Some of the balconies were silent and deserted, others held shadowy shapes; one or two interiors were ablaze with light, and the sound of tinkling music floated from them. There came to his mind the recollection of the hideous story he had heard on the racquet court, now some weeks ago, and he glanced about him with aversion.
The road was rough, scored with ruts and little hollows. Presently the pony stumbled badly, made a desperate struggle to regain his balance, and came down. By an acrobatic leap Coventry avoided being pitched into the road, the syce was shot beneath the seat of the trap, and the pony lay motionless, inert, in helpless submission to fate.
Coventry stood for a moment to steady his senses. The syce crawled from the trap, rubbing his leg, calling encouragement to the prostrate pony, blaming some omen of evil he had observed in the stables only that morning. It was evident, even in the uncertain light, that the trap was badly damaged; both shafts were broken, and Coventry realised that he would drive no farther that night.
By now a small crowd had collected, men and youths chiefly of the Babu persuasion, wearing muslin shawls and embroidered pork-pie caps.They gazed with relish at the spectacle of a white man in a rather undignified quandary, and none of them offered to help while sahib and syce busied themselves with the pony.
Attracted by the little commotion, a woman emerged on to a balcony above, and stood looking down on the group. From the room behind her someone brought out a lamp and held it aloft, so that the woman's face became suddenly visible to those in the street below.
Coventry looked up involuntarily, and his attention was held, riveted, for, though not young, the woman was fair, most strangely fair, in her native dress and tinselled veil; and even the paint that was thick on her eyes and cheeks could not conceal her unusual beauty. Coventry guessed, with a sick conviction, that this was "the woman in the bazaar," the woman of whom he had heard.
Appalled by the certainty, he still peered upward, fascinated yet repelled; and softly the woman laughed--not only laughed, but threw something down that landed, lightly, at his feet. A hoarse murmur of comment went up from the onlookers; one of them, a weedy youth, picked the object up and tendered it to the sahib, exclaiming with insolent politeness: "Thou art favoured, heaven-born."
It was a bunch of crudely artificial violets,drenched with heavy scent that mingled with other odours of the suffocating night. Coventry recoiled as though the sham flowers, with their sickly perfume, had been a deadly reptile. Then he stepped forward, menace in his bearing, and the officious youth, with his companions, shrank, close-packed, from the wrath of the Englishman; only to be scattered by the noisy progress down the narrow street of a clumsy, scarlet-hooded vehicle on four wheels, drawn by a pair of powerful white bullocks. It was a wonderful conveyance, gold-braided, tasselled, lacquered, and the trappings of the animals were gay, and sown with bells. It drew up beneath the balcony on which, a moment ago, the woman had leaned and laughed. Now she had re-entered the lighted room behind her, and the venetian doors were closed.
"That is therath[A]of Babu Chandra Das," remarked a bystander in a loud voice, for the crowd had collected again. "To-night he goes South, and the woman goes with him, for is he not rich? See, she comes forth."
[A]Bullock-carriage.
[A]Bullock-carriage.
[A]Bullock-carriage.
The worm-eaten door of the house was pulled half open from within, and an old and ugly native female staggered out bearing an armful of bundles. This, being unexpected, raised a laugh among the youths.During the little scene Coventry had stood by, feeling half-dazed, sickened with the sight and the scent of the violets, oppressed with a vague dread that burdened his body and spirit. He made an effort to turn to the syce and the pony that waited with drooping head and trailing harness; but something held him, kept him, as though his feet were weighted, till she came out--the woman he had seen on the balcony--and as she climbed into the red-hooded carriage her veil fell back, and the moonlight gleamed on her hair. It was then that full recognition struck at George Coventry's heart like the stab of a knife. The woman in the bazaar, who lived in the street of the dancers and such-like, who now drove away in therathof Babu Chandra Das, was Rafella, his wife of the years that were over and dead.
His impulse was to run madly, blindly, after her, but horror paralysed his limbs, and he saw, as in an evil dream, the red hood with the swaying curtains disappear into the shadows.
Coventry felt a touch on his arm.
"What order, sahib? Protector of the poor, what order?" the syce was repeating.
"Make some arrangement," said the sahib, at last, mechanically; "I will walk home."
And mechanically, too, he walked up the street, noticing nothing, not heeding the loitering figuresthat got in his way, that muttered abuse as he moved them aside, till he came to the corner where, years ago as it seemed to him now, his path had been blocked by the camel caravan. As by instinct, he turned into the principal thoroughfare, passing in time by the house of rejoicing. It was quieter now, the crowd had dispersed, the lights in the pans had begun to burn low, and only a faint sound of singing and music came from within the building. With quick, regular tramp he continued his way through the stifling city, meeting again the odour of badly cured hides that drifted across from the place of the workers in leather; on through the hot, still streets that led to the squalid mud suburb outside, and thence to the broad, empty road where his steps sank soundless into the heavy dust.
He was barely conscious of physical being. All the time, as he walked automatically through the bazaars, mid the heat and the smells, his thoughts had been chained to the past. Trixie might not have existed--her puzzling absence, his quest, his doubts and his apprehensions had gone from his mind. He was living once more in those far-away days that had begun with such happiness, only to end in such failure and pain; they had seemed to him over and dead, as leaves torn out of his volume of life and destroyed, and now a result had arisen, alive and awful and tragic--thewoman in the bazaar! Was it a dire pre-warning, those words that had haunted his dreams and his mind in the jungle, that had harassed him in the train, followed him up to the door of his house?
Memory tortured his soul, sparing him nothing. Again he found himself riding along in a country lane on a summer morning in England; he saw the vicarage garden, the tangle of blossoming shrubs, the ragged riot of flowers, and visioned a slender figure in blue crossing the unkempt lawn, with hair glinting gold in the sunshine. A clear young voice was trilling a verse of an old, familiar hymn:
"Other refuge have I none;Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;Leave, ah! leave me not alone,Still support and comfort me."
"Other refuge have I none;Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;Leave, ah! leave me not alone,Still support and comfort me."
He went through it all in hopeless, despairing surrender--the simple wedding in the village church, the period of placid happiness, and then the doubt, the jealousy, the torment of suspicion, culminating in that dreadful night--the night of the ball. It returned to him now with cruel distinctness; he could see Rafella running to the door, her white arms lifted as she struggled with the bolt; he heard her fleeing from him through the compound...."Other refuge have I none----" But she herself had chosen to seek other refuge, knowing full well what she did! Should he have tried to prevent her, to understand her distress, her condition of mind? She was frightened, indignant, and helpless, whatever her fault; and he had allowed her to go, had made no effort to save her, because he was blinded with fury, was jealous and hard, and perhaps unjust.... What was the story of all those years? He sickened to think. What had she suffered, endured, to bring her to this--poor little fair Rafella, with her gentle ways and her narrow knowledge of life?
"Still support and comfort me----" He remembered her protest--how shocked she had been at his personal rendering of the words, how he had said in the rain that morning--the morning on which he had told her he loved her--that he meant to protect and support her as long as he lived. How had he kept his vow?
"Leave, ah! leave me not alone----" Yes, he had left her alone, had been harsh and unyielding, without patience, without pity for the "helpless soul"; he had put her away, condemned her unheard, abandoned her to her fate....
He walked on, his head bent, his heart racked with a sharp and terrible remorse; it was his fault, his alone, that she had fallen to this hideousdegradation; and now there was nothing he could do. It was irredeemable, beyond his power to cancel or to atone.
As he turned into the compound his consciousness came back, as it were, to the present. The bungalow stood dark and silent, just as he had left it. Trixie was not there; he knew it, though he went inside and called her. Alarm again assailed him for her safety, and he paced the drive in nervous agitation, fearing she was ill, that an accident had happened. Never had she seemed so dear, so precious to him; that he could have mistrusted her at all now caused him shamed contrition, and all his grudging of her gaieties and freedom struck him at this moment in the light of selfishness and petty tyranny. The recognition, wakened by the bitter lesson of to-night, of how in time he might have strained her love and trust beyond endurance, filled him with acute dismay and consternation.
If he only could know that Trixie was well, had met with no harm. For the twentieth time he went down the drive to the gate, and stood surveying the road that stretched white between the shadows of the trees to the right and to the left. Away in the distance jackals were howling, and over the plain in front of the house there floated the regular beat of a tom-tom. The immediatesilence around him, the moonlight, the heat, and the faint, far sounds, seemed charged with a nameless despondence that weighed on his soul. He felt indescribably wretched and weary. Fever was creeping again through his veins, and his limbs and his head ached sorely. He turned at last and went back to the house, intending to order a horse to be saddled that he might set out again to search for Trixie; but as he reached the veranda the sound of wheels and the trotting of a horse came faintly to his ears. He stood still and listened.
THE OUTCOME
Guy Greavesand Trixie Coventry drove through the gateless entrance to the colonel's compound, that was sentinelled by whitewashed pillars built of mud, and drew up sharply at the foot of the veranda steps. Standing at the top of the steps they perceived a tall figure, familiar even in the ghostly light of a dying noon. At first Trixie suspected that her imagination must have deceived her; the next moment she realised that in truth it was her husband. Why had George returned so much sooner than he had intended? How long had he been waiting here for her to come back? She gave a little involuntary cry of consternation, and called to him tremulously:
"George, is that you? You are back? When did you get back?"
There was something unusual about the manner in which he descended the steps without giving an answer. She thought he was shaking with anger. When he spoke his voice sounded odd, almost as though he were drunk."I got back," he said slowly, picking his words with care, "not so very--not such a long time ago. The servants said you were out--you had gone out to dinner--with Mrs.--with Mrs. Roy----."
Trixie stood up in the dog-cart. George had put out his hand to help her down; his face looked haggard and drawn, his eyes were sunk deep in his head. As she alighted he steadied her trembling form, and glanced up at the young man sitting, dumb with surprise and alarm, in the trap.
"Thank you for bringing my wife home, Greaves," said Coventry, with laborious courtesy. "See you to-morrow, perhaps. Good-night."
"Good-night, sir," came a respectful and relieved response; and without looking back Guy Greaves drove rapidly out of the compound.
Husband and wife stood alone on the steps of their veranda. For a space neither of them uttered a word. Trixie's heart beat painfully; she waited for George to speak, almost choking with apprehension. Was he dreadfully angry? What was he going to say? Wild visions of futile explanations and excuses, followed by disgrace, despair, even perhaps divorce, crowded her mind and rendered her weak and helpless. She yearned to throw herself into his arms, to feel his lips on hers, to weep out her love and her contrition on hisbreast. He stood there beside her, handsome, tall, to her adorable. Had she lost him through her foolishness, her lack of will? She dared not speak; a little sob was all the sound she made. Then suddenly she became conscious that George was swaying slightly as he stood. He began to say something, still in that odd, unnatural voice, but now the words were without coherence.
"George, are you ill?" she asked in quick concern, a concern that ousted all other distress for the moment.
He put up his hand to his head which was burning and throbbing with fever, and tried to control his wandering senses. He wanted to speak and tell Trixie not to be frightened. He was vaguely aware that she feared his reproaches, his anger; on her arrival her face and her voice had betrayed it, and she had trembled, poor child, as he helped her out of the dog-cart. He wanted to ask her easily, gently, where she had been, what had happened, with natural intonation, to make her believe that whatever she told him, of course he should quite understand. Instead he knew he was saying something entirely different, and he found himself powerless to prevent it. Trixie looked dim, indistinct, and her voice sounded far away, at the other end of the compound.
She was asking, alarmed and bewildered:"What do you mean? Dearest, what is the matter?"
He groped for her hand as though he were blind. "I was trying to tell you," he said thickly, "that I--that I"--he made a desperate endeavour to hold to his purpose, but failed--"I wanted to tell you about the woman in the bazaar." Then he reeled; and his wife, exerting all her strength, half supported, half dragged him to a chair.
A fortnight went by, and at sunset one evening Trixie Coventry came out of the bungalow to stroll with lagging feet about the garden. She looked white and weary, yet relief was in her eyes for suspense was over, George was gaining strength. His illness had been sharp, a vicious form of fever contracted in the jungle and encouraged by the journey, as well as by all that had followed on the night of his return. For days and nights after his collapse in the veranda he had either raved and tossed, or lain exhausted and inert scarcely conscious of existence. Fortunately a good nurse had been available, and, as is usual in India, people had been immeasurably kind and helpful. Yet the strain had been severe for Trixie, the watching, the anxiety, the long hot nights, the dread until the doctor could, with truth, assure her that her husband would not die; and underneath it all laythe harrowing uncertainty of what George had been about to say to her when delirium had intervened. Nothing in his wanderings had given her the smallest clue. As frequently happens when sickness causes derangement, the subject nearest his mind had seemingly fled. He babbled of trifles, of things that had never occurred, and complained with fractious persistence that a tortoise-shell cat with no eyes would sit on his bed.
Now that was all over, and the terrible weakness that followed had been fought with uninterrupted success, till now he was able to sit propped up in a chair, though looking perhaps, as he said himself, "like a famine-relief-wallah--nothing but eyes and bones." Yet, so far, he had uttered no word to set Trixie's mind at rest on the subject that haunted her thoughts and leavened her joy in his convalescence. His manner, at least, was the same as of old towards her, lover-like, and in addition so grateful for all her care; but she was conscious that sometimes when she was moving about the room, his eyes were fixed on her with an expression she could not define to herself, a mixture of patient interrogation, and--was it doubt? Often during the last two days, now that he was able to talk without subsequent loss of strength, she had resolved to make herself speak, and explain; but always something had stopped her, either hercourage had failed, or the nurse had come in, or he had said something commonplace just at the moment which seemed to render that moment unsuitable for a confession.
Then this morning, just as she thought she had nerved herself up to the point, he had suddenly asked her to write to Guy Greaves.
"Tell him I want to see him," he said; "tell him to try and come over this afternoon."
She had glanced at him nervously, swiftly; his voice told her nothing, he might have been bidding her ask any one of his friends in the station to pay him a visit. Also his head was bent, he was patting one of the dogs, so his face was not visible. Therefore she wrote the note without question or comment, and wondered how Guy would feel when he got it!
She avoided Guy when he arrived in the evening; and now, while he sat with George, she was strolling about in the garden, uneasy and restless. The lawn looked scorched and hard, despite generous watering that now seemed hardly worth the labour and expense for the water only dried, hissing, as it reached the earth, raising a little steamy vapour that dispersed, leaving everything as hot and dry and arid as before. The evening had brought neither coolness nor sweet scents, and it seemed difficult to determine whether the heat camefrom the dull yellow sky, or from the cracked earth beneath. Birds stupefied with the close atmosphere held open their dry beaks as though gasping for breath, shrubs and trees drooped thirstily.
Trixie noted it all with a sense of personal detachment from her surroundings. The heat was intensely trying, but this being her first hot weather she did not suffer so much as if she had lived longer in the country. She was suffering more from the shock and the strain of George's illness than from the actual heat, and also she awaited the appearance of Guy Greaves from the house with an agitation that was painful. Not that she feared any longer such exaggerated possibilities as had tortured her imagination on the night of her river adventure with Guy, when her mental perspective had been blurred by remorse and vexation. She could almost have laughed, recalling the fear of disgrace and divorce that had assailed her so wildly; what harassed her now was the thought that her husband might never believe in or trust her again, that his confidence in her might never be fully restored. And with this apprehension was mingled a sense of resentment that George should have sent for Guy to ask him about that tiresome night on the river before she had told him herself. Perhaps he imagined she did not intend to tell himat all, or perhaps he had planned to elicit the truth from Guy, so that by no possibility could she deceive him! Well, if that were his motive then nothing should make her explain; she would answer no questions, and offer no single excuse. George could content himself with whatever he had been able to get out of Guy; if he liked he might even suspect her of waylaying Guy and concocting the plausible story of accidental delay! The old defiant temper arose within her, obliterating for the moment all her late repentance and her chastened mood.
She had worked herself into a state of unbearable tension by the time she caught sight of Guy Greaves in the veranda. He came down the steps looking absurdly young; there was something rather sheepish and ashamed in his demeanour, like a schoolboy fresh from reproof concerning some senseless prank. Trixie waited for him, feeling angry and contemptuous. She would have liked to bid him tell her nothing of what had passed between himself and George, but human nature could not be resisted.
"Well?" she said with ungracious reluctance, dispensing with formal greeting.
"How do you mean? How did I think he was looking? It has knocked him about a bit certainly. I got quite a shock at first when I sawhim, but he declares he feels splendid, and he talked no end. I hope it hasn't tired him awfully."
"You know perfectly well what I mean. What did he say to you about that night?" She hated herself for asking the question, and hated Guy also for making her ask it.
"He said nothing at all about it."
"What?" cried Trixie, amazed and incredulous.
"Fact," said Guy, and nodded his head, regarding her gravely. "I tell you I was in a blue funk when I got your note, and you told me nothing as to how the land lay. You might at least have let me know that everything was all serene. He never mentioned the subject, and, of course, I wasn't going to begin."
Trixie's natural gumption failed her for once. In the moment of sudden reaction, following on her suspense and emotion, the fact escaped her that Guy was assuming she had put matters right--had explained the whole thing to the colonel's complete satisfaction.
"But"--the words came from her lips involuntarily--"I felt certain he had sent for you to ask you about it!"
"Good Lord! then you hadn't told him?" They gazed at each other in mutual discomfiture. "And he said he wished I'd take you for a drivebecause you'd been bottled up looking after him all this time and it would do you good. By gad," he concluded, "he's a stunner, and to think that we ever imagined----"
"How dare you say 'we'!" cried Trixie unfairly. "Didn't I tell you it showed how little you knew him?"
"Well, you needn't rub it in," he protested; "and if it comes to that----"
Trixie flushed, and her eyes filled with tears. "Yes, I know," she said helplessly, "it's no use pretending----"
For a few moments they stood silent, so motionless that a grey squirrel whisked across the grass between them and shot up the nearest tree elated with his own daring. Daylight was fading rapidly, in a short time it would be dark; the sultry heat of the evening seemed to grow more oppressive. Insects were humming around them, and bats had begun to swoop low over the lawn.
Guy Greaves broke the pause. "I suppose," he said indiscreetly, "it's too late now for a drive."
"A drive!" echoed Trixie, with scorn. "I'm going in now to tell George what I think of myself--and him."
"And what about me?" asked the boy, a forlorn sort of humour pervading his tone.
"You don't count," Trixie told him with heartlesscandour. "Nobody in the world counts with me except George."
She moved towards the bungalow, a slender white form in the dusk. Guy watched her go up the steps; then he gave a little wistful sigh and summoned his trap.
George was still in his chair when Trixie entered the room. At the far end she could see his head and shoulders silhouetted against the opposite open door. The lamps had not yet been lighted, and a powerful electric fan kept the air in motion, creating a semblance of coolness. Was he asleep? She stole softly round the back of the chair and knelt by his side.
"Trixie?" His arm went round her; she pressed her face against his.
"Shall I tell you now," she asked, "or are you tired?"
"Tell away," he encouraged her cheerfully, in prompt understanding.
There was a pause; then he found she was crying.
"Darling!" he urged with concern. "Whatever you tell me I shall believe--of course."
"Oh, George, I love you, I love you; but I was frightened. I didn't know what you might think. Really I hadn't--hadn't done anythingawfullywrong.""I know, I know," he soothed with tenderness, and waited, stroking her hair until she grew calmer. "Well? How did it happen? Don't tell me unless you like; it won't make any difference."
"Oh, but I want to explain," she began once more. "You know, that evening, the night you came back, it was so hot and so lonely, it seemed as if the time would never go by--and I let myself be persuaded into dining with that rowdy little Roy woman. We all went on the river afterwards because there was such a moon; and somehow,noton purpose, I went in a boat alone with Guy Greaves." She paused again, reluctant to "give away Guy," yet anxious to make no concealment. The pause and a little unconscious movement signified mental unease; Coventry guessed what had followed and came to her aid.
"And then, I dare say," he suggested good-humouredly, "young Guy made an ass of himself, and you were obliged to squash him?"
"Oh, George, how did you know?"
"Never mind. Well, let us skip that part and proceed. What happened next?"
"Then we got stuck on the sandbank. I thought we should be there all night, perhaps till after you had got home next day." She shivered, recalling her anguish of mind.
Slowly the tale was unfolded, till she came tothe walk through the dust in the road, and then she omitted, without hesitation, her quarrel with Guy regarding her husband, and the qualms it had caused her of which she was sorely ashamed; so she unwittingly spared him a measure of extra pain.
When she had finished he kissed her lips. Words were not needed between them now. She laid her head on his shoulder with a sigh of supreme content, feeling ineffably happy.... The room was almost in darkness; the only sound within it was the whirring of the fan.
Coventry drew his wife into his arms; he knew she was wholly his. Love and tenderness flooded his heart, that yet ached with a load that could never be lightened. For even as he held her, sweet and silent, to his breast, his conscience cried the bitter truth--that always must he owe the saving of her love, and of her trust, to the woman in the bazaar.
Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.
Transcriber's Note:Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.