CHAPTER XV
“La paix n’est que le sommeil de la guerre.”—French Proverb.
“La paix n’est que le sommeil de la guerre.”—French Proverb.
“There must be something wrong between the Churtons,” said Mrs. Gilderoy, taking off her hat and sitting down beside Mrs. Lewin to chat.
“What is the matter?” asked Leoline, in some surprise. “I haven’t seen Di for ever so long, though all the rest of you have been most good in cheering my solitude. Major Churton is away, isn’t he?”
“He has gone for a ride round the island. That is how I know something is wrong. It is our one resource for mental disturbance—if a man has been refused, or a woman found out, they arrange to ride round the island until things calm down again. You see, we can’t get out of it, so we begin to run round and round to ease our distress.”
“Like rats in a trap!” said Mrs. Lewin absently, her mind with Halton’s simile.
“Exactly. Churton said he was going to shoot on the Tableland, but young Rennie, who went out there some days later, found him starting for Africa Point and Sand Bay. He will come home by Hashish Valley, and I hope he won’t come in for the trouble there!”
“There is no further disturbance, is there? Mr. Halton told me positively that he would leave in the next mail. But that may be desperation!”
“Poor man! I don’t wonder. He has been kept hanging about on the chance of a rising, when he might just as well have gone by the same boat as Mrs. Ritchie Stern. Look how tamely the snuff-coloured people took the crop-burning, after all!”
“Rather ominously so, I thought. I feel somehow as if we were not through yet.”
“Well, what there was to see, you saw! I can’t think how you lived through that night at Government House, Chum. I expected to see your hair grey next morning.”
“It was really not so terrifying as it sounded afterwards. Mr. Gregory was so cool too—he was almost insolent to the natives.”
“I suppose you expected to find Captain Lewin there. You have not heard anything of him, by the way—I mean cabled through from Capetown, for instance—have you?”
“Not a word. All I know is that the boat reached Port Cecil, and it was also confirmed that his regiment was up there.”
“So he will have his friends about him, anyway. It is a month since he left, isn’t it? Aren’t you very anxious?”
“No, I don’t think so. It would be so unreasonable, because I know that I could not hear. If he wrote at onceviâCapetown the mail will bring it. But Ally is a bad correspondent, and if he were very much taken up with the business in hand he might forget and miss the mail. And I might never hear at all until he came back!”
“You take it very philosophically. I know if I didn’t hear from my good man under the circumstances, I should begin writing abusive letters to the Government at Capetown.”
“I think they find Key Island quite enough of a worry, without having to calm disaffected wives there, as it is,” said Mrs. Lewin, with a pang of conscience. How often had she thought of Ally through these halcyon summer days that had drifted past her so softly and easily—they seemed, on looking back, merely a golden haze? She had thought of him, indeed, as the fly in her amber, and had thrust the thought away when conscience pressed too hard. “I can’t think why they brigaded us with South Africa,” she added, more to dodge her own thought than with any real interest in the Home Government’s disposal of the Empire. “Mauritius has its own governor; why shouldn’t we?”
“We are too small. And besides, they never give Gregory’s Powder an absolute monarchy—perhaps when he goes Key’land will be made a Crown colony. I am sorry for Capetown having such a firebrand tacked on to them, myself. He was under Milner once, and they nearly quarrelled; but the man of men he hates is Kitchener. Gregory always wants the troops at his instant disposal when he sets out to soothe the wily native, and Kitchener won’t have it. Can’t you imagine Gregory trying to snatch a few soldiers when the General is not looking, and the poor wretched officer in command being dragged in two, like a Christmas cracker, between them?”
“And going off with a bang,” said Mrs. Lewin, laughing. “I am sure I should, in his place. Mr. Gregory started in the Army himself—you know that, of course.”
“Yes; I believe he served with Roberts for a short time—averyshort time! He never could obey his senior officers. So he was taken out of the Army and put into the Colonial service. Apropos of nothing, Chum, you are not looking well. When are you going to Vohitra?”
“I am too much afraid of your thinking it a proof of mental disturbance,” said Mrs. Lewin, with a languid smile. “When people ride round the island it always begins at Port Albert, doesn’t it?”
“Generally; though in very bad cases I have known them ride right through the Rano Valley, and up to Vohitra that way—on some one else’s pony, of course. Do you notice that the pony is the pledge of affection here? We don’t give engagement-rings—we give ponies. ‘He has given her a pony’ is tantamount to saying, ‘they are engaged,’ and if you ride any man’s cattle save your husband’s you are accepting serious attentions.”
“What a dreadful thought! For we have never really bought Liscarton, Captain Nugentwouldlend him to me, and I am so dishonest that I have not returned him yet.”
“Well, my dear, it is such a known thing that Bristles worships your untied shoestrings, and hangs upon the tilt of your Panama, that no one would be surprised if you took his entire stud!”
“I suppose I have no character!” said Mrs. Lewin resignedly.
“Not a shred! You are much too good-looking, and your clothes suggest Bond Street and general wickedness.”
Again Leoline laughed, for she was content that Key Island should bracket her with Brissy Nugent. Her conscience was nearly dormant during those days, and only roused occasionally when a gust of remorse or realisation swept over her reasonlessly and made her shudder. Then it would pass, and she would face the situation steadily again. Had she been in England, among influences which had moulded her life, and with the chance of a larger outlook, she would not have deemed such a state of mind as her present one to be possible to her. That her whole self could be absorbed in a man whom to love was frankly dishonourable, would have seemed to her impossible while she had the intelligence to foresee and fight it down. But it is impossible in a land policed by the conventions of countless generations, where at least one lives in wholesome fear of one’s next door neighbour, to realise or understand the influence of the waste places of this earth under the sway of the Imperial Government. Men lose their boundaries there, and be a woman what she will she is bound to feel the influence in her thoughts if not her actions. The laxity of the manners and morals in such rat-traps as Key Island is due to the opinion of the majority, for sin is after all a matter of the law of nations, and there is no universal standard of right and wrong. When the thermometer stands at 90° in the shade, and Society consists of forty persons who must go on meeting each other indefinitely, it is probable that the forty will tacitly agree to overlook each other’s peccadilloes for the sake of comfort. And it is hard to be less charitable to one’s own failings than one’s neighbour will be.
The stronger nature with which she was in close intercourse, too, was influencing if it could not entirely dominate Leoline. Gregory had absolutely kept his word with regard to their relations with each other; he did not ask her for a material proof of her affection, but it was not in human nature that they should not be often together and alone without some such hint of passion as had overtaken them on the evening of Alaric’s departure. His visits were spasmodic, and dependent to a certain extent on caution while Halton was still at Government House, but she never knew when he might not appear, and had given herself up to receiving him with a submission that yet kept her nerves on edge. Sometimes they merely talked—intimately, it is true, for he unfolded his plans to her as to no one else—but with hardly a kiss to disturb her pulses. It was a relief to Gregory to confide in a mind which he found both receptive and capable of following him, even of counselling him at times. He made her the partner of plans he would not have trusted to a fellow-man, and would have missed her from his life as a confidante, apart from her attraction as a woman; for the craving for sympathy is as great as the craving for alcohol—once aroused, it becomes a habit, and is hard to satisfy. During the greater part of his life Gregory had taught himself to live alone, and regard men and women alike as likely to be a hindrance to him unless he could make a passing use of them. Now he had found a helpmate he meant to bind her to him by the strongest tie he could fashion.
Leoline gave regally in the expansion of all her forces, and made him the master of her brain and spirit as well as heart. Every vital power she had was at his disposal, and while she gloried in the bestowal she was troubled that her sensations were not all clear gain in perfect joy. The temperate, uncomplicated affection she had felt for Alaric had in a way made her less unhappy, if also less happy, which was disturbing. Take it how one will, being in love is not a comfortable process, provided it is a real case of unreasoning attachment between two human beings—unreasoning in that the advantages of such an attachment do not influence the feeling at all. No one really enjoys violent emotion, and of all experiences a sexual love is most likely to be violent, however it may differ in degree, through a warmer or colder nature. “All pleasure is negative,” says Schopenhauer, for the fulfilment of a desire only concludes the pangs of it. Love as purely, as mentally as one may, it is a torturing joy—a bewildering experience that upsets and revolutionises the ordinary routine of life, and which one naturally resents. Who cares for the unused depths of his being brought up to the surface, and forcing him to live in extremes? It is the memory of love which is divine; the present experience is by no means so pleasant, and sooner or later brings the pain that is only tolerable when it has passed.
On the day when Mrs. Gilderoy came to see her, Leoline was looking forward to the arrival of the mail with mixed feelings. It was due the next day, and Alfred Halton was going to leave Key Island by it, for there was peace in Hashish Valley and China Town, and the natives of Port Victoria were dully quiet, almost as if the burning of the crops had been a salutary lesson and had cowed them. There had been very little drunkenness in the streets of late—always the prevailing sin of Key Island—and thefts of cattle had been rare. So far things were well, and the removal of Halton would be an unfeigned relief, for Mrs. Lewin had an intuitive dread of him that all the rest of the population could not inspire. She had warned Gregory, who would hardly be warned because of an instinctive contempt at the roots of his nature for the man who had always been afraid to act; but the boat that took Alfred Halton out of her immediate life was as welcome as a human rescuer, if it had not also brought the mail. Mrs. Lewin dreaded the mail, and the sight of her husband’s familiar handwriting. It would force her to face her own intention again, to consider their relations, and how she should deliberately sever herself from him. While he was absent there had been a certain pause in action that had left her finally uncommitted. She did not mean to flinch from the actual step, and yet she wished that his return might be delayed.
She had not expected the Administrator that night, for he had been to Port Albert, and she had not heard of his return. His visits were almost always made in the evening after dinner, when he could snatch a half-hour unobserved and likely to be undisturbed, and his appearance on this occasion was later than his usual hour. There was something hurried and almost abrupt about his entrance too, partly from the fact that he was in riding dress, and it seemed as if he must have come straight from his return journey.
She had risen rather hastily as Abdallah announced him, and instinctively looked past his broad shoulders to see the white turban vanish out of sight before she greeted him. But he hardly waited for safety, and drew her into his arms with an unusual demonstration of passion. They stood silent for a moment, and she was suddenly a little faint. Either some desperate feeling in him communicated itself to her, or the violent demand of his nature sapped her strength. She had not the resistance to draw her lips away, but it was a relief when the interminable kiss was over. She gave an odd little laugh to recover herself, and laid her hand against his face with tender familiarity.
“You haven’t shaved to-day! How dare you kiss me?”
“I know—I’m only just back. I came straight in.”
“Haven’t you been home?” she asked, startled. “Haven’t you dined?”
“Yes!”—something seemed to strangle him in the one word. “Yes—I—went home. No, don’t call any one. I’m going back to Government House to feed—later.”
“But, Evelyn”—her arms suddenly tightened about his large loose figure; she looked up with a beautiful white face—“have you bad news?”
“No!”—he spoke the one word with no uncertainty, but then he framed her face in his two hands and looked hard into her eyes. “Do you know,” he said fiercely, “I am tempted to break my word to you!”
“How?”—but she knew in all her leaping blood.
“To make you rather more mine than I have a right to yet, to-night.” For a minute it seemed that his decision hung in the balance, while she wondered blankly why her will seemed frozen, and she could not say at once, as she must do, “I will not!”
“If I let you off, promise me afresh to come to me some day—when we are free,” he said urgently, the assurance of his first words startling her. “You will not throw me over for some woman’s scruple—will you?”
Such uncertainty was even more unusual than his taking her consent for granted, for he was anxious now, pleading for what he had already gained, as if there were some real fear of losing it.
“Evelyn, there is something troubling you!” she exclaimed. “Thereissomething wrong!”
“No, nothing—but say what I want. Promise me——”
“What?”
“That you are mine whatever happens. That nothing shall stand between us.”
She hesitated, panic-stricken. All the responsibility of such selfishness as he asked for weighed upon her with a sudden burden.
“We have decided——” she began.
“No, but swear it——”
Then his mood changed as strangely as it appeared to have come upon him. He clasped her waist with his arm again, and dropped his head heavily against her breast. She almost staggered under his massive weight, even though he held her.
“No, I will ask nothing of you,” he said thickly. “I will trust you to give me more than I deserve, Leo—but you are free to choose. I am too hardened a sinner for you to be bound to, or smirch yourself with, perhaps. And yet—I love you—love you!”
The cry was so genuine that it frightened her for their safety, and she said “Hush” instinctively. His face when he raised it was lined and scarred as if with his own storm of feeling, and he looked harsher-featured and more rugged than ever. Even after he had regained his usual control and left her, she kept going over the incident with a feeling of bewilderment. It was the only occasion on which she had seen him so upset, and he appeared to her almost wild—almost as if possessed by some unlooked-for remorse. She could but suppose that their mutual relations stung his sense of honour, too, at times, though it was a venial sin, but such a revelation was almost pitiful to her, and, strange to say, strengthened her own resolution to sacrifice the rest of the world to him, as no appeal of his could have done. Even the momentary danger she had been in of a sexual advance in their relations with each other did not alarm her as it had at the time. She realised that the danger had been there, for Gregory’s force of will had at times almost a hypnotic influence upon her, and where she would once have been confident in her own power of denial, she had learned to doubt herself; but she realised also that it was no mere access of passion and self-indulgence that had made him desire a more complete possession of her. For some reason he was afraid of a possible break in the tie that bound them, and wished to strengthen it by every means in his power. He judged that, once master of her body, her morality would be uneasy until he had an established right to such privilege, and by foregoing that claim he had weakened his own position with her. But why should he doubt her resolution now, and why be so suddenly anxious to secure her even to the extent of compromising her honour?
The question troubled her waking thoughts, and followed her even into her dreams. But she found no answer to her own vague disquietude, and the darker knowledge in Gregory’s mind was hidden from her.
“Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle ... that he may be smitten, and die.
“And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city, that he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were.
“And the men of the city went out and fought with Joab; and there fell some of the people of the servants of David; and Uriah the Hittite died also.”
For, as Gregory had said, he had been home before he came on to the bungalow, and there he found that during his absence in Port Albert news had arrived, and awaited him.
There had been a cable from Capetown.