after that there followed a period of unusual activity in the coventry's bungalow. guns and rifles were overhauled, ammunition ordered, boxes and cupboards were ransacked for garments suited to the jungle.
trixie entered keenly into all the preparations. she seldom did anything by halves; and she might almost have been joining in the expedition herself so lively was her interest in every detail. she asked endless questions concerning camps and elephants and tigers, and she listened breathless to all that george could tell her of the fascinations of the jungle. she dragged books on sport from the musty shelves of the club library, and read them with genuine enjoyment during two long, hot afternoons.
coventry to the last was more or less reluctant to leave her; but she ignored his hesitation, and when the hour of departure came she drove with him gaily to the railway station, and with a cheerful, smiling face saw him off by the night mail.
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it was when she returned to the empty bungalow that her spirits sank. the rooms were so silent, save for the tiny trumpeting of mosquitoes in the corners; the atmosphere felt so close, and there was a smell of musk rat that was nauseating. until dawn brought comparative coolness she lay awake, turning restlessly, hearing the desperate cry of the brain-fever bird, and the monotonous thrumming of a stringed instrument in the servants' quarters at the end of the compound. she wondered if natives ever slept save during the spell of rest they claimed in the middle of the day, when a drowsy peace descended everywhere.
with a sense of dismay that hitherto she had held in check, she contemplated the coming fortnight. how boring it would be to have to "think and remember" the whole time that she must be careful to give no cause for gossip! true, she had her household and her livestock, and her linen and store cupboards to occupy her mornings, and she could read and sleep through the succeeding hot hours; but what of the evenings?
for the first week she got on well enough. she snubbed guy greaves and other eager slaves who would willingly have placed their time, their dog-carts, their ponies--everything that they possessed--at her disposal. she played in "married" sets of tennis, and dined and consorted with the most
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domesticated couples in the station, so nervous was she of committing any indiscretion. every day she wrote to george, accounting for her time; this she felt to be a sort of safeguard against the least false step; and so far there had been nothing connected with her doings that she could not chronicle with a perfectly clear conscience.
so the time dragged on until the evening before the day on which george coventry was expected to come home.
the heat was now terrific; even tennis had become an effort, and trixie left the bungalow to keep her engagement in the public gardens, feeling listless and oppressed. the hot weather had begun early this year, there had been no cooling storms to give temporary coolness and relief, and on all sides trixie heard ominous predictions that "the rains" were going to fail. not that the prospect disturbed her particularly, for as yet she could not realise its gravity. only those whose lives have been bound up with india can understand the dread of such a visitation, the anxious watching of the sky, the heaviness of heart when meteorological reports look bad. for a failure, or even a weakness, of the monsoon means grim combat with pestilence and famine, and most dire distress, not only at the time, but afterwards, when fever takes its toll from an enfeebled population. it means
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strain and over-work for the long-suffering official; everywhere misery, death, and desolation.
after a languid game she dawdled late at the club with a group of people who, like herself, felt unwilling to return to stuffy bungalows and food that must inevitably prove untempting. to-night especially she shrank from the prospect of a solitary dinner and the weary after hours, even though supported by the knowledge that it was her last evening alone.
they all sat outside the club-house on a round masonry platform, talking fitfully, fanned by a make-shift punkah slung between two poles. gradually two or three married couples bestirred themselves and drove away; a few unattached men who had dinner engagements deserted also, and presently mrs. coventry and mrs. roy were the only ladies left, with a small attendance of young men--guy greaves, two other subalterns, and a home-sick youth who had joined the civil service only last winter, and still preserved pathetically a bond street air.
mrs. roy was young and pretty and light-hearted, but not entirely without guile. captain roy had gone away that afternoon on duty, and she did not intend to dine alone. she invited the company to join her at dinner.
"there's lots of food, such as it is," she told
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them, "and even if we can't eat we can drink champagne with plenty of ice in it."
"i'm afraid i can't come," said trixie ruefully. she knew that george disapproved of mrs. roy.
"why not?" persisted mrs. roy. "who are you dining with--the missionaries?"
they all laughed.
"i'm not dining with anybody," admitted trixie, obviously weakening. she longed to join the party and have a little "fling," to laugh and talk nonsense and be amused, as an antidote to all her good behaviour. no letter would have to be written to-morrow to george. she could tell him all about the evening, and make him understand that she had meant and done no harm.
"then why can't you come? don't be unsociable," argued mrs. roy. "to-morrow we may all be dead of heat apoplexy, or cholera, or snake-bite, or something equally common to this delightful country, and then you'd be sorry you hadn't enjoyed yourself while you had the chance."
"do say 'yes,' mrs. coventry," sang a chorus of male voices. and after a moment's further hesitation trixie succumbed.
"i must go back and change, then," she said, and rose. a little later they all met again in mrs. roy's
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pretty bungalow, and despite the heat and the insects, and, according to mrs. roy, the uncertainty of existence in india, they were a festive little party. they chaffed and told stories, and drank iced champagne and smoked cigarettes, and trixie cast from her all thoughts of her husband's displeasure. until this evening she had conformed to his wishes with the most strict consideration. she felt she deserved this innocent enjoyment, that it would be really unreasonable of george if he grudged it to her.
she had honestly intended to go home soon after dinner was over, but mrs. roy refused to "hear of such a thing."
"behold the moon!" she exclaimed, a good deal later, as they straggled out into the veranda after a short and boisterous game of cards.
and, indeed, the moon was something to behold--huge, orange-coloured, almost terrifying, hanging heavy in the dusty night. its lurid light filtered through the foliage of the trees and tinged the haze of the atmosphere with an unearthly radiance.
"i ask you, who could go to bed whilst that great lantern blazes in the sky?" cried mrs. roy with mock grandiloquence. "let us all drive down to the river and go for a row. wouldn't it be simply perfect?"
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and, with others, trixie agreed. what did it matter? who cared? there was a sensuous influence in the hot, scented air that stilled her scruples, rendered her reckless. for the moment all the careless, irresponsible gaiety of her girlhood had returned.
the young civilian and one of the subalterns took charge of mrs. roy, the other three climbed into guy greaves's dog-cart, and they all drove hatless, wrapless, along the deserted, dusty road hedged with dry mud-banks that were tipped with prickly pear and cactus, until the ground began to slope, the wheels of the vehicles sank deep into the heavy, sandy soil, and they were at the river's edge.
there was a little delay while two boats were got ready by sleepy boatmen roused from their huts, a good deal of talk and laughter and argument as to how the party should divide and how far they should row. finally it was agreed that in an hour's time they should land at the grove of trees that sheltered the mohammedan cemetery, and that the syces with the traps, and a man to take back the boats, should meet them there.
trixie found herself afloat alone with guy greaves. she did not know if this was due to an accident or to guy's deliberate manøuvring. she felt as though she were in a dream as she
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took the rudder-lines. the second boat shot past them, and the occupants called out foolish jokes and gibes, sprinkled them with water, and left them far behind.
they slid slowly, silently, over the smooth bosom of the holy river, that was burnished with the moonlight. from the distance came the sound of native singing, a faint sound that rose and fell on the warm night air, only to be drowned, as though in protest, by the yells of jackals hunting, closely packed, across the plain.
then all again was quiet, with a vast and dreamy peace that held the man and woman speechless, like a spell, as the boat slipped through the water, on and on.
suddenly guy greaves stopped rowing. he leaned towards his companion, his young face set and hard, his eyes dark in the moonlight; his hands, holding the oars, were strained and trembling.
"trixie!" he said in hoarse appeal.
his voice roused her. she looked at him, surprised.
"why have you been so cruel to me lately? what have i done?"
she felt irritated, helpless. "don't, guy. don't be so silly. i don't know what you mean."
"oh! i know it's no use. but i must say it;
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i must tell you." he spoke with quick, nervous emotion. "it isn't as if i'd ever done or said anything since you came out here married to deserve the way you've sat on me lately--or if i have, i didn't know it. i thought i'd been so jolly careful! it hasn't been easy--and it's no good pretending now that i don't care for you, or for you to pretend that you don't know it. you knew it when i was at home last year, and we had such ripping times together. if only i'd been able to afford to marry, wouldn't you have taken me--trixie? wouldn't you? instead of marrying a man old enough to be your great-grandfather!"
the boy had lost his head; his words came with passionate bitterness.
"guy, be quiet!" trixie broke in, distressed and alarmed. "you must be mad to talk like this."
he paid no heed. "no, i'm not mad--unless, perhaps, with wretchedness. i could stand it all as long as you treated me as a pal, and were kind, and let me do things for you. but you suddenly kicked me off like an old shoe, and, as far as i can see, for no reason whatever. i want to know," he went on doggedly, "what i've done."
"you haven't done anything," she hastened to tell him. "it's all your silly imagination. do, for goodness' sake, go on rowing; we shall never catch up the others before they land."
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he sat motionless, waiting.
"guy--you must row on. i'll tell you nothing while you behave like this. it's beastly of you. look--we're floating to the other side of the river! guy, do be sensible!"
that was what she had said to him last year at home, when he had "talked nonsense" at a dance before he had to sail for india. they both remembered it now. in her agitation she clutched at the rudder-lines confusedly, and the boat almost swung round. he steadied it with the oars, but he did not go on rowing.
"would you have married me if it had been possible?" he persisted, though now more calmly.
there was a long pause. the boat moved sideways, gravitating towards the farther bank, nearing ridges of sand and islets of brushwood and rubbish, mysterious shapes that stuck up sharp and fantastic in the moonlight. something swished past, rippling the water with swift cleavage--a long, black water-snake hurrying to its refuge. and a mighty splash broke the stillness--a crocodile disturbed from its stupor on a sandbank.
"no," said trixie in a low, tense voice, "i would not have married you. i think i could never have married anybody but george."
the truth had come to her, here on the river in the moonlight, with sudden and overpowering
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force. she loved her husband, loved him with all her generous, impulsive heart--and this in spite of his strict views and old-fashioned opinions, his tiresome jealousy, his age! and yet at this very moment she was doing something that, if he could know of it, would hurt and anger him and shake his trust in her, destroy all his pleasure in his holiday, perhaps create a rupture between them that never could be healed! what a fool she had been to dine with mrs. roy, to allow herself to be dragged into this idiotic escapade. and here was guy behaving like a lunatic because she was alone with him on the river in the middle of the night. how could she ever explain it all to george and persuade him to forgive her?
before her mental vision rose her husband's handsome, careworn face--the keen grey eyes, the dark hair frosted at the temples; and with it came remembrance, realisation of all he must have suffered in the past. how often he had told her that she had restored to him his trust in womanhood, had made him happy when all hope of happiness had seemed denied him.
in a measure she had failed him, too. he would be certain to hear of to-night's folly, even if she told him nothing about it herself. the only thing to do was to get home as quickly as possible.
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guy greaves sat opposite to her, obdurate, motionless, thinking only of himself and his stupid, boyish adoration, which was nothing compared with the love of a man experienced and tried. she felt she hated guy, and all the superficial view of life that he represented to her penitent soul.
"oh, go on--go on!" she cried in frightened desperation. "i must get home. i ought never to have come. i can't bear it. if you don't row, i'll never speak to you again."
he took up the oars with reluctance. she pulled the rudder-lines again, first one, then the other. the boat shot crookedly, with a shivering shock, on to a sandbank, and stuck fast. young greaves said "damn!" and trixie screamed. she stood up.
"for god's sake sit down!" implored guy, in fear that she might spring from the boat, a hideous thought of lurking crocodiles flashing through his mind.
she sank back to her seat, mute, apprehensive, while he tried vainly to refloat the boat.
"give me an oar. let me help," she said. he passed it to her. they used all their strength without avail.
"shout!" she ordered him. "the others may hear you and come back."
he obeyed her, and the sound echoed wide and
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far across the water. but the only answer was the hooting of an owl in some bushes on the bank, and the scrambling of some startled little creature near them in the sand.
"we shall be here all night!" she cried, despairing.
he did not answer. all his attention was concentrated on his efforts to release the boat.
actually how long it stuck there neither of them knew. the moon sank lower, glowing, molten; myriads of mosquitoes beat about them, bit their faces, hands, and feet; the river seemed as stagnant as a pool.
trixie felt paralysed, as in a nightmare. what if they were kept prisoners till the dawn--even longer--even till george should have returned to the bungalow and found her absent?
all at once, with a lurch, the boat shot free, and trixie burst into tears of relief.
guy greaves felt almost hysterical himself. "it's all right now, trixie. don't cry." he spoke with cheerful reassurance. "i'll row hard, and we shall catch the others up in no time."
"they must have landed long ago," she quavered. "can't we go back to the starting-place? it must be nearer."
"but the traps were to meet us at the grove," he reminded her. "we should have to walk all
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the way home if we went back, and that would take ever so much longer."
"supposing the others haven't waited," she suggested nervously. "it would be just like them. they can't all get into the same trap, and they'd take yours and leave us to fish for ourselves without caring twopence!" her agitation rendered her petulant and pessimistic. "you know how thoughtless and inconsiderate mrs. roy can be. that is why george can't bear her."
"oh, nonsense! mrs. roy's dog-cart holds four at a pinch, if they let the syce follow. even if they did take my trap, they'd send it back to meet us. anyway, don't worry about that till we get there."
he rowed harder than ever, infected in spite of himself by trixie's forebodings; and he felt hardly surprised to see only the boatman awaiting them on the rough little landing-stage.
"what did i tell you!" said trixie, a catch of despair in her voice.
"they wouldn't wait down here," he said, as he helped her out of the boat. "are the sahibs up above in the grove?" he inquired of the man.
the answer was given with drowsy indifference. "i know not. the order was given to wait for this boat, and take it back with the other."
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they stumbled on up the slope that was steep and uneven, trixie clinging to guy, her breath coming fast and audible. "do coo-ee," she urged him, "i feel i must know if they're there." he obeyed her. his voice rang clear through the trees and over the river, but echo was all the reply it received.
in disconsolate silence they reached the flat ground at the top of the cliff, and plunged into the mysterious gloom of the grove. a weak little breeze had arisen, wandering through the trees, like a sighing soul that could not escape from the burial place; here and there they could see the dim outlines of tombs, dome-shaped, or flat-topped and square, touched by the light of the moon that filtered down through the foliage.
"they are not here. they have gone," said trixie hopelessly.
"they are outside, waiting on the road," said guy greaves.
but they were not. when the pair emerged from the grove they found the road empty and silent, not a sign of a trap or anything living, except a great owl that swooped over the road and across the unfertile plain beyond with an unearthly hoot, as though mocking their plight.
"come along," said trixie firmly, "we must walk. if they do send the trap back to meet us
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so much the better, but we can't wait here on the chance."
the road was unmetalled and the ruts were deep. without further parley they started, trudging through the dust, engrossed in their own emotions. the boy felt that by his lack of self-control he had jeopardised all future friendship with his idol, and his young heart was heavy with distress, also with resentment; for it seemed to him that trixie thought he was to blame for their predicament. barring that asinine outburst of his, which he deeply regretted, he did not see why she should be so perturbed--not only perturbed, but actually frightened. if anyone should be spiteful enough to gossip, the whole thing could be clearly explained in two minutes. why, in the old days trixie would have been the first to enjoy such a harmless adventure. a question crept into his mind and filled him with angry concern: was she afraid of her husband? he recalled certain tales of his colonel's first marriage, chiefly the one that coventry's jealous restrictions had goaded his wife into bolting with some other fellow. aunt marion greaves had once hinted as much in his hearing, and others had said the same. he stepped along burning with rage at the notion that trixie was bullied, devising impossible schemes to shield and defend
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her from trouble with coventry over to-night's escapade.
trixie herself was practically oblivious of his presence. she did not observe that he walked a little ahead, his motive being to make sure that she trod on nothing suggestive of reptiles; once he did notice a thin black line that wriggled from the dust in front and disappeared beneath a cactus clump. luckily she did not see it; she was absorbed in her desire to find herself safe within her home, torn as she was with repentance for her backsliding, dreading as she did the confession she would have to make to george. guy startled her presently by an abrupt question:
"why are you in such a funk?" he asked, as though the words had been jerked from his lips against his will.
"what?" said trixie, with an effort. "what did you say?" she only knew he had spoken, without catching the words.
"i only said, why are you so awfully worried about--about all this? there can't be any scandal when the whole thing was simply an accident."
"it wasn't an accident my going out with all you silly idiots in the middle of the night!" said trixie crossly. "and if people do talk and say nasty things about our being left behind it will be my own fault, and i shall deserve it. anyhow,
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it has taught me a lesson i shan't forget in a hurry."
"oh, rot! what can they say? and why should you care. look here, trixie," he burst out with imprudent impetuosity, "is it that you're in a funk of what the colonel will say or do? for god's sake, tell me if he bullies you. we all know what happened about his first wife."
there was an ominous pause. his pulses beat quickly, the noise of their footsteps crunching the dust sounded loud in his ears. he wished he had let the subject alone.
then he heard trixie say in a cold, contemptuous voice: "perhaps you will tell me what you all know?"
in nervous excitement he stammered his answer. "why, that he drove her into--into leaving him. never gave her a chance, wouldn't listen."
and in spite of the anger she felt towards guy for his outrageous presumption, trixie's heart sank lower than ever. she knew so little of the history of george's first marriage--had refused to hear when her mother and "gommie" had wanted to tell her. never once had she questioned her husband about the divorce, and naturally no one had mentioned it to her in india, until now this blundering boy had raked up the talk he had heard. a horrible doubt assailed her. could it be true
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that george had behaved without mercy, had not been entirely blameless as she had always believed? if so, what might she expect herself when he knew she had not only flown in the face of his wishes, but had been absent nearly all night with guy greaves, the one individual, harmless youth though he was, with whom he had begged her not to make herself conspicuous during their separation--guy, over whom they had almost quarrelled! hurt and annoyed she was sure her husband would be, but what if, as well, he "would not listen, would not give her a chance?"
her vexation of mind, her disturbance of conscience, the annoying delay, the scene with guy on the river, had all combined to harass her nerves and distort her perceptions; and now her companion's perturbing suggestion filled her with dread. nevertheless her spirit rose up in defence of her husband.
"you know nothing about it," she told guy severely. "how dare you quote gossip to me! and as to your insinuation about george's behaviour towards me, it only just proves how little you know him."
"they why make such a fuss?" he argued morosely. he did not believe that trixie was telling the truth.
"look here, guy!" she stopped in the middle
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of the road, and compelled him to turn and face her. "if you weren't such an old friend, and if i didn't know you were a good sort, i should never speak to you again. as it is, you must know we can't be on quite the same terms any more. but i should like you to understand, once and for all, that i love my husband, and because i love him it makes me wretched to think that i should have done anything to vex him. i have broken a promise and behaved like a senseless fool. of course i shall tell him the whole thing, and i am not in the least afraid that he won't forgive me. but that doesn't make me feel any the less ashamed of myself."
all the same, despite her brave words, trixie was frightened as well as ashamed, and in her heart she knew that guy had not only divined her fear, but that he shared it himself acutely.
it was a blessed relief to them both to catch sight at this moment of a dark object moving slowly towards them along the road--guy greaves's trap, sent back by the rest of the party to meet them. in silence they got into the trap and jolted along the uneven road till they reached the metalled highway; then they spun swiftly, unhindered, towards the station.
