* * * * *Rosamond sank slowly back in her chair; her hand fell inertly before her.When the girl returned after an hour's exceeding activity the elder woman's attitude had not altered by a fraction. But the exigency of time and social requirements left Aspasia no leisure now to linger over doubts and fears. Her own cheeks were pink from rapid ablutions; her crisp hair stood out more vigorously than ever after determined manipulation. She pealed a bell for Jani, and fell herself upon the golden mass covering Lady Gerardine's shoulders, her chattering tongue in full swing:"Of course, the poor wretches are in their motor garments. (You never saw anything like Runkle in a pony skin and goggles. He's more motist than the chauffeur.) So I've only just stuck on a blouse, you see. But I've determined you shall be beautiful in a tea-gown. Lord, I'd no idea Lady Aspasia was so tremendous! I want you simply to be beautiful!"Deft hands twisted and coiled."It was Runkle, you know, who broke the motor: he insisted on driving and jammed them sideways in a gate. He's awfully pleased with himself. It's Lady Aspasia's motor. She calls Runkle, Arty: what do you think of that? Ah, here's Jani. Which shall it be—the white and gold? I love the white and gold, Aunt Rosamond.""Black—black," said Rosamond.CHAPTER XVISir Arthur came down the shallow oaken stairs, after his necessarily exiguous toilet, a prey to distinct dudgeon. He had been whirled away upon this expedition by the impetuosity of Lady Aspasia, somewhat against his will in the first place. That he, Sir Arthur Gerardine, should have to come in quest of his wife, instead of the latter obediently hieing her at his summons, was a breach of the world's decorum as he understood it personally. That his wife should have a headache and have partaken of phenacetin coincidently upon his arrival; that she should evidently (and by a thousand tokens the unwelcome fact was forced upon him) be still in her uncomfortable hyperæsthetic neurasthenic state of health was a want of consideration for his feelings of which no dutiful spouse should have been guilty; and, moreover, this condition of things was woefully destructive of all comfort in the connubial state. He positively dared not insist upon seeing her at once. Absurd as the situation was, he must await her pleasure; for, with Lady Aspasia present, the danger of fainting fits or hysterics could not be risked. Not that he wanted to blame Rosamond unduly, poor thing; but it really was not what he had a right to expect.These natural feelings of displeasure were heightened by the trifling deprivations caused by his stranded condition. He could not feel his usual superb and superior self coming down to dinner in a serge suit, his feet in heavy outdoor shoes. Then, the poor surroundings, the very feeling of the noisy oak boards instead of a pile carpet under these same objectionable soles, offended him at every step. He was ashamed that Lady Aspasia should find such a "pokey" place. It was by no means a fit habitation for the wife of Sir Arthur Gerardine.He had hurried down before the others, impelled by his restless spirit. The hall was empty. He took a bustling survey. How faded was the strip of Turkey carpet! God bless his soul, how worm-eaten were those square oak chests, presses, and cupboards, and how clumsy—only fit for a cottage! And that portrait, just under the lamp—poor English, he supposed? A regular daub, anyhow; why, he could see the brush marks! He wondered Rosamond could have it up.He opened a door on the right and peeped in. All was dark within. He was assailed by an odour of tobacco smoke, and sniffed with increasing discontent. This visit of Bethune's, now, which had prevented Rosamond from hurrying to his side, was there not something irregular, not to say ... well, fishy about the situation? It was odd, now he came to think of it, that Rosamond should never have mentioned the identity of her guest in any of her numerous telegrams, in spite of his repeated questions. He himself, in the midst of his important social, he might almost say political engagements (since a member of the Cabinet had been included in the recent house-party at Melbury Towers), had not had leisure to examine into it more closely hitherto. But now he flushed to the roots of the silvering hair, that still curled luxuriantly round his handsome head, as he recalled Lady Aspasia Melbury's loud laugh and meaning cry when Baby had performed the necessary introduction upon their recent arrival: "So you're the excuse!" ... A mere Major of Guides! A fellow he had never really liked, after all!Sir Arthur turned on his heel. In thought, he was already rapidly ascending the stairs, on a voyage of discovery to Rosamond's room. Nerves or no nerves, there are matters that require immediate attention. It was intolerable to think that Lady Gerardine, that his wife, should be guilty of the unpardonable lapse of placing herself—however unwittingly, of course—into a false position. It never even dawned upon him—to do him justice—to suspect her of any deeper offence.As he paused, inflating his chest on the breath of his wrath, some one, with a quick, clean tread, came running along an outer passage, and flung open the swing door that led into the hall—flung it back with the shove of a broad shoulder.Sir Arthur turned again, and had a moment of amazement before his fluttered wits remembered the existence of his own particular secretary.Muhammed Saif-u-din stood filling up the doorway. His red turban nearly touching the lintel, a crusty bottle in either hand, he was staring at Sir Arthur, to the full as intently as Sir Arthur stared at him."Oh, it's you, is it?" then cried, testily, the mighty historian of the Northern Provinces. "What the devil is the man doing with the wine," thought he, flaming inwardly, "when he ought to be busy on—on my book?" In his mind's eye Sir Arthur never beheld Muhammed but toiling with pen and ink upon the great work. "Well," he went on aloud, "I hope you've got a lot to show me!""Excuse, your Excellency," said Muhammed. He drew himself together with a little effort, stepped across to the open dining-room door, and laid down his burden. Sir Arthur followed him, hot on the scent of the new grievance. Upon his word, everybody was off his head! Mohammed's manner, his secretary's manner, was downright cool—cool!"I don't think I engaged you for this sort of business, Muhammed," said he.Muhammed, with the point of a corkscrew just applied to the first bottle, paused and looked reflectively at the speaker. Then the points of his upturned moustaches quivered. He laid down bottle and corkscrew and made a profound salaam."Excuse, Excellency," he said again. His fine bronzed countenance was subtly afire with some spirit of mocking irony. "There was a fear that your Excellency should be ill served in this poor house!"Well, well, this was laudable, of course! Yes, even the babu felt that here was no fit entertainment for a Lieutenant-Governor. But nevertheless, intangibly, Sir Arthur found something disquieting in that smile, in the dark eye that fixed him. Vaguely a sense as of something mysterious and relentless came upon him. "You never know where to have them," he thought to himself.In the pomp of his own palace, surrounded by scores of servitors of his own magnificence, he had not given a thought, hitherto, to the possibility of treachery from the Indian subject. There he felt himself too great a man to be touched; but here, in this desolate house on the downs! ... A small cold trickle ran down his spine. It was queer that the creature should have been so eager to come to England! ... But the next instant the natural man asserted himself. Sir Arthur would certainly have been no coward even in actual danger; he was far too sure of himself to entertain idle fears."I shall see you to-morrow," he said imperiously, and left the room.A whirlwind of silks upon the stairs heralded Aspasia. She caught her uncle by the arm and dragged him into the drawing-room."Pray, pray, my dear Aspasia; you are really too impetuous!" cried he, disengaging himself testily. The familiarity which in India had added a piquancy to his sense of importance was here a want of tact. "The country has not improved your manners, my dear," he went on, taking up his place on the hearthrug and sweeping the room with contemptuous gaze. "It's high time to get you out of this."Miss Aspasia's ready lips had already parted upon a smart retort when the sound of Lady Aspasia's voice, uplifted from without, prevented the imminent skirmish. Her ladyship was evidently addressing Dr. Châtelard, for those strident tones were conveying, in highly British accents, words of what she supposed to be French:"Drôle petit trou, pensez-vous pas?""Ah, but extremely interesting," responded theglobe trotteur, in his precise English. He always obstinately answered in English Lady Aspasia's less perfect but equally obstinate French.The two entered together, she towering over him, as might a frigate over a sloop.Lady Aspasia Melbury was a handsome woman of the "horsey" type. A favourite, even in royal circles, her praise ran in men's mouths expressively as "a real good sort." A woman kind to others, with the ease afforded her by splendid health, unlimited means, and an assured position. Modern to the very last minute, frank beyond the point of offence, she might be cited as one of those rare beings to whom life is almost an absolute success; the more safely, perhaps, because most of her ideals (if ideals they could be called) were of the most practical description. Yet life had failed Lady Aspasia upon one point—she had had one unsatisfied desire; her youth had held a brief romance, interrupted by amariage de raison; and when her millionaire had left her free, she had looked, with the confidence of her nature, to the instant renewal of the broken idyll. But here it was that fate had played its single scurvy trick upon the woman.Arthur Gerardine, the once handsome, penniless lad, the now still handsome, distinguished man, who had remained bachelor all these years (she had fondly hoped for her sake), had married—a year after her own widowhood—married, not the ready Lady Aspasia, but a poor unknown widow out in India. Lady Aspasia's solitary unrealised ideal, then, was Sir Arthur Gerardine. In what strange nests will not some ideals perch! And unattainable it seemed likely to remain.As she now stood, her large, bold eyes roaming quizzically round the faded room—which seemed to hold her ultra-modern presence with amazement, to echo her loud laugh with a kind of protest, like a simple dame of olden times raising mittened hands of rebuke—no one would have guessed that she was inwardly eaten with impatience to behold her rival, to know at last the creature who had supplanted her."It is, indeed, a poor little place," said Sir Arthur, bustling forward to advance a chair. "I had no idea it was such a tumble-down old house. We must get rid of it as soon as possible.""Ah, but pardon!" interposed Dr. Châtelard. "It is old if you will, Sir Gerardine, but thereby it is rich. Nowhere else have I so felt the unpurchasable riches of past time. I am charmed to have come here. After your gorgeous Melbury, the piquancy of this antique abode of gentility is to me delicious!""Ah, well," said Sir Arthur, magnificently, "I don't say it has not got a sort of picturesqueness and all that, but it's not what we are accustomed to in England, you know. Comfort, Châtelard, the land of comfort, we say. You don't know what it is in your country. But in the good old days—people did not understand it either, here, you see. Look at that chair, now. As hard as nails, eh, Lady Aspasia? I dare say a collector or somebody might like it. What do you say—Chippendale, eh? Elizabethan? Well, it's all the same thing. It's not my sort, anyhow. I shall sell it all, bag and baggage.""Sell the Old Ancient House!" interrupted the younger Aspasia, hotly. The aggravation her uncle had ever the talent of awakening in her was now in full force. "I think you'll find there will have to be two words to that, dear Runkle. Aunt Rosamond's devoted to it."Sir Arthur inflated his chest."My dear Raspasia!" ...There was concentrated acrimony in his accents. The elder lady scented storm, and storm was not the atmosphere she liked."I declare, Arty," she said, "you made me jump. I thought those stern tones were directed to me. There are two Aspasias here—Docteur Châtelard—elle est ma—namesake—appellée après moi, ou comment vous dites! Come here, namesake, and let's have a look at you."Aspasia fell on her knees beside the imposing tailor-made figure, and raised her pretty, pert face—pinker than usual, with a variety of emotions—for inspection. M. Châtelard put up his eyeglass to look down benevolently upon her. The English Miss had yet scarcely come under his microscope; but he quite saw that she would be a fascinating study. He now thought the contrast between the two Aspasias somewhat cruel. "Fraîche comme une rose, la petite. Ronde comme une caille, mutine comine la fauvette—Mais l'autre—oh lala, quelle carcasse!"The fine lines of Lady Aspasia's anatomy—not inharmonious, but over-prominent, it must be owned, from the hardening effects of a too great devotion to sport—appealed not at all to the temperament of the French critic."I don't know whatyouthink of your godparents," Miss Aspasia was remarking, with the gusto of a well-established grievance, "but I know what I think ought to be done to mine for giving me such an i-di-o-tic name."She rolled her eyes meaningly towards Sir Arthur. Lady Aspasia pinched the tilted chin not unkindly, while her loud laugh rang out."And you won't ever be able to change it, either, that's the worst of it," she cried. "Thank your stars, anyhow, it can't brand you all your life, as it does me, like an ugly handle to a fine jug—aha! By the way, Arty, you'll have to do something to help this poor child to change the Cuningham, anyhow. She won't do it down here.""I don't want to change that at all," cried Baby. Her quick ear had caught the sound of Bethune's tread on the threshold. She jerked her chin from Lady Aspasia's fingers and jumped to her feet. "I've never seen any one whose name I thought better worth having than Cuningham yet."In her young pride she unconsciously flung an angry glance upon the newcomer for appearing at just the wrong moment—a glance which Lady Aspasia caught, and from which she immediately drew conclusions.These conclusions tallied to a nicety with some others that Lady Aspasia, not without a certain satisfaction, had been forming of late regarding the Gerardineménage.Lady Gerardine had shown an unmistakable disinclination to join her husband after a long absence; she had suddenly ceased corresponding with him except by telegram; and in these telegrams the name of the visitor whose presence was offered as excuse had been unaccountably omitted."Poor child," cried the woman of fashion, with her crow of laughter and the brutal outspokenness of her circle; "she's about tired of playing chaperon here! Never mind, my dear, your time will come by-and-by. 'Nous avons changé tout cela,' as M. Châtelard would say; and a jolly good thing, too. We are only proper in our teens, and after that we can have a high old time till we are eighty. C'est ce que nous appellons un score, M. Châtelard.""I think, Lady Melbury," said M. Châtelard, suavely, "that I should prefer to watch the high young time."But, as he spoke, his eye was on Sir Arthur; and from thence it went with eager curiosity to Bethune. He was rubbing mental hands of glee. What stroke of superlative fortune had landed him in the very middle, in the great act, he felt sure, of that drama, the beginning of which he had noted with such interest in far-off India? The poor, good, trusting Sir Gerardine, who had ordered his wife to fall in with her lover's scheme, with such touching—such imbecile—confidence! Ah, but he was beginning to suspect; he had winced even now at the words of yonder impossible female. And that other? Why, it was clear that the Major had encompassed his design—but up to what point? That relentless, impenetrable mask was as hard to decipher as ever. It could not be said that he looked like the fortunate lover, but neither did he look like one who would spare or give way. "It is a nature of granite," thought the Frenchman, as he watched Bethune's deliberate movements about the room. "Successful or still plotting, the advent of the husband at this moment—what a situation! And yet, behold the lover; immovable, implacable. It will be tragic!""She's tired of acting chaperon." Sir Arthur let the words pass because they were spoken by Lady Aspasia. But they had pierced right through his armour of self-satisfaction and self-security. The new grievance became again unpleasantly active.Rosamond had indubitably been incredibly, reprehensibly foolish. No one had a right so to neglect the ordinary conventions. He would have to speak to her very seriously, by-and-by."What can your aunt be about, my dear Aspasia?" cried he, impatiently. "I think I must really go up and bring her down, if you will just direct me to her room."That he should have to ask to be directed to his wife's room; that, having been a couple of hours in the same house, they should not yet have met—it was preposterous, intolerable, it was most inconsiderate of Rosamond! It was an abuse of his chivalrous solicitude for her!"Oh, I'll run up!" cried Baby, anxiously."Here is Lady Gerardine herself," said Major Bethune's calm voice. He stepped to the door and opened it.CHAPTER XVIIUp went Lady Aspasia's eyeglasses. Often had she pictured to herself the woman who had "cut her out." She vowed she knew the type: "men are so silly!"—the Simla belle, ill-painted, ill-dyed, with the airs of importance of the Governor's wife badly grafted upon the second-rate manners of the Indian officer's widow.As Rosamond came into the room, her long black draperies trailing, her radiant head held high, a geranium flush upon cheeks and lips, Lady Aspasia's glasses fell upon her knees with a click; then she lifted them quickly to stare afresh. She forgot to rise from her chair; she forgot even to criticise."I'm done for—I'm stumped!" cried the poor sporting lady, in her candid soul. "It's all u-p! Lord, what a fool I have been!"Sir Arthur, filling his lungs with a breath of righteous reprehension, looked; and exhaled it in a puff of triumph. A beautiful creature. By George, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen! And she was his—his wife—Lady Gerardine. The old glorious self-satisfaction rushed back upon him. How well he had chosen, after all! A little neurasthenia might well be forgiven to one who so superlatively vindicated his taste. It was a glorious moment, this, of presenting the shining star of his selection to the poor old flame."Sac-à-papier! ... Quand une anglaise se mêle d'être belle, elle ne fait pas les choses à moitié."Dr. Châtelard adjusted his spectacles. This was the woman whom the astute Bethune, under the purple Indian sky, had accused in his hearing of being cold. Cold? Just heavens—what a bloom, what a flower! Ah! the answer to that question he had been asking himself with devouring curiosity ever since his recognition of the manor-house guest, was here given him without a word. The poor—the poor Sir Gerardine! Here was what he, Châtelard, with his enormous experience, had securely predicted.Voici la conflagration!Not a jewel did Rosamond wear; but her soft draperies were strung with long lines of jet, so that, with each movement, subdued fires seemed to flash about her. The fever colour in her cheeks, the fever light in her eyes, lent her usually pale and pensive beauty an unnatural brilliancy. All in the room were unwittingly struck into immobility, that their every energy might be given to so rare a sight.Raymond Bethune flung but one look, then dropped his eyes."He is afraid to betray himself," thought the shrewd Châtelard (his own inquisitive eye was everywhere); for once he was right in the midst of his wild surmises.Even Baby stared, open-mouthed.Rosamond advanced, looked round with unseeing glances. "I am here. What is wanted of me?" she seemed to ask, vaguely."Painted!" cried Lady Aspasia to herself, her gaze fixed hungrily. "No"—for here Sir Arthur bent to kiss his wife, and the scarlet cheek turned to him was suddenly blanched—"No. What's the matter with the creature? She looks as if she were going to faint."But Lady Aspasia was in no mood to follow the fertile train of thought suggested by Lady Gerardine's evident emotion under her husband's caress; her own emotions were for the moment unwontedly acute and painful. Sir Arthur's fond and proud look at his beautiful consort struck the old love with a stab. She was not even regretted!"My dear," said Sir Arthur, one of his wife's cold hands in his, "here is Lady Aspasia, of whom you have heard so much."Then Lady Aspasia remembered her manners, and rose to greet her hostess. As she did so, she caught the reflection both of herself and of Lady Gerardine side by side in the mirror over the chimney-piece. Both tall women, their heads were nearly on a level; but between the two faces what a chasm! How could the old love be regretted? She was not even regrettable.The elder woman gave a harsh laugh."Awfully glad," she muttered, for once at a loss for words. "She's got it all," she was saying to herself. "Youth and beauty—and Arty. Poor Arty; she does not care a snap of her finger for him, and Heaven knows what's on her conscience!""You remember Dr. Châtelard, my love," proceeded Sir Arthur. M. Châtelard made his preliminary French bow, and respectfully took possession of Rosamond's icy fingers. While his lips were forming an elegant little speech of greeting, while he was assuring her ladyship of his acute sense of privilege at being under her roof, his swift thoughts were busy on fresh conclusions. He looked down at the pale hand, the death-like touch of which lay inert in his palm, and up at the hectic loveliness of the face."C'est qu'elle est malade—tres malade même!" he said to himself, with sudden gravity. "Ah, she is not one to whom sin is easy! The young man may remember he was warned." And, as he gave his arm to his hostess to lead her into the dining-room, he was perhaps the only member of the company to realise that Lady Gerardine had not so far uttered a single word. "This will end in tragedy," he told himself again; and the ring of Sir Arthur's laugh, the jovial content of his voice behind him, struck the Frenchman's ear, mere student of psychology as he was, with an actual sensation of pain.As they crossed the hall they passed the figure of the Indian secretary standing motionless, with folded arms, at the further end. The man salaamed as they went by, and M. Châtelard felt Lady Gerardine shudder."Does the Eastern inspire you with repugnance?" queried he, as they entered the dining-room."With horror," she answered, in a deep, vibrating voice; "with hatred."The note of her passion was so incongruous to the occasion that the traveller found nothing to reply.Once seated at the table, however, he set himself, with tactful assiduity, to cover a situation which tended to become awkward, not to say impossible. Fortunately, too, both the Aspasias kept up an almost violent conversation, and between them Sir Arthur was allowed very little time for reflection or observation.Baby had purposely placed a large erection of ferns and flowers in the centre of the table. Sir Arthur had to peer round if he wanted to catch his wife's eyes. The four candles, in their red shades, gave but faint illumination. The dark oak panelling absorbed the side lights. It was only to Bethune on the one hand, to M. Châtelard on the other, that Rosamond's persistent mutism, her abstraction, became obtrusive."You have, I fear, small appetite, madam," said the Frenchman at last, with kindly anxiety, unable himself to enjoy the excellent plain fare provided by old Mary while this lovely dumb creature beside him shuddered from the food on her plate, much as she had shuddered from the sight of the Pathan in the hall.She turned her eyes, unnaturally bright in their haggard setting, slowly upon him, as if aware that he had spoken, and yet unable to grasp his meaning."You do not eat," he repeated, with more explicitness. On the other side of him Lady Aspasia, wheeling round from her absorbing conversation with Sir Arthur, caught the words. She looked curiously at Lady Gerardine."We have taken away her appetite," she cried, in her literal French. "Too bad—and such a good dinner, too! I am ravenous still, in spite of the scones." And she fell with zest upon the chop before her.Jealousy might beset her, and angry suspicion of the woman who had supplanted her, but the business of the moment for Lady Aspasia was dinner."Capital wine," said Sir Arthur. "I had no idea, my dear Rosamond, that you could give us anything like this." He peered round the chrysanthemums at her, and received again the agreeable shock of her beauty in its new garb of colour. "I shall have to visit the cellar to-morrow. It's quite old wine, 'pon my soul. Châtelard," and he burst into his ultra-Parisian French, "you maintain a pretty fashion in your country, which we have given up in ours. Let us clink glasses."There was a flutter of napkins, an exchange of salutations. M. Châtelard rose, bowed his close-cropped grey head, and reached over his brimming glass. When it had touched Sir Arthur's, he turned and held it out, for the same ceremony, towards Lady Gerardine. Again she merely lifted her eyes towards him. He sank back on his chair and drank hastily."Saperlotte—she looks at one like a suffering dog.... And that fellow opposite, with his face of marble! He drinks, that one, if he eats as little as she. And Sir Gerardine, the poor husband, so touching in his joy of family affection—and the little Miss, so innocent and gay—and the storm gathering—gathering! I could almost wish myself out of this, after all. The interest is undeniable, but the situation lacks comfort!""Look," said Aspasia, suddenly, in a low tone to Major Bethune, and laying her hand on his sleeve; "look, now that the door is open! Muhammed has been in the hall all the time of dinner. He's listening to us and watching.""Muhammed?" echoed Major Bethune, starting slightly. His thoughts had been fixed so intently upon a painful and tangled speculation that he had some difficulty in bringing them back to Aspasia and her fears."Yes," urged the girl, "Muhammed. Don't you see? There he is." She dropped her voice still lower. "I do think he's got his eye on Runkle. Oh, dear, I don't believe I ever knew what it was to be frightened before I came to this dreadful Old Ancient House!"Bethune glanced at her paling cheek, and then out through the half-open door into the hall, where the figure of the Pathan might indeed be perceived leaning against the staircase post in his former attitude of composed watchfulness."Don't be frightened," said the officer of Guides, smiling, "the Eastern are as curious as children, for all their grand impassive airs; and this very fine westernised specimen has come to stare at us, and despise us in the depths of his soul, which is as savage, no doubt, as that of his brethren, in spite of his veneer. Besides, Miss Aspasia, he's not looking at Sir Arthur; he's looking at Lady Gerardine.""He knows she hates him, perhaps," said Baby, with a fresh chill of apprehension. "Oh, Major Bethune, you may laugh, but I don't believe the creature's safe; and I, who thought him quite human when he helped me with the wine to-night. Fancy, I was down in the dark cellars with him!""Capital pheasants," said Sir Arthur; "capital.""Lord!" cried Lady Aspasia's shrill voice; "I wish mychefwould only learn to make bread sauce like this.""I hope there's another bottle up of that excellent wine," resumed the great man, genially."Excellent wine in very truth," echoed M. Châtelard.Rosamond's soul sickened within her. How they ate and drank! How nauseating was the clatter of knives and forks, the clink of glasses, the fumes of wine and roast! Away, away, in the old grey fort, at the end of endless winding valleys under the snows, one was a-hungered and a-thirst."We shall have to draw in our belts," he was saying, making mock, as strong men will, of his physical pain. "Only four dozen boxes of pea-meal and twenty bags of rice left." ..."When men are slowly starved they can bear the hunger ... but thirst is an active devil."Oh, God, the smell of the wine—his wine—to see them drink it, laughing, while his dear lips in vain were calling out for water!* * * * *She felt his anguish burn in her own throat, desiccate her own mouth. Some one was speaking to her; her dry tongue clicked and could form no sound. She groped for the glass of water and lifted it to her lips, but laid it down untouched in a spasm of horror. How could she drink when he was parched?"Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me?" She put her hand to her throat; the room went round with her."You are suffering," said Bethune, leaning over to her.His nature was all unused to introspection. By character and breeding he was given to hold in scorn all troubles that were not concrete, all conflicts conducted in those nebulous regions known as the heart or the soul. His life had been mapped out on positive lines, where right and wrong were as white and black. But, since his first meeting with Lady Gerardine, his simple ethics no longer sufficed. Not only did others discover to him desires, motives, heights and depths undreamed of in his philosophy, but he had become aware of some such forces in his own being. Like a man who first suspects within himself the germs of mortal illness, he had tried to prove their non-existence by denial. But the pain-life is too strong for human will, and the time comes when the only fight the will can make against it is that of silent endurance.As Bethune sat by his hostess to-night, he was feeling, inarticulately, according to his nature, but acutely, not only the pain of her own situation as he dimly guessed it, but the actual physical pain of her suffering, her sick recoil from meat and bread, almost the spasm in her beautiful throat that would not let her swallow one drop of the water her fevered lips yearned for.He spoke at last. Her dumb anguish was more than he could bear.She inclined her head towards him. Vague at first, he saw understanding of his speech, consciousness of his presence gather into her glance; and then, something else—something, the name of which he could not formulate, even in his own mind, but which turned him cold. Suddenly she spoke, in so low a voice that the words, like some distilled poison, seemed, drop by drop, to fall straight from her lips into his heart only:"You sit at his table, you drink his wine—you—you who took the sacrifice of his life for your own—you, who should have died, that dawn, that he might live!"What things are these, our conventions of civilisation! There sat Bethune, in his high white collar, his stiff shirt-front, his trim black coat, listening to Lady Gerardine's mad words, one hand still on his fork, with that air of courteous attention which a man should pay to his hostess' conversation, be it on the subject of the weather or the last political conundrum.Even had M. Châtelard adjusted his spectacles for a piercing look at the hero of his drama at that particular moment, he would have read nothing on the lean saturnine countenance. Yet had it not been for the conventions of society, how would not Raymond Bethune have answered Rosamond Gerardine? With what madness leaping to hers; with what passion, down on his knees! ... "Scorn me, for I deserve your scorn. I cast myself and my worthless life before you. Crush me into the dust if you will, only let me feel as I die the print of your foot upon me. Oh, you—most beautiful!""I think," said M. Châtelard, rising abruptly, "that Lady Gerardine is ill."She was leaning back, deathly white, save for two hectic spots on each cheekbone which heightened the ghastliness of her look.Poor Sir Arthur! It was too bad! Just as he was beginning to feel so comfortable, in spite of the pokey little place, so connubially satisfied."Tut, tut!" he cried, as he fussily made his way round the table. "I had hoped we had left all this in India."Baby warded off his approach with a pointed elbow."Keep away, for goodness' sake, Runkle," she cried sharply. "She's faint; she wants air, that's all. Come with me, darling."But, with unexpected strength, Lady Gerardine rose abruptly from her chair and pushed the faithful child on one side."I am not faint," she said. "I am not faint; I am sick. Oh ... to see you all eat and drink!" She swept the circle with her eyes; her last glance resting upon Bethune. Then, with a beating heart, he knew what it was, this new nameless thing he had never seen before in her soft eyes—it was hatred.Her light draperies, weighted with their embroideries, swung against the chairs and the panelling of the narrow room as she hurried out from among them, head erect—scorn, abhorrence, in the very wind of her swift passage.With a sudden dilation of the eye, Muhammed Saif-u-din watched her come. He checked a forward movement towards her, and drew himself up sharply. But as she passed him he bent his supple frame and bowed deep—deep. Suddenly aware of him, she started fiercely from the proximity."Out of my sight," she exclaimed, with a hoarse, deep cry, "son of treachery; his blood is still upon your hands!"The tread of her foot, curiously heavy, resounded, measured, all up the oaken stairs.Muhammed shot one eager glance after the retreating figure, then turned abruptly and plunged into the side passage.In the dining-room a dead little silence had fallen. Even Aspasia dared not follow her aunt. Consternation sat upon every countenance; the eye of each guest was instinctively dropped, as if dreading to betray a thought. Dr. Châtelard drew his brow together with professional gravity."Insane—the poor, beautiful lady?" he asked himself. "Here is a solution,par exemple, that even I could not have foretold!""I'm afraid Lady Gerardine has found our surprise party a little overwhelming," cried Lady Aspasia at last, with her harsh laugh.Young Aspasia began to sidle towards the door. Sir Arthur, rousing himself from his painful astonishment, arrested her in the act."No, my dear Aspasia," said he, not without dignity; "you remain here and entertain our guests. I will see to your aunt. You are right, Lady Aspasia, it was inconsiderate of me to take my wife by surprise in this way. The poor girl is quite overwrought. Never fear, my dear," he went on, again addressing his niece, in answer to her last feeble objection, "I shall find my way, the house is not so large. Une neurasthénie, mon cher Châtelard, compliquée d'hyperésthésie," he added, with his seraphic smile. "I do not know if your experience has brought any such cases under your notice, but, of course, you know they require careful handling."Sir Arthur might have been a fool, and a pompous one, but long traditions leave their stamp, even on unworthy material. You may be a bad specimen of porcelain, but porcelain will remain refined clay. Grand seigneur in breeding, if in nothing more, he carried off the situation with due regard to his guests and due regard to English reserve, as well as a better man. Nevertheless, no situation could be imagined more galling, perhaps, to his particular temperament. His hand on the door knob, he made them a courtly little bow, and left the room."Overwrought!" commented Lady Aspasia, dilating her nostrils, with an expression that made her long-featured face look more equine than ever. "Some people would call it 'high strikes'; and, if you ask me, I think the 'high strikes' in this case are sheer temper."Baby sat down, looking sick and faint herself."The fat's in the fire, now," said she, in a desperate whisper to Bethune.The man made no response, but taking a nut from the dish before him, seemed exclusively interested in the task of cracking it between his fingers."Neurasthenia is, I fear, sadly on the increase," said M. Châtelard, in a non-committal manner to Lady Aspasia.The latter laughed again."Neurasnonsense and hyperfiddlesticks! Poor Arty—with his careful handling! Careful handling. I should carefully handle the water-jug."She flung an irate and contemptuous look at Bethune, who was absorbed in his nut-cracking. What sordid hole-and-corner business had this two-penny-halfpenny Indian officer been concocting with the Lieutenant-Governor's wife to account for these tantrums?"So ill-bred," said the lady of birth to herself. "When people make these slips, at least they should have the decency not to parade them!"CHAPTER XVIIISir Arthur had, as he foretold, little difficulty in finding his wife's room; indeed, her door had been left open, and she stood directly in his line of vision as he came upstairs. A lighted candle aloft in her hand, she seemed to be examining a picture that hung on the panel immediately above her dressing-table.He came in quickly, with his short consequential step, and closed the door behind him. At the sound of the clicking lock she wheeled round, still holding the candle above her head. The light played upon the outstanding aureole of her hair, caught on one side the scarlet oval of her cheek, the gleam of her teeth between lips, open as upon amazement. Her rapid breathing shook her as she stood; and the darkling brilliancy of her jet-flecked robe ran all about, and up and down the long lines of her limbs, as if she had been clothed in black fires."You said you were sick," he exclaimed tartly, "and I find you looking at a picture."She made no reply, but stood, still holding up her light, shimmering and quivering, a thing of such extraordinary vividness and beauty, out of the half-darkness of the room, that in admiration he felt his righteous wrath once more slip from him."Really, my dear Rosamond," he went on, in mollified tones, "you should try and have a little more self-control. I cannot imagine what Lady Aspasia must think of you. I declare any one might have thought—I don't know what they might not have thought," concluded Sir Arthur, somewhat lamely.Rosamond put down the candlestick on the table beside her, then stood clasping her hands tightly together, her head bent in the attitude of a chidden child. She was making a strong effort after her vanishing sanity. It was, perhaps, the old instinctive dread of violent emotion, or the realisation that here was the crisis at last, hitherto so deliberately thrust from her thoughts, that braced her to meet the moment. It may have been, after all, the fact that it was Sir Arthur the taskmaster, not Sir Arthur the fond husband, that stood before her. However it might be, something of the sweet reasonableness that had made her so acceptable a consort to the Lieutenant-Governor all these years did, in truth, seem to come back to her. She answered, very gently:"Indeed, I owe you all an apology. You will explain it to the others, will you not? I am really ill."Ill; tut, tut! What was she feeling? Was she sick; had she a pain; had she a cough? He lit another candle to look at her. Had she taken her temperature. Where was the thermometer?With an unutterable failing of the heart, the atmosphere of her whole life as Lady Gerardine seemed suddenly to close round her once more; the intolerable solicitude, the tyrannic fondness, the perpetual, ineluctable watchfulness, how had she endured it? But she must be calm. What was it Baby had said? "Anything would be better than a scandal." These holy walls, this consecrate house—oh, no, they should never echo the wranglings of her most unholy union!Sir Arthur was turning over the trinkets on her dressing-table. Where was the thermometer?She did not know.Not know where the thermometer was!"I don't think I've got one," said Lady Gerardine, faintly. "But it's not fever; it's not that! Indeed, I only want rest——"He turned, in real indignation and surprise."Not got one?""Perhaps if you were to ask Aspasia——" The suggestion was coupled with a wild look at the door.Sir Arthur laughed, not very pleasantly. One would almost have thought she wanted to get rid of him. Women were certainly incomprehensible creatures."You have not mislaid your pulse, I take it."She retreated from his touch till she could retreat no further; then, brought up by the wall, slid both her hands behind her."I'm not ill in that way. You know I always did hate being fussed about. Aspasia told you I had a headache. It is true, I have a headache. I only want to be alone; I only want to sleep."Sir Arthur stood surveying her. Poor gentleman; his mind was generally in a compact and neatly labelled condition, quite ready with an adequate theory for each event of life. But to-night it was as if some one had been making hay in the tidy compartments. His ideas were positively jumbled. Scarcely did he seem to have a proper hold of one when the next would send him off at a tangent. He had come upstairs to make his wife feel how grievously she had offended his idea of decorum, and had immediately lost himself in admiration of her appearance. And now, once more, in the very midst of his real anxiety about her health, he found himself abjectly remarking what an extraordinarily beautiful woman she was."I'm not so sure," he said suddenly, half fondly, half irritably, "that those red cheeks are a very good sign."He put out a finger and stroked the velvet outline. She closed her eyes and set her teeth, nerving herself against the agony of the caress."I left a white rose," he went on, with elaborate gallantry; "I find a red one. My dear, your cheeks are certainly very hot."That voice from the past, to which Rosamond's ears had been so acutely attuned these days, suddenly took up the words: "My white rose, my red, red rose!" As the sailor feels the raft break beneath him, she felt the last shreds of her self-control giving way under the stress of seas of passion and terror. She looked round desperately; almost, she thought, that man—that intruder—must have heard the dear voice also. Oh, sacrilege to have him standing there!"Will you not leave me?" she cried, with a burst of pleading. "I must rest. You were always kind to me—will you not leave me now? Indeed, I am in pain.""My darling!" he exclaimed, in genuine concern.That flush was unnatural, it was evident. She had wasted away, too. He could see that. She who used to have such a noble, full throat; and her breathing came all too quick."Come, my darling," he went on, "let me see you to bed myself. No one, you know, can look after you as I do. I should not have trusted you away from me all this time. Come, come, we must let this hair down to ease the poor head—your golden hair, Rosamond. It is not the first time I have unbound it—eh, my love?""Your golden hair, Rosamond..." whispered the voice in her heart. What sort of a woman was she that another should dare use these sacred words of love to her? She fixed her piteous eyes upon Sir Arthur, as if, by the sheer intensity of dread, she could keep him from her. But he stretched out his arms.She shrank, flattening herself against the wall, one arm raised across her brow as though to protect her hair."One would almost think you were shy—afraid of me," said he, jocularly, while his embrace hovered over her."Once there was fear of me in your eyes...""Don't touch me!" she shrieked. "Oh, your horrible hands!"There fell instantly between them the silence of the irremediable deed.Rosamond had at last torn across the interwoven fabric of their two lives; the ugly rending sound of the parting hung in the air. These gaping edges no seam could ever join again. To the woman came a fierce realisation of freedom, a sweeping anger at the petty shackles that had held her so long.Sir Arthur stepped back, his arms falling by his side. He, poor man, felt as if the good old world, of which he was such an ornament, had ceased to be solid beneath his feet."Rosamond!""What are you doing here?" she cried, in a panting whisper. "What do you want with me? How dare you come into this room?""Rosamond!""Go!" she bade him, pointing to the door. "In the name of God, leave me. Merciful Heavens ... to follow me here! Have you not a spark of human feeling left in you? Is it not bad enough, is it not terrible, hideous, that you should be in this house at all?" She caught him by the arm, pushing him like a frenzied creature. "Go!""Are you mad?" he furiously exclaimed.Upon the very words he stopped abruptly and stared at her. A horrible suspicion of their truth flashed upon him. Could it be possible, could fate dare to play so horrible a trick on him? Was the wife of Sir Arthur Gerardine actually going out of her mind? He felt his hair rise. A dampness gathered cold on his forehead.She stood, with outflung arm, motionless, save for her rapid breathing."If you're really ill," he faltered now, seeking for his handkerchief and mopping his face with flurried hand. The tail of his apprehensive eye upon her, he was, in his mind, rapidly concocting that telegram to the family physician in London which should be despatched at the earliest possible moment, and bring him—and also a mental specialist—to the manor-house by the first possible train. "Most urgent, serious anxiety." The Lieutenant-Governor muttered the words to himself. He belonged to that type of fond family man who, at the first hint of a possibly insane member in the home circle, has no other idea than the immediate shutting up and putting away of the dangerous dear one.Dimly, through the storm and stress in which her soul was struggling, there came to Rosamond some perception of the pathetic figure presented by Sir Arthur in his sudden trouble. The well-worn cloak of self-complacency was rudely torn from him. His was the flurry of the man on the wrong side of life who has neither the elasticity of youth nor the true dignity of age to help him meet an unexpected blow. Her hand dropped by her side. He had been kind to her, after his own fashion; generous, too, and trusting. She sank back against the bed with a moan."I am to blame, all through, from the beginning," she said hopelessly. "I have sinned against myself, against you, against him," she faltered; and laid her left hand on the old carven bedpost to steady herself. Her head dropped sideways against her shoulder. "If I could set you free," she murmured.Sir Arthur turned sharply upon her, one suspicion chased by another. This was coherent enough. There was meaning in this—too much! A purple flush mounted to his face; the veins in his forehead swelled."I was content to go on," pursued the woman, in the same vague tones of plaint. "Remember, it was you who insisted. Before you curse me, always remember that. I wanted to dream my life away—why, else, should I ever have listened to you? But you would not let me dream. You thrust my fate upon me—you and that man. What chance had I of escape between you both? you and that man!"From purple, Sir Arthur's face grew ashen grey. That smiling, genial, handsome face became a positive mask—lips drawn back from the teeth, pupils narrowed to vindictive pin-points of fury. He drew near to her in silence, his head thrust forward, his twitching hands clutching the lapels of his coat on either side.You and that man—that man, Bethune!Through the buzzing in his ears there came once again the echo of Lady Aspasia's laugh, her meaning words: "So you were the excuse." And again the gibe: "Aspasia is tired of playing chaperon!"Mad? Would God it had been madness! This was a confession. His wife, Lady Gerardine, the consort of the Lieutenant-Governor, had had a low intrigue with an obscure Indian officer, a fellow of no standing, of no importance—Bethune! As Sir Arthur drew near her, silent through the very inadequacy of language, his eye fell upon the pale hand clasping the bedpost. There, upon the third finger, flashed the tiny gems of an unknown ring—a miserable, paltry thing. (Sir Arthur was a creature of detail, even at such a moment.) It was the last straw. He gripped her by the wrist, brutally."Whose ring is that?" he sputtered.The physical pain of his clutch did her good—roused her, with a sense of relief, to face his onslaught. She was glad that he should be angry, that his countenance should be distorted and ugly. In such a mood as this she could meet him and feel strong. It was the broken-down, trembling, aged Sir Arthur she could not meet."Whose ring?" he repeated, and shook her as he held her.She straightened herself, and with her free hand swept a gesture of pride towards the portrait on the wall. Far away was she, in the depth of her grand passion, from the sordid speculations of his mind."What!" he shouted, dropped her hand, and ran to the dressing-table, flinging a candle on high to stare. "Why—why!" he stammered, putting down the light. "Pooh, what nonsense is this? You can't put me off like this now. That—why, that's poor English!""And I," she cried, walking up to him, "I am Mrs. English. Oh, that was the mistake! You thought I was Lady Gerardine. I never was. You took a dream woman and thought she was your wife. I never was your wife. I am his—his only. Now you understand, do you not?"Poor Sir Arthur! In proportion as her exaltation mounted, his heat of anger fell away. His bewilderment grew, and his perturbation. For a moment or two he tried to cling to his conviction of her guilt. We are always anxious to vindicate ourselves when we are moved to great wrath; and the more unjust we have been the more loth are we to give up our suspicions. But with these eyes of flame upon him, with these accents of passion in his ears, even he could not maintain his damning judgment. The first hypothesis, that of insanity, came back to him in full force. Then arose a mitigated suggestion. A man of desultory reading, he had a smattering of many subjects. He had heard of that form of mental trouble called auto-suggestion—idée fixe. He looked round the room.By George, there was another portrait of poor English! And, as he lived, a photograph of him on the chimney-piece. He had passed one on the stairs. And now he remembered the daub in the hall. He drew a long breath. This little damp hole of a place, with the fellow's head staring down at one from every corner—yes, that was it—it had been too much for her in her nervous state of health. The next words she spoke brought confirmation:"Do not think I blame you! I know—I know. It is my own cowardice, my own baseness of soul that has brought it all upon me. And now it is too late. His papers, his letters, too late they came to me. I am lost—lost!"She put her hands to her forehead, and reeled. He caught her in his arms.Those dashed papers! How obstinate she had been about them! He had known it would be too much for her; he had even been ready to take the burden upon himself."There, there, Rosamond!" She faintly struggled against his supporting embrace, every inch of her flesh shuddering from his touch. Oh, that voice from the past: "There are things a man cannot contemplate in his living body; things the flesh rebels against. The dead will be quiet." The dead ... but he was not dead. Perhaps now he was looking on them! The horror of the thought paralysed her, as the snake paralyses the bird. Yet, if she had had a knife in her hand she might, in that madness of nausea, have struck it into the breast against which she was clasped."Sir James was certainly right," thought Sir Arthur, tightening his grip upon her waist with one hand, while he patted her shrinking shoulder with the other. "What Rosamond wants, poor girl, is soothing."She wrenched herself free suddenly, with unexpected strength. Sir Arthur staggered. Then she turned upon him a countenance of such livid vindictive menace and at the same time such torture that, speechless, he recoiled before her.At the door he muttered something about sending up Aspasia; but it was closed upon him and locked before the words were formulated. He listened awhile. From within came, at first, a faint swish as of her moving draperies, and then a heavy silence."She looked at me," said the unhappy husband to himself; "she looked at me as if she could murder me!"He shook his head, and began once more to concoct his telegram as he slowly walked downstairs.
* * * * *
Rosamond sank slowly back in her chair; her hand fell inertly before her.
When the girl returned after an hour's exceeding activity the elder woman's attitude had not altered by a fraction. But the exigency of time and social requirements left Aspasia no leisure now to linger over doubts and fears. Her own cheeks were pink from rapid ablutions; her crisp hair stood out more vigorously than ever after determined manipulation. She pealed a bell for Jani, and fell herself upon the golden mass covering Lady Gerardine's shoulders, her chattering tongue in full swing:
"Of course, the poor wretches are in their motor garments. (You never saw anything like Runkle in a pony skin and goggles. He's more motist than the chauffeur.) So I've only just stuck on a blouse, you see. But I've determined you shall be beautiful in a tea-gown. Lord, I'd no idea Lady Aspasia was so tremendous! I want you simply to be beautiful!"
Deft hands twisted and coiled.
"It was Runkle, you know, who broke the motor: he insisted on driving and jammed them sideways in a gate. He's awfully pleased with himself. It's Lady Aspasia's motor. She calls Runkle, Arty: what do you think of that? Ah, here's Jani. Which shall it be—the white and gold? I love the white and gold, Aunt Rosamond."
"Black—black," said Rosamond.
CHAPTER XVI
Sir Arthur came down the shallow oaken stairs, after his necessarily exiguous toilet, a prey to distinct dudgeon. He had been whirled away upon this expedition by the impetuosity of Lady Aspasia, somewhat against his will in the first place. That he, Sir Arthur Gerardine, should have to come in quest of his wife, instead of the latter obediently hieing her at his summons, was a breach of the world's decorum as he understood it personally. That his wife should have a headache and have partaken of phenacetin coincidently upon his arrival; that she should evidently (and by a thousand tokens the unwelcome fact was forced upon him) be still in her uncomfortable hyperæsthetic neurasthenic state of health was a want of consideration for his feelings of which no dutiful spouse should have been guilty; and, moreover, this condition of things was woefully destructive of all comfort in the connubial state. He positively dared not insist upon seeing her at once. Absurd as the situation was, he must await her pleasure; for, with Lady Aspasia present, the danger of fainting fits or hysterics could not be risked. Not that he wanted to blame Rosamond unduly, poor thing; but it really was not what he had a right to expect.
These natural feelings of displeasure were heightened by the trifling deprivations caused by his stranded condition. He could not feel his usual superb and superior self coming down to dinner in a serge suit, his feet in heavy outdoor shoes. Then, the poor surroundings, the very feeling of the noisy oak boards instead of a pile carpet under these same objectionable soles, offended him at every step. He was ashamed that Lady Aspasia should find such a "pokey" place. It was by no means a fit habitation for the wife of Sir Arthur Gerardine.
He had hurried down before the others, impelled by his restless spirit. The hall was empty. He took a bustling survey. How faded was the strip of Turkey carpet! God bless his soul, how worm-eaten were those square oak chests, presses, and cupboards, and how clumsy—only fit for a cottage! And that portrait, just under the lamp—poor English, he supposed? A regular daub, anyhow; why, he could see the brush marks! He wondered Rosamond could have it up.
He opened a door on the right and peeped in. All was dark within. He was assailed by an odour of tobacco smoke, and sniffed with increasing discontent. This visit of Bethune's, now, which had prevented Rosamond from hurrying to his side, was there not something irregular, not to say ... well, fishy about the situation? It was odd, now he came to think of it, that Rosamond should never have mentioned the identity of her guest in any of her numerous telegrams, in spite of his repeated questions. He himself, in the midst of his important social, he might almost say political engagements (since a member of the Cabinet had been included in the recent house-party at Melbury Towers), had not had leisure to examine into it more closely hitherto. But now he flushed to the roots of the silvering hair, that still curled luxuriantly round his handsome head, as he recalled Lady Aspasia Melbury's loud laugh and meaning cry when Baby had performed the necessary introduction upon their recent arrival: "So you're the excuse!" ... A mere Major of Guides! A fellow he had never really liked, after all!
Sir Arthur turned on his heel. In thought, he was already rapidly ascending the stairs, on a voyage of discovery to Rosamond's room. Nerves or no nerves, there are matters that require immediate attention. It was intolerable to think that Lady Gerardine, that his wife, should be guilty of the unpardonable lapse of placing herself—however unwittingly, of course—into a false position. It never even dawned upon him—to do him justice—to suspect her of any deeper offence.
As he paused, inflating his chest on the breath of his wrath, some one, with a quick, clean tread, came running along an outer passage, and flung open the swing door that led into the hall—flung it back with the shove of a broad shoulder.
Sir Arthur turned again, and had a moment of amazement before his fluttered wits remembered the existence of his own particular secretary.
Muhammed Saif-u-din stood filling up the doorway. His red turban nearly touching the lintel, a crusty bottle in either hand, he was staring at Sir Arthur, to the full as intently as Sir Arthur stared at him.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" then cried, testily, the mighty historian of the Northern Provinces. "What the devil is the man doing with the wine," thought he, flaming inwardly, "when he ought to be busy on—on my book?" In his mind's eye Sir Arthur never beheld Muhammed but toiling with pen and ink upon the great work. "Well," he went on aloud, "I hope you've got a lot to show me!"
"Excuse, your Excellency," said Muhammed. He drew himself together with a little effort, stepped across to the open dining-room door, and laid down his burden. Sir Arthur followed him, hot on the scent of the new grievance. Upon his word, everybody was off his head! Mohammed's manner, his secretary's manner, was downright cool—cool!
"I don't think I engaged you for this sort of business, Muhammed," said he.
Muhammed, with the point of a corkscrew just applied to the first bottle, paused and looked reflectively at the speaker. Then the points of his upturned moustaches quivered. He laid down bottle and corkscrew and made a profound salaam.
"Excuse, Excellency," he said again. His fine bronzed countenance was subtly afire with some spirit of mocking irony. "There was a fear that your Excellency should be ill served in this poor house!"
Well, well, this was laudable, of course! Yes, even the babu felt that here was no fit entertainment for a Lieutenant-Governor. But nevertheless, intangibly, Sir Arthur found something disquieting in that smile, in the dark eye that fixed him. Vaguely a sense as of something mysterious and relentless came upon him. "You never know where to have them," he thought to himself.
In the pomp of his own palace, surrounded by scores of servitors of his own magnificence, he had not given a thought, hitherto, to the possibility of treachery from the Indian subject. There he felt himself too great a man to be touched; but here, in this desolate house on the downs! ... A small cold trickle ran down his spine. It was queer that the creature should have been so eager to come to England! ... But the next instant the natural man asserted himself. Sir Arthur would certainly have been no coward even in actual danger; he was far too sure of himself to entertain idle fears.
"I shall see you to-morrow," he said imperiously, and left the room.
A whirlwind of silks upon the stairs heralded Aspasia. She caught her uncle by the arm and dragged him into the drawing-room.
"Pray, pray, my dear Aspasia; you are really too impetuous!" cried he, disengaging himself testily. The familiarity which in India had added a piquancy to his sense of importance was here a want of tact. "The country has not improved your manners, my dear," he went on, taking up his place on the hearthrug and sweeping the room with contemptuous gaze. "It's high time to get you out of this."
Miss Aspasia's ready lips had already parted upon a smart retort when the sound of Lady Aspasia's voice, uplifted from without, prevented the imminent skirmish. Her ladyship was evidently addressing Dr. Châtelard, for those strident tones were conveying, in highly British accents, words of what she supposed to be French:
"Drôle petit trou, pensez-vous pas?"
"Ah, but extremely interesting," responded theglobe trotteur, in his precise English. He always obstinately answered in English Lady Aspasia's less perfect but equally obstinate French.
The two entered together, she towering over him, as might a frigate over a sloop.
Lady Aspasia Melbury was a handsome woman of the "horsey" type. A favourite, even in royal circles, her praise ran in men's mouths expressively as "a real good sort." A woman kind to others, with the ease afforded her by splendid health, unlimited means, and an assured position. Modern to the very last minute, frank beyond the point of offence, she might be cited as one of those rare beings to whom life is almost an absolute success; the more safely, perhaps, because most of her ideals (if ideals they could be called) were of the most practical description. Yet life had failed Lady Aspasia upon one point—she had had one unsatisfied desire; her youth had held a brief romance, interrupted by amariage de raison; and when her millionaire had left her free, she had looked, with the confidence of her nature, to the instant renewal of the broken idyll. But here it was that fate had played its single scurvy trick upon the woman.
Arthur Gerardine, the once handsome, penniless lad, the now still handsome, distinguished man, who had remained bachelor all these years (she had fondly hoped for her sake), had married—a year after her own widowhood—married, not the ready Lady Aspasia, but a poor unknown widow out in India. Lady Aspasia's solitary unrealised ideal, then, was Sir Arthur Gerardine. In what strange nests will not some ideals perch! And unattainable it seemed likely to remain.
As she now stood, her large, bold eyes roaming quizzically round the faded room—which seemed to hold her ultra-modern presence with amazement, to echo her loud laugh with a kind of protest, like a simple dame of olden times raising mittened hands of rebuke—no one would have guessed that she was inwardly eaten with impatience to behold her rival, to know at last the creature who had supplanted her.
"It is, indeed, a poor little place," said Sir Arthur, bustling forward to advance a chair. "I had no idea it was such a tumble-down old house. We must get rid of it as soon as possible."
"Ah, but pardon!" interposed Dr. Châtelard. "It is old if you will, Sir Gerardine, but thereby it is rich. Nowhere else have I so felt the unpurchasable riches of past time. I am charmed to have come here. After your gorgeous Melbury, the piquancy of this antique abode of gentility is to me delicious!"
"Ah, well," said Sir Arthur, magnificently, "I don't say it has not got a sort of picturesqueness and all that, but it's not what we are accustomed to in England, you know. Comfort, Châtelard, the land of comfort, we say. You don't know what it is in your country. But in the good old days—people did not understand it either, here, you see. Look at that chair, now. As hard as nails, eh, Lady Aspasia? I dare say a collector or somebody might like it. What do you say—Chippendale, eh? Elizabethan? Well, it's all the same thing. It's not my sort, anyhow. I shall sell it all, bag and baggage."
"Sell the Old Ancient House!" interrupted the younger Aspasia, hotly. The aggravation her uncle had ever the talent of awakening in her was now in full force. "I think you'll find there will have to be two words to that, dear Runkle. Aunt Rosamond's devoted to it."
Sir Arthur inflated his chest.
"My dear Raspasia!" ...
There was concentrated acrimony in his accents. The elder lady scented storm, and storm was not the atmosphere she liked.
"I declare, Arty," she said, "you made me jump. I thought those stern tones were directed to me. There are two Aspasias here—Docteur Châtelard—elle est ma—namesake—appellée après moi, ou comment vous dites! Come here, namesake, and let's have a look at you."
Aspasia fell on her knees beside the imposing tailor-made figure, and raised her pretty, pert face—pinker than usual, with a variety of emotions—for inspection. M. Châtelard put up his eyeglass to look down benevolently upon her. The English Miss had yet scarcely come under his microscope; but he quite saw that she would be a fascinating study. He now thought the contrast between the two Aspasias somewhat cruel. "Fraîche comme une rose, la petite. Ronde comme une caille, mutine comine la fauvette—Mais l'autre—oh lala, quelle carcasse!"
The fine lines of Lady Aspasia's anatomy—not inharmonious, but over-prominent, it must be owned, from the hardening effects of a too great devotion to sport—appealed not at all to the temperament of the French critic.
"I don't know whatyouthink of your godparents," Miss Aspasia was remarking, with the gusto of a well-established grievance, "but I know what I think ought to be done to mine for giving me such an i-di-o-tic name."
She rolled her eyes meaningly towards Sir Arthur. Lady Aspasia pinched the tilted chin not unkindly, while her loud laugh rang out.
"And you won't ever be able to change it, either, that's the worst of it," she cried. "Thank your stars, anyhow, it can't brand you all your life, as it does me, like an ugly handle to a fine jug—aha! By the way, Arty, you'll have to do something to help this poor child to change the Cuningham, anyhow. She won't do it down here."
"I don't want to change that at all," cried Baby. Her quick ear had caught the sound of Bethune's tread on the threshold. She jerked her chin from Lady Aspasia's fingers and jumped to her feet. "I've never seen any one whose name I thought better worth having than Cuningham yet."
In her young pride she unconsciously flung an angry glance upon the newcomer for appearing at just the wrong moment—a glance which Lady Aspasia caught, and from which she immediately drew conclusions.
These conclusions tallied to a nicety with some others that Lady Aspasia, not without a certain satisfaction, had been forming of late regarding the Gerardineménage.
Lady Gerardine had shown an unmistakable disinclination to join her husband after a long absence; she had suddenly ceased corresponding with him except by telegram; and in these telegrams the name of the visitor whose presence was offered as excuse had been unaccountably omitted.
"Poor child," cried the woman of fashion, with her crow of laughter and the brutal outspokenness of her circle; "she's about tired of playing chaperon here! Never mind, my dear, your time will come by-and-by. 'Nous avons changé tout cela,' as M. Châtelard would say; and a jolly good thing, too. We are only proper in our teens, and after that we can have a high old time till we are eighty. C'est ce que nous appellons un score, M. Châtelard."
"I think, Lady Melbury," said M. Châtelard, suavely, "that I should prefer to watch the high young time."
But, as he spoke, his eye was on Sir Arthur; and from thence it went with eager curiosity to Bethune. He was rubbing mental hands of glee. What stroke of superlative fortune had landed him in the very middle, in the great act, he felt sure, of that drama, the beginning of which he had noted with such interest in far-off India? The poor, good, trusting Sir Gerardine, who had ordered his wife to fall in with her lover's scheme, with such touching—such imbecile—confidence! Ah, but he was beginning to suspect; he had winced even now at the words of yonder impossible female. And that other? Why, it was clear that the Major had encompassed his design—but up to what point? That relentless, impenetrable mask was as hard to decipher as ever. It could not be said that he looked like the fortunate lover, but neither did he look like one who would spare or give way. "It is a nature of granite," thought the Frenchman, as he watched Bethune's deliberate movements about the room. "Successful or still plotting, the advent of the husband at this moment—what a situation! And yet, behold the lover; immovable, implacable. It will be tragic!"
"She's tired of acting chaperon." Sir Arthur let the words pass because they were spoken by Lady Aspasia. But they had pierced right through his armour of self-satisfaction and self-security. The new grievance became again unpleasantly active.
Rosamond had indubitably been incredibly, reprehensibly foolish. No one had a right so to neglect the ordinary conventions. He would have to speak to her very seriously, by-and-by.
"What can your aunt be about, my dear Aspasia?" cried he, impatiently. "I think I must really go up and bring her down, if you will just direct me to her room."
That he should have to ask to be directed to his wife's room; that, having been a couple of hours in the same house, they should not yet have met—it was preposterous, intolerable, it was most inconsiderate of Rosamond! It was an abuse of his chivalrous solicitude for her!
"Oh, I'll run up!" cried Baby, anxiously.
"Here is Lady Gerardine herself," said Major Bethune's calm voice. He stepped to the door and opened it.
CHAPTER XVII
Up went Lady Aspasia's eyeglasses. Often had she pictured to herself the woman who had "cut her out." She vowed she knew the type: "men are so silly!"—the Simla belle, ill-painted, ill-dyed, with the airs of importance of the Governor's wife badly grafted upon the second-rate manners of the Indian officer's widow.
As Rosamond came into the room, her long black draperies trailing, her radiant head held high, a geranium flush upon cheeks and lips, Lady Aspasia's glasses fell upon her knees with a click; then she lifted them quickly to stare afresh. She forgot to rise from her chair; she forgot even to criticise.
"I'm done for—I'm stumped!" cried the poor sporting lady, in her candid soul. "It's all u-p! Lord, what a fool I have been!"
Sir Arthur, filling his lungs with a breath of righteous reprehension, looked; and exhaled it in a puff of triumph. A beautiful creature. By George, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen! And she was his—his wife—Lady Gerardine. The old glorious self-satisfaction rushed back upon him. How well he had chosen, after all! A little neurasthenia might well be forgiven to one who so superlatively vindicated his taste. It was a glorious moment, this, of presenting the shining star of his selection to the poor old flame.
"Sac-à-papier! ... Quand une anglaise se mêle d'être belle, elle ne fait pas les choses à moitié."
Dr. Châtelard adjusted his spectacles. This was the woman whom the astute Bethune, under the purple Indian sky, had accused in his hearing of being cold. Cold? Just heavens—what a bloom, what a flower! Ah! the answer to that question he had been asking himself with devouring curiosity ever since his recognition of the manor-house guest, was here given him without a word. The poor—the poor Sir Gerardine! Here was what he, Châtelard, with his enormous experience, had securely predicted.Voici la conflagration!
Not a jewel did Rosamond wear; but her soft draperies were strung with long lines of jet, so that, with each movement, subdued fires seemed to flash about her. The fever colour in her cheeks, the fever light in her eyes, lent her usually pale and pensive beauty an unnatural brilliancy. All in the room were unwittingly struck into immobility, that their every energy might be given to so rare a sight.
Raymond Bethune flung but one look, then dropped his eyes.
"He is afraid to betray himself," thought the shrewd Châtelard (his own inquisitive eye was everywhere); for once he was right in the midst of his wild surmises.
Even Baby stared, open-mouthed.
Rosamond advanced, looked round with unseeing glances. "I am here. What is wanted of me?" she seemed to ask, vaguely.
"Painted!" cried Lady Aspasia to herself, her gaze fixed hungrily. "No"—for here Sir Arthur bent to kiss his wife, and the scarlet cheek turned to him was suddenly blanched—"No. What's the matter with the creature? She looks as if she were going to faint."
But Lady Aspasia was in no mood to follow the fertile train of thought suggested by Lady Gerardine's evident emotion under her husband's caress; her own emotions were for the moment unwontedly acute and painful. Sir Arthur's fond and proud look at his beautiful consort struck the old love with a stab. She was not even regretted!
"My dear," said Sir Arthur, one of his wife's cold hands in his, "here is Lady Aspasia, of whom you have heard so much."
Then Lady Aspasia remembered her manners, and rose to greet her hostess. As she did so, she caught the reflection both of herself and of Lady Gerardine side by side in the mirror over the chimney-piece. Both tall women, their heads were nearly on a level; but between the two faces what a chasm! How could the old love be regretted? She was not even regrettable.
The elder woman gave a harsh laugh.
"Awfully glad," she muttered, for once at a loss for words. "She's got it all," she was saying to herself. "Youth and beauty—and Arty. Poor Arty; she does not care a snap of her finger for him, and Heaven knows what's on her conscience!"
"You remember Dr. Châtelard, my love," proceeded Sir Arthur. M. Châtelard made his preliminary French bow, and respectfully took possession of Rosamond's icy fingers. While his lips were forming an elegant little speech of greeting, while he was assuring her ladyship of his acute sense of privilege at being under her roof, his swift thoughts were busy on fresh conclusions. He looked down at the pale hand, the death-like touch of which lay inert in his palm, and up at the hectic loveliness of the face.
"C'est qu'elle est malade—tres malade même!" he said to himself, with sudden gravity. "Ah, she is not one to whom sin is easy! The young man may remember he was warned." And, as he gave his arm to his hostess to lead her into the dining-room, he was perhaps the only member of the company to realise that Lady Gerardine had not so far uttered a single word. "This will end in tragedy," he told himself again; and the ring of Sir Arthur's laugh, the jovial content of his voice behind him, struck the Frenchman's ear, mere student of psychology as he was, with an actual sensation of pain.
As they crossed the hall they passed the figure of the Indian secretary standing motionless, with folded arms, at the further end. The man salaamed as they went by, and M. Châtelard felt Lady Gerardine shudder.
"Does the Eastern inspire you with repugnance?" queried he, as they entered the dining-room.
"With horror," she answered, in a deep, vibrating voice; "with hatred."
The note of her passion was so incongruous to the occasion that the traveller found nothing to reply.
Once seated at the table, however, he set himself, with tactful assiduity, to cover a situation which tended to become awkward, not to say impossible. Fortunately, too, both the Aspasias kept up an almost violent conversation, and between them Sir Arthur was allowed very little time for reflection or observation.
Baby had purposely placed a large erection of ferns and flowers in the centre of the table. Sir Arthur had to peer round if he wanted to catch his wife's eyes. The four candles, in their red shades, gave but faint illumination. The dark oak panelling absorbed the side lights. It was only to Bethune on the one hand, to M. Châtelard on the other, that Rosamond's persistent mutism, her abstraction, became obtrusive.
"You have, I fear, small appetite, madam," said the Frenchman at last, with kindly anxiety, unable himself to enjoy the excellent plain fare provided by old Mary while this lovely dumb creature beside him shuddered from the food on her plate, much as she had shuddered from the sight of the Pathan in the hall.
She turned her eyes, unnaturally bright in their haggard setting, slowly upon him, as if aware that he had spoken, and yet unable to grasp his meaning.
"You do not eat," he repeated, with more explicitness. On the other side of him Lady Aspasia, wheeling round from her absorbing conversation with Sir Arthur, caught the words. She looked curiously at Lady Gerardine.
"We have taken away her appetite," she cried, in her literal French. "Too bad—and such a good dinner, too! I am ravenous still, in spite of the scones." And she fell with zest upon the chop before her.
Jealousy might beset her, and angry suspicion of the woman who had supplanted her, but the business of the moment for Lady Aspasia was dinner.
"Capital wine," said Sir Arthur. "I had no idea, my dear Rosamond, that you could give us anything like this." He peered round the chrysanthemums at her, and received again the agreeable shock of her beauty in its new garb of colour. "I shall have to visit the cellar to-morrow. It's quite old wine, 'pon my soul. Châtelard," and he burst into his ultra-Parisian French, "you maintain a pretty fashion in your country, which we have given up in ours. Let us clink glasses."
There was a flutter of napkins, an exchange of salutations. M. Châtelard rose, bowed his close-cropped grey head, and reached over his brimming glass. When it had touched Sir Arthur's, he turned and held it out, for the same ceremony, towards Lady Gerardine. Again she merely lifted her eyes towards him. He sank back on his chair and drank hastily.
"Saperlotte—she looks at one like a suffering dog.... And that fellow opposite, with his face of marble! He drinks, that one, if he eats as little as she. And Sir Gerardine, the poor husband, so touching in his joy of family affection—and the little Miss, so innocent and gay—and the storm gathering—gathering! I could almost wish myself out of this, after all. The interest is undeniable, but the situation lacks comfort!"
"Look," said Aspasia, suddenly, in a low tone to Major Bethune, and laying her hand on his sleeve; "look, now that the door is open! Muhammed has been in the hall all the time of dinner. He's listening to us and watching."
"Muhammed?" echoed Major Bethune, starting slightly. His thoughts had been fixed so intently upon a painful and tangled speculation that he had some difficulty in bringing them back to Aspasia and her fears.
"Yes," urged the girl, "Muhammed. Don't you see? There he is." She dropped her voice still lower. "I do think he's got his eye on Runkle. Oh, dear, I don't believe I ever knew what it was to be frightened before I came to this dreadful Old Ancient House!"
Bethune glanced at her paling cheek, and then out through the half-open door into the hall, where the figure of the Pathan might indeed be perceived leaning against the staircase post in his former attitude of composed watchfulness.
"Don't be frightened," said the officer of Guides, smiling, "the Eastern are as curious as children, for all their grand impassive airs; and this very fine westernised specimen has come to stare at us, and despise us in the depths of his soul, which is as savage, no doubt, as that of his brethren, in spite of his veneer. Besides, Miss Aspasia, he's not looking at Sir Arthur; he's looking at Lady Gerardine."
"He knows she hates him, perhaps," said Baby, with a fresh chill of apprehension. "Oh, Major Bethune, you may laugh, but I don't believe the creature's safe; and I, who thought him quite human when he helped me with the wine to-night. Fancy, I was down in the dark cellars with him!"
"Capital pheasants," said Sir Arthur; "capital."
"Lord!" cried Lady Aspasia's shrill voice; "I wish mychefwould only learn to make bread sauce like this."
"I hope there's another bottle up of that excellent wine," resumed the great man, genially.
"Excellent wine in very truth," echoed M. Châtelard.
Rosamond's soul sickened within her. How they ate and drank! How nauseating was the clatter of knives and forks, the clink of glasses, the fumes of wine and roast! Away, away, in the old grey fort, at the end of endless winding valleys under the snows, one was a-hungered and a-thirst.
"We shall have to draw in our belts," he was saying, making mock, as strong men will, of his physical pain. "Only four dozen boxes of pea-meal and twenty bags of rice left." ...
"When men are slowly starved they can bear the hunger ... but thirst is an active devil."
Oh, God, the smell of the wine—his wine—to see them drink it, laughing, while his dear lips in vain were calling out for water!
* * * * *
She felt his anguish burn in her own throat, desiccate her own mouth. Some one was speaking to her; her dry tongue clicked and could form no sound. She groped for the glass of water and lifted it to her lips, but laid it down untouched in a spasm of horror. How could she drink when he was parched?
"Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me?" She put her hand to her throat; the room went round with her.
"You are suffering," said Bethune, leaning over to her.
His nature was all unused to introspection. By character and breeding he was given to hold in scorn all troubles that were not concrete, all conflicts conducted in those nebulous regions known as the heart or the soul. His life had been mapped out on positive lines, where right and wrong were as white and black. But, since his first meeting with Lady Gerardine, his simple ethics no longer sufficed. Not only did others discover to him desires, motives, heights and depths undreamed of in his philosophy, but he had become aware of some such forces in his own being. Like a man who first suspects within himself the germs of mortal illness, he had tried to prove their non-existence by denial. But the pain-life is too strong for human will, and the time comes when the only fight the will can make against it is that of silent endurance.
As Bethune sat by his hostess to-night, he was feeling, inarticulately, according to his nature, but acutely, not only the pain of her own situation as he dimly guessed it, but the actual physical pain of her suffering, her sick recoil from meat and bread, almost the spasm in her beautiful throat that would not let her swallow one drop of the water her fevered lips yearned for.
He spoke at last. Her dumb anguish was more than he could bear.
She inclined her head towards him. Vague at first, he saw understanding of his speech, consciousness of his presence gather into her glance; and then, something else—something, the name of which he could not formulate, even in his own mind, but which turned him cold. Suddenly she spoke, in so low a voice that the words, like some distilled poison, seemed, drop by drop, to fall straight from her lips into his heart only:
"You sit at his table, you drink his wine—you—you who took the sacrifice of his life for your own—you, who should have died, that dawn, that he might live!"
What things are these, our conventions of civilisation! There sat Bethune, in his high white collar, his stiff shirt-front, his trim black coat, listening to Lady Gerardine's mad words, one hand still on his fork, with that air of courteous attention which a man should pay to his hostess' conversation, be it on the subject of the weather or the last political conundrum.
Even had M. Châtelard adjusted his spectacles for a piercing look at the hero of his drama at that particular moment, he would have read nothing on the lean saturnine countenance. Yet had it not been for the conventions of society, how would not Raymond Bethune have answered Rosamond Gerardine? With what madness leaping to hers; with what passion, down on his knees! ... "Scorn me, for I deserve your scorn. I cast myself and my worthless life before you. Crush me into the dust if you will, only let me feel as I die the print of your foot upon me. Oh, you—most beautiful!"
"I think," said M. Châtelard, rising abruptly, "that Lady Gerardine is ill."
She was leaning back, deathly white, save for two hectic spots on each cheekbone which heightened the ghastliness of her look.
Poor Sir Arthur! It was too bad! Just as he was beginning to feel so comfortable, in spite of the pokey little place, so connubially satisfied.
"Tut, tut!" he cried, as he fussily made his way round the table. "I had hoped we had left all this in India."
Baby warded off his approach with a pointed elbow.
"Keep away, for goodness' sake, Runkle," she cried sharply. "She's faint; she wants air, that's all. Come with me, darling."
But, with unexpected strength, Lady Gerardine rose abruptly from her chair and pushed the faithful child on one side.
"I am not faint," she said. "I am not faint; I am sick. Oh ... to see you all eat and drink!" She swept the circle with her eyes; her last glance resting upon Bethune. Then, with a beating heart, he knew what it was, this new nameless thing he had never seen before in her soft eyes—it was hatred.
Her light draperies, weighted with their embroideries, swung against the chairs and the panelling of the narrow room as she hurried out from among them, head erect—scorn, abhorrence, in the very wind of her swift passage.
With a sudden dilation of the eye, Muhammed Saif-u-din watched her come. He checked a forward movement towards her, and drew himself up sharply. But as she passed him he bent his supple frame and bowed deep—deep. Suddenly aware of him, she started fiercely from the proximity.
"Out of my sight," she exclaimed, with a hoarse, deep cry, "son of treachery; his blood is still upon your hands!"
The tread of her foot, curiously heavy, resounded, measured, all up the oaken stairs.
Muhammed shot one eager glance after the retreating figure, then turned abruptly and plunged into the side passage.
In the dining-room a dead little silence had fallen. Even Aspasia dared not follow her aunt. Consternation sat upon every countenance; the eye of each guest was instinctively dropped, as if dreading to betray a thought. Dr. Châtelard drew his brow together with professional gravity.
"Insane—the poor, beautiful lady?" he asked himself. "Here is a solution,par exemple, that even I could not have foretold!"
"I'm afraid Lady Gerardine has found our surprise party a little overwhelming," cried Lady Aspasia at last, with her harsh laugh.
Young Aspasia began to sidle towards the door. Sir Arthur, rousing himself from his painful astonishment, arrested her in the act.
"No, my dear Aspasia," said he, not without dignity; "you remain here and entertain our guests. I will see to your aunt. You are right, Lady Aspasia, it was inconsiderate of me to take my wife by surprise in this way. The poor girl is quite overwrought. Never fear, my dear," he went on, again addressing his niece, in answer to her last feeble objection, "I shall find my way, the house is not so large. Une neurasthénie, mon cher Châtelard, compliquée d'hyperésthésie," he added, with his seraphic smile. "I do not know if your experience has brought any such cases under your notice, but, of course, you know they require careful handling."
Sir Arthur might have been a fool, and a pompous one, but long traditions leave their stamp, even on unworthy material. You may be a bad specimen of porcelain, but porcelain will remain refined clay. Grand seigneur in breeding, if in nothing more, he carried off the situation with due regard to his guests and due regard to English reserve, as well as a better man. Nevertheless, no situation could be imagined more galling, perhaps, to his particular temperament. His hand on the door knob, he made them a courtly little bow, and left the room.
"Overwrought!" commented Lady Aspasia, dilating her nostrils, with an expression that made her long-featured face look more equine than ever. "Some people would call it 'high strikes'; and, if you ask me, I think the 'high strikes' in this case are sheer temper."
Baby sat down, looking sick and faint herself.
"The fat's in the fire, now," said she, in a desperate whisper to Bethune.
The man made no response, but taking a nut from the dish before him, seemed exclusively interested in the task of cracking it between his fingers.
"Neurasthenia is, I fear, sadly on the increase," said M. Châtelard, in a non-committal manner to Lady Aspasia.
The latter laughed again.
"Neurasnonsense and hyperfiddlesticks! Poor Arty—with his careful handling! Careful handling. I should carefully handle the water-jug."
She flung an irate and contemptuous look at Bethune, who was absorbed in his nut-cracking. What sordid hole-and-corner business had this two-penny-halfpenny Indian officer been concocting with the Lieutenant-Governor's wife to account for these tantrums?
"So ill-bred," said the lady of birth to herself. "When people make these slips, at least they should have the decency not to parade them!"
CHAPTER XVIII
Sir Arthur had, as he foretold, little difficulty in finding his wife's room; indeed, her door had been left open, and she stood directly in his line of vision as he came upstairs. A lighted candle aloft in her hand, she seemed to be examining a picture that hung on the panel immediately above her dressing-table.
He came in quickly, with his short consequential step, and closed the door behind him. At the sound of the clicking lock she wheeled round, still holding the candle above her head. The light played upon the outstanding aureole of her hair, caught on one side the scarlet oval of her cheek, the gleam of her teeth between lips, open as upon amazement. Her rapid breathing shook her as she stood; and the darkling brilliancy of her jet-flecked robe ran all about, and up and down the long lines of her limbs, as if she had been clothed in black fires.
"You said you were sick," he exclaimed tartly, "and I find you looking at a picture."
She made no reply, but stood, still holding up her light, shimmering and quivering, a thing of such extraordinary vividness and beauty, out of the half-darkness of the room, that in admiration he felt his righteous wrath once more slip from him.
"Really, my dear Rosamond," he went on, in mollified tones, "you should try and have a little more self-control. I cannot imagine what Lady Aspasia must think of you. I declare any one might have thought—I don't know what they might not have thought," concluded Sir Arthur, somewhat lamely.
Rosamond put down the candlestick on the table beside her, then stood clasping her hands tightly together, her head bent in the attitude of a chidden child. She was making a strong effort after her vanishing sanity. It was, perhaps, the old instinctive dread of violent emotion, or the realisation that here was the crisis at last, hitherto so deliberately thrust from her thoughts, that braced her to meet the moment. It may have been, after all, the fact that it was Sir Arthur the taskmaster, not Sir Arthur the fond husband, that stood before her. However it might be, something of the sweet reasonableness that had made her so acceptable a consort to the Lieutenant-Governor all these years did, in truth, seem to come back to her. She answered, very gently:
"Indeed, I owe you all an apology. You will explain it to the others, will you not? I am really ill."
Ill; tut, tut! What was she feeling? Was she sick; had she a pain; had she a cough? He lit another candle to look at her. Had she taken her temperature. Where was the thermometer?
With an unutterable failing of the heart, the atmosphere of her whole life as Lady Gerardine seemed suddenly to close round her once more; the intolerable solicitude, the tyrannic fondness, the perpetual, ineluctable watchfulness, how had she endured it? But she must be calm. What was it Baby had said? "Anything would be better than a scandal." These holy walls, this consecrate house—oh, no, they should never echo the wranglings of her most unholy union!
Sir Arthur was turning over the trinkets on her dressing-table. Where was the thermometer?
She did not know.
Not know where the thermometer was!
"I don't think I've got one," said Lady Gerardine, faintly. "But it's not fever; it's not that! Indeed, I only want rest——"
He turned, in real indignation and surprise.
"Not got one?"
"Perhaps if you were to ask Aspasia——" The suggestion was coupled with a wild look at the door.
Sir Arthur laughed, not very pleasantly. One would almost have thought she wanted to get rid of him. Women were certainly incomprehensible creatures.
"You have not mislaid your pulse, I take it."
She retreated from his touch till she could retreat no further; then, brought up by the wall, slid both her hands behind her.
"I'm not ill in that way. You know I always did hate being fussed about. Aspasia told you I had a headache. It is true, I have a headache. I only want to be alone; I only want to sleep."
Sir Arthur stood surveying her. Poor gentleman; his mind was generally in a compact and neatly labelled condition, quite ready with an adequate theory for each event of life. But to-night it was as if some one had been making hay in the tidy compartments. His ideas were positively jumbled. Scarcely did he seem to have a proper hold of one when the next would send him off at a tangent. He had come upstairs to make his wife feel how grievously she had offended his idea of decorum, and had immediately lost himself in admiration of her appearance. And now, once more, in the very midst of his real anxiety about her health, he found himself abjectly remarking what an extraordinarily beautiful woman she was.
"I'm not so sure," he said suddenly, half fondly, half irritably, "that those red cheeks are a very good sign."
He put out a finger and stroked the velvet outline. She closed her eyes and set her teeth, nerving herself against the agony of the caress.
"I left a white rose," he went on, with elaborate gallantry; "I find a red one. My dear, your cheeks are certainly very hot."
That voice from the past, to which Rosamond's ears had been so acutely attuned these days, suddenly took up the words: "My white rose, my red, red rose!" As the sailor feels the raft break beneath him, she felt the last shreds of her self-control giving way under the stress of seas of passion and terror. She looked round desperately; almost, she thought, that man—that intruder—must have heard the dear voice also. Oh, sacrilege to have him standing there!
"Will you not leave me?" she cried, with a burst of pleading. "I must rest. You were always kind to me—will you not leave me now? Indeed, I am in pain."
"My darling!" he exclaimed, in genuine concern.
That flush was unnatural, it was evident. She had wasted away, too. He could see that. She who used to have such a noble, full throat; and her breathing came all too quick.
"Come, my darling," he went on, "let me see you to bed myself. No one, you know, can look after you as I do. I should not have trusted you away from me all this time. Come, come, we must let this hair down to ease the poor head—your golden hair, Rosamond. It is not the first time I have unbound it—eh, my love?"
"Your golden hair, Rosamond..." whispered the voice in her heart. What sort of a woman was she that another should dare use these sacred words of love to her? She fixed her piteous eyes upon Sir Arthur, as if, by the sheer intensity of dread, she could keep him from her. But he stretched out his arms.
She shrank, flattening herself against the wall, one arm raised across her brow as though to protect her hair.
"One would almost think you were shy—afraid of me," said he, jocularly, while his embrace hovered over her.
"Once there was fear of me in your eyes..."
"Don't touch me!" she shrieked. "Oh, your horrible hands!"
There fell instantly between them the silence of the irremediable deed.
Rosamond had at last torn across the interwoven fabric of their two lives; the ugly rending sound of the parting hung in the air. These gaping edges no seam could ever join again. To the woman came a fierce realisation of freedom, a sweeping anger at the petty shackles that had held her so long.
Sir Arthur stepped back, his arms falling by his side. He, poor man, felt as if the good old world, of which he was such an ornament, had ceased to be solid beneath his feet.
"Rosamond!"
"What are you doing here?" she cried, in a panting whisper. "What do you want with me? How dare you come into this room?"
"Rosamond!"
"Go!" she bade him, pointing to the door. "In the name of God, leave me. Merciful Heavens ... to follow me here! Have you not a spark of human feeling left in you? Is it not bad enough, is it not terrible, hideous, that you should be in this house at all?" She caught him by the arm, pushing him like a frenzied creature. "Go!"
"Are you mad?" he furiously exclaimed.
Upon the very words he stopped abruptly and stared at her. A horrible suspicion of their truth flashed upon him. Could it be possible, could fate dare to play so horrible a trick on him? Was the wife of Sir Arthur Gerardine actually going out of her mind? He felt his hair rise. A dampness gathered cold on his forehead.
She stood, with outflung arm, motionless, save for her rapid breathing.
"If you're really ill," he faltered now, seeking for his handkerchief and mopping his face with flurried hand. The tail of his apprehensive eye upon her, he was, in his mind, rapidly concocting that telegram to the family physician in London which should be despatched at the earliest possible moment, and bring him—and also a mental specialist—to the manor-house by the first possible train. "Most urgent, serious anxiety." The Lieutenant-Governor muttered the words to himself. He belonged to that type of fond family man who, at the first hint of a possibly insane member in the home circle, has no other idea than the immediate shutting up and putting away of the dangerous dear one.
Dimly, through the storm and stress in which her soul was struggling, there came to Rosamond some perception of the pathetic figure presented by Sir Arthur in his sudden trouble. The well-worn cloak of self-complacency was rudely torn from him. His was the flurry of the man on the wrong side of life who has neither the elasticity of youth nor the true dignity of age to help him meet an unexpected blow. Her hand dropped by her side. He had been kind to her, after his own fashion; generous, too, and trusting. She sank back against the bed with a moan.
"I am to blame, all through, from the beginning," she said hopelessly. "I have sinned against myself, against you, against him," she faltered; and laid her left hand on the old carven bedpost to steady herself. Her head dropped sideways against her shoulder. "If I could set you free," she murmured.
Sir Arthur turned sharply upon her, one suspicion chased by another. This was coherent enough. There was meaning in this—too much! A purple flush mounted to his face; the veins in his forehead swelled.
"I was content to go on," pursued the woman, in the same vague tones of plaint. "Remember, it was you who insisted. Before you curse me, always remember that. I wanted to dream my life away—why, else, should I ever have listened to you? But you would not let me dream. You thrust my fate upon me—you and that man. What chance had I of escape between you both? you and that man!"
From purple, Sir Arthur's face grew ashen grey. That smiling, genial, handsome face became a positive mask—lips drawn back from the teeth, pupils narrowed to vindictive pin-points of fury. He drew near to her in silence, his head thrust forward, his twitching hands clutching the lapels of his coat on either side.
You and that man—that man, Bethune!
Through the buzzing in his ears there came once again the echo of Lady Aspasia's laugh, her meaning words: "So you were the excuse." And again the gibe: "Aspasia is tired of playing chaperon!"
Mad? Would God it had been madness! This was a confession. His wife, Lady Gerardine, the consort of the Lieutenant-Governor, had had a low intrigue with an obscure Indian officer, a fellow of no standing, of no importance—Bethune! As Sir Arthur drew near her, silent through the very inadequacy of language, his eye fell upon the pale hand clasping the bedpost. There, upon the third finger, flashed the tiny gems of an unknown ring—a miserable, paltry thing. (Sir Arthur was a creature of detail, even at such a moment.) It was the last straw. He gripped her by the wrist, brutally.
"Whose ring is that?" he sputtered.
The physical pain of his clutch did her good—roused her, with a sense of relief, to face his onslaught. She was glad that he should be angry, that his countenance should be distorted and ugly. In such a mood as this she could meet him and feel strong. It was the broken-down, trembling, aged Sir Arthur she could not meet.
"Whose ring?" he repeated, and shook her as he held her.
She straightened herself, and with her free hand swept a gesture of pride towards the portrait on the wall. Far away was she, in the depth of her grand passion, from the sordid speculations of his mind.
"What!" he shouted, dropped her hand, and ran to the dressing-table, flinging a candle on high to stare. "Why—why!" he stammered, putting down the light. "Pooh, what nonsense is this? You can't put me off like this now. That—why, that's poor English!"
"And I," she cried, walking up to him, "I am Mrs. English. Oh, that was the mistake! You thought I was Lady Gerardine. I never was. You took a dream woman and thought she was your wife. I never was your wife. I am his—his only. Now you understand, do you not?"
Poor Sir Arthur! In proportion as her exaltation mounted, his heat of anger fell away. His bewilderment grew, and his perturbation. For a moment or two he tried to cling to his conviction of her guilt. We are always anxious to vindicate ourselves when we are moved to great wrath; and the more unjust we have been the more loth are we to give up our suspicions. But with these eyes of flame upon him, with these accents of passion in his ears, even he could not maintain his damning judgment. The first hypothesis, that of insanity, came back to him in full force. Then arose a mitigated suggestion. A man of desultory reading, he had a smattering of many subjects. He had heard of that form of mental trouble called auto-suggestion—idée fixe. He looked round the room.
By George, there was another portrait of poor English! And, as he lived, a photograph of him on the chimney-piece. He had passed one on the stairs. And now he remembered the daub in the hall. He drew a long breath. This little damp hole of a place, with the fellow's head staring down at one from every corner—yes, that was it—it had been too much for her in her nervous state of health. The next words she spoke brought confirmation:
"Do not think I blame you! I know—I know. It is my own cowardice, my own baseness of soul that has brought it all upon me. And now it is too late. His papers, his letters, too late they came to me. I am lost—lost!"
She put her hands to her forehead, and reeled. He caught her in his arms.
Those dashed papers! How obstinate she had been about them! He had known it would be too much for her; he had even been ready to take the burden upon himself.
"There, there, Rosamond!" She faintly struggled against his supporting embrace, every inch of her flesh shuddering from his touch. Oh, that voice from the past: "There are things a man cannot contemplate in his living body; things the flesh rebels against. The dead will be quiet." The dead ... but he was not dead. Perhaps now he was looking on them! The horror of the thought paralysed her, as the snake paralyses the bird. Yet, if she had had a knife in her hand she might, in that madness of nausea, have struck it into the breast against which she was clasped.
"Sir James was certainly right," thought Sir Arthur, tightening his grip upon her waist with one hand, while he patted her shrinking shoulder with the other. "What Rosamond wants, poor girl, is soothing."
She wrenched herself free suddenly, with unexpected strength. Sir Arthur staggered. Then she turned upon him a countenance of such livid vindictive menace and at the same time such torture that, speechless, he recoiled before her.
At the door he muttered something about sending up Aspasia; but it was closed upon him and locked before the words were formulated. He listened awhile. From within came, at first, a faint swish as of her moving draperies, and then a heavy silence.
"She looked at me," said the unhappy husband to himself; "she looked at me as if she could murder me!"
He shook his head, and began once more to concoct his telegram as he slowly walked downstairs.