounded the quarters: she went back to the chair by the fire.
“So sad . . .” No, nobody would say it was sad—that wasn’t the word. No; it would be more like this: “ Have you heard? My dear, no! You can’t mean Aline Hervey! That girl who was engaged to Major Fanshawe? But how perfectly dreadful! And her father, at the India Office . . . what a perfectly appalling thing for him. My dear, it means ruin for them all; how awful! . . .” And then there would be chairs drawn closer, and heads nodding more frequently, and long pauses; and then, later, side glances, and then, later still, averted glances, and then, then—horror, death, terror! Aline Hervey got on to her feet with a smothered scream as the door opened and Lady Fanshawe came in with an affected little run.
“My dear, how sweet of you to come round.” Lady Fanshawe was pretending not to be able to unfasten her veil, so that she should not have to kiss the girl in front of her. Because, as she had been thinking on her way up in the train, it is such a dreadful thing to be found out in this life. To do the thing is very reprehensible, but to be found out doing it—well, that is quite inexcusable. “How sweet of you to come round. Yes; well, I found Greg wonderfully cheerful, considering all things. Rather chafing against his helplessness, of course, but wonderfully cheerful all the same. And quite determined, dear Aline, never to marry—never to marry.” Lady Fanshawe repeated the last words with a sort of pleased finality.
“Ha, ha!” Aline Hervey was grinning, with her lips drawn back from her teeth. Such pretty teeth, white and even, except for the eye-teeth, which were a little longer than the others. “Ha, ha! what a funny, cynical old boy!” she said, laughing.
“Yes, but he was very sweet about it,” continued Lady Fanshawe with cruel, seeking eyes on the girl in front of her. Was it true what Greg had said? she was wondering. Could it be true? Were not such things confined to Societies, and Homes, and smug committees of women who had never been exposed to the faintest temptation because they were too ugly for it ever to have come their way? And, because of this, and because of the sort of unconscious jealousy that such a thought provoked, were they not more cruelly hard on it than anyone else? Could it be true, Aline Hervey, the sort of girl you met everywhere? Lady Fanshawe suddenly doubted it; Greg had been overwrought, had spoken hastily; she tipped back her chair a little and put her beautifully shod feet on the little brass stool inside the fender. “Yes, dear, he is quite determined never to marry,” she repeated, “and you know, although he is my own son, I do think that you would be rather throwing yourself away if you unselfishly decided to devote the rest of your life to him. After all, Aline, you are young, and you ought to have love . . . and children. Gregory is nothing but a cripple, and he never will be anything else. And a cripple who is fully determined never to marry,” finished up Lady Fanshawe with a note of finality in her voice. Aline suddenly looked oddly old and drawn; there had better be no doubt about it, thought Lady Fanshawe, the ugly suggestion put into her mind by her son stirring again.
“Ha, ha, ha!” Aline was laughing again, with a queer, staring look in her eyes. “Forgive me for laughing, but it sounds so odd from Gregory. Ha, ha, ha!” she pressed the small handkerchief over her mouth and caught it between her teeth as she stared.
“Yes, but he is not the Gregory that you used to know,” returned Lady Fanshawe with a sort of resolute emphasis. “You broke his heart, Aline, as the war broke his body. But he’s got both patched up for the time being, and so he’s better left alone. He’s happy in a sort of way; Mason looks after him excellently, and he gets out every day, and the air of Maygate certainly is delicious; so you and I will leave him alone. What, not going, dear?” for the girl in the low chair opposite had stooped for a slipping fur and was standing up.
“Yes, I am afraid I must. Dad will be back and will be wondering where I am.” Aline Hervey was groping with stupid fingers for the fastening of her collar. “Goodbye, dear Lady Fanshawe; it was nice of you to go down to Maygate and give Greg my message. I feel happier now I know that he knows that I should be willing to devote the rest of my life to him, even although he may not want me to.” The slender fingers were making a terrible hash of the fastening of the collar.
Lady Fanshawe came to the rescue. “Yes, he appreciates it very much, dear, although quite determined not to allow you to do it. Well, good-bye, and remember me to your nice father.”
The painted door shut behind Aline Hervey, and she stood for one bewildered moment staring round her and swallowing; then she saw the top of Stephens’s very smooth head waiting in the hall below, and she gulped in a long quivering breath. Even in front of a servant she must be careful now; in fact, more than ever in front of a servant, because it was those sort of people who . . . she gripped her fingers together inside the big muff and ran quickly down the stairs.
“Wants to see me? Who is it?” Gregory Fanshawe turned his head on the leather cushion. The invalid couch lay right across the bay window that stood wide open; the air blew in fresh and fragrant from the sea. It was the first real spring day of the year; the daffodils in the big patch of square garden just across the road were beginning to show palely yellow between the spiky green leaves, the asphalt was blown beautifully dry and clean. The sea broke far out; it was low tide, and from where Gregory lay and looked out he could see black spurs of rock stabbing the blue of it. It was a heavenly day, and in spite of his helplessness he felt a stirring of something like joy in the beauty of it all. “Wants to see me? Who is it?” he repeated, smiling a little at his landlady; “Mason, go down and see, will you? “
“Yes, Sir Gregory.” Mason got up from the chair at the other end of the room and went out. Outside on the half-landing he turned to the woman by his side. “Who is it?” he asked.
“A young lady,” replied Mrs. Mannering, with a flutter of excitement.
“A young lady!” Mason uttered the words uneasily as he went down the stairs. Probably the young lady whom they had befriended the other night. She must be choked off, decided Mason, as he went smoothly into the dining-room, which lay to the right of the entrance-hall with its glass door.
“Well, Mason!” Aline Hervey got up from the ugly leather chair, holding her hands very tightly together inside the big muff; “we have not met for a very long time, have we? How are you?” There was almost a sickening note of ingratiation in the musical voice.
“I am very well, thank you, miss,” replied Mason, instantly suspiciously on guard. What was she doing down here, the young woman who had given his master the push? Up to something, the pair of them, he thought, coupling them together, Lady Fanshawe and the girl in front of him.
“Well . . . I wonder if Sir Gregory will see me?” There was a big patch of wet on the palms of the suède gloves inside the muff.
“I will inquire, miss.” Mason waited a second and then turned and walked out of the room again. Under his pallid forehead his thoughts were working like lightning, as he took each stair slowly. “Up to something,” he decided, but the point was, what? “A pair of ’ags the two of them; trust them to do the dirty,” he thought, as he noiselessly opened the door of the wide flower-scented room again.
“It’s Miss Hervey, sir,” he said, and he stared almost vacantly over his master’s head out to where the blue sea danced and glittered.
“Miss Hervey? What Miss Hervey?” Gregory Fanshawe’s heart had begun to beat painfully; his eyes were wider in his brown face.
“The one what used to visit in ’Ill Street,” replied Mason, now every bit as agitated as his master, only making desperate efforts not to show it.
“What does she want?” Gregory Fanshawe gripped his brown hands round the pipe in his pocket. Mason was his only shield between himself and the outside world; he glanced almost appealingly at his servant. “What does she want, Mason?”
“She asks to see you, sir,” replied Mason, mentally consigning Aline Hervey to the most sanguinary of bottomless pits. “Trust the two of them to find some way of ’arrassing ’im,” as he thought, fiercely loyal, and tenderly pitiful for the helplessness of the man on the couch.
“Well, tell her that I’m not seeing visitors,” replied Gregory Fanshawe, and a little colour stole back into his face as he took his hand out of his pocket and began to feel for his handkerchief.
“Very good, sir!” Mason longed to break out into song as he descended the stairs again. “That’ll settle her,” he thought triumphantly, facing the dainty figure in furs for the second time. “Sir Gregory does not see visitors, miss,” he said, delivering himself of the message with the deepest respect.
“Ah!” Aline Hervey drew in a long breath, and caught her lower lip between her teeth; then she smiled quickly. “I am sure if he knows I have come all the way from London to see him specially, he will make an exception in my favour,” she said. “Ask him again, Mason, will you?”
“It wouldn’t be of no use, miss.” Mason’s pale face was deprecatingly solicitous. “Although Sir Gregory is what you might call a confirmed invalid, ’e knows ’is own mind. And when ’e says ’e won’t see a visitor ’e won’t. Quite a set-to, as we ’ad one day with the Vicar,” he concluded with relish, remembering an incident of the past week when one of the local clergy had called to see his master and been refused admittance. Mason had been glad, although the set-to existed in his imagination only, for the Vicar, a man of great charm and culture, had at once respected his parishioner’s desire for solitude, and had withdrawn on hearing the same expressed. But Mason was fiercely possessive of his master, and always dreaded lest association with the outside world should bring back the torment of unrest that seemed now to be a little lessening. “It wouldn’t be of no use, miss,” he repeated.
“But I’m not the Vicar!” Aline, through her feverish anxiety, tried to laugh. “Ask him again, Mason. Besides, it’s nearly lunch-time—surely he won’t turn me out now?” she laughed again, although her throat was closing.
“It wouldn’t be of no manner of use, miss.” Mason’s face expressed nothing but the deepest solicitude for the hungry lady in front of him. “But lunch, that’s easily managed; I’ll ’ave a tray up in no time.” He turned to the sideboard and drew out a silently gliding drawer.
“But there is something I specially want to say.” Aline Hervey had laid down her muff, not knowing that she did so, and had gripped hold of the edge of the table. “It’s important, Mason, really important.”
Then Mason made his false move. He turned from the sideboard, a couple of knives and forks in his hand. “If you write a note, miss, I will take it up to Sir Gregory,” he said.
“Ah, thank you! May I have some notepaper? I’m afraid I haven’t anything with me.” Aline Hervey was surreptitiously wiping her lips as she followed the discreet figure to the well-equipped writing-table. She sat down and dropped her muff into the waste-paper basket, not knowing what she did. Now, then, something to make him see her—no use to camouflage when Fate has got you by the jaw. She stabbed the pen into the ink. “Dear Greg,—For the sake of the past—for the sake of the future—see me, I beseech you. I shall kill myself if you don’t. I mean it.—Aline.”
“Thank you, Mason.” Mason was standing waiting for the note, looking very stony. He was wishing very heartily now that he had not offered to take a message to his master. But he had offered, so there it was; he walked slowly upstairs with it, wishing also that she had not stuck it up so securely.
Gregory Fanshawe’s face was turned away from the door when his servant entered. He whitened again as Mason, looking very conscience-stricken, held out the note on a tray. “What does she want?” He slit it open across the top and read it; then he laid it down and levelled his eyes on the straight line of blue horizon. “Tell Miss Hervey I will see her, Mason, please,” he said, and his voice was flat and dull.
“Very good, sir,” but Mason’s thoughts were murderous as he walked downstairs again. “Lot of . . .” Unprintable epithets surged through his brain as he re-entered the ugly dining-room. But he spoke with his usual freedom from anything approaching animation to the girl who was staring at him. “Sir Gregory will see you, miss,” he said; “come this way, please.”
To the girl with stupid, terrified eyes, the wide room seemed only a mass of flowers. Flowers and beautifully coloured things, cretonnes and polished tables with silver boxes on them. Luxury, luxury, and freedom from terror. Sweet keen breeze sweeping in at the open window, everything open—flung wide. Nothing furtive, hidden, skulking. And the man on the couch—bronzed, immaculate in every detail, and ah! good-looking, much more so than she remembered him. And hers once, terribly, almost slavishly hers. But hers no longer. Ah, but she could get him back—if she played her cards well. A wild rush of confidence and joy flooded over her; what a fool she had been to write that wild note, but she could easily explain it away.
“Greg.” Aline Hervey stood very close to the invalid couch, and spoke in the gentle voice that had served her many a good turn in the old days.
“Well, Aline.” Gregory Fanshawe had not got himself equally well under control; the thin brown hand that he held out was shaking perceptibly. “Well, Aline, this is very kind of you,” he said. “You’ll stay to lunch, I hope? Excuse my referring to anything so mundane straightaway, but in an establishment of this kind a little notice is appreciated by the powers that be.”
“Thanks, I should like to, if you’re quite sure it won’t be a bother,” replied the girl in the beautiful furs, and she still stood by the head of the couch. “Mason will tell the powers that be, won’t you, Mason?”
“Yes, miss.” With one glance of hatred at the slim figure that stood so daringly close to his beloved master, Mason left the room.
“Greg . . . even if you think me dreadful, I must,” said Aline Hervey, and she stooped and pressed her beautiful mouth to the one that lay in a still, quiet line just below her own.
The room seemed desperately still as she stood upright again. Had she made a false move? She forced herself to meet his eyes. But they were shut—shut. Then she had scored a point. She stooped again.
“Aline!” Gregory Fanshawe’s voice held the note of an animal that is being tortured. “Aline, the advantage is with you, as I can’t move. Would you be kind enough?” He turned his head on the pillow.
“Greg, say you are glad to see me—say it. You are.” There was a gleam of the predatory animal in Aline Hervey’s eyes as she stooped again and peered.
“Don’t force me to be truthful.” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes came round again, less blurred, though, this time. “Ah, thank God—Mason!” The door opened and shut again.
“Will Miss Hervey lunch with you, sir?” Mason was standing like an angry sentinel at the foot of the couch. He knew that his master disliked being seen at a disadvantage, and his helplessness was more than usually evident at meals.
“Yes, Greg; do let me.” Aline bent forward impulsively.
“Yes; Miss Hervey will lunch up here,” replied Gregory Fanshawe, both hands clasped under the light rug that covered his lower limbs. He still felt a little sick from the whirl of feeling that had assailed him when the warm mouth had lain on his. “Yes, bring lunch up here, Mason,” he said, “and at once—I expect Miss Hervey is hungry after her journey.”
Lunch was very nice—excellently cooked fish, a cutlet done just to a turn, new potatoes gloriously out of season, and a couple of small cherry tarts, smothered in cream, obviously obtained hurriedly from the local confectioner’s. Then coffee, prepared by Mason mysteriously in the farther corner in a machine that at the psychological moment sounded a whistle and blew its contents into a glass receiver. And then cigarettes; and then a pause, while Mason again stood on guard at the foot of the couch.
“You will take your usual rest, sir?” Mason’s eyes were the eyes of a faithful dog.
“No, not to-day, Mason.” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were faintly amused. Poor old Mason, he was in a real stew. He suddenly felt a passion of gratitude for his servant’s solicitude.
“I promise I will not overtire him, Mason.” Aline Hervey’s eyes were malicious. “Get out of the room, you silly old fool,” she would have said if she had spoken out loud. He should go, directly she had got her foot into this comfortable house. Or no, she would rather live somewhere like Bournemouth, Maygate was so desperately cold in the winter.
“Nothing else then, sir?” Mason was shifting from one foot to the other.
“No, thank you, Mason.” Gregory Fanshawe’s teeth showed faintly. “Tea at four. You’re catching the same train as the mater did, I expect, Aline, the four forty-five? Yes, tea at four then, Mason, thank you.”
“At last I’ve got you to myself.” Aline Hervey leant back in her low chair and put her neat suède-shod feet on another. “Greg, you’re just as good-looking as you ever were—better-looking, in fact. What desperately hard luck it is for you! Can nothing be done?”
“Well, I never give them a chance of telling me that it can’t,” replied Gregory Fanshawe with an effort, “so I really don’t know. I should say not. But in any event I don’t care to discuss it, if you don’t mind.”
“What, don’t you ever see a doctor?”
“Never, under any circumstances whatever.”
“But, why ever not? Somebody told me that there was a genius down here, one of these spinal specialist sort of people.”
“There may be, but his presence in Maygate doesn’t affect me,” replied Gregory Fanshawe briefly. “And in any event . . . Aline, do you mind not talking about it,” he said, and his face whitened a little.
Aline Hervey sat silent for a tune: then the travelling-clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of three and she paled a little. An hour to do it all in; she must be quick. “Greg,” she said, and her voice really trembled; “Greg, I have come down here to tell you that I am sorry for the cruel way in which I treated, you four years ago, and to ask you if you will forgive me.”
“I forgave you long ago.”
“Yes, but I mean, forgive and forget.”
“I have done both,” replied Gregory Fanshawe, and he turned a little on his pillow.
“Well, then . . .” Aline Hervey caught her lower lip between her teeth and leant forward; a grey trail of cigarette ash fell dustily on her lace jumper. “Greg, it is so hard to say it . . . but I love you still. Make it easy for me, won’t you? “
“In what way, make it easy?”
“Well,” Aline Hervey turned her slender neck from one side to another like an animal trying to escape—“well, I love you, Greg . . . I would devote my life . . .”
“Yes?”
“To making you happy. You are lonely . . . you want a companion. I would so gladly be your companion. I am not always wanting now to be gadding about.”
Gregory Fanshawe interrupted. “Since when?” he asked cruelly.
Aline Hervey whitened. Was he going to refuse? No, no; not possible. Terror suddenly gripped her. She stood up.
Gregory Fanshawe turned a little and picked a note up from the table by his side. “You say in this,” he said, and his voice was very deliberate, “you say in this, ‘for the sake of the future, see me, I beseech you; I shall kill myself if you don’t.’ Now, Aline, you have always been rather a self-controlled person; you wouldn’t write like that if there was no reason for it. What has happened?”
“Gregory, don’t you love me any more?” Aline Hervey’s tears were genuine. Tears of fear, horrible fear.
“Well, as I have said already, don’t force me to be truthful, Aline. We aren’t talking about love—at least, I’m not. That doesn’t enter into this. We haven’t got very much time,” Gregory Fanshawe glanced back over his shoulder for an instant. “Be straight with me, Aline; you’re in a corner—isn’t that so? Now, then, off the deep end: what has happened ?”
“Greg!”
“Yes; well, we were lovers once. I’ll help if I can. But you must be straight with me, Aline. Now, out with it.”
“Greg, give me the protection of your name. I swear . . . I swear I won’t abuse it.” Aline Hervey was down on her knees by the invalid couch. “Greg, it’s ruin: for me, and for Dad. Greg, you have some mercy left . . .”
“Who is the swine?” Gregory Fanshawe’s mouth was drawn straight across his face.
“No, no—don’t say that; it was just as much my fault . . .” Aline was broken, sobbing, groping with blind hands.
Gregory Fanshawe caught hold of one of them. Ah, that had been more like the girl he had idealized; his heart began to melt within him. And her hair was so soft; he laid one trembling hand on it. “Aline, you must tell me who it is,” he said.
“You’ll say something to him!” The lifted face was wild.
“No, no; of course I shan’t. Tell me. Poor child, don’t cry!” the brown face was very tender.
“You know him. He was in your squadron—Captain Forrest,” Aline Hervey was bowed to the ground again.
“Forrest!” With a quick breath Gregory Fanshawe recalled the chubby, good-tempered face; “Forrest, always rather a stickler, too.” He was silent, staring out on to the sunny Parade. It was crowded—invalid chairs, couples with linked arms. Forrest—“Gad, what a shame.” He moved his eyes from the window. “Get up, Aline,” he said; “we’ll talk it out, but I can’t with you down there on the floor.”
“Gregory, you aren’t going to refuse . . .”
“Listen to me . . . why doesn’t he marry you?”
“He can’t. He’s desperately in debt. He says they’d push him out; nowadays, especially, they’d only be too glad of an excuse.”
Perfectly true. Gregory Fanshawe stared out again on to the sunny horizon. Should he do it? After all, why not? And then he laughed at the fantasy of the thought. His child—how could it possibly be? Tongues would wag more viciously than ever. And yet, what would it matter? A wedding-ring on a finger shuts the mouth of the world with a click. And she was sweet; he laid the backs of his hands over his eyes.
“Greg.” Aline Hervey had got up again and was bending over him.
“No, don’t; I want to think.” Gregory Fanshawe’s voice came rather thickly. How it seemed to bring it all back . . . the scent; she still used the same.
“Greg . . . I would love you; I would.” Aline Hervey had taken hold of one brown wrist, very thin, but with muscles like steel—she could feel them as she held it tighter. “I can love—you know I can.”
“Don’t!” Under one hand, close against his face, lay the soft fingers. Gregory Fanshawe took down the other hand and prisoned it in his: “Aline, Aline . . .”
“Ah!” Aline Hervey stooped lower with a little sob of triumph. Five more minutes, and it would be all right. “Damn!” the expletive escaped her in spite of herself, as the door was flung open.
“He’s running after me, I had to come in—it was the nearest house where there was anyone I knew.” Monica, hat on the back of her head, gasping, with her hand pressed to her heart, stood staring wildly round her. “It was frightful of me, but what could I do?” She took a faltering step forward. “You’ve got a visitor; I am sorry. You must think me most awful. I’ll go at once.” She turned round.
The flood of air that rushed through the room stirred the hair on Gregory Fanshawe’s forehead, damp hair that lifted with difficulty. It was like a blast of something fresh and health-laden, from a world where things were clean and pure, into an underground cellar. He laughed shakily, and stretched out a detaining hand.
“Don’t look so alarmed—its perfectly all right. What did you say—he was running after you? Oh, Miss Hervey—Miss Field, yes, a friend of mine has come down for the day; Mason,” for Mason was standing in the doorway, summoned by the insistent finger on the electric bell, “quick: see if that man who annoyed Miss Field before is anywhere about outside—quick!”
Mason, with one glance round the room, which seemed to his angry consciousness suddenly to have become full of young ladies, fled down the stairs, and Gregory Fanshawe, with a very pleasant smile, beckoned to the small figure that stood awkwardly in the middle of the room to come nearer. “Don’t look so alarmed,” he said; “you did perfectly right in coming in. Only, how did you know the house? Aline, Miss Field is a little friend of mine who lives at Maygate. She knows the Parade almost as well as I do—don’t you?” He smiled again.
But Monica was engulfed in a flood of self-consciousness. Here was another of these perfectly dressed people, and this one was staring at her with a look of fury in her eyes. She had done an inexcusable thing in rushing into the house without ringing the bell—tearing up the stairs and wrenching open a door into a room that she didn’t know. It might easily have been a bedroom. And in any event she had interrupted something; Monica was enough of a woman to know that. The girl had a sort of pinky shaky look on her face, and the Dream Man—poor silly Monica had already designated him as that—the Dream Man looked somehow flustered: very polite, but flustered all the same.
“I really think that I would rather go, thank you,” said Monica, and she twisted her hands nervously, suddenly terribly aware that her gloves were made of Lisle thread, and not very new.
“Well, Greg . . .” Aline Hervey spoke in a voice of gentlest intimacy, and she came a little nearer to the couch. “Well . . and she spoke as if she did not remember that the door was wide open and that there was somebody else in the room.
“Yes . . . all right, Aline, I’ll write if we haven’t another opportunity”; Gregory Fanshawe dropped his voice and then raised it again. “Come and sit down, Miss Field,” he said encouragingly. “We’re just going to have tea, and we should like you to have it with us—shouldn’t we, Aline?” He spoke light-heartedly; Monica had saved him, and he felt profoundly grateful to her.
“Clear out, you little beast,” Aline Hervey only just bit back the words that surged into her throat. Another three minutes and he would have been hers, and Gregory Fanshawe never went back on his word. She would gladly have seen Monica slowly tortured to death in front of her. But she smiled icily. “Certainly,” she said, and she let her glance loiter over Monica’s well-worn jersey coat and too short skirt. It dropped to her stockings and shoes and stayed there.
“I think I had really better go.” Monica spoke with urgency, and came and stood near to the luxurious couch. “You see, I’ve interrupted,” she said, and flushed scarlet.
“Not a bit of it.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke heartily; he would gladly have hung on to Monica’s coat and kept her there by force. “What is it—the Aunts?” he smiled.
“No; the Aunts are all at a Dorcas Meeting,” replied Monica simply.
“Well, then, that’s all right—we’ll have tea directly Mason comes back. Yes, Mason?” for the valet stood in the doorway and then came quietly across the floor.
“Not a sign of him, sir.” Mason was breathing fast. “But a stroke of luck, sir. My friend the sergeant just happened to be standing at the corner and saw him run past. Thought there was something odd about it and took particular notice. Says he would know him again anywhere.”
“Good!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke with satisfaction. “Well, then, we will have tea, Mason, now, please, and for three of us. Now, Miss Field, you. will really stay, won’t you?” his voice was pleading.
“Well, if you’re really quite sure I am not in the way.” Monica sat down and began to feverishly drag off her gloves. Cynthia, herself a “nut,” had suggested nail-polish, and Monica knew that her hands were small and that with pink gleaming nails they were pretty. That would be something against the frightful coat she had on—for she had been shopping, and the Dream Man never went into the town. On the whole, her clothes now were better, but oh! still dreadfully far from right. Monica felt more sure of it than ever as she saw the lovely lace jumper and the smoky grey skirt and shoes and stockings to match that went with it.
“Do you live at Maygate?” Aline Hervey felt that wisdom lay in trying not to show too obviously that she would like to throttle the dowdy girl who sat on the opposite side of the invalid couch,
“Yes, I do.” Monica beamed at this sign of life from the vision that so enthralled her.
“Don’t you find it terribly boring?”
“Oh, I do, frightfully.” Monica spoke with earnestness.
“But how very odd that someone should run after you in the street. Have you encouraged him to do anything of the kind?” Aline Hervey’s eyes were hostile and curious.
“Well, perhaps I rather have,” said Monica, and she lowered her head wretchedly. That would bring it home to the Dream Man that she had done something dreadful in ever getting to know him at all. Oh, why did that beautifully dressed girl ask her that? She, tried to draw comfort from her beautifully shaped pink nails—and found none.
“Miss Field’s acquaintance is one of those dotty individuals who frequent seaside places and make themselves generally a nuisance,” said Gregory Fanshawe rather shortly; “but we shall round him up eventually, and until we do we won’t think about him. Hooray!—tea, and let’s hope Mrs. Mannering has risen to the occasion. Yes, she has,” for Mason had to make three journeys from the round cane table that he brought from a corner, to the dumb-waiter that stood on the hall landing. Tea was ready; a tall vase of beautiful copper-coloured chrysanthemums stood in the middle of it all and shed a lovely wintry scent round it.
“How heavenly they always smell.” Monica wrinkled her small freckled nose.
“Yes, don’t they; sort of Christmassy.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke almost light-heartedly. It was brutal of him, but somehow Aline Hervey’s tragedy suddenly hardly seemed to matter. The rope had been twitched away, lost sight of. And it had so nearly been round his neck. “Have you any flowers in your garden?” he asked.
“About two,” said Monica gloomily; “Patch always digs them up directly they’re planted.”
“He would!” Gregory Fanshawe laughed heartily. “Miss Field has a wild dog that she has to take for walks,” he said, and his eyes rested on the brooding face on the right hand side of his couch. “Pour out, Aline,” he said; “you haven’t any too much time, and it isn’t always easy to get a taxi.”
Aline Hervey’s hand shook as she lifted the teapot. Her chance of salvation gone, swept from her grasp by this fool-faced piece of dowdiness. She felt a wild desire to curse out loud. But Gregory would help her—somehow. But how could he? In spite of her fury her eyes sought his pleadingly, and Monica saw the glance and let her own eyes fall shyly on to her lap. She had interrupted.
Gregory Fanshawe also saw the glance and his eyes softened. Poor Aline! she was up against it, there was no doubt about it. But he would do what he could, short of mortgaging his own life. After all, money could do a lot, and he had plenty of it. He met her glance with an almost imperceptible nod.
Monica saw the nod, and her heart went down like lead. Perhaps they were engaged, these two. She did not want them to be, although there was certainly something alike about them. They seemed to belong to a different sort of world to her’s and the Aunts’, a world that went on oiled wheels and was full of open windows and frank utterances. For instance, that remark that Sir Gregory had made about that he hoped there would be something nice for tea. Well, at home you wouldn’t have said anything about it. You might have been dead with pride inside that there were so many things for tea, but you wouldn’t have showed it. Monica suddenly felt more depressed than ever.
“Well, Aline, I don’t want to hurry you, but . . . Mason, has the taxi come? “
“Yes, sir.” Mason appeared from nowhere, as was his habit.
“Well, then.” Sir Gregory lifted himself just a very little on one elbow, and Monica got shyly up and almost ran to the window.
She was desperately in the way and he might want to kiss her. But she waited for the sound of a kiss, her ears strained to breaking point with a thumping in her throat. She would loathe them to be engaged. There was no sound of a kiss, only after the sound of two lowered voices a very cold touch on her arm.
“Good-bye, Miss Field.”
“Oh, good-bye.” Monica Field met the colder eyes looking into hers with a throb of dismay. This girl hated her. Why? Because she had interrupted, Monica suddenly felt sure of it.
The beautifully dressed figure turned, crossed the room, opened the door, and disappeared. Monica felt with an overwhelming flood of self-consciousness that it was now time for her to go too. But she dared not turn round. She took a few stupid steps nearer to the window to watch the taxi start. There it was, very long and luxurious. And there was Miss Hervey; she lifted her skirt very high to get in, so high that Monica could see nearly up to her knee. And there was no horrid Lisle thread beginning—silk all the way up. And she had that sort of easy way of settling herself in the corner, sort of wriggling herself back. There she had nodded to Mason, and the taxi-man had dragged at the handle and they were off. Off . . . round the corner that Monica had come tearing round a few hours before. No, not hours, only about half an hour, but it seemed much longer. She must turn round. But supposing he was crying or anything awful like that. She must risk it. . . .
“Well, now, sit down again and we’ll have another tea.” Far from, crying, Gregory Fanshawe was smiling at Monica as she wheeled slowly round. “You hurried over yours; come round here and take the tiller, and pour me out some more, will you?”
“She gave me the feeling that I dared not eat,” said Monica conversationally, as she sat down again with a huge relief in her heart. “Don’t you know, when a person is dressed as well as all that it somehow takes all the spirit out of you.”
“Does it?” laughed Gregory Fanshawe with very amused eyes.
“Yes, especially when you know you’re quite wrong yourself,” sighed Monica, with her eyes on the perfectly dressed figure on the invalid couch. “You see, you’re all right—even I can tell that your coat is frightfully well cut and that your collar couldn’t go any better even if you were standing up. But I’m wrong—utterly wrong; everything about me is wrong,” concluded Monica with a look of profoundest dejection.
It was true; Gregory Fanshawe in his day had been one of the best dressed young men about town; and he knew a well turned out woman when he saw one. And he knew that Monica was atrociously dressed. But his keen eyes detected points that she did not reckon on. Sweet little hands, to begin with—Gregory Fanshawe loved nice hands, especially when they were as soft as Monica’s. A babyish, almost bewildered look in the trusting grey eyes, a touch of wilfulness in the short freckled nose. And in the rather full, appealing mouth, well . . . something there to explore. Gregory Fanshawe turned his rather cruel gaze away from it, and then smiled very charmingly. “Clothes don’t matter when you are as young as you are,” he said; “besides, your face is sweet: don’t mind me saying so, but it really is. And that’s really all that matters.”
“But we have to wear clothes,” said Monica mournfully.
“Yes, well, we have; especially in a place with a climate like Maygate,” laughed Gregory Fanshawe, hugely entertained. “But it’s the face that matters; believe me, I do know what I’m talking about. But now . . .’’ he switched off suddenly as he saw Monica flame sweetly pink, “have some of the chocolate cake. Cut me a wedge too, will you?” he concluded boyishly.
“What a heavenly cake!” Monica’s even teeth met in it as she bit, her heart singing with joy. He liked her face—joy, joy, heavenly joy! “I am so glad you like my face,” she said, and she bent her head a little as she picked a piece of falling chocolate off the wool of her coat, “because I do yours too—most frightfully.” Monica breathed a little quickly as she said this.
Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were all alight with amusement as he met the earnest gaze. “Hooray!” he said simply.
“I know it isn’t a usual thing to say to a man,” went on Monica hurriedly, feeling that perhaps such a frank avowal of her feelings needed some qualification. “But somehow, to me you don’t seem like an ordinary man.”
“Because I am helpless, I suppose,” said Gregory Fanshawe quietly, wondering why, after so long, it still came with such horrid force.
“Oh, no—you never seem helpless to me,” said Monica eagerly. “Do you know, it’s the oddest thing, but I always seem to see you standing up. Isn’t that extraordinary? Now, for instance——” Monica suddenly clasped her hands over her eyes—“now, for instance, although I know you are lying there, I can feel you standing in front of me, much taller than I am, and looking down on the top of my head. Now, if I put out my hand, you will reach down and take it . . . there, you have.” Monica dropped her other hand and stared round bewildered.
“You dear little thing”—Gregory Fanshawe had stretched across and taken the small hand into his brown one. “No, I’m afraid it’s too good to be true, Miss Field. But still, it’s nice to think you don’t regard me quite as a helpless log . . . that sort of thing helps more than you know. Now . . . here’s Mason,” he relinquished the clinging hand hurriedly, praying that Mason had not seen, “and I’m going to get him to take you home. Not to walk with you, but just to keep within call, in case our friend is hanging about.”
“I suppose I couldn’t wait and go with you as well, could I?” asked Monica, feeling that the thought of The Laurels was almost more than she could bear, with this wonderful new quivering excitement flashing all over her.
“No, well, I think perhaps it would be better not. You see, I don’t know the Aunts, and they might not at all approve. Perhaps I shall come and call, but I don’t know yet. That sounds rude—but you do understand, don’t you? I have never called on anyone here, and it’s rather an effort to begin. See?” Gregory Fanshawe smiled briefly.
“Yes, I quite see.” Monica got up hurriedly. How frightfully tired this adorable man suddenly looked, with great dark shadows under his eyes. “Good-bye,” she said quickly.
“Good-bye.” Gregory Fanshawe held the small hand again, acutely conscious, through the back of his head, of Mason’s eyes on him. “Good-bye! Mason, just see Miss Field to her gate, will you? and then come back and we’ll go out.”
“Very well, sir.” Mason, one large wreathed monument of disapproval, turned on his heel and followed Monica respectfully down the stairs.
“Do you notice any change in Monica, Fanny?” Aunt Hilda was knitting vigorously and did not look up as she spoke.
“Change in Monica? What sort of change, Hilda?” Aunt Fanny, very sleepy after a morning’s shopping, had been running over her purchases in her head as she sat on the other side of the fire, and the word “change” bewildered her.
“Alteration—difference—change. Change, Fanny; alteration—difference.” Aunt Hilda was always very brisk when her meaning was not grasped at once.
“Oh yes, I see what you mean, Hilda.” Aunt Fanny, really by far the nicest of the Aunts, was instantly deprecatingly apologetic. She relinquished her attempts to balance her accounts in her head and gave her undivided attention to the question in hand. “Change in Monica? Well,” she pondered. “Do you mean in her herself, or her clothes?”
“Both.”
“Well”—Aunt Fanny felt for some extraordinary reason that enormous caution was demanded in the answering of this question—“well, Hilda, when you put the question point blank like that, it is a little difficult to answer.”
“It should not be.” When Aunt Hilda spoke it was with a sort of “Stand and deliver” intonation in her voice, and it always made Aunt Fanny, who was the youngest of the three sisters and therefore the one most sat on, nervous.
“Well, I see a decided improvement in her clothes,” ventured Aunt Fanny timidly.
“You call it an improvement?” Aunt Hilda began to count stitches, pecking at each round of wool on the long bone needles with the same nail that had reminded Monica of a bird.
“Yes, I do; I think she looks far more girlish and simple in her softer blouses and longer skirts. Cynthia has been helping her; I found them together one day in Monica’s bedroom going over her clothes, and I had not the heart to reprove Monica. After all, Hilda, Monica is little more than a child; I think we are apt to forget that. And she naturally likes pretty things.” Aunt Fanny stopped abruptly; she had not been able to forget Monica’s look of terror at being discovered with the servant in the middle of that sea of clothes. It haunted her, and Aunt Fanny was not imaginative.
“Where does she get the money from?” Aunt Hilda had done pecking, and she looked up at her sister.
“I don’t think she has spent any money. Cynthia and a friend of hers have been just altering the things she has. But the child needs a little money: her shoes need renewing, Hilda.” Aunt Fanny stopped speaking again. She was remembering the timid, affectionate arm round her stiff waist as Monica, her eyes full of grateful tears at not being scolded, had drawn her to a corner of the room where ugly black walking shoes stood and gaped at them. “Aunt Fanny, they are so frightful,” she had pleaded. “And my stockings—nobody wears ribby stockings now. Couldn’t I have some new ones?—If only I could earn some money somehow; I know you and the Aunts can’t afford . . .” Aunt Fanny was remembering all that again, and her funny glazy eyes were prickling.
“Monica has plenty of quiet, wholesome enjoyment in this healthy seaside life, without falling into the terrible snare of constant thought about her clothes,” said Aunt Hilda firmly, beginning to knit again.
“Yes; but I think it is natural that the child should like to look nice,” said Aunt Fanny, still remembering the clinging hold of that little thin arm, and being very brave in consequence.
“Don’t encourage it, Fanny!” Aunt Hilda laid down her knitting and stared across into the strangely softened eyes. Fanny had always been a fool, she was thinking. For instance, she had once had the beginnings of a love-affair. But Ellie had dealt well with that. Although in his way he had been a fine young man, the young medical officer who had gone over to Africa to join in the Boer War. But, influenced by the wonderful devotion and practical help shown by the Roman priests on the battlefield, he had joined their Faith. Awful! Heresy of heresies. To drag their sister down with him. Never! The tortures of the Inquisition—Ellie had got a large fat book all about them, Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs”; it had lain open on the dining-room table at all hours of the day. And Fanny gave in, of course, as anyone weak and pliable would, when the beloved was not there and two angry sisters and an outraged minister were. But it left a big, gaping wound in her heart all the same, and although the dried-up, sandy wastes of middle-age were nearly on her, she still had a stabbing throb of memory when anything like a beautiful poem appeared in Punch, or the organist let himself go more than usual after the evening service at the chapel, or if she went stealthily into the lovely old parish church, and the light stole rainbow-hued through the beautiful rose-shaped window high up behind the altar. Once she had gone in there when the organist had just finished practising, and a stop was still on that sent a quivering vibration through the whole church, and it caught the pew into which Aunt Fanny had just stepped to kneel, and she had fallen forward on her hands, and cried and cried and cried, until the persistent cough of the angrily detained verger had brought her to herself. And all these things made Aunt Fanny different to the other Aunts, different inside, that is to say. Not outside, because they would have seen and disapproved and asked her what was the matter, so that it had become a habit with Aunt Fanny to hide her real self from everyone. And it had become such a habit now, that the real self was gradually fading away; Aunt Fanny was forty-nine, and at forty-nine you are either generally desperately romantic or very much the other way, and Aunt Fanny was just beginning—only just beginning, though—to be very much the other way.
“Don’t encourage it, Fanny.” Aunt Hilda’s eyes were hard and penetrating.
“No, very well, dear.” Aunt Fanny sank back into the comfortable chair and hoped that her sister would now stop talking about Monica. For since that little scene in the middle of the shabby clothes her own thoughts had been persistently occupied with her niece. Monica seemed to steal about the house: to come into a room with a sort of penitent, frightened look: to spend a great deal of time in her own bedroom, and also to spend an enormous amount of time out of doors. Almost feverishly anxious she always was now to take Patch for a walk too—in the past that had been regarded as rather a trial. But now Patch was always being hauled reluctantly out of the house on the end of his leather lead, his hind legs slantingly and indignantly trying to retain their hold on the fibre mat that guarded the entrance to The Laurels. Yes, there was something different in Monica, certainly, but Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” had not imprinted its lurid records on Aunt Fanny’s mind for nothing. Nothing would induce her to impart the consciousness of Monica’s changed mentality to her sisters, nothing, and she felt a glow of excited anticipation as she met her sister’s eyes blandly. “No, very well, dear,” she said again.
“Ha!” but here, after giving utterance to this non-committal ejaculation, Aunt Hilda was interrupted, for the door opened rather hurriedly and Monica herself came in.
“Hallo, Aunt Hilda!” Monica stopped dead, evidently taken aback at seeing her Aunts sitting by the fire; “I thought it was the Dorcas Meeting,” she said.
“Not the third Tuesday, dear,” said Aunt Fanny quietly,
“Oh, no, of course, I forgot,” replied Monica, and she looked rather furtively at the square, speckly marble clock on the mantelpiece. It was just a quarter to five.
“As you go up to your room, dear, just call down the kitchen stairs and say to Cynthia that we should like tea,” said Aunt Hilda, in between strange mutterings over the bone needles.
“Tea!” said Monica, off her guard.
“Yes, dear, tea,” said Aunt Fanny, with her pale eyes on the flushed face. Silly little child, so simple! She felt that she must interpose herself—-herself, old and wily—between her niece and the elder guardians of her goings out and her comings in. Otherwise the goings out would soon become a negligible quantity. And Aunt Fanny suddenly felt passionately anxious that they should not. There was more behind Monica’s changed aspect than even she had suspected; could it be possible that Monica . . . the fabric of Aunt Fanny’s desiccated life began to quiver: Monica and a man—it seemed to go through her head like the blare of a trumpet.
“I will tell Cynthia about tea while you run upstairs and get tidy,” she said quietly, and she turned and flumped up the cushion that had been behind her head and then turned to walk to the door. “After you, dear,” she said to Monica, who stood back to let her Aunt go first.
The message to Cynthia, delivered from the top of the kitchen stairs and received below by a “Very well, miss,” from Cynthia, who, deep in a conversation with the milkman, only half turned her head over her shoulder to reply, did not take more than half a minute, and then Aunt Fanny, lifting her skirt carefully in front, followed her niece up to her bedroom. Monica was just coming out of it with a towel in her hand, on her way to wash in the bathroom.
“Hallo, Aunt Fanny!” Monica obviously started.
“Hush!” Aunt Fanny’s glance wavered down the passage to the closed door behind which, presumably, Aunt Ellie lay sleeping. But you never knew with Aunt Ellie—she had a dreadful way of waking up when you didn’t expect her to. Aunt Fanny suddenly remembered her own youth.
“Why, has anything happened?” Monica of the guilty conscience flushed and paled.
“No, dear; but I wanted to have a little chat with you before we went down to tea. Wash here, just for once; you can easily empty it yourself.”
“Yes; but what is it?” Monica’s eyes were dilated and frankly terrified. Aunt Fanny saw them and her own eyes moistened. The child was panic-stricken; this state of affairs must not be allowed to continue. Blind, stupid women that she and her sisters were! Right in front of their eyes too—right to their hand. And yet Dorcas Meetings and choir practices and socials filled the canvas. Rubbish! Aunt Fanny straightened her flat chest and at least five of the desiccated years shrivelled up like a scroll and blew out into the distance. Monica, still staring, seemed to see them go; Aunt Fanny had altered somehow.
“Dear Monica, you have something on your mind; tell it to me as quickly as you can,” said Aunt Fanny, and she sat down eagerly on the edge of the bed.
“Oh, how did you find out?” cried Monica, and she took a few steps nearer to her Aunt, staring over the hands that she held clenched against her mouth. And Aunt Fanny heaved almost a sob of relief. Monica had not learnt to prevaricate—then it could not have been going on very long. “Tell me, dear,” she said simply.
“Aunt Ellie! Aunt Hilda!” Monica only breathed the names.
“They shall never know it.” All unconsciously Aunt Fanny visualized herself on the way to the scaffold.
“What, do you mean you won’t tell?”
“Never!” Aunt Fanny held out two still quite human hands.
Monica caught hold of them. “I have got to know a man,” she said, “two men that is, but it would take too long to tell you that now. I have been to tea with one of them, that’s why I feel so awful about having to have another one now. How can I eat any more without showing it?”
“Monica! You have been to tea with a man in his house?” Aunt Fanny was white.
“Yes; but there was somebody else there too—a girl, most heavenlily dressed.”
“A girl most heavenlily dressed!” Aunt Fanny repeated the words mechanically. “In Maygate! Monica, where have you been?” She almost screamed the question. Pages of a book that she had once read juggled themselves up and down in front of her eyes. Ellie had taken the book away before she had read the end, but Aunt Fanny, for once in a state of violent insurrection, had traced it back to the library, and had spent nearly a whole morning in front of the full shelves reading it, and had then gone home again bearing with her quite another one.
“He had a manservant too.”
“A manservant too!” Aunt Fanny laid a hand on her heart. There surely was no such house in Maygate! “Monica, be quick!” she said.
“His name is Sir Gregory Fanshawe,” burst out Monica, “and he is one of those cripple people who go about in a long chair. I have seen him for ages on the front, and one day last week I got to know him. That would take too long to tell you now, but I will tell you some time. Oh, Aunt Fanny, the relief to get it off my mind!” Monica flung her hands over her face and began to cry.
Aunt Fanny, herself almost sobbing with relief, got up quickly from the bed and went towards her niece. “Darling,” she said, and the term of endearment came out so jerkily and oddly after all the dry years—“Darling,” she said, and it came out more easily the second time, “don’t cry. The Aunts . . . they will notice, and we must not let them do that. You shall tell it all to me after tea: we will take Patch for a long, long walk, shall we?”
“Patch has been for two colossal walks already,” said Monica, groping for her rather thick handkerchief.
“Never mind, a third will do him good,” replied Aunt Fanny firmly, unsympathetically.
“Now, dear, tell me it all.” The little figure and the flat, angular one beside it were walking briskly along the rather deserted Parade. It was half-past five; the returning procession of invalid chairs had not yet come in sight. Only here and there a couple of hooded Bath chairs, with the front steering-shaft and handle dexterously twisted round for safety, stood in sheltered corners facing the sea. Patient bronzed faces, generally with well-bitten pipes between the teeth, under the hoods, making the best of things, laughing . . . “How can they laugh when they can’t walk,” thought Monica, hearing Aunt Fanny speak vaguely through a whirl of thoughts about the Dream Man. Perhaps she and Aunt Fanny would meet him; what should she do if they did? What was Aunt Fanny saying? “Tell me it all.”
“Oh, Aunt Fanny, supposing you turned on me!” Monica’s lips were dry.
“I shouldn’t, dear “; but Aunt Fanny’s lips were also trembling, and to hide them she turned and spoke fiercely to Patch, who was sulkily and haltingly hobbling along behind them. “You are not lame,” she said, really almost cruelly; “come along at once, lazy dog!”
“Perhaps he’s tired,” volunteered Monica, feeling inclined to laugh at Patch’s evident discomfiture; Aunt Fanny was generally his most devoted adherent. This was desertion, indeed. But Patch, seeing that there was nothing for it, let down his crooked leg again and came on faster.
“Sheer laziness!” Aunt Fanny faced round again, untwisting her clinging skirt as she did so. “How windy it is, dear. Now, dear Monica, tell me it all. You know, dear, I want you to tell me very much,” she ended up, clearing her throat awkwardly.
“Oh, Aunt Fanny!” but Monica dragged her velvet tam-o’-shanter down a little lower over her eyes, with a hand that longed to reach out and clasp the hand that hung next to hers, for in a way she could understand how desperately difficult it must be for anyone like Aunt Fanny to unbend as much, as she was doing. “Well, it was like this,” she said, and she gripped her hands together; “it was like this.” And then the whole story came out, sordid in parts, undoubtedly, especially when you heard yourself telling it to somebody else.
Aunt Fanny heard to the very end without saying anything. And even when Monica stopped speaking she did not make any sound. As a matter of fact, she couldn’t, because her whole soul was one wordless prayer of thanksgiving to the God who had sent His angel in the shape of this crippled man to deliver Monica. Where was this man that she could thank him? And then terror rushed in on her again through the thankfulness—where was the other man? She put both questions in a funny croaky voice that Monica hardly recognized.
“Sir Gregory Fanshawe lives in that house with big bow windows just in front of the Gardens,” replied Monica uneasily, wondering whether she had been wise after all to tell her Aunt everything, “and the other man . . . well, I expect after this afternoon the other man will vanish, because, you know, I told you Mason said that his friend the police sergeant had seen him running and noticed him particularly.”
“Monica, your Aunts must never know,” said Aunt Fanny vehemently, wondering at the same time how she could possibly make Monica understand, without going too dreadfully into details, how desperately near she had been to the abyss from which there is no return.
“Oh, no, I should think they mustn’t,” replied Monica, equally vehemently, but with her eyes a little screwed up, fixed on a little caterpillar-like procession that was just crawling up the farther side of the nearest bridge to them. Coming towards them . . . could it be them? What should she do?
“But, darling child, you must never go out again alone.” Aunt Fanny delivered herself of this ultimatum with dreadful decision.
“What!” Monica went perfectly white. Then this was what she had done by her frankness—ruined her chances of ever speaking to him again. “Aunt Fanny!” she gasped.
“Yes, dear, I know it seems hard,” said Aunt Fanny, wondering stupidly how it was that she could tell to the tiniest minutiae of feeling what Monica was going through at that moment. “You must never write to him again, Fanny”—how plainly even now, she could see the veins on the back of that spreading hand laid over the sheet of crackly Silurian foreign notepaper from which she had just raised her own forehead. “You must never write to him again; he has forfeited all right to your love and respect. Remember this, and bow your head to this trial that God in His great mercy has seen fit to send to you.” And she had bowed her head, literally at first, on to the pitiful flapping, bluish sheet that carried on it her passionate love and forgiveness, poured out while her sister was supposed to be resting with a hot-water bottle, and later figuratively with a sort of stupid drugged hopelessness, sustained by an insane idea that a God of Love liked these immolations of all that makes life worth living, on an altar of stupid prejudice. However . . . Aunt Fanny dragged herself back from the past to the present. “No, dear Monica, it would not be safe,” she said firmly.
“Safe?—how do you mean, safe?” Monica was half beside herself with despair. The Dream Man, never to see him again! And he would not make any effort to see her, because he hated calling, he had almost said so. So it was all at an end—all the madly exciting chances of meeting him on the Parade, the blissful goings over in one’s own mind of the things he had said, the heavenly weavings of him into the wonderful games that she played when she went to bed. “Aunt Fanny!” she cried, and she cast one look round and then began to run towards the green painted shelter that was just ahead of them, and flinging herself down in it, began to sob out loud.
Aunt Fanny was petrified, and she stood quite still staring at Monica’s black shoes and stockings that protruded over the deal edge of the boarding that formed the floor of the shelter. The violence of her niece’s going had taken away all power of action from that timid lady. and she only stood and stared. Patch, thankful for a little respite, heaved a long breathy sigh, and hobbling to the grassy edge of the border that flanked the land side of the Parade, lay down on it, his resentful face on his crossed paws.
Gregory Fanshawe, by now quite fairly near in the long chair, first wondered who the lady with the funny perched hat and dismayed eyes could be, and then, turning his head a little at the sound of sobs, saw Monica prostrate on the wooden arm of the shelter seat, and knew. So he made a little gesture with his hand to the servant behind him and the procession came to a standstill.
“Do excuse my lack of ceremony, will you?” he said. “Mason, just clear off for a minute or two, will you? Yes; just jam the chair into the edge of the grass. Yes; it’s very unceremonious of me to introduce myself like this, but I know your niece, so I am glad of the opportunity. I think I am right in thinking you Miss Field’s Aunt, am I not?” said Gregory Fanshawe, smiling very delightfully.
“Oh! are you Sir Gregory Fanshawe?” Aunt Fanny’s dazed eyes focused suddenly. Here he was in the flesh, the saviour of her niece’s honour. “Oh, how can I thank you for what you did!” she said, and her rather expressionless face all broke up with emotion. “Monica has no idea—she has just been telling me. But I cannot tell you what I . . .” Aunt Fanny broke off, her lips working.
“Don’t mention it—I was only too glad . . .” Gregory Fanshawe took the thin hand in the black-thread glove flung out towards him into a very cordial grasp. “As you see, I myself could not be of very much practical use, but I was able to send my servant. But I am afraid . . .” His eyes strayed again to the shelter, in which Monica still sat huddled up sobbing.
“Oh, no; I have told her nothing,” said Aunt Fanny very shyly and simply, suddenly perfectly at her ease with the bronzed man who lay so quietly on his back. “That is only because I have told her that she must never be out alone again.”
“Really!” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes suddenly focused on that crumpled figure, as a feeling of very genuine alarm shot through him. A great to-do about something surely very insignificant! It could not be possible! And then he dismissed the fantastic thought with a sigh. Helpless and a log! No; it was only that the child valued her times off, so to speak; the Aunts’ undivided society became a burden at times, and she was glaringly young.
“Well, perhaps to hear that suddenly might be rather a blow,” he said, smiling again; “and of course to one so young the penalty might seem a little disproportionate to the offence, so to speak.”
“Yes; but you and I know,” burst out Aunt Fanny impulsively, “and Monica is not so very young—she was twenty last month.”
“Is she, really? I should not have thought Miss Field was more than seventeen,” said Gregory Fanshawe, his eyes straying again to the awkwardly huddled figure in the shelter and ignoring the first part of the sentence. It was not a situation that could easily be discussed with this early-Victorian-looking lady, he decided rather humorously, and as the worm had probably by now packed and cleared, it wasn’t necessary to discuss it. But he just said one reassuring word. “I have put the police on the track of Mr. Fellowes,” he said; “ I was able to do it quite unofficially, so to speak. So I don’t think you need feel apprehensive any more.”
“Oh, how good you are!” Aunt Fanny, not caring in the least if anyone saw her, laid her hand on the square shoulder just below the leather cushion and squeezed it convulsively.
“Not at all!” but Gregory Fanshawe was pleased, although he flushed a little under the tan. “Now then, let us rouse Niobe,” he said, and laughed.
“Yes.” Aunt Fanny took a step forward: “Monica, here is your friend, Sir Gregory Fanshawe,” she said; “stop crying, dear, and look up.”
“Where?” Monica darted up a disfigured face, one large smudge of tears.
“Here! “ said Gregory Fanshawe, his face turned on the pillow, all his white teeth showing.
“Oh, and I look so ghastly when I have been crying,” stammered Monica, and she hunted wildly for her handkerchief.
“Never mind that. Look, I have introduced myself to your Aunt, and she has been very kind to me, so now you see you and I have been properly introduced.”
“Yes; but what’s the good, when I am never going to be allowed to go out alone any more?” lamented Monica, staring with open hostility at her Aunt, who stood with one hand still on the padded rim of the long invalid carriage.
“Well, perhaps when Miss Fisher gets to know me a little better she will allow you to go out with me sometimes,” said Gregory Fanshawe, laughing again. “You see, I am a very safe person,” he added with a little gesture of the brown hand, and as he said this the laugh died.
“Were you in the complete possession of all your limbs,” announced Aunt Fanny, who had gone down completely under the charm of Gregory Fanshawe’s voice and deep blue eyes, as women generally did, “I should consider you an entirely safe and suitable escort for my niece.”
“Aunt Fanny, he has all his limbs,” interjected Monica, in a frantic undertone.
“Not the use of them,” put in Gregory Fanshawe, laughing openly at Aunt Fanny’s dismay and Monica’s flushed championship, and forgetting the little passing twinge of despair.
“No; but it sounded dreadful put like that,” said Monica, and the tears rose again as her eyes rested on the quiet, still figure.
“Never mind.” Gregory Fanshawe was touched, and he put out a hand and took Monica’s for an instant. “Now, you and your Aunt will come and have tea with me one day, won’t you?” he said, and he smiled kindly at the flushed face and patted the small hand as he relinquished it. “And now will you give Mason a call for me, if you don’t mind?. I ought to be getting along.”
“Aunt Fanny, do you like him?” The two women stood and watched the little cavalcade as it resumed its way, Mason outwardly wreathed in discretion, pushing diligently behind, and Barrett in front, half bent double as was his wont, wreathed in discretion both outwardly and inwardly, which Mason was not. “Making a fair set at him,” as the valet stormed, his eyes on the dragged-down peak of the tweed cap.
“A most gallant and noble face,” said Aunt Fanny, scarlet with excitement at all the happenings of the last few hours, and gripping her niece’s hand, not knowing that she did so.
“Well, it’s damned jolly to see you again, old Rough on Rats, even although you aren’t fearfully active.” Timothy Forrest was terribly nervous, and he leant forward and rapped his pipe out on his brogue shoe, and then went uncomfortably down on one knee to try and collect the scattering ashes.
“Never mind those; Mason will scoop them up when he comes along.” Gregory Fanshawe, almost equally nervous, took his pipe from between his teeth and knocked it out on the edge of a heavy brass ash-tray. “Yes, it’s jolly to see you again. I’ve been having quite a lot of visitors lately. The mater . . . and Aline Hervey.”
“Aline Hervey?” Timothy Forrest crouched back on his heels and stared up with eyes that looked suddenly stricken with fear. “What did she want?”
“She wanted me to help her, that’s all,” said Gregory Fanshawe abruptly, trying to avoid the frightened eyes.
“Yes, but . . .” Timothy Forrest bent again to the soft carpet and swept a few ashes into the palm of one shaking hand; then he stood upright. “Rats, she’s told you?” he said.
“Yes, well . . . she has,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he suddenly turned his head on his pillow and scourged the face in front of him with a pair of contemptuous eyes. “You damned cad, Forrest!” he said.
There was a dreadful silence as Timothy Forrest closed his hand over the tobacco ashes, and then walked with them to the open window. He opened the shaking hand and they floated silently down on to the path beneath. Then he turned round. “Yes, well, you hit it there,” he said quietly. “But I’m in hell, Fanshawe, if you could only believe it.”
“Why the devil don’t you marry her?” Gregory Fanshawe really wanted to know this, and he put the question savagely.
“How can I?” The young flying officer dropped back into his low chair again. “I’m desperately involved, Fanshawe; you have no conception.”
“How involved?” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were suddenly despairing.
“Oh, not like that.” Timothy Forrest raised his eyes from his hands and stared at his friend; then he lowered them again. “No, I have got some decency left,” he said, “although not much. No, it’s debt. I mean to say they’d have me at once; in fact, I think the Air Force would push me out if I attempted to marry. O God!” Timothy Forrest got up and walked to the window again.
Gregory Fanshawe stared at the lithe figure outlined against the blue sky and wondered. He could walk, this man, and yet he groaned and called on his God! Ah, well! He turned a little and picked up his empty pipe and bit on the stem of it. “How much are you in debt?” he asked, after a pause.
“About two thousand pounds.” Timothy Forrest spoke without turning and also without having to calculate. For, for the last two nights he had done nothing else but calculate . . . ghastly figures that, whichever way you twisted them round, always came to the same filthy total.
“Anything you can realize on?” Gregory Fanshawe’s tone was entirely businesslike. As a matter of fact, he was relieved to hear that his friend’s liabilities were so small, for, knowing the girl to whom he had once been engaged, he had expected more.
“No, nothing, I’m afraid,” said Timothy Forrest, and he swung round.
“No jewellery?” Gregory Fanshawe’s question was put intentionally cruelly, but he wanted his friend to realize entirely what lay before him, before he made his final offer.
“No, certainly not.” Timothy Forrest drew himself up.
“And if I give you a cheque for two thousand pounds, will you swear you’ll square your creditors and marry Aline Hervey?” asked Gregory Fanshawe.
There was a silence as Timothy Forrest turned again to the window. What was going on in his mind? the tall man on the invalid couch wondered. Was it sentence of death or a reprieve that rang in the ears of that man standing so still in front of him? What would he have felt in the same position? Difficult to say—-now.
“Yes, I will,” said Timothy Forrest, and he turned round very slowly and came up close to the couch. “It’s desperately generous of you, Fanshawe,” he said, and he held out a very shaky hand.
“Oh, I don’t know about that!” replied Gregory, and he took the tremulous hand in a firm grip. “After all, I’ve got the money, and I’m glad to help an old pal. And now let’s talk about something else. How are things going in the R.A.F.? Have a drink? Mason,” the lean brown finger was on the electric bell let into the side of the couch.
“Yes, sir.” Mason, in his huge relief at seeing a man and not a lady appear in response to that long telegram to London, could have clasped both men to his heart.
“Bring drinks, Mason, and, oh yes—Forrest, you remember my batman in France? I don’t think you’ve seen him since. He’s turned masseur and I don’t know what else since, valets me like a dream. Mason, you remember Mr. Forrest? “
“Yessir! “ Mason, wreathed in discreet smiles, drew himself up to attention.
“Well, bring the drinks, Mason.” Gregory Fanshawe turned again and levelled his eyes on the Parade. It had been a death sentence, then; he carefully avoided looking at the man beside him. Well, he was sorry for him, but still . . . in a case of the kind the man must pay sometimes. And Aline would not get off scot-free if he knew the world; after all, a world agog for scandal could always calculate to a nicety.
“Do you go to church or chapel?” Monica swung her legs as she sat breezily on the top of a low stone wall that encircled a fat dud gun. The invalid chair was pushed securely into the grass border; Mason showed a discreet black back at a little distance, Barrett was deep in conversation with a compatriot, and Aunt Fanny was a tiny black speck almost at the farthest point of the wavering white cliffs.
“Neither.” Gregory Fanshawe always felt inclined to laugh when he looked at Monica—she was so entirely unconscious of herself and said such droll things.
“Never!”
“No, never.”
“Then Sunday is exactly the same to you as any other day, is it?” queried Monica, pulling her skirt down a little.
“No, not exactly,” said Gregory Fanshawe after a little pause, during which he groped for a pipe.
“What makes the difference?”
“On Sunday I hardly ever see you,” replied Gregory Fanshawe quietly.
“Is that a nice difference or a horrid difference?” asked Monica, her heart thundering so that she felt the man in the chair must hear it. But, all unconscious that any thundering could be possible, Gregory Fanshawe never dreamed of listening for it. Otherwise he would not have said what he had just done, and then proceeded to do:
“A horrid difference,” he said decidedly.
“Oh!” Monica slid a hand quietly up to her throat.
But Gregory Fanshawe did not see, he was holding his brown hands curved over a bluish flickering flame. “Yes, very horrid,” he continued, puffing once or twice, “you always cheer me up like anything.”
“Do I really?” Monica wondered why the fat gun seemed suddenly to reel from side to side in the sunshine.
“Yes, you say such funny things and you giggle so nicely.”
“Giggling is a frightfully common thing to do,” said Monica, coming down to earth with a crash.
“Not as you do it,” said Gregory Fanshawe, drawing in a long gulp of smoke and letting it out slowly. “Call it chuckling, if you prefer it.”
“Oh,” Monica thought for a moment and then breathed heavily. “Supposing you never saw me again, would you mind?” she asked.
“Very much indeed,” replied Gregory Fanshawe, and was then sorry that he had said it, as Monica’s eyes closed abruptly. Then she opened them again, and he laughed at himself for a fatuous fool. “Yes, I should mind very much indeed,” he said, “and I should miss your Aunt too. I think she’s perfectly topping in the way she lets us be together.”
“Yes, isn’t she?” But there was a dead flat note in Monica’s voice as she stared after Aunt Fanny’s still receding back. “You know the other Aunts haven’t an idea,” she said, after a pause.
“Of what?”
“Why, that she comes out so that I can see you. They would die if they knew; they would be absolutely mad with horror. Anything to do with a man with them seems the most fearful thing. Somehow, Aunt Fanny is different; at least, she is different now; she used not to be.”
“How different?”
“Well, she sort of encourages it,” said Monica guilelessly.
“Does she, though?” said Gregory Fanshawe, and his blue eyes suddenly focused themselves on the distant figure with a very odd look in their depths.
“Yes; now, for instance, to-day, when she went shopping, she simply flew through it; she absolutely dashed in and out of the shops so that we should be down on the Parade in time to catch you before you got over the third bridge. Not an atom like Aunt Fanny,” concluded Monica frankly.
“Well, it’s very kind of her,” responded Gregory Fanshawe with a laugh in the back of his eyes. But a queer feeling of loyalty to the absent spinster forbade him to allow Monica to continue in this strain; “very kind of her, indeed,” he said. “Now then, what was it that you said about chapel?”
“Yes, half a minute, and I’ll tell you. But you know I don’t believe that Aunt Fanny would be nearly so worked up about you if you hadn’t got a title,” went on Monica, leaning forward from her stony perch.
“Nonsense!” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he frowned.
“No, I really mean it. She’s one of those people who go quite mad about that sort of thing—all the Aunts do. For instance, they get fearfully excited if any of the Royal Family are married—don’t you know what I mean? It’s all so real to them. When Princess Mary was married, for instance, they simply lived talking about it. And the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. And if Queen Alexandra says anything, it’s all sort of enshrined. Do you know what I mean?”
“To a certain extent. And what about you?” asked Gregory Fanshawe, looking closely into the animated face a little above him.
“I don’t care whether you have a title or not,” replied Monica shortly, and she shifted her gaze a little uneasily from the keen eyes that searched hers. “And about the Royal Family—well, the only thing that I should think about, if I were the Duchess of York, would be that I couldn’t go to the stalls at the theatre any more; it would make me absolutely mad to go.”
Gregory Fanshawe laughed, but his brow cleared. He would have hated to think that there was anything behind Monica’s evident delight in his society. Anything sordid, that is to say. For he was not entirely clear in his own mind . . . however, no need to bother about that yet. He smiled again. “Well, I’m glad you like me for myself,” he said, “and not for the handle that has been tacked on to my name for no fault of my own. Now then, you were about to sound me on my religious views—get on with it.”
“I don’t know that I want to now,” said Monica, and there was an odd bleached look on her round face.
“Why, what’s put you off?”
“Suddenly thinking that you can’t walk,” said Monica, and the tears rose to her wide eyes and began to stream down her twisted face.
“Oh, I say! What on earth has started you off? I say, don’t!” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he twisted his head helplessly on the leather cushion. “Don’t, because I can’t get at you to stop you. I tell you I’m used to the idea now, and I don’t care a rap. Ask Mason—he’ll tell you that I rather like having things done for me. Miss Field!” For Monica had her face bowed in her hands.
“It’s so unjust . . . and hideous,” sobbed Monica, little fragments of cement tumbling out of the crevice in the wall where she had wedged one of her heels; “it’s so cruel. You only did what was brave and noble, and there you are stretched out for ever. I tell you that I think it’s hellish,” she said, and she raised her face, wet with tears. “ I wonder that you don’t curse God.” Monica was trembling.
“I have done, and I have found it worse than useless,” replied Gregory Fanshawe quietly, and his face whitened a little. “Besides, I know now—and I am thankful that being ill has taught me so much—that God doesn’t do these things at all. I mean to say you couldn’t believe in anything decent if you thought that an Omnipotent Being struck you down just for the fun of the thing, or from some odd idea of chastening. But that’s neither here nor there—all I want you to do now is to stop crying, please.” Gregory Fanshawe moved his head painfully.
“I can’t, because I think it’s so unjust, and also because I feel that if you aren’t roused up about it you’ll never do anything,” stormed Monica. “Aunt Fanny was talking to Mason about it the other day, and he said that you never even see a doctor. He made out that it was quite all right, because it was you and he adores you so, but Aunt Fanny was arguing with him about it. And he said that you wouldn’t. And there’s a wonderful man here—at least, he isn’t here always, but he comes down twice a week to that Cripples’ Home. Why can’t you see him?—you can, if you want to; you ought to see him.” Monica was trembling.
“I am perfectly content as I am.” Gregory Fanshawe’s lips were set under the clipped moustache. To have it all over again—the quivering, trembling hope, only to be dashed to the earth again; the being dragged a little way out of hell, only to be let down into it again. Never! He said so as quietly and kindly as he could.
“But it’s wrong of you!” Monica was excitedly and tearfully vehement. “You owe it to other people. Think of your mother—think of that girl who came down to see you the other day; why, just think what it would mean to them.”
Gregory thought, and the thinking brought a twisted smile to his mouth. The curtailed allowance—the passionate siege to his sense of chivalry. No, better as he was, by far, so far as those were concerned. But all the same, Monica’s eagerness was not without its effect on him. “What’s the man’s name?” he said.
“Wheeler,” said Monica, and her mouth was working. “He’s gone now, tearing over to Spain, or something. Cynthia told me—she knows all these things—but he’s coming back. Sir Gregory, I beseech you,” Monica slipped down from the wall, “I beseech you for my sake, at least—no, not for my sake, because that doesn’t mean anything, but for the sake of anyone you might be fond of—be in love with. Is there anyone like that? Do tell me—I would rather know,” ended Monica with eyes, suddenly terrified, fixed on the brown face.
“You began to say something different and then you switched off,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and his lips twitched. “You beseech me what?”
“To see the doctor,” said Monica, and her hands fell flat down by her sides. Then he was in love with the beautifully dressed girl! Agony, oh! excruciating agony. How was she going to live?
“And the next question was?”
“You’ve answered that,” said Monica, suddenly feeling old and flat, and conscious that her clothes were all hideous and put on wrong.
“No, I’ve not,” said Gregory Fanshawe.
“Yes, you have; I can see in your eyes that you love her, that girl with the heavenly jumper,” replied Monica; and even Gregory Fanshawe, determined as he was not to believe anything so fantastic, could not then help believing it.
“You little goose, I’m not in the least,” he said, and then immediately thought how much more sensible it would have been of him if he had said that he was.
“The unutterable rapture of Sunday actually being over is more than I can express to you,” said Monica, two days later, and her small face all dimpled and shone as she clasped her hands across her woolly coat.
“Why? Do you hate it so, then?” Gregory Fanshawe’s amused eyes were on the radiant face in front of him, and he felt a little distant throb of uneasiness in that the mere looking at it gave him so much pleasure.
“Oh yes, I simply loathe it. To begin with, even waking up seems to be different. Don’t you know that sort of leady feeling that you get on your brain when you know there is something horrid waiting for you?—when you are asleep I mean. Well, you wake up with that feeling and then it seems to spread all over you, squashing you down. And then you remember what it is—Sunday, and chapel, and all the shops shut, and a stodgier lunch than usual, at least, not lunch—dinner,” said Monica, correcting herself. “And then you get up, and put on a dress instead of a blouse, and it sort of cramps you under your arms because you’re not used to it. And then you go down and there is a sort of blight in the air, everyone sort of stiffy in dresses, and sausages for breakfast. I like sausages for breakfast generally, but somehow on Sunday they give you a sort of boiling feeling in your head—at least they do me. And then you just sit until it is time to go to chapel, and by then you feel as if your eyes were squeezing out of your head. And by the end of chapel—well!”—Monica failed for a word.
“How ghastly it sounds!” Gregory Fanshawe’s face was all alight with laughter.
“It sounds ghastly because it is ghastly,” said Monica dramatically.
“But, then, why go to chapel?” Gregory Fanshawe was distinctly curious. Mason went to chapel when he went anywhere. But people like Monica and her Aunt did not, as a rule; at least, he had never met anyone who did.
“But where else could we go?”
“Church.”
“Do you mean the English church or the Roman church?”
“Either.”
“What—do you mean go to a service in a Roman church?” Monica’s voice was breathless and scandalized.
“Yes, why not?”
“Why, the Aunts would die” said Monica, and she stared at Aunt Fanny’s rapidly receding back with a look of stupefaction in her wide grey eyes.
“Well, then, try the English church,” said Gregory Fanshawe, desperately amused. What an odd, funny little backwater they lived in, this little family of women. And yet Aunt Fanny had a very delightful and human touch about her. Gregory Fanshawe was getting to like her more and more. And Monica . . . Well, what about Monica? His blue eyes suddenly narrowed on to the vivid face. “Tell me something about chapel,” he said abruptly; “I know the English church in and out.”
Monica brought her eyes back from the distant figure with the little white speck ambling along behind it. “Well, it’s glary to begin with,” she said. “Do you know what I mean? Nothing hidden or mysterious. Everyone sitting up fatly in best clothes. All staring round to see who’s there. And all out in the open—I. mean, no long strip of place for a choir, like you have in church, only a long table and a pulpit behind it, with a colossal Bible on a red cushion with a red marker hanging down. And sometimes a vase of flowers, only the last minister hit it off, so now there isn’t one. And hymns all roaring at once very loud, and prayers, colossal ones, praying for everything that you can think of, and nobody kneeling, only crouching,” ended Monica abruptly. “Why do you laugh?”
“Who got the benefit of the vase?” asked Gregory Fanshawe in convulsions of laughter.
“Nearly Aunt Ellie, who was sitting at the end of the singing pew,” said Monica simply.
“Oh, good heavens!” Gregory Fanshawe had dragged down the peak of his cap and was howling with laughter.
“Why, does it amuse you very much?” queried Monica rather timidly, looking down at the shaking figure.
“Desperately,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and there was a big tear rolling out of one eye. “I know it’s gross of me to laugh, but the thought of that vase! And the way you tell it!” he shook again.
“Yes, I can imagine it sounds funny, told,” said Monica rather sadly, “but it isn’t funny when you’ve got to go to it every Sunday. And you know now—I don’t know quite when it began, but I know I’ve got it anyhow now—I’ve got a desperate feeling that I want something else. Something inside me is crying out for it. To be alone and quiet with God. Don’t think me awful to say ‘God’ right out like that. But not with glary lights and everything smelling of varnish. I can’t explain. To be able to creep away and fall down in front of Him. I can’t explain,” said Monica, her lower lip suddenly trembling.
“Well, I think I can understand without your explaining,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and his face became suddenly grave. “I know the feeling. Sometimes in Flanders . . . there wasn’t anywhere safe but a wood. And in the early morning . . .” he stopped abruptly, remembering one divinely lovely summer morning, and how it had been a little difficult to kneel in overalls. But he had knelt. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said, and there was a look of complete understanding in the eyes that met Monica’s across the small space that separated them.
“I have only felt it really properly since I have got to know you,” said Monica simply, and she stared with eyes that were suddenly full of a timid wondering. “Why do I suddenly feel it now?” she said; and she began to half get down from the top of the wall.
“I can’t imagine,” said Gregory Fanshawe very decidedly and firmly, and he thrust both hands into his pockets and began to whistle. “Shall we follow up the Aunt?” he said after a little pause.
“Oh why?—do you want to?” said Monica, her eyes blank and dimmed with disappointment.
“Well, I think it would be kinder. Those long treks alone must be awfully stale. Mason!”
Gregory Fanshawe turned his head a little and whistled again, louder this time.
“Yessir!” Mason, who had been sitting some distance away staring dejectedly out to sea, got up and positively ran with relief. He loathed these long matutinal sittings. Where were they going to lead to?—that was what he kept on asking himself. A lady certainly, but not an atom of style about her. And poor as a church mouse. And he? Simple as they make ’em. Mason looked angrily but adoringly at the long still figure in the invalid chair as he dragged it back a little before twisting round the steering handle.
But Gregory Fanshawe was not quite so simple as his servant thought he was; in fact, he was not simple at all, and he had suddenly sensed a very real danger. So he did not look at Monica as she climbed slowly and dejectedly down from the top of the wall.
“It’s miles to Aunt Fanny,” she said gloomily, “and she doesn’t expect us.”
“Never mind; all the more pleasure for her when she does find we’ve caught her up,” said Gregory Fanshawe very decidedly.
“Out again, dear Fanny?” Aunt Hilda, with a rather business-like and brisk expression on her face, was waiting at the foot of the stairs as Aunt Fanny and Monica came down them. It was half-past five on a heavenly spring evening, two days after the events narrated in the last chapter.
“Yes, dear Hilda.” Aunt Fanny busied herself with the fastening of her black cotton gloves.
“Well, I think I will join you. Ellie!” Aunt Hilda giving the front of her coat a little pull, pushed the door of the sitting-room a little wider open and went in. There was a soft sound of murmuring voices, and then the sound of nearing footsteps, and the door was shut.
“Aunt Fanny, what shall we do if she comes?” Monica’s eyes were frantic. “He won’t know that they are not supposed to know, and he will bow, and then it will all come out. Aunt Fanny, you must think of something. If anything happens now to stop it, I tell you I shall die—I tell you I really shall.”
“Quietly, dear Monica.” Aunt Fanny spoke with exaggerated calmness because she was so terribly frightened herself. The sisters suspected, she had thought that for some time, but she had concealed the fact from Monica because she knew the anguish it would cause her. They must have seen them all talking together one morning or evening on the Parade, where or how it did not very much matter, so long as they had seen them. And now, what was to be done? Poor Aunt Fanny’s conscience-stricken soul was racked with uncertainty. Brave it out? confess it? or trust to luck that they would just happen to miss Sir Gregory? No, confess it; Aunt Fanny’s soul suddenly gave a great leap. Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs”: a page from its streaming annals enacted in The Laurels, Sweyn Road, Maygate! Glorious thought! She brushed past Monica, opened the streaky varnished door, and closed it again.
Aunt Ellie, whose face was round and fat, with very few lines on it, was sitting at her writing-table a little switched round in her chair, looking at Aunt Hilda, who was talking very earnestly. As Aunt Fanny came in she switched round a little more. “Just a moment, Fanny,” she said, and her sexless lips were pursed a little.
“Very well, dear.” Aunt Fanny walked to the window. The cat from next door had just waked up and was stretching itself to the shape of a tightened bow. To the foot of the wall on which it stretched itself Patch suddenly waddled; the cat abruptly transferred the curve to its hind quarters, opened its mouth, showed all its tigerish teeth, and leapt. Patch, not having seen, waddled back again entirely undisturbed. “How like us!” thought Aunt Fanny all unconsciously, “always knowing they are there, they not caring if we are or not.” But Aunt Ellie was speaking:
“Do you mind leaving the room for a moment, Fanny, please?” There was no mistaking the command in the voice.
“If you are talking about Monica, I should prefer to be present,” said Aunt Fanny, and if anyone so unassertive could be said to wheel round, she wheeled round.
“Leave the room, Fanny!” Aunt Ellie’s mouth dropped at the corners.
“No, Ellie.” Aunt Fanny advanced very slowly into the centre of the room. “No, Ellie,” she said again; “what concerns Monica concerns me, and I wish to hear it.”
“Since when does what concerns Monica concern you?” Aunt Hilda took up the gauntlet now, and asked the question in a frozen voice.
“Since I found out how wretchedly unhappy she is here,” said Aunt Fanny, dropping her eyes and staring at her folded black hands and wondering how it was that she was still alive.
“Wretchedly unhappy here!” Both women spoke at once.
“Yes, and I don’t wonder.” Aunt Fanny spoke low and vehemently. “What sort of life is this for a child like Monica? Three old women as her companions and nobody else. Ellie, Hilda, listen to me. I have been wrong, perhaps, but I can justify my actions. You have seen us talking to a man on the Parade, well . . .”
“Talking to a man on the Parade—you and Monica! What do you mean, Fanny?” Aunt Ellie’s eyes were suddenly fixed stonily on the pale face in front of her. Had Fanny suddenly gone mad, she wondered—she was at an awkward age. And lately she had seemed odd. And often an old affair dragged itself up again in the memory at such times. “What do you mean, Fanny?” she said again.
“What, haven’t you* seen us then?” Poor Aunt Fanny clutched at the red rep cloth of the dining-table. The few flames in the grate had formed themselves into a whirling ball of fire.
“Seen you where, and when, and how?” Aunt Hilda, who liked everything very much pigeon-holed, took up the theme.
“What, weren’t you talking about that, then?” said Aunt Fanny, and she took a few stupid steps backward towards the window.
“We were talking about Monica’s Sunday hat: we neither of us like the strange dragged-out look of the bow. And Hilda was suggesting that as it seemed a good opportunity you might all call in at Mrs. Death’s together to see if it could be altered. But now this is a different affair altogether. Hilda, bring Monica in here.”
“No, don’t, Ellie!” Aunt Fanny almost ran forward.
“Monica!” Aunt Hilda’s flat voice was raised.
“Yes, Aunt Hilda.” Monica, her heart beating to suffocation, thrust her hands into her jersey coat pockets and opened the door. She stood with her back against it, leaning.
“Come nearer, Monica.” Aunt Ellie was speaking. “Your Aunt Fanny tells us that you are in the habit of meeting a man on the Parade at all hours of the day; is that a fact?”
“Aunt Fanny!” Monica only breathed the words.
“Monica, I thought . . .” Aunt Fanny raised a quivering face from her hands and then dropped it again.
“What you think does not affect the question, Fanny. Monica, tell the truth; are you in the habit of meeting a man on the Parade, or are you not?” “
“Yes, I am.” Monica was stupefied with despair, and she spoke sullenly.
“Who is he?”
“He is a baronet.” Monica shot out this piece of information like a cork from a toy pistol. It was her most powerful missile, and she meant to make the most of it.
“A baronet!” Both elder aunts had the wind a little taken out of their sails. Then Aunt Ellie turned to her youngest sister, sitting crouched in a chair. “And you knew of this, Fanny?”
Aunt Fanny only nodded speechlessly.
“Terrible!” Both elder Aunts had forgotten that the man concerned was a baronet. He was a man, therefore a thing of menace and danger on their virginal horizon. And he menaced Monica. Therefore Monica must be shut up. Easily done.
“Monica, go upstairs to your bedroom,” said Aunt Ellie, her pale eyelashes a little closer together.
“What do you mean—to stay there?” said Monica, rearing her back from against the brown-veined varnished door and staring.
“Yes, until I tell you that you may come out.”
“No, I’m not going,” said Monica, and her small face turned very white.
Into her clasped hands Aunt Fanny was weakly sobbing. “Monica, be brave, be brave!” she was saying it over and over again to herself. Her own pitiful love-affair, how it suddenly flooded her memory. He had written making an appointment—“The North door of the Abbey, beloved, and we will talk the whole thing over.” And Aunt Ellie had seen the letter on the hall table, and had stood with it in her hand as Aunt Fanny had come down the stairs, her pale eyelashes dropped. “Fanny, I can see that this is from Will; read it here, foolish girl, and I will tell you how to answer it.” And she had read it, poor, pitiful fool that she was, and had been told how to answer it: and he had never written again. Of course he had not; a great love demands courage in the beloved, and she had not had any. Frozen, anguished, barren years, each single one of the twenty-nine dragged itself slowly out in front of her, as the little room quivered in a terrible silence.
“Monica!” Aunt Ellie’s voice was trembling with passion.
“Yes, well! Why should I be shut up simply because I like to talk to a man? Besides, he is a cripple, and I cheer him up.”
“Yes, Ellie; take that into account; the poor fellow was badly injured in the war, and Monica undoubtedly brings a little brightness into his life.” Aunt Fanny had lifted her tear-soaked face and was looking imploringly at her sister. But Aunt Ellie was by now wild with rage; she had ruled for so long, was her niece going to set her at defiance? Never! “Monica, go to your room,” she said, and her pale face did not lose an atom of its unlined calmness.
“I won’t, and now you all know,” replied Monica, and her voice was as calm and still as her Aunt’s. “I like him, and I like to be with him. Except for Aunt Fanny, I can’t bear any of you. Aunt Fanny has gone back on me—I was afraid she would, although I didn’t think she would lately. But I expect she’s afraid of you. I’m not—I know it sounds rude and ungrateful, but I’m not,” and Monica turned slowly round.
“Hilda, catch hold of her.” Aunt Ellie got up and moved quickly to the door. Aunt Hilda hesitated a moment, and that moment’s hesitation was Monica’s salvation, for Aunt Ellie could not hold her single-handed. And Monica wrenched open the door and ran—along the hall, out on to the steps, down them in two jumps, and then tearing along the road towards the Parade, Patch, roused from a siesta among the laurustinus bushes, following her in an excited gallop. Across the green—they were beginning to paint the bandstand—a swift turn to the right towards the tall distant flagstaff, and then tearing towards the little caterpillar-like trail in the distance. There he was: she would reach the sanctuary of that long chair somehow, for it was the only place where she could ever find happiness. Monica knew it in a sudden blinding flash of awakened consciousness. She loved him—of course she did; she cried it softly aloud as she ran; why, he was the Dream Man, everything inside her sort of bowed down to him. Even though he could not stand up she was under his heel. She would like him to torture her—to beat her—to—to—to—Monica’s thoughts were in a whirl. She would like to be his slave, so that she could creep to his feet and lay her face on them. Oh, if only he would let her! Joy! she was getting nearer, she could see the band on Mason’s bowler; now the wheels of the chair made that sucking noise; now—Monica’s shaking hand clutched the padded edge of the chair and brought it to an abrupt standstill.
“Hallo, I thought you weren’t coming. Hold on, Mason.” Gregory Fanshawe slipped the letter that he held gripped in one hand into his pocket and smiled. “By Gad, you’re badly winded; what’s happened?”
“They say I’m not to see you any more.” Mason had strolled to the side of the cliff, and was staring gloomily down on to the sands below. Monica spoke with gasping breath, and laid her hand on her neck.
“Who are they? and how have they found out?”
“Aunt Fanny told them. At least, it seems as if she has, only I can’t believe it. I didn’t wait to hear. I ran, because they were going to shut me up in my bedroom.”
“What on earth for?” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were incredulous.
“Because I know you. You see, you don’t understand, you’re a man, and therefore the most frightful thing. It’s dangerous to know a man, if you’re one of the Aunts. And I felt that if I didn’t see you again I should die, and so I came,” ended up Monica, beginning to cry.
“I see.” Gregory Fanshawe suddenly felt profoundly disturbed. He had had a disturbing morning. A letter from Aline—long, bitterly reproachful. She did not want to marry Tim Forrest, he was too young for her. “Let me take care of you, Greg; I love you, I really do.” A letter from his mother—she was beginning to long for the sea, and the little house in Hill Street was so dreadfully expensive for her alone; “Let me just move the establishment bodily down to Maygate, darling; after all, the train service is excellent, and I can run up whenever I want to, and on my way to the station the other day I saw quite a charming house that would do beautifully for us.” And now this child, all distraught with the thought of not seeing him again. Desperately wretched in her cramped surroundings, all her life being spoilt really by her lack of opportunity, no decent clothes, no money to spend. He could give her a gorgeous time within limits, and she was a sweet little thing. It would be a very effectual way of shutting the mouths of his relations and keeping other people quiet. And so far as he could see she was not the sort of girl who, directly she found herself well off, would begin to squander and get out of hand. And he would make it all very clear to her that he could be nothing more to her than a guide, philosopher, and friend. Gregory Fanshawe smiled a funny twisted smile as he thought this. And it really would be tremendous sport to see how utterly sick his relations would be. And also, why should he not try to make somebody else happy, now that he could never be happy again himself? Gregory Fanshawe thought all this with a sort of bitter humour at the back of his mind. It was an insane step to take, he knew, but when you are so damned wretched, a little damned insanity makes a welcome change. He stuffed both the letters a little lower into his pocket, and then withdrew the brown hand and laid it on the trembling one that lay close to his. “Don’t cry,” he said, and poor Monica thrilled and trembled at the quiet voice. “There’s nothing to cry for. Look here, I’ve got a brilliant idea. How would you like to marry me?”
“Do what?” Monica’s grey eyes seemed to fill the whole of her face.
“Yes; I know it sounds futile when I’m nothing but a helpless log. And of course it wouldn’t be by any means all joy; I mean to say—well, you see, you’d really be my nurse. I mean to say . . .” It was too difficult, with the clear eyes on him, and Gregory Fanshawe gave it up. “Anyhow, you’d have plenty of money to spend, and I should have you to talk to, and perhaps you’d read to me sometimes.”
“This is being a dream, and none of the things that I think have just happened, like the row with Aunt Ellie, have really happened at all,” said Monica, turning very white.
“Did you feel that?” Gregory Fanshawe had taken the thin wrist between both his hands and had twisted it a little.
“Yes, it hurt.” Monica shrank.
“Well, that shows you aren’t asleep,” said Gregory Fanshawe.
“But anything so heavenly must be a dream,” said Monica, still staring.
“Not of necessity,” said Gregory Fanshawe, deeply touched. Monica’s face was the face of one who has seen a vision. What a shame, and he was really offering her nothing but a comfortable home. And she was meant for love—and passion—and to have children. No; it was not good enough; he was getting her under false pretences. If he was to take her at her word, he must be more explicit. “Look here,” he said; “don’t decide in a hurry—under the circumstances it wouldn’t be right. Let’s get along somewhere near a seat, and then you can sit down and I can talk to you properly. Mason!”
“Yes, Sir Gregory.—Bring it ’ome to her, little baggage,” raved Mason under his breath, as he came up to the chair.
“Push me along as far as that seat, will you? There, that’s better. Jam it in to the grass. That’s all right; now then, Miss Field, sit down. Mason, you and Barrett cut off for a smoke, will you?” Gregory Fanshawe averted his eyes from his servant; Mason was the one person he was afraid of in this business: Gad! what should he do if he left? But he had started on it now, so there could be no drawing back. Besides, you couldn’t disappoint a person whose eyes looked like that.
“Before you say that you will marry me, I want you to realize exactly what it will mean,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and tried to rub the damp off them a little. “I’m helpless and a cripple—do you realize that? It won’t be like an ordinary marriage—do you quite understand that?”
“I can’t understand anything except that I shall always be with you,” replied Monica, her grey eyes one blaze of rapture.
“Well, but there’s more in marriage than always being with a person. There’s things like—well, children, for instance. We could never have any. Would you mind?”
“A baby would be in the way with you and me, because it would prevent me from always being with you,” replied Monica.
“Yes, but . . .” Gregory Fanshawe suddenly recalled the little affair of the sands, and came to the conclusion that it was hopeless to try to talk to anyone so childish: he would enlist the aid of one of the Aunts. And meanwhile he had really done absolutely wrong to speak to Monica at all before referring the matter to the Aunts. And then it came over him what he had done! But it had been insanity, the sudden impulse! He was tying himself up for life, and to a girl that he hardly knew, and cared for less. And she would always be there, and he, helpless, would never be able to get away from her. Everything suddenly turned black in front of his eyes, and he groped feebly in his pockets again. And there his wet fingers came into contact with the letters—it had been because of them that he had done it. Yes, but no one could force him to marry Aline against his will! And his mother, she could not have made him leave the house he was already comfortably settled in unless he had wanted to! And for these two entirely inadequate reasons he had chucked away his freedom! A sort of diabolical freak impulse to see what the droll little thing would look like if he asked her to marry him. And she had said that she would, so the freak impulse had left him with a rope round his neck. It must have been the bromide he had taken the night before. . . . Mason had forced it on him after a series of bad nights, and he had taken it, slept heavily, and woken feeling a worm. And now the knot was in place, and there was no drawing back. Hell . . .! Gregory Fanshawe suddenly saw clearly, and the clear seeing was a torment. A life sentence! And he had done it himself! He felt that he could not look at the girl who sat with her eyes fixed on his—her hat on a little crooked, her hair blown down over her ears in wisps, her face unbecomingly flushed and stained with tears. His wife! Lady Fanshawe! And then the humour of it struck him, and he began to laugh. His mother, confronted with the future Lady Fanshawe, what a rag! And he laughed on and on until Mason, hearing, got up from the side of the little Bath-chair man and came across and stooped over the couch, and then stood upright and spoke decidedly to Monica:
“Sir Gregory is not quite ’imself, miss; I’ll wheel ’im on a bit.”
“What, is he ill?” Monica, all her happiness a crashing ruin, stood up.
“Not exactly ill, miss, just not quite ’imself,” said Mason darkly, beginning to move on without any further delay. He had only seen his master like this once before, and that was after the specialist had delivered his verdict. And Mason had a sudden horrible inkling of what had just taken place.
Lunch at The Laurels was eaten in a ghastly silence. Aunt Fanny was not there, and from the preparation of a tray by Cynthia, who, scenting something unusual in the air, was more tossy than usual, Monica gathered that she was in her bedroom. “Instead of me,” thought Monica with a sort of ghastly amusement, wondering what would happen if she began to relate what had just happened to her on the Parade. Neither of the Aunts spoke to her; in fact, they glanced at one another as if they were sitting alone at the oblong table, and Aunt Ellie said, “Will you have any more cornflour shape, Monica?” staring out of the window. So she was evidently to be regarded as an outcast and to be treated as such. Monica, who had run all the way back from the Parade in a whirl of conflicting feelings—almost mad feelings, some of them were, because she did not know now if Sir Gregory had meant what he said, or if it had been a sort of dreadful joke—sat half stupefied, and ate and drank chokingly, not knowing what she was doing; and this was fortunate, in that it made the Aunts think that she was sorry for her terrible behaviour earlier in the day. So they did not attack her at all, and Monica was thankful for this, as it gave her a chance to try to collect her thoughts a little. Had Sir Gregory really asked her to marry him, or had it been a joke? This was the thought that drummed itself over and over again in her brain until she felt sure that the Aunts must know that she was thinking it. If he had meant it—if he had meant it! Ah! and then everything swam a little in front of Monica’s eyes, and she grabbed hold of the edge of the table under the starched white cloth for a minute, and then, letting go with one hand, drank a little water out of the tumbler at her elbow. That made her feel better, and mercifully at that moment Aunt Ellie rose and made a sort of beckoning motion with her eyes at Aunt Hilda, and the two women sailed out of the room.
Monica, set free, rolled up her table napkin in a sort of hysterical frenzy and rushed up the rather narrow staircase to her bedroom. Her hat and coat were lying on the bed, she caught them up and flung them on to a chair. Then she cast herself face downwards on to the thick cotton counterpane and began to cry, and she cried until well on into the afternoon, till the man with prawns had shouted himself down to the end of Sweyn Road, and the funny milk-cart like a chariot had come clattering round the corner from the big school that it always went to first. And then she was roused by a tap at the door.
“Who is it?” Monica was in the state that made her feel that if the Archangel Gabriel himself was at the door she would keep him out.
“It is Aunt Fanny, dear.”
“Oh . . . half a minute.” Monica drearily dragged herself off the bed and walked to the door, unlocking it. Then she stood and stared at her Aunt, who came in like an intent ant, carefully shutting the door behind her again. There were bright pink patches on her cheeks and she held out two hands that shook.
“Monica, Sir Gregory has written formally proposing for your hand,” she said, and then she too burst into tears.
“What?” Monica only stared. Then he had meant it. She was to be the wife of the Dream Man! Then this was all over—the sort of starved feeling she always had, and the sort of craving that something would happen. She would be Lady Fanshawe, and live in a house alone with him, except for Mason. And she would be able to have some pretty clothes, and not have to go to chapel any more. And she would be his—belong to him, like a slave, only much nicer. He could beat her if he wanted to—anyhow, order her goings out and her comings in. She would be his—his for ever. . . .
“Aunt Fanny!” Monica was white and trembling.
“Yes, darling; and now, put on your Sunday dress and do your hair again, for Sir Gregory is coming to tea,” said Aunt Fanny, who was in a state of tremulous rapture. For ever since the summons from her two sisters she had been singing her Nunc Dimittis. For had she not schemed and arranged for this? The long walks, leaving Monica sitting under the shelter of the invalid chair—they had done it. Aunt Fanny brushed the streaks of hair out of her eyes and her pathetic mouth worked.
But Monica had come down to earth with a crash. Tea! Sir Gregory! And they had it so stiffly and funnily, all spread out with knives. Tea with knives! And he had had a squat brass cake-stand, with beautiful china plates slipped into each tier, and a gleaming teapot. And their teapot was only imitation silver, and Aunt Ellie had a funny way of splashing each cup into hot water first; it took ages and was supposed to make the tea better. He would be scoffing inside all the time: see how he had laughed at her account of chapel. Monica suddenly felt that she could not bear it. She suddenly felt terribly responsible for her home and its appointments. Oh! why had he said he would come to tea?
And Sir Gregory was wondering the same, as Mason moved deftly round the long couch, adjusting the Zingari tie to the immaculate collar. But he knew it was the right thing to do. He had made a complete ass of himself—well, then, he must see it through. And in a way he felt a throb of interest at this complete dislocation of his life. The only thing he fearfully dreaded was the telling of Mason. For he had got home exhausted from his almost hysterical collapse, and Mason had waited on him tenderly and skilfully, and that had brought home to Gregory Fanshawe more than anything what he was perhaps risking in taking a wife. Fancy if she interfered with his valet—harried him, made his position untenable. But she would not—he would jolly well see that she did not. And after lunch, with a fairly stiff peg, and a short rest, when he had mercifully slept heavily, he had asked for his writing materials and had written a short note, asking permission to present his addresses to Miss Fisher’s niece, and saying that if it was quite agreeable to Miss Fisher he would call that afternoon at half-past four. And now he was ready, and he lay across the wide window with a very amused look in his blue eyes. Anyhow, this had settled the hash of his mother and of Aline Hervey, he thought, with rather a cruel look on his straight mouth.
Monica, from her bedroom window, saw the long carriage coming round the corner of the road with feelings that can better be imagined than described. She had had an interview with all three Aunts, whose condition at the thought that their niece was going to make such a wonderful marriage was almost tumultuous. Anything irregular that had taken place had been already absolutely forgotten. Monica was going to marry a baronet, and although the Aunts were not sordidly worldly, the idea of a baronet did loom enormously large on their horizon. She was kissed and congratulated, and then driven almost uproariously upstairs to put on her Sunday dress. Monica tried to rebel, but she was overpowered; it was impossible to have formal addresses paid to you in a blouse and skirt—so said the Aunts. And the Aunts were so insistent on this point that at last they convinced Monica, and so she sat, crouched on the edge of a box, staring down the road at the little procession that was approaching, her heart thundering under the greeny grey beige, looking really very unattractive, except for the flash of white skin that showed down the low V, relentlessly hacked much lower by the derisive Cynthia.
“I simply can’t go down till he has got in.” Monica gripped her hands together and got up. She could see it all; Mason and Barrett lifting out the sort of shell inside the carriage and carrying it up the steps into the narrow hall, and then into the sitting-room, where the Aunts would all be standing in a row stiffly, waiting to shake hands. And then where would the shell be put? Would the sofa be wide enough? Fancy, if she got down to find him lying on the floor! Or fancy if the hall proved too narrow to allow of the shell being turned and he had to stay there, or be taken back into the road again. Monica’s hands were damp and trembling as she visualized all these horrors. Why had he come?—why had he come?
“Monica!” It was Aunt Fanny’s voice, tremulous with excitement, from the hall below.
“Yes, all right.” Monica by now felt that she might quite easily be sick. All her inside seemed to have sunk away out of sight. How could she face him in front of the Aunts? Perhaps they would be saying something about how he ought not to have spoken to her on the Parade at first, and he would be angry.
“Monica!” it came again. How long had it been since the first one?
“Yes; all right, Aunt Fanny!” Monica went to the door and started to go down the stairs. There was a sort of tea-like aroma in the house, that meant that Cynthia was going to be punctual. It would not be so bad if there was tea to divert everybody’s mind. She walked on, her hand slipping squeakily on the polished banister.
Gregory Fanshawe had never seen Monica without a hat, and the sight of the funny little smooth head above the ugly dress filled him with a sort of comical despairing dismay. What a little freak! But her face was ashy pale, and he suddenly felt very sorry for her. He was getting on excellently with the Aunts; he had been instantly able to put them all at their ease. And once having put his hand to the plough. . . . “Here you are!” he said; “come,” and he held out a brown hand.
Oh! Monica took it and gasped. “You did mean it, then?” she said.
“Of course I did! And the Aunts have been kindness itself, and so it’s all settled.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke quietly, looking up and smiling.
A transformed Aunt Ellie broke in, her face radiating joy and pride. “Our dear minister will be most gratified and pleased,” she said; “Monica’s marriage will make quite a stir at the chapel.”
“Here is tea!” Aunt Fanny interrupted with a sort of gay clapping of hands that drowned the last part of Aunt Ellie’s remark. But Monica heard it, and glanced with terror at the man lying across the couch. Supposing he had heard—he scoffed at chapel. And Gregory Fanshawe had heard, but in a way he was touched. The Aunts were such pathetic women, so old-world. He was sorry he had led Monica on to make game of the way they worshipped, and he could easily arrange his wedding as he liked. He took his tea from Aunt Hilda’s pale-veined hand with a smile that made her his slave from that moment.
Tea on the whole was a success; not half as stiff as Monica was afraid it would be. And when it was over, Gregory Fanshawe smiled round the room, and then took a cigarette-case out of his pocket. “May I?” he said.
“Of course, Sir Gregory!” This came from Aunt Ellie, whom Monica, staring at her in a sort of dumb wonder, could hardly recognize as the same woman who had looked at her so coldly and almost cruelly earlier that day. She had got up and was almost running to the mantelpiece so as to forestall Aunt Hilda, who had already made a dash at the match-box which was tied to the projecting bracket of the gas. Both Aunts fought quietly to untie it first.
“Don’t trouble, please—I have them.” Gregory Fanshawe smiled up again at the two women as they stood breathing a little quickly by his side. “And now, if you will not think me very tiresome, I should like to have a word with the Aunt who first received me so kindly—am I right in saying Miss Ellie?” he finished, with another smile that made Aunt Hilda put her hand rather swiftly to her heart.
“Yes,” said Aunt Ellie bluntly, her usually expressionless eyes full of a sort of yearning, longing tenderness. And Monica, sitting very still in a corner, her hands gripped on her knees, saw the glance and realized the pathos of it. Then they had had the same sort of longing, groping cravings that she had, these Aunts of hers. Only for them there had been no man with brown hands and quiet mouth to still them. Only years of struggling not to mind, or anyhow not to show it. And then more years of really not minding so much, and trying to find something else instead to fill up the yawning blank. And all the things that she had scoffed at—singing in the choir at chapel, the little excitement of a Social, shopping, knitting jumpers—all these things were like cotton-wool stuffed round a thing to keep it straight. Otherwise it fell sideways and was always having to be propped up again. And with these thoughts the tears rushed up into Monica’s eyes again, and she made a little choking gasp and dragged wildly for her handkerchief. And over the embroidered edge of it she suddenly met the steady blue glance from the couch. She got up trembling and went over to the sofa.
“Just a minute, dear, while I speak to the Aunt,” he said, and he took the small shaking hand in his and smiled up.
“Oh, Sir Gregory, I feel as if it can’t be real.” Poor Monica, in her unbecoming frock and with eyes full of tears, looked a very pathetic figure to Gregory Fanshawe, who was accustomed to seeing his womenfolk well turned out. But he was generous enough to recognize the adoration in the faltering gaze and to be grateful for it. Here was not a girl who was out for all she could get, he could see that. And, after all, she was young and easily influenced, and in a way it would be rather fun to have someone always at your elbow who adored you. And his mother and Aline had been done in the eye; that was really the thought that filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else.
“Little goose,” he said, and as his voice was one of his greatest charms, Monica was not the only one in the room who thrilled to it. Aunt Fanny and Aunt Hilda got up and walked out together, the hand of the elder woman on the arm of the younger. And Monica followed, everything floating in a sort of misty cloud in front of her eyes. To belong to someone with a voice like that! . . .
The coals in the old-fashioned grate had sunk to a dimly glowing mass, the incandescent burner above the mantelpiece shone greenly and hissingly, uninterrupted by any other sound; all three Aunts were absolutely silent. They had said all there was to say, and had not agreed, so now there was nothing more to be said. And as the majority was two, the day had been carried by the two, who glanced at one another from time to time and then frowned accusingly at Aunt Fanny.
“You see, dear Fanny, Sir Gregory, in his most delicate and frank statement of his physical disabilities, left it entirely to my discretion to enlighten dear Monica as I might see fit,” said Aunt Ellie with a final movement of her waxy-looking hands.
Aunt Fanny raised her head almost shyly and looked at her sister. How had he been able to do it? she wondered. Such a desperately difficult thing to discuss at any time, and with her sister! For The Laurels never vibrated to any discussion of sex. Aunt Ellie had never allowed it. And as a matter of fact nobody wanted to discuss it; it had become a habit to turn an unseeing eye towards the side of life that throbbed and glowed with a dreadful unnerving interest specially its own.
“Yes, but Monica is such a child, she would never gather that there was anything to know,” pleaded Aunt Fanny, feeling as she pleaded that she was being very flagrant in returning to the subject at all. Monica was to be left in ignorance of the alarming facts of life, that had been the decision. They would never come her way, so argued the Aunts, so why run the risk of thoroughly unsettling her, and making her dissatisfied with this very delightful young man and the delightful marriage with him, that such enlightenment would mean.
“Yes; but if they could never come her way, how could she be alarmed?” argued Aunt Fanny, feeling that her sisters were all wrong in this. Monica was a human being, after all. And Sir Gregory had wished that she should be told what marriage with him would mean. It would not make the faintest difference to Monica now—Aunt Fanny was perfectly convinced of that; she was too deeply infatuated with the young man in question. But if she was going to be dissatisfied, would it not be better that she should be dissatisfied beforehand, when there was still time to draw back if she wanted to. “Ellie, Hilda, Monica might be disappointed when she found that she could never have a baby,” pleaded Aunt Fanny.
“Fanny!” Both Aunts were crimson and protesting.
“Well, but you do have them,” stammered poor Aunt Fanny, feeling very crushed, but making a fight for it.
“Not unless God sees fit,” said Aunt Hilda, with a very definite note in her voice.
“It hasn’t anything whatever to do with God,” fired up Aunt Fanny, joyfully launching this bombshell because she felt that after her sister’s fervent reception of Sir Gregory they were doing wrong in not doing at once what he had wished; “besides, that has nothing to do with it. Sir Gregory wished that Monica should thoroughly understand that in marrying him she shuts herself out from certain joys that otherwise she would have. It is not right to ignore his wishes in this way.”
“Joys!” interpolated Aunt Ellie, with the stare of a frozen fish.
“Well, I meant a baby when I said ‘joy,’ Ellie,” stammered Aunt Fanny, deeply humiliated and very flushed.
“I think it is time that we all retired, Hilda,” said Aunt Ellie, getting up with a very pursed mouth. “Our dear Fanny is a little unnerved with all the happenings of the day, and I do not wonder at it. Our little Monica is about to make a great match, and I am sure we all rejoice at it. And I am sure it is not for us to do or say anything that would tend to make her dissatisfied with the great destiny that God has planned for her. If we do . . .” and there was a silence that could be felt in the dark room.
So it was settled: and all three sisters wended their way up the dark stairs. Aunt Fanny, whose room lay just opposite Monica’s, continued to mount, after the two cold cheeks had been laid against hers. She stopped for a moment outside the shut door: there was a sound, and she opened it.
Monica was on her knees by the narrow bed; the light from the lamp-post at the corner shone on her little hard heels and ankle bones, that showed very plainly below the short nightdress. “God, I simply adore him,” she was crying; “it’s too good of You to let this happen. I love him: I tell You, it’s here, a sort of mad loving that makes me feel that I shall die with joy because I am going to belong to him. Oh! what have I done that anything like this should come my way? . . . I am so frightful.” Monica’s head was down on her arms again.
Aunt Fanny went out again, as noiselessly as she had come in. She shut herself into her own bedroom, immaculately neat, with the bedroom slippers with the fat crochet edging close together under the narrow iron bed. She took off her rather crackly dress—the bodice was boned and lined with sateen—and then thrust her pale face close to the looking-glass. “God, God! “ she breathed, and her voice was accusing; “why should so many of us be starved and hopeless? Why should we have to die with the longing for love, when there is so much of it in the world? Some women have more than their share. And just because I did one foolish thing—it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair.” Aunt Fanny was down on her knees beside the bed, sobbing, just as Monica had been sobbing, only with despair.
“Half a minute, Mason.” Gregory Fanshawe hoped that his valet would think it was the very thorough punishing he had just been through that had left him breathless and tremulous. To a certain extent it was, but not entirely. “I am going to be married, Mason,” he said, “and I want you to be one of the first people to know. As a matter of fact, you are the first, with the exception of the lady herself and her relations.”
“I wish you all happiness, sir.” Mason was standing by the side of the couch with an absolutely blank expression on his face. But inwardly he was sobbing. “It’s the end of it all—it’s the end of it all,” he was saying to himself; “she’ll ’ave me out, the ugly ’ag. But I’ll Aline ’er before I goes. The ——, she’ll kill ’im in a year.”
“The lady is the young lady we meet on the Parade,” went on Gregory Fanshawe, feeling rather more courageous. “And as she thinks very highly of you, and realizes how much your care and devotion mean to me, I hope that her coming here will not make any difference to us. In fact, I shall see that it does not,” he continued, suddenly realizing how much more the thought of Mason meant to him than the thought of the girl he was going to marry.
“Miss Field!” ejaculated Mason, his blankness suddenly relaxed.
“Yes, Miss Field,” said Gregory Fanshawe, smiling, his servant’s joy and relief communicating itself to him in a flash. Poor old Mason, no wonder he had looked appalled! By Gad, no! And yet it would probably have come to that if he had not done what he had done. “And now I have told you,” he said, “I should like to talk things over with you a bit. Sit down somewhere near, will you?”
Very gingerly and respectfully Mason sat down on the edge of a chair drawn close to the couch. His stupefaction had relaxed a little, also his despair. That little bit of a thing would not attempt to interfere with him. And if she did, he would soon be able to settle her.
“I should like to stay here,” said Gregory Fanshawe. “Mrs. Mannering cooks excellently and knows what I like. The only thing is that we should need more help, and a couple more rooms would have to be properly furnished. That’s all. Go and tell her now, will you, and find out what she thinks about it. Don’t let her know that I have sent you.”
Mason descended to the lower regions, his heart booming in his head like a gong. But Mrs. Mannering took the news with as much stupefaction as even he could have wished. And the two, who were both staunch partisans of the helpless man upstairs, sat and talked and planned until Mason walked upstairs again.
“Well?” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were turned towards the door. It meant more to him than he liked to think how these two took the news.
“Mrs. Mannering is most agreeable, sir,” said Mason, who felt now that he was running the whole thing, perfectly restored. “She suggests that Mannering should leave the Bristol and help in the ’ouse, boots and knives and what not. She will continue as before to do the cooking, and a young niece of ’ers will hact as ’ouse-parlourmaid.”
“Good! And what about furnishing the extra rooms?”
“Most agreeable, sir.”
“Excellent.” Gregory Fanshawe heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief. Now to tell his mother; the news would not be received quite so calmly there though, he feared. . . . However, he wrote, folded, licked up the envelope and handed it to Mason. “That’s done,” he said, and smiled. “Now then, we’ll go out, please.”
Monica was waiting by the second bridge. She was waiting in an agony of nervousness. The Aunts were in such a turmoil, and had talked at breakfast of nothing but her wedding. Of how the minister must be told, and of how the front pews of the chapel would have to be cleared away for the bridal party. Of her trousseau, and of how Miss Finch, who took the big girls’ Bible-class, must be given the work, and of how Mrs. Death must make the hats. Of the wonder of being the wife of a baronet, and the responsibilities of such a position, until Monica had felt quite stupefied, and underneath the stupefaction, a growing consciousness that the Aunts would do things wrong. To begin with, her clothes—what would that wonderfully dressed woman that she had seen on the Parade think of Miss Finch’s and Mrs. Death’s confections? Or that girl in the smoke-grey jumper. And her wedding—she somehow could not see Sir Gregory in a chapel at all, less than ever for his own wedding. The minister stooping over the long couch and shaking hands with him—he would hate it. And it would be in a way her fault; she would have been the means of dragging him into the middle of that sort of thing. And yet it was so disloyal and hateful of her to feel like that; the Aunts were so genuinely anxious to make the very most of her happiness, and were quite prepared to be generous about her clothes. But somehow this morning Monica, dazed and still bewildered from the happenings of the day before, could only feel resentful and a little cross and dreadfully afraid: she wasn’t his sort of person, he belonged to the sort of people who always travelled first class and spoke in a sort of drawly, absolutely self-assured way, and went to church, and walked about the room at breakfast and chose their food off a sideboard, like the people in Mr. E. F. Benson’s books, who were always well off and cheerful. And she, well, the stodginess of her underclothes showed what she was like; she had flung her petticoat bodice from her in disgust that very morning. It was made of long cloth, and had thick embroidery round the very high-up neck. How could she ever live up to what he would expect? . . . he would get angry and she would be afraid—more afraid because Monica guessed that he would not show he was angry like some men would; he would only notice and be cold and a little contemptuous. So all these thoughts seethed in Monica’s brain as she waited on the bridge, and when Mason and Barrett and the man she adored came nearer, all she wanted to do was to turn away and rush and hide somewhere.
But Mason did the very best possible thing. He clicked his heels, drew himself up, and took off his bowler. “My respectful wishes for your happiness, miss,” he said.
“Oh, Mason,” Monica absolutely forgot that she could be overheard. “Mason,” she said, and her face was tremulous, as she reached out and clasped the respectfully surprised hand. “Mason, promise me that you won’t leave because I am coming. I don’t know anything about what he likes or anything and I should be terrified if you weren’t there. Promise me you will stay—promise me!” Monica’s eyes were imploring.
Mason cleared his throat discreetly, his eyes on the peak of the cap just below him. His master had heard every word; he could tell that by the immobility of him. But his own heart was at Monica’s feet for ever. He would stand by her when those two ’ags in Town came down and tried to smash the thing up, as they would certainly do. There was undying gratitude in his voice as he replied. “I thank you, miss,” he said, “and I will do my best to serve you, as I have served Sir Gregory, faithfully.”
“Well done, Monica.” Gregory Fanshawe was unboundedly relieved at the turn things had taken. The child had sense; she had won his servant over at one fell swoop. He put out his hand and took hers. “Well, and how are you this morning?” he said, as Mason and Barrett strolled away.
“Oh, half mad with despair,” burst out Monica, her brimming eyes averted. “You’ve made a mistake in asking me to marry you. It’s heaven for me, but you’ll be sorry. I’m not your sort of person; I realize it more and more.”
“What sort of a person ought I to have, then?” said Gregory Fanshawe, his eyes intensely amused.
“Someone much more like that girl in the beautiful jumper. Don’t you know, someone much more worldly than I am. Someone who knows about things. My clothes are so ghastly . . . and if I went out to a grand dinner I probably shouldn’t know the right sort of fork to use. Do you know what I mean? For instance, I have never been to a restaurant, and if I did I shouldn’t know whether I ought to wear a hat or not. Everything’s like that with me. And then there’s chapel . . .”
“Anything else?”
“Loads of things; I can’t think of them all now. But they’ll keep on coming up and you will get impatient with me. And if I am your wife you will feel sort of responsible for me too. Don’t you know that feeling you have when it’s a relation? It’s not like anything else . . They belong to you, and so it’s your fault too.”
“Well, I feel quite equal to it all,” said Gregory Fanshawe with a brief smile, thinking at the same time how much more there must be in Monica than appeared on the surface, that she had been able to sum up the situation so tersely. For they did belong to a different world, she and he; their ideas were probably not in the least the same about anything. But as long as she was fond of him it would be all right, and, after all, what had he to look forward to? Life on his back for the rest of life—what sort of an outlook was that? And she would amuse him—she could be really very funny in a droll way of her own, and she was a lady, and her ideas were sweet and wholesome. Also, she would revel in having a little money of her own, and it would be fun for him to see her rapture over shopping, and her joy in being surrounded by pretty things. And above everything he had been able to safeguard himself against Aline Hervey and his mother; that was what loomed overwhelmingly large on his horizon at the present moment. For he had never felt really secure against the invasions of his mother; she was apt to become periodically discontented with the Hill Street establishment, and, after all, you were completely at the mercy of a person when you were entirely helpless. Also, his last brief interview with the girl to whom he had once been engaged had shown him how completely he was at her mercy too. So altogether he had not done so glaringly foolish a thing as might appear in tying himself up for life to a girl who in reality meant less to him than the tender ministrations of his valet. And he smiled at her, and Monica, seeing the smile, trembled and coloured, and then hung her head like a child.
“Are you fond of me, Monica?” asked Gregory Fanshawe, thinking rather cruelly that it was fun to have a girl near you who quailed and faltered when you stared at her.
“I ought to say that I’m not,” faltered Monica, with desperate recollections of a book she had once read, where a girl confessed her love to a man and he had instantly got tired of her and fallen in love with somebody else.
“No, you oughtn’t . . . not if you are. Tell me, are you?” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes and mouth were insistent and Monica got very white.
“Yes, I am,” she said, very low.
“How fond?” Gregory Fanshawe groped for the pipe in his overcoat pocket.
“Desperately fond . . . hopelessly, madly fond.” Monica began to cry. “Now you’ve made me say it,” she sobbed, “and you’ll immediately get tired of me. Girls ought not to say it; it’s only for the man to do that. But you don’t say it because you can’t, and I am so mad about you that I haven’t the pride to say that I won’t marry you because you don’t really want me to. I know you don’t—I felt it last night when I went to bed. And I can’t do what I ought to do, which is to say to you that I have been thinking it over and have come to the conclusion that it would be better if I never saw you again. I can only stare sort of slavishly at you and think how happy I should be even if you kicked me. . . .”
“Good heavens, don’t go on like that!” Gregory Fanshawe was genuinely alarmed at the storm he had raised. “Don’t; I didn’t mean to be unkind. I am most frightfully proud and glad that you care for me like that. Don’t! Come on, cheer up!” He reached out and took Monica’s small hand in his. “After all, you know it’s perfectly ripping of you to say that you will tie yourself down to the side of this couch for the rest of your life,” he said, and he smiled rather sadly. “I had a chat with your Aunt . . . she told you what I had said, I expect,” and Gregory Fanshawe stared out to sea and watched with suddenly dulled eyes the stately progress of a big liner along the horizon. . . . Friday; yes, of course, it would be the P. and O. mail to Bombay or Colombo. Gad ! . . .
“All three Aunts have been talking the whole of breakfast,” replied Monica, and she spoke heavily, “and they all talked to me last night too.”
“Good!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke with relief. Then that was all right, and he need have nothing on his conscience. “Now then, cheer up,” he said, “and what do you think of bringing Aunt Fanny to tea at my house this afternoon, and then of our going down into the town to choose a ring? We can look at the ones they have here, and if we don’t like them we can send to London for one.”
“A ring!” Monica’s eyes were dark with joy. “I had forgotten that engaged girls had a ring,” she gasped.
“Yes, of course they do.” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes brightened too at the unfeigned joy in Monica’s. Here was the fun beginning—it was ripping to be able to make a girl happy so easily. They would have a jolly expedition to the shops together, and he could begin to show her that even if life with him would mean life shorn of a good deal of happiness, there would be things left that would perhaps compensate a bit. “Yes, of course it means a ring,” he said, “ and perhaps a watch on a gold bracelet for your wrist, if you would care for it.”
“Care for it!” breathed Monica, her eyes twice as large as usual in her white face.
Lady Fanshawe went down to Maygate by the first train available after her son’s letter arrived. But she could not resist sending for her taxi rather earlier than necessary, in order to be able to tell the news to Aline Hervey on her way to the station. And Aline took it just as she hoped she would, palely, with blue shadows at the root of her nose.
“I have seen the girl,” she said; “a little thing like a servant, who had been having some disgraceful affair with a Parade loafer, and who has thrown herself on Greg’s protection to save her reputation.”
“Really!” But this was too good an opportunity to miss, and Lady Fanshawe stared rather fixedly at the girl opposite her for a minute or two.
Aline Hervey first blushed scarlet and then went very white; but her voice was steady as she lifted her face from the big blue pendant at the end of a gold and platinum chain on her lap.
“Yes,” she said, “and I feel very sorry for you, dear Lady Fanshawe. Especially as I am feeling for myself so very happy just now. You have heard perhaps that Tim and I are engaged? You must have heard it, or rather guessed it.”
“No; but I had very much hoped for it,” said Lady Fanshawe, who was not going to be done down by this minx in fawn gabardine.
“Ah!” and the eyes of the two women met, deadliest enemies now for all time. “Somehow or other I will ruin his life,” thought Aline Hervey quietly. “And the life of the little guttersnipe who is going to fill the place I ought to have had too.” But she chatted cordially as she walked down the shallow stairs beside the woman whom she had once thought to call her mother-in-law. Never show your hand to another woman; they are so fiendishly ingenious that they may upset your play—so thought Aline Hervey as she watched the taxi thread its way down the crowded street into Brompton Road.
Gregory Fanshawe, unprepared even by a telegram for his mother’s onslaughts, took them calmly, although under the short moustache his mouth was grim. But at last he stirred a little on his pillow and turned his head. “Be quiet, mother,” he said.
“But you cannot deny it; you got to know the girl in rescuing her from some disgraceful adventure here. Is that not so?” Lady Fanshawe’s excellently camouflaged complexion showed streaks of wet on it.
“From Aline, I suppose, that charitable piece of information?” interpolated Gregory Fanshawe, his face livid.
“Yes; and she did perfectly right to tell me,” replied Lady Fanshawe viciously.
“Harlot!” said Gregory Fanshawe, and then he fumbled for his cigarette-case with fingers that were wet with perspiration, and shaking.
“Gregory!” Lady Fanshawe was furious and genuinely shocked.
“Yes; well, as I said the last time you came down, you drive me to it, mother. You get me here, pinned down on this damned couch from which you know I can’t move, and then abuse my friends. I tell you I cannot and I will not stand it.” The tall man in his helpless weakness was almost sobbing.
“All I wish to do is to stop you from taking a step that will undoubtedly ruin your life,” said Lady Fanshawe more quietly. After all, as she thought quickly, it lay in her son’s power to curtail the bulk of her income.
“My life is already ruined.” Gregory Fanshawe’s face had begun to twitch, and he caught his breath with an odd choke, but he had found the electric bell and kept his finger on it. “Mason, I don’t feel well . . . get Lady Fanshawe . . He broke off and began to laugh as the short, squat figure filled the doorway and then came quickly across the room.
“With your ladyship’s permission . . .”
“Go away, Mason.” Lady Fanshawe loathed the valet as much as he loathed her, but she began to move towards the door.
“Begging your ladyship’s pardon.” Lady Fanshawe was nearing the door in an ambling run. “Lunch shall be served to your ladyship as soon as possible after Sir Gregory ’as been attended to,” said Mason, as he opened the door. “ Downstairs, the first door on the right”; he had begun to shut the door again.
“I shall not require lunch; I shall go to the Bristol and then return to town,” raved Lady Fanshawe, livid with passion, and trying to twist her veil under her chin again.
“Go where you blooming well like—to ’ell for preference,” said Mason under his breath, as he softly closed the door and started to run back across the floor to the man who pitifully held out his hands to him. “There, sir, it’s all right . . . just you ’old ’ard on to mi ’and, and you’ll be as right as rain,” he said, and his face was wonderful in its love and devotion as he stooped.
“Mason . . . don’t let them come in.” Gregory Fanshawe was clinging to his valet like a child.
“Not again, unless it’s over my dead body, sir,” said Mason grimly.
So everything went on calmly and happily now, and Monica throve and blossomed in the new atmosphere of appreciation and love in which she moved. The Aunts thought she was somebody, and that, to anyone of Monica’s disposition, was enough to bring out the very best in her; some people thrive in an atmosphere of criticism, some do not. Her lover was tender and thoughtful for her—not in the least loving, if only Monica had realized it; but to her he was perfection, so she did not notice the omission. He had given her a beautiful ring, a complete circle of diamonds set rather deeply in platinum—it had been specially got down from London by the shop to which they had gone first of all—also a very beautiful little watch on a platinum and gold watch-bracelet.
“I have never seen anything like them.” Monica had just had them given to her; she and Aunt Fanny had been to tea with Sir Gregory, and Aunt Fanny had tactfully withdrawn to have a word with Mrs. Mannering.
“Do you like them?” Gregory Fanshawe was thinking how jolly it was to be able to give so much pleasure so easily.
“I simply can’t say what I feel.” Monica’s face was working.
“Well, come over here and show me.” Gregory held out a hand.
“How do you mean, show you?” Monica had taken hold of the hand and was standing very nervously by the couch.
“I mean, give me a kiss for them,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and his eyes laughed.
“Oh, I simply couldn’t!” Monica tried to draw back, but he kept hold of her hand and drew her forward again.
“Yes, you could. Besides, you must; it’s part of the bargain. Engaged people always kiss one another.”
“Do they?” Monica was white and trembling. “But we never have done yet,” she said.
“No, because there has never been an opportunity—we’re generally out of doors or there has been somebody else there. But you will have to kiss me when you are my wife, so you had better get used to it now. Come . . . am I so dreadful?” The blue eyes were tenderly derisive.
“No; it’s not that at all; it’s just because I feel so—so—I can’t explain it. Please let me go.” Monica’s eyes were wide and imploring.
“No, I want to hear.” Gregory Fanshawe had shifted his grasp down to Monica’s thin wrist, and he could feel the little artery drumming under his thumb. Somehow the feeling of it filled him with disquiet.
“You can’t say things like that to a man when he is staring at you,” gulped Monica in anguish.
“No; well then, I will look out of the window.” Gregory Fanshawe turned his head and stared out at the thin line of horizon. “No; I am not going to let go of you,” he said, “so don’t try to make me. Now then, let’s have it . . .”
“You see, I love you.” Monica’s voice was stifled. “I love you in the sort of way that I don’t suppose you know anything about. It’s an awful feeling. Sometimes in the middle of the night I wake up and . . Monica broke off.
“Yes, go on.”
“It’s a dreadful thing to tell you,” said Monica, beginning to tremble.
“No, it’s not; I want to hear.” Gregory Fanshawe still had his face turned away, but his voice was not quite steady.
“Well, I feel that if you came in then—when it is quite dark—how I should die, absolutely die with the rapture of it. If you were to take me in your arms—kiss me then—how I simply couldn’t live with the joy of it. And then I sort of begin to thump all over; you won’t understand that. And . . . then all of me cries out for you—and I feel—oh, I feel—oh, I oughtn’t to have told you.” Monica broke off again and dragged at her handkerchief.
“Yes, you ought—you very much ought,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he steadied his lower lip between his teeth and turned from the window. “Monica, you will think me a perfect brute for saying what I am going to do, but I must. Dear, you mustn’t marry me—you really mustn’t. It would be most frightfully wrong. You don’t really understand how wrong, I’m afraid. I am afraid Aunt Ellie didn’t really tell you what I asked her to. But, anyhow, take it from me—and I know what I am talking about. Try to forget me. I’ll fix up that Aunt Fanny takes you abroad or something, and by degrees you will forget me. Monica—don’t look like that; I mean what I say—and it is the only possible thing.”
“You’re killing me.” Monica’s lips were blue. “I’ve made you ashamed of me somehow, and you don’t want me any more.”
“No—no; it’s not that at all. It simply is . . . Good God, how can I explain it! You see, you love me—really love me—and it wouldn’t be right. Darling, don’t you understand? I’m a cripple, I’m chained to this infernal couch for the rest of my life, and love, as most people understand it, isn’t possible for you and me. You’ve simply got to drag out your life beside a helpless invalid . . . and you’re young, and it isn’t right. Monica, do believe me—and don’t make it more difficult . . .”
“Greg, do you want me to die?” Monica had fallen on her knees beside the couch. “I love you, and I shouldn’t care if you were blind and deaf as well as rather helpless. It’s you I want. You’re killing me by saying that I must go away. I don’t care what it means to be your wife; you think that because I said that about your coming in in the middle of the night I should mind if you didn’t. I tell you that I shouldn’t expect you to; I should know that you couldn’t. Greg . . . don’t send me away; don’t, I beseech you.” Monica lifted a face drowned in tears.
There was a long silence: then Gregory Fanshawe turned a little more on the pillow and put a lean brown hand on the bowed head. “Look here,” he said, “if I give in to you in this—and it’s criminal folly of me to do so, but you make it hard for me to refuse—will you give me your solemn promise that under no circumstances whatever will you ever reproach me for it? Because, if you ever did, I think it would just about finish me.”
“I promise,” said Monica, and her tear-sodden eyes were lifted humbly.
“Well then, as we were!” said Gregory Fanshawe with an unsteady laugh, “and when you have quite stopped mopping your eyes with that perfectly useless handkerchief, tell me what you began to tell me before, and then stopped.”
“I forget it,” said Monica. “I can’t think of anything now, except that I still belong to you and that I nearly didn’t.”
“You couldn’t kiss me, for some reason or other.”
“Oh, that was because—because I felt that it would be so frightful to perhaps get that burny feeling in the day,” said Monica very shyly.
“And you thought that if you kissed me you perhaps might. Well, try,” said Gregory Fanshawe with rather a wicked look in his eyes.
“Would it be wrong?”
“Not in the least.” Gregory Fanshawe had both Monica’s hands in his. “Start by kissing both my eyes,” he said, and his own eyes laughed.
“The very thought of that gives it to me,” said poor Monica, and she flushed crimson.
“Well then, don’t do it.” Gregory Fanshawe dropped both the hands he held and frowned suddenly. “I’m a brute, Monica. Here, get that catalogue and we’ll choose some more things for the house.”
“Now you have suggested it I feel I must,” said Monica abruptly, and she came closer to the couch again; “and I think it’s the look in your eyes that gives it to me, not your eyes. Yes, now I know it is”—as the thick black eyelashes lay on the bronzed cheek; “yes, I can do it without minding at all,” and she stooped suddenly.
Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes laughed at the ceiling as he held her gripped. “Now have you got it?” he asked, as she struggled.
“Oh, I have! it’s not fair.” Monica was powerless and quivering.
“Ah, but it would have been the most deadly insult to me if you hadn’t got it,” said Gregory Fanshawe with a rather cruel look on his mouth as he let her go.
Monica’s wedding-day dawned fair and cloudless—a heavenly, tremulous spring day at the end of April. On the whole, the arrangements for it had been settled amicably. Sir Gregory had been quite determined from the very beginning that he would not be married in a chapel, nor had he been very keen on being married in a church, as he was so disabled. So it had been possible to arrange things so as not to offend anybody by settling to have the ceremony in the large, beautiful upstairs sitting-room of his own house. The Vicar, a very cultured, charming man,had been delightful over the whole thing, and the minister of the chapel where the Aunts attended had been very nice too—a little grieved perhaps, but on the whole very nice. Only a very few people were to be present: all three Aunts, Lady Fanshawe, Mason, Mrs. Mannering and Monica’s godmother, a Mrs. Forsythe, a charming woman who had always deeply deplored Monica’s environment, but who had been quite powerless to get her out of it, owing to the opposition invariably set up by the Aunts whenever she tried. But Monica’s excellent marriage gave her a loophole, and there had been one delirious Friday to Tuesday when she had run riot over Monica’s trousseau, and had had the child up to her house in Holland Park Avenue, and had bought filmy nothings in the way of underlinen that had made Monica quail and shrink, and had ordered a misty wedding-dress that sent wild tears to the eyes of the little bride, and a couple of lovely jumpers and clinging skirts, and shoes and stockings to match, that sent Monica back to Maygate tremulous with rapture. “If you could only see the things!” as she gasped, leaning over the long couch shaking with joy at being back again.
“Well, I very soon shall,” said Gregory Fanshawe, who had longed to hand the Aunts an enormous cheque for Monica’s clothes, but who had not quite liked to. He wanted Monica to look her best on her wedding-day for his mother’s sake, because he had dreaded the thought of his mother’s cold gaze fixed on anything in the shape of a local creation. But now that danger was averted, and he felt a relief quite disproportionate to the cause, and a flood of gratitude to the absent Mrs. Forsythe, whom he thought, by all accounts, must be by far the nicest and most human of Monica’s belongings. “Tell me about the wedding-dress,” he said.
“Well, it’s like the thin white mist that you sometimes see lying over fields in the early morning,” said Monica, “with a big silver blob on the left, here, below this bone;” she laid her hand on her left hip. “Then there are heavenly silver shoes to go with it, and stockings that crunch, and a veil that goes nearly down to the ground all round.”
“By Gad, it sounds ripping.” Gregory Fanshawe was watching Monica’s face as she spoke; it was illumined—it looked as if there was a lamp inside it, shining through the delicate skin. He put out a hand and pulled her a little closer to him. “Kiss me, you darling little thing!” he said.
“Oh . . . now!” said Monica, beginning to tremble.
“Yes, now. You haven’t kissed me since you came back from Town.”
“Will you catch hold of me like you did last time?”
“Probably! Well, no, I won’t, if you do it at once; if you keep me hanging about, I shall.”
“Well, I will then,” said Monica breathlessly, “especially if you will let me do it like I want to. I want to lay my face down close to your neck and sort of snuff at you. May I do it like that?”
“Of course you may—I shall love it. But the only stipulation I make is that I shall be allowed to put my hand on your head while you are snuffing,” said Gregory Fanshawe, all his teeth showing suddenly.
“Oh, yes, I love that; it makes me feel as if you were standing up,” said Monica, dragging off her hat and throwing it on to a chair. “Now,” she said, and she stooped. “Ah!”
Gregory Fanshawe turned his head a little and laid it closer to the soft face that nestled right in to his neck. “Like it?” he said after a pause.
“Adore it . . . worship it,” said Monica, and her voice came muffled. “It gives me a sort of satisfied feeling, a sort of heavenly rested feeling. Not mad or burny, but just quiet. You smell most heavenly too—sort of smoky, and scenty, and man-y.”
“How horrid!” said Gregory Fanshawe, but although his eyes laughed they were very tender as they stared out over Monica’s head on to the Parade. She was a sweet little thing, there was no doubt about it. She was father like a very soft tame bird that you could hold in the palm of your hand and squeeze, and watch the funny little alert face peeping out rather alarmed. “Now, get up,” he said suddenly, and he raised the hidden face from his shoulder, took it between his hands, and kissed the surprised little mouth.
“Oh!” said Monica, and she turned abruptly away.
“And now I have stacks of business to get through,” said Gregory Fanshawe, not taking any notice of Monica’s confusion, “and so I am going to drive you back to the Aunts. And make the most of the Aunts, because after the day after to-morrow there won’t be any trotting back to them after tea. You’ll be mine then, a miserable little slave, chained to the side of this brutal couch.”
“Somehow I feel that after about a year there won’t be any couch,” said Monica, turning round, a very crumpled handkerchief gripped in her small hands.
“Why, do you think that a year of you will be enough to kill me off?” asked Gregory Fanshawe quizzically.
“No; something inside me says that you are going to get well,” replied Monica quietly.
“Fanny!” Aunt Ellie’s voice was shrill with excitement as she thrust her head out of her room and called loudly.
“Yes, dear Ellie.” Aunt Fanny came hurriedly down the small flight of stairs that led from her bedroom. She was fastening the cuff of her dress as she came, and she kept her face carefully lowered.
“Fanny, what have you been doing to yourself!” Aunt Ellie’s eyes were incredulous. Why, Fanny had on a dress more suitable for a woman of thirty than a woman of forty-nine! Softest grey georgette, slightly open at the throat, with a mass of filmy filet lace. Why, it was preposterous! “Where did you get it, Fanny?” asked Aunt Ellie sternly.
“Miss Fitch made it, dear,” said Aunt Fanny mildly. She had known that this would come, and she was prepared for it. But she was prepared for battle, too. As she had argued with herself, seated on her bed in the midst of a sea of patterns, the leaves of eight different fashion-books flapping round her, why should you, because you are forty-nine, look persistently hideous? And this was the answer to the question. She had not dared to go farther afield than Miss Fitch and Mrs. Death, but it had been a terrorized Miss Fitch and Mrs. Death who had groped in yards of softest grey material, and closed shaking fingers round clusters of pinkest roses. And this was the result; Aunt Fanny looked almost pretty; the excitement and the consciousness that for once she looked nice had finished the work that the becoming clothes had begun.
“Well!” But the indignant Aunt Ellie was at the same time a softened Aunt Ellie, and this was Monica’s wedding-day, as she abruptly remembered, so there must be no friction of any kind. And her outraged consciousness suddenly found comfort in Aunt Hilda, who emerged from the opposite door, stiffly caparisoned in firmest magenta silk, with a black toque perched securely on the topmost twist of grey hair. “Ah!” breathed Aunt Ellie with relief, and she refrained from casting even the tiniest glance at Aunt Fanny. Let Hilda see her younger sister’s lapse from grace entirely off her own bat, so to speak.
But Aunt Hilda was in too great a state of excitement to see anything. “Ellie, Fanny,” she said, “the carriages have just turned the corner.”
“You don’t say so!” Aunt Ellie forgot everything then but the bride. “Monica,” she said, and her pale eyes filled suddenly with tears. Her niece, going out from her home for ever. Her orphaned niece—no mother or father to see her go. “Hilda, Fanny,” she said, “let us go up and greet the child before she leaves her room!”
All three sisters mounted the stairs, Aunt Ellie, who was ashamed of the tears in her eyes, coming last. And the tears dried as she caught sight of her younger sister’s ankles, still slim, which was very reprehensible, and clothed in thickest silk and losing themselves in softest suède. It must be her age, thought Aunt Ellie, craving on this day of days to find excuse.
Mrs. Forsythe opened the door. She had had a tussle to get Monica entirely to herself, but as she had provided the wedding-dress she had eventually been allowed to have her own way. And even the Aunts were glad when they saw that little wisp of white cloud in the middle of the room. Monica stood, very shyly, there, her veil not yet over her face. But it was a living, palpitating incarnation of joy round which the beautiful material fell in softest folds.
“Oh, my darling!” All three Aunts were deeply moved, and they all with one accord began to cry.
But Monica only held out trembling hands, and she did not need Mrs. Forsythe’s lifted finger to keep her steady.
After all, she was going to the man she loved, to be with him for ever. How could she cry? But she spoke very sweetly and steadily. “Darling Aunts,” she said, “you have been very kind to me, and I have often been very ungrateful; but forgive me now, because I am very sorry.”
It was Mrs. Forsythe who eventually marshalled the moist little party down the stairs, where Cynthia, in the last stages of excitement, was in the hall. “Oh, Miss Monica!” was all she could say, and then she too burst rather noisily into tears.
The carriages had been obtained from the local livery stable, and all the coachmen had white buttonholes. There was a little crowd round the green iron gate of The Laurels’ front garden, and opposite, a couple of nurses stopped, leaning their arms on the big white handles of their prams. At the windows here and there up the road figures appeared peering—one or two people opened their windows at the bottom.
“It’s me—it can’t be,” thought Monica, as she walked down the front steps holding Aunt Ellie’s arm. “It’s me, going to be married—and I thought I never should. And to someone like the Dream Man—not to someone you’ve got to keep on pretending all the time is as nice as you wish he was. But to someone who really is—only much more heavenly than you thought anyone could be.”
The brougham smelt of hay—hay and a faint aroma of stable. Monica stared out of the window over her bouquet, which was almost as large as she was. It had come that morning from London by special messenger. And the night before had come a beautiful rope of pearls—not a necklet—a rope that fell nearly to her waist. “To wear to-morrow,” had been on the card, with her lover’s initials. And Cynthia had declared that they must be Ciro. “You can’t tell the difference, you can’t indeed, miss,” she had affirmed. And in a way Monica had wished that they had been Ciro—it seemed almost wrong to have anything so expensive only to wear. But she had felt quite sure that they were not, only she had not pressed the point for fear of hurting Cynthia’s feelings. And now the brougham had turned the corner—and there was the house—and three taxis drawn up against the curb opposite, and the three chauffeurs leaning against the rails of the Gardens’ fence, smoking and staring, and a little cluster of people at the foot of the steps.
Mason was in the hall—a Mason very smart in an obviously new black suit. His usually expressionless face changed a little at the sight of Monica, and his steady eyes seemed to soften a little. He preceded her and Aunt Ellie into the dining-room, and made a little bow. “When the rest of the party ’as arrived I will inform Sir Gregory,” he said; “the clergy is already there.”
Aunt Ellie made a little bow back. In her heart of hearts she was glad that Monica was not being married at the chapel. It would have been awkward to have had to introduce Lady Fanshawe to her dressmaker and her milliner, because they would have been certain to have come to the reception which they would have had to have at the Lecture Hall which adjoined the sacred edifice. If Monica had been married at chapel they must have had the whole thing on a rather more elaborate scale. So Aunt Ellie, without in the least feeling herself a snob, was glad that it was arranged as it was. And now Aunt Hilda and Mrs. Forsythe came in, and Mrs. Forsythe went straight up to Monica and gave her dress two or three little tugs, and then very gently let the beautiful veil down over her face.
“It is all ready, madame.” Mason’s quick eye at once descried Mrs. Forsythe, and although including the Aunts in a sort of general bow, he spoke to her. “One of us,” as he expressed it to Mrs. Mannering afterwards.
The door of the upstairs room was open, and the most heavenly scent of flowers blew out on to the landing. White lilac—it stood in great sheaves in the corners. White roses—the man must be a millionaire, thought Mrs. Forsythe humorously. And she gave Monica a tiny push. “Go straight up to the couch, darling,” she whispered, for the Aunts were obviously incapable of action.
Monica only saw the man on the couch. Dressed differently, in something grey and a white waistcoat—a different sort of collar and tie. But his face was turned to the door and his eyes were the same, and she forgot everyone but him. “Greg,” she breathed, and she broke into a little run.
“Monica!” but it was only from a scandalized Aunt Ellie that the murmur came. No one else cared; it was too poignant a tragedy to see that helpless figure and the illumined face bent over it.
“Dearly beloved . . .” The Vicar having silently, and with great skill, collected the wandering attention of the little company, the Marriage Service began. Monica stood close to the couch, her hand gripped in the lean brown one. Aunt Fanny was almost entirely obliterated by the huge bouquet. Lady Fanshawe stared astounded; why, the girl was almost a beauty, and she had once been on a War Committee with the woman who had whispered in the bride’s ear before she came in. Aunt Ellie and Aunt Hilda both gave it up and cried, but silently, without sniffing at all. Mrs. Mannering began to sniff, but was stopped by a quelling glance from Mason, who stood like a watchdog as near to the couch as the Vicar would allow him to go. Mrs. Forsythe, deeply moved, stood watching the two whose hands were clasped; what a magnificent-looking man, she was thinking; but after all, although so far as worldly things were concerned it was a wonderful marriage for her godchild, had it been right to allow it? But that question was now settled once and for all. “Those whom God hath joined together”—the stupefying words sounded quietly through the flower-scented room.
The rest of the service was got through quickly; Monica’s hand was free now and she could see the ring. It was very narrow, and of platinum—Gregory had wanted that, preferring it to gold. He was her husband—and she felt that because of that she dared not look at him. Supposing she ever did anything to make him angry—supposing she disappointed him somehow—supposing—but Monica suddenly became conscious that the Vicar was praying; she dropped on her knees beside the couch.
Gregory Fanshawe turned a little on one side and laid his hand on the little head under the veil. He suddenly forgot himself; during the service he had felt self-conscious and resentful; he loathed the brutal publicity of it all. But now, here was his wife, the poor little thing, chained to his couch for the rest of her life, and in exchange for what? A handle to her name, and perhaps a couple of strings of pearls. It was a darned shame—but he would try to be good to her—and after all she had seemed to want it. He pressed his hand rather more heavily on the silk net.
And now it was all over; the little group round the couch parted to let the Vicar bring the Register closer up, and Gregory Fanshawe took his Swan pen from his valet with a smile that brought the tears to Mason’s usually self-controlled eyes. And Monica signed tremulously, laughing shyly as she met her husband’s eyes. “You’re fifteen years older than I am,” she said, not knowing what to say. And then there were congratulations, and a few words of genuine cordiality from Lady Fanshawe, who was so relieved at Monica’s air of distinction that she quite forgot for the moment that she was a Dowager. And then Mason and Mrs. Mannering got very busy together, assisted by Mannering in an exceedingly well-cut uniform, who, with the trim house-parlourmaid, with the flat bow of wide black ribbon on her neat coil behind, helped to carry white-covered tables and set them down in distant corners. And then there was the most delightful wedding-breakfast, absolutely perfect of its kind. Gregory Fanshawe had seen to all the details himself; and Monica drank champagne of the very driest and only made the tiniest grimace when no one was looking. Then at last there were speeches, and the Vicar spoke very delightfully, proposing the bride’s health, and the man on the couch replied, raising himself as high as he could on one elbow. Mason watching him like a lynx. And then there was a pause—people generally went away, thought Monica, remembering two weddings she had been to, but how could she and Sir Gregory go? They couldn’t; the other people would have to.
Mrs. Forsythe, however, had had a word with the bridegroom the evening before; he had looked, as that astute woman thought, uncommonly anxious to say a good deal more, but had eventually not done so, to her unfeigned disappointment. So she knew that it was the moment to get Monica quietly out of the room, and she did so with a gentle touch on the soft arm.
“What happens now, Cousin Ethel?” asked Monica, outside the shut door on the landing.
“You change your frock, darling,” said Mrs. Forsythe; “upstairs, I’ll show you. Come along.”
Upstairs was the same as downstairs, two beautiful rooms joined by a folding door. Mrs. Forsythe opened one of the doors and then stood still. The child ought to be pleased. Ah, she was!
“Cousin Ethel—not all for me!” Monica, between the folding doors, was trembling in her misty dress. The front room was all white—white with the softest pink in curtains and carpet. Everything that money coupled with a perfect taste could do had been done. The bed, in the far corner, white, with flowers beautifully painted on the wooden panels. The dressing-table, the oval mirror of which caught the gleam from the sea in its bevelled edges, the wardrobe, the second dressing-table with a place to sit in, between the two rows of drawers. “Cousin Ethel!” Monica swung slowly round.
“Look at the sitting-room, darling.” Mrs. Forsythe put an arm round Monica’s waist. “And then you must change. But look at the writing-table—isn’t it a lovely one?”
“Cousin Ethel”—Monica’s face was a picture—“I want to thank him,” she said abruptly.
“Presently you shall. But first you must take off your wedding-dress. Come along to the dressing-table.”
“Are these mine?” Monica had lifted a tortoise-shell hand-glass and was looking at the gold initials on the back of it.
“Yes, everything is yours.” In spite of what Mrs. Forsythe considered the very grave disadvantages of the marriage, she also considered Monica to be a very lucky young woman. And she felt that she had a priceless opportunity before her now, and as she slipped the beautifully cut skirt over the small head she suddenly determined to make use of it. Monica must not . . . And then Monica herself gave her an opening.
“Cousin Ethel, don’t I sleep in his room, then?” she asked, and her fingers were uneasy and her eyes suddenly wide and forlorn.
“No, darling, you don’t,” said Mrs. Forsythe quickly. “You see, he is an invalid, and he is accustomed to an invalid’s routine. That’s what I was going to say something to you about: don’t, whatever you do, appear to mind, or to think it in any way unusual. A great many married people now sleep in different rooms; it is a very usual thing.”
“At first, is it?” queried Monica, still uneasy.
This was a poser, but Mrs. Forsythe was a woman of the world, and although she herself suddenly felt very uneasy at Monica’s searching gaze—what on earth had that stupid Ellie Fisher been about?—she rose at once to the occasion. After all, if Monica began by either crying or appearing hurt, the whole thing would go to pieces in less than a month. But she wished unfeignedly that Sir Gregory had been frank with her the night before. He had evidently been uneasy about something, and it must have been this; he was not sure how alive Monica was to the state of affairs. However . . .
“Absolutely usual,” she said cheerfully; “so don’t forget, darling; take it quite naturally. And now—don’t you think I was right about the grey?”
Monica saw herself in the long glass in between the two smaller ones. The long string of pearls hung low down on the beautiful beaded crêpe de Chine jumper. The shoes were of grey brocaded velvet and the stockings as thick and crunchy as Jay’s silk stockings can be. “I look nice,” she said, and a smile broke over her serious face.
“Very nice indeed,” said her godmother, and she swallowed a lump in her throat. “And now downstairs again, darling, or they will be wondering what has become of you.”
Everybody in the beautiful flower-filled room stopped talking as Monica came in. She felt very shy and self-conscious as the steady gaze from the invalid couch was levelled on her and Gregory Fanshawe beckoned. “I want you to talk to my mother,” he said. “Take her over to the window, mother; you have ten minutes or so before you need go for your train.”
Monica and her mother-in-law stood by the open window. The sun was beginning to sink just a little lower over the sea—it must be about four o’clock, Monica thought, staring past the woman beside her. When would everyone go? She longed for that.
“Well, little girl, I hope you will be very happy,” said Lady Fanshawe kindly. She was a hard woman, but the small, serious face attracted her, and she was so devoutly thankful to find that Monica was not the second-rate adventuress that she had been led to expect that she felt unusually cordial.
“I know I shall,” said Monica; “you see, I love your son so frightfully that just being near him makes me happy.”
This was not how the women of Lady Fanshawe’s world talked. But, still, there was something attractive about it, and she unbent still further and kissed the soft face near her own. “I hope he will be very good to you,” she said. “And now I must say good-bye to him and rush for my train. Your nice godmother is coming with me; we have met before. Isn’t it odd?”
Monica stood in a sort of happy dream as everyone came up and shook hands and then faded away. But she laughed when the Aunts, last of all, came up to kiss her. “Oh, no,” she said; “this isn’t good-bye. I may come round after tea, or perhaps we shall meet on the Parade.”
But when the Aunts, very chastened and weepy and last of everybody, had vanished down the stairs, Monica was suddenly seized with a wave of intensest self-consciousness. Even Mason had followed the Aunts, shutting the door behind him. Now she really was alone with her husband, what should she say or do?
But Gregory Fanshawe saw the nervous working of the small hands that hung straight down at Monica’s side, and although tired beyond expression, and craving for nothing so much as to be left alone with his valet to be got out of his morning suit with its suffocating collar, he spoke very kindly to her, and held out a brown hand. “Come along, little grey mouse,” he said.
“Tell me, how tired are you?” Monica’s heart surged up into her eyes as she felt the strong fingers close round hers.
“Not an atom,” laughed Gregory Fanshawe gaily. “Now, come along and sit down here, and tell me what you thought of it all.”
“First, may I say something?”
“Of course, anything.”
“Well, what I should like best would be to go upstairs and sit in that heavenly room for a little while, while you have a little sleep,” said Monica, her whole being one surge of longing that he would say that he didn’t want to sleep.
But Gregory Fanshawe was so relieved that he very nearly showed it, although mercifully not quite, and he pressed the bell in the side of his couch with a finger that quivered with relief. “Mason, show Lady Fanshawe up to her room,” he said as the valet stood at the door, “and then get Mannering to come and clear up here a bit. And I’ll change, Mason.”
“Very good, sir.” Mason stood attentive as Monica hesitated, laughing shyly.
“Am I really Lady Fanshawe?” she said.
“Yes, really.”
“Thank you very very much for that perfectly lovely room,” said Monica, stooping.
“I’m so glad you like it,” said her husband quietly, and he put a gentle hand on each side of the shy face close to his. “Mason, get out my blue serge, will you?” he said, over his shoulder.
“Yessir.” Mason vanished, and Gregory Fanshawe drew the flushed face down close to his and kissed it. Then he sighed.
“Oh, my goodness! have I done right?” he groaned, more to himself than to the girl beside him.
“Don’t say that when you know I’m almost dead with joy at even being near you,” urged Monica vehemently.
“Well, but the great thing is, will you stay dead with joy?” queried Gregory Fanshawe, suddenly aching with weariness. “It’s such a sickening life for a girl, chained to the side of this couch . . . you ought to have fun, to be able to get about. I had no right to do it!” he burst out abruptly, and he laid the backs of his hands over his eyes.
Monica stared; then she gasped, and then she looked round wildly. “Mason—oh, Mason!—you come,” she said to the valet, who had noiselessly re-entered the room; “I don’t know what to do when he’s like this.”
“You just leave ’im to me, m’lady,” said Mason calmly, and he allowed the faintest flicker of a smile to play over his face. “Sir Gregory ’as missed ’is usual rest, you see, and ’e’s tired out; ’e will be quite ’imself again when ’e’s had ’is usual rest. We will say a cup of tea at ’alf- past five, shall we, sir?” he finished up, his quiet finger on the brown wrist.
“Tea! Good God, we’ve only just stopped eating!” said Gregory Fanshawe, his face grey with fatigue.
“Well, we’ll say half-past five, at any rate, sir,” said Mason calmly; “and now, m’lady, let me show you up to your room.”
“Will he be more cheerful when he’s been to sleep, Mason?” Monica stopped at the door of her room, her face all one agonized questioning. This was awful; her husband already looked as if he wished she wasn’t there. And it was only his wedding-day—it had hardly begun yet!
“Certainly he will, m’lady,” replied Mason consolingly, inwardly all one colossal doubt. Such a bit of folly as this marriage he had never witnessed, as he thought to himself, standing and solemnly surveying Monica. “Not that she isn’t a good sight better than that Aline, though,” he meditated, descending the stairs again.
“Oh, my God, get me out of these clothes. Mason!” Gregory Fanshawe gasped with relief as his valet came quietly into the room, shutting the door behind him.
From the wide bay window of the big sitting-room on the first floor you could just see where the turning came that took you round to Sweyn Road. There was a lamp-post there, and the light from it shone in long yellow fingers into the windows of the house that stood just opposite it. Monica had often looked in at those windows in the evening; it was one of the few houses that kept its blinds up after dark, and she always thought it so friendly of the people that lived in it to let people see in like that, especially as they lived the sort of life that you liked to look at. There were lots of children in the mornings; there was always a perambulator at the foot of the steps with a baby being crammed into it, and at night there were funny little scrubby schoolboys doing lessons at a table with a red cloth on it. And there was a mother and a father—the father was rather a small man with an untidy sort of moustache, but he was a friendly father, and often on Sunday afternoons Monica met him on the Parade with a rather uninteresting-looking little boy hanging on to each arm. It all seemed happy and sort of loving; that was what Monica liked about it.
What were they doing now? she wondered, staring out of the side bit of the bay-window towards the lighted lamp-post. And as she wondered, Monica suddenly felt a wave of the wildest desolation flood over her. It was seven o’clock on the evening of her wedding-day, and somehow all the exultation and rapture of the earlier part of the day seemed to have gone, leaving behind it only a chilly void. There was nothing to do—nothing to do that you were used to doing, that is to say. It was all so grand, people calling you m’lady, and bringing you beautifully arranged tea on silver trays, and putting brass cans of hot water in your basin with linen towels on the top of them, and sort of expecting you not to notice them. Now with Cynthia you said, “Hallo, Cynthia; how’s your young man?” or something like that; that is, you did if there wasn’t an Aunt anywhere about. But with this housemaid, you sort of looked away, and pretended you were not noticing what she was doing. And she had not seen her husband at all since the time when Mason took her up to her bedroom; as a matter of fact, Mason had brought her up her tea and said that his master was still asleep, and would her ladyship please occupy herself as she felt inclined until dinner, which would be at eight. And Monica had said that she would, and had instantly longed to rush round to The Laurels and see the Aunts—somebody that she was used to. But instead of that she decided to begin to unpack, and she had done so, laying her clothes in the long, beautifully slipping drawers that already had great fat mauve lavender bags in them. And now it was nearly dinner-time, and she had come down into the sitting-room, still fragrant with the masses of white flowers, dressed in one of the loose, floppy, teagowny sort of evening garments that her godmother had given her, and stood staring out of the window feeling terribly strange, with a sort of grippy, homesicky feeling in her throat.
“Well?” the folding door had swung open and Gregory Fanshawe, very gently propelled by Mason, was wheeled in on his invalid couch. He was in evening dress, very immaculate as to the tie and collar, and for the first time no rug hid his lower limbs. Very shiny black pumps covered his very long feet, and his dress trousers were beautifully creased. What it had cost him to get into those dress clothes, only Mason could have told; but he owed it to her, he had told himself—she had had a rotten time so far.
“But how frantically tall you are!” exclaimed Monica, who had turned and was staring at the long figure.
“Six feet one and a half, to be exact,” laughed the man in the chair. “I look longer, you see, because you have never seen my feet uncovered before. Now, what sort of an evening have you had? Rotten, I’m afraid; I felt a brute to go off as I did. But I was dog-tired, and I felt that if I didn’t sleep I should go off with a pop. I do hope you didn’t mind awfully. I slept like a top and feel a different creature.” All the time he was talking Gregory Fanshawe was looking at Monica. How pretty she looked in that floppy get-up!
“No, I didn’t mind at all. I wanted you to rest,” replied Monica, who felt her desolation growing in leaps and bounds. He looked more like a person from another world than ever. And Mason had wheeled in a beautifully laid table—a wonderful invalid table laid for two people, with regiments of knives and forks on it, and with about five different wine-glasses standing by the knives. She would be certain to make a mistake. The loveliest rose-shaded table-lamp stood in the centre of it all, and Mason, fumbling in a corner, clicked something and the light flooded the table. And then he went round the room clicking other things, and there it was—just that shining silver-laden table standing in a pool of light.
“Dinner, hooray!” said Gregory Fanshawe boyishly, wanting to put Monica at her ease and not quite knowing how to do it.
“It’s the being quite alone with you that makes me feel so frightful,” burst out Monica, as both menservants left the room for the first course.
“Dear . . . don’t.” Gregory Fanshawe was deeply touched, and he held out his hand. “Come, tell me: there’s nothing in the world to be afraid of. I’m afraid I upset you by what I said, just before you went up to rest. But you know—I get so dog-tired that I don’t know really sometimes what I am saying. Forget it, if it was horrid; I have already absolutely forgotten what it was myself.”
“I am so terrified I shall use the wrong knife and fork or something, and Mason will see,” stammered Monica with brimming eyes.
“Just watch me, if you are not certain,” said Gregory Fanshawe, dropping the small hand he held with a jerk, as Mason and Mannering came in with the soup.
Dinner was perfect, and Gregory Fanshawe drank a good deal of champagne. It was up to him to make Monica’s first meal in her new home a success, he thought, and unaided he could not have done it. But the 1911 vintage warmed his heart and made him talkative, and Monica smiled and dimpled, and then eventually leant back in her chair and laughed aloud. And then came ices, and Monica made her first mistake. “What heavenly-coloured sauce!” she exclaimed, and emptied the heavily cut liqueur glass of crème-de-menthe over the ice on her plate.
Neither of the servants moved a muscle, nor did the man on the long couch. But when Monica lifted her spoon to her mouth, she gasped and set it down again. “What a burny sort of ice,” she said, and her eyes watered.
“Give Lady Fanshawe another ice, Mason,” said Gregory hurriedly. He had very nearly tipped his own liqueur over his own ice to keep her in countenance, but he felt he could not quite manage it.
Mason replaced the swimming plate in a flash, and Monica looked at the salver at her elbow, this time rather doubtfully.
“Which won’t be so hot?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t have one this time,” said Gregory Fanshawe, longing to laugh aloud, but not daring to.
But when the servants had left the room, Monica saw the green gleam still at his elbow and the blood surged up into her face. “It wasn’t a sauce at all,” she said; “it was a drink, and I’ve disgraced you by tipping it over my ice.”
“No, you haven’t”—Gregory Fanshawe felt a wild desire to reach out and seize his wife in his arms and kiss her trembling mouth. She was a sweet little, pathetic figure, and her awkward mistake had made him feel fonder of her. And what an extraordinary difference suitable clothes made in a person!
But Monica was ashamed and overwhelmed, and the newness and strangeness of everything surged up into her throat, and she gripped at the edge of the cloth and crumpled it up in her fingers. “I have made a ghastly mistake,” she said, “and the servants are laughing at me outside the door.”
Gregory Fanshawe felt fairly sure that they were; but he only smiled kindly, trying to put her at her ease. And Monica picked up the fat little silver spoon and started again on the ice, trying to fight down the wild longing to be somewhere where she could not make stupid mistakes—The Laurels; there, there would be straightforward things like potato-pie and blancmange.
Outside the door Mannering leant against the wall and put his hand over his mouth. “Ha! ha! ha!” he spluttered.
“’Ullo! wot’s come over you?” Mason was arranging a couple of dishes on the dumb-waiter, and had his back turned; but he wheeled round.
“Didn’t you see?” Mannering was still spluttering behind his hand.
“See wot?” said Mason, standing very still.
“Why, she spilt the crème-de-menthe over the ice-cream.”
“Don’t they do that at these Maygate ’otels, then?” inquired Mason suavely. “No; I dessay not; bit be’ind the times down here. The very latest, of course, that is,” and Mason turned round again.
“Why didn’t Sir Gregory do it, then?” inquired Mannering, whose mirthful face had turned slowly from mirth to discomfiture, but who was not going to be “done” without a struggle.
“Becos Sir Gregory prefers ’is ice au naturel,” responded Mason, who was banking on Mannering not knowing what au naturel meant. He himself had often heard the term used in France, although perhaps until that moment not in connection with an ice.
This settled Mannering once for all, and he scuttled downstairs with a pile of plates, leaving Mason to take in the coffee. That despatched, Monica declining it tremulously, he removed the cloth with a deft turn of the wrist, replaced the lamp in the middle of the polished oval, put the two heavily cut decanters in front of his master, and then vanished, first of all laying a long curved pipe and oilskin tobacco-pouch on the little table on the off-side of the couch.
“I say, perhaps you won’t allow this!” Gregory Fanshawe picked up his pouch and laughed across at the small figure that sat very still in the pool of pink light.
“I like you to smoke it,” said Monica, trying to choke back the shy misery she was feeling. If only he was not so sure, she thought despairingly, it would make her feel more sure.
“Don’t you like coffee after dinner?” inquired her husband kindly.
“Only with sugar and milk,” replied Monica, her eyes on the little black circle in the tiny cup. “And I am sure it is wrong to like it like that. Mason would think it was wrong. And I am afraid of him in those ways,” said Monica, beginning to cry.
“My darling child!” Gregory Fanshawe’s soul was filled with a humorous despair. His wedding-night, and his bride practically in tears the whole time, for, unnoticed, he had watched her face at dinner a good deal. “You funny little thing . . . come closer; I can’t get at you there. What the devil does it matter how you have your coffee, dear?” he said into her hair.
“Those are the things that servants see,” sobbed Monica, “and it matters because I am your wife.”
“It doesn’t matter a damn,” said Gregory Fanshawe, “and Mason isn’t the sort of man who would ever notice it either. Come, stop crying . . . we’ll get back the coffee”; he felt for the bell in his couch.
“No, no, no!” Monica interrupted and caught hold of the lean finger. “Please not—I don’t want it; honestly I don’t!”
“Very well, then, but you’re a silly little goose to weep about nothing. Now, ’shun! and let me see that you really have stopped.”
“I have.” Monica lifted her face.
“Good child. Now come closer again, while I light my pipe. That’s it—ah, that’s good!” Gregory Fanshawe blew out a great cloud of smoke.
They sat silent for a time, the eyes of the man on the couch fixed on the ceiling. Then he suddenly spoke. “Why do you move?” he asked.
“Something makes me,” said Monica, her face still hidden.
“Perhaps my arm is too heavy,” said Gregory Fanshawe, taking it away.
“No, don’t!” Monica caught it back. “I adore it on me,” she said; “keep it there—please.”
“Very well.” Gregory Fanshawe lay very still; then he took his pipe from between his teeth, rapped out the ashes with his free hand, and lay still again.
“I feel . . .” Monica suddenly sat upright, and pushed the hair out of her eyes.
“Well? What?” A sudden spurt of flame from the glow at the back of the well grate flashed over the still figure on the couch.
“I feel . . . I don’t know what I feel.” Monica’s breath was coming more quickly. “It’s here . . .” She laid her hand on her heart. “You wouldn’t know, but it’s . . .” She suddenly let her face fall again.
“Tell me.” Gregory Fanshawe laid two very tender hands on the head on his breast.
“It’s—it’s the sort of feeling that makes me want . . . Ah! you knew,” she breathed, as he let her go again.
“Well, perhaps I did,” said Gregory Fanshawe, with a flicker of a smile on his still, rather cruel mouth.
“Will you kiss me again perhaps, soon?” asked Monica, her mind fleeing back to the little room under the roof where she had stood and trembled and cried in front of the Dream Man.
“Well . . .” Gregory Fanshawe moved his head a little on the leather pillow. It was damnably unkind of him, this, he thought. But, after all . . . she was his wife. “Yes; perhaps I will,” he said; “put your head down again while I get out a cigarette.”
“I like the smell of that,” said Monica dreamily, as the blue smoke clung round her face in a dim haze.
“Yes, they’re very good ones, only far too much Latakia in them. Now, keep still, and try and go to sleep while I smoke this . . . and then I’ll kiss you again.”
“I’m afraid, now I feel your cigarette coming to an end.” Monica spoke abruptly, and tried to struggle her fair head from under the detaining hand. “Besides, it must be very late; Mason will be wanting to come and put you to bed, and he will be angry with me for keeping you up so long.”
“Mason doesn’t come until he’s rung for,” said Gregory Fanshawe, “and I keep you up, not you me. And there’s nothing in the world to be afraid of, either; see, that’s better,” as after the softest click the room sank quietly into darkness.
“How did you do it?” trembled Monica, the light of a darting flame on her face.
“There’s a switch on the couch. Now, just an atom nearer. Now . . . Ah, you little darling!” The room quivered and sank into silence as Gregory Fanshawe found the frightened little mouth with his own.
“Don’t stop! Oh, must you—must you?” Monica was shaking and sobbing; she caught one of the lean hands to her neck. “Why, it’s . . . Gregory, don’t be so cruel—you said it didn’t matter how long we stayed up. Don’t send me away from you now, just when . . .” She flung her hands over her face as the pink pool of light gleamed out again.
“Yes; but now it really is bedtime,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and his mouth looked odd and crooked in the lamplight. “Besides, I . . . Can you find your own way up to your room, dear? I want to have another pipe before I have Mason up.”
“But couldn’t I just have the tiniest sofa, or anything like that, in the corner of your bedroom?” choked Monica. “Cousin Ethel said that I wasn’t to show that I thought it was odd to sleep by myself, and I don’t. But there’s something so frightfully lonely about it after this. Gregory, please!”
The man on the couch turned his head a little and looked at the small figure beside him. Why had he not done what instinct had prompted him to do, he thought, namely confide in Mrs. Forsythe the night before? For unless he was very much mistaken, the early-Victorian Aunt had got cold feet after he had gone the other day. No girl who . . . Then he swallowed a couple of times and spoke gently: “No, it wouldn’t do, dear,” he said; “you see, I am really quite an invalid, and Mason comes in and out. Good-night—and I hope you will sleep peacefully on your first night in your new home.”
“Not half as peacefully as if I could be nearer to you,” urged Monica, clasping her hands, in wild longing that he would relent.
But Gregory Fanshawe had had just about as much as he could stand, and his eyebrows contracted a little as he answered. No, don’t, dear,” he said; “really it is absolutely out of the question. Good-night, and mind you ring if you want anything. You’ll want a maid presently, I expect, but I thought you’d rather settle down a bit first.”
“I should be afraid of a maid,” said Monica heavily. “Good-night, and I hope you will have a very good night too.” And Monica walked out of the room, her hands clasped over a heaving breast. Desolation, more desolation than anything she had even experienced at The Laurels. Because it was here—within her reach: all the rapture, and flame, and wild sort of struggling feelings inside. And they had all been struck from her grasp by the cold voice of the man who had it in his power to make her feel like that, but who did not want her near him.
“Do you remember my once saying something to you about a Dr. Wheeler?” Monica had been trying to bring out this sentence for about half an hour, and when she did at last bring it out, her voice gave way in the middle, showing plainly, to the man who was lying quietly reading, how nervous she was. So he did not snap at her as he would have liked to do, because having someone almost always in the room with him was beginning to get on his nerves.
“Yes, I do remember. Why?”
“Why, because he’s here,” said Monica nervously. “I don’t mean here exactly,” as Gregory Fanshawe laid down his book and looked jerkily back over his shoulder, “but here in Maygate. Cynthia told me—she’s our servant, you know; at least, not ours now—the Aunts’, I mean,” said Monica, getting redder and redder. “And her young man is a guard, and on the train from London the day before yesterday he was there—Dr. Wheeler was, I mean——”
“Well?”
“Gregory, I want you to see him.” Monica had got quite white, and she gripped together her hands on her knees.
“It’s absolutely useless, dear.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke kindly, but very decidedly. “And Monica, if you care for me, as you say you do, don’t talk about this sort of thing at all. It drives me absolutely frantic; it is the one thing I simply cannot stand.” Gregory suddenly closed his eyes.
“Gregory, if you kill me, I must—if it makes you hate me, I must.” Monica got up and came nearer to the couch, her eyes wide and black in her white face. “It’s in my soul, the feeling I have that you could be well if something was done. I am always dreaming about you—you standing up, instead of lying on your back. You could, you could!” Monica wrung her hands.
“Be quiet, will you!” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were blazing.
“Gregory . . .!”
“Yes? Well, then, shut up. I’ve told you that I won’t see a doctor—very well, then, leave it at that. Respect my condition. I can’t get up and walk out of the room when you say something I don’t like. Very well, then—don’t say it; the remedy is obvious.”
“Gregory . . .!”
“Now cry,” said Gregory Fanshawe, his cruel gaze on the anguished face.
“I don’t feel as if I could, somehow,” said Monica, and she spoke stupidly. There was surely something perilously like hatred in the blue eyes regarding her.
“That’s unusual,” said Gregory Fanshawe with a vicious bite in his voice.
“Well, perhaps I will just go upstairs for a bit,” said Monica, not knowing what she was saying, and groping with her damp hands on the arm of her chair. What was it, this frightful thing that was happening? He had never been like this before. He had been very silent—often not speaking at all for hours. He had been moody—irritable, even, but never like this. This—an awful sort of heavy, raging dislike, as if, if he had been an ordinary man, he would have struck her across her face and been glad to do so. She got up.
“Mason, I should be glad if you would just wheel me into my room.”
Ah! he had rung for Mason, then—then he really must hate her. Monica began to move towards the door, longing to help herself by leaning against the chairs and sofas as she went. She walked across the landing, staring vaguely into the long mirror that her husband had had fixed in the wall so that she should be able to see if her petticoat was showing, or anything, when she went out. Then she walked upstairs, taking each step very slowly. Once in her room, she shut the door and walked over to the window, staring out, but still vaguely. Somehow she felt as if something had got jammed in her head, the thing that you think with. How long had she stood there? She did not know; but there was a knock at the door. . . .
“Sir Gregory would like to speak to your ladyship.” Mason was there, his funny stolid eyes blinking a little.
Monica stared back. “I think I don’t feel very well. Mason,” she said; “I think I would rather not come down, if you don’t mind.”
“Pardon me, m’lady.” Mason got very red; he was exceeding his duties, he knew, but something in the small stricken face in front of him made him feel that he must. “Pardon my presumption, so to speak, but if I may say so, don’t take it to ’eart if Sir Gregory ’as given your ladyship the rough side of ’is tongue, as it were. Sir Gregory does it, not meaning to, as it were, but just because ’is condition leads ’im on to it, so to speak.”
Something in front of Monica’s eyes cleared. Mason was sorry for her. Then somebody did like her still; it wasn’t all blackness and despair in this howling desolation in which she suddenly found herself. “Mason,” she said—“Mason, you know him better than I do . . . Would he be likely to hate me—so soon?” The eyes were wide and tragic in her face.
“’Ate your ladyship!” Mason was genuinely shocked. “It’s real naughty of ’im,” he said to himself, thinking with half-exasperated affection of the man downstairs. “M’lady, never let such a thought enter your mind. ’Ate you! Why, ’is one thought is for you,” said Mason feeling that, as he was doing it, he might as well do it properly, so to speak.
“Oh, well, then, perhaps I had better go down,” said Monica, her eyes still on the pale square face in front of her.
“I should, m’lady, if I were you,” replied Mason, standing respectfully aside to let the wretched little figure pass. But as Monica reached the downstairs landing and opened the door and a gust of freshest salt-laden breeze swept through the beautiful room she shivered. Would he look at her with that cold, appraising look of dislike in his eyes? What had she done to bring it there? People did not look at you like that for nothing.
But, as always when Gregory Fanshawe had lost his temper, he was sorry, and his blue eyes were full of a half-rueful penitence as they met Monica’s terrified ones. “Come in, dear,” he said; “I’m sorry. I’ve got a foul temper, and now I’m afraid you’ve found it out.”
“I irritate you,” said Monica dully.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do—I must; you couldn’t look at me like that if I didn’t.”
“No, you don’t—only I loathe the idea of a doctor. I’ve suffered such torments, you see, being buoyed up with vague hopes and then being let down again. But to please you—and to show you that I really am sorry—I’ll see the brute. Where is he to be found?”
“I will find out,” said Monica, only conscious of the same dull despair that she had felt upstairs in her bedroom. He did dislike her, he must; but he was self-controlled and had been able to hide it up till then. But now it had all blazed out in one great blast, and she knew it, and it could never be the same again. After all, now she came to think it over, he never was at all loving. In the excitement and the newness of everything she had not noticed it so much, and the first evening he had been kind. But now it had worn off, and he never would be so any more. And she had got to live with him, knowing that he did not like her. How could she—how could she? especially knowing as she did, too, that it cost a lot to keep an extra person. And he had given her heaps of new clothes, and money—pounds at a time. But it was all desolate and blank and despairing now, especially as now she got that sick, trembling feeling inside more than ever when she looked at him—she adored him so.
“Come here,” said Gregory Fanshawe, holding out his hand.
“No,” said Monica, backing.
“Yes, you are to. Do what I tell you, Monica, or I really shall be angry.”
“I’m afraid,” gasped Monica, holding her hands to her neck.
“What of? Don’t be ridiculous; I shan’t eat you! Come!” There was a very winning look on the humorous mouth.
“I irritate you, like Aunt Ellie used to irritate me: every time she put her fork in her mouth I used to want to hit it out. And you feel like that with me. I’m stuck here, and you can’t get away from me,” said Monica, still with her back to the door.
“I don’t feel anything of the kind. Come here, Monica, I tell you.”
“Greg!” Monica had come across the room with the lagging step of a child afraid of a punishment. “Greg!” She caught one brown hand to her breast and held it there.
“Well, what? Come, dear, don’t look at me as if I was an ogre. I’m sorry—really sorry—and I’ll see that beastly doctor of yours. Go and do some shopping—buy Aunt Fanny a new hat, get yourself some more of that jolly chocolate that you make such a little pig of yourself over, after lunch,” said Gregory Fanshawe, laughing with an effort. Gad! what a damned fool he had been to marry. “Have you used up all your money yet?”
“No; I’ve got lots left.”
“Well then, go out and spend it,” said Gregory Fanshawe. “Buy yourself one of those beady sort of bags with tortoise-shell round the top—you said you liked them. Give me my cheque-book, dear; first drawer of the writing-table.”
“I don’t want any more money,” burst out Monica with a rush. “I only want—I only want just to feel that I’m not—not all a frightful bother and drag on you. You see, I love you so frightfully—you have no idea. It makes me . . .”
Gregory Fanshawe drew his brows together with a jerk. “Don’t, dear;” he said; “it’s most frightfully sweet of you, and all that, but I simply can’t stand hearing it. It makes me feel such an unutterable cad. After all, here you are, practically a child—tied,” and Gregory Fanshawe moved his head painfully on the leather pillow, like a tethered animal trying to dodge a brutal blow.
“I want to be tied,” said Monica quietly.
“Well, I don’t see how you can,” said Gregory Fanshawe; but his eyes lost their hard look. She was rather a dear in a way, if only she would sit in her sitting-room sometimes. It was the always having somebody about that was beginning to get on his nerves. That really was all—that, and the feeling that he had done a shabby thing in chaining her to him for all eternity because he wanted to put himself out of the reach of his mother and the girl to whom he had once been engaged. However, so far as he could see at present he was the one who was going to suffer most for it, so that would expiate it a bit. “You go out, dear,” he said again, “and spend some money; you always enjoy that.”
And, mercifully, Monica took the hint and spoke cheerfully and acquiescently in return. He did not hate her, then; it was that he had got that feeling that she used to get with the Aunts, that if she did not see somebody else for a change she would kill them all. She would go out—it would be a change. “I should love to go out for a walk,” she said; “but I still have heaps of money—honestly, I have. Please don’t give me any more.”
Dr. Wheeler was a very busy man, and he had regular consulting hours. But he stopped and looked at the card that his manservant had just laid down on the littered writing-table. Fanshawe—Lady Fanshawe. He wrinkled his lined forehead. Fanshawe—it seemed to wake some echo in his subconscious mind. Where had he heard the name? Oh yes, of course, the Vicar had told him. The Vicar had come into the hospital, perched on the edge of the chalk cliff, just as an operation was over, about a fortnight before, and, still in his white overalls, Dr. Wheeler had leant his back against the desk in the bare consulting-room, and over the rim of a glass of soda-water had heard the story of the sad marriage at which the Vicar had just been officiating. A young flying officer, on his back now for five years, just married to a young girl. Very young—radiantly young, the Vicar had said, with a catch in his voice; it had been one of the most poignantly sad things that he had ever witnessed. And here was the young girl—to see him; Dr. Wheeler took his hat off again and put it upside down on his blotting-pad. “Show Lady Fanshawe in here, Bailey,” he said to the waiting servant.
“The car is at the door, sir,” said Bailey in an aggrieved voice.
“Well, then, let it stay there,” said Dr. Wheeler curtly.
“Dr. Wheeler will see your ladyship.”
Monica swallowed in her agonized nervousness as she followed the square, black figure along the hall. She had run all the way from the Free Library to Curtmason Terrace, where, according to the Maygate Directory, Dr. Wheeler lived. Then there had been moments of terror in case he should be out, and now fiercer terror because he was in. How should she begin?
But Dr. Wheeler was accustomed to seeing white, dripping faces in front of him, and there was real kindness in the grip of the hand that took Monica’s. Where were the beauty and radiance, though, he wondered whimsically, as he told her to sit down?
“My husband is a cripple,” burst out Monica, clenching her hands in her lap. “He fell from an aeroplane in France five years ago. Everyone knows about you, and I feel that you can cure him. Nobody else could.”
The keen clean-shaven face was very kind as Dr. Wheeler leant forward, his elbows on his desk and the tips of his fingers lightly pressed together. “But Sir Gregory must have already had the best possible advice, Lady Fanshawe,” he said, going straight to the point.
“Not for years,” trembled Monica, her mouth working.
“And why not for so long?”
“Because he says it kills him to begin to hope and then to be dragged down again,” said Monica.
Dr. Wheeler was silent. Then: “Do you know who saw him in London?” he asked.
“Someone beginning with H. I have been trying to remember, as I came along, because I felt you would ask, but I can’t remember. Could it be someone beginning with H?”
“It might. Was it Hazel?” asked Dr. Wheeler, remembering the name that had been famous for a couple of decades.
“Oh yes, that was it,” exclaimed Monica, and a little of the blurred radiance shone out again in her white face.
Hazel—yes, well, a great man in his day, but towards the end of his time—a little too cautious, perhaps, and, in any event, dead the year before. Dr. Wheeler thought all this, his eyes on the leather inside rim of the hat on the blotting-pad in front of him. He turned it the right way up, not knowing that he did so.
“Did your husband send you to me?” he asked.
“No, not exactly send,” said Monica, her mouth working uncontrollably. “He was angry at first, and then because he was sorry he said that he would see you—because I implored him to,” said Monica, and one great tear rolled out of her wide eyes.
“But I cannot very well force my way into your husband’s house against his will, can I?” asked Dr. Wheeler, feeling profoundly sorry for the pitiful figure in front of him. “He might, and with entire justification, be extremely angry.”
“He’s not like that. If you were there, he would be polite,” said Monica, wringing her hands and choking.
“But . . .” Dr. Wheeler crossed one leg over the other inside the polished space of his writing-table, and stared over the short blind that screened half the window from the road. How odd it was, though, that he suddenly felt so profoundly interested in this case. It must be something to do with the vivid eagerness of the child in the big chair. “But what do you want me to do?” he queried half humorously.
“To come now—this moment,” breathed Monica.
“Now?” Dr. Wheeler was genuinely taken aback.
“Yes; because by lunch-time he might have made up his mind that he wouldn’t see you whatever I said,” urged Monica. “And now he will be undressed, because Mason will be massaging him.”
“But . . .” In spite of the dubious ejaculation, Dr. Wheeler had got up and was groping with quick, nervous fingers in a corner cupboard. Something in Monica’s anxiety impelled him. Hazel had been an awful pessimist, and a fearful coward really, into the bargain: he would never take a risk. But still, after all: “I say, you know, I don’t know whether I’d better.” The great specialist spoke like a boy.
“Yes, yes; I say that you are to—something tells me . . .” Monica was quivering with impatience. “Is that your car outside?”
“Yes, it is. Have you yours?”
“No; I ran all the way—besides, we haven’t got one,” said Monica simply.
“Well, then, I’ll take you with me in mine,” said Dr. Wheeler. “Bailey, I shall be in at one o’clock.” They crossed the hall together, the tall man and the small, hurrying figure.
“It’s not far,” said Monica breathlessly, as the door of the beautiful limousine shut with a slam; “it’s the house with bow-windows opposite the Gardens. Here,” she said, drawing in her head again as the car stole round a corner.
Dr. Wheeler, who was persona grata at two, at least, of the foreign Courts, felt like a burglar under the light of an electric torch as he stood in the wide hall. But Monica was clutching him with trembling fingers. “Come upstairs to the second landing,” she said, “and then I will tell Mason, and it will be all right.”
With deep misgiving in his heart Dr. Wheeler followed Monica up the stairs. Usually his arrival in a house was heralded with the gravest ceremony, as he thought humorously; here he slunk in like a man come to repair the sink. But Monica was tapping at a door.
“Sir Gregory is ’aving his massage, m’lady,” said Mason, who had come in reply to Monica’s tap, and was now standing respectfully on the half-landing. “’E will only be about another ten minutes.” Mason was in his shirt-sleeves and had drops of perspiration on his chin, and he looked a little resentfully at the tall stranger.
“Mason, it’s the great doctor.” Monica had the valet by the sleeve, and was shaking him like a child. “Mason, it’s the chance of our lives; make him see him—make him; you can, he will listen to you. Mason, he might be able to cure him—think, think . . .”
“Excuse me, sir.” Mason had heard of Dr. Wheeler—Mrs. Mannering was apt to get garrulous in her praises of him—and he made a little bow. Then he turned to Monica: “Your ladyship knows what ’e is,” he said hopelessly. But even as he spoke hopelessly, his mind began to work, and he turned abruptly. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and he vanished.
Gregory Fanshawe, a light rug over his lower limbs, had his eyes fixed on the door. “What the hell are you doing?” he said angrily, as Mason came back again.
“Sir, it’s the great doctor come to see you,” said Mason, and in his terror and anxiety he fell on his knees beside the couch. “Sir, for God’s sake, for all our sakes, see him,” he implored hysterically.
“Damn you all to hell!” Gregory Fanshawe turned deathly white, even to his lips. Curse her, the girl he had taken for wife. She had cornered him like this. “Damn you, I won’t see him,” he swore.
But Dr. Wheeler, outside the heavy door, suddenly made up his mind. The whole thing was utterly unlike anything that had ever come his way before. Therefore he would continue to keep it so. He opened the door quietly and went in.
Gregory Fanshawe, on the couch, stared at him with eyes full of the frankest terror. “Get out!” he almost screamed.
But Dr. Wheeler had been screamed at before by chained, tortured human beings, and he took no notice. “Look here,” he said, and he walked up to and stood by the long couch. “This must seem to you the most ghastly impertinence. But I’ve heard of you before, and this morning your wife came to me. Let me have a look at you—it can’t do any harm.”
“Get out!” breathed Gregory Fanshawe, cowering with a look of awful terror in his eyes.
“No, no—yes, just for a moment or two, will you?” Dr. Wheeler jerked his chin over his shoulder at Mason, who fled to the door. “No, don’t chivy me away,” he said, and he took hold of the lean, dripping wrist. “It won’t take more than half an hour to do what I want to. And I can manage alone, if you don’t care to have your man about.”
“You’ll torture me, and it won’t be the faintest use, and then I shall grovel in hell for months,” sobbed Gregory Fanshawe, with a look in his eyes that brought the tears to those of the great surgeon, accustomed as he was to misery.
“I hope not. Now pull yourself together and let me begin. What about your man? Would you mind . . . as you’re of a powerful build.” Dr. Wheeler was standing over the couch and he spoke kindly but very firmly. Hope seemed to suddenly surround him. He could put this man right, if what was wrong was what he felt pretty certain it was. But he did not want to hang about. “May I have him in?” he asked, and he laid a very kind hand on the square shoulder.
“Do what you like.” Gregory Fanshawe’s voice came in a sob.
“Thanks.” Dr. Wheeler walked to the door, opened it, and said a word. Then the two men came in together and walked over to the couch.
“Will you have to hurt me very much?”
Dr. Wheeler was suddenly reminded of an incident of his early days in hospital as he looked into Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes. The fear of a child is the saddest thing to see and the most glorious thing to triumph over. Children adored Dr. Wheeler, and small wonder. Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were almost craven as he spoke.
“Not much, and probably not at all.” Dr. Wheeler was stooping over his bag. “Now then”—he caught the eye of the valet across the couch. “That’s it, just below the shoulder blades.” Both men stooped.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
Was it a long-drawn moan that Monica heard once? She was not sure, but, cowering, she flung her hands over her ears and fled upstairs to her bedroom. “God! and if they hurt him it is my fault,” she cried, and she flung herself face-downwards on her bed. And she did not move until she felt a hand on her shoulder—an insistent hand that would not be denied. “I heard him crying out, and it is my fault.” She struggled to bury her soaking face in the coverlet.
“Come, come!” Dr. Wheeler sat down on the bed and drew Monica towards him with a very kind hand. “It’s all over now, and your husband was very brave, and I hurt him as little as I could. And now, Lady Fanshawe, prepare yourself for some very good news.” Dr. Wheeler turned a little as he spoke. “I see no reason whatever,” he said, “why your husband should not walk as well as ever in three months, if he will go through the operation I propose.”
“What?” Monica had her handkerchief held to her mouth.
“Yes; it’s glorious news, isn’t it?” The great surgeon’s eyes were gleaming. Nothing brought him intenser joy than to turn a living death into life. And unless he was very much mistaken, that was what he would be able to do for that gallant fellow downstairs. There was risk, of course—there always was risk in things of this kind; but it was worth taking. “Yes; I mean what I say,” he said; “and now I must go on to the hospital—I’m desperately late as it is.”
“What made him not able to walk, then?” breathed Monica.
“Well, explained briefly, a piece of bone pressing on one of the nerves in the spine. That’s all I have time to tell you now. And now go down to him; he wants to see you,” said Dr. Wheeler, walking to the door.
“I want to kneel down in front of you,” breathed Monica.
Dr. Wheeler laughed, a little embarrassed. “No, don’t do that,” he said lightly. “But say ‘Thank you’ in your prayers to-night that God put it into your head to come round and see me this morning—that would be more to the point.”
Gruesomeness hangs round anything in the shape of an operation. Man made in God’s image having to be hacked about, there is something incongruous about it. However, everything that could be done to mitigate the inevitable unpleasantness of the whole thing had been done, and the operating Sister had a sweet, steady look in her eyes; the anaesthetist was a man who always worked with Dr. Wheeler; the second doctor was a young and brilliant man who had the vastest admiration for Dr. Wheeler and counted it a privilege to be allowed to help him. And these four stood on the landing outside Gregory Fanshawe’s bedroom, in their spotless operating gear, waiting for the second nurse, who by some gross mismanagement or carelessness of the Home from which she was to come was late.
“I can’t wait any longer.” Dr. Wheeler spoke abruptly, turning his hands over and looking impatiently at his square nails.
“Can you manage, sir, without her?” The operating Sister spoke gently.
“I must. It’s unfortunate, but the patient is a man who won’t stand hanging about well, and he must have every chance.”
“My Aunt could help; she used to nurse in the war.” Monica, white to the lips, came silently out of her husband’s room. She had been allowed to go in and just say good-bye to him on condition that she did not cry. She had not cried, but the effort for self-control had left new hues on her face. “My Aunt is here,” she said, “and I know she would like to be of use.”
“Just see her.” Dr. Wheeler jerked his chin at the operating Sister, who went hurriedly upstairs by Monica’s side. She came down almost immediately, instantly prepossessed by Aunt Fanny’s unemotional demeanour. “I have a spare overall and cap, sir,” she said, “and Miss Fisher will be perfectly equal to what we want.”
“Miss who?”
“Fisher.”
“Oh,—well . . .” Dr. Wheeler’s steely eyes had wandered to the long window overlooking the Green. “Very well, Sister, carry on. Come along, Ford.”
“Now then.” Dr. Wheeler stood by the narrow bed and smiled down at the man on it. “Here we are, booted and gaitered, so to speak, and, as you know, all you’ve got to do is to breathe in as deeply as you can and leave the rest to us.”
“I say . . .” Gregory Fanshawe spoke with grey lips, but they were smiling. “I say, let me go out, if it’s not going to be any good, will you?”
“We’ll see. Keep your tail up, that’s the great thing, and I’ll do my best. Now then.” Dr. Wheeler just nodded across the narrow couch. The faint sickly smell of chloroform stole round the silent room. After a long pause Dr. Wheeler just lifted one dropped eyelid and glanced underneath it. Then he nodded again.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
“Well?” The two doctors smiled at one another over the table. Mason, very silent, was busying himself at the sideboard. He brought two glasses, tipped the heavy decanter carefully in turn over each, returned for the soda, and then left the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
“Gad, you are a marvel!” Dr. Ford was young and enthusiastic.
Dr. Wheeler watched the tiny gassy bubbles wriggling upwards in his glass and breaking. “Somehow I’ve always felt extraordinarily hopeful over this,” he said thoughtfully; “I don’t know why—you probably know the feeling as well as I do. But I’m darned glad, all the same; one always has the dread . . . And now, to tell that poor child; he’ll have come round by now; I’ll just have a look at him first and then go up to her.”
Monica was staring out of the window of her bedroom. To anyone who loves, to have the beloved under the knife is a refinement of torture. She had lived through ten thousand deaths since she had kissed the carefully controlled brown face. It would be her fault if he died—her fault. He had not wished to see a doctor; she had made him. Therefore, if he died, she would have to go through the howling wilderness of life left to her with murder on her soul. The murder of the one you love best—a horrid thought to hug to your breast and to take to bed with you at night. She flung round at the quiet opening of the door.
“He’s dead, I know; you needn’t tell me.” Monica’s eyes were wide and staring.
“Rubbish! He’s as fit as a fiddle, and he’s going to walk with the best of us.” Dr. Wheeler wasted no time. The child ought not to have been alone for so long, but it had been inevitable. And Fanny had done well—Gad! but he had thought she was gone when she had taken the first dripping sponge from him and had met his glance. “Come, it’s all over, and well over, so now cry to your heart’s content. In my arms, if you like—I’m an old man and you’re only a child, and a doctor’s a privileged person!”
“No, I’m all right,” At last Monica gulped a long strangled breath, and drew herself a little shyly out of the kind clasp. “What must you think of me?”
“I’ve seen too much of it to think anything.” Dr. Wheeler was looking amused at the disfigured face. “Now wipe your eyes, and come along down and introduce me to the Aunt. She’s done well, and I want to tell her so.”
“Aunt Fanny, Dr. Wheeler wants to tell you that you’ve been a success.” Monica, very shaky and half laughing, drew Aunt Fanny, still in the white overall and close-fitting cap, from the landing window, out of which she was staring rather vacantly, thought Monica, who was eager for her relation to show up well.
“No, no!” quivered Aunt Fanny, and she shrank back.
“You leave her to me.” Dr. Wheeler smiled quietly as Monica stared aghast. “Trot back to your room, and I’ll tell nurse to fetch you when you can see him. And no more tears, mind; he must not see that you have been crying. Now then, Fanny!” There was a whimsical look on the clever face.
“Will! How did you recognize me?—I have got so old.” Aunt Fanny had not the least idea what she was saying; her hands were clenched on the white lace curtain.
“No older than I have,” said Dr. Wheeler.
“But—but—I must go home.” Aunt Fanny began to stare round wildly.
“Still in bondage?” queried Dr. Wheeler; “and where do you live? I had no idea.”
“We never go out anywhere where you would,” said Aunt Fanny, letting go of the curtain and trying not to show that her knees were faltering and giving way. She trembled past the tall alert figure and started to mount the stairs.
“Wait a minute.” Dr. Wheeler reached her side in two steps. “I wanted to thank you,” he said; “you were the greatest help to me, Fanny. And now—you’re not going to refuse even to take my hand, are you?”
“I can’t—I can’t!” Aunt Fanny’s voice came in an odd, suppressed quavering. “I feel it so. You must find me so altered.” She was flagellating herself. “Don’t cry, Fanny,” she was saying; “old people look odd and ridiculous when they cry, and the last time that you did it he took you in his arms and kissed your wet eyelids.”
“Well!” Dr. Wheeler stepped back, and, a little dismayed, watched the rather angular figure hurrying up the stairs. But, oddly enough, his eyes rested on the part of Aunt Fanny that had so upset Aunt Ellie—her ankles, still slim. And then he turned and walked down into the hall, where Mason, almost abject in his wonderment and veneration, stood waiting with his hat.
“Greg!” Monica came into the room with a rush. “Greg, the most extraordinary thing has happened. Please sit down and let me tell you—that is, if you can bear to sit down,” she added, knowing the rapture with which her husband took his little excursion round the flower-filled room on feet every day getting more sure.
“What is it?” Gregory Fanshawe turned round from the glass-fronted bookcase. In his Paisley silk dressing-gown he looked taller than he really was. But he was a very tall man, and he towered over the little figure that stood in front of him. And his eyes were alight with joy. God had been good to him. He could walk! “Look, I can walk—I can walk!” He longed to shout it out to everyone he met. He longed to kick aside the leather apron of his Bath chair, and stick out his feet, and show the active people who passed him on the Parade that he was no longer a puppet to be trundled here and there, but a man able to hold his own. But for Mason’s sake he did not show his rapture too openly—Mason, to whose systematic massage Dr. Wheeler attributed his swift recovery—because Mason resented his master’s escape from his almost womanish care, and he was apt to look gloomy when Gregory found his own collars and picked up his own studs. And so far as Monica was concerned—well, what about Monica? In the light of this marvel of release from a bondage worse than death, he very often forgot she was there! But here she was at this very moment, actually under his eye, so to speak, so he must make an effort. “Well, what is it?” he said again.
But Monica’s little flush of excitement had died down and she spoke uneasily, moving her hands. She was always nervous in front of this tall man with the gaze that somehow made her falter and feel a fool. He was so inaccessible, so austere, so sort of baffling. Things sounded stupid when she had said them, especially when he said “Really?” and stared. His eyes were so blue, and so like lancets in the way they seemed to take you all in, chop you all up, and then throw you aside because you did not come up to the mark. “It sounds silly now,” she faltered.
“Carry on.” Gregory Fanshawe sat down in a chair, and held out his arms. “Come and sit on my knee,” he said.
“Oh, no!” breathed Monica.
“All right then, don’t,” said Gregory Fanshawe, a little piqued, although he did not show it. “Keep well out of range, and tell me from where you are. What’s the great news?”
“I believe Dr. Wheeler is asking Aunt Fanny to marry him,” said Monica, “in the dining-room. She has that sort of pinky trembly look.” When Monica got so far she hung her head. Why had she not gone and sat on his knee when he asked her? Perhaps if he felt her closer he might like her better. For Monica knew now, without a doubt, that he did not like her much. Nobody could never be loving if they liked you at all. He was always courteous and thoughtful for her, though; but somehow that made it worse. If a person was horrid to you, you could take hold of that and try to make it make you like them less. . . .
“By Gad, I do hope he is!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke enthusiastically, because by now he was genuinely very fond of Aunt Fanny. She had nursed him devotedly; they had nursed him between them, she and a couple of surgical nurses sent in by Dr. Wheeler. And he had watched with the greatest sympathy and amusement her gentle flutterings whenever the great doctor had come into the room. It was difficult to tell what Dr. Wheeler felt, but Gregory Fanshawe had had his suspicions. And when Aunt Fanny, biting her lips and trembling, had confided to him that she and Dr. Wheeler had been friends long ago, he had felt almost certain that there was something in the wind. And now Monica thought that the doctor was coming up to the scratch—well, he devoutly hoped he was.
“If he is, it is because of all the lovely clothes you have let me give her,” said Monica, staring, with her hands behind her back.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Gregory Fanshawe cheerfully. But in his heart of hearts he was thinking that it probably had had a good deal to do with it. Aunt Fanny well dressed was an Aunt Fanny transformed. He would never have thought that clothes could have made so much difference to anybody.
And down below in the dining-room. Aunt Fanny, her heart thundering so that she felt that the man looking quizzically at her must hear it, was standing like any girl in the early twenties, her hands over her face. She had met his eyes once, and that was enough for her. Was such blinding, dazzling rapture for her, her—Fanny Fisher, stupid—and old?
“Well, Fanny!” Dr. Wheeler was smiling, his clever hands linked behind his back. She was just the same as ever, terrified of having to make a decision. That was the influence of that damned old sister of hers. Dr. Wheeler had never forgiven Aunt Ellie.
“Will, are you sure?” It came so tremblingly.
“Am I generally in doubt as to my own mind?” asked Dr. Wheeler, coming a little nearer.
“No, but . . .” Aunt Fanny suddenly flung her hands wide. “Will, look at me!” she cried; “I am old—I haven’t any of the charm that you ought to have in your wife. My hair . . .”—as a matter of fact, Aunt Fanny’s hair was one of her greatest assets, being long and fluffy, although beginning to turn grey—“my teeth! . . . Will, I have artificial teeth,” said Aunt Fanny, bursting with shame and sobbing.
“So have I,” said Dr. Wheeler, his face strained with the effort not to laugh. Fanny had not changed a day. Always that desperate conscience of hers. “Any more gruesome confessions to make?” he queried.
“No,” sobbed Aunt Fanny, trying to get her handkerchief out of her sleeve.
“Then let us get back to the case in point,” said Dr. Wheeler. “I asked you if you still loved me, Fanny; do you?”
“Oh, Will!” Aunt Fanny’s always pleasant voice was a caress. She had her handkerchief held to her mouth and she stared tremblingly over it.
“Well, then that’s all right.” Dr. Wheeler’s voice was matter of fact, although his eyes were not. “Come into my arms, Fanny. What! still the same frightened little goose? No, dear, don’t!” He held her enfolded. “We’ve wasted too much time as it is, and remember, I’m not a boy any more. Just half a second while I shut that door, though; I saw that child cross the hall just now.”
So Aunt Fanny’s horizon was absolutely cloudless, although Aunt Ellie’s words of congratulation had a sting in their tail. “Really, Fanny . . . I should have thought—at your age.” But Aunt Fanny was past caring what anyone thought, or about her age either, and the little bedroom leading off the top landing was turned into a sanctuary, from which day and night went up a ceaseless stream of praise and thanksgiving. But Monica, watching, was wiser in her generation; Aunt Fanny was expecting too much from marriage: you got all these mad, rapturous feelings certainly beforehand, the sort of feelings that made you want to strain your arms out into the darkness and murmur the beloved name, and sort of roll with joy. But when you were actually married it was a come-down; all these feelings turned on you, and you wondered why you had felt them. It was like coming downstairs in the dark and thinking you were on the bottom step when you were not, and making a huge step and falling on the very hard hall floor. Monica knew—she had been married—and she was going to warn Aunt Fanny.
So one evening, when they were walking briskly towards the distant flagstaff, both in delightful knitted woollen suits from Jenner’s—Monica had given Aunt Fanny hers for an engagement present—Monica took her courage in both hands and spoke. And Aunt Fanny pricked up her ears at the unusual tone in Monica’s voice: love had made her more perceptive.
“Darling Aunt Fanny, I want to say something very private to you,” said Monica, diving both her hands into her woolly pockets. “Don’t think me rude, will you? But, you know, I have been married, and so I know. Aunt Fanny, don’t expect so much from being married; it isn’t so nice as you think it is.”
“Why not, darling?” asked Aunt Fanny, taking the funny statement very quietly. For Dr. Wheeler had told her that he did not think that things were very satisfactory between the two, and he had told her why he did not think so. And the statement of his reason had reduced Aunt Fanny to a condition of such trembling early-Victorian alarm that the clever surgeon had laughed till he thought he would die.
“Fanny, Fanny, how old are you?” he had gasped, wiping his eyes.
“Old enough to know that such matters are not discussed in public,” returned Aunt Fanny, trying to look dignified and only succeeding in looking frightened and ashamed.
“Blessed goose!” returned Dr. Wheeler, and he picked up the hand that hung down close to him and kissed it tenderly.
But here was Monica, stammering and ill at ease, and Aunt Fanny turned and looked kindly at her, her little niece that she loved. “Why, darling?” she said again.
“Because it lets you down,” burst out Monica. “You adore a person and you get that trembly, shivering feeling of mad rapture even at the thought of their taking you in their arms. And then they don’t take you—at least, perhaps they do, but only sort of casually. And all the time you are feeling that there is something else. I can’t explain, but you know the sort of feeling that you get when you see a very nice soft sort of animal, the sort of feeling that you want to almost hurt it, you like it so—hold it tight and squeeze up bits of it. Well, when you love a person you get that; not so much that you want to squeeze them, but you want them to squeeze you. You want them to almost kill you with squeezing. And they don’t, and it is agony. Or if they do, they squeeze you up to a certain point, and then let go of you, and it is just as if you were left hanging in the air. All your inside is screaming out for more squeezing and there isn’t any. Like biting into a meringue and thinking it is going to be cream and it isn’t—only white of egg,” ended Monica, struggling to express herself forcibly.
“My darling!” But Aunt Fanny suddenly lost all her early-Victorian alarm. Will had been right, then, and Ellie had been wrong—desperately wrong. But Monica was going on again.
“Don’t expect too much from marriage, Aunt Fanny, that’s all I mean,” she said, and her small face suddenly looked very weary. “I should hate you to feel like I do—sort of done out of something. I don’t know how to express it, but there ought to be something else. Something like when you play a piece and it ends up on a great smashing chord. Everything else ends up somehow, don’t you know; a book winds up to some sort of an ending, nice or horrid, and a play does the same. So does a thunderstorm; it gets more and more violent until there is one frightful flash of lightning and a desperate crash of thunder, and then the next aren’t so bad. But marriage makes you think that there is going to be something like that and then there isn’t. And that is what leaves you miserable. Don’t expect it, darling Aunt Fanny, thats all I mean,” Monica ended up, breathing rather fast. Had she perhaps been disloyal to her husband in letting Aunt Fanny know that she was not absolutely happy?
But Aunt Fanny’s mind was whirling like an electric fan. Monica did not know—poor little unsophisticated thing. And it had been very largely the fault of herself and her sisters in the past that she did not know. So this was the moment to tell her. And suddenly it all seemed so easy.
“Monica, darling, there is something else,” she said, “but you see, things have had to be different with you because of Sir Gregory’s accident. But now—now I see no reason. . . . Come, darling, slip your arm through mine and let us talk it all out together.”
“Talk out what?” asked Monica, looking up at Aunt Fanny and wondering why she had suddenly got that pinky look all over again.
“This,” said Aunt Fanny resolutely; and then very sensibly and simply she told her.
Now that Sir Gregory could walk they dined downstairs in the real dining-room, and on the evening after Aunt Fanny’s talk with Monica they sat a little longer than usual over the dessert. Sir Gregory, very immaculate in his evening clothes, with a well-brushed head that shone in the glow of the rose-coloured table-lamp, sat curling his lean fingers round the stem of his wineglass and staring at his wife. What was the matter with her? he was thinking. She was never talkative, but to-night she had apparently been struck absolutely dumb. And she never looked at him. And to-night he felt rather inclined to talk to her, she was so pretty in that grey garment, and her eyes were so alarmed and soft when he did happen to meet them. Besides—Gregory leant over the table and touched her hand with his own.
“Oh!” Monica gasped, and shrank back.
“What desperate thoughts are chasing one another round inside that odd little head of yours?” asked Sir Gregory, his eyes intent.
“Not any,” stammered Monica, crimsoning violently.
“Then why don’t you look at me?”
“I do look.” Monica caught her hands together under the table, but they slipped as she gripped them.
“No, you don’t—at least, you look for about a second, and then you look away again. Turn round a bit in your chair and look at me properly.”
“No, I can’t,” gasped Monica, and she pushed back her chair a little.
“No, don’t get up yet; I haven’t finished my Madeira. Now, give me your hand and look at me. Come, Monica, do what you’re told.”
“No—please.” Monica’s eyes were terrified.
“But what’s it all about?” Sir Gregory leant back a little out of the range of the pool of pink light and his eyes glowed oddly. “You can’t look at your own husband?—there’s something very odd about that.”
“It’s you—you make me . . .” Monica broke off.
“Make you what?” Sir Gregory sat forward again.
“Make me . . . Greg, please.” Monica’s breath was coming faster.
“Well, I think this wants looking into.” Gregory Fanshawe pushed back his chair with a shove of the long legs under the table. “Yes, all right, Mason—carry on.”
The two menservants came noiselessly into the room. To Monica it always seemed almost too grand for words, the way they lived. But Gregory Fanshawe had always lived like this, so he took it as a matter of course, and after all, why not, if you have the money? “Come, dear,” he said quietly.
“I don’t know whether I won’t go straight to bed.” They had reached the first landing, and Monica stood, her hands still damply gripped together, and stared up at the black tie of the man who looked down at her.
“Far too early: you’ll have a frightful tummy-ache if you go to bed on the top of that dinner. No; I want you in here for a bit.” Gregory Fanshawe turned and held open the white-painted door. “In you go,” he said, and his eyes laughed. It was like driving an escaped mouse into a cage, he thought, as Monica scuttled past him. “Now, why can’t you look at me?” He held her by both wrists.
“Please let us have the light.” Monica was struggling in the firm grasp.
“No, I like the dark for a bit. We’ll have the light when Mason brings the coffee. Oh, here he is—damn,” said Gregory Fanshawe, as a long pale oblong showed suddenly.
“Yes, I’ll have my pipe—and the tin; no, not the pouch, Mason. Thanks; no, nothing else, I think,” as the two flowered cups went back on to the silver tray. “Oh, you might just switch off the light, will you, as you go out? The moon is gorgeous to-night, isn’t it? Monica, Mason is saying good-night to you.”
“Good-night, Mason”; Monica’s voice came like a breath from another world. If only she could keep Mason there by force. But he had gone, shutting the door very quietly behind him and clicking down the switch just inside the door.
“Now, then, let’s hear all about it,” said Gregory Fanshawe, getting up from his chair and walking over to where Monica sat crouched in the corner of the big Chesterfield. “Just get up a minute, dear. That’s better.” He held her firmly on his knee.
“Please don’t hold me.” Monica was struggling desperately.
“Why not? I like it—I like to feel I can. Now, tell me.” Gregory Fanshawe leant back, drawing the small figure very gently with him. “You say you can’t look at me—tell me why you can’t.”
“Because it makes me feel all trembly inside,” sobbed Monica, giving it up.
“Well, but don’t you like to feel that?” said Gregory Fanshawe, staring into the darkness over Monica’s head but with a very queer expression in his eyes.
“No, I simply loathe it,” sobbed Monica. “It’s most frightfully cruel of you to want to make me feel it. You see, you don’t really love me like I love you, or you couldn’t do it. You sort of like to see what I look like when I feel things. Like fastening an animal down and poking at it to see what it does. But it’s most frightfully cruel of you, really.”
“I don’t mean to be cruel.” Gregory Fanshawe’s lean fingers found Monica’s head and pressed it back into the hollow of his shoulder. “But if I do seem to be cruel, you must make excuses for me. You see, I’ve been a corpse for years, and now I’m just beginning to live. Besides—you are my wife, you know.”
“But does that make it fair to torture me?” said Monica, trying desperately to fight down the longing that he would force her face up to his.
“No, well, I suppose it doesn’t,” said Gregory Fanshawe, his mouth on the soft hair; “but is it torture, Monica?—tell me.”
“It’s torture when I know that you won’t—that you won’t”—Monica tried to struggle herself out of the arms that held her. “Greg, you do it on purpose!” she sobbed stiflingly.
“Well, one doesn’t generally kiss by mistake,” said Gregory Fanshawe, lifting his head after a trembling silence and speaking rather grimly.
“No, but . . .” Monica struggled passionately for self-control. Then she cowered again in his arms. “Greg, if you love me at all, kiss me again,” she implored; “I don’t care about after, I’ll bear that—only now—now I must—I must,” she sought blindly with a seeking, trembling mouth.
And Gregory Fanshawe laughed a little cruelly through the darkness, as he gathered her closely up to him again.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
“This is how God punishes us when we behave shamefully.” Monica was on her knees by the open window, staring out at the silver path that led quavering to the full moon. One tiny sailing-boat was crossing it, a black speck on the glory. “He lets me get away from the Aunts, and all the desperate dreariness of that, and lets me marry someone rich, so that I can have all the nice things I have always longed for. And He lets the person that I love get well when he was a hopeless cripple. And now all I can do is to grumble because Greg doesn’t want me like I want him. He never said that he would either; he only explained that he wouldn’t,” thought Monica, remembering with sudden illumination certain passages that had passed between herself and her husband before their marriage. “And now all I can do is to rebel and think it cruel of him. God will send some frightful punishment to me, like making Greg ill again, if I go on.” Monica got up from her knees and turned away from the window. She had switched out the light when she had finished getting undressed, and the moon shone straight into the beautiful room, showing up the dainty whiteness of it. Monica walked straight to the chest of drawers and groped for the filmy piece of muslin and lace that she knew was tucked away in the corner of the first long drawer. A great and consoling idea had suddenly come on her; she would play one of her old games again. In the light of Aunt Fanny’s stupefying revelation it would have a new zest. The Dream Man coming to claim the wife that he loved. It would have a bitter awfulness in it, too, this game; but still, it would be something to imagine heaven if you could not have it.
So, by the light of the moon, Monica dressed herself in the garment that hung round her with a clinging softness, revealing rather than hiding her young body; and she unplaited the hair that she had plaited up with much care a quarter of an hour before, and combed it out very fluffily over her shoulders. And then she stood in the middle of the floor, her hands over her face, and whispered into her soft palms the things that the Dream Man was supposed to say to the wife that he loved: “Most precious beloved, don’t be frightened”; he was standing very close to her, looking down. And Monica looked up. “No, I’m not really frightened—only just at first,” and Monica looked up into the moonlight and there was a real tremble in her voice. Oh, how heavenly, how unutterably heavenly it would be! “Dearest dear, let me lift you up in my arms,” and Monica held out her arms with a sob in her throat. And then the sob died as the door opened very quietly and shut again, and someone, very tall stood with his back against it.
“Greg!” Monica tried to gather the filmy garment closer round her.
“Yes—well, Greg—and what about it?” But Gregory Fanshawe stared over the head some way below his own. She was against the light, and it was hardly fair.
“Do you want anything?” Monica’s thoughts were racing. He had begun to feel ill again: her punishment had begun.
“No—at least, yes. Come over to the window, I want to talk to you.”
“May I get a dressing-gown?” Monica had begun to shiver.
“Yes, if you’re cold. But if you’re not, why should you?”
“This is so thin,” Monica looked down distressfully.
“Never mind. Come, sit down here”; he had his hand on the back of a deep padded chair. “Now then, who were you talking about when I came in?”
“Did you hear?”
“Partly. Who is the Dream Man?” Gregory Fanshawe really wanted to know this, because after about half an hour’s solid thinking, pacing in his pyjamas up and down his room, he had come to the conclusion that he was being a fool. And then the first thing he had heard when he had come into his wife’s room was the sound of her voice in colloquy with someone else. And it had been like a bucket of cold water in his face.
“The Dream Man is a man that I have always played games with,” faltered Monica, feeling, in agony, how idiotic it must sound to the real man leaning over the back of the chair. “When I was at the Aunts’ I used to do it, so it has become a sort of habit.”
“Oh! What is his real name?”
“I can’t tell you that!” said Monica, more falteringly.
“Oh, I see.” Gregory Fanshawe straightened himself abruptly. What a damned fool he had been to come up!
How was he going to get out of it gracefully? But never had Monica seemed so desirable. So there was some other man in the offing, but how had she got to know him? “I see,” he said, again. “Well, I’ll get along back to my room.”
“But you said that you wanted to say something,” said Monica, wrenching her gripped hands together.
“So I did, but it will keep,” said Gregory Fanshawe, turning to walk to the door.
“I have made you angry.” Monica spoke from the depths of the deep chair. “Greg!” She struggled out of it desperately. Something told her that this was not the moment to stand on her dignity. He had come up to take her in his arms and he was going away without doing it. But he must, because she loved him so. “Greg!” She ran and caught hold of the striped sleeve.
And at the touch of her, everything that was brutal in Gregory Fanshawe flamed up, and he turned round and caught her in his arms. “Who is the swine?” he said; “tell me, or I’ll kill you.”
“Ah!” But it was a breath of rapture from Monica. Had not she dreamed of this, to be in the arms of a savage?—someone merciless and cruel, someone who wouldn’t care what they did—the sort of person you met in a book and never anywhere else. And this was her husband, the man she belonged to! She shut her eyes on the rapture in them.
“Tell me who it is, Monica.” Gregory Fanshawe was trying to see the face below his own dark and angry one. She should tell him, obstinate little devil!
“Will you stop hurting me if I tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, I can’t,” said Monica, breathing heavily.
“Ah, but I’ll make you,” said Gregory Fanshawe, losing the remainder of the temper left to him. He felt that he had been made a fool of, and he resented it. “Now will you tell me?” he asked, Monica’s thin wrist between his two lean hands.
“No—no; yes—yes I will. Greg, don’t—it’s agony.” Monica was crying wildly.
“Well then, do what you’re told,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he set her on her feet. But he was already frightfully ashamed of himself, and he stared past her out into the moonlight.
“You are the Dream Man,” sobbed Monica, her wounded wrist against her face. “I have to pretend like that when I get that hungry feeling inside. You don’t love me really, so I pretend that someone exactly like you does.”
“I am the Dream Man?”
“Yes, of course you are,” wept Monica.
“But, but—I am a brute! Monica! I have hurt you. Darling little soft thing; let me kiss it. Hideous beast that I am! Give me your precious little wrist. I thought, you see, that it was someone else, Monica. Let me kiss it.”
“It’s waste of time to kiss only a wrist,” snorted Monica, sobbing like an exhausted baby.
“No, it’s not. Come, let me pick you up in my arms. Darling, darling, I am a disgusting beast. Beloved, forgive me.” Gregory Fanshawe carried the little figure to the bed and knelt down beside it.
“Tell me why you came up,” breathed Monica, her hand on the dark head.
“To tell you that I loved you.”
“Then why aren’t you telling me?” asked Monica anxiously.
“Because after what has just happened, I shouldn’t think you could possibly want to hear it,” replied Gregory Fanshawe, his face buried.
“But I do, of course I do.” Monica suddenly sat up on the bed. “Why, that’s the sort of thing women adore,” she cried; “they love someone who can be brutal to them! Only hardly anyone can do it properly; they either show that they know they’re doing it, or they do it really horridly. But you do it . . .” Monica suddenly lay down again.
“Well, how do I do it?” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes and mouth were tender as he lifted his head and tried to see through the darkness: a big fleecy cloud was sailing over the moon.
“Perfectly,” said Monica, and there was a little silence.
“Well”—Gregory Fanshawe tipped himself back on to his heels and got up—“well, I must get along back,” he began, and then he stopped.
Monica was kneeling up on the bed holding out her hands. “You’re going away?” she breathed.
“Yes, well, I am,” said Gregory Fanshawe; “you see . . . I don’t think it’s fair. After all, it never was the idea, and afterwards you might think it rotten of me. Good-night, funny little sweet thing, and try to forget I was a brute.”
“Greg!” Monica only breathed the word.
“Well, what is it?” Gregory Fanshawe swung round again.
“How can I be the one to say . . .?” Monica flung herself face downwards on the bed, and began to sob tumultuously.
“Yes, but . . . You see, you don’t know . . .” The tall man halted irresolutely, and stared down at the small figure. And then the big moon swam clear of the shrouding mist surrounding it and stabbed one bright silver finger right across the bed, and Gregory Fanshawe stooped and caught his wife savagely in his arms.
And then, Monica, feeling the fierceness of the arms that held her, and the thud of the heart under hers, was afraid, and cried out, “I thought I shouldn’t mind,” she cried, “but I do, I do! Oh, Greg, let me go.”
“No, not now,” said Gregory Fanshawe.
So, like Aunt Fanny, Monica found life radiant and beautiful, and the weeks that followed were like a heavenly dream. And the two women grew very close together, and they talked long and earnestly, and one day Monica came downstairs very timidly and walked up to the Chesterfield on which her husband was sitting reading the paper, and pressed his knee with her hand.
“Well?” he said, and smiled over the top of the crackly sheets.
“I want to say something.”
“Very well, spit it out.”
“Aunt Fanny and I have been talking,” said Monica, getting very red, “and we have come to the conclusion that we don’t want to belong to a chapel any more.”
“You don’t want to belong to a chapel any more? Why not?” Gregory Fanshawe was intensely amused, but he did not show it.
“Well, it isn’t enough somehow.” Monica began to breathe rather quickly. “It’s so fearfully difficult to explain,” she said.
“Sit down here beside me and try.” Gregory Fanshawe reached out a long arm and took hold of Monica’s elbow. “There, that’s better,” he said, as he drew her close to him; “now carry on.”
“Now all I want to do is to have you kiss me,” breathed Monica, turning an illumined face into the rough tweed sleeve.
“Too early—at least, no, perhaps I could allow you one. But only one, mind.” Gregory Fanshawe was laughing as he lifted Monica’s chin between his brown fingers.
“Allow me!” Monica’s eyes were faintly resentful.
“Yes, or spare you; which do you like best?”
“I hate both.” Monica’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t you want to kiss me?” she said.
“Yes, of course I do”; but there was just the shadow of hesitation in Gregory Fanshawe’s voice that would have warned a cleverer woman. But Monica did not hear it, and she only lifted her face.
“There.” Gregory Fanshawe raised his head again, patted the small head kindly and pressed it back into his shoulder. “Now then, carry on,” he said.
“Well, it’s like this”—Monica twisted her fingers together. “Aunt Fanny and I both feel the same. Chapel isn’t enough now that we’re so desperately, madly happy. We want something that’s got something sort of hidden behind it. Do you understand? We want to be able to go and sort of fling ourselves down and burst out with thankfulness.”
“I see.” Gregory Fanshawe’s lips were twitching. “Can’t you burst in chapel?” he queried.
“No; because it’s so glary,” said Monica simply.
“I see,” said Gregory Fanshawe again. Then he spoke more gravely. “Well, what do you want to do?” he said.
“We both want to join the Church of England,” said Monica.
“But Wheeler’s an R.C.” Gregory Fanshawe was surprised.
“Yes, but he doesn’t want Aunt Fanny to be,” said Monica simply.
“I see.” Gregory Fanshawe was silent for a minute or two. Then he spoke slowly. “I understand in a way how you feel,” he said. “But, you know—don’t attach too much importance to a creed. I mean to say, I know it’s awfully important in a way to belong to some recognized body—the thing sounds better, so to speak. But it’s not really vital. Of course, in Dissent you are united to a body, so you’ve got it there; it isn’t quite that that you mean, I expect. What you want, I gather, is something rather more mystic than Dissent. Is that it?”
“Yes,” whispered Monica, nestling closer.
“Well, there again,” said Gregory Fanshawe, his eyes reminiscent, “one of the most spiritual men I ever met was a little old gentleman whom I used to meet on this Parade last autumn. He used to walk along without a hat, reading aloud from a fat book of poetry—Browning, I believe he said it was. Well, he didn’t belong to anything. As a matter of fact, I think the last thing he said he was, was a Unitarian, and that’s a brand that puts people’s backs up, if you like. But that man had walked with God if anyone had,” said Gregory Fanshawe, breaking off abruptly, as he remembered one little incident of that last autumn. Blackest, most grisly despair on his soul, and the kindly face and the simple drawing of the little Testament from the inner pocket. “For neither Life nor Death . . . can separate us from the Love of God . . .” So quietly done, but it had been like oil on a burn. “So you see,” went on Gregory Fanshawe, “you don’t need to belong to anything to find out the true meaning of things—that’s all I want you to understand,”
“Then you think we’d better not?”
“No, I don’t say that. Only, all I do say is, consider it well first. And then go and see the Vicar. He’s a delightful man and not an atom narrow-minded.”
So the next day Monica and Aunt Fanny sat opposite the scholarly, keen-faced man in the beautiful study. And he looked at them both and smiled.
“What has made you want to take this step?” he asked.
Monica and Aunt Fanny looked at one another, and then both looked back. “Because we are both so madly happy,” burst out Monica, taking upon herself the office of spokesman.
“I see.” The Vicar did not smile this time, because he entirely understood the true longing of the soul to find its expression in the highest. So he did not bewilder or confuse by the recitation of unnecessary dogma. All that would be necessary to two educated women like this would be a couple of quiet talks, he thought, and he said so, adding that the Bishop would be visiting Maygate at the end of the following month, when he himself would present them both for Confirmation.
“But what about being baptized?” burst out Monica.
“Darling, your father did that before he let you go to England,” broke in Aunt Fanny quietly.
“Then you received your baptism from the hands of one of the saints of God,” said the Vicar, who had heard of Dr. Field; “and it would be superfluous of me to thrust the particular form that I profess upon you.”
“I see,” said Monica; “and what about you, Aunt Fanny?”
“I will explain to the Vicar at some other time, darling,” said Aunt Fanny, very flushed and miserable, and remembering what she was always trying to forget—her baptism at the age of fifteen at a Baptist chapel.
Monica sat and stared down into the sunny street, from which rose the faintest smell of tar. It was July, and a very beautiful, hot July, and the window at which she was sitting had a red-and-white striped canvas awning pulled down low over it. The street was narrow and rather hot, but it was redeemed from drabness by the window-boxes that flaunted beautiful colourings all the way along. Number Sixteen Hill Street had the best window-boxes of any, because Stephens was very keen on gardening. He was the son of a market-gardener, and he spent long hours in the very early morning digging and clipping, with his very long shiny hair flopping into his eyes. He did not dress up in his musical-comedy costume until just before breakfast; the maids who ran up and down stairs with trays of tea and brass cans of hot water saw him as he really was, a very ugly, untidy young man. And Mason did not mind telling him so.
“Washed yer face yet?” he would ask sarcastically, as Stephens emerged from the door at the top of the kitchen stairs, the collar of his shirt all open at the throat.
“Naow,” Stephens would retort, longing to say something insulting but not daring to, because he knew that he was no match for Mason in a battle of words.
“Thought not,” Mason would return, a world of scorn in his voice; and then he would proceed upstairs, the beautifully arranged tray of tea in his careful hands. But Monica did not know of or care about these amenities; all she knew was that she was not nearly so happy in Hill Street as she had been in Maygate. And she was thinking about this as she sat at the open window, a bundle of soft champagne-coloured knitting-silk in her lap. Then she leant back and shut her eyes abruptly; they had begun to water—it must have been the sun on the pink geraniums opposite. Maygate . . . the last two months had been so blissfully happy—her husband lover then as well as husband. Monica pressed the backs of her hands against her eyes; it did not bear thinking of: it had been too heavenly. Then her Confirmation, she and Aunt Fanny, at the beautiful old parish church, and the heavy hand of the Bishop on her head. Then Aunt Fanny’s wedding—Aunt Fanny simply stupefied with joy, not minding a bit that Aunt Ellie had been trying ever since she was engaged to spoil it by sounding the damping note and by saying little sharp, stinging things, but holding up a triumphant radiant head, and looking into the amused, quizzical eyes of her bridegroom, as if she would like to have fallen down and kissed his very well-shod feet. And then the going off from Maygate Station in a whirl of rice and general jubilation; for Dr. Wheeler was a deity in the eyes of the Maygate population. And then the drive back home with her own tall husband in his grey morning coat and grey top-hat, and then the festive dinner with champagne, and then the despair afterwards, when, Mason having left the room, her husband had pulled her down beside him on to the sofa and told her that they were going to leave Maygate for ever in a fortnight’s time.
“But where are we going to live then?” Monica had asked, struggling her head out from under the caressing hand to look up into her husband’s eyes.
“London! Oh, my God, how shall I bear the joy of it! The very smell of it, the very look of it! Monica!” He kissed her recklessly. “The orchestra tuning up, tum-ti-tum, tum-ti-tum-tum. Don’t you know the look of the drop screen as it rolls itself up from the bottom, like a sheet of newspaper on fire? And the wet streets and the lamplight on them, yellowy and blurry. Oh heavens! and I used to take it all for granted, besotted fool that I was!”
“But where in London?” asked Monica, hardly listening, she was so afraid of what she was going to hear.
“With the mater; she won’t interfere with us; there’s heaps of room in Number Sixteen. And we’re right in the middle of everything there—quite near my club and all that. And you’ll have to join a club; the mater belongs to one, and she’ll get you in like a shot.”
Monica suddenly saw herself starting off for a London club with the Dowager Lady Fanshawe!” What happens to this house then?” she asked, hearing her own voice speaking stupidly.
“It stays here,” said Gregory. “I shall give most of the furniture to the Mannerings. And of course they’ll let like a shot; it’s just the beginning of their season.”
“I want my bedroom furniture,” burst out Monica, feeling like an impotent child who sees its best toy being wrenched from it and can do nothing.
“Very well, dear; of course you shall have it,” said her husband; but he wondered rather impatiently what was the matter now. You never quite knew with Monica what was going on in her head. “But Hill Street is chock-a-block,” he said; “we shall have to store it.”
“Then perhaps the Mannerings had better have it,” said Monica dully. After all, he did not care; it had no associations for him. Then why should she care either? And she had lain back and forced down the rising tears, and tried not to see what was also forcing itself grimly on her, that this life that was coming was not going to be in the least like the life that she had been leading at Maygate.
And now the life in Hill Street had been going on for a month, and Monica hated it. She hardly ever saw her husband. Drunk with the joy of freedom, he seemed quite a different person, in his perfect clothes and with his mass of friends. They swarmed in and out of the house, wonderful people, perfectly at ease. There were women as well as men—women who called him “Rats,” and who drank little sparkling drinks borne in by Stephens on silver salvers. There were men—men who looked at Monica with an imperfectly concealed, well-bred surprise, and who said, “You know, it’s perfectly gorgeous to see old Rough on Rats on his hind legs again; we can’t believe it, Lady Fanshawe. Come on, then, if you’re ready, old dear . . .” and they would turn and sweep off this new, wildly jubilant husband of hers, and the next thing would be that she would hear his bedroom door shut in the small hours of the morning, for they slept on different floors in the thin tall house in Hill Street.
It was misery—desolate hopeless misery, because, as well as being terribly lonely, Monica also felt that she was being a dreadful failure. Somehow she couldn’t feel at home with these people; when they spoke to her she got a dreadful stuck feeling in her throat and she couldn’t be natural. They were all so terribly at their ease. To begin with, she had made a dreadful mistake. She had come down to breakfast the first morning, and when her mother-in-law came in she had got up and held up her face for a kiss, like she had always done to the Aunts. And Lady Fanshawe had giggled in a rather hard screech, and had said “ My dear child!” and had then strolled on to the sideboard without taking any more notice, and had begun to peep under silver covers. Monica had tried to get back to the shelter of her own chair without meeting her husband’s eyes; he would be annoyed with her, she felt in terror; he did not like little stupid awkwardnesses, they made him impatient. And Gregory Fanshawe had been annoyed; but it had been with his mother, and not with Monica this time. He rather liked Monica’s little early-Victorian ways, and he did not at all like his mother’s ultra-modern attitude towards life. It was so idiotic in a woman of her age, as he thought cruelly.
But Monica did not know this, and when on this heavenly July morning she heard the door of her sitting-room open and shut, she shrank back afraid into the shelter of her chair. He was coming in, the man that she belonged to. He would be coming in to scold her about something. Not exactly to scold, but to ask her in a rather humorous voice not to do something that she thought was all right. For instance, not to look shocked when Lady Clarence told a risqué story at lunch, or not to stare freezingly at Colonel Forsythe when he asked her to go and have supper with him at the Savoy. But Gregory Fanshawe had not come to scold this time; he had a letter in his hand, and he looked rather unusually searchingly at his wife as she obviously shrank as he came nearer.
“What’s the matter, little mouse?” he asked teasingly, and he took her chin between his brown finger and thumb.
“Nothing.”
“Then why do you squirm away from me as if you were afraid?”
“I don’t know,” faltered Monica, feeling, as she always did when her husband spoke at all lovingly, as if she would burst out crying.
“Well, stop knitting that old jumper and listen to this. No; come across and sit down on the sofa by me; you can hear better. Besides, I haven’t kissed you for at least twenty-four hours. Don’t you want to be kissed, you dreadful modern little thing? All right then, you shan’t be.” Gregory Fanshawe laughed as he sat down.
“You know I do.” Monica’s face was working.
“Well, then, why do you pull away from me? There!” Gregory Fanshawe raised a dark head and patted the small fingers that clung. “That’s it; now listen to this. . . . I needn’t read it all, it won’t interest you. Yes, here it is: ‘Well, why not? We should love to have you, the cold weather here is heavenly, and the small-game shooting perfectly topping. Tim would love it.’”
“Why not what?” asked Monica, who knew already. She had seen the foreign stamp on the envelope, slipped from the lean knee on to the floor.
“Why not go out to India for the cold weather?” said her husband.
“Did you suggest it, then?”
“Yes; I said something about it in one of my letters.”
“It’s the girl in the grey jumper,” said Monica, dreading to hear.
“Yes, it is—of course, you’ve seen her, I forgot. Yes, she and her husband are at Waroli, a topping station in the Punjab. Ripping! I was there for about six months before the war broke out.”
“Have you been to India, then?” asked Monica dully. Another experience that would leave her stupidly in the background.
“Yes; but only for a few months. It’s a topping spot.”
“I don’t want to go,” broke out Monica wildly.
“Well?” Gregory Fanshawe stared over the buried head on to the leads of the house opposite. Should he suggest it, or was it too cruel, he wondered? He decided to risk it. “Would you mind my going alone, then, just for a few months?” he said.
“Without me?”
“Yes.”
“Would you rather be by yourself?
“No, I don’t say that,” prevaricated the man, who was still staring out into the sunlight. But his heart leapt at the thought of it. Alone—alone, without always the thought and sight of the seeking woeful eyes. Monica loved him too much, that was what was wrong with the whole thing, he thought impatiently.
“I should die if you went away and left me behind,” said Monica, in a muffled, tremulous voice, lifting her head from the blue serge sleeve.
“Well then, come along with me, and don’t make a howl about it,” said Gregory Fanshawe irritably, almost longing in his bitter disappointment to strike the small trembling face held up to his.
“Oh, I say, it’s boiling!” Monica dragged a tiny scrap of lace from under the wide gold bangle above her elbow and wiped her top lip.
“Yes, it always is here, especially when the wind is behind us. But directly we get a head wind we shall be all right. Damn! here comes that sweep Karmina.” Sir Gregory Fanshawe scowled as the tall, lithe Indian came noiselessly down the deck.
“Don’t call him a sweep; he’s a Prince,” whispered Monica indignantly.
“So he may be, but that doesn’t prevent him from being a sweep,” replied her husband. “Morning, Maharajah Sahib; hot, isn’t it?” Gregory Fanshawe got up and walked a little way to meet the figure in immaculate white flannels. He did not intend to let the Indian spend the morning sprawling in a deck-chair next to his wife, as he had done for the last two mornings.
“Good-morning, Sir Gregory.” Prince Karmina spoke excellent English and had excellent manners. His three years at Oxford had done that much for him. But it had also taught him to drink—not conspicuously or violently yet, but the rigid abstention of his splendid old father was his no longer. His old father, who in his palace of five hundred rooms was even at that very moment lying on a string charpoy droning over his Koran, his still keen eyes fixed on the marble filigree of the narrow windows, a spotless loincloth as his only garment. His son, the light of his eyes, coming back to him from the great England—coming back to take up the reins of government that he himself was beginning to feel a drag in his old fingers.
“Well, we’re getting on. Aden to-morrow.” Gregory Fanshawe leant his back against the rail of the ship, his elbows resting on the top bar of it. “We’ve had an excellent voyage so far, good weather practically the whole way. You’ll be glad to see India again, I expect,” he went on conversationally, not appearing to notice what he saw with every fibre of his being—that the long thick-lashed opaque eyes of the Indian were wavering towards his wife.
“Yes, I shall be veree glad.” But the Indian spoke absently: Monica was getting up. “Allow me,” he said suddenly, and darted forward.
“Oh, thank you!” Monica’s small face dimpled and flushed. There was something so madly romantic about a Prince, she thought, especially an olive-coloured one, and she liked Prince Karmina. To begin with, he was so rich that even his jewels by themselves would bring him in an income of thirty thousand pounds a year if he liked to sell them—the stewardess had told her that. Then he had twenty real wives and five hundred “porcupines”—her husband had told her that, too.
“But why do you mix up wives and porcupines together?” Monica had asked, her eyes on the lithe, leaping figure of the Indian, who was playing deck tennis on the lower deck.
“Oh, you little owl! haven’t you heard that before?” Gregory Fanshawe, his long legs stretched out in front of him, was howling with laughter at Monica’s bewildered profile. “They’re generally mixed in the East,” he said, and he howled again.
“But I don’t see why they should be,” said Monica, who had flushed deeply at her husband’s unrestrained laughter. She hated it when he laughed at her like that. It sort of expressed what Monica knew he felt about her, that she was something to be always taken as a joke. Not a living, loving, sensible wife to be held to your heart and consulted about things, but just something to be teased and made fun of. And never, never to be taken to your heart, for Monica, released like a bird from a cage from the highly decorated house in Hill Street, had gone breathless along the narrow white-painted corridor of the big liner, hoping and hoping. And—then it had come, the brutal slap in the face; two white doors with the hanging brass hooks. Near one another, certainly, but not even next door. And somehow that had seemed to put a barrier of brass across Monica’s heart—he had no right, if he had once taken her closely into his arms, never to take her again. And somehow a dreadful undercurrent of bitterness seemed to find its way into the swiftly-flowing torrent of her love, and she looked at him hardly sometimes, and got a dreadful feeling that she would like to make him wince—make him wince, and want her dreadfully, and then not be able to have her; she would think about it as she lay sleepless on the narrow berth in the beautiful cabin. For Sir Gregory and Lady Fanshawe were travelling in one of the new, gorgeously fitted up P. & O. Mail steamers, and they were travelling regardless of expense. And she looked at him hardly now, as he lounged against the rail of the ship, very tall and lean and well turned out. He didn’t for some reason like her being friendly with this nice polite Indian; very well then, she was going to be, just to annoy him.
“Oh, thank you,” she said again, and left her book and a bundle of knitting-silk in Prince Karmina’s olive hands.
“And what may I have the pleasure of doing with all this?” queried the delighted Indian, feeling rather like Monica did, that this was one in the eye for the tall lounging man with brows drawn down.
“If you will bring it down to my cabin for me, I shall be awfully grateful,” said Monica, and she smiled and dimpled again.
“I’ll take it later, thanks, Maharajah Sahib,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he stepped forward and took possession of the shining heap. Also of the book, which he dropped down into the sagging canvas of Monica’s deck-chair. “That’s it,” he said cheerfully; “now then, a little exercise, I think, Monica. Bye-bye for the present,” he said, nodding carelessly to the waiting Indian; “come along, dear,” and he turned to go.
“How insulting English people are to Indians!” Monica, furiously trying to keep step with her husband, spoke under her breath as they turned the corner by the music saloon. “I don’t wonder that they hate us.”
Gregory Fanshawe did not answer for a moment or two; he was anxious not to lose his temper unless he had to. “You don’t understand, dear,” he said, when they had made one complete turn of the deck; “Indians have quite a different code of behaviour to ours. If I were to hang about Karmina’s wife and offer to do little things for her, he would put the very worst construction on it. Probably, especially if she were to seem to like my attentions, she would wake up one day without a nose. Well, why should I tolerate in him what he would not tolerate in me, eh?”
“It’s different,” burst out Monica under her breath.
“And how?” queried Gregory Fanshawe, with rather an amused glance at the furious little figure stumping along at his side.
“Well, it’s all different. To begin with, Prince Karmina has been at home, and at home they haven’t got those ideas. He has been accustomed to associate on an equality with English girls. Naturally, he thinks it frightfully rude of you to snub him like that when he tries to be nice to me.”
“Yes, well, that’s true.” Gregory Fanshawe tightened his lips a little as he remembered a scene on the sands at Maygate. A bathing party of two—a girl more nude than clothed, and a native sprawling beside her. And the sick fury of an Indian civilian in a Bath chair beside him.
“Gad, he’s obviously a Mohammedan, Fanshawe, and in his own country his womenfolk are not allowed to poke even a nose outside their quarters. And if they do happen to go out, they’re swathed from head to foot in closest wrappings—a burka, you know; thing like a sheet, with lattice-work holes for the eyes—even the Begum, when she dined with the Prince of Wales at Bhopal: you couldn’t see an eyelash. . . . It’s damnable,” and he had sworn and grumbled until they had been moved on by their different attendants to somewhere where the immediate view was not quite so devastating to the general peace of mind. For Mason had been to India with his regiment, and so had the two Bath-chair men, many years before.
“Yes; well, that’s true,” said Gregory Fanshawe again, remembering, and because of it, speaking rather hardly.
“I should have thought you would have been rather more enlightened,” said Monica, bitter and sore, and because of it anxious to sting the self-possessed, long-limbed man at her side.
“Would you, funny little mouse?” said Gregory Fanshawe lightly, but with a mouth set in a straight line. “Well, I’m not, and please don’t forget it. If I find that you allow Karmina to hang round you, I’ll give you the hardest smacking that you’ve ever had in your young life—see?”
“You’ve no right to speak to me like that,” stammered Monica, longing in her rage to do or say something to really hurt the man who swung so lightly along beside her with a funny twisted smile on his mouth.
“Well, I don’t know who has, if I haven’t,” returned Gregory Fanshawe good-temperedly; but he spoke rather grimly, all the same. What an unspeakable fool he had been to marry as he had done! he was thinking. All his life before him now really, and yet with a clog round his neck in the shape of a wife for whom he did not really care. For there was no good disguising it, he did not really care for Monica. She was all right, so far as she went, and she certainly had improved enormously in looks since she had bought some decent clothes. But she was so awfully behind the times somehow. And the droll little early-Victorian ways that had amused him in the girl he used to meet on the Maygate Parade only irritated him intensely in the wife he had taken to bear his name. If only she would not look so reproachfully at him, he thought irritably, he would not feel so maddened with her. But you can’t go on making love to a girl who looks at you like a spaniel that has been whipped, and who, when you do take her in your arms, metaphorically licks your hand and sheds tears all over you. Gregory Fanshawe was intolerant and a little cruel in his release from a living death. Life was gorgeous, flaming, triumphant, and you could not be constantly dragged down to earth by a wife who wanted all sorts of things that you could not give her. Love, for instance—Gregory Fanshawe thought about it with a little twist of his mouth. He was a man of intensely strong passions, but Monica somehow failed utterly to rouse them. She was too docile; too yielding; too much always there—that was it. He wanted to hunt, and you cannot hunt a thing that tumbles down in front of you and curls itself round your boots. “Hallo—right oh!” He pulled himself up abruptly as a man in white flannels and blue blazer accosted him from the smoking-room door, with a strip of paper and a pencil in his hand.
“What number will you have, Rats?” Colonel Ashe smiled down at Monica as he spoke. He had been in France with Gregory, and he grieved over the obviously hopelessly unsuitable marriage he had made.
“Number? Numbers, if you please.” Gregory Fanshawe’s face was all alight; he was a born gambler. “What do you say, Monica—14 to 20, inclusive? It’s a selling sweep, and if we get it it ought to be worth about eighty pounds, and you shall have it.”
“I don’t think it’s right to take tickets in a gambling thing like a sweep,” said Monica primly, feeling a surge of terror flood over her as she said the words. But surely it was right to stand up for your principles? Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs,” Aunt Fanny’s stumbling-block, suddenly loomed largely in front of her.
“Come, come; don’t condemn us all wholesale, Lady Fanshawe!” laughed Colonel Ashe, who, with his kind eyes levelled on the strip of paper that he held against the wall and on which he was scribbling, was pitying the younger man from the bottom of his heart. But what had possessed the man to tie himself up with a girl like that? he thought, as he groped in his pocket for some change.
And Gregory Fanshawe, his straight mouth rather straighter than usual under his short moustache, was thinking the same, only far more furiously and bitterly as he pocketed the few shillings change and walked away down the deck with his wife beside him. “Damn you, damn you!” he would like to have said; “damn you, how dare you make a fool of yourself and me in front of a man like that and a pal of mine into the bargain?” But all he did say was something far more cruel, and it hurt far more, as he meant that it should.
“I say, Monica, we’ve rather got away from all that Nonconformist business at Maygate,” he said. “Don’t make more of a little fool of yourself than you can help, if you don’t mind. It’s bad taste, to begin with, and I dislike that almost more than anything.”
And poor silly Monica could not keep quiet. Her soul was all one jostling consciousness that she had made a fool of herself, and she groped madly for justification. “Aunt Ellie——” she began.
“Oh, God, don’t,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he turned abruptly and swung himself into the smoking-room door.
“Who was she then—do you know, Ashe?” Hugh Paton leaned forward and rapped out his pipe on the edge of the tub of water. The big liner cut its way silently through an Indian Ocean of perfect blue; the deck was strewn with chairs, everyone reading or dozing in the atmosphere of tropical stillness. Aden, with its brief excitement of a halt in the monotonous progress, lay three days behind them; with any luck Bombay should be reached in another forty-eight hours.
“I don’t know for certain, but I gather that Fanshawe met her when he was still on his back at Maygate. He was there for years, you know, before Wheeler operated and cured him. He married her when he was still a cripple, to dodge, they say, the advances of his cousin, who wanted to collar him for his cash, and also—however, that’s the rankest scandal.”
“Who’s the cousin?” asked Hugh Paton.
“A Mrs. Forrest.”
“Oh yes.” Hugh Paton was Inspector-General of Police in the Punjab, and he smiled.
“You’ve heard it, then?”
“We hear most things,” said Hugh Paton dryly.
“Well, that’s neither here nor there, and in any event she’s married the man, so it’s all right. But what I do lament over is that Rough on Rats should have tied himself up as he has done. I’m sorry for the child, too; she looks abjectly wretched, but I really think it’s largely her own doing. Now, what do you think of this?” Colonel Ashe repeated the incident of the morning.
“Yes; that’s fairly rank, I admit. But, still, she’s got a nice little face, and she’s obviously a lady. And she looks fearfully unhappy, as you say, and I don’t like seeing a girl look like that at the very outset of her married life. Also, she cries a lot; my sister has the next cabin to hers and hears her. Also”—Hugh Paton looked significantly down the deck—“that’s a bad beginning,” he said.
“Yes, I know.” Colonel Ashe focused his eyes on the two deck-chairs drawn very close together. Monica’s fair head showed over the top of hers, only Karmina’s olive fingers were visible, curling and uncurling themselves round the wooden framework of his own chair.
“Where’s Fanshawe?”
“Playing bridge in the smoking-room.”
“All the more fool he, to leave them alone!”
“I gather that he’s tried to stop it and can’t.”
Hugh Paton was a bachelor, and he snorted contemptuously. But Colonel Ashe was a married man, and although his married life now was a life of complete harmony, there had been a time when it had not been, and he felt a sneaking sympathy with Gregory Fanshawe. India was such a devil of a country for that sort of thing—and women were such fools. Also his wife had overheard a certain amount the night before, and had told it to him when he had called in on his way from his bath that morning.
And Monica, dimpling and flushing as she bent over her knitting-needles—the Maharajah Sahib had such a silky voice—was living over again with a fierce and passionate resentment the scene of the night before. He had come into her cabin on his way to bed, white and still in his immaculate dress clothes, and had told her to come along to his cabin.
“I’m undressed, I can’t,” said Monica, her shy, frightened eyes dropped to her thin nightdress.
“Put on a dressing-gown”—he had twitched it from its hook.
“But what do you want me for?”
“Never mind that; do what you’re told.”
So she had followed him, and when they had reached the beautiful cabin down the little alley-way, far removed from the other cabins, he had stood aside to let her pass in, in front of him, and had then shut and hooked the door, and had stood with his back against it.
“Now, look here,” he said, and there were funny little shadows at the root of his nose, “I’ve just heard something that I wasn’t meant to hear, in the smoking-room. You’re being talked about. Stop it; do you hear what I say?”
“How do you mean ‘talked about’?”
“That swine Karmina is making you conspicuous.”
“Pooh!” Monica, in her nervous terror, smiled uncertainly.
“Don’t smile—it’s not a smiling matter. Look here”—Gregory Fanshawe thrust both his hands into his pockets and then took them out again. “Monica, if you don’t promise now to have nothing more to do with that man,” he said, “I shall whip you. I know it sounds brutal, but if more men were brutal in the same way when their wives begin to make fools of themselves, there would be less misery. Will you or will you not do what I tell you about the Maharajah Sahib?”
“No, I won’t,” breathed Monica, her eyes wide with terror and shrinking back into a corner. He could not really whip her, she was saying over and over to herself. Men did not—or did they? And had there not been a time when she thought it would be nice?
“Don’t be a fool, dear.” Monica looked so small in her soft garments that Gregory Fanshawe suddenly felt a stirring of something tender round his heart. After all, perhaps he was hard. And perhaps if he . . . But Monica struck the tenderness from his eyes.
“You are the fool,” she said, hardly and defiantly, although she was white with fear and although inwardly her very soul was in tears. “He is the fool, he is the fool, when if he liked he could make me do anything just by loving me,” she was sobbing to herself.
Gregory Fanshawe took a few steps forward and caught hold of her wrist. “All right, then; don’t blame me if I hurt you,” he said.
“Greg, you can’t!” Monica shrank back on to her heels.
“Can’t I?” Gregory Fanshawe’s nostrils were dilated. His pride was furiously up in arms. It had been from such a common fellow too, the remark that had found its mark behind an illustrated paper: “I say, little Lady Fanshawe is going the pace with that Maharajah chap; I wonder how our lean friend likes it!”
“Can’t I?” he said again, and he caught the little ruffled head under one arm.
The punishment was sharp and bitter, and it left Monica half demented with pain and humiliation. “You brute! you brute!” she was stammering with passion. “You think that because I love you, you can do anything to me. You can’t; I tell you that you can’t. I don’t love you now either—I got over that ages ago. I will do all I can now to disgrace you. I will—I will. You think, because when you were ill everyone bowed down to you, that they are going on doing it now. They aren’t—at least I’m not; Mason can, if he likes,” stormed Monica, remembering the look in the eyes of the valet as he had walked past her cabin door early that morning, with a jug of shaving water on a tray. For Mason was accompanying his master to India, and was having the time of his life on the second-class deck.
“Say that again, that you will do all that you can to disgrace me!” Gregory Fanshawe had got Monica by one arm and was wrenching it.
“I will, I will,” sobbed Monica, wild with terror and despair. Surely he was going to kill her, this man with a set face and with a row of teeth that showed right up to the gums in front.
But Gregory Fanshawe suddenly let go of her arm; perhaps the same idea had flashed across his own mind. “Go back to your cabin,” he said, and his face suddenly looked very old and drawn. “You make me feel—well . . .” He walked to his berth and suddenly sat down on it, and buried his face in his hands.
“Greg!” That moved Monica as nothing else would have done, and she made a little rush across the cabin and fell at his feet. “Greg!” she said, and she caught hold of his brown wrists.
“Don’t,” said Gregory Fanshawe, lifting his head abruptly. “You say that you don’t love me, so there it is. All we can do now is to make the best of it. But, oh God! what a hopeless sickening business!” He got up and, leaning his forehead against the brass rim of the open porthole, stared out into the darkness.
The sky was hung with stars; they twinkled and stabbed the deep blue of it with a million points of light. The deep rhythmical throb, throb of the engines, with the tiny accompanying tremor of the huge steel hull, was the only sound in the enveloping darkness.
“I am sorry I said that about disgracing you, and I do, I do love you,” cried poor Monica, standing back from the tall figure that had pushed her abruptly aside as it got up. She stared at the straight black back, with the tiny rim of white showing above the rolled silk collar. Had she offended him for ever, this man to whom she belonged. “I say those things when I get in a rage,” she faltered, and she took a step forward. If only he would turn round and take her in his arms! She would forgive him everything then, all the stinging pain of where he had humiliatingly struck her; it had only been with his hand certainly, but still, that made it more shameful somehow. Like everything between him and her, a sort of careless, scoffing contempt. And all the cruel things he had said. “Greg, don’t just stand and not say anything,” she wept, her hands wrenched together.
“There’s nothing to say,” returned the man, who still stood with his back to her. “We’ll leave it at that, shall we? and just say good-night.”
“Won’t you even turn round?”
“No; I’m sorry I can’t,” returned Gregory Fanshawe; who dared not get out his handkerchief, and who was conscious that the idiotic tear had just reached the root of his nose.
Bombay lay and steamed under a brassy sky. It was midday when the mail slid alongside the massive stone quay, and Monica crinkled up her eyes under her white pith helmet and gasped. “I say, it’s glary,” she exclaimed in an excited whisper to the figure by her side.
“Yes, this is the hottest hour of the day in Bombay.” Prince Karmina really looked very attractive in his Jodhpur breeches of spotless white and his flaunting pale-blue finest muslin puggaree. And he was pleased and excited because he was going to spend the week-end at Government House. He was scanning the quay for the scarlet-robed chuprassies whom he knew would be there to meet him. No one on board knew that he was going anywhere so exalted to stay, and so he was looking forward to the little flutter of excitement that there would be when it was found out.
“Who are you looking for?” asked Monica, her rather round eyes on the olive face. What a beautiful nose he had, she was thinking, and such absolutely perfect teeth. He was frightfully good-looking, and in his native clothes far better looking than he had been in his English ones.
“I am not looking for anyone,” replied Prince Karmina, withdrawing his mysterious slumbrous eyes from the jostling crowd on the quay and levelling them on Monica. “How can I look elsewhere, when I have your sweet fairness so close to my side?”
“Is it all right for you to say things like that?” asked Monica uneasily. Sometimes she felt afraid of this slim, lithe Indian. To begin with, you could not tell by his eyes what he was thinking. They were opaque and had not got anything that you could see through, like English people’s eyes had.
“Perfectly,” replied Prince Karmina, crinkling his long eyelashes a little and staring very hard at Monica. For the last three days he had been trying that, and it had been very successful. Monica could not meet his gaze for long, so he had tried holding it with his own. And now, after three days, he could do it excellently. One of his old ayahs had taught him that: “Sleep, little bird; sleep, little bird,” she had been wont to croon when the royal baby had been more than usually restless, and she had brought her old, mysterious eyes nearer and nearer until the huge babyish brown ones had sunk deeply to sleep behind the pale coffee-coloured eyelids. And as Prince Karmina had got older he found it a very convenient way of keeping his faithful old native sepoy attendant quiet. Man Singh had served the English loyally in the Mutiny, and he had been recommended by the Resident as personal attendant to the little Maharajah, for the tiny son of the old Prince was surrounded with dangers, being the child of a younger wife. The senior Maharani hated this fair, beautiful interloper, for she had had no child of her own, and it was gall and wormwood to her to see her husband fondling the little fat baby son, and she would gladly have killed him. But Man Singh knew this, and, old man that he was, he never left the little boy until, feeling that the responsibility was more than he could bear, he managed to get the senior Maharani dispatched, not a difficult task in a Native State where an empty well or a couple of large crocodiles in a tank are generally at hand. And then he relaxed his vigilance a little, and Karmina helped him by standing with his huge, mysterious eyes fixed on the old man’s, until he also drooped and sagged sideways; and then the little boy would vanish out into the sun to play with the native servants, who petted him and gave him kajer nuts, or lumps of native sweetmeat from the bazaar. So it was comparatively easy to bring Monica to heel, especially as her soft, acquiescent gaze lent itself to anything of the kind.
“When you stare at me like that I get a sort of stupid feeling in my head,” said Monica, still staring back.
“Do you?” asked Karmina; and then, without changing his tone, “The noble husband approaches,” he said, and he slipped away.
“He calls you my noble husband,” said Monica, with a sort of stupid laugh, as Gregory Fanshawe drew up by her side. She did feel stupid—it must be the sun.
“I’ll ‘noble husband’ him if he comes within range of my boot,” said Gregory Fanshawe quietly, but as Monica thought coarsely. It was so different to the way the Prince spoke; he had a voice like wind blowing through the reeds. All English people were the same, thought Monica, with a sort of stupefied, miserable discontent; they shouted and went straight to the point.
“Look here, dear; they’ve sent down from Government House to ask us there for the week-end,” said Gregory Fanshawe, looking rather doubtfully at his wife. He knew Monica would loathe the idea of it, but it was not an invitation that you could exactly refuse.
“But we needn’t go, need we?” Monica was despairingly breathless.
“Well, I’m afraid we must. You see, Fraser knew my pater, and he might take it amiss if I turned him down.”
“Who is Mr. Fraser?” asked Monica hopelessly. It would be Hill Street all over again.
“The Governor,” said Gregory Fanshawe, smiling widely. “Don’t call him Mr. Fraser; he’s a peer.”
“There, you see, I begin to make mistakes at once!” Monica felt as if she could scream with despair. Was she never to get away from it, this sort of life that made her feel a fool and hopeless? Oh for The Laurels, and tea with knives, and plates that you changed yourself, and Aunt Ellie, and blancmange with fruit round it, and one thing, like potato pie.
“I’ll bring Bruce-Herbert along to make his salaams.” Gregory Fanshawe turned on his heel and walked, very well groomed and absolutely right in every detail, down the deck to where a young man, equally well groomed and right in every detail, stood staring in front of him. Monica saw the quiet, recollected smile as her husband spoke to him, turning his head a little back over his shoulder.
“How do you do, Lady Fanshawe?” Captain Bruce-Herbert had the most perfect manners, and wore shoes something like tennis shoes, half white and half brown. So much Monica grasped as she flushed scarlet.
“How do you do?” Monica was determined to be first in the field this time. “It is so kind of the Governor to have asked us to stay with him,” she said, and she made a great effort to speak easily. “But I’m afraid we can’t—you see, the people we are going to stay with up country are expecting us on a certain date, and it would not do to disappoint them.”
“Oh, I am very sorry.” But even the self-possessed Captain Bruce-Herbert was nonplussed this time, for Fanshawe had already accepted.
“Oh, well, Monica, I think we can square that all right with Aline,” Gregory Fanshawe broke in with an amused smile on his lips. “You see, Bruce-Herbert, my wife has not yet grasped the elasticity of invitations in India,” he said.
“Splendid! Well, I’ll send a couple of chuprassies on board to round up your kit.” Captain Bruce-Herbert swung round on his heel and beckoned to two of the gorgeous visions that were hovering about on the quay. He did not want to be there, so to speak, if there were any recriminations flying about.
But Monica, with despairing misery, realized that it was useless to start anything like recriminations, and she went down to her cabin and finished the little odds and ends of packing in a condition of resigned hopelessness. Her marriage meant this sort of thing, so the only thing was to bear it quietly.
And when she saw the huge car with the crown on the back, instead of a number, and the two men in scarlet uniform salaaming humbly to her as she stood at the foot of the steps of the huge waiting-hall, her spirits began to revive a little. And when the car swung in at the crowned gate on Malabar Hill her spirits revived still more.
“Oh, but it’s perfectly heavenly!” she cried, and she flung her head out of the window of the limousine. “Look, Greg, how the land goes round in a big curve, and look at the sea right down below! Oh, how perfectly delicious! And look how the creepers hang down, like you always imagine they do in India! Oh, I say, don’t you adore living here?” she queried suddenly, staring at the slim self-possession seated in front of her.
“Well, it is rather jolly,” replied Captain Bruce-Herbert, suddenly waking up and also becoming animated. How pretty the kid looked when she smiled and got pink, he thought. And Fanshawe was a bit of a stick, with his set jaw and folded arms. He exerted himself to excel in his duty as deputy host. “We bathe there,” he said, pointing down a shady path that led to the sands.
“Where?” said Monica excitedly, making a dash to the window.
Gregory Fanshawe put out his hand. “Sit down, dear,” he said quietly, “we are nearly there.”
All Monica’s childish animation went out like a quenched candle, and Captain Bruce-Herbert saw it, and under his delightful exterior he became a little indignant. Surly brute, he thought, as Monica sat back in her corner and her mouth drooped.
But the car drew up with a swish of fat tyres on well-rolled gravel, and Monica’s spirits rose again, as she stepped out, the attentive hand clasping hers close. The little bungalow into which they were being ushered might just as well have been planted on a rock in the sea, so glorious was the view that stretched itself round them. Just a tiny sloping bank of greenest, softest turf, and then the sea, far below them, coming in in huge rolling, crested waves on spurs of blackest rocks.
“Oh, I say, do we sleep here?” Monica’s eyes were wells of delighted anticipation; she ran out on to the veranda and flung her arms over the rail, and rapturously drank in the beauty of it.
“Yes, we do.” Gregory Fanshawe had strolled out after his wife, Bruce-Herbert’s delightful back now becoming a small oblong, as he wended his way to his own quarters in the A.D.C.s’ bungalow.
“Oh, what’s happened to him?” Monica turned, alarmed.
“He’s gone. Don’t shrink away from me like that, Monica. I’m sorry about this, if you don’t like it. But, you know, it isn’t a diplomatic thing to refuse an invitation from Government House. You never know; I’m done so far as the Air Force is concerned, but I might get something else, and Fraser was very pally with my pater. They were at Harrow together.”
“I’m only afraid of you,” said Monica, and she backed a little. “I’ve always got that feeling that I shall disgrace you hanging over me.”
“But there isn’t the faintest chance of it,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and his eyes lingered a little over Monica’s small fairness. She was beautifully dressed; the heavy striped crèpe de Chine frock and the silk stockings and suède shoes were exactly right. He took a step forward.
“Salaam, mem-sahib!” From the curtained door that led into the two wide matted bedrooms a brown wrinkled face peered suddenly. Moti, ayah, walked out with a clinking of braceleted ankles.
“What does she want?” Monica got scarlet and moved a little nearer to her husband. What a desperate country, where odd native women suddenly crept in on you!
“I expect she’s the ayah belonging to the bungalows. Yes; all right, ayah, start unpacking the mem-sahib’s kit. Give her your keys, dear.”
“I would rather do it myself,” said Monica, dismayed.
“No, let her do it; these people don’t understand our waiting on ourselves. Now I’ll get along into my room; I can see Mason hanging about there.”
“Is he staying here too?”
“Yes, of course he is; he’ll have the time of his life. There are sure to be several English shovers, and I know Fraser brought his own butler out with him. Cheerio, dear,” and Gregory Fanshawe walked a little way along the veranda and turned into his own beautiful big bedroom. The bungalow contained three rooms—two large bedrooms and a larger sitting-room.
It was with the intensest apprehension that Monica watched the deft brown fingers moving over the piles of dainty clothes in the compressed cane trunk. But how she rejoiced afterwards when she realized that if it had not been for ayah she would have gone into lunch dressed quite wrong. For ayah’s shrewd perception immediately discerned the right frock to wear, and at lunch, in the midst of a collection of perfectly dressed women, Monica held her own in a soft palest blue-striped georgette frock with a hat of softest straw turned up at the back, with a huge rosette of pale blue ribbon over one ear.
Government House consisted of a collection of bungalows dotted about on a wooded promontory that jutted straight out into the sea. One bungalow, bigger than the rest, contained only reception-rooms, and in one of these the guests assembled for lunch. And lunch was a big affair, as it was Saturday and the party was going on to the Races.
“Well, Fanshawe!” The Governor was a tall man with a heavenly smile, and he had the priceless gift of making you feel that you were the only person that he cared twopence about. And as a matter of fact he was very pleased to see Gregory Fanshawe, as his father had been one of his most intimate friends. “Well, Fanshawe, it’s a great pleasure to me to see you here,” he said; “now introduce me to your wife.”
Monica was standing in a condition of nervous apprehension quite by herself in a corner. Everyone else seemed to know someone. She did not, and her husband had been whisked away from her by a beautiful young man in a grey morning coat who had told him to come and speak to the Governor. She watched with the wildest anguish as the same young man approached her.
“His Excellency would like to speak to you, Lady Fanshawe,” said the vision.
“Oh, dear!” Monica gasped openly. “What do I call him?” she whispered as she crossed the room.
“Your Excellency,” said the vision with a reassuring smile.
“Well, your husband’s father and I were old friends,” said Lord Fraser as he bent over the small, very damp hand. “It is very delightful to see you here, and to feel that I am welcoming you to India.”
Monica flushed and trembled, and the kind voice went straight to her heart. “You are not half so glad to see me as I am to see you,” she stammered. “You are the first person for ages who has looked at me as if they really wanted to see me—thank you so very much for it, Your Excellency,” and Monica dropped a funny little curtsey and pressed her soft mouth to the hand that held hers. Then she stood upright, pale with fear—it had been wrong to kiss his hand and say that.
But Lord Fraser was one of nature’s most perfect gentlemen, and he was deeply touched. Also, he was fed up with the artificiality of the women that flocked round him, for Lord Fraser was a bachelor. And he knew that Bombay would fasten like carrion on the story of the girl who had curtseyed to the Governor and kissed his hand. So he determined, rather wickedly, that they should have something else to talk about. So he bent his nice, faintly greying head a little lower, and picking up Monica’s trembling hand he held it gently to his mouth. “Thank you very much,” he said, and then he spoke to the petrified vision who was still hovering. “I will take Lady Fanshawe in to lunch,” he said. “Send Lady Farrow in with Sir Gregory Fanshawe.”
So Monica found herself seated at the Governor’s right hand at a long oval table over which trails of pink antigonum shed their tiny blooms. And wonderful attendants in scarlet uniforms handed her wonderful dishes. But she hardly thought about them, because of the gentle kindness and sympathy of the understanding eyes that looked into hers. It brought out all that was hungering for expression in her; here was someone that thought she was nice, so she could be nice. And Monica laughed, and made little shy, witty remarks, and ventured little daring sallies, until Lord Fraser tipped back his chair a little on its polished legs and roared aloud with laughter. And then Monica sighed and fumbled with her bread and became abruptly silent.
“And what is the matter with you now?” queried Lord Fraser, who wondered at Monica’s sudden transition from wildest mirth to gloom.
“Two things,” said Monica, leaning a little closer and speaking with the sweetest confidence. “One is that I see Prince Karmina sitting further down the table, and my husband hates him, and I have an awful fear that he is staying here; and the other is that it is so heavenly to have someone to talk to like you, someone who really understands, and who doesn’t make me feel that I am an idiot.”
Lord Fraser tackled the first remark first, although it was a difficult one to tackle, but he sensed what had gone before to make Monica say what she did. The Maharajah of Karnmore had arrived in India to-day; therefore they had probably come out in the mail together. And Lord Fraser had seen the heavy thick-lashed eyes wandering down the table to where Monica sat dimpling and laughing. “He is staying here,” he said, “but be guided by your husband in any friendship that you make of that kind; he knows better than you do,” and Lord Fraser smiled cheerfully; in his position he could not say more, but he hoped his words would carry weight to the pretty little thing who looked at him like a confiding bird. And as to the second remark, well, it was impossible to say anything, because Monica had betrayed the true state of affairs so hopelessly by ever making it. But he smiled again, and as he had a very delightful smile it was enough for Monica, and she preened herself in it.
“Oh, I do think you are the very nicest man I have ever met,” she breathed, and she bent her eyes to her plate, and had to be reminded by a friendly glance from Lady Farrow, across the Governor, that it was time for the ladies to leave the room. Lady Farrow had taken her sudden fall from grace with the frankest good temper, and had thoroughly enjoyed her lunch by the side of the extraordinarily good-looking man who had apparently just dawned on Bombay society from nowhere.
So it was a jubilant and festive Monica who was handed into a striped limousine car with one other woman and a couple of bespatted visions, and who got out at the white-gated entrance to the Racecourse, surrounded by white-uniformed policemen and by young men in grey morning coats and grey top-hats, with silver-knobbed sticks tucked under their arms. It was all so grand, as she thought, inwardly rejoicing that she had on apparently just the right frock.
The Government House box was in the best place of all, just in front of where the races finished, and Monica found herself sitting next to the Governor. Her husband was behind, still talking to Lady Farrow; he was looking at her, as she turned round and waved. “Isn’t it heavenly?” she called, across the row of self-conscious guests; for it was a great thing to be in the Governor’s box at the Races—everybody stared at you and wished they were there too.
“Heavenly!” smiled back Gregory Fanshawe across the self-conscious heads. He was very much pleased that Monica was showing up so well, for he had been dreadfully afraid that she would be awkward and ill at ease. He did not realize how the Governor’s gentle sympathy had drawn out the very best in his wife. It was The Laurels all over again; Monica had withered and flagged in the cold atmosphere of criticism that Aunt Ellie had always diffused round her. If people think you are a fool, you are one, so Monica had often cried out despairingly in the little bedroom under the roof. And in her married life she had found it too; her husband’s blue eyes were so cold, so searching. Not that he was cold really—Monica throbbingly knew better; but something had turned him cold, and what it was she did not know. Oh, that she did! Monica had wept bitterly many and many a time.
Monica and Lord Fraser drove back from the Races together, Captain Bruce-Herbert, very well groomed, in the seat in front of them. “Got the old boy cold,” as he confided to a brother-vision later.
But the atmosphere of appreciation brought out all that was attractive in Monica, and she dressed for dinner in the wildest excitement. Ayah had put an assortment of evening frocks on the bed; Monica hung over them in a frenzy of indecision. It should be the silver brocade; Cousin Ethel had liked that best of all, for Monica had shrunk from her mother-in-law in the delirious hour of purchasing her outfit for the East, and she and Mrs. Forsythe had had many delicious hours shopping together.
“Hallo! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.” Ayah had salaamed and vanished, and Gregory Fanshawe had been standing at the door that separated the two rooms for quite two minutes, watching his wife as she stood before the glass. She was smiling, and making little soft thrustings with her chin at the oval mirror. It was quite dark outside, and the sea made a heavenly furry booming sound on the rocks far below them.
“Oh!” Monica frankly jumped as she turned.
“Enjoying yourself?” Gregory Fanshawe crossed the room and stood close to his wife.
“Madly!” Monica lost her little feeling of fear and smiled up at the tall man beside her. Somehow, she could look at him now with a different feeling in her heart. There was something else now besides him. Generally, when he came near, he only made her feel a mad longing, craving feeling that he would take her in his arms. Now there was all this frantic fun as well. “Madly,” she said again.
“Oh, well, I’m very glad to hear it.” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were suddenly cruel. “ Well . . . kiss me,” he said quietly.
“No.” Monica shrank back.
“And why not?”
“Because, because . . .” Monica stood like a frightened animal at bay. “It’s not fair,” she cried. “I sort of get away from all that, and am happy in a different way, and then you come and try to drag me back again. It’s most frightfully cruel of you. I love this—it’s all so madly exciting, and the Governor likes to talk to me, and he says that because I am a bride I can sit next to him at dinner to-night. I heard him tell Captain Bruce-Herbert that. And then you come and try to make it stale. I’m just beginning all this new Indian part, and I want to keep it madly exciting, not all spoilt by anything else.”
“How spoilt?” Gregory Fanshawe had come nearer and was staring down into the frightened eyes.
“By your kissing me, and all that sort of thing. It wakes me all up, I tell you, and I don’t want to be woken up. It’s just like I said before: you like to poke me and see what I feel. It’s brutally, brutally cruel of you!”
“But supposing I say that I like waking you up?” said Gregory Fanshawe thoughtfully, his eyes on Monica’s white throat.
“But you only do now because you see that I am enjoying something else,” sobbed Monica, with the bitterest resentment in her heart.
“That may be, but anyhow, I’m going to kiss you now. Come here!” Gregory Fanshawe pulled her roughly to him. The primeval male in him was awake. Monica belonged to him, and not to anyone else, and she must be made to remember it. He did not always want her, certainly, but he wanted her there, in case he did. So he took hold of her slender shoulders, and stooped his very well-brushed head. And he did not let her go until he felt her tremble in his arms.
“Greg . . .” Monica was white and trembling. “Greg . . . you know I do really love you, don’t you? It’s only—it’s only . . .” She stretched out shaking and pathetic hands. “Now you won’t kiss me for months,” she cried; “it’s that that kills me. I can’t live that way, I tell you. You oughtn’t to do it, either—it’s not fair! . . . Oh, it’s not fair! Oh, why did you kiss me now?” Monica dropped, a very small silver heap, into a chair.
“Come along, and don’t be a little goose.” But Gregory Fanshawe was breathing rather more quickly than usual himself. Monica had been soft and yielding in his arms, and after all, she was his wife. And there had first been that native swine, and now the Governor making an ass of himself. For Gregory Fanshawe could not discern the wisdom behind the Governor’s marked attentions to his wife. Monica’s simple remark at lunch had given him cause to think. John Fanshawe had been rather like that, cold and a little selfish, and his marriage had been more or less of a failure. And India was a bad country to come to, unless things were all that they should be between husband and wife. Fanshawe probably only wanted a little healthy jealousy to keep him up to the mark. And he was old enough to be the child’s father, so that he could pay her a little fatherly attention without it mattering a rap. Also, he thought Monica a very sweet little thing and deserving of attention. He hated to see a quenched look like that on a young thing’s face.
They walked together across the springy turf and well rolled gravel to the reception-hall again. This time, great dark men with curled black beards stood about in scarlet uniforms holding long lances with little flags at the ends. They were the Bodyguard, Gregory explained, their special duty being to look after the Governor’s person.
“Who pays for them?” asked Monica tremblingly, more or less herself again. Only now that dreadful hungry feeling had come back again. She did not look at the tall man beside her.
“We do,” replied Gregory Fanshawe, laughing. “What a socialistic question!”
“Oh, then I am glad I have a chance of seeing them!” replied Monica, and she trod with satisfaction between the row of tall bearded Sikhs that led to the red-carpeted stairs. This was Saturday night, and therefore a dinner-party night; there was a gay, rustling crowd in the wide, beautifully lighted verandas that faced the sparkling lights of Colaba and the curving shores of Back Bay.
Dinner was something like lunch, only nicer. Lady Fanshawe was a bride, Lord Fraser explained to the grand lady who sat on his left, and she had only arrived in Bombay that morning. So Monica was fêted and made much of; and after a heavenly evening, when someone sang and played divinely, and several young men made determined efforts to get near her and failed, because Prince Karmina had wedged himself next to her in the corner of a blackwood sofa, and sat glowering, without speaking, staring straight in front of him, Monica found herself on her way back to the little bungalow on the Point.
“Have you enjoyed yourself?” she asked her husband timidly.
“Yes, very much, except for seeing that black swine take up a position beside you on the sofa. Why did you let him, Monica?”
“I didn’t know how to get him away,” faltered Monica; “and as he didn’t say anything I thought it wouldn’t matter.”
“No; well, I suppose it doesn’t. Only mind you don’t let him hang round you to-morrow. That sort of thing is absolutely barred out here; you have no idea how people feel about it.”
“No; all right, I won’t.” Monica spoke obediently and quietly, but her hands were trembling. What a wonderful country it was! The stars were so bright and so twinkling, and a big tree in front of them had wonderful great white blossoms on it. Some of them had fallen on to the grass, and Monica stepped on one, waxy and sticky, and as she crushed it it sent out a heavy scent. The sea on the rocks below made a dull slumbrous booming sound; the lights from their little bungalow twinkled like fireflies through the still tropical air.
Moti was still there, waiting to undress her mistress. But Monica did not want her to, and said so shyly to her husband through the curtain that separated the two rooms.
“All right, push her out then.” Gregory Fanshawe came to the curtain and looked through it. He had lighted a cigarette, and Monica heard the spurt of a soda behind him. Mason was there then.
“How shall I say it?”
“Speak in English; she’ll understand.”
“Oh, ayah, I don’t want you, thank you!” Monica’s voice was alarmed, but ayah was glad of the dismissal and vanished. This was a real mem-sahib, she thought, not one of the common sort, who got all they could out of an ayah because they were either too poor or too mean to keep one themselves.
“All right, Mason; that will do.” Monica heard the words with a queer terror in her heart. Mason had gone; she heard his heavy footfall on the gravel outside the back veranda.
“Can you manage your dress yourself?” Gregory Fanshawe had come to the curtain again. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he had a tumbler in his hand.
“I think I can.” Monica was struggling with her arms over her shoulders. “Oh, how boiling it makes you!” she gasped.
“Yes, this isn’t England. Half a second, while I put this down. There now, take your hands away, or I can’t see properly. Ah, that’s got it!” There was a little silence as the silver bodice fell apart.
Now what? Monica stood desperately irresolute. If she turned round he would see her very undressed; if she stood as she was he would think she wanted him to kiss the back of her neck. She did, frightfully she did, but she didn’t want him to know it. Ah! Monica stood quite still and her eyes shone out in front of her like happy stars.
“Turn round,” said Gregory Fanshawe, lifting his head again.
“No, how can I?”
“Easily.”
“But my dress will fall off.”
“Let it,” said Gregory Fanshawe with a twinkle.
“But . . .” Monica swung round. “It’s going to begin all over again,” she cried. “Just as if I was your slave. It’s what I say—you won’t let me go quite. If you would, I could try to be happy in other ways. But you won’t. It’s like a cat with a mouse that’s nearly dead—the cat pokes it up again. Let me go really, I won’t do anything to disgrace you; I said I would, but I didn’t mean it. But this makes me frightfully wretched. Now perhaps, because you just feel inclined to, you will love me for a bit. But then I’m left, and how can I bear it?” Monica began to cry.
“Where do all the tears come from? I wonder.” Gregory Fanshawe had taken one soft elbow in his brown hand. “An inexhaustible supply, surely. Come!” He drew her very gently to him.
“No—I simply won’t,” said Monica suddenly and fiercely, and she jerked herself backward. “It’s humiliating and slavish. I am a real person; not only a doll to be kissed and fondled when you feel inclined to. I won’t—I tell you I won’t!” Terrified, she backed.
“Won’t you?” But Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes laughed. “Mind, you’re tumbling over your nice dress,” he said.
Monica stooped and groped for it with unseeing fingers. How cruel he was! she thought bitterly. He knew to a fraction of a thought how she felt when he came near her, and he traded on it. She laid the silver heap on a chair and went to the wardrobe for one of the padded dress-hangers.
Gregory Fanshawe watched her in her soft princess petticoat. Monica pleased him in those ways; she was never muddly in déshabille. And perhaps he was rather a brute. But he was not going to force his society on her against her will. Let her ask him to take her in his arms and he would. “Well, good-night,” he said quietly.
“Good-night,” said Monica, still with her back turned. Gregory Fanshawe walked to the door that divided the two rooms. She would come after him, he was practically certain of it. But Monica was determined not to this time, and she unhooked the dress-hanger with fingers that trembled with the fierceness of her determination. And she moved softly about her bedroom and then the light went out—went out with a decision that took Gregory Fanshawe very much by surprise, as he lay in a long chair, a chola peg wedged in the wicker arm of it.
The sea lay cold and still under the blazing moon when at about one o’clock he waked with a start. Monica was standing close to his bed, one hand on his shoulder.
“There’s an animal that makes a noise like a file in my bedroom,” she said, and her voice was thick with fear. “It runs round and round the walls; I can half see it. Oh, what shall I do if it gets on my bed!”
“It won’t; it’s probably only a musk rat.” But Gregory Fanshawe, much amused, kicked back his sheet and groped on the floor for his bedroom slippers. Monica looked very small in her white nightgown and with two pigtails hanging on either side of her face. And the room was full of the scent of magnolia blossom, and the moonlight flooded the matted floor. He put his arm round the trembling shoulders.
“Don’t do that, please,” said Monica, trying to detach the lean fingers.
“Why not?” asked Gregory Fanshawe, keeping his hand where it was and walking with Monica towards the electric-light switch.
“Because—because—oh!” Monica suddenly broke off. “If it runs over my feet I shall die!” she cried, and she clung to him.
“Let me lift you up and then it can’t,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and he stooped and took her in his arms and held her close to him.
“Don’t—oh, don’t!” Monica struggled and then turned her face into the striped sleeve. “Don’t—oh, don’t!” she wailed.
“And why not?” Gregory Fanshawe had his mouth very close to the soft hair, but his eyes were getting the funny red glow in them that they had not had for a very long time. “And why not?” he said again.
“Because it gives me the feeling as if I was plush being rubbed up the wrong way,” gasped Monica, trying desperately to steel her heart against the voice that always brought her to a condition of trembling, longing surrender.
“And a very nice feeling too,” said Gregory Fanshawe and his eyes laughed. “ Come, let me kiss you, dear. Don’t be frightened; I won’t do anything that you won’t like—I promise you I won’t.”
“How will you know what I should like and what I shouldn’t?” said Monica, peering uncertainly through the moonlight at the man who held her still crushed close to him. Did he know how her heart was thundering, she wondered, and if he did, why didn’t he kiss her? Because her very soul, her spirit was crying out for it—he must know.
“I can guess,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and there was a sort of lurking tenderness in the eyes that still glowed.
“Tell me.”
“Well, I guess that you wouldn’t like me to put you down,” said Gregory Fanshawe wickedly. “And you needn’t worry, because I’m not going to.” And he carried her to the dividing curtain and pushed it back with one square shoulder, and walked with her to the bed and deposited her on it.
“Now what?” said Monica tremblingly, her eyes on her husband’s face, white in the moonlight.
“That depends on you,” said Gregory Fanshawe.
Prince Karmina was not enjoying his week-end at Government House at all. He was experiencing what Monica spent most of her time experiencing—the supremely uncomfortable sensation of being at a disadvantage. Everyone was extremely polite, from the Governor downwards; the evening before, Lord Fraser had spent quite a long time asking him all about his time at Oxford and about his old father, and about the people over whom he was about to take up the reins of government. But there was an unspoken something under all the courtesy and interest, and Prince Karmina, as he lolled in bed on this heavenly cold-weather Sunday morning, was trying to find out what it was. In England he had been so warmly and almost veneratingly received; girls at the houses at which he had stayed had vied with one another to claim his attention, and once, if not twice, he had been the recipient of quite unusually delightful attentions. Prince Karmina smiled as he remembered them, and kicked his slim olive legs about. But here there was a chill—a very vague chill, certainly, but a chill all the same; and Prince Karmina did not like it at all.
He got out of bed and walked out on to the back veranda. His chota-hazri had not yet arrived; as a matter of fact, there had been words in the large dispense khana of Government House kitchen, and Prince Karmina’s personal servant was even at this moment sitting on an upturned Tate sugar-box, nursing his jaw. He had come to fetch his master’s chota-hazri, and, in the manner of the hangers-on of Native Princes and their kind, he had shouted and hectored, and had eventually spat noisily at his failure to secure the first pieces of toast that were being brought from the front of the fire. And Mason had come in. Mason who did not care a rap if it was considered derogatory for a European servant to be seen concerning himself with his master’s bodily needs, but who meant to see that his master got the best piece of toast and the most freshly made tea, even if he had to give up, for the sake of appearances, the joy of carrying to him.
“Here, you . . .” Mason stared disgusted at the pan-stained streak on the stone floor. “No sweepers in here, please.” He lifted a determined toe.
“Sweeper!” The Hindu servant, who in England had enjoyed quite as great a vogue in the servants’ hall as his master had enjoyed in the drawing-room, could speak English. “I am a Hindu,” he stuttered, blind with rage at the insult he had just received, “and I shall do what I please,” and he spat again, with intent this time.
“Hold your jaw, you dirty beast!” Mason’s foot and open hand went out simultaneously, and Shunker stumbled backwards to carry out literally, behind a sheltering hedge, Mason’s injunction.
“Now then, what’s all this about? The old European butler, who had been with Lord Fraser ever since he was a boy, and who had declined to allow him to come out to “an ’eathen country” without him, even although his master was going to be a very great personage there, came into the dispense khana, immaculate even to the collar, in his black suit, waistcoat, and shirt-sleeves. “Wot’s it all about?” he queried, seeing Mason, and thereupon looking relieved.
Mason pointed laconically to the floor.
“Ho! ’Oo did it?”
“You’ll find him outside,” said Mason, beginning to enjoy himself.
“Ho!” Farmer’s exit was majestic. And in a moment or two he was back again, Shunker squirming under the hand that was hooked down his collar.
“Now, my man”—Farmer had a pale face with a pendulous jowl, and it worked. “Now, my man, you seem to have forgotten that it’s sahibs’ food that is prepared in here—food for people that know’s ’ow to be’ave, see? And so there’s a little job of work for you. Chuck me over that swab, Mason—-there, behind you, on the rail. Now then, fellow-me-lad, down on your knees, and perhaps you’ll mind your manners next time.”
The face of the Hindu was livid with rage. Deadliest of deadly insults! He cursed heavily.
“But it’s what you fellows are such dead-nuts on.” Farmer read the News of India every day. “Equality—raising of the Untouchables—what not. Do the work of an Untouchable for once in your life, you dirty swine, you.” For Farmer was beginning to get really incensed; he knew the deadly insult that lay behind the Hindu’s action. To spit in a kitchen where food was being prepared! Shunker would have died many deaths rather than allow an Englishman to do it in his own establishment.
So the native crawled and wiped, and then fled cursing out into the compound again. And Farmer looked at Mason, and then jerked his chin a couple of times and shrugged his shoulders. “Beauties,” he said laconically. And then he winked at the crowd of huddling native servants all falling over themselves to get out of his way. “Cold feet over there,” he signed, and, chuckling, he linked his arm in Mason’s and walked out again.
So Prince Karmina’s chota-hazri was late, and when he had finished it, lying sprawling in a deck-chair, a cigarette between his lips and one knee cocked over the other, his long black toes looking like chocolate fingers against the blue sky, he saw a gay, laughing group go past his veranda. Prince Karmina was housed in the bachelors’ quarters, a heavenly spot on a little green mound, fringed with beds of glowing canna. There were men and girls together; Monica was there, laughing widely, showing all her small teeth. Where were they going? Prince Karmina got up and stared after them; they were turning down to the left of the Reception bungalow. Then Captain Bruce-Herbert came sprinting down the slope from the A.D.C.s’ bungalow, a roll of something dark under one arm.
“I say, Bruce-Herbert!” the Maharajah called loudly from his veranda. After all, as he thought swiftly, the A.D.C. was more or less of a servant, paid to look after him. “Where are they all going?” he questioned easily.
“Oh, we’re just going along to see if the tide’s all right for a bathe,” replied Captain Bruce-Herbert, drawing up in front of the figure in striped silk pyjamas, and feeling extremely uncomfortable as he did so. For it would be the devil’s own business if the Maharajah wanted to come too. That would put the lid on the bathe for the women, at any rate.
“There would be no objection to my becoming one of the party, I presume?” The Maharajah fixed his opaque, mysterious eyes on the clean brown face in front of him.
“Not the slightest.” But Captain Bruce-Herbert’s mind was in a turmoil. What was he to do? You could not openly insult the man by saying that there was every reason why he would not be welcome. What was he to do? His Chief would be mad if he heard that the bathing party had included an Indian. He fidgeted from one long foot to the other. “I’ll get along, if you don’t mind, Maharajah Sahib,” he said after an awkward pause; “you’ll want to shave, and all that. And come along directly you’re ready.”
Prince Karmina turned back into the bungalow with a frown. Shave! He had not intended to do so yet. But the hint in the A.D.C.’s voice had been unmistakable, and he lathered and scraped hurriedly in front of the white oval mirror. And meanwhile Bruce-Herbert took a long breath and went over the ground in huge leaps.
“I say, hurry, hurry!” he cried to the little group that turned at the sound of footsteps. “Otherwise you won’t get your bathe. The Maharajah wants to come, and I couldn’t head him off. Run!”
Down the long beautiful avenue they went in a laughing, breathless crowd. Monica held her husband’s hand and gasped as she ran.
“Why couldn’t he come with us?” she asked as she clung. But even as she asked she knew; it would be because she and the other women would have so little on. But why should it matter? Monica was still asking herself that as they dashed down the narrow sloping path that led to the bathing-boxes.
But when she found herself last of all the women in the blue translucid water between the white posts—for the shore of Government House Sands was rocky, and there was a place railed off for bathing between the rocks—she knew. Prince Karmina was standing at the foot of the steps that led up to the bathing-boxes staring. And she had to get out, get out in a wet bathing-dress! She could not—nothing would induce her to. She called to her husband, who lay on his back, gently rocking on the buoyant water, his brown keen face turned up to the sky.
“What’s up?” He turned over and trod water.
“How can I get out now?”
“I thought you were out ages ago. But why particularly now? Oh, I see! Damn the fellow!” Gregory Fanshawe made a few strong strokes and held on to one of the white posts. “Come over here,” he called. And as she caught hold of his hand to be pulled up, he said with a frown: “I’ll go in and get you your towel. But you oughtn’t to have waited so long, Monica.”
“Was it veree cold?” The Maharajah was still standing at the foot of the steps when Monica reached them. He had had a fairly good view already, because there had been a hiatus between deep water and the wrapping of the towel round the slim shoulders, but it was not enough. He wanted to see if Monica had any figure. These loose jumper businesses gave you no chance nowadays. And as a matter of fact he had no more chance now; Gregory Fanshawe had seen to that. The Maharajah was disgusted; bathing in itself was a loathsome process—sand between your toes and wet hair flopping into your eyes.
“Not so very—buck up and I’ll have a swim with you, Maharajah,” Gregory Fanshawe broke in, wild with suppressed rage. How dared the black sweep stare at his wife like that? He would take it out of him. . . .
But the Maharajah was too clever. His idea of a bathe was to splash luxuriously in a crowd of practically unclad women—and he had had many delightful facilities for that in England. And he had seen as much of Monica as he was likely to see for the time being, with that lanky brute about. Besides, the lanky brute looked annoyed, and he had had one horrid experience of the kind in England. He had marked down one particular rock, and had then strolled round it, and he had omitted to notice another rock with a man behind it. Although, as the Maharajah very rightly argued, if a white woman asks to be stared at as she does nowadays, why should you not stare? But there was a silly prejudice in the male English mind against Indians staring, for some reason or other.
“No, I think not, thank you, Sir Gregory,” he said coolly; and he walked away down the steps on to the sands and stared at the blue rippling water.
“Can’t you choke the brute?” The oddly subdued party were making their way back to the bungalows dotted about on the beautiful Point. An I.C.S. man had tactfully taken possession of the Maharajah and had carried him well on ahead. Monica was in the middle of a group of cheerful women. She adored it all—the trails of heavy creeper hanging from tree to tree; the heavenly beauty of the blue sea on their left, seen bluer and more shimmering through the heavy foliage. . .
“Wouldn’t I love to?” Bruce-Herbert spoke viciously.
“But it would be as much as my job is worth. ‘Pet the darlings,’ that’s the order from Home. ‘Slobber over them; ignore their vices. Forget that they’ve got a hundred or so of women stowed away in their palaces, and let them associate freely with your own women.’ Paugh! it makes me sick!”
“Yes; it’s a bad business!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke savagely, and his eyes stared ahead to where his wife walked blithely in the middle of a group of women. How could he teach her the danger of allowing a man like Prince Karmina to become at all intimate? Because he had heard to his intensest annoyance that Prince Karmina’s Palace was built on a hill only about three miles away from Waroli. And somehow Monica was becoming more valuable to him. He could not afford now to let her get very friendly with anyone else, and certainly not a native. And she was more attractive, too, than she had been; even in these last few days she had become more desirable. There was an added charm about the little shy face and the round eyes. And last night—Gregory Fanshawe’s breath came just a fraction more quickly. “Yes; it’s a very bad business,” he repeated, and Captain Bruce-Herbert, who had begun by not liking the tall and, as he had summed him up, rather sidey man, felt more drawn towards him.
“Anyhow, he hasn’t got the sickening ideas about the native that most of these fellows out from Home have,” he expanded to a fellow-vision later, “nor does he expect us to drink four-finger pegs before lunch.” And Captain Bruce-Herbert grinned over a brimming glass of barley-water that he was holding to his nice, well-bred mouth.
The Forrests had quite one of the nicest bungalows in Waroli. One-storied, like nearly all Indian bungalows are, it lay in the middle of a large compound. Captain Forrest was a great gardener, and his chrysanthemums were always far and away the best in the station, to his intense joy and pride. And when Monica and her husband arrived on one early morning in November they were just beginning to be at their best, and the long matted veranda was stacked with many pots of them. And Aline Forrest walked out from between them looking very beautiful and slim, and somehow seeming to partake of their pale wintry beauty. She was prettier than Monica remembered her—much.
“Well!” She had Gregory Fanshawe by the hand and was looking up at him, her long, heavily lashed eyes full of tears. “Tim, it’s Greg—on his feet. How do you do, Lady Fanshawe?”—she held out a careless left hand to Monica, who instantly became her old self-conscious self again.
“By Jove, Rats, this is great!” Timothy Forrest, in riding breeches and khaki shirt, came out of a curtained door. “How do you do, Lady Fanshawe? What sort of a journey have you had? It’s a business, isn’t it, travelling in India. Twenty-four hours from Bombay. But now you’re here, that’s the great thing. And we’ll get your kit taken into your room, and you can have a bath and change before breakfast.”
“Oh, thank you very much,” said Monica rather stiffly. She felt stupid with a sort of wavy feeling in her head, as if she was still in the train. And it all seemed so odd. Here they were, after a journey of thousands of miles, being received as if they had driven in to pay a call. Mason was taking it just in the same way too, superintending the carrying in of the luggage by the native servants quite calmly. And at Home, if anyone by any chance had ever come down from London to spend the day with the Aunts, they had always been expected to spend at least the first hour on the couch with their feet up. And her husband and Mrs. Forrest had already strolled out into the garden, out into the sunlight. The pale rays of it made Aline’s head shine with a lovely coppery glow. Monica pulled her topi a little lower over her eyes. She did not want to see it. Because she suddenly got an awful wrenching feeling in her heart. Supposing her husband got to like Mrs. Forrest better than her? People did that in India. What an awful thought to get ten minutes after your arrival to stay with people. Monica tried to pull herself together.
“I say, I’m sure you’re dead tired.” Captain Forrest spoke kindly. He had heard awful things about Monica—how that she was a girl who had got into trouble at Maygate, and how that from some quixotic motive his old friend had married her. But in his nice simple heart he thought that she did not look in the least like that. She looked shy and rather dejected, and the eyes that had wandered out into the compound were forlorn. “I say, come and have a look at the kid,” he said boyishly, feeling that he must produce his best thing to cheer Monica up. He led the way along the veranda to a door at the end.
“I say, is it yours?” Monica’s eyes kindled. Lying across the knees of an old ayah squatting on the ground, a little baby made gurgling noises. It was lying face downwards, and its rather large head was bald. It was making faintest efforts to lift it, but it could not manage it, and every time it tried, ayah made loud booming sounds of approbation, and patted the little square back. “I never knew that you had a baby,” she said.
“Didn’t you?” A most wonderful look of devotion had come into Captain Forrest’s rather ordinary blue eyes. He spoke in the vernacular to the old woman and stooped to his knees. “Didn’t they know that we’d got you, then?” he said, and he lifted the baby and pressed his fair moustache into the creased neck.
“How long have you had it?” asked Monica, staring at the brown hand spread-eagled over the tiny back, and thinking that it was nice to see a big man with anything so small.
“Four months,” said Captain Forrest, wondering how much Monica knew.
But Monica knew nothing, and she spoke with the frankest astonishment. “Why, and I only saw your wife about nine months ago,” she said. And then she felt desperately silent. Nine months! But it took nine months to have a baby. And Mrs. Forrest had not been married when she saw her at Maygate!
But Timothy Forrest had been through all this many times before, and he always found silence the best thing. So there was only the most ordinary little pause before he went down on one knee and gave the baby back into the old arms that were held out for it. “Get on with your snooze, old thing,” he said, and then he got back on his heels, stood upright again, and held the curtain aside for Monica to pass out.
So the first day in Waroli began, and as Monica pattered about the big airy room in a kimono, she wondered if she was going to like it. To begin with, it was all so different to England. The room that she was in now was very large and very lofty, and there were ventilators high up on the walls of it. Then it was very barely furnished, and the furniture looked cheap. The wardrobe lurched a little out from the wall, and the chest of drawers was tall and the drawers of it stuck a little as she dragged at them. The rest of the furniture was in the dressing-room, but it only consisted of a dressing-table and another very rickety chest of drawers. Opening out of the dressing-room was a tiny bathroom, a galvanized-iron tub standing inside a cement enclosure, with rather a dejected-looking tap sticking out from the wall over it. Her husband had just the same collection of rooms; Monica had been through them while he was still in the compound with Aline. Mason was in there, superintending the unpacking—they were to get their own native servants in Waroli, as apparently the Bombay servant was a useless quantity.
“What do you think of it, Mason?” Monica always felt that Mason was a little bit of the old life, and she clung to him in consequence.
“It’s not ’Ill Street, m’lady!” Mason had just nearly fallen over backwards: he had been hauling at an upper drawer with one foot on a lower. And the top drawer had flown out, being narrow and inadequate. And Mason was disgusted.
“Oh, but how glad I am that it isn’t!” Monica spoke under her breath as she walked back into her own rooms. For there was one streak of joy on the horizon. In the middle of her matted floor two little iron beds stood close together. And over them was one very large mosquito curtain. “I shall have him close to me in the night anyhow,” she said to herself, as she lifted a heap of soft blouses out of the tray of her large flat Willesden canvas trunk.
“Well, what do you think of it all?” Gregory Fanshawe had come in, and was standing, very tall and brown, just inside the door that joined the two rooms.
“I love it. But I am dying for a bath, and outside the bathroom door I only see a man with two square tins full of water. That isn’t my bath, is it?” Monica stood upright and smiled uncertainly. He was so tall and so heavenly-looking—how would Mrs. Forrest be able to help falling in love with him? For all her resentment had vanished like a trail of smoke. He had taken her in his arms, had whispered adorable things in her ear. And Monica had lain and listened to the booming roar of the sea when he had left her, and had wondered why she had ever been miserable for one instant. Because it might happen at any moment, this heavenly love-making.
“Oh, my aunt! do they expect us to sleep under one curtain?” Gregory Fanshawe had seen the little oasis in the middle of the matted floor and was frowning at it.
“Oh, wouldn’t you want to, then?” Monica smiled, in her wild anxiety not to show that she minded.
“Well, if you lie still it won’t be so bad. But I can’t stand anyone close to me wriggling about.”
“I won’t wriggle,” said Monica humbly. And then she came closer. “Please let me be near to you in the night,” she pleaded.
“Why?—afraid of a musk-rat?” Gregory Fanshawe took hold of the round chin and held it firmly.
Monica’s eyes fell. “I want to be close to you because I love you,” she whispered. “Don’t you love me at all, Gregory?”
This was something new from the girl who generally only dissolved into tears, and clung. Monica had lifted her eyes and was staring at him. Gregory Fanshawe was taken aback. What should he say? Should he say that he felt that he might love her one day if she behaved herself and let him alone? Or should he just laugh it off? And very unwisely he decided to laugh it off, and Monica detected the hollowness of the laugh, and laughed herself, only not so much hollowly, as bitterly.
“That’s all right, then,” she said. “And now about the bath. Do they bring hot water in tins? And do I let the man in? Tell me, will you, Greg, before you go back to your room?”
Life from November to March in an up-country station in India is practically the same everywhere. Waroli was in the Punjab, so it had the heavenly tang of the crisp early mornings, the delicious melting sunniness of midday, and the gradual creeping in of cold night, with its accompanying acrid smell of wood-smoke. They came back to gorgeous fires when they drove in, muffled with furs, from the club, but at midday, after the eleven o’clock breakfast, Monica found that a woollen jumper over a striped silk coat frock was enough. In the early morning, when she watched with an aching heart her husband’s smooth head bent over the steel stirrup that he was adjusting to the patent-leather boot, she would stand in a woolly dressing-gown and velvet slippers. But at one or two o’clock; when she went to her room to lie down, she would find a silk kimono enough. Monica could not ride—it gave away her difference from these people more than anything, she thought, as she watched the two beautiful horses curvetting about the gravelled space that lay at the foot of the veranda steps. Aline was at her best on horseback; she had a beautiful figure, and a sort of insolent, easy look on her face that Monica would have given her head to be able to imitate. Because her husband admired it—he did; it made him brighten up, and when Aline strolled into the drawing-room before dinner in some extremely attractive dress, his very blue eyes would get more blue and more wide open. His manners were always very excellent, but he would get on to his feet with a different sort of alacrity when Aline came on the scene. And Monica, looking, as she felt, rather diffident, and afraid of being thought stupid, would stare down at her lap with eyes that were wide with pain.
She did not actually put it into words that her husband was flirting with his cousin, but she did think that Aline was in love with him. Who could help it, after all? And it was so awfully hard to look as if she did not mind it. Did Captain Forrest mind? she wondered, watching him one evening as they all stood round the log fire waiting for the gong to sound. Gregory was looking at some snapshots that Aline held in her hand, and Aline had backed a little, so that she could touch him. And Monica, watching like a lynx, noticed that he did not move away. Of course he did not; Aline had a sort of curvy body that any man would like.
But a little later that night, when Monica was safely under the mosquito curtain—for voices carry in an Indian bungalow and all the rooms gave on to the same veranda—Gregory Fanshawe gave a quiet self-conscious laugh, and laid down the soft hand that had just stolen into his. “ My dear child,” he said, “you must remember that I am a staid married man.”
“Greg, don’t be such a beast!” Aline Forrest’s voice had a tortured note in it.
“Well, but I am—and Tim is one of the best; besides, he is my host.”
“Tim!—he doesn’t care: he only cares for Ronald. If you were to go and find him now, he’d be staring through the mosquito curtain down into the crib. Tim! Greg, don’t be so cruel; you know I never cared a button for him.”
“Hm!” Gregory Fanshawe stared into the fire.
“Well—I know what you are thinking of. But it was only one of those mad things. Everything nowadays is set to make you mad—that insane music that they blare out till you don’t know what you’re doing. But you were always you . . . Greg.” Aline Forrest stole a little closer on the deep Chesterfield.
“Look out, Aline: Tim will be coming along. No, I mean it, really.” Gregory Fanshawe got up and went a little closer to the mantelpiece. And at that moment Captain Forrest did come into the room. His eyes were dreamy—he had just been staring at the funny little head on the pillow—but they narrowed and hardened as they fell on his wife.
“Hallo, Aline, I thought you’d gone to bed. Have another drink, Rats? Koi hai!” the shout rang through the bungalow, and a white-coated servant ran from the back veranda.
“Thanks, I’ll have a chota peg!” The two men stood silent as the soda splashed into the yellow liquid. Aline had gone, very quietly and unobtrusively, and the two men were left alone together. How much had he heard? Gregory Fanshawe was asking himself the question rather uneasily. But Tim Forrest had not heard anything. Should it be Winchester or Harrow?—that had been the question that was absorbing him to the exclusion of everything else as he walked along the wide veranda.
But later, as he stood behind his wife at the silver laden dressing-table, his eyes were hard, and the hands in the pockets of his pyjama coat were clenched.
“Look here: you know I bargained never to interfere with you,” he said. “But one thing I do bar. And that is your trying to get Greg away from his wife. She’s a nice little thing, and she’s your guest.”
“You silly fool, what do you mean?” Aline Forrest’s mouth was cruel as she went on brushing her hair.
“What I say. It’s so pitifully obvious. All this riding in the mornings when I’m down at the hangar; and this evening you hugged up against him on the sofa. Do any damned thing you like—you know I don’t care. But leave that wretched kid alone, especially when she’s under your roof.”
“You seem very solicitous about her all of a sudden.”
“Don’t be vulgar, Aline. And don’t drive me to say a very great many unpleasant things that you won’t like. We’ve got the boy, and for his sake we’ll hang together. But I warn you that I shall not be at all complacent if I find you out in anything. It’s not fair to the child—I don’t care about Greg; he’s old enough to look after himself. But why you ever asked them out here at all passes my comprehension,” and Timothy Forrest, without waiting for an answer, turned and walked away into his own room.
Left alone, Aline Forrest put down her brush and stared into the glass. It was a very lovely face that she saw there—lovely in a sort of animal way. She had spent the whole of the hot weather in the Hills, so her complexion was unimpaired. Frantic women who saw their menfolk being mercilessly drawn away from them said that she made up. But she did not. Aline Forrest had the silky skin, the excellent teeth, and the look of complete well-being of a well-kept animal. And she appealed enormously to men. Wherever she was they sat round her in groups staring. And Gregory Fanshawe would not have been human if he had not enjoyed the feeling of being able to walk from the men’s side of the club into the ladies’, and just put his head into their reading-room and see Aline get up and come towards him instantly. It was a score; and, like all men, Gregory Fanshawe was intensely susceptible to flattery, the more subtle the better.
But Waroli sided with Monica. Waroli had seen how things were going, long before the people concerned had seen. So now, when the quartette slid up to the club in the Essex car, there was generally someone waiting to take Monica under his or her wing. And it was a great compliment to Monica that it was more often than not a woman who was waiting for her in one of the scarlet-bound reed chairs that were dotted about on the wide veranda. But Aline Forrest did not like it. Women always want to be run after by their own sex, even if they pretend they don’t. And earlier Aline had been badly snubbed by the Commissioner’s wife, who had seen her lord in a very unusual state of jubilation and excitement after an evening spent by the side of this woman with slanting eyes. Besides, there was this infant that had arrived in a nursing home at Mussoorie, shortly after Mrs. Forrest’s arrival in India. And women never did come out to India at the beginning of the hot weather if they were going to have a baby.
So Aline stared into the glass with grudging eyes. She loathed Monica—she always had loathed Monica ever since the little fool had spoilt her game at Maygate. She loved to see the pathetic round eyes crinkle up a little when Greg came into the room and made straight for her. She loved to see the black velvet toes underneath the blowing curtain, and to know that Monica was staring wistfully at them when they started out for their ride. She loved to see Monica choke when her husband caught her up at meals, and once, when Monica had begun to cry—she had not been feeling very well, and the mail had come with its weekly message of love from Aunt Fanny—she had longed to tip back her chair from the table and scream with joy. She would “down” the little donkey before she was done with her, she vowed with clenched teeth: she had got the man she wanted, and that, to a woman of Aline Forrest’s temperament, was quite enough to subdue any feelings of decency that she might happen to possess.
So life in the beautiful bungalow was not all joy. There was a good deal that was nice about it, though, and Monica tried to draw comfort from that. The early mornings were so divine—crisp and heavenly sunny; and it was such fun to see the quaint old ayah that the Forrests’ bearer had produced from nowhere, bringing in the chota-hazri in the morning. Chota-hazri was a delicious meal, much nicer than early tea at Home; you had toast and marmalade and plantains, and those carried you on to the eleven o’clock breakfast. And you rolled yourself up in a dressing-gown for it, and sat opposite a man who belonged to you; that, and being under the same mosquito curtain with him, were the only times that he did belong to you, thought Monica dismally. Then he would dress and shave and go out for a ride, and the baby’s ayah would bring the baby along, with its funny little fat face peeping out from the folds of a Cashmere shawl, rolled as only an ayah can roll a baby in a Cashmere shawl.
Then there would be the bath: you sat in a galvanized-iron tub and poured water over yourself with a tin pot, and you had to keep on pouring, in case the chill wind blew in on you from the badly fitting window. Also, ayah took a certain amount of keeping out of the bathroom; she seemed to think that she was part of the performance. Then there was the getting dressed, still with ayah’s help—she liked to put on your stockings and help you brush your hair.
And then came the time that Monica disliked most. Aline would be in from her ride by then, and the two women would have to sit on the veranda together. Monica would knit and Aline would loll, and sometimes make a sort of whistling sound between her pointed teeth. Or she would lazily get her topi and stroll away into the compound, where her husband would generally be stooping over the chrysanthemums. And then Monica would guess that her husband, too, must be in the compound, and after a little while she would know he was, because Aline would vanish in the direction of the garage. Gregory Fanshawe and Mason spent many blissful moments hanging over the Essex, and Timothy Forrest, knowing them both to be excellent mechanics, encouraged it.
Then came breakfast, a delicious meal so far as the food was concerned, and the noiseless servants moving barefoot round the table always filled Monica with a sort of delighted wonder, it was so like the “Arabian Nights.” Then a rest with a book; then tea again, brought by the ayah; and then a second getting up, this time dressing in thicker clothes, and then off to the club all four of them. It would be much colder now, and the crows would be cawing sleepily in the trees, and the road would be filled with buffaloes and goats and cows all going lazily homewards, driven by a funny little half-naked urchin with eyes like sloes in his black face. They would meet groups of gaily dressed women, with babies slung across their hips or across their backs in funny hammocky bags. These people apparently lived in grass huts shaped like dog-kennels, because the fields and the sides of the road were dotted with them, and you could see them grinding their corn, like you read about in the Bible, two of them at once.
It was a jolly life in a way, and Gregory Fanshawe loved it, and spent hours lying prostrate in a long chair with a book. For although he would rather have died than confess it, Dr. Wheeler had told him with great emphasis that for at least two years he must rest his back as much as he could, and that was one reason why he had so jumped at the idea of coming out to India, because he knew it was a country of repose. “Leisure is Godgiven, haste is of the Evil One,” as the Oriental proverb has it. Repose, that is, for the casual visitor: Gregory Fanshawe was not fool enough to think that he represented the type that has made India what it is, or rather—shall we say with mourning?—what it was.
But Monica was beginning to get to the end of her tether, and on the evening of which we write she got out of the car under the whitewashed porch of the club with a feeling perilously like hatred in her heart. They always sat in the same order in the car: Timothy Forrest drove, with his native chauffeur beside him, and behind, she and her husband and Aline sat—her husband always in the middle. And to-day they had had a rug, because it was a good deal colder, and Monica had felt perfectly sure that her husband had had Aline’s hand in his. As a matter of fact he had, but only for a minute, because he had returned it at once, with an admonishing pat. To hold a woman’s hand was nothing, but to hold it with your wife on the other side of you simply was not done, and Aline ought to know it. But Monica did not know this, and there was a funny little glitter in her usually confiding eyes as she stopped at the top of the whitewashed steps.
“I’m going straight into the library,” she said; “I want to get a book, and the fire there is always so gorgeous.” And she walked straight away and into the room lined with shelves, in front of one of which Prince Karmina stood with his black, well-brushed head a little bent.
There had been what could only be described as a hell of a row over the election of the young Maharajah of Karnmore to the club at Waroli. An emergency meeting had been called, and twelve brown men in white flannels, and sweaters that showed up the brown necks even more conspicuously than usual, had dropped their rackets on to a cane seat, and had sat down at the table in the committee-room, thrusting their long legs underneath it with an air of exasperation.
The chairman had been nervous: he held a sheet of thick notepaper in his hand, and read aloud from it rather haltingly. When he had finished, he laid it down and stared round the table. “So, you see, it’s practically a hookum,”<span data-tippy-content=”Hookum: order.” class=”info-d”>* he said briefly.
“Government can’t interfere in a social matter of this kind.” This came indignantly from the last man out from Home, a young Forest Officer.
“Can’t it!”—this sardonically from an I.C.S. man, who hoped with any luck to be able to retire on a proportionate pension the following year.
“My dear boy, this isn’t a social matter at all”—the Colonel Commanding the station was speaking. “It’s political. We’ve got to kow-tow to these people. We’ve got to let them spit pan all over the tennis courts and look as if we liked it. It’s all part of the infernal scheme to ‘down’ the white man.” The Colonel spoke violently; he did not care what he said, as he also was going to retire the next year.
“Order, order!” The Chairman was an I.C.S. man; as a matter of fact, he was the Commissioner of Waroli. And to be Commissioner of a place like Waroli you have had to swallow your feelings. Otherwise, long since, you would have found yourself stewing in a jungle station, with only a native sub-assistant surgeon to bear you company. Government does not like people who speak out, and it has uncomfortable ways of dealing with them if they do.
“Pah!” The Colonel got up, and then, thinking better of it, he sat down again. But in the interval between his uprising and down-sitting he had roared along the veranda for a whisky and soda. When it came—half an inch of whisky to a tall tumbler of soda, for the Indian peg does not attempt to compete with her English sister—he sipped at it furiously, glaring over the top of the filming glass at the faintly perspiring chairman.
“Well . . .”—the Commissioner stared uncomfortably round the table. “Well, the matter practically stands like this: Prince Karmina has put up for election and has asked me to propose him. I hedged a bit and wrote to the Commissioner of the Northern Provinces to find out his views. He writes back that Indians are now being admitted to these small upcountry clubs, and that Government encourages the idea. In our case too, as he points out, it would be more difficult to raise any objection because his father, the old Maharajah Sahib, is really our ground landlord, and he has always been jolly decent about it—I hadn’t really grasped that, being new to the place. So there you are—it’s on the table. I understand the feeling of the meeting, but for myself, taking all things into consideration, I don’t see how we can possibly refuse.”
“Pah!” The Colonel Commanding the station jerked back his chair, picked up his whisky and soda, and walked out of the room, followed, after an uncomfortable pause, by the young Forest Officer.
The I.C.S. man who hoped to retire the following year leant both arms on the table and spoke quietly. “I agree with the chair,” he said; “I don’t see how, under the circumstances, we can possibly refuse. It’s bitter, I admit; but that’s the country nowadays, and we can’t hold out where others have given in.”
So it was put to the meeting and carried by a show of reluctant well-kept hands. And that was how Prince Karmina happened to be in the library when Monica, bitter of heart and bruised in spirit, went in there to get a book.
“Well, this is veree, veree delightful!” Prince Karmina had heard the rustle of a skirt and turned sharply round.
“Hallo! You were on the boat with us!” Monica was beaming. Here was a friend, because they really had been quite friendly on the boat. “Do you live here?” she asked, holding out her hand.
“I do,” said Prince Karmina, raising Monica’s hand very respectfully to his lips. “But I was also at Government House with you, you will remember.”
“Oh yes, so you were,” replied Monica uncomfortably; “I had rather forgotten that, though—it was all so new and madly exciting then.” She twisted her hands nervously together. She had very much ignored Prince Karmina at Government House, as a matter of fact, but somehow she had had to then: Greg would have been angry with her if she had not. But now Greg did not care what she did, nor would she. And this would be a way. . . .
“Yes, you were very cruel to me at Government House,” said Prince Karmina silkily and very quietly, holding Monica’s eyes with his.
“Was I?—why?” asked Monica, staring back. What large eyes he had! She had the sudden feeling as if she had walked into the middle of a fog and didn’t know where she was.
“That I cannot tell you,” replied Prince Karmina, highly delighted because Monica’s eyes had got that clouded look at once. “Sleep, little bird; sleep, little bird”—he murmured the words at the back of his throat.
“Oh, dear me! it must be the fire.” Monica spoke drowsily, and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Sleepy—I can’t tell you how sleepy I am all of a sudden,” she yawned, showing all her little pink tongue.
But Prince Karmina had lifted his eyes with a jerk. Gregory Fanshawe, very tall and with only a half-disguised hostility in his eyes, was standing just inside the door. “Hallo, Maharajah Sahib!” he said; “it’s a long time since we met. How are you? Monica, I came to tell you that Aline and I have been asked to make up a four at bridge.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke abruptly; he had been intensely annoyed at hearing a few days earlier of Prince Karmina’s practically forced election to the club, and he was still more annoyed to find him actually on the premises.
“Good evening, Sir Gregory!” Prince Karmina’s very long eyelashes disguised the passion of hostility in his eyes. The lanky English fool!
“Well, Monica?” Gregory Fanshawe made the faintest beckoning motion with his eyes. But Monica ignored it. She was going to stay where she was. He had held Aline’s hand under the rug—he had! “I am quite all right,” she replied coolly; “I haven’t found the book I want yet, and the Maharajah Sahib is going to help me to.”
Waroli discussed the situation passionately, with chairs drawn up and heads close together. Women gathered in groups at tea-parties as well as at the club, and tore Monica’s reputation to pieces. Men were more charitable, as they always are, and only shrugged their shoulders; but several of the more senior men looked very grave, when night after night Monica and the young Prince, who danced like a shaft of light, would go into the long deserted room with the polished floor and curvet round and round the room in the newest and most intricate evolutions of the fox-trot. Prince Karmina, owing to his intimate acquaintance with the London night clubs, was well able to teach Monica anything that she did not know in that line.
“Why doesn’t the fellow stop it’?” Two men had watched Gregory Fanshawe stare in at one of the curtained doors and then slouch off with his hands in his pockets and a heavy cloud on his brow.
“I don’t think he can, short of carting her off by force. You know what women are when they get the bit between their teeth. Also, there may be more behind it than we know. My mem-sahib was at the same hotel with Mrs. Forrest at Mussoorie this year. She went by the name of the Yellow Peril. Well, at Mussoorie you don’t get a pet name like that for nothing.”
“I thought she was otherwise occupied at Mussoorie!”
“Not at the end.”
“Oh, I see. And, you know, that was odd!”
“Yes, of course it was; women don’t come out to India in that condition unless they’ve got to. They say, of course, that Forrest had to marry her. It’s a bit of bad luck for him, although they say that he simply adores the kid. Anyhow, that’s neither here nor there. Mrs. Forrest and Fanshawe live in the same house now, and I bet you that she is making a dead set at him. Trust the Yellow Peril to set her eyes on the best-looking fellow in the offing. Well, Fanshawe may or may not respond, but in any event it wouldn’t be a pleasant thing to watch, from a wife’s point of view.”
“So you think that’s what’s set her off?” The speaker was watching Monica thoughtfully. She had a sad little face, but there was something reckless about her eyes. They were drawn upwards now, and were dwelling with an odd fixity on the smooth brown chin above her.
“Sure thing”—the second speaker spoke with a simulated American drawl.
“But what about Forrest?”
“Well, if you ask me, I should say that he’d only be too thankful to any man who’d take his wife off his hands. I should be, in the same case. He’d get the kid, you see, and that’s all he cares about.”
“Hm! Well, it’s not pleasant.” The brown hand on the little straight back gave the man who was watching a faint feeling of nausea. “Let’s go to the billiard-room and have a hundred up,” he said, and the two men turned to go together.
But in the thatched bungalow, under the stars, things were not discussed with the same calmness. Timothy Forrest watched his wife brush her hair, his eyes blazing with rage. He had seen her only a few minutes before with her hand on Gregory Fanshawe’s arm, and Gregory Fanshawe had lifted it off and practically handed it back to her. And it is not pleasant to see your wife rebuffed by another man, even if you do not want her yourself.
“You’re making yourself damned cheap, Aline!” he said with sudden and bitter emphasis, and Aline Forrest swung round.
“Not for the first time, I suppose you are thinking,” she said viciously.
“Aline, don’t!” Timothy Forrest’s eyes were suddenly clouded with pain. How could any woman put words like that into a man’s mouth? he was thinking. And the child—she had given him the child; his eyes melted. “Don’t, Aline!” he said again.
“Don’t what?” Aline Forrest stood up. “Don’t what? Don’t make myself cheap?”—her breath came with a whistling sound. “ But I must, because I love him, I tell you, and he won’t listen to me. I love him! Not love as you and that little nonentity along the veranda understand it, but love. I would die for him—I would crawl round the world after him. I would give him my body and my soul to do what he liked with—to stamp on, to spit on. But if he took them first, then I should not mind what he did with them afterwards.” And Aline Forrest dropped back into her chair and let her face fall into her hands.
“Pull yourself together, Aline.” Timothy Forrest went a little closer to his wife, and stared down at the burnished hair. What chance had Gregory Fanshawe against anyone so beautiful? he thought dully. Not that he cared what she did—he was past all that—and Greg was old enough to take care of himself. But Monica was a nice little kid, and all this wild carrying on with Karmina was only a drug to still an intolerable aching. Timothy Forrest was practically certain of it. Had not he himself, for a couple of horrid months, tried to still a similar aching in a still more degrading way? Until one night, holding uncertainly to the white mosquito pole, he had waked the baby, and it had whimpered, and, filled with a burning shame, he had lurched back to his own room, as the ayah hurriedly unrolled herself from her rezai. A father blear-eyed and doddering, and the boy, perhaps, at a prize-day at his public school: “Come this way, you chaps,”—yes, so that his friends should not come face to face with the man with smudges of food on his waistcoat. Timothy Forrest visualized it horribly. Never again! And to Captain Forrest’s honour it never was again, and his Squadron Leader drew a long breath of relief. He liked Forrest and anything like that would have put the tin hat on it for a certainty.
So now he could look at his wife with a certain amount of pity, and his eyes were kind as he laid his hand on the beautiful, rounded shoulder. “Get a pull on yourself, Aline,” he said.
“Don’t!” Aline Forrest shook off the gentle fingers and began to pace the room. “Don’t! you don’t know what love is! Tim, if I could get rid of Monica, he might behave differently. And you would divorce me, wouldn’t you? You could have Ronald—in fact, you would have him as a matter of course. And then my path would be clear. Greg couldn’t hold out if I really meant that he shouldn’t, and if Monica weren’t there . . .”
“Aline, don’t!” Timothy Forrest whitened. “Get rid of Monica”—his wife’s words filled him with a horrible dread.
“Nothing but ‘don’t!’” Aline Forrest had got a great twist of her hair like a copper hawser round her wrist. “Fool! you don’t understand. Don’t! I would gladly stab Monica to death to get her out of my way. I tell you, I want him, I want him!” A tiny red speck ran down her chin as she spoke. “You don’t know what love is—you don’t know what it is to burn and seethe and long for a man. You can only think of the child. I wouldn’t care if I never had a child. I only want him—-him, to take me in his arms—to . . .” And Aline Forrest clenched her hands, and then, opening them, ran them through her tawny hair.
Timothy Forrest turned and walked away into his own room. The mother of his child, and she spoke like a woman of the streets! And a woman of the streets had more justification, because it was generally a matter of bread and butter. To steal the husband of another woman—at least, not even steal—snatch, clutch at, embroil; and all for what? To gratify your own insensate desire. Because it wasn’t a confession of love that his wife had just spat out from between bitten lips. It was the howl of the cat that wanders round the bungalow in the dark.
And Timothy Forrest flung himself face-downwards on his bed, a prey to the bitterest, most devastating shame that he had ever experienced, and his lips moved on the unmended pillow-case. “God, don’t let him grow up like her, that’s all I ask,” he prayed, in almost boyish desperation, and then, dripping under the net, he got up, kicked it aside, and went into the adjoining room, where under the tinier net the baby slept, a fat white cocoon under the soft blanket. And Timothy Forrest knelt down by it, and very, very carefully easing up the net, he laid his brown head down by the soft bald one and shed one or two very bitter tears that made him feel better.
“I say, Monica, you might introduce me to that Prince of yours.” Aline Forrest spoke from the depths of a long chair.
The eleven o’clock breakfast was over and both men had gone down to the hangars. Little by little the insatiable craving for the air had taken possession of Gregory Fanshawe again. He felt so much stronger, so much steadier in his nerves; he could manage a machine again—he knew he could. But at present he was content to watch the big grey dragon-flies as they lurched over the uneven ground, and then rose humming like huge mosquitoes into the sunshine. It was life—life to be in the middle of it all again. And the Squadron Leader knew Gregory Fanshawe by reputation, so it was easy for the tall man to wander wherever he liked through the huge shed and adjacent shops. And now, with this incessant anxiety at his heart, it was an intense relief to have something to do, for he had passed the stage when he could lie peacefully at full length in a long chair and drowse away the days. To begin with, Aline was always about, and with his host out of the house that was an uneasiness in itself. In fact, it had become so much an uneasiness that, unknown to Monica, he had decided to cut short the visit to the Forrests and to go on up into Kashmir. It would be desperately cold there, but it would be a cold of health, and also it would be a complete change of scene. Monica, too, must have a complete change of scene if she was to slough off this clinging infatuation for Prince Karmina. For it had gone further than a mere foolish flirtation; in spite of his loathing at having to admit it, Gregory Fanshawe knew that it had. Monica was entirely different, in behaviour as well as in appearance. She hardly spoke to him; she shrank shuddering from any attempts at love-making, and she was never alone with him if she could help it. And there had been one dreadful scene when he had attempted to remonstrate with her and she had turned on him.
“Go and make love to Aline, if you want something to do!” she had cried. “Until you thought you had lost me you didn’t care for me. That’s just like a man. I adored you; you could have kicked me and I would have kissed your feet. But now I’m all frozen up inside and I shall never unfreeze—to you.”
Monica had lurched a little, and if Gregory Fanshawe had had the sense to catch hold of her and look into her eyes he would have seen a stupid look in them that might have warned him that another agency was at work. But he had always scoffed at anything of the kind. Hypnotism! a lot of tommy-rot! So he only swung on his heel, and walked into his own room and slept there, as he had now been doing for quite a long time.
At Aline’s abrupt remark Monica’s heavy eyelids lifted. She had been miles away, in slim brown arms that held her closely. And his eyes—she adored his eyes; you got lost in them: they drank you up and left you only longing to follow—to follow . . .
“Introduce you to him?—don’t you know him, then?”
“Not really. Only from seeing him with you. You know, Monica, I am absolutely with you over this. I haven’t dared to say so, because you know what our menfolk are over natives; they get absolutely rabid over the whole question. But I understand, and personally I think Prince Karmina most tremendously attractive.”
“Do you?” Monica leant forward, her breath coming quickly.
“Yes, I do. And I really wish you would introduce him to me, or I suppose I ought to say, me to him, as he is a Prince. Don’t you know how narrow and insular one gets out here? I should love to have a real talk with him all about everything. It would be selfish to ask you to leave us alone for a bit, I suppose, but I should like that best of all. Then I really could let myself go, and explain that I am not one of these people who look down on natives just because they are natives.”
“Oh, I will—of course I will.” Monica felt her whole soul surge out in gratitude to Aline. How one misjudged people! Aline was the last person that she would ever have thought would bother about Prince Karmina. But how different it would be if she did bother about him and Monica had someone to take her part over it all. It was so awful, always to have to fight to be with him, when all she wanted was to be with him. If they were alone, he might perhaps take her in his arms and kiss her. He had never done that—that would be too much joy, visualized Monica, shaking all over with the desire for it.
“All right, then, this evening,” said Aline, getting up out of her long chair with the slow sinuousness that, in spite of all his efforts to control it, always sent the blood drumming to Gregory Fanshawe’s temples. She was a thoroughly bad lot, so he summed it up to himself, but she was damned attractive all the same, and, as she obviously meant to have him, the only thing was to clear before he got too deeply involved. Besides, there was Monica, and at the thought of his wife Gregory Fanshawe felt a stab of intensest misery shoot through him. How disgustingly sordid the whole situation had become, he thought; and as he thought it, he stared at his valet, who had lifted his head abruptly at the unusual sound. For Gregory Fanshawe had groaned aloud without knowing that he did so.
The palace of the Maharajah of Karnmore stood on the top of a wooded hill, three miles, as the crow flies, from Waroli. It stood quite by itself, and on one side of it was a large jheel which had provided excellent shooting for neighbouring civilians while the heir-apparent was at Oxford. But now he had come back the civilians had been warned off—Prince Karmina did not like the English; to the secret, but none the less acute, grief of the old Maharajah, who was a stanch loyalist.
“Speak not in that fashion, my son,” he said one day to the slim man who lolled against a marble pillar and flicked the greying ash from the end of his cigarette on to the beautiful Persian rug on which he stood. “We as a race have received many benefits from the hands of the English. They are a noble race, and upright.”
“I don’t know about that; but their women are damned good-looking,” replied the young Maharajah, who was thinking of Aline as he had last seen her. They were stanch friends now, these two; they had much in common. And on the whole, things promised very well.
“Speak not thus carelessly of those who should be nothing more to thee than the beggar who crouches at thy gate,” responded the old Maharajah hotly. He was beginning to bitterly regret the three years in England. His son had come from the Rajkumar College a true example of what the son of a reigning prince should be. And now, there he stood, in English riding-breeches, wash-leather waistcoat, and waisted coat, giving forth unseemly sentiments in unseemlier English. It was a sight to weep at. And the old Maharajah, who was more feeble than he used to be, shed a difficult tear that ran down and lost itself in the beautifully curled white beard.
“A beggar! Father!” Prince Karmina looked with affectionate contempt at the old man who sat cross-legged on a string charpoy, dressed in spotless white chapkan and puggaree. “You ought to see the little bit of goods that I have just been talking to. Not much beggar about her!” and Prince Karmina laughed brutally as he blurted out the ugly English.
The old man bowed his head over his Koran and sighed with a sigh that was almost a sob. Now that his days were almost numbered, he grieved unceasingly over the thought that he had to hand over the reins of government to this son—this son who cared more for the whisky and soda that he took with his meals than for the traditions of the Faith. For there was as yet no heir to nuzzle the hand of the old Maharajah. Prince Karmina had a wife, as well as a great many lesser matrimonial attachments, but his Western education had spoilt him for the smooth brown, adoring child who bent her head and trembled whenever he looked at her. She was all right in her way, but a week of her had been enough. So the little Princess, who was only fifteen, now spent most of her days in a wild terror that she would suddenly find herself relegated to the main harem, and that one of the lesser lights would reign in her stead.
But she need not have bothered; Prince Karmina thought of nobody but Monica. Always the little face was in front of his eyes, the soft white neck, the brief flash of little square teeth. He wanted her for his own, to caress and fondle as he wished, shut away from everyone. And with this object in view he was causing to be prepared one of the loftiest and most beautiful rooms in the palace. Every glowing rug that he could lay hands on was being flung on to the marble floor of this room. On one side was a silver couch, low and wide, piled with cushions. Prince Karmina had once stopped in front of a shop in Victoria Street, and, fired with the lust of possession, had gone in and ordered a couple of dozen of the most beautiful cushions that he had seen in the window to be sent straight out to India. So these were here, looking very odd against the Oriental silk rugs that covered the bed. There were no curtains to the windows, and as they were long and narrow and filled in with slenderest marble tracery, you could not see out—at least, only with difficulty. Adjoining the main room was a smaller one, made entirely of marble and in the middle of it was a deep sunken round pool. This was the bath in which Monica, small and white, would splash water scented with attar of roses over herself; and when Prince Karmina thought of this his dark face got darker, and he would stutter aloud to himself, and then go to his own apartments and fumblingly pour himself out a stiff peg, and spurt soda from the siphons that he got specially up from the Army and Navy Stores in Bombay. After three years in England he was intolerant of the soda water bottle that had to be opened: besides, it meant calling someone. Then he would pace back to the beautiful room, perhaps kicking a couple of native servants on the way, because he thought that they looked as if they were wondering what he was doing.
Meanwhile, life in the thatched bungalow became more and more difficult, and Gregory Fanshawe longed thirstily for the time when he would be quit of it all. He had told Mason that they would be leaving for Kashmir in a couple of weeks’ time, and Mason, who had more than once seen Mrs. Forrest and his master when they had not been aware of it, was very glad to hear it. “A real ’ag, and there you’ve got it,” as he had more than once said to Farmer during the week-end at Government House, for Mason had always dreaded the visit to the Forrests, knowing his hostess. But Gregory Fanshawe had told his valet not to mention that they would be leaving. “I shall be telling Captain Forrest myself in a couple of days,” he said, “and I don’t want the servants to get hold of it first. But just begin to get on with the packing.” And Mason set to work with delight; he sensed that something was awfully wrong between his master and his wife, and he grieved over it, because he was very fond of Monica. “Not but what things wouldn’t have gone better if she’d shown a little more spirit in the beginning,” as he said to himself, breathing the words into the depths of a tin-lined trunk.
“They’ve gone!” Aline Forrest came quietly along the matted veranda, and drew the curtain that covered Monica’s door a little aside.
“Have they? Well, then, will it be all right for us to start now?” Monica came to the door with her hat on. Her face was oddly drawn and her eyes were stupid. But she was suffused with a tremendous rapture. He had come so close to her that afternoon—she had been right in, swimming in the light of his eyes. And now he was calling her, she could hear him.
“Yes, quite all right.” Aline Forrest breathed more quickly than usual, although she was, as a rule, a very self-possessed woman. There was a certain amount of risk about this, although everything had been very well thought out. The Maharajah in his car would be waiting by the first milestone out of Cantonments; the trees were thick there—a couple of spreading banyans. She and Monica would be walking briskly past, and seeing them pass, the Maharajah would call Monica: and she would immediately turn and get into the car.
“But how do you know she will?” Aline had asked: she and the Maharajah were sitting at the club, deep in two cane chairs in front of the library fire.
Prince Karmina laughed, and an odd, intent look came into his eyes. “Watch the minute-hand of the clock,” he said, “and before it has gone round twice Lady Fanshawe will be in the room.”
The tiny spike had only ticked itself round once and a half times before the door opened very quietly and Monica looked in. She stood there, the door-handle in her fingers, staring, and then very quietly withdrew. Aline Forrest fumbled for her handkerchief and surreptitiously wiped her top lip: it was horrible.
“Why did she go away again?” she asked, when she could speak naturally.
“Because I told her to,” replied the Maharajah.
“Oh, I see.” But for the first time Aline Forrest felt a thrill of terror at what she was doing. And the Maharajah saw it, and he slipped his slim olive fingers into the inside pocket of his tweed coat and pulled out a little square box. Aline saw the movement and her slanting eyes gleamed a little. So far, there had been no mention of any reward, but of course, if he was going to make it worth her while . . .
“It is pretty, is it not?” Prince Karmina had his fingers half way up the platinum chain; a lump of uncut emerald swung at the end of it.
“Pretty—it’s divine!” Aline held out greedy hands to clutch it.
“Not now—to-morrow at this time, if all goes as it should,” said the Maharajah, drawing the beautiful thing back a little. Women were all alike, he thought, treacherous to the core. If Mrs. Forrest got hold of it now, probably she would go back on her word. And he wanted Monica—wanted her as he had never wanted anything before in his spoilt indolent life.
So, with the thought of this heavenly bauble before her eyes, Aline was not going to leave any stone unturned to ensure her own safety from suspicion as to Monica’s disappearance. And as both women stood together on the wide matted veranda, she suddenly clapped a hand to her pockets. “Bother! My keys!” she exclaimed; “I’ve left them somewhere; it won’t take me a second to find them. You go on, and I’ll catch you up.”
So Mason, who, when his master was out of the house, generally kept an eye on Monica, because he deeply mistrusted Aline and all her works, saw Monica start out alone, and heaving a sigh of relief, he darted for his bicycle, flung himself across it, and pedalled wildly off for the footer match, for which he was already desperately late. So later, when Gregory Fanshawe, with anguished eyes, flung the question at his valet, “Was Mrs. Forrest with Lady Fanshawe when she left the bungalow?” Mason could only reply despairingly that she was not, although in his innermost heart he felt perfectly convinced that the woman he hated was somehow concerned with the dreadful disappearance of the woman that he loved.
The two girls walked quickly along the hard road. It was some way to the first mile-stone out of Cantonments, and twilight, that comes down like a soft grey curtain in the East, was beginning to shroud the trees and cactus bushes with softest filminess as they came near to where the Maharajah’s car ought to be waiting. A cold-weather evening in India has a peculiar beauty of its own. The sky glows frostily, and the stars twinkle like electric pin-points. The air is frill of the acrid smell of wood smoke; from each little hut curls up a grey spiral of it, and the musical wail of the woman at her grindstone comes weirdly through it.
Aline walked with her head up, snuffing in the cold aromatic fragrance of the air; it sharpened her senses somehow, the Eastern feeling of it all. But Monica walked with her head down, like a dog following up a trail, and her eyes were a fraction turned in. He was there, calling her; she could hear him: “Come, little bird; come, little bird”—the words flooded her very being.
“Argir,* huzoor.” The chauffeur, who had had his mouth shut by an extra month’s pay, was staring excitedly through the gloom. Aline and Monica, swinging their sticks, walked by, and Prince Karmina, seeing them, leant back on the soft cushions of his Rolls-Royce and dropped his heavy coffee-coloured eyelids for a moment. Monica turned like an automaton, and Aline followed her.
“Juldy (quickly).” Prince Karmina’s breath was coming a little faster than usual as he held Monica closely to his side. Aline sank back and mechanically took Monica’s stick from her unresisting fingers. Somehow, although she was the betrayer, it gave her a qualm of horror to see how the round grey eyes fed on the opaque brown ones. They were the eyes of an animal that knows itself to be in subjection.
“She can’t hear; it does not matter what you say.” Prince Karmina spoke over Monica’s soft felt hat. “My plan is this: we are now on our way to the palace, which we shall reach in about half an hour. I and the chauffeur will carry Lady Fanshawe to the room that I have had specially prepared for her; if any of the servants see, they will say nothing, for they know that their lives will not be worth a whiff of cold air if they do. I shall then rejoin you, and as swiftly as may be possible we shall make our way to the club. The success of the plan will then depend very largely upon you,” and the Maharajah shot a menacing glance into the slanting eyes that were a little dilated.
The Rolls-Royce shot along like a hunted thing between the cactus hedges. Once Aline thought that a herd of scattering goats had finished them, and she flung her hand up to her mouth. But they steered clear of them, and at last the tall stone entrance-gate of the wood surrounding the palace loomed dim in front of them, and they swept in at it, and with an absolutely noiseless change of gear they began to mount. For ten minutes they crept under overhanging trees—trees that dropped heavy creepers to the ground, and in the branches of which clung cackling flying-foxes and flocks of chattering parrots, and then the car put on speed again, and they were out in the open for a minute or two. Then heavy twilight again under the trees, and then a gradual slackening of speed until the car came to a noiseless standstill in front of a huge flight of marble steps.
“Good!” The Maharajah spoke with satisfaction. Not a servant in sight; his Indian secretary had done well. “Now then”; he wrenched round the handle, the concave door swinging noiselessly open, and drew Monica close up to him. “Take her feet,” he spoke in Hindustani to the chauffeur, who in purple uniform, with many silver buttons, stood on the bottom step of the long flight.
Aline watched the trio ascend the steps with a feeling of horror. Monica’s head lolled sideways like the head of a corpse. Prince Karmina’s vivid puggaree had to be adjusted once or twice—Monica was heavy and the steps were steep. But eventually the dark opening of the marble doorway at the top of the flight swallowed them up, and Aline sunk back on the mauve cushions and felt a scream rise in her throat. The wife of the man she loved—she had given her over to the devil. And in that moment, if she could have got her back, she would have done so.
Prince Karmina was soon back again: he came down the white steps in a run, the chauffeur behind him. He flung himself in at the door and shouted to the man, who was hastily scrambling into his seat.
“Drive like the Devil!” he cried, and the chauffeur, comprehending although not understanding the English, sent the great car forward with a leap.
They fled down the leafy avenue and into the main road again.
“We must be quick,” said the Maharajah, “or they will wonder why you and I are out together so late.”
The huge headlights blazed along the white road, and as they passed a gap in the hedge Aline saw a tonga flattened up against it, the pony backing and quivering at the fierce light in its eyes. She sat, her hands wrenched together in her lap; it was a horrible nightmare this. What would Monica be doing now?
Prince Karmina turned and looked at her. Time to give her something else to think about, he concluded, his heavy eyes absorbing the pallor of the beautiful face. And he drew the little jewel-box out of the inner pocket of his coat.
“And I should also like to give you this,” he said, after a moment or two during which Aline fingered the beautiful jewel with clinging, avaricious fingers. And he took a flexible gold purse out of the same pocket, and, twisting the clasp, held it upside down over her lap.
“Sovereigns!” breathed Aline, plunging her fingers into the slipping golden heap.
“Gold mohurs,” corrected the Maharajah gently.
“For me?”
“If you will do me the honour to accept them.”
“Oh, thank you!” Aline began to drop them back one by one into the golden bag. It was something to do, something to still the dreadful shivering horror in her brain. But as she let each one fall she mechanically counted, and as she let fall the last one she uttered a stifled scream. “Thirty!” she gasped.
“Well, and what about it?” The Maharajah was staring out with chin thrust forward. Where were they? Ah, the white signpost to the Cantonment Hospital; only another couple of hundred yards to the club. He sat back. “Well, and what about it?” he said indulgently; he had just visualized Monica, waking—in his arms.
But Aline was speechless, her handkerchief held to her mouth. And the Maharajah, groping for the cause of this sudden collapse from delight into what looked uncomfortably like remorse, remembered one evening when he had strolled into College Chapel and heard some fantastic tale about someone who had taken a bribe.
“The price of blood,” stammered Aline, holding her handkerchief to her mouth, and because of it speaking with blurred speech.
“What? Rubbish!” The Maharajah was annoyed with himself for not having remembered that rubbishy story before, because it had evidently seriously upset this woman, on whom a good deal depended. “Pull yourself together,” he said harshly, and the whites of his eyes gleamed as he turned and caught hold of Aline’s wrist and dragged it down from the twisted mouth.
“I wish I hadn’t done it, now,” chattered the woman, beside herself with awful fear and terror.
“Be quiet, you fool!” The Maharajah pulled a tiny pistol out of his pocket. “I’ll shoot you this very instant,” he said, “if you don’t promise to go through with it. I’ll shoot you and chuck you out of the car, and the pistol after you. And then what?” The Maharajah spoke with deadly emphasis. He was terrified out of his senses: Aline had him in the hollow of her hand.
Aline shrank back trembling. The tiny muzzle was surely being pushed somewhere in under her hair. “No, no; I didn’t mean it,” she stammered. “I won’t give you away—I swear it. But don’t torture her, or anything like that. She is gentle and afraid, and to me she was always nice. Promise me that! Take the pistol away!” Aline lifted her voice in a harsh scream. It was there, a tiny cold rim behind her ear, and the Maharajah had caught hold of her head with his other hand.
“Good! and now we are nearly there.” Releasing her, the Maharajah sat back and stuffed the pistol back into his pocket. That had been a near thing; there were still blue shadows below his nose. “Be sensible,” he said, “and all will be well. And as for torture, put any idea of the kind out of your mind. I love Lady Fanshawe devotedly, and I shall cherish her as my dearest possession—as you, Mrs. Forrest, will doubtless cherish the emerald that I have just placed in your hand,” ended up the Maharajah with meaning. For he thought that it was about time that Aline remembered it.
“Yes,” breathed Aline, sick and trembling.
“And now, here we are,” said the Maharajah, leaning forward so as to be ready to swing the concave door open the moment the long car came to a standstill under the porch of the gaily illuminated club.
There was no one about that they knew when they walked along the long veranda. There was the sound of a piano in the distance, and the sound of laughter, the click of a billiard-ball, and the monotonous response of the marker. But mercifully no one had seen them arrive, and Aline went straight to the ladies’ dressing-room to repair the ravages that the anxiety and terror had left on her usually rather impassive face. A sweeping of powder did the trick—Aline made sure of it by a chin thrust very close to the mirror, and then a comb through the short hair over her ears. And then, looking exactly as usual, she walked back to the library.
“It will be as well that we should not be seen together in conversation,” said the Maharajah, getting up and walking to meet her as she came in at the door; “I will send you a drink along to the ladies’ veranda. What will you have?”
“An Elsie May, please,” replied Aline, avoiding the opaque eyes. Since seeing Monica blinded and muzzled by the gaze of them, she had absorbed a new horror of the Maharajah. Supposing he started the same game with her?
“Very well, then, and now good-night. Unless, that is we are forced by the exigencies of the occasion to meet again,” replied Prince Karmina genially, longing to laugh as he saw Aline wince.
“Good-night, then.” Aline Forrest walked to the door and for the first time in her life felt the terror of the suspect as she peered up and down the long matted space before walking out on to it.
Left alone, Prince Karmina drew a chair close to the fire, and kicked the logs into a blaze. He leant back, and pushed the flaunting puggaree a little off his forehead. Then he dropped his eyelids, and then he lifted them again and stared into the heart of the glowing, smouldering mass. Monica must be kept quiet until he arrived, and it would not be wise for him to leave yet.
“Hallo, Mrs. Forrest, where’s that nice little friend of yours?” It was Captain Maynard who had lounged out on to the veranda where Aline sat, a tiny tumbler in her hand and the Ladies’ Field spread out on her knee. Captain Maynard was a gunner, and had been rather a friend of Aline Forrest’s until Monica appeared on the scene. So this little rencontre was the best thing that could have happened, because it braced Aline up. Captain Maynard’s secession had always annoyed her.
“Lady Fanshawe, do you mean?”
“Of course.” Captain Maynard liked annoying Mrs. Forrest. She had often made him wince in the old days.
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t enlighten you,” said Aline Forrest quietly. “We spent our evening separately. I walked across to the golf links and happened to meet Prince Karmina, and he offered to bring me back to the club in his Rolls-Royce—an offer which I joyfully accepted, as both my ankles were by then a mass of spear-grass. Lady Fanshawe went off to try to get as far as the tomb of Wakwalda: you know, that ruined temple a little way out of Cantonments.”
“I see. And where are the menfolk?”
“They both went down to the Shops to see some machinery unloaded,” replied Aline, all her being one surge of guilty terror at this catechism. But Captain Maynard had no motive for this questioning, beyond a wish for delay, in case Monica came along, in which event he would be there, so to speak, to carry her off to dance before any dirty native got hold of her.
“I see: they’re both dead keen on the guts of aeroplanes, aren’t they!” responded Captain Maynard, whose English badly gave away his opinion of the woman in front of him.
“Desperately,” replied Aline, whose relief at getting away from the discussion of the whereabouts of her immediate circle could scarcely be measured.
“Hallo, Aline! Hallo, Maynard! I say, Aline, have you seen Monica?” It was Gregory Fanshawe who came through the curtain that divided the ladies’ veranda from their reading-room. “We called in at the bungalow on our way from the Shops, in case either of you wanted a lift here, and found no one about. That is to say, no one of any importance,” ended Gregory Fanshawe, with a wink at his friend, who had come slowly into the little circle of light. “There was a horrid yelling baby of sorts that Tim seemed to take a fancy to.”
“You dirty dog!” Timothy Forrest made a feint of lunging at his friend. But in reality his heart was full of gratitude to him. It was so miserable never to be able to share his joy in his son with anyone. But that night Gregory had stood with him and stared down at the little sweetly smelling cocoon, and had then spoken abruptly.
“Let me hold the little beast, Tim,” he had said.
“Mind his back.” Trembling with pride, Timothy Forrest had handed the baby over.
“T’ck, t’ck”—Gregory Fanshawe had stroked the downy head, his own sleek head bent, and then for some reason or other the baby had rewarded him with one of those radiant toothless smiles that babies give sometimes, but which you can never bank on. “By Gad!—see it grin?” Gregory Fanshawe was unaccountably pleased. This was something open-air and lovely. Something like the wheel of a gull, or the race of cumulus cloud before the wind. Something like Monica when she had first come to his arms, trembling and joyful. Something straight from God this, not something smirched and spoilt and heavy with evil imagination, like the atmosphere in which they lived now. And, miserably uncomfortable he felt a rush of tears to his eyes. Perhaps if they had a baby it would be better, he thought labouringly, as he handed the cocoon back to its father.
But Monica had not been in her room, to which he had gone hurriedly while Timothy had a word or two with the ayah. For the chota-sahib had not taken his bottle properly to-day, she confided to the tall man who stood with puckered brows.
“Did you tell the mem-sahib?”
“Hain,* sahib,” the old ayah wagged her head. “Mem-sahib saying give castor oil. My not giving. My giving littly, littly dill dowai (medicine), and then softly, softly rubbing little belly,” said the old ayah graphically, after the manner of her kind.
“So there was a horrid baby but no nice wife,” went on Gregory Fanshawe, trying to speak lightly, but for some reason feeling thoroughly wretched. “And I thought she must be here. And probably she is—in the library; I’ll get along and have a look.”
Prince Karmina had hoped for this, so he had remained sunk in the deep cane chair in front of the fire.
“I say, Maharajah Sahib, has Lady Fanshawe been in here to get a book?” Gregory Fanshawe, tall and lean, one hand on the back of the cane chair, stooped slightly over it as he spoke.
“No, she has not, Sir Gregory.” Prince Karmina always maintained the strictest formality in speaking to the man he loathed.
“Oh, thanks!” Gregory Fanshawe straightened himself, turned and went out again, and Prince Karmina, left alone, made perfectly sure that he was alone, and then drew up his slim knees, encircled them with his arms, and rocked a little backward and forward.
“No, she’s not there. I think I’ll just get back to the bungalow, if I may have the car, Tim.” Gregory Fanshawe was back again in the ladies’ veranda. “Aline, you say she went for a walk; do you know which way she went?”
“Towards the Wakwalda Temple she said she was going,” said Aline Forrest between explosions of laughter. Captain Maynard was trying to get the Ladies’ Field away from her, to look at an advertisement, so he said. “In case I ever marry, Mrs. Forrest, I must know these things.”
“Yes; take it, by all means.” There was a hard look in Timothy Forrest’s eyes as they met his friend’s. And Gregory Fanshawe, faintly disgusted himself, sympathized with him; and the two men walked out without speaking.
Prince’ Karmina did not get back to his palace that night until very nearly midnight. For he had been one of the most zealous members of a search party that, organized by the Colonel Commanding the station, had scoured the country round Waroli until the hopelessness of a prolonged search in pitch darkness had been borne in on them. “But the very first thing in the morning I’ll have a company of my men out,” he said to the haggard man in front of him, “and I know Pemberton will do the same with his Sappers.”
“Good God, Hamlyn, what can have happened to her!” Gregory Fanshawe was almost beside himself. He had availed himself of his friend’s permission to take the car, and had gone back to the bungalow, but not finding Monica there, he had come back to the club again.
There they had all three waited until half-past eight, and had then returned to the bungalow for dinner. That over, eaten in a dreadful palpitating silence, for Gregory Fanshawe made no attempt to hide his anxiety, they had started off for the club again. And there they had drifted in—the various menfolk of the English community; some in Mess kit, some in flannels, and some in ordinary evening dress, but all anxious. For in India a white woman does not stay out in the dark alone, unless something has happened to her. And a search party had been organized and it had dispersed with lanterns and dogs into the various paths and cart-tracks and undergrowth that surrounded Waroli.
Prince Karmina had formed one of the party; he had been disturbed drowsing in front of the library fire by the unusual uproar of a number of people, and he had showed himself eager to help.
“Sit down, Fanshawe, and have a peg.” The Colonel spoke sensibly. He was deeply sorry for the man in front of him, but he knew that it was quite hopeless to go on scouring the country at one o’clock in the morning. “Probably Lady Fanshawe has twisted her ankle, and some villagers may have found her and taken her into their huts. These country people are quite decent, and, in fact, so near to a military station, they would not dare to be otherwise. Someone will turn up in the morning with news; buck up, and get home to bed, so that you can turn out fresh in the morning.”
“I can’t!” Gregory Fanshawe was staring down into his glass with a look of despair in his eyes.
“Yes, my dear boy, you can, and you must. After all, what is it? At Home you wouldn’t turn a hair. Lady Fanshawe will turn up in the morning and you will laugh at yourself for all this. Come on; I’ll drop you at the bungalow. Yes—bund karo (shut up).” Colonel Mayne turned his eyes on the yawning, reproachful club servant, staring miserably from a corner.
Aline Forrest, in a dressing-gown of softest blue, stole out from behind a curtained doorway as the tail lamp of the Colonel’s car vanished round the bend in the drive. Her hair fell on both sides of her face in two long pigtails. Gregory Fanshawe, tiptoeing to his room, stopped short at the sight of her, feeling a passionate desire to strangle her with one of them.
“Greg, is there any news?” Aline spoke in a whisper.
“No; how could there be!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke harshly. She had come between them, this woman whose beauty stirred him in spite of himself. She had made him careless in little ways towards his wife—he suddenly remembered Monica’s tremulous attempts to laugh at meals when he had made fun of her, and his eyelids stung. “How could there be any news,” he said roughly, “that is, unless you have any to give me?”
“Greg, how could I have?” There was mortal fear in Aline Forrest’s eyes, but the dim light from the hanging veranda lamp concealed it.
“Oh, I don’t know! You never loved Monica, and women can be such unmitigated fiends.” Gregory Fanshawe turned on his heel to go to his room, but Aline followed him with hurrying feet.
“Greg, don’t go away like that,” she sobbed under her breath; “you are so brutally cruel to me, and you know I love you.”
“Oh, stop it, Aline!” But in spite of the brutal words Gregory Fanshawe’s breath began to come faster. It was so dark, and she was so beautiful, and she went to his head like champagne. And her soft fingers were on his wrist, under his sleeve. “Stop it, I tell you,” he said again; but as he said the words he laughed at himself. A man frantic with anxiety about his wife, and yet almost equally frantic with desire for another woman. A noble specimen!
“How can I, when I love you so?” Aline had followed him into his room. Here, too, the lamp burned low, and a couple of big buzzing insects nosed up and down the white punkah-proof globe of it. “Greg, take me in your arms—do. Tim will never know, and it will comfort you. Greg, I am beautiful—I really am—more beautiful than you know. See, I will take this off,” and the slim white fingers busied themselves with the knotted cord.
“Oh, lor’, and if she don’t just take the onion!” Mason, who was standing with his ear to the other side of the door that divided the two rooms, winked. “Thinks she’ll have him, eh?”
“Aline, for God’s sake leave me alone and go back to your room. If it wasn’t for anything else, Tim might come along at any moment.” Gregory Fanshawe was white with emotion. She was a devil, but, God! what a beautiful one. “Put on your dressing-gown,” he said and he turned his head away.
“Ah, but how can I?”—Aline’s face was triumphant; for her husband wore rope-soled bedroom slippers, and she could hear the gentle slapping of them on the veranda matting—“when you know that I love you and would so gladly give you all?”
“Listen to ’er!” Mason, although he was an extensive reader of the News of the World, was shocked. But there was no time to go on being shocked, because he had also heard the sound of soft slapping soles on matting. And he opened the door and walked blandly through the dividing curtain.
“I have ordered your chota-’azri earlier than usual to-morrow morning, sir,” he said, and he averted his eyes from his master’s astounded face and the girl, who made one wild dive for the dressing-gown at her feet. “I think Captain Forrest would like a word with you, sir,” he added, and he shot a glance of frantic warning across the room.
“Oh, thanks; yes, it’s very nice of you to take it so much to heart, Aline, but so far we’ve done all that we can.” Gregory Fanshawe began to talk mechanically as he crossed to the door. “Yes, come in, Tim,” he said easily. “Aline ought to get back to bed. But she’s overwrought about this. As I tell her, there’s no more news, and the best thing she can do is to go to sleep and save herself for to-morrow. All right, don’t bother to wait, Mason.” Gregory Fanshawe turned and spoke over his shoulder.
Mason! Timothy Forrest’s eyes, dark and clouded with suspicion, focused themselves suddenly on the figure, dimly seen through the mosquito curtain. Mason was on the other side of it, feverishly stooping to tuck a sagging end more securely under the mattress.
And as he hung his braces over a chair—for Mason slept in a very nice big room that had once been Timothy Forrest’s workshop—he grinned at himself in the glass. “Spoilt your game that time, you ugly ’ag!” he said to his triumphant reflection.
Monica, almost hidden in a heap of gay silk cushions, was still asleep when Prince Karmina came into the beautiful room. He scowled at the old native woman who was crouched down by the side of the divan, and drew the heavy curtains swiftly across behind him.
“Wait outside,” he said imperiously, and she got up and pattered out. Then he walked to the side of the divan and sat down on the edge of it. “Wake,” he said, and he laid his olive fingers on Monica’s forehead.
Monica opened her eyes instantly. At first they stared a little vacantly, but then they focused and became alert. This was something new! “Where am I?” she asked, sitting up.
“With me,” replied Prince Karmina.
“With you! Where? How can I be with you? I can’t be! What time is it?” Monica, still a little dulled, was staring round the room. Marble walls, tiny narrow windows filled with marble tracery. Rugs on the floor, showing like glowing crimson patches on the white shining floor-space. Heavy curtains, scrolled all over with beautiful embroidery. And the couch she was on—low, almost level with the floor, piled with soft silken coverings and cushions. The cushions looked English, but nothing else did. And the man—he looked English, except for his face and the puggaree. But he was not English—he was a native—Prince Karmina! Prince Karmina in the middle of the night somewhere, for Monica had seen the faint twinkling of a star through the marble tracery. What on earth did it mean? “Do tell me,” she said; “say something. Perhaps it is only a dream—people don’t answer sensibly in dreams—at least, hardly ever.”
“At last you have come to my arms, most sweet and dear,” said Prince Karmina softly.
“Oh, joy!” Monica sank back on the cushions with a sigh of relief. “Now I know it is a dream,” she said, and she yawned widely. “But how frantically vivid! Greg!” and Monica stretched out an arm, rolled sleepily on to her side, and smuggled her face into one of the silk cushions.
“Greg!”
The Maharajah’s face darkened. So she breathed his name in her sleep, did she? He got up and walked to the door again. “Bring the clothes that are laid on the chair in the bathroom,” he said to the old native woman who was crouched against the wall, “and get hold of another of the women to help you. Dress the girl in the robe of silver tissue that you will find there. She sleeps and will not wake. And when all is in readiness, clap your hands very quietly outside in the veranda of my apartments. Meanwhile . . and Prince Karmina turned back into the room he had just left, laid his slim hand very gently on Monica’s forehead, and came out again. Then he walked along one of the echoing corridors to his own corner of the palace.
Here he occupied a suite of three rooms—rooms that looked very extraordinary in comparison with those that he had just left. Here was no marble tracery or carved walls; Prince Karmina had had it all ruthlessly altered. The windows were of plate glass and they let in a flood of stars. The bed in the middle of the floor was of brass, and stood on a beautiful French carpet. The walls were hung with engravings—some in flagrant taste, and some very beautiful—and the adjoining bathroom was paved and lined with white tiles, and had the largest and most modern English bath in it that Calcutta had been able to produce. The dressing-room was also furnished entirely in English style, and the walls of it were covered with photographs and college groups. The old Maharajah had never penetrated to these rooms; he was too old and infirm to mount so many stairs, and for this his son was devoutly thankful.
Prince Karmina was standing staring down on to the lake that lay dark and still close up against the old walls, when the faint sound of clapping reached his ears. At the sound of it he thrust his hands deep into the pocket of his silk pyjama coat. He was suddenly nervous. Monica was small and she trusted him. The Maharajah did not know that he had been staring at a group of the College Eight, and that the thought of it had penetrated his subconscious mind. Honour! What an extraordinary insistence there had been on it at Oxford—at the Rajkumar College too. He swung round impatiently, and with his hands still in his pockets, pushed back the curtain that hid his door, and walked out into the corridor again.
The old native woman raised her hands servilely, but he pushed her aside and went along the echoing corridor with hurrying feet. He wanted to be quick, otherwise he was afraid that his determination would give way. As he went he muttered, “Wake, little bird; wake, little bird.” He would have Monica sensible and herself before he arrived, otherwise all the same explanation would have to be gone through again.
The door to the beautiful room had a very excellent English lock to it. The Maharajah turned the key in it and then slipped the key into his pocket. Then he pushed the heavy curtain to one side. And then, when he saw Monica, all his desire for her flamed up again. She was crouched up at the end of the divan, both hands pressed to her face. The silver tissue clung to her slender body, revealing its gentle curves. And the Maharajah took a step forward.
Monica heard him come, and she stared over her fingers with the wildest terror in her eyes. “My proper clothes, where are they?” she gasped.
Prince Karmina made a feint of staring round; then he brought his eyes back to her. “Are you cold?” he inquired gently.
“I don’t care about that, although I am. But it’s so awful—I don’t know where I am, and someone has taken away my clothes. Where am I? You must know, or you wouldn’t be here too. And how did I get here? I can’t remember things properly—the last thing I seem to remember is . . .” Monica buried her face in her hands.
“Yes.” Prince Karmina came nearer and looked down at the small bowed head, with passion in his eyes.
“My husband: he kissed me very quietly before he went out; I was resting. And I only pretended to be asleep, and I did not kiss him back, as I might have done.”
Prince Karmina drew his breath through his teeth with a funny whistling sound. She loved him then, that insufferable fool. His black eyes were blazing. But he made a tremendous effort for self-control.
“I am afraid you have seen the last of your husband,” he said quietly.
“How do you mean, seen the last of him?” said Monica, raising her face abruptly from her hands.
“I mean what I say.” Prince Karmina came a little closer, and sat down on the edge of the divan.
“But how can I have seen the last of him? Isn’t he there, then? He was yesterday—or wasn’t he? Everything has got sort of vague.” Monica looked piteously into the inscrutable eyes above her.
“All I mean is that when he finds out that you have passed a night in this palace, and in my arms, he may not care to have you back,” replied the Maharajah evilly.
“But am I in your palace? Is that what this place is, then?” Monica spoke shrilly, with a sort of dreadful terror in her voice. “And how can I be in your arms? I can’t be—you would not be so terrible as to take me.”
“You seem to forget that I love you devotedly,” said the Maharajah, and he laid a rather moist olive hand on the bare arm.
“Don’t!” Monica’s round eyes were wide with horror.
“And why this sudden shrinking from my caresses? Up to the present they have apparently been acceptable to you,” said the Maharajah smoothly.
“Yes; but you have not kissed me, or anything like that,” gasped Monica, huddling up against the gay cushions. “I know I have enjoyed being with you, and things like that, but that was because there was something in your eyes that made me. But now I don’t see it there. I only see what makes me loathe the sight of you, because I feel that you have got me here on false pretences somehow, to make hideous love to me. Aline has had something to do with it—I know she has.”
“You call my love hideous?” Prince Karmina’s face was suddenly contorted.
“Yes, I do!” Monica was now beside herself with terror and horror. “Natives and white people aren’t meant to make love to one another like that. There is something revolting about it. If you do it, it will mean that an awful judgment will fall on you—something like leprosy, like people in the Bible. Let me go—give me my proper clothes, I tell you!” Monica’s frantic voice echoed round the lofty marble walls.
There was a little pause while the Maharajah gathered his self-control together. He was, like all his kind, a superstitious man, and the threat in Monica’s voice had frightened him. But then he saw her small and frightened, and at his mercy, and looking very alluring into the bargain, and his native brutality asserted itself.
“I am willing to risk it,” he said smoothly, “and you do not look nearly so nice in your foolish English clothes as you do in the garment that you have on. Come, let me have a better view of you. Get off the divan.”
“No,” breathed Monica, shuddering lower into the heap of multi-coloured rugs and cushions.
“But I say yes!” said Prince Karmina, beginning to enjoy himself. To degrade the wife of the man he hated was beginning to have a fascination of its own. It would help to wipe off old scores too. That man behind the rock in Devonshire, for instance. “Get off,” he said again.
“You can see me through this thin thing!” sobbed Monica, sick with shame and anguish.
“That is what I wish to do,” replied Prince Karmina quietly.
“If I do that, then will you give me my clothes and let me go?”
“Presently,” said Prince Karmina meaningly. “That is, if you then still wish to go.”
“How do you mean, ‘if I then still wish to go’?” Monica’s voice was hoarse.
“Well . . .” the Maharajah raised his shoulders slightly. “Englishmen have strange ideas,” he said. “They overemphasize the desirability of chastity in their wives.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just exactly what I say.”
“But—but . . .” Monica dropped her face into her hands again. Then this was the end; even if she wanted to go back to her husband, he would turn her away, sick with disgust. Had she deserved such awful agony? She must have done, otherwise it would not have been sent to her. She raised her face. “Then if you will do this awful thing to me,” she breathed, “stare at me like you used to, and make me so that I don’t know.”
“No,” said the Maharajah decidedly; “that would spoil it.”
“God—God, you have deserted me!” Monica began to sob—dreadful sobs torn up from the very depth of her.
The Maharajah waited a second or two and then got up and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come,” he said; “get off that divan.”
Monica shuddered away, and then, terrified, lifted a face absolutely white. “I want to pray,” she said; “have enough mercy on me for that, anyhow. Go away and leave me alone for a moment.”
The Maharajah let his eyes wander round the room. No; it was perfectly safe, no negotiable windows and a locked door. He put his hand into the striped pockets of his pyjamas, nodded carelessly into Monica’s anguished eyes, and lounged away into the adjacent bathroom. Had they made the bath hot, as he had commanded? Yes, they had; he wriggled his long brown toe back into his bedroom slippers, the tiny ripples starting to undulate towards the round marble rim of the bath.
“Lord—” Monica wasted no time; she had long since seen that there was no possible escape from the beautiful room. She knelt up on the silken coverings. “Lord, I am absolutely done now, unless You help me,” she breathed. “I don’t see how You can, but You know best. I don’t want to make a bargain with You, but I will try to be better if I ever get out. Even a sparrow . . .” and Monica dropped her ruffled head, looking like a soft fledgling as she did so.
“Well, have you quite finished?” The Maharajah was back again,
“Yes,” said Monica, staring in front of her with dulled eyes.
“Well, then,” and then Monica flung her hands up to her throat. Not in front of a native—not a sign of the agony that was racking her.
“Oh, go to hell!” Prince Karmina turned swiftly at the sound of a sudden violent knocking at the locked door. “Go to hell, I tell you!” He swore passionately.
“Huzoor—huzoor!” the knocking continued more violently. “Open, open!”—it was the frantic beating of bare hands.
“Jao, you suar ke battcha!”* The Maharajah’s olive face was green with rage.
“Huzoor! Ap ke bap (your father).—Huzoor!” There was wailing mingled with the sound of blows.
The Maharajah turned swiftly. “Ap ke bap.” He hunted for the key in the silk pocket of his pyjamas and flung to the door. Monica, staring over her shaking hands, saw him drag the heavy curtain across behind him and stand still for a moment.
He was back again, staring down at her. “Your God has violent methods,” he said, and in the inscrutable eyes there was a faint glimmering of respect. “My old father is dying and has sent for me. Lie still there until I come back.”
The coming of dawn in India is very beautiful. It is ushered in to the accompaniment of the twittering of myriads of birds. The sun rises in a glory—a glory that sends long quivering yellow fingers to the farthest corner of the horizon. It comes in cold—cold with a tang; cold that sends the blood through your veins with a leap, and if you are going out shooting, you long to sing as you tramp over the stubble. It also comes in swiftly, not greyly or gradually, but with a splash of glory, as if the doors of the next world had been flung open with a crash. And Prince Karmina caught one of the stabbing lemon-coloured rays on his shining black head as he passed through a narrow courtyard open to the sky, on his way back to the beautiful room at the top of the tall palace.
His father was dying, lying quietly and simply on his string charpoy, his gentle old face turned up to the sky. Prince Karmina had been just in time. He and the old retainer of his father’s who had called him had run barefoot through the long corridors and down the shallow marble stairs. The old Maharajah had lived in entire simplicity and austerity in the two rooms that he set apart for his own use, and there was next to no furniture in the room through which Prince Karmina shouldered his way through a crowd of wailing, clustering servants.
“My son!” The dimming eyes of the old Mohammedan brightened as they rested on the figure that flung itself down on its knees beside the string bed.
“Father!” There was a sob in the voice of the young man as he caught hold of the wandering, shrunken hand. The old Maharajah had been a kind and indulgent father to him.
“My son, the summons has come. Suddenly, praise be to Allah! Into thy hands I bequeath thy heritage of lands and estate. Deal righteously to those beneath thee. Honour the King . . .” The old hand tried to tremble up to the wrinkled forehead, but fell inert before it reached its goal.
“Father!” But the old Maharajah was already lying with the look of detached dignity that Death bequeaths to those who pass out quietly and with confidence.
And now the Maharajah wended his way back to Monica, feeling thoroughly disorganized and upset. He had loved his father in a way—anyhow, he had stood for home and all that that meant to him. And now, from underneath the natural sorrow, a very real feeling of fear reared up its pallid head. An English girl under his roof at a time like this—it was an unparalleled disaster. Probably, by now, the news of his father’s death was half way to the bazaar; during the morning it would certainly be at the Residency. And that would mean a visit of condolence from the Resident. There would be the funeral ceremonies, his relations would swarm to the spot; there would be the elaborate ceremonies in connection with his own accession to the gadi. Monica suddenly presented herself to his eyes as an incubus and menace beyond imagination. She must be got rid of at once, the sooner the better. He broke into a run.
Monica heard the turn of the key in the lock with a flood of mingled terror and hope. He had gone so suddenly; perhaps her husband had guessed where she was, and had come to fetch her. In spite of the Maharajah’s injunction to remain on the couch, she had got off it, and was now standing tense in the farthest corner of the room, the palms of her hands pressed back against the wall. How ugly she looked, thought the Maharajah cruelly, as a pale shaft of light struck through a narrow window, showing up her tear-stained face and tumbled hair. And she had wrapped a rug round her waist, little fool!
“You must leave here immediately,” he said, and he locked the door behind him. “Your clothes are in the adjoining bathroom; go and put them on. Quickly.”
“Why, what has happened?” The sudden release from mortal fear was so bewildering that Monica looked almost vacant as she spoke, still staring from her corner.
“Never mind what has happened. As a matter of fact, nothing has,” corrected the Prince hastily. “Only I have come to the conclusion that it would be wrong for me to yield to your desire, and I wish now to restore you as soon as possible to the arms of your lawful husband.”
“My what?” said Monica stupidly, beginning to hurry across the room, and tripping awkwardly over the trailing edge of the rug as she did so.
“Your desire,” said the Maharajah loudly, wondering where his had gone, as he saw Monica’s ungainly movements.
“But I never had any,” said Monica, turning a tear-soaked face to the Prince as she passed him.
“Tell your husband that, and not me,” said the Prince virtuously, wishing that it would be safe to strangle this ugly girl and chuck her into a well. But it would not, so near to British territory. “Hurry,” he said, “and meanwhile I will dress and escort you back to Waroli.”
They passed along the corridors without any attempt at concealment. The Maharajah was only intent on one thing, namely to get Monica out of the palace before anyone paid an official visit of condolence to it. The servants and hangers-on only gaped at them, and laughed behind their fingers when they had passed. An order flung to his Indian Secretary as he left his father’s room had procured the car; the almost noiseless purring of it crept up the long flight of marble steps as they went down them. The Maharajah flung an order in the vernacular to the chauffeur, who sat looking very sleepy at the wheel, his collar all unfastened, and the huge car stole out from under the slim marble pillars.
“Where are we going?” trembled Monica suddenly, remembering that she had left her vest behind. She had not dared to take everything off, and had bundled on her clothes over the sleeveless silver garment.
“Back to your bungalow,” replied the Maharajah, who was faultlessly dressed in white, with a diamond clasp in his pale blue muslin puggaree.
“But will they be up?” Monica looked through the heavy bevelled sheets of glass. Every leaf and blade of grass looked like a jewel studded with diamonds. Across the paths hung wonderfully spun spiders’ webs, grey and heavy with dew. In the overhanging trees parrots screeched and chattered, and from a curve in the drive they could see the lake, lying still and shimmering under the pale amber of the dawn. From one corner of it a flight of duck rose with flapping, dripping wings, spreading out fanwise as they winged their way to a sheltering fringe of reeds.
“Probably not,” replied the Maharajah laconically, shooting a glance at the watch on his wrist; it was exactly five minutes to five.
“Which of us will explain where I have been all night?” asked Monica, sick with misery.
“I shall,” replied the Maharajah laconically.
“Well, explain it right, won’t you?” said Monica, conscious that her head was beginning to ache, and that she would give all she possessed for a cup of tea. And she began drearily to cry. What did anything matter? She was so hungry and tired.
The big Rolls-Royce swept in at the white gate and slid in between the beds of chrysanthemums just as Gregory Fanshawe stirred under the big mosquito curtain. He had had about two hours’ sleep, and he waked to an instant recollection of what had happened the night before. He got out of bed and walked to the wire door that gave on to the veranda; he must get up—how light was it? And then he saw the big mauve limousine throbbing under the creeper-covered porch.
“Maharajah sahib”—he had dragged the little stick from the latch and had flung open the wire door. He stood on the matting in pyjamas, and with bare feet, looking down at the immaculately dressed native in front of him.
“Sir Gregory, all is well.” The Maharajah spoke ingratiatingly. “And I should implore you to deal leniently with the little escapade. Lady Fanshawe, I am sure, regrets it now as deeply as even you would wish her to do. But fortunately she was under my protection, so all has been well. I will bring her in, if I may.”
“Has she been with you all night?” The bronzed face had a greyish tinge about it.
“Sir Gregory, she has. But if you will allow me to explain. . .”
“No; I don’t think I care to hear any explanations, thank you.” Gregory Fanshawe’s breath came as if he had been running. “Except just this, perhaps. How did my wife get to your palace?—it is some way from here.”
“Sir Gregory, that I cannot tell you. When I returned late last night from our search I found her there. More I cannot say, because I do not know.” The Maharajah spoke with a grieved intonation in his voice. He felt aggrieved because, as well as being made extremely anxious, he had been done out of an extremely valuable jewel. However, perhaps a couple of threatening letters would get that back.
“Well, send my wife in here, will you, please, Maharajah? I scarcely care for the chauffeur . . .” With dripping hands thrust deep into his pyjama pockets, Gregory Fanshawe stared down at his bare feet. How would he be able to help killing her? he was wondering vaguely.
“I will, Sir Gregory.” The Maharajah backed a little. There was murder in that thin line of a mouth, he thought; he had better get off the scene as soon as possible. He lifted a slim olive hand to the blue edge of his puggaree, and turning, returned to the car, helped Monica out of it’ and then sat leaning a little forward as the long mauve streak stole slowly down between the chrysanthemums and shot noiselessly out from between the white gateposts.
“Well?” Gregory Fanshawe was not able to replace the little stick in the latch as easily as he had taken it out.
“I can explain.” Monica walked to the disordered bed and sat down on the edge of it. Then she stood up, and mechanically began to twist the loose mosquito-curtain into a wisp, and threw it over the wooden framework of the bed.
“Do so then, will you?” There was an awful studied calmness in the voice of the man who stood in striped pyjamas, his back to the wire door.
“Yes, I will, when I can get it all straight in my head.” Monica’s small face was bleached and weary with fatigue as she sank back again on to the bed. It sagged and made a squeaky noise of jarring springs as she rested on it. Then she lifted her head again. “I can’t remember the beginning of it,” she said.
“Try.”
“I can’t; it’s just as if it was all blotted out m my head.” Monica took off her hat and ran her fingers, through her untidy hair. Her eyes were heavy and scored deeply underneath with dark shadows. “If I could have some tea and something to eat, it might help me,” she said, and her lips trembled piteously.
“It’s too early yet; there won’t be any servants about, and I don’t care to rouse them. We want to keep your extraordinary reappearance as quiet as we can,” said Gregory Fanshawe, without a quiver of mercy on his lean brown face. “Come on—jog your memory a little.”
“Help me,” cried Monica with a suffocating sob.
“No—I shall do nothing of the kind. At least, so far as this I will help you. Where were you all last night? Tell me the truth or I shall kill you.”
“With Prince Karmina in his palace,” said Monica, sobbing.
“Ah!” Gregory Fanshawe had begun to breathe through his nose, and his face was grey. “So that’s that! Well, and now for another leading question: how did you get there?”
“I don’t know,” sobbed Monica, lifting her face, wan and riven and soaked with tears.
“Liar! You do!” Gregory Fanshawe took a step forward.
“I don’t; I tell you that I don’t. It’s all blotted out in my head. I can remember lying down in the afternoon and you coming and kissing me very quietly, and then it’s all muddly, till I remember waking up on a low couch sort of thing, covered with rugs and cushions. And then I can remember seeing the Maharajah standing in front of me, and then somebody took away my clothes—a woman that was, and she gave me a silvery sort of thing instead, and then the Maharajah came back. And then he said—he said . . .”
“I don’t want to hear what he said.” There was a ghastly look in the eyes that stared over Monica’s head.
“But you told me to tell you everything that I could remember.” Monica began to smile vaguely and stupidly.
“I have heard all I want to.” Gregory Fanshawe reared his back from against the wire door and came nearer. He caught hold of the bowed shoulder and the lean fingers bit into the flesh of it. “You harlot!” he said, and he dragged her up level with his eyes.
“How do you mean ‘harlot’?” said Monica, still smiling vaguely and stupidly. It looked as if there were two of her husband’s face, four eyes and two grinning mouths. But the stupid smile maddened Gregory Fanshawe, and he struck her across the face with his open hand.
Monica screamed with the pain of it, and stumbled back across the floor as he let her go suddenly, pushing her away from him. Someone was coming along the veranda running with slippered feet. It was Aline, in a dressing-gown, running and then shaking the wire door with frantic hands. Monica back again? What did it mean?
“Let me in,” she breathed, with a breath pregnant with terror.
Monica saw the white fingers thrust through the wire. Aline!—she would know something about it.
“Let her in—let her in!” she gasped.
Gregory Fanshawe walked to the wire door and opened it. Aline came into the room, saw the scarlet patch on the small white face, and breathed again.
“My dear child . . .” she said, and she walked up to Monica and put a gentle arm round her waist. “You are back—thank God for that! How did she come, Greg?”
“The Maharajah of Karnmore brought her,” said Gregory Fanshawe grimly.
“The Maharajah of Karnmore? But how—how? Monica, darling, tell me!” Aline spoke very tenderly, and Monica gave a great sob as she heard the gentle voice. Aline was going to be kind, then, she would help to unravel the terrible mystery. She flung round and faced her. “Aline, Aline!” she cried, clutching at the white fingers, “I can’t remember. You will, though. Yesterday afternoon, what did we do? Greg and Tim went down to the Shops, and you and I—didn’t we do something together? A walk, or something like that?” Monica pressed her trembling fingers against her eyelids.
“Dear—” Aline stood very close to Monica—“dear, try to remember quietly,” she said. “No, we did not go out together. Don’t you remember, you told me that you wanted to go a really long walk because you had not had any proper exercise for some time? So you started off first. That was it, wasn’t it, dear?” The eyes under the dropped eyelids were vicious in their triumph. This had wiped out Maygate anyhow!
“Don’t say any more, Monica,” Gregory Fanshawe broke in. “Thanks, Aline; you had better cut along back in case Tim wakes up.” He walked to the door, and hooked it back with his foot.
“Don’t be too hard on her, Greg.” There was a sweetly appealing look in the beautiful eyes softly lifted to Gregory Fanshawe’s, as Aline Forrest passed out through the open door.
“No. All right.” But there was a look of almost deathly misery in Gregory Fanshawe’s face as he closed the door softly and slipped the little peg back into its place.
Mason was packing—packing and singing at the same time, because he was so desperately glad to be going. He was more or less in the dark about his master’s movements, but he knew so much—that they were going to clear out of Aline Forrest’s bungalow, and that was enough for him. They were going to Bombay the next day—Kashmir was apparently off; but where they were going when they had got to Bombay, Mason did not know. But Monica did know, and the news had left her dumb and freezing.
“Then aren’t you going to keep me with you any more?” she asked, her lips stiff.
“No, I am not.” Gregory Fanshawe was looking along the barrel of a gun that he had just been cleaning.
“But—but—but what have I done that you should cast me off like that? Men can’t just throw their wives aside because they happen to be angry with them. I have told you that the Maharajah didn’t do anything to me when I was in the palace. But you won’t believe me. You are bitterly, fiendishly cruel to me about it. Greg, have mercy on me; one day I feel sure that I shall be able to remember how I got there. But I can’t now; it all seems foggy somehow inside my head . . .” Monica, her small face sunken and white with the tears of many bitter days and nights, tried to clutch the tweed sleeve.
“Don’t!” Gregory Fanshawe shook her off cruelly.
“I shall kill myself!” Monica pressed her clenched hands into her white cheeks and stared over the knuckles of them.
“That would only disgrace me further, so please don’t contemplate anything so foolish.” Gregory Fanshawe’s voice cut like ice. It was torture to him to meet the sympathetic glances of people like the Commissioner and the Colonel. Everyone thought the same, of course, and, after all, how could they help it? The only thing was to avoid the club, and to shake the dust of Waroli off their feet as soon as possible. As a matter of fact, he himself would probably return to Waroli for a few days after seeing Monica off from Bombay. But that was still on the knees of the gods, and not even Mason must know about it.
“But if I was dead I couldn’t disgrace you.” Monica was still staring.
Gregory Fanshawe only shrugged his shoulders, and walking to his dressing-table, he took up a small piece of wash-leather from it.
“Speak to me, can’t you?” Monica ran after him. “It’s that that kills me, the sort of look you give me, as if I was unclean. Aline and Tim do it, too. I’m not unclean, I swear to you I am not! Greg! Greg! have mercy on me; you are my husband after all, and you ought to be the one to stand by me. You think that because I was still dressed in that silver thing that bad things happened. They didn’t—I swear to you that they didn’t! Why should I tell you a lie about it, because you would be certain to find out for yourself one day? And it’s all gone now, that sort of dreadful dragging away from you sort of feeling that I used to have. Speak to me, Gregory; when you only turn your back and stand, I feel as if I really should go mad. I love you—don’t you realize that? I love you! What would you feel like if you loved anyone as I do you, and they only stared at you, or not even stared—only turned their back on you? You would die with the despair of it . . . you would kill yourself with the misery of it! Gregory, you were the Dream Man—you know you were; just the ideal of everything that I had ever hoped for or imagined. And now you cast me off without even minding! Gregory, have mercy on me!” Monica’s voice trailed off in a note of almost deathly despair, and it made the tall man standing with one hand on the dressing-table turn round.
He took a step forward. “Try and remember how you got to the palace,” he said.
“I can’t!” Monica almost screamed it. “Sometimes it seems to be coming, and then it goes away again. It’s there, somewhere, but it won’t come up to the top. Aline could help me if she would, but she won’t. God, God, You help me! . . .” Monica suddenly fell on her knees.
“Don’t!” Gregory Fanshawe turned away abruptly, his brief impulse of compassion dying. He hated anything in the way of a scene, and lately they had been terribly frequent. Besides, it was ungenerous of Monica to say that about Aline. She had displayed what seemed to him to be the most wonderful forbearance and pity for his wife. Always kind, always gentle, and always imploring him not to be too hard on Monica. It was all part of the terrible deterioration that he had noticed in his wife for some time, and the only thing was to get her out of the country as soon as possible. And the Wheelers would be certain to be kind to her, and it would not be necessary to tell them anything. Dr. Wheeler’s reply to his cable had been kind and to the point; probably the clever doctor thought that Monica was going to have a baby, thought Gregory Fanshawe, a bitter twist on his mouth. “Don’t!” he said again, and he turned back to the table.
Monica stood up; she felt as if two of her were standing up—one chill and naked and stabbed to death, and the other ordinary and with clothes on, only feeling all the agony that the other one had felt before it died. “Perchance he sleeps, perchance he is on a journey . . .”
She said the words mechanically to herself. That was what someone had once said about God when they could not get any answer out of Him. Was it God, or wasn’t it? Monica could not remember.
Gregory Fanshawe knew one of the officials in the P. and O. Company, so he had been able to get permission to go on board with Monica after her medical examination. And now they stood together in the beautiful single-berth cabin on the hurricane deck, facing one another.
“Well, good-bye, dear.” The tall man in the immaculate tussore silk suit stooped a little forward as he put a hand on each of Monica’s shoulders.
But Monica held herself stiffly erect. “This is the end,” she said, and there was a dreadful look in her eyes.
“No, it isn’t.” Gregory Fanshawe was feeling very unhappy himself, although he was determined not to show it. Monica had surely shrunk, he was thinking, as he felt the shoulder-bones under his fingers. But she had disgraced him, and she withheld any explanation. For Gregory Fanshawe did not believe for a single instant that Monica was telling anything but a flagrant untruth when she said that she could not remember how she got to the palace outside Waroli.
“It is,” said Monica, and there was death in the eyes that stared into his.
“No, it’s not. You will be very happy with Aunt Fanny. And I shall come Home very fairly soon.”
“The death is in your casting me away when I have not done anything to deserve it,” said Monica.
“We won’t go into all that again,” said Gregory Fanshawe, his face hardening. “And you know that if you have any reasonable explanation to offer me I will listen to it. It is not too late, even now.”
“I can’t remember,” said Monica, tortured.
“Very well, then, that settles it. And now it is goodbye, or rather let us say au revoir. This ship is full of women going Home alone for various reasons; there is nothing in the least anomalous in your position. And you can write to me from Aden. Hold up your face and let me kiss you.”
“Gregory, I shall die without you—I shall die! Let me stay with you, even if I am only like a sort of servant.” Monica’s self-control had gone in a flood, swept away by the touch of the beloved mouth on hers. “Let me stay. I tell you I have the most awful feeling that this is really the end. I shall die, or something, and never see you again. Aline knows something about my going to the palace—I feel that she does. Make her say—she could. She has a sort of way of looking at me when we are alone, as if she was triumphing over me, as if she knew that she would get you when I have gone. She will. I know she will! Greg, you used to love me—in a sort of way, anyhow; be merciful to me because of that now. Forgive me, oh, my husband, forgive me!” Monica’s sobs threatened to become hysterical.
“Come, Monica; pull yourself together.” There was not an atom of relenting on Gregory Fanshawe’s thin line of a mouth. He loathed scenes—he was sated with them. “You can write anything you want to say from Aden,” he said. “Now—good-bye, dear, and take care of yourself,” and he stooped again. And then there was a little rattle of brass rings on a brass rod, and Monica was alone.
“God, I shall die! I shall die!” Monica, her hands clenched over her mouth, was leaning out of the porthole watching the slim figure going lithely down the gangway; there was a cluster of bluejackets gathered round the end of the gangway ready to pull it away. Gregory Fanshawe was evidently the last on board. He did not turn at all, but only passed quickly through the crowds of waving people standing as close to the edge of the big wharf as they could get, and was then lost in the gloomy shadows of the vast waiting-hall.
Mason, deeply depressed at the turn things had taken, was sitting at the window of his bedroom at the Taj Mahal Hotel, staring out into Bombay Harbour. The Mail had just swum on to his line of vision, had crossed the harbour majestically, and was now making for the open sea and Aden. And he and his master were left behind. It was an awful state of affairs, especially as Mason had had quite a penchant for the house-parlourmaid at Mrs. Mannering’s house at Maygate, and had been looking forward to seeing her again. Also, it was quite obvious that things were as wrong as they could be between his master and the mistress that Mason loved, and this made Mason very sad, because he was perfectly convinced in his own mind that Aline Forrest was at the bottom of it—“Trust the ’ag to do the dirty wherever she goes,” as he expressed it to himself. “And now what?” as he also said to himself, staring gloomily out at the glittering water dancing gaily under the blazing afternoon sun. What were they going to do? he and his master. Back to “that ’ag,” unless he was very much mistaken. A bad business—and Mason turned from the window, passed out of the door of his own room, and knocked discreetly at the door of the next.
“Come in.” Gregory Fanshawe was standing in front of his dressing-table in shirt-sleeves. He turned at the sound of the opening door. “Oh, it’s you, Mason. Yes, get on with the packing, will you; I want to catch the evening train back to Waroli.”
“Thought as much,” said Mason to himself, going down on one knee in front of an open japanned tin case; that, then, was what the couple of boxes and bag of golf-clubs left behind had meant. “Oh, you are a b——y fool!” he apostrophized his master, sore at heart for the girl who had left the Taj at noon that day, bleached and wan with misery. For Monica had said a very sad good-bye to Mason; she had sought him out in his own room and had given him a small and quivering hand to shake. “Mason, it is good-bye,” she said, “really good-bye—something tells me so. We shall never meet again in this world.”
“Oh, don’t, m’lady!” Mason’s pale face was working.
“Yes; I must say it, because that will explain to you why I want to say this; that I thank you very much for having always been so nice to me,” and Monica had walked out, leaving Mason not at all ashamed of the tears that were running down his face. And now she had gone and they were going back to that ——. Mason’s epithet is unprintable.
Gregory Fanshawe was also feeling thoroughly miserable. The parting with Monica had upset him more than he had thought it would. She was so small, and she had looked so unfeignedly despairing. But, on the other hand, she could have made a cleaner breast of the degrading episode that had dragged his pride and honour in the dust. Ordinary human beings did not take as their objective a distant native palace, and go and stay in it without knowing that they were doing so. At least, the sort of people that Gregory Fanshawe had been accustomed to meet did not. So he hardened his heart, told his valet to get out a clean suit, and went off to lunch at the Yacht Club. And later, he and his valet got into a first-class coupe of the Delhi express, and slid out of the busy terminus, and began to plunge their way northwards again; and Gregory Fanshawe was glad, because this coming visit to Waroli might mean that the dream of the last few years of his life was going to be fulfilled. “Switch off . . . Suck in . . . Contact.” Ah-h-h! Then the light skips across the short, uneven turf, and then the earth like a map beneath you. The scream of the wind under your ear-caps, the roar of the engine under your hand. Ah-h-h! And Mason wondered why his master, sitting staring out of the window, his long legs stretched along the seat, began suddenly to twitch all over, and open and close his fingers convulsively. “Something to do with this b——y country, and I shouldn’t be surprised,” meditated the valet gloomily, thoroughly fed up with life.
Money can do most things, and a week after Gregory Fanshawe’s return to Waroli he was standing under the blazing sun looking at the big grey dragon-fly that belonged to him. His hands, thrust deep into his pockets were twitching with joy, and Mason, standing near, beamed respectfully in sympathy. This was “a bit of all-right.” Mason loved the air almost as much as his master, and had made many flights at Limpsfield before the war had even been thought of. Only as a rather crushed insignificant piece of ballast, certainly, but still, he had “been up,” and as he was a very keen mechanic, and had also keen ears and eyes, he had absorbed a certain amount of technical knowledge of the machine at which he was now looking so admiringly.
“But you aren’t really serious?” Aline, in the evening dress which Monica had always been afraid of, slid a white hand along the back of the flowered Chesterfield and spoke rather sharply.
“I most certainly am.” Gregory Fanshawe, in evening clothes, had one long leg crossed over the other. “It’s what I have always longed to do, and Mason is as keen as I am. I shall take it in short stages, of course; but if other people can fly to Cairo, so can I. Ashe has been a brick, and has given me all the maps I want. So what more? And I shall push off as soon as I hear that Perim has signalled the Oregona. The P. and O. are going to send me a wire.”
“I think it’s ridiculous!” Aline was white with rage. Gregory had hardly taken any notice of her since he came back from seeing off his wife, and it was driving her mad. Because, so far as Aline Forrest could be in love with anyone, she was in love with the tall lean man who lounged beside her now.
“I daresay you do: but, you see, I don’t.” Gregory Fanshawe stared in front of him with eyes that were rather heavy. For as well as being thoroughly disgusted with the frank advances of the woman by his side, he was obsessed by a very real anxiety. He ought to have heard of the arrival of the Oregona at Aden by now. He told himself that he was a fool to be anxious, but the telling did not reassure him. All day he had had the remembrance of Monica beside him as he had last seen her in that deck cabin, “It is the end . . . Gregory—my husband, you used to love me—have mercy on me . . . because of that . . .” Also, Monica in another guise—wet, for some reason or other: her dress clinging to her, and seaweed in her hair. Monica with a great dark strip of wrack round her neck, like the wrack on the jutting-out rocks at Maygate. Monica holding out dripping hands, with eyes and lashes clogged with sea-water. . . .“Oh, my God!” Gregory Fanshawe got up abruptly and walked to the mantelpiece.
“What is the matter?” Aline’s slumbrous eyes were suddenly wider open.
“I don’t know. That is to say—nothing!” Gregory Fanshawe sat down again as abruptly as he had got up.
“You’re tired, nervy—Greg.” Aline Forrest twisted round suddenly in her clinging dress.
“Oh, stop it!” Gregory Fanshawe’s manners had gone by the board. He wanted his wife; he suddenly knew that he did. He wanted the soft shy arms round his neck, and the thumping heart under his. He wanted to be able to hold the little face with cruel fingers until it crimsoned and then whitened, and then shrank in a desperate effort to be free. “Greg, if you look at me like that, it seems to burn me up . . . please, darling, give me a little rest.” He wanted all those things, and he had lost them—lost them for ever; he suddenly knew that he had.
“You are insulting.”
“I don’t care a damn if I am, you drive me to it.” Gregory Fanshawe had got up and was walking up and down the room. “ Where’s Tim?—can’t we have dinner?”
“He said he would be late, but if you would rather not wait?” Aline suddenly looked towards the door. “What is it, Abdul?”
“Chitti hai, huzoor!”
“All right, it’ll wait.” Then, as the servant still hesitated, “What is it?” she said impatiently.
“Man wanting answer,” said the white-coated Mohammedan laboriously, thinking that perhaps his mem-sahib had not understood him before. For Aline’s knowledge of Hindustani was the most fragmentary.
“Oh, bother! Very well; give it to me.” Aline tapped a satin foot on the floor as the servant came forward. There were nothing but interruptions in this cursed country, she was thinking.
The envelope was the sort of envelope that one sees in a pantomime—quite nine inches square, with an enormous coat-of-arms in gold on the back. Aline slit it quickly along the top. An invitation to the accession festivities at the palace probably; they had been talking about them this evening at the club. How that the Viceroy would probably be there . . . Fun! Greg would come. She pulled out the folded sheet inside.
“Who’s your correspondent?” Gregory Fanshawe, noting the silence, turned rather curiously to look at the girl beside him.
“No!” the word came almost screaming out of the red mouth—blood red, in an ashen face.
“And why not?” Gregory Fanshawe made a gesture of dismissal to the waiting servant. “Let me see, Aline; there can’t be anything confidential in a comic envelope like that. Come on, hand it over.”
Aline Forrest had the folded sheet to her bare neck. “How dare you?” she said, striving for dignity. “Correspondence is sacred; I am surprised at you, Gregory.”
But the suddenly suspicious eyes had fallen on the envelope, still on the couch. The Karnmore arms! A swarm of evil imaginings buzzed their way upwards in the mind of the man, sitting immaculate in evening clothes. Waroli—Karmina—Monica—the lean hand shot out.
“Give it me back!” Aline was really screaming this time.
But Gregory Fanshawe was already reading. “Under the circumstances, do you not think that the emerald should be returned? You can keep the chain and bag, if you care for them. But the emerald is an heirloom.” No beginning and no ending.
“Ah!” Gregory Fanshawe’s breath came with a hiss between the top teeth biting on the lower. “Ah! Now, then, we are going to get at something. The price of blood, eh? What does it mean? Tell me.” He held her by the elbows, pinioned.
“Let me go! Tim will be coming in,” Aline was gasping hoarsely.
“Let him come in. Ah!” as there was the raucous bark of a car down by the gate, “here he is. Now then, perhaps you will speak.”
“Greg, it will smash up our home; let me go before he comes in. I will tell you—I swear it.”
“Not I; you have done me down once before, and this is going to be the last time. Sit down, if you prefer it, but if you attempt to move I shall prevent you.”
“Sorry I’m so late, but I couldn’t get away.” Timothy Forrest’s cheerful face peered round the curtain. Then it blanched suddenly. “What’s the matter? Is anything wrong with Ronald?” he said, coming a little farther into the room.
“No, he’s perfectly all right. Tim, come here for a minute, will you, and read this.” Gregory Fanshawe moved towards the curtain and held out the letter in his hand.
“But what does it mean?” Timothy Forrest raised his honest blue eyes from the folded sheet and looked at the two in front of him.
“Aline can explain,” said Gregory Fanshawe, folding his arms across his white shirt.
“Aline? What, is the letter to her, then?” Timothy Forrest glanced down at it again. Then he raised his eyes. “Carry on, then, Aline,” he said quietly.
“Not in front of him.”
“Yes; certainly in front of him.”
Aline Forrest glanced wildly from one man to the other. Hopeless to resist. Besides, why not? For their own sakes, they would have to keep quiet about it. The scandal would be too awful otherwise. Besides, she was sick of Tim, and Gregory was being a devil and she hated him. Also, Monica, who had always been a fool, had gone.
“The Maharajah gave me an emerald on a platinum chain, and a gold chain-purse with thirty gold coins in it, because I helped him to get Monica into his palace,” she said sullenly.
“What?” Both men spoke together, and both were ashen.
“Yes, well, I daresay it sounds horrid to you, but I was sick of Monica, anyhow, and I liked the look of the emerald,” said Aline brazenly. Really, it was rather a relief to have got it off her chest. And now perhaps Tim would send her home. That is, if she did not have to take Ronald with her. A voyage with a baby would be too awful.
“Is that the messenger from the palace outside in the veranda?” asked Timothy Forrest, looking across at his friend.
Gregory Fanshawe nodded.
“Then, go and fetch the things and bring them in here to be wrapped up,” said Timothy Forrest, speaking to his wife, but not looking at her.
“Why should I?” Aline spoke, stamping her foot.
“If I touch you I shall kill you,” said Timothy Forrest heavily. “So do what I tell you, without any further delay.”
Aline Forrest walked slowly out of the room, and until she came back neither of the men raised his eyes from the ground. In the presence of such treachery, what was there to be said?
Aline was soon back, and she stood with greedy, enraged eyes as her husband lifted the glorious pendant on the slender chain from the cotton wool in which it was embedded. Also, as he tipped the gold mohurs out of the chain-bag and counted them. Thirty. And the same thought that had crossed the mind of the woman who stood watching, crossed the minds of both men—the price of blood.
“Now then, where is the man?” Timothy Forrest walked out on to the veranda with the sealed parcel. A tall native rose up from his crouching position and salaamed deeply.
“Give this to the Maharajah Sahib.” Timothy Forrest wondered how much the man knew as he took the parcel into his slim olive fingers, salaamed deeply and vanished into the night. He stood looking after him for a moment or two, and then turned back into the bungalow again.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
It was long after midnight before the two men separated. Aline had gone to bed after an hour’s searching cross-examination. Both men were determined to get at the truth, and they got it. Aline, livid with rage and fear, described it all: Monica’s condition of half stupor, the Maharajah lying in wait for them, and the final depositing of the unconscious girl at the palace. Then the return of herself and the Prince to the club to disarm suspicion.
“Did my wife ever tell you what led to her being brought back so quickly?” asked Gregory Fanshawe, with eyes sick with loathing.
“No; but I guessed it. Prince Karmina’s father must have died in the middle of the night, and the Prince was afraid of Monica being found there,” said Aline.
“Probably.” The eyes of both men met. Before it was too late, or after? . . . Monica had vowed with eyes streaming with agonized tears that the Prince had not even kissed her. Was it true? Why not? She had spoken the truth about not being able to remember how she got to the palace; then why not about this?
“All right, you can go to bed, Aline.” Timothy Forrest did not look at his wife, as without a backward glance she got up and walked out of the room. But when the embroidered Kashmir curtain had fallen behind her, he turned to the man who stood, one elbow resting on the mantelpiece, staring into the fire.
“Gregory, what can I say?” His voice was hoarse.
“Nothing. There is nothing to be said, and nothing to be done either. We cannot possibly bring it home to the Maharajah now—the exposure and scandal would be infinitely worse for us than for him, and of course he knows it. All I can do is to cable to Aden, something that my wife will understand, and follow her as soon as I can. This flying stunt must be off, of course.” Gregory Fanshawe turned round and faced his friend. “Don’t think, Tim,” he said, “that I have a thought against you in this business; I haven’t, I know that you would give your soul for it never to have happened.”
“My soul! If it wasn’t for the kid I would gladly have given my life. But how could I leave him to her?” and Timothy Forrest sat down and covered his eyes with his hand.
“You can’t, and that’s going to keep you from making a fool of yourself. Don’t let go, and you will find things will get better. And now, if you don’t mind, Tim, I’ll turn in,” and Gregory Fanshawe held out his hand.
“Good-night”; both men faced one another with complete understanding in their eyes. But the metallic ting of a bicycle-bell in the compound made them both jump, and both brown hands unclasped involuntarily.
“It must be a wire, but what on earth about, at this hour?” Timothy Forrest walked out on to the dimly lighted veranda. A telegraph peon in khaki uniform was leaning his bicycle up against one of the pillars of the porch. He fumbled in a pocket and produced the pale yellow envelope and the paper for signature.
“It’s for you.” Timothy Forrest had been looking at the envelope, holding it close up against the bull’s-eye bicycle-lamp. “I’ll sign, while you see if it wants an answer. Here you are.” He handed it over his shoulder to the man who had followed him out of the drawing-room.
It was a long telegram, two pages of blue scribbled writing. Gregory Fanshawe read it through twice, and then turned without speaking and walked back into the room he had just left. Timothy Forrest, left alone, called after him.
“No; no answer,” the voice came back, rather sharp.
“Attcha, salaam.” Captain Forrest returned the salute of the peon and watched the little crimson tail-lamp go winking down in between the chrysanthemums until it vanished out of the gate; then he turned and went back into the drawing-room. Gregory Fanshawe was sitting in a low chair, funnily hunched, his head sunk between his hands.
“Nothing wrong, is there?” Timothy Forrest spoke anxiously; the two flimsy scribbled sheets were lying on the carpet in front of his friend, and there was something odd in the attitude of his friend too—a sort of deathly crumpled look.
“Read it yourself.” The toe of the patent leather shoe moved a little forward on the carpet.
Timothy Forrest stooped. Which sheet came first? He read the first words of the one he already held in his hand, and then, white as death, picked up the other.
“Much regret to inform you information received S.S. Oregona foundered in cyclone Lat. 15, Long. 55. Weather prohibits any hope of boats having survived. S.S. Braganza on receipt of SOS signals rushed to assistance, but was unable to enter cyclone area. S.S. Elias reports meeting much wreckage.”
“Gregory!”
“Yes, well. That’s the end of that.” The man in the low chair raised a haggard face. “I can’t let her know now. But never mind, she’s better off where I can’t get at her; I made her wretched while she was here. Don’t say anything, Tim, there’s a good fellow. And I can’t see your wife again, either—you understand that, don’t you? If I may just come back here at night for a day or two, I’ll feed at the club.”
“Sometimes boats are picked up.” Timothy Forrest sought desperately for comfort.
“Not in a cyclone. Besides, that’s a ghastly coast. What happened to the boats that went off from the Palitana when it foundered? You know as well as I do—they were scuppered by natives. Don’t, Tim—I can’t stand it.” Gregory Fanshawe stood up, and disregarding the hand held out to him, walked out of the door without turning.
Right away up in the blue, gleaming like a fish that leaps from the water and catches the sunlight on its scales as it leaps; making little nose-dives, like a seagull that stabs a long beak for its prey; wheeling vaguely like a bird, winged, that falls, falls, and then rallying desperately from time to time, falls again; and then at last, the “gip, gip” of the missing engine, and the gleaming thing coming really down, spinning like a belated leaf nipped off by an early frost. But still a human hand at work, for the dying engine blares fiercely out from time to time. But the watching vultures, huddled horribly on the topmost fern-shaped leaves of the clusters of cocoanut palms that fringe the shore, watch with a gloating look in their heavy eyes. A decent meal for the most powerful of them, anyhow, some time in the near future.
“Mason, I can’t hold her!” Gregory Fanshawe, sagging all askew in his straps, was trying above the uproar to scream to the man behind him.
Mason, not hearing a word, but fully aware all the same of the state of affairs, had a sort of humorous composure on his pallid face. They were for it, then; Lord, what a swindle! She would be a bit upset, that little bit of goods at Maygate. But thank God! as they were for it, it was to be a respectable drowning death, not being charred to a cinder, or skinned alive. And as all these thoughts flew through Mason’s mind, as quickly as a ray of sun flees to earth, he saw the blue sea rush up at him, and the tiny stones on the sandy bottom of it. Then the engine gave out its death rattle again, and the machine righted itself a little, and sailed haltingly towards the shore. And then Gregory Fanshawe sagged backwards as well as sideways in his straps, and Mason, leaning forward from his seat, touched the controls as gingerly as a man fingers a mangled snake. But as he strained over the flaccid body in front of him, he shouted at the top of his voice, and let out the accelerator with a yell of joy. “That’ll give you something to think about, you dirty traitor, you!” he screamed, and as if in answer to the insult, the throbbing thing of silk and steel rallied again. And then the angry vultures scattered with hoarse cries as the machine, like a wounded bird, floundered sideways through the tropical air, and landed quivering, with a crashing and snapping of wires and struts, on the top of a cluster of palm trees.
“Oh, my Gawd!” Mason also let go of anything that he might be holding on to, and became a grey, faintly breathing thing.
Sun—hot, and in his eyes: Mason, with a very weary sigh, pushed the leather cap a little back from his forehead and sat up. A large winged thing that had been staring at him from an adjacent branch flopped clumsily off its perch, and winged its way with huge spread wings to another tree. Arrived there, it sat with its back to him, hunched sulkily.
“Oh, Lor’!” Mason lay back again and shut his eyes. This time he lay clear of the sun; the freed leaves had swung upwards again and made a screen between him and the molten furnace. But he was hot, very hot, and desperately uncomfortable too. Wet with perspiration round his waist, where apparently something had him in a burning grip. Aching all over. Dry as to the mouth—Mason steered a parched tongue carefully round it.
And all about what? Mason lay and thought. And then it all came back to him. Of course, the flight. Mad, from the very beginning. All right as far as Karachi, where they had come down for petrol and had stayed a day and a night. Then across to Muscat, horrible, hanging over the sea. Then on, day after day, over sandy desert. Two forced landings, also in sandy desert. Gregory Fanshawe had handed his valet-mechanic a Colt’s automatic pistol and had told him laconically not to allow himself to be taken alive if anyone turned up; and Mason, shivering with horrible apprehension, had stooped over the boiling engine and wished he were dead already. Twice a descent to an R.A.F. depot for petrol—a real oasis in the desert this, as in each place a cheery Arab in a little red fez was in charge, bursting with hospitality at the relief from the ghastly monotony of his daily life. And then, the final going up, their faces set well on their way to Aden, and the rapidly rising storm, Gregory Fanshawe, his eyes like dead things in his white face, shouting over his shoulder, “I’ll take you back to Makalla if you like, Mason; but I must go on.” And Mason had understood; it was his master’s agony of mind that was driving him onward, and Mason had shouted through the scream of the wind his wish to stay with him. And this . . . and what was this? Mason sat up again, and saw his master, face downwards in his straps.
“Lord help us!” Mason spoke in agony of mind, and struggled wildly with the buckles of his own leather fastenings. The plane hardly moved; it was wedged firmly, stabbed through and through with fibrous leaves. Mason could see that. They were perched on the top of a forest of trees—trees heavy with cocoanuts; cocoanuts not as Mason knew them, but done up in great green coverings like melons. But Mason only threw them a glance; he was groping in the leather pockets of his coat for his flask of brandy.
“Sir, sir!” Mason spoke gaspingly and with despair. He flung an arm round the averted face and lifted it. The head in the leather cap only lolled vaguely to one side. But Mason was an accomplished nurse and he knew death when he saw it. And death was not here; he sobbed with relief as he tipped the flask into the open mouth.
“Leave me alone.” Gregory Fanshawe stirred and spoke slurringly. And then, with a sharp cry, “My back!”
Mason turned very cold. The weak spot. Had he brought his master back to life, for life only to be turned to hell again? Mason prayed desperately, not knowing that he did so. His prayer was more in the form of a pitiful, conciliatory reasoning with an Unknown Power than anything else. “That wouldn’t be fair by no manner of means; no, we won’t consider that, anyhow.” And then Gregory Fanshawe struggled a little in his straps, and kicked out a cramped and seeking foot, and Mason lifted up his voice and sobbed with joy.
“Hallo! what’s the matter with you?” There was sense again in the brown face, into which a little colour was stealing. “What the hell is all this about? Where are we?” Gregory Fanshawe struggled to sit up, and failed.
“Let me unfasten you, sir.” Mason, with a pale face smudged with tears, was grappling with buckles and straps.
“That’s it!” Gregory Fanshawe sat up very stiffly. The leaves and spiky fronds of the clustering trees were sticking through the shattered wings and propeller. He put a hand behind one shoulder and wrenched it a little, and then he smiled. “We seem to be in a nest,” he said.
“Oh, my Gawd!” Mason, thoroughly unnerved, began to laugh and cry together.
“Here, stop it and pull yourself together!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke roughly, although his eyes were kind. For if he was not very much mistaken, Mason had as usual come to the rescue. For his last conscious thought had been of a blue sea rushing up and boiling over; there had been no palm-trees, although there had been a sort of an idea of land, vaguely seen and remembered, but surely not negotiable. Anyhow, here they were, and Mason must have some brandy; he himself seemed to smell very strongly of it, although his flask was still shut up in his pocket.
“Thank you kindly, sir!” Mason drank, hiccupped violently, and felt better.
“Feeling more yourself?” Sir Gregory Fanshawe surveyed his valet kindly.
“Yes, thank you, sir,” said Mason, feeling deeply ashamed of himself.
“Good! Well, then, where on earth are we? We seem whole, which is something to be thankful for. Do you feel knocked out anywhere?”
“No, thank you, sir,” said Mason, his fingers curling and uncurling themselves from round a packet of Scissors cigarettes in his leather pocket.
The same thought had communicated itself to the man opposite. But it would be better to eat first, he thought and he said so.
Both men sat and munched from the aluminium wallets in their pockets. Gregory Fanshawe sat and glanced round him with intensest interest. At first, with memory had come despair again, but he choked it down. He had his valet to consider now, and if they were, as he thought they were, marooned on one of the tiny islands off Socotra, they were in the deadliest danger. They must have been blown badly out of their course, that was quite certain. But the inhabitants of these islands had an uncomfortable way of not being able to account for anyone blown on to their hospitable shores; Gregory Fanshawe remembered the foundering of the Palitana a few years before, off the coast of Nad-el-Mari, and the consequent total disappearance of all its boats. And at the thought of that his heart was tight in his throat again, although the Oregona must have gone down more than a hundred miles from here, and the very thought was folly.
“Now, then, for a smoke.” Gregory Fanshawe drew his cigarette-case stiffly from a pocket, snapped it open, and handed it across to Mason.
“Thank you, sir!” Mason’s spirits were beginning to rise. Neither he nor his master was broken anywhere, nor were they hungry or thirsty, nor were they apparently in danger of immediate death. So Mason, always an optimist, had renewed hopes of Maygate again one day.
“Can you get my glasses out of the locker before you light up?” Gregory Fanshawe had been carefully revolving in his seat, and had found that the aeroplane really was firmly wedged. It tipped a little as he moved, but it was in no danger of falling.
“Yessir.” Mason stepped gingerly from his place and also very stiffly stooped over the leather-covered receptacle.
“Thanks.” The Zeiss field-glasses slipped easily from their velvet bed. “Not broken, thank heaven,” thought Gregory Fanshawe, adjusting them and then holding them to his eyes.
They were on an island—that was obvious; a very green island, set in a band of blue. From the direction in which they had come, the blue went on indefinitely; in front of them it seemed to fade into green again, but the glasses were not powerful enough to be quite sure of that. The island was dotted all over with little dwellings, some of them in clusters, some standing alone. In one place there was something that looked very much like an Indian bungalow. Gregory Fanshawe’s heart leapt as he saw it. It stood all by itself in a big garden, behind it the usual cluster of what looked like servants’ quarters. Could it be possible that there was an Eastern Telegraph official on this scrap of the world? If so, they were saved indeed. From one or two of the little grass huts spirals of grey smoke curled up, and as he crinkled his eyelashes to see better, he saw little figures running and stooping, and carrying things on their heads. Through the green waving palm-trees behind them the shore sloped yellow to the sea; it was a beautiful shore—hard yellow, untrodden sands, even better than Maygate, as Gregory Fanshawe thought, a melancholy twist on his unshaven Ups.
Mason was watching him like a patient dog as he took the glasses down from his eyes. Gregory Fanshawe told him briefly what he had seen, and laid the glasses down beside him on the floor of the car, then, groping for his pipe, he drew it out joyfully, unbroken.
“We must get down from here, somehow,” he said to his valet, through rapturous gulps of smoke, rolling up the oilskin pouch again with fingers still a little tremulous. “But we can’t go bald-headed at it until we know the temper of these people. They may be all right, and also they may not. They aren’t overburdened with clothes, anyhow,” he continued, his lean brown face all alight with laughter as he saw Mason instantly lean over the side of the car and begin to stare downwards.
“Where did you see them, sir?” said Mason, lifting his head again.
“Some way away; look through the glasses—outside a couple of huts.”
“Why, they ’aven’t anything on at all!” exclaimed Mason after a minute’s solid staring through the beautiful lenses.
“No; I thought not; and because of that we must go very carefully; they may be hostile. And if I must choose, I’d rather go out like this, eh, Mason?” and Gregory Fanshawe drew out his Colt’s automatic pistol and smiled down the barrel of it.
“Sir!” Even through three days’ stubble Mason looked green.
“Yes; well, it’s best to be prepared. Hand me over the glasses again, will you?”
The glasses changed hands again, and Mason, as his master lifted them to his eyes, sat, his knees a little drawn up, in an attitude of profoundest dejection. It was the ruddy limit, this, after all they had already gone through. He had made sure that his chances of skinning were over. However, he felt for his pistol, drew it out to see that it was properly loaded, and put it back again.
Gregory Fanshawe was still looking through the glasses. But he suddenly put them down and spoke in a voice that brought beads of perspiration to Mason’s top lip. “Get down,” he hissed, and went down on his knees himself.
“Wot is it, sir?” Mason, trembling, spoke breathily.
“Why, there’s something going on by a place that looks like a temple. Look, can you see it?—just there, about two hundred yards to the left of that crashed tree.” Gregory Fanshawe drew himself up cautiously, and pointed.
Mason, his eyes about a tenth of an inch over the top of the car, saw, and crouched again. “It’s a bloody sacrifice!” he stuttered.
That was just about what it was, and Gregory Fanshawe was not ashamed of the nausea that rose in his throat. It was a man, and the brown figure had just trembled to stillness as the blood gushed out of the throat. Then the air vibrated, crashed, and quivered to the reverberations of a huge gong. And in an instant the island was alive with sound. From every hut they came—Gregory had caught up the glasses again—waving their arms, howling, screaming. They looked like an army of brown ants as they ran, spreading out like a flow of lava. They were running towards the temple, and soon the green shades underneath the trees on which the aeroplane was wedged were alive with them, men and women. But the women wore a certain amount of clothing, Gregory Fanshawe was glad to see. Also he was thankful to see that nobody looked upwards, for that gave the impression, anyhow, that the excitement had nothing to do with them.
“The wimmen ’ave some sort of a garment, sir.” Mason delivered himself of this remark after a renewed peering, and in a voice of disappointment.
“Yes; so I see.” Inwardly, Gregory Fanshawe was intensely amused, although he was relieved too. It was not quite as if Mason had been one of his own sort: if he had been, the lack of clothing would have been nothing more than a huge joke. “I want to see what they are going to do,” he went on; “keep your eyes skinned too, Mason.”
Both men, on their knees, eyes just above the rim of the car, stared downwards. The crowd had, to a man, fallen flat on its face. From the white stone temple, that both men could see through the frond-like leaves of the palm-trees, a man had come out. He was dressed in white, and he walked a little apart and climbed up on to what looked like a riding-block. He was old—Gregory Fanshawe had caught up the glasses again—a long white beard flowed down over his robes. A priest, evidently. He opened his arms, flung back his head and spoke. And to Gregory Fanshawe’s stupefaction he spoke in English, a loud penetrating, monotonous chant. English, in the midst of these savages! Then there was a chance for them. But could it be English? Gregory Fanshawe strained his ears to hear. Yes; it came, very clear, like a voice at the other end of a telephone, through the still tropical air.
Oh, god of Light, to thee we humbly bring
Our yearly sacrifice: this beauteous girl we fling
Into the sea. Hear thou our plaintive moan:
List to our cry: stoop from thy fiery throne.
Send us a King! Oh, god of Fire, we pray:
Send us a King! Send us a King, to-day!
“Good God!” Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes were straining out of his head as a small procession emerged from the temple and began to wind its way to the foot of the stone block on which the white-robed figure was standing. It was to be another sacrifice; he could see the quivering and strugglings of the swathed figure that stumbled between two huge brown ones. “Mason—good heavens, we must do something; they’re going to slaughter that girl. We must stop it somehow! Look here,” and Gregory Fanshawe leapt to his feet and then dropped back again, as Mason, his fattish face illumined, made a motion with his hand and then spoke in a state of desperate excitement.
“Can’t you see it, sir?” he said. “They want a king—it’s the chance of our lives. They want a king. Well, they’ve got one,” and Mason, thrusting two shaking forefingers into his mouth, sent out a whistle that made the nearest vulture remember a little incident of his youth, when he had dipped too low over a liner and the first officer had nearly got him, and this remembrance caused him to flap stupidly on his perch.
“Good God, what have you done!” It was Gregory Fanshawe who was pale this time. For the priest and the huge concourse of people round him rose from their faces and stared upwards.
“That’s done it!” Mason was shaking with excitement. “Keep down, sir, I’ll tell you what ’appens. ’Ere they come. Right bang through the lot of them, the priest chap and ’is attendants, and the girl with ’em. Keep down, sir,” Mason was shouting. “’Ere they are, right at the foot of the tree. Now, then, for it. A king, a king, be’old a King!” Mason yelled at the top of his voice, hanging, as he yelled, over the side of the faintly swaying car.
There was a sound like wind through reeds from below; then one voice uplifted. “Worms of earth, our prayer is answered,” it said. And then: “With me, with me, our song of thankfulness and prayer.” And then, in strangest accents, like Latin from the lips of an untutored congregation, a wailing, wavering chant, muffled again, for the huge concourse was once more flat on its face:
Son of a thousand stars,
Dropped from the vast Unknown:
Down on our knee, we acclaim
Thee to be King of our heart and throne.
Flung from the arch of blue,
Child of the wind and wave;
Swift on thy wing, oh, Celestial King,
Hear us, protect, and save!Pale as first streak of dawn,
Quivering from east to west.
Radiant as sun, when his journey is done,
vPlunged in the crimson west.
Brown as the autumn leaf,
Flutt’ring from bough to earth;
List to our cry, oh thou child of the sky.
Gloriously come to birth!
“Stand up, sir. Push back that ’elmet, and say something!” Mason, mad with excitement at the coup he had apparently successfully brought off, was hauling at his master’s arm.
“What can I say?” Gregory Fanshawe was beginning to be infected with Mason’s excitement. “The old boy is a bit of a poet in his way; I must come up to the scratch.”
“Say anything, sir!” Mason was pallid with emotion.
“Veni, vidi, vici!” Gregory Fanshawe’s mind, suddenly the mind of an excited boy, leapt back to his youth. He shouted the words, lifting his arms above his head.
“Aie . . .” it came up like a wail from another world. There were gleaming whites of eyes turned up to the trees. A tremendous stirring among the crowd as the old priest walked to the foot of the tree and stood also with upturned face, tears pouring down his cheeks.
Mason pushed his master aside, shaking all over. “I ’ave an idea that the lady they were going to sacrifice may be her ladyship,” he gasped; “let me try and find out, sir.”
“No, no!” But, faint with joy and hope, Gregory Fanshawe sat down again. Monica! it easily might be she. But how would she have got here? How did the two boats from the Trevessa make land after twenty-seven days at sea? Such things did happen. He waited with trembling, dripping hands as Mason bent over the side of the car.
“The God of the Sky wishes to gaze upon the face of the damsel swathed in white swaddling clothes,” said Mason, trying to suit his language to the situation.
“Aie,” still the same sigh of wonderment. Then a silence as the girl, who still stood between her two huge janitors, was brought up to the foot of the tree and the white wrappings removed from her face.
“No, sir; it is not her ladyship.” Mason, sick with disappointment, lifted his head again, stepping backwards, and stooping over the bent figure.
“No; I was afraid it would not be, Mason.” But the disappointment was so awful after the renewed hope, that Gregory Fanshawe had to fix his teeth very firmly against his lower lip to stop its trembling. Then he took a long breath and stood up again.
“Look here,” he said, “let’s get on with this; I’m sick of being stuck up in this tree, and if I’m the king of this damned island, I’m going to be treated like one. It’s just a toss up—the whole thing, after all, is fantastic beyond belief. Let me speak to the old boy who understands English. Cock your revolver, in case it’s a put-up job, all this, and they mean to do us in when they have got hold of us. Shoot yourself; don’t on any account allow yourself to be taken alive.”
“Very good, sir.” Mason’s teeth were chattering.
“And now, just follow my lead. They think we’ve arrived in some supernatural way, of course; none of them have ever seen a ’plane before, and it was a wonderful idea of yours. Just keep your end up and take your cue from me. Understand?”
“Yessir.” Mason felt steadier; his master was so very calm and collected.
“Well, bend over the side of the car and say the Lord of Heaven wishes to descend.”
“Very good, sir.” Mason cleared his throat, stooped, and delivered himself of the imposing words.
The old priest fell on his face, and then, rising up, spoke to a young man by his side. Two other men instantly sprang forward, and the four had a hasty colloquy. Then the tallest of the trees across which they were wedged began to quiver.
“They’re coming up; mind out, and keep your pistol ready, only don’t show it unless you have got to.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke in an excited whisper. “These are toddy trees, of course, and they’ve got foot-holes cut in the trunks. Hold on,” he whispered again, as the top of one black-head appeared, and then another, and then a third.
“Wah, wah!” Three black faces thrusting out fierce chins appeared over the edge of the car, and three huge mouths opened widely, showing dazzling teeth. The youngest of the three men spoke incoherently in some foreign language, pointing downwards meanwhile.
“Well, do you feel equal to it, Mason?” Gregory Fanshawe spoke quietly.
“Wot! down that smooth tree?” Mason was pale again.
“It’s not smooth; it’s got gashes in the trunk. But we shall have to go down barefoot, otherwise we shall slip.”
But as they spoke to each other, one of the men had hoisted himself up and was climbing into the car. And even Gregory Fanshawe, who was a powerful man, was dwarfed by him.
“Wah!” The enormous native was on his face in the middle of a chaos of handles and broken wires.
Both men had their cocked pistols held ready behind them, but both could see that they would not be necessary. “’E’s going to carry you, sir,” breathed Mason, petrified, as the enormous savage raised himself up again and took a step forward.
That was the most unpleasant experience that Gregory Fanshawe had ever had in his life. He seemed literally to hang between earth and sky. He clung desperately to the thick column of a neck, as the native, gripping the trunk round with his huge hairy arms, went down it in long, noiseless, monkey-like steps. The watching vultures stared indignantly, and then flapped heavily away. Staring upwards himself, Gregory Fanshawe could see the second native climbing into the car, and he laughed to himself wondering how Mason would enjoy it. He himself was never more thankful to feel anything than he was to feel the solid earth under his feet again.
As he stood, tall and lean in his leather coat and cap, leaning against the trunk of a palm-tree, the crowds went down like corn goes down under a summer wind. And the priest came nearer, bowing his venerable old head.
“Obeisance to thee, O God of the Sky!” he said.
“Thanks.” Gregory Fanshawe felt a wild inclination to laugh. Was he figuring in a musical comedy? he wondered. The sea of brown backs, here and there broken by a flash of a woman’s gay wrapping; the blue sea and yellow shore; the tall, mast-like coconut palms: it all looked uncommonly like it. And then a wave of nausea ran through him as he saw splashes of vivid crimson on the priest’s white robe. No; this was not comedy, and if it had not been for Mason’s brain-wave, it might have been very much the reverse. And the girl: where was she? He would see for himself, to be perfectly sure. He said a quiet word to the old priest.
“Neroli!”
“Hamarana!” The girl came forward a step or two and flung herself on her face in front of Gregory,
“Tell her to get up.” Somehow it seemed quite natural to speak English to this venerable old fellow. But how on earth had he learnt it in the midst of all these naked savages? However, that he would find out later; meanwhile, his first piece of serious legislation would be to order the wearing of clothes. But, first, to see the hidden face—he waited, as it was raised to his.
It was beautiful, exquisitely so. Very fair, like ivory, with luminous eyes and enormously long eyelashes; the mouth a vivid red. But the whole was blurred and smudged with tears; Neroli was evidently in terror of her life.
“Send all these people away.” Gregory Fanshawe was beginning to enjoy giving orders, and he waved an imperious hand.
“God of the Sky, it shall be done.” Hamarana, the priest, stepped forward and began to speak, but Gregory interrupted again:
“Tell them that I forbid that any of them shall appear unclad again,” he said.
“God of the Sky, it shall be done.” The priest stepped forward, and the crowd dispersed like ants on an anthill stirred with a stick. Only one man hung back, a young man, dressed in a loin-cloth.
“Why does ’e wait, sir?” asked Mason, who on reaching the ground had prostrated himself at his master’s feet and had been told in an angry undertone to get up and not make a fool of himself. But Mason had not paid any attention to this muttered order, his practical mind sensing the precariousness of the whole thing. It would not take much to turn this docile multitude into a community of snarling hungry animals, he thought, if they once began to suspect that they had been “had.” And Mason did not mean to run any risks.
“God of the Sky, he loves the girl Neroli,” said Hamarana, but he frowned notwithstanding, and said something furiously to the man, who turned, and with one agonized glance at the girl rushed away through the trees.
“Let him take her with him, then.” But Gregory Fanshawe spoke absently. He had felt his chin and he yearned for a shave. The luggage was being brought down from the car of the aeroplane by the same two men who had carried them down: Mason directing operations.
Hamarana prostrated himself. “The girl Neroli will attend the God of the Sky,” he said.
“No; she will do nothing of the kind.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke half to himself and half to the priest, indignantly.
But Mason swung round with a look of gravest caution. His master was useless at this sort of thing, he thought impatiently. If only he would leave it to him, Mason, until they were properly established. “God of the Sky,” he said, and to Gregory Fanshawe’s intensest annoyance he went down on his face again, “thy humble servant will arrange. The girl Neroli will accompany me. See to it,” and Mason, who had found his feet in the theatrical world on the second-class deck of the Magnolia, struck an attitude in front of Hamarana.
The priest was obviously impressed, and spoke swiftly to Neroli, who ran forward and fell on her face in front of Mason, clasping his ankles.
Mason’s face, in spite of his uneasy consciousness that his master was gravely put out, was slowly overspread with intensest satisfaction. The girl Neroli was beautiful, and Maygate was a long way off. He went on with his preparations for departure, watching the men as they ran up and down the trees like large brown monkeys.
The long, slanting rays of the sun were stabbing the heavy undergrowth and tropical creepers with pale yellow fingers, when Gregory Fanshawe stirred on the long couch and turned over. He had been asleep for hours.
“May I bring you your tea, sir?” Mason, draped in something that looked like a Roman toga, was standing by the couch, a respectful smile on his face.
“Good heavens, I thought the whole thing was a dream!” Gregory Fanshawe sat up. “Mason, this is all damnable; we must get out of it somehow. I can’t stand it, all this rubbish about my being a king. We must get a boat or send up a flare—I mean to say, can’t you see it yourself? It’s an intolerable position, and heaven alone knows how long it will go on. Think of something to do: after all, you landed us in this mess; get us out of it,” and Gregory Fanshawe, frowning irritably, lay back again on the soft, sweetly smelling bed of rushes.
“Sir, it is impossible.” Mason’s face was all twisted with anxiety. Why could not his master leave it alone, he thought impatiently. After all, they were safe: they were properly housed, and soon after their arrival in the strangely English-looking bungalow in the beautiful garden they had been excellently fed. The only blot had been that Gregory Fanshawe, white with annoyance, had ordered the instant removal of all the slim, olive-coloured women who were standing ready to bring in their meal, and had demanded that they should be replaced by men. And the men of the island did not compare at all favourably with the women.
“Why is it impossible?” Gregory Fanshawe had got up and was pacing about the room—a room that had the sweet smell of an English barn. The floor was matted with loosely woven grass-matting, and the chairs, oddly fashioned, were made of the same flexible twined grass. There was a couch, heaped with rushes, on which he had been sleeping. Gregory Fanshawe himself, washed and shaved, looked ridiculously English, in a long enveloping garment made of blue silk, fashioned on the lines of an abba.
“Sir, ’ow can we get away? On the face of it we can’t. They were praying for a king, and we ’appened to arrive in the nick of time.” Mason was almost weeping. “Well, look at that, sir; as you might say, it was just providential. And now, if we try to get away they will suspect that it was just a put-up job, and they won’t take long to finish us off—nor the girl Neroli neither,” finished Mason guilefully, knowing that that was the one thing that might influence his master.
Gregory Fanshawe looked up sharply. “Remember, Mason, I won’t have any nonsense of that kind with a native woman,” he said.
“Very good, sir,” said Mason, who had just left Neroli rolling like a beautiful Persian cat on a rug in his own room. Where on earth can I put her?” he wondered frantically, knowing his master’s tenacity of purpose if he really meant that an order of his should be obeyed.
“Well, bring me some tea, and then we’ll talk things over.” Gregory Fanshawe lay back again. He was sick at heart and disgusted. To begin with, he had been a fool to persist in going on to Aden in the teeth of such a storm; it had blown them miles out of their course, as well as bringing them down. And then all this nonsensical business about a king. Mason had been ingenious, in a way, to evolve such a plan, but on the whole it would have been better to have been butchered at once. And where were they now? Gregory Fanshawe looked impatiently round the room. It was a bungalow obviously meant for Europeans: he would find out from Hamarana the priest, as soon as he had had tea.
Tea was brought by a native man draped in what looked like a duster, Mason following. It was tasteless and smelt of smoke, but the milk was rich and creamy. There were seven or eight flat golden, fluffy-looking biscuits to eat with it. The man put down the thick fibrous leaf on which the things were laid and fell flat on his face.
“Enough!” Mason spoke harshly and stirred the prostrate figure with his foot. The huge man struggled to his feet and fled.
“Is the tea as you like it, sir?” Mason was watching his master’s face anxiously.
“Oh, yes; it’s all right.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke absently; he was consumed with a terrible irritation and impatience. This sort of thing might go on for months—years. He ate and drank and then pushed the handleless cup away from him. “Now then, to put on some decent clothes,” he said; “have you unpacked my suit-case, Mason?”
“Yessir,” said Mason, a living expression of despair. Surely, he thought, his master was not going to put on a lounge suit—him, a king!
“Well, put my clothes out, will you? And get out of that ridiculous thing like a bath gown yourself, Mason.”
“Sir—is it wise, sir?” Mason was remembering the ghastly sight seen through the trees.
“I don’t care if it’s wise or not. If I’m the king of this blasted island I’m going to wear what I damned well like!” returned Gregory Fanshawe irritably, losing what little temper he still retained.
So Mason retreated, and a few minutes later Gregory Fanshawe moved round a room oddly like the one he had just left. Only there was a looking-glass, and a little wooden table and a primitive looking dressing-table. He adjusted his collar with a sigh of relief; now he felt better. But how extraordinary it all was; there must have been Europeans on the island at some time or another, otherwise such a bungalow could not have been in existence.
“Mason!”
“Yessir!” Mason in blue serge, with a soft collar, emerged from his room, closing the door very carefully behind him.
Send for Hamarana, the priest,” said Gregory Fanshawe, turning back into the room he had just left to get his pipe and tobacco-pouch.
“Very good, sir.” Mason went out on to the front veranda and spoke to one of the men sitting crouched up under the shelter of the walls of the bungalow. He got up and fled, running through the compound, his hands held high over his head.
“Queer fellows, these,” said Mason, with complacency. He was rather beginning to enjoy the feeling of power that he had. But his jaw fell as he turned and saw his master’s face.
“I told you to send that girl away,” said Gregory Fanshawe furiously. He had walked into his valet’s room to see if he had any decent furniture there, and Neroli had got up, crawled across the matting, and laid her beautiful face on his shoes, and had then stared up into his face, making a soft, melodious purring sound.
“Sir, I don’t think it’s ’umane.” Mason lost his temper, seeing that there was nothing else to be done. “A lot of dirty savages and that pretty young thing. They’d lop her head off as soon as look at her if we sent her back.”
“Oh, well . . .” Gregory Fanshawe bit his lip and turned on his heel. “After all,” as he thought, flinging himself down into one of the rush-seated chairs, “they were miles from civilization, and Mason was quite a decent chap. Also there was most likely truth in what his valet said: they would probably do the girl in if she went back now. And in any case, what did it matter? The thing was to get away,” thought Gregory Fanshawe; a rush of wildest despair in his soul.
The approach of Hamarana the priest was heralded with a blare of queer raucous reed instruments. Gregory Fanshawe saw him coming, a vast throng of people in front and behind. He came slowly and impressively up the drive that wound its way through long waving grass, and stood at the foot of the veranda steps. Mason, looking like an English butler on his afternoon out, went out to meet him.
“The emissary of the Most High,” breathed Hamarana, prostrating himself.
“Granted,” said Mason, highly delighted, although unmoved in expression. “Enter,” he said, as the priest lifted himself up again. “Only first, dismiss thy followers.” For Mason had an uneasy fear lest one of these ugly fellows might look in at a window. And then the fat would be in the fire, as he meditated humorously, ushering in the priest, who with a wave of the hand had sent all his followers flying.
“God of the Sky,” said Hamarana the priest, falling flat on his face on the grass matting.
“Oh, yes; that’s all right.” Gregory Fanshawe smiled uncomfortably. But Mason broke in hurriedly.
“Seat thyself upon the floor,” he said. For he felt perfectly sure that if he did not get in first, his master would invite Hamarana to take a chair. And that would be absolutely wrong.
“Yes; all right, Mason; come back in about half an hour.” Gregory Fanshawe frowned impatiently over the old grey head as it was lifted slowly from the matting.
Mason! The valet’s pallid face was a study. An emissary of the Most High with a name like Mason! For the first time in his life Mason felt contempt for his master. “Lahé farmacosa, geliana mararama fatmeha,” he said, backing and kneeling down alternately on his way to the door, and leaving Gregory Fanshawe gaping with astonishment and a sort of unwilling admiration. Certainly Mason was much better at it than he was, he reflected, withdrawing his eyes from the door and levelling them on the old priest, who, strange to say, had also slightly relaxed his position of abject humility and was staring after the valet with an odd expression in his eyes.
“Now then,” Gregory Fanshawe spoke with a peremptory note in his voice, and the old priest shrank again. “I want to know where I am,” he said. “Tell me all you can. Tell me how you come to speak English. Tell me how it happens that there is a bungalow like this on this apparently entirely savage island. Tell me everything, and as fully as you can.”
“God of the Sky,” began Hamarana the priest, but Gregory Fanshawe interrupted him.
“No, don t start that again,” he said quietly; “I am no more a God of the Sky than you are, and if I am not very much mistaken, you know it, too.” And then Gregory Fanshawe caught his breath, and felt cautiously round to his hip pocket. Had he been a fool? But when the old man fell forward on his face and began to sob, Gregory Fanshawe knew that he had been right, and he waited a minute or two, and then spoke again.
“Pull yourself together,” he said kindly. “Take your time. But for God’s sake tell me everything you can. Don’t hurry. Would you like something to drink?” Gregory Fanshawe got up.
“No, sahib.” The old man spoke in a quavering whisper, wiping his eyes on his robe. “But we must be careful. If we were overheard it would be certain death for us all. And death by torture—unspeakable.”
“We shall not be overheard.” But Gregory Fanshawe strolled to the window all the same. There was a note of such ghastly fear in the old voice. And death by torture did not sound at all appetizing, even in broad daylight. Anyhow, there was no one about. He came back, laying, as he came, a reassuring hand on the thin bowed shoulder. “Tell me,” he said, passing on to his chair and sitting down on it.
“Sahib, this island on which you find yourself is a small island thirty miles from the coast of Socotra,” said Hamarana the priest. “Twenty years ago an English missionary came to it, and ten years later he left it for his first leave, practically a Christian community. I, Simon, was his native catechist,” and here Hamarana the priest broke off, weeping bitterly. Then he went on again, speaking more incoherently. “He returned, this Dr. Field sahib, from his leave with wife, and soon afterwards a baba was born, a missy baba. Then the Field mem-sahib got very sick, and a few months later was taken away in the mail steamer that then used to call here with the baba. And then the sahib too got very sick, and soon died.”
Good heavens! Dr. Field! Gregory Fanshawe felt quite sick with emotion. What an extraordinary coincidence—almost incredible! Go on,” he said.
“Sahib, then shame, undying shame,” sobbed the old man, becoming incoherent. “Peoples all coming to me saying, ‘Simon, how can padre sahib die? Big book saying can’t die if praying properly. You fraud, you Christian peoples. We killing you, we peg you down, and large ants eating.’ And, sahib, I terribly ’fraid; I not brave like peoples in big Bible. I laughing and saying I not Christian, I only pretending to please sahib. And they presently believing me, and saying, ‘Come and see Francis’—Francis other native catechist. And I go and they say, ‘Francis, you Christian?’ And he say, ‘Yes, my Christian.’ And they say, ‘You stop being Christian, like Simon; stop, or we cut you up into little bits.’ And Francis, he say, ‘My God take care of me.’ And they say, ‘All right; we build large fire, and you walk into it, and then we believe you Christian.’ And Francis do it; he walk in singing hymn. But he die in fire. So all peoples saying, ‘This great fraud; no more Christian here.’”
Hamarana the priest broke off, weeping bitterly.
“Go on,” said Gregory Fanshawe, moved, in spite of himself.
“Then I terribly afraid. And I say to peoples, ‘Take new god; take god who comes into sky and all day grinning. And I will speak with him, and one day he sending great king on to this island.’ And they say, ‘When?’ And I say, ‘One day, because I praying.’ And they say, ‘Praying no good; killing and offering sacrifice, that better.’ And I still afraid, and having to do, because of my fear,” and Hamarana the priest broke down again, and laid his forehead on the ground.
“But what on earth gave you the idea of a king coming from the sky?” said Gregory Fanshawe, wondering if he was really awake or if this were not some ridiculous fantastic dream.
“Once I saw machine like sahib’s,” said Hamarana the priest. “High in the sky over the sea. And I knew that so large it could not be a bird.”
“I see.”
“And also I knew that only English sahib able to do such things,” finished Hamarana the priest simply.
“I see,” said Gregory Fanshawe again, swallowing a little this time at this unconscious tribute to the race to which he belonged.
“And now my one prayer to get off island,” said Hamarana the priest, clutching suddenly at the crossed feet in front of him. “To go away with sahib. To go to Aden, where I born.”
“Where you were born! What, don’t you belong here, then?”
“No, sahib; British Government sending with Field sahib, because I knowing little English. Sending me and Francis. But now no need for me here. Sahib take me away with him, when he go!”
“When he go!” Gregory Fanshawe echoed the words aloud, not knowing that he did so. Much chance there was of that. He got up and began to pace the room. Then he stopped. “Have any boats ever been blown on to this shore?” he said abruptly.
Hamarana the priest shrank and trembled. Then he raised an ashen face. “Once, sahib,” he said. “Two boats with sahibs in them.”
“And what happened to them?”
“Sahib!” Hamarana fell on his face again.
“Devils!” Gregory Fanshawe clenched his hands in his pockets as he thought of the people over which he was now presumably king. How he would love to string a couple of dozen of them up to the trees. And then his heart stopped. “How long ago,” he said hoarsely.
“About three years, sahib.”
“Ah!” Gregory Fanshawe breathed again. The thought had been ridiculous, but in a way excusable. The Oregona must have gone down somewhere in these regions, miles away, probably, but in the same region. But anyway—he stamped down the thought. He must not think of his own loss; every nerve must be strained to find a way out of this net in which they were entangled. Meanwhile, it was getting dark, the windows showed faintly glimmering squares.
“Have you any lights in this place?” he asked abruptly.
“We have, sahib; all is in readiness. Field sahib left lamps, and we are able to obtain oil from fish that they spear among the rocks.”
“Oh! that’s all right.” Gregory Fanshawe possessed an electric torch of his own, but as he reflected, it might be an intensely valuable asset. “I will have them lighted,” he said; “meanwhile, good-night, oh venerable priest Hamarana!”
“God of the Sky!” Hamarana prostrated himself again. “I will send five of our most beautiful women to the sahib,” he said simply.
“No, don’t do anything of the kind, please.” But in spite of himself Gregory Fanshawe could not help smiling, although he flushed uncomfortably at the same time. Here was true Oriental hospitality indeed! But he must see that Mason did not come face to face with Hamarana the priest; there must be no Gehazi business over this sort of thing. So he walked out on to the veranda and stood quietly waiting there while the old man prostrated himself and then backed slowly out into the gathering darkness. Then he turned and walked back into the room he had just left.
A week passed, and it was a week of ceaseless anxiety and ceaseless activity. Gregory Fanshawe was determined not to spend the rest of his life on this island, and he told Mason so. “We’ve got to get off it, somehow,” he said, sitting tall and lean in khaki shirt and shorts at his unsteady table. “We’ve got maps, a compass, and two shaving glasses, and if we can’t get out of this mess with those, I’ll have you executed.”
“Sir!” Mason’s pallid face got more pallid.
Gregory Fanshawe threw back his head, showing two rows of excellent teeth. “No, well, perhaps not just yet, Mason,” he gurgled; “but if I see much more of your carrying on with that girl Neroli I shall hurry it up a bit. Leave her alone; I should have thought you would have more sense than to waste your time on a native woman.”
“Sir, she ’as such pretty ways,” pleaded Mason, becoming, for him, unusually animated. “She rolls, so pretty, on my feet; I ’aven’t the heart to be ’arsh to her.”
“Rubbish!” But Gregory Fanshawe bent over the crackly map again to hide his smile. Really, Mason was a fool! The next thing would be that if they got away Mason would want to take her with him. And, good heavens, the fellow had actually said it!
“Please, Sir Gregory, I should wish to take the girl Neroli with me when we leave the island,” said Mason, setting his jaw.
“We haven’t left it yet,” said Gregory Fanshawe, frowning.
“No, sir; but I thought I would just tell you beforehand, as if any objection was likely to be raised, I should prefer to stay be’ind,” said Mason, in his best and stiffest manner.
“Oh, I see!” Gregory Fanshawe looked up at his valet. “Mason, you don’t say that you have been fool enough really to fall in love with that girl,” he said quietly. “Think of what it means! To begin with, if that great ugly brute who is supposed to be affianced to her finds out, it will be certain death to you. As it is, the priest Hamarana tells me that he has begun to haunt this compound, and there is only a step between that and doing you in in some ugly way; these native fellows are adepts at that sort of thing. Get a pull on yourself, Mason. See?”
“Can’t be done, sir!” said Mason, drawing his heels together and assuming his most mulish expression.
“Well, make the effort, in any event. And now,” Gregory Fanshawe drew his chair a little closer to the table and picked up a pencil, “let me have the day’s report.” For, as he thought swiftly, it was quite useless to argue with a man infatuated as Mason obviously was; let the thing die a natural death, so to speak.
“Yessir,” said Mason briskly. “The last of the ’plane is down, sir,” he said, “and is lying with the rest, on the open space to the north of the island prepared by Hamarana the priest. The two men detailed for to-day are now at the top of the tree on the little hillock, flashing with the two glasses as by your orders. And the priest Hamarana . . . and here Mason faltered.
“Yes, what about him?”
“The priest Hamarana reports that he has received a deputation from the islanders requesting that the God of the Sky shall take unto himself a queen,” faltered Mason, shivering.
“Hell!” Gregory Fanshawe pushed back his unstable chair with a jerk. This was not the first intimation he had had of this. Every morning, when in response to Hamarana’s entreaties he had gone rebelliously in procession to the riding-block by the little temple to show himself to his people, he had noticed that after their first profound obeisance the throng of brown figures had lifted up their voices, wailing, and holding up their arms to the sky. And he had asked Hamarana privately what this meant, and had been told.
“Sahib, they entreat the Sun God to send their king a queen,” he said.
So Mason’s’report did not come altogether as a surprise, and it roused in Gregory Fanshawe a very real anxiety. These were not the sort of people to be held in thrall for long, unless everything went as they wished and expected it to, he meditated. And he was uneasily conscious that he was not coming up to the mark—Hamarana the priest had hinted as much. If he could have done foolish things like conjuring tricks, it would have helped enormously with a people so ignorant and credulous as these. But he could not; the only thing that he had got in reserve was his perpetual electric torch, and that he was keeping for any emergency that might arise. So, feeling profoundly disturbed, he got up and told his valet that he wished to go and see the remnants of the aeroplane, and the two men set off together. And this was one of the things that was weakening the faith of the islanders in him more than anything: their king walked abroad without the faintest ceremony. And to the mind of the Oriental there is nothing so damning as that.
Later that evening, when the low white bungalow lay stilly under the stars and the hunched figures of the watching men patrolling it, for Hamarana the priest insisted on so much formality, were only blurred shadows, there was a sudden uproar in the compound, and Gregory Fanshawe, sitting in his shirt-sleeves poring over a map, lifted his head and listened. Something evidently had happened, something unpleasant, as he thought grimly, listening to the distant howling of myriads of voices. And they were coming, coming in hordes, and they were beating tom-toms as they came, too. War! Gregory Fanshawe jerked back his chair and was in his valet’s room in two strides.
“Your pistol, Mason; here, hide the girl.” For Mason himself was almost hidden by pale arms and a wealth of black hair. Neroli was also frightened, thought Gregory Fanshawe grimly; a bad sign that!
“Yessir.” Mason spoke tenderly, stooping his head, and he led the clinging figure to a door at the back of the room and pushed Neroli into the bathroom.
“Put out all the lights,” said Gregory Fanshawe, beginning to enjoy himself. For as he thought, a swift death would be better than prolonged life under these conditions. “And if it comes to the worst, shoot yourself, and I’ll do the same,” and he dashed round the rooms, putting out the lamps, followed by Mason, shivering with fright.
“Sahib, sahib!” His voice almost drowned by the howling that was coming rapidly nearer, Hamarana the priest flung himself through the door that led from the veranda. “Sahib, save yourself; they come to slaughter.” He dropped breathless and gasping on to the matting.
“What’s set them off?” Gregory Fanshawe was cocking his pistol.
“The lover of the girl Neroli. Desperate with jealous passion, he has inflamed them. They come to demand a sign—a sign that thou art indeed a king.”
“All right, they shall have one.” Gregory Fanshawe laughed under his short moustache. It was worth trying anyhow. He turned quickly on his heel and went into his room, and came out carrying his electric torch. Rolling his right arm in a coat, he walked back to where his valet stood.
“Come on, Mason,” he said.
“Oh, my Gawd!” Mason, so afraid that he could hardly hold his pistol, set his teeth and followed his master.
“Make the most unearthly noise you know how,” whispered Gregory Fanshawe, “and I’ll keep on working this thing. Wait until they come near enough . . .”
It was the tall, shining, naked figure of the young man that Gregory Fanshawe remembered as the lover of the girl Neroli that first loomed out of the darkness. He was coming stealthily, like a great cat stalking; behind him a growling, dully muttering crowd.
Gregory Fanshawe caught his breath. “Now,” he whispered.
“Waow, waow, waow! Koohee, miauw, waow. . . .” Mason excelled himself. The aluminium torch winked and burred in the lean brown hand that held it. The light stabbed at a glistening brown body that first stopped rigid with fear, and then backed, and then, as in spite of himself Gregory Fanshawe prayed, turned and fled.
“Aie,” the huge muttering crowd halted like a toppling wave and then broke. It also turned and fled, howling.
“Waow, waow, waow! Koohee, miauw, waow!” Beside himself with excitement, Mason was down the veranda steps after them, screaming with derision. And bursting with laughter, Gregory Fanshawe followed him, the torch burring in his hand, sending out a fierce white light as he ran. Both men ran as far as the white gateposts and then gave up, and leant against them sobbing for breath and laughing unrestrainedly. For both had been more frightened than they had allowed to be made apparent, and the relief was very great. And in the distance, mingling oddly with the booming of the sea, rose the sound of terrified wailing as the petrified savages scuttled again to their little huts.
But Gregory Fanshawe was not fool enough to think that this temporary terrorization of the islanders would last, and the following day, after his usual appearance on the riding-block, he signed to the priest Hamarana to follow him back to the bungalow. He was feeling very cast down and desperately anxious; to begin with, he had had hopes of being able to patch up the aeroplane, but after the prolonged inspection of yesterday, those hopes had died a speedy death. The wings of the plane were hopelessly tattered, the silk of them in shreds, and there was nothing whatever on the island to replace it with. So that way of escape was closed. And what other way was there? Every day, with two shaving-glasses, two natives, stationed at the top of the tallest coconut palm, flashed signals over the sea—Mason, with many imprecations, had taught them this, and as the native loves doing the same thing over and over again, they did this well enough. But as the signalling could only be done in the sunlight, and as in any event the flashes would only carry about six miles, Gregory Fanshawe had not much hope of his call for help ever being picked up. So what was there to do? He sunk his head in his hands and groaned as he sat in his grass chair, the old priest on the floor beside him.
“Sahib, if thou wouldst deign to take a wife from amongst the fairest of our women, all will be well,” pleaded Hamarana the priest.
“I absolutely decline to marry a native woman,” said Gregory Fanshawe angrily, and he got up and began to pace about the room.
“Sahib, it would only be for the time. If help came, you could flee in the night, and she would remain here.”
“That’s not how I have been brought up to behave, Hamarana,” said Gregory Fanshawe, smiling whimsically. “Besides, what would become of her?”
“She would be thrown to the sharks, sahib, but that would be of no account.”
“But I think it would,” replied the man in khaki shorts, and he swung round and began to drum his fingers against the window-panes. It was wonderful in what excellent state of repair the bungalow was. Hamarana the priest, with his ceaseless reiteration to the islanders that it was only a matter of time before a king would be sent by the Sun God, had managed to ensure this. And it was rather touching, in a way, to see how they had woven the matting and twisted the rushes, so as to make the place more habitable. And all the king could do when he did arrive was to curse the whole thing and long to get out of it! Gregory Fanshawe smiled a little ruefully as he turned and faced the venerable figure squatting on the floor.
“No, I would rather be the principal figure in one of your delightful sacrifices, Hamarana,” he said, “than settle down on this damned island with a native wife. As a matter of fact, I should think it highly probable that these people will do me in in a couple of days’ time, and my valet with me, and that will settle things. However, if you can keep them quiet for a little while longer, do, and meanwhile, will you have the car of the plane taken down to the beach to-night? We might be able to rig up something in the way of a boat out of it; it’s worth trying, anyhow.”
“I will, sahib.” Hamarana the priest got up from the floor, and salaaming mournfully, withdrew.
So when the still grey twilight was stealing down on the little island, and round their tiny fires the gaunt naked brown figures crouched and talked in ominous mutterings, with waving of greedy crooked fingers, Mason and his master stooped over the little grey car and looked at it long and searchingly. Mason was the first to speak.
“’Opeless,” he said; and Gregory Fanshawe, looking at it too, knew that his valet spoke the truth, and he longed to fling himself down on the sand and howl.
“It wouldn’t float more than ’alf an hour,” continued Mason, “and that Hamarana says that the sharks round this coast is awful.”
“But what are we to do, then?” said Gregory Fanshawe, and his voice was the voice of a man who has reached the end of his tether.
“B——y well make up our minds to stay where we are, and lump it,” said Mason tersely, sick in his soul because he could sense his master’s despair, although he himself, desperately enamoured of the beautiful native girl, was more or less content.
“I can’t,” said Gregory Fanshawe, and turning, he rushed down to where the tiny ripples trickled sluggishly in between the stones. The tide was coming in; should he just wade out as far as he could and then put a bullet through his brain? But the sharks, to feel that crunch on his leg . . . no, not possible, and disgustingly cowardly into the bargain. He turned and walked back again.
“Sir!” Mason was staring past him, staring with eyes that bulged out of his head. “Sir!—look there, sir! What is it?—what is it?”
“What is what?” Gregory Fanshawe turned again and crinkled his eyelashes. Then he went very pale. “God, it’s a boat,” he said; “fetch Hamarana the priest, Mason.”
Mason went up the sands, his feet leaving great spreading footmarks behind him. In about ten minutes he was back, Hamarana breathless beside him.
“The boat is empty, sahib,” said Hamarana after a prolonged scrutiny.
“It can’t be!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke in a voice of despair, his eyes watering with the fixity of his gaze. “No; it’s not—it’s moving!—Look, Mason! Can’t you see? There is someone astern, paddling. Mason, we’re saved,” and the water in Gregory Fanshawe’s eyes turned to tears and ran down his face.
AU three men stood breathless, watching the approach of the little boat as it came nearer and nearer. Then Mason spoke, and his voice was flat and old.
“It’s only a native, sir,” he said.
Koomar, lascar, was one of the oldest of the native crew of the Oregona, and because of his age, and of his many years of faithful service, also partly because of his childlike smile, he had been allotted the office of the children’s lascar on the first-class deck. So Koomar spent his days in the midst of fair babies with downy heads; babies with fat sturdy legs, who were lucky in that they had been taken out of India before that cruel country had left its mark on them; and babies who had not been so lucky, and who held up little bleached faces, and stumbled with thin, unsteady legs to retrieve their toys from their more robust companions. And Koomar dragged wooden pens, and listened to peremptory orders from arrogant nurses and gentle requests from their far more considerate mistresses, and when he felt just a little weary and put out, refreshed himself in the toothless smiles of the babies he loved; for Koomar adored anything white and anything small, and when no one was looking he would sometimes pick up a floundering bundle of romper, and hold it close to his old face, and croon to it in his funny old voice. So that when, during that night of screaming wind, confusion, and horror, he found himself one of a company of screaming, gibbering, monkey-like lascars, who had rushed a boat with only one woman in it, he instantly took command of it, and with fiercest curses bade them to be quiet and sit still.
“He who speaks first is flung overboard,” he said, sitting high in the bows and staring down on to the blur of black faces below him.
“Let me get out; I can’t be the only English person in this boat!” screamed Monica, trying to scramble over the edge, and to her terror being held down by six of the monkey-like figures.
“Nahin, mem-sahib,” Koomar tried to speak consolingly through the shriek of the wind. This terrified figure was small and white, and had hands not much larger than a baby’s; therefore it must be taken care of. And through the awful days that followed Koomar watched over Monica, like a mother watches over an only child. At first it was fairly easy, because the seas ran mountains high, and Monica was desperately, devastatingly sick, and only breathed an occasional prayer for water. But then the food began to run low, and the water too, and then Koomar ingratiatingly encouraged his companions to drink the sea-water, just to supplement the daily allowance a little, and one by one they went raving, screamingly mad and were flung overboard. And Monica, sick with horror at the awful lack of privacy and the ghastly sights that she saw every day, crouched silent and almost mad herself in the stern, behind the pitifully flapping rag of sail that the old man had tried to fix up for her, and tried to pray and could not.
“Let me drink it too,” she pleaded one day; they had floated for hours under a tropical sun, and Monica’s tongue was beginning to get too large for her mouth, and her black lips were twisted oddly. She was lying, her tangled hair in a pool of water, Koomar’s desperate attempt to prevent the mem-sahib from getting sunstroke.
“Nahin, mem-sahib,” said Koomar, trying to speak soothingly and only succeeding in croaking. For he was old, and although in his capacity as commander of the boat he had commandeered more than his fair share of food and water, he had given the lion’s share of it to Monica. He had rationed it out every day, and it had lasted longer than it would have done under normal circumstances, because once or twice there had been a free fight and the offenders had been flung overboard by their enraged companions. On one day, more awful than any, they had all stared resentfully at Monica; but Koomar, panic-stricken, had evolved the plan of saying that if salt water was left to stand in an empty condensed milk tin it would be fit to drink, and so they had all stooped ravenously to it, and that under a burning sun had eventually cleared the boat. And Koomar had stared across at Monica and smiled. “Thik,” he said.
“Thik!—it’s horrible and ghastly! screamed Monica, sick with horror and terror.
But Koomar had gone on smiling, well content. Now the food ought to last for at least another week, he thought. But that week was over, and now they faced an empty water-bottle and locker. And Koomar strained his old eyes over the horizon with despair in their depths.
“‘At even, ere the sun was set,’” Monica had begun to sing, in a funny high voice, “‘The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay’—no, not sick, because it’s calm,” Monica smiled vacantly, “but thirsty, thirsty, Lord, mad with thirst. Give me some water, Lord; no—not Lord—Dream Man! Dream Man, give me some water. Water! Aha, I can see it,” and Monica, turning, laughed wildly, and sucked and mumbled with her cracked lips in the pool in which her hair was floating.
“Mem-sahib! Nahin, mem-sahib!” Wild with anxiety, Koomar flung himself from the bows and dragged Monica’s head up. He wailed aloud as he strained his old eyes over the edge of the boat. This, then, was the end; if Monica once began to drink the sea-water she was lost. And he himself so weak, how could he prevent her?
“Let me go, you wicked black old monkey!” Monica began to fight and scream.
“Nay, nay, mem-sahib!” Koomar patted the dishevelled back as he had been wont to pat the backs of naughty babies.
“I tell you, you’re a golliwog like you get out of a cracker!” screamed Monica, her voice breaking even as she screamed; and with one convulsive struggle she sank back on to the knees of the old lascar, and lay still with eyes half closed.
“Allah, Allah!” Koomar fell forward over the still figure that held him down, and sent out a wail from a blackened mouth. This, then, was the end; he could do no more.
The oar with which he had paddled for twenty awful days wobbled helplessly in its rowlock. The sea lapped greasily against the side of the boat as if smacking its lips over joys to come. And as if in answer to Monica’s scream, a white streak showed in jubilant somersault and a black fin cut along the surface of the blue, heaving water.
“Allah, Allah!” Koomar’s old head dropped on to his breast. “Allah have mercy on the chota mem-sahib,” he prayed in funny mumbling accents, not knowing that he was saying anything.
And as if in instant answer to that prayer, a little spark of light winked out. Winked out over a blurred mass of what must surely be land. By the faint early morning light it was difficult to distinguish it; but, mad with hope and joy, Koomar laid Monica quietly back on to the damp planks and stumbled back to his oar. And all that day he paddled like a maniac, staring out to where, without the slightest intermission, the dots and dashes sent out their unintelligible message, for Koomar could not read Morse, although he recognized it when he saw it. And when at last, at the end of a burning day, he saw the faint line of white foam outlining a yellow sandy shore, and three dark figures standing very close to the edge of the water, he made one desperate spurt. And Gregory Fanshawe, his eyes dulled and sickened with disappointment—for Mason’s remark, “It’s only a native, sir,” was still jangling in his brain—spoke quietly:
“Get out your pistol, Mason; he’s ducked down, and you never know, with these people.”
But Koomar, fallen on his face, was done—exhausted; and as the boat rocked its way helplessly towards the shore, on the incoming tide, all three men rolled their garments up above their knees and waded out to meet it, Hamarana the priest first, to act as interpreter, looking, as Gregory Fanshawe thought, coming along behind, uncommonly like a stout female paddling at Maygate, with his oddly tucked-up robes.
“Sahib!” Hamarana, with one hand on the stern of the boat, turned with a convulsed face.
“Well, what is it?” Gregory Fanshawe, one hand held high above his head, stopped where he was, the water rippling over his knees.
“Sahib, a white woman,” gasped Hamarana, “dying, if not already dead.”
“Rubbish!” But Gregory Fanshawe’s heart almost stopped beating. “A white woman! impossible. And then his heart thundered on again. It wasn’t at all impossible—it was just the sort of thing that happened in this life; Monica, washed up at his feet dead—too late to make amends. He splashed on through the water, shaking all over. And then, as he came quite near, he saw the neat black letters on the white paint, “s.s. Oregona.” and he knew.
“Mason,” he said; and he splashed falteringly back a step or two.
“Yessir, what is it, sir?” Mason, floundering along behind, the water well up to his thighs, lifted his pistol and spoke anxiously.
“You look first, Mason; I can’t.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke with white bps.
“Yessir.” Mason, trying not to splash his master, passed him, clutching his trousers, and stuffing his pistol inside his shirt.
Both lay at the bottom of the boat—Monica almost unrecognizable, with peeling sunbaked face and charred lips; Koomar lying peacefully, curled up like a sleeping monkey, his little woolly cap askew. Mason turned, beckoning with a shaking hand.
“It’s ’er ladyship, sir,” he stuttered as Gregory Fanshawe came up to him.
“Is she dead?” Gregory Fanshawe could only just articulate.
Without answering, Mason put his hands on the side of the boat and, stiffening his elbows, hoisted himself up on to the side of it. Then he put one leg inside, and drawing the other after it, disappeared.
“No, sir,” he said after a minute or two, reappearing.
“When can I have something more to drink?” Monica, her hair cut close to her head, lay very still on the rough wooden bedstead, heaped with rushes, staring up at the ceiling.
“Now, ma’am.” Mason appeared silently from nowhere, the silver cup of a flask in his hand.
“Oh!” The parched lips closed greedily on the silver rim. “Now, when can I have the next?” she said, as Mason took his hand gently from under the small head.
“In ten minutes, ma’am,” said Mason, disappearing again.
“Oh, how long!” Monica whimpered feebly.
“Time soon passes, ma’am,” said Mason briskly, stooping over the earthen water-pot in the corner.
“But it doesn’t when you are as thirsty as I am.” Monica spoke hoarsely and petulantly. Then she spoke again: “Is this a hospital?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mason.
“Is it at Aden?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mason had raised himself up from his stooping position again, and was standing the brimming silver cup carefully on the unsteady table.
“Is there only a man nurse, then?” asked Monica.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How many people are there ill here?”
“Only one, ma’am; yourself,” said Mason quietly, staring out of the window to where Neroli, with slim brown arms, was spreading Monica’s tattered skirt on the short grass.
“How long have I been here?” Monica spoke after a little pause, this time.
“A week, ma’am.”
“Oh!” Monica made a sort of thrusting-out seeking motion with her lips. “Water!” she breathed.
Mason was at the head of the bed in a moment, and he stood looking down very tenderly on the disfigured little face. But Monica looked far more like herself than she had done for some time, he thought, and this time he withdrew a little farther behind her as he slipped his arm under her head.
“Why is everything all cloudy?” asked Monica, when she had finished drinking.
“Because you are weak, ma’am.”
“When will it get right?”
“Very soon, ma’am.”
“Oh!”
“I think I should try to have a little sleep now, ma’am,” suggested Mason soothingly, laying his capable square hand on the peeling forehead.
“Oh! Why does your hand stick to my forehead when you lay it there?”
“Because you face is covered with grease, ma’am.”
“Oh! why is it?” Monica’s face puckered distressfully.
“Because you got badly sunburnt, ma’am.”
“Why did I?” And then Mason began to get a little alarmed. Monica was no longer the wandering blackened wraith of herself that she had been. He would have to be guarded in his statements.
“You got so coming into the hospital, ma’am,” said Mason, and he made a little signal of dissent to the man who had just quietly opened the door behind him.
“Where is the man like a monkey who came with me?” Monica suddenly cried this out and tried to sit up.
“Now, now . . .” Mason was back at the side of the bed in an instant. He bent soothingly over it.
“I want him—I want him! He gave me all the water when there wasn’t any!” Monica began to sob wildly, and to Mason’s unfeigned joy the tears began to stream down her cheeks. So far she had not cried at all, and it was not good for the clouded brain. He nodded reassuringly to the man who stood just inside the door, leaning close up against the wall.
“It stings—it stings!” Monica suddenly cried out, and lifted a hand waveringly to her face.
“There, there!” Mason deftly caught the white silk handkerchief flung to him across the room by the man who still stood hungrily watching.
“Oh!” Monica caught her breath in a sobbing sigh. “Something feels broken in my head,” she breathed, and she suddenly turned on her side and lay very still.
Mason stayed where he was for a minute or two, and then, leaning cautiously forward, peered downwards. Then he nodded with satisfaction, and tiptoed away, and the two men went out of the room together.
“Mason?” Gregory Fanshawe’s face was working; his eyes hung on his valet’s.
“If you ask me, sir, I think that ’er ladyship will wake quite ’erself,” said Mason importantly; “and if I may make so bold, I should say that the first person she ’ad better see should be that fellow Koomar. Let ’er get it all sorted out, so to speak, straight in ’er head, if you understand my meaning, sir.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Where is he?” Gregory Fanshawe spoke impatiently, for the week that had passed had been one of terrible anxiety. The islanders were clamouring to see Monica, the queen who had arrived so mysteriously on their shores. So far Hamarana the priest had been able to keep them quiet, but he would not be able to keep them quiet much longer. He had made the great announcement on the morning following Monica’s arrival in the ship’s boat, judging that unless some such sop were thrown to them at once, the lives of the two Englishmen were in very grave jeopardy.
“’E’s down by the gate being worshipped,” replied Mason, grinning widely. “That ’Amarana ’as put ’im up to it. Emissary of the Sun God number two, so to speak. And ’e loves it; purrs like a great cat on ’is string bed. Eats all the fruits and various offerings they bring ’im and asks for more. Does it to the life,” ended Mason regretfully, remembering a similar effort of his own, when he had demolished half a fresh cocoanut and nearly died as a result.
“Oh, I see!” But Gregory Fanshawe could not raise a smile. Monica being there kept him in a continual state of tortured anxiety. Three wretched human beings in the midst of all these savages. What chance had they if things came to a head? And now, with his wife restored to him again in this more than miraculous way, Gregory Fanshawe felt that the idea that things might now go wrong was more than he could contemplate with calmness. To begin with, with Monica there the idea had a peculiar horror of its own: he and Mason could have looked after themselves, but with a woman, and that woman his wife. . . . No. He walked out on to the veranda with a tormented line between his brows.
“Huzoor!” A little monkey-like figure with the tattered blue uniform of a lascar rose up between his feet.
“Hallo!” Gregory Fanshawe stopped dead. This must be Koomar, the man who had saved his wife’s life. He held out his hand.
“Huzoor!” Koomar took the hand between his own, and pressing it to his forehead, fell on his knees again. Gregory Fanshawe, feeling his eyelids pricking, lifted the little old man, and spoke long and earnestly in Hindustani. Koomar listened, the tears pouring down his face, and every now and then he answered in the vernacular. And when he had finished, Gregory Fanshawe had a fairly clear idea of what had happened on that awful night when the Oregona had been swept into the cyclone area.
“Well, and now, Koomar, the thing is to get away,” finished Gregory Fanshawe, his eyes on the wise old face in front of him.
“Hain, sahib!” The wag of Koomar’s head was convincing.
“How, Koomar?” Gregory Fanshawe’s voice came with almost the sound of a sob in it.
“Time will show, sahib,” said Koomar consolingly. “Time will show. And now I come to inquire after the welfare of the mem-sahib; how is the mem-sahib?”
“She is better, and would like to see you.”
“To see me?” Koomar’s wrinkled face was suddenly illumined.
“Yes; come in here.” Gregory Fanshawe led the way back into the room he had just left, holding up a warning finger to the cautiously creeping figure behind him as he passed in at the door.
Mason’s Hindustani was brusque and to the point. Koomar, a look of wonderful joy on his old face, crept to the side of the rough wooden bed and fell on his knees beside it.
“Oh, Koomar!” Monica’s voice came faintly, but she held out a weakly seeking hand. “I am so glad we are not both dead, and we should have been if it hadn’t been for you.” And Monica began to cry again.
“Now then, ma’am.” Mason’s voice was matter-of-fact and bracing. “No more tears, please. Now then, Koomarjee, out you go.” Mason made a persuasive gesture with a broad foot, and Koomar, his face twitching between tears and laughter, scuttled out.
“You’ve got a voice like someone I used to know once.” Monica suddenly spoke alarmingly clearly and tried to sit up. “I want to see you near.”
“Not just now, ma’am; ’ave a little drink of water first.” Mason’s usually impassive face was aghast. He carried the silver cup to the side of the bed.
“Please stand where I can see you.” Monica spoke with a note of extreme urgency in her voice as she took her lips from the silver rim. “It’s beginning to come all over me in waves. The ship, and coming away from somewhere, and wanting to tell somebody something, and not being able to remember it.”
“Not now, ma’am; you’re not quite well enough and must ’ave a little sleep.” Mason, from behind, laid a very insistent hand on the quivering shoulder, and Monica lay back again. She was sleepy—she suddenly realized it—sleepy with a sudden deadness of all her limbs; she rolled a little farther over on to one side and dropped her aching eyelids.
“Say, skipper, come over here just one moment, will you?” The first officer of the steam yacht Elmira lowered the telescope from his eye.
“What have you seen to make you look so skeered, eh?” Captain Kelly got up from the luxurious leather-covered chair in which he was enjoying his first pipe of the morning and strolled out on to the bridge. “What’s it all about, and where?” He took the telescope from the younger man.
“Do you see—out there to windward?” The two men stared together over the blue translucent water. Aft, a shoal of flying-fish skimmed out of the water and in again like the spray of a fountain blown askew.
“Say, that’s very strange.” Still staring intently, Captain Kelly lowered the telescope, and then lifted it again. “Get my glass from the cabin, Hammond. Now, then.” He took them from the eager hand. “Not a word for two minutes, and then we’ll compare notes.”
The luxurious yacht cut her way through the motionless water, with only the faintest vibration from the engine-room. Hamish P. Rock travelled in comfort when he left his native shores, and the Elmira was the last word in decorated splendour. The well-chosen company played bridge in lounges fitted up like conservatories, and ate their meals in an oak-panelled dining-room with refectory tables, with the orchestra, dressed like Cavaliers, in a rounded gallery above them. But Hamish P. Rock was a kindly man, and when the immaculate first officer in his white uniform drew up in front of him with a brisk salute, he smiled very delightfully.
“Good morning, sir,” he said; “say, you’re bustling us along fine.”
“Yes, sir,” the first officer smiled back. “Captain Kelly would esteem it a favour if you would just step up on to the bridge,” he said.
“Sure.” Hamish P. Rock heaved himself out of his chair. “Sadie, just you keep where you are,” he said, as the girl beside him laid down her knitting-needles.
“Poppa, I love the bridge,” pouted Miss Rock, with a provocative glance at the man in white uniform who stood waiting.
“Presently, Miss Rock,” said Lieutenant Hammond, R.N., with a downward glance of authority that sent a sensation like electric needles through the spine of the girl who sat staring upwards. “And if he isn’t too cunning,” as she confided to her greatest girl friend a moment or two later.
“Sadie, just keep your eyes off a penniless lieutenant,” admonished Esther Thornicroft, adjusting her beautiful pleated skirt with a deft motion of a very be-ringed little hand.
Poppa would provide the beans if I really wanted him,” said Sadie petulantly, looking with sudden tremendous suspicion at her friend, who stood staring up at the bridge-deck with a look of interest in her eyes. Esther was just that sort, quiet, and English. She would keep her eye on her.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, three men with glasses to their eyes were still staring out to sea. Hamish P. Rock spoke first, and with enormous excitement. “It’s undoubtedly signalling,” he said; “but where can it come from, skipper? And what land lies out in that direction? And what are they saying?”
Captain Kelly answered the three questions in their order. “There’ll be some sort of an island there, Mr. Rock; there are two or three small ones south of Socotra. And it’s a call for help—an S. 0. S., as we might say. ‘Help! marooned here’—the same words over and over again. With your permission, I’ll signal an answer; it’ll not be so easy as if it was dark and we could helio properly, but we’ll do our best. And now, Mr. Rock, what am I to say?”
“What are you to say? Why, say we’re coming along right away,” said Mr. Hamish P. Rock, his chest swelling.
The skipper shook his head. “Not possible,” he said; “it’s a dirty coast, and we might do more harm than good. It was there the boats from the Palitana went ashore three years ago and were never heard of again. No; with your permission, sir, I’ll signal, ‘Cheerio, expect us along after dark.’”
“Very well, skipper; I’m in your hands entirely,” and Mr. Hamish P. Rock, almost beside himself with excitement, turned and floundered down the steep steps from the bridge, to impart the astounding news to the people grouped about the deck in various delightful attitudes of moneyed indolence.
But Gregory Fanshawe, sitting in shirt-sleeves in his bedroom, stooping over a map, heard the sounds of rushing feet and shouting voices with a flood of wildest terror to his heart, and he thrust his hand into his hip pocket, cocked the vicious little weapon that he found there, and went out of the room like lightning into the next, where Mason, his finger on his lips, was tiptoeing towards the door.
“It’s news of some sort, sir.” Mason was snuffing the air like a spaniel. “’Er ladyship is still asleep, sir,” he said, turning; “but keep well be’ind the couch, please, for she’s very fresh to-day. I’ve got me revolver ready in case of emergencies,” said Mason, going out.
Left alone, Gregory Fanshawe stared down on the little cropped head with a passion of longing in his eyes. Mason was obdurate; Lady Fanshawe was not yet sufficiently herself to be allowed to see Sir Gregory. Mason himself, by dint of a great deal of skilful lying and blank incredulous denial, had succeeded in persuading Monica that he was not the Mason whom she had known before, and Monica had wept bitterly at the news.
“What is your name, then?” she sobbed, sitting up on the rushes, looking very small and pitiful.
“Lauder,” said Mason, remembering a wild evening spent with his friend the sergeant during seven days’ leave from France.
“Oh!” Monica wept pitifully for a little while. “My name is Fanshawe,” she said, “ and my husband is a Sir Gregory Fanshawe. Have you ever heard of him?”
“No, ma’am,” said Mason, busying himself with a miserable attempt at porridge, made from a coarse meal, flour, and goat’s milk.
And Monica had sunk back on the rush bed too weak to ask any more, but flooded with vague and terrified wonderings. This couldn’t be a hospital at Aden: how could she have got to Aden in an open boat, with only an oar to paddle them? Besides, hospitals at a place like Aden had proper beds and nurses, and cups with handles. Also thermometers. Here there was nothing: no sheets even to the bed, and only crackly reeds to lie on. And awful lamps that smelt of fishes. Lauder was kind; but only one man nurse, and only natives with hardly any clothes on to bring him things! What could it all mean? . . Mercifully, except at vague intervals, Monica was too weak to worry much, but every day she got stronger, and every day new imaginings and terrors began to beset her.
“Sir!” Mason was back, his head round the door and his eyes blazing in his fattish face.
“Yes, what is it?” Gregory Fanshawe was outside the door in two strides.
“Sir, one of them fellows ’as come from the tree. There’s an answer from the Sun God, ’e says—winking, winking; that’s all I can understand. Sir, somebody must ’ave picked up our signal.”
“Good God!” There were sudden drops of perspiration on the brown forehead. “Mason, I must go myself. I’ll shin up that trunk somehow. Look after things here—I shan’t be long, and this will keep them quiet for a bit; get hold of Hamarana,” and Gregory Fanshawe was down the veranda steps, running like the wind.
But Hamarana the priest had already heard, and it was at the head of a wildly excited concourse of rushing, shouting savages that Gregory Fanshawe reached the foot of the little eminence on which the two coconut palms waved their fernlike crests. He stared upwards. One almost naked figure waved a shaving-glass excitedly from the topmost bunch of leaves, the other stood beside him on the ground.
“The Son of the Sun God will speak with his august father?” Hamarana put the question in a loud sonorous voice.
“I will.” Gregory Fanshawe bent his head, and only made a very slight clutch at the shiny black head below him, as the huge native hoisted him in his arms and proceeded to carry him up the mast-like trunk.
Captain Kelly saw the difference in the flashes at once, and he called excitedly to his junior officer. “We’ve struck it,” he said; “look at that—that’s skilled signalling.”
“Thank God! shall expect you to-night,” came winking over the sea. “Four of us, and one woman. Mind how you come. Natives hostile.”
Shaking with excitement, watched by the two awe-struck crouching natives, Gregory Fanshawe wielded the two glasses until he was fully satisfied that at the other end he was entirely understood. Then he untwined his legs from their precarious hold on the fibrous leaf stems, and in the same way that he had come up descended to the ground.
“And now, sir, I think it would be as well if you were to make yourself known to her ladyship.” Mason spoke quietly, with a respectful smile on his face. Hamarana the priest had gone—gone to proclaim from the riding-block the glorious news that at the word of the Sun God, the nuptials of their king and his bride would take place the next day. Already the tom-toms could be heard sending out their monotonous cry of joy. Gregory Fanshawe felt that it was hardly fair, and had protested a little.
“Sahib, anything else means death.” Hamarana the priest had spoken emphatically. “The people are at the end of their patience. Until to-morrow they will wait, and no longer.”
“But how can we even get down to the shore without their seeing us?” Gregory Fanshawe suddenly felt a throb of sick terror in case anything might even now go wrong.
“I shall command that they attend a sacrifice at the farther end of the island at the rising of the moon,” said Hamarana the priest. “Sahib, leave it to me,” he added, seeing that Gregory Fanshawe was going to protest again.
So Gregory Fanshawe, feeling a little sick, had agreed. And now, he and Mason sat and looked at one another, their faces working with joy. Mason spoke abruptly, with a certain amount of dignity.
“I ’ave changed my mind about taking the girl Neroli with me, sir,” he said.
“Really?” Gregory Fanshawe longed to laugh aloud.
“Yes; I found ’er dallying with that long-legged fellow that used to ’ang round ’er,” said Mason, scowling a little, “and I took exception to it, sir.”
“Oh, I see: then we shall be five. Yourself, her ladyship, the lascar Koomar, Hamarana the priest, and myself,” said Gregory Fanshawe, feeling inclined to scream his joy aloud. And then he suddenly became very grave.
“Is she fit enough to stand it?” The tall man was quivering with emotion.
“I think so, sir. Take it slowly, so to speak,” said Mason with an indulgent smile.
So when Monica, turning a little restlessly on her rush bed, asked gently for a drink, it was a lean brown hand that quivered that handed it to her.
“What time is it?” asked Monica, lying back again.
“Two o’clock,” said Gregory Fanshawe quietly.
There was a silence as if Monica had been struck by an unknown hand. Then she spoke again.
“Your voice has altered,” she said.
“Has it? I don’t think so,” said Gregory Fanshawe quietly.
“Lord! it is a dream, and I shall wake up and find that it isn’t true,” Monica cried out, and flung her hands over her face.
“What is a dream?” Gregory Fanshawe was stooping over the head of the bed.
“Why, your voice! My husband had a voice like that. But it couldn’t be him. Tell me, Mr. Lauder, why your voice has suddenly got different,” and Monica, struggling up, put an elbow on the rushes and twisted round.
“Greg!” It came on a breath of wildest bewilderment.
“Well,” the tall man in khaki shorts and shirt smiled.
“Greg . . . it isn’t you really?”
“Yes, it is. Who else? Are you glad?” Gregory Fanshawe came round to the side of the bed and sat down on it. Such a little pathetic ravaged face! His eyes filled with tears. “Beloved of my heart and soul, he said, “let me take you in my arms.”
“You aren’t calling me that, are you?” breathed Monica, her eyes like lamps in her white face.
“Yes, of course I am.” Gregory Fanshawe choked a little. “Oh, my darling, my darling!” he said; “forgive me all my hideousness. I know now that I was a devil about that affair at the palace.”
“That was what I wanted to tell you, and then I thought that I was going to be drowned and I should never see you again,” and Monica broke out into wildest weeping.
“Don’t, my darling!” Gregory Fanshawe spoke hoarsely, and stooping, he put his arms round the little figure and drew it up to him. “Cry in my neck, dearest dear,” he said unsteadily.
“You smell just the same.” After a long quivering silence Monica lifted her blurred face and held it up to the man who sat looking down at her.
“And do I feel just the same?” Gregory Fanshawe spoke after another long silence, lifting a dark head.
“Oh, you do!” Monica was throbbing with joy. “But tell me: is this Aden, and if it is, why haven’t the beds any sheets?”
“Aden! Good heavens, no! Did our friend Harry Lauder tell you that? Well done, old Mason! No, beloved, this isn’t Aden, but I hope it very soon will be.” And then very gently and tenderly Gregory Fanshawe told Monica where they were, and how very soon he hoped to get away from it, and listening, Monica shrank and trembled in his arms.
“I can’t go in a boat again,” she said, and she hid her face.
“Yes you can, beloved, with me.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke tenderly and reassuringly. “And it will only be a minute or two in the little boat, and then we shall be on the big one, and as comfortable as anything.”
“There won’t be enough water,” said Monica, wide-eyed with terror.
“Yes, there will, sweetheart; everything will be perfectly all right. You will be with me, darling; can’t you trust me to take care of you?”
“Anything but a boat,” quivered Monica.
“But it has to be a boat, darling.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke firmly; he knew it was the only way. “Come, Monica, pull yourself together.”
“You’re beginning to be angry again.” Monica stared upwards with the gaze of a panic-stricken animal.
“Only if you’re a silly little girl.”
“I will go in the boat,” faltered Monica, weeping.
So when the silver slip of a moon had sailed slowly up into the inverted bowl of blue stabbed with stars, along the narrow path between the tall trees went a little company single file, Mason and Koomar carrying the rough wooden bed between them, Hamarana the priest bringing up the rear, a loaded revolver in his right hand, and Gregory Fanshawe ahead, also with a loaded weapon.
“’Ere you, be careful with that.” Mason breathed uneasily as he felt the priest fall into step behind him. “I’ve no fancy meself for giving these fellows firearms,” he whispered huskily through the darkness to his master, who had turned at the sound, his right hand brought up to his chest with a jerk.
“It’s all right; he’s used one before.” Gregory Fanshawe spoke with a tremble of overwhelming anxiety in his voice. Certainly the air behind them was glowing and filled with the acrid smell of smoke, as well as a smell of something far more pungent and nauseating, but even so—a couple of dozen lurking figures, and they were done. But the little journey to the shore was accomplished with safety, and they stood on the yielding sand, a tormented little company, straining their eyes out to sea. If anything happened to prevent it now—Gregory Fanshawe suffered a thousand deaths as he stood, one hand in the little clinging one reached up from the rush-covered bed.
But even as he prayed, a shape like a long lean greyhound crept in from behind a promontory. Only one tiny, glimmering light from the mast-head—Captain Kelly and Mr. Hamish P. Rock had been the round of the cabins themselves. Just an almost imperceptible throb of slackening engines, and then the stealthy rattle of a cable as an anchor plunged noiselessly. And then something small and dark coming over the water towards them oars muffled as they lifted rhythmically.
“Now, darling.” The tears were pouring down Gregory Fanshawe’s face as he stooped to the low bed.
“Will it be all right?” Monica was clutching at the khaki sleeve.
“Perfectly all right, beloved. Mason, wade out, all of you as far as you can; we don’t want them to land. Gregory Fanshawe spoke in an urgent whisper. “ Now, then, sweetheart, hang on to my neck: that’s it.”
A little pause while the dark speck loomed nearer, and took shape, white faces glimmering out over dripping, oars, and then Gregory Fanshawe, holding his burden high, waded steadily out through the wash of an incoming wave.