CHAPTER XIITHE NOTORIOUS MRS. DE LACY
Withconsiderable difficulty and various feeble excuses I released myself from Dolly’s assiduities, promising to send her a chit as soon as I had collected my thoughts, and to let her know what I intended to do with respect to this social avalanche.
As I walked back alone to the bungalow I told myself that it was a strange coincidence that I had been within the last six months involved in the uprooting of two homes, “The Roost,” and now “The Dovecot.” Was there something malignant and destructive in my personality? That such a scandal should be placed to the credit of Mrs. Hayes-Billington seemed a crazy, incredible idea. She was domestic and prudent, apparently devoted to Bertie, careful of offending Mrs. Grundy, and totally unlike my lurid mental picture of adivorcée. Then I suddenly recalled Colonel Armadale on theAsphodel, and as I was endeavouring to piece past and present experiences into one whole, I became aware that a tonga and a pair of smoking ponies were standing in front of “The Dovecot,” and beheld Ronnie hurrying towards me with a white excited face, on which I could not help noticing a large splash ofmud! Judging by his appearance he had travelled far and fast.
“Oh, Ronnie,” I exclaimed, “how glad I am to see you!” and I flung my arms round his neck and hugged him. “Why did you not let me know you were coming?”
“Walk down the road a bit—walls have ears! Such an awful business, Eva, and to think of Aunt Mina letting you in for it—to think of your being chaperoned by Mrs. de Lacy! Good Lord!”
“Yes, I know,” I replied, “Dolly Dane has just told me. The whole station is reeling from the shock. For my own part I feel as if I were dreaming.”
“Wake up then,” he said sharply, “you must get out of this at once. I’d a letter from Vesey two days ago and I have been travelling hard ever since. It appears that when he was calling here he recognised Mrs. Hayes-Billington as Mrs. de Lacy, a notoriousdivorcée. Four years ago her case was the scandal of the whole Punjab, and here she is, in another region, and under another name, doing the respectable matron and chaperoningmy sister. It’s a pretty awful debut for you, Evie!”
“Somehow I cannot believe it,” I broke in. “I’ve had such a happy time, and Mrs. Hayes-Billington has always been so kind to me, so careful of appearances, and——”
“Just a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” interrupted my brother, “a regular bad lot! De Lacy was a political agent, and she, as Mrs. de Lacy, was celebrated for her extraordinary good looks and her extravagantlove affairs. You must get your things packed and be ready to start with me to-morrow morning at nine o’clock. I have ordered the same tonga. Just put a few things together—your heavy baggage and the ayah can follow.”
“But to where? Where are you taking me?”
“Why, to Secunderabad, of course. As soon as I got Vesey’s letter and had pulled myself together, I dashed over to the colonel’s wife and showed it to her. She said at once that you must come to her. Yes, she really is a thundering good sort. Later on a captain’s quarters, near to the C.O.’s, will be vacant, and there you and I can set up house. It will be made a special case, and she has undertaken to talk over the old man.”
“Oh, how delightful, Ronnie!” I exclaimed. “What a piece of good fortune!”
“Yes, rather,” he assented emphatically. “It looks as if your presentiment were likely to come off.”
“What am I to say to Mrs. Hayes-Billington?” I asked after a pause.
“Is she up, and visible?”
“I think so, by this time; I have not seen her all day, she has had a most dreadful headache.”
“Well, I must have a jaw with her. Yes, I must. I won’t sneak you out of her house without an explanation, and I intend to give her a jolly good bit of my mind.”
“Oh, Ronnie—mustyou?”
“Yes, I must,” he rejoined, as we entered the bungalow; “which is the drawing-room?”
As I pointed to it in silence he pushed open the door and entered. Mrs. Hayes-Billington, who was crouching over the fire, turned on him a ghastly face, and I realised in a second that she was aware of his errand. Then like a coward I retreated and went away to break the news of my impending departure to the ayah.
“Missie going—me, too, going to-morrow morning!” she exclaimed.
I must confess that I rather expected a scene, but the ayah accepted the news with staggering unconcern. Mary was evidently accustomed to these hasty departures. She was a Deccanee woman, she informed me, and not sorry to return to her own country. With astonishing celerity she began to collect my various and scattered belongings, to sort and to fold. Natives love the excitement and hurry-scurry of a hasty move. A native cook welcomes, rather than otherwise, an unexpected addition to a dinner; a butler is never more in his element than when improvising a hastytamasha, an abruptly arrangedshikarparty, or an early morning supper!
Presently Ronnie knocked peremptorily at my door and said:
“It’s all right. She says of course you must go—she is leaving too. Now mind you eat a good dinner and get to bed early, for it’s a beastly long journey. Ta ta!”
I did my utmost to do justice to my solitary meal, though I experienced sensations both varied and strange. I felt as if I were sitting among ruins,or as if I had been expelled from school, or was standing on the edge of a steep precipice gazing down into the unknown.
After dinner I received yet another little note from Mrs. Hayes-Billington. “Do come and see me in my room. D. B.”
In fear and trepidation I accepted the invitation, but did not, as I anticipated, find my chaperon in sackcloth and ashes and tears, but as calm as usual, only deathly pale. She looked a beautiful, tragic figure, as she stood in the middle of the room, wrapped in an old pink tea gown. Like myself, I could see that she was making preparations for an imminent departure. Before she uttered a word she walked over and closed the door—most of our doors stuck, or rattled—then she turned about and faced me.
“Eva, I am most frightfully sorry that this has happened, more for your sake than mine—although to me it means social ruin. You have been a dear girl, so simple and so loyal; I am really fond of you, and as I would not like you to think worse of me than is necessary I have sent for you to tell you my true story.”
As she concluded, she indicated a chair, into which I sank in silence, but she still continued to pace about the room.
“You must know,” she began, “that I was the daughter of a West Country parson. When I was eighteen years of age Robert de Lacy, who was fishing in the neighbourhood, saw me in churchand fell in love with my face on the spot. He soon contrived to make my father’s acquaintance and mine. He was fifteen years older than I was, and had a fine appointment in Northern India. As his furlough was nearly ended we were married after a month’s acquaintance. I was not in love with him but in love with the idea of going to India—always the land of my dreams—also thankful to be released from a detestable stepmother and a hateful country groove. India enchanted me; in her I was neither disappointed nor disillusioned—but then as the wife of a wealthy civilian I saw the country from its best aspect. I had numbers of servants, horses, and crowds of appreciative friends. We entertained a good deal. At nineteen I was queen of the station! My husband, who was exceedingly proud of me, loaded me with jewels and lovely clothes. At first I was happy—my home and children were all in all to me.”
“Children!” I ejaculated.
“Oh, yes, I have two boys; the elder is seventeen. They were sent to England when they were about three years old. My husband had certain fixed ideas. One of them was that no child should remain in India after that age. Another, that a woman’s place was with her husband. He did not care about home life; his work and big game shooting absorbed all his interests, but it wasmyduty to remain at my post as mistress of his house. In the hot weather he sent me to the hills, or to Cashmere, and himself went away on shooting trips into Nepaul or Tibet.
“Except as a sort of ornamental figurehead, I believe Robert soon grew tired of me. I had not been well educated; I could sing, and act, and dance, but none of these accomplishments appealed tohim. He liked a woman who was deeply read, who could talk politics, statistics, Indian famines, and so on, and when we were alone, without guests, we would spend whole days scarcely exchanging a word; and thus I lived, in a sense, solitary—my soul starving. My good looks, which were famous, were something of a drawback; they made me too conspicuous; women were afraid of me. On the other hand, men were my slaves. I had numbers of admirers, and to fill my idle hours I embarked on harmless flirtations, merelypour passer les temps—and so the years passed. Then up in Cashmere amid the most romantic and exquisite scenery, I met my other self—my twin soul. He was in a cavalry regiment stationed at Umballa. Well, I need not dwell on this. You have never seen Cashmere or Gulmerg, ‘the meadows of roses,’ or the Dal Lake, by a full moon; or breathed an atmosphere trembling with an appeal, or looked into the blue eyes of Rupert Vavasour. After struggling for a whole year I listened to him, and the end of it was that we went away together to Japan.” She caught her breath, and paused for a moment—standing with her back to me.
I felt myself blushing violently, and was conscious of a sort of undeserved, shamefaced embarrassment.
“Our elopement was not a nine days’ wonder,” she resumed, “but a whole season’s talk! Of courseI was divorced. We went to Italy to await the decree nisi, hoping to marry and be happy ever afterwards. Rupert had given up the army and we intended to live abroad until our story was forgotten. But at Florence he got fever, and, to my indescribable anguish, died within a week. His people hurried out from home, ignored me altogether, and wound up his affairs. Captain Vavasour was immensely wealthy, but had made no will, and I, neither wife nor widow, was thrown upon the world, almost destitute. My own people would not receive me, excepting one old aunt, who, like myself, was very poor, and I lived with her until she died. How often and often I wished that I was dead too! I used to walk about the streets of London, with nowhere to go, with no one to speak to, and entirely without friends. I realised then all the loneliness, misery, and despair of a lost dog! I had no interest in free museums, picture galleries, or libraries; my tastes did not tend toward Botticelli prints or blue Hawthorn china; inanimate objects bored me to death, but I hungered and starved for the society to which I had been accustomed, when one lived and experienced thrills! For years I breathed an atmosphere of change, excitement, and luxury; this poverty-stricken, dull isolation was insupportable. The friends I had known and entertained in my palmy days passed me by with blank faces, and people of shady character, who would have welcomed me with open arms, I avoided like the black plague. It was a case of Mohammed’s coffin! Then last summer I made the acquaintance of Bertie.It all came about through the loan of an umbrella. I had recovered my looks, and he fell in love with me and asked me to marry him. Of course I told him my story, but it made no difference. Bertie is a truly unselfish man and has been more than good to me. Then I longed with a sort of aching to see the East again, and finding that his work was in the south, where I did not know a soul, and as it was four years since the divorce, I ventured to return to India, hoping that I could make a fresh start. I was getting on, as you know, and beginning to feel so happy and safe, enjoying the old familiar life and surroundings, when Mrs. Hancock descended from that former existence and shattered my house of cards. She beheld me acting the principal character in a play she had once seen me appear in in Peshawar—evidently received in society, and instantly signed my social death warrant. Although she sat in the front row, strange to say I had not noticed her, and I was unaware of my sentence until I received a note from Mrs. Dane early this morning. I wired at once to Bertie. Poor old fellow! I know he will be dreadfully cut up; he will take me away as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I shall remain ‘purdah’ until I go down to the mines, and will never, never again endeavour to show my face in Indian society.”
All the time she talked she had been walking to and fro; suddenly she halted before me and said:
“Ialways said it was a risk bringing you with us, but Bertie thought otherwise, and then your aunt was so frantically urgent, the money was sucha temptation, and you were a nice girl, not at all modern, and I hoped and prayed that I would never be found out. I must explain about Colonel Armadale. No doubt, you, like everyone else, thought I flirted with him on board that dreadful old tub. He is a dear old friend and godfather to my elder boy. He meets Bob and his brother whenever he likes, but I, although I am their mother, never. He told me a great deal about them, and that Hugh, the younger, is brilliantly clever; his father is immensely proud of him. The child’s only drawback is that he resemblesme! Although I have not seen my boys I have seen my husband. Not very long before I came out he and a lady sat directly behind me in the stalls of a theatre. Another time we met face to face in the street, looked at one another—and passed on.
“Well now, Evie, you will not think too badly of me, will you—perhaps, some day, you may forgive me?”
“I forgive you now,” I said, rising; “indirectly you have done me a very good turn, for in future I am to live with Ronnie. I am really sorry that this has happened to you, and I must tell you that since I came to Silliram I have enjoyed every day of the time we have spent here together.”
“And never for a moment suspected that I had a past?”
“Yes, I did think there was something mysterious about you—you were so reserved about your affairs. I thought you had somehow or other come down inthe world, and naturally did not care to talk about it. You always said you were poor—but you had some costly possessions. Your diamonds and your pearls——”
“Those pearls are sham!” she interrupted. “I sold my string for seven hundred pounds, and lived on it for years. Well, Evie, as you are making an early start to-morrow morning, I must not detain you any longer. Will you write to me sometimes?—‘Care of Captain Hayes-Billington, the Katchoocan Mines,’ will always find me, and I shall get so few letters.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I will certainly write.”
“Well then, good-bye, my dear girl. I wish you all happiness, joy and good fortune.”
As she kissed me I felt her tears upon my face, and when I had wrenched open the door and blundered out of the room I was crying too.