if sleep came at all to rosamond that night, it came with no refreshment of forgetfulness, but rather with an increase of inner struggle. hour merged into hour until even the noisy indian town fell into some kind of silence; but the voices in her troubled soul ceased not their clamour.
why should she be made to do this thing, she who had asked so little of life; who had, indeed, deliberately fashioned life for herself so that it should give her but one boon—quietude? her pulses throbbed as if with that fever which the solicitous husband had prognosticated. how dared they?
then, reason took the cold grey eye, the cold reproachful tone of major bethune, to ask her, had she the right to refuse? and fate seemed to assume the kindly handsome smiling countenance of sir arthur, to assure her that it must be. who knew as well as she that it was vain to struggle against any fiat of his? and then, once more, every fibre of her being, every energy of her soul, started in revolt.
the tom-tom beat below in the town a mocking refrain to her anguish. and, without the walls, the pariah dogs howled and fought, snarling, and wrangled, growling. she slid into snatches of horrid slumber, in which the contending elements in her soul seemed to take tangible form. but with the dawn a change came upon her. she awoke from one of these interludes in which she had after all glided to unconsciousness; the tension had become relaxed; there was one clear purpose in her mind:
she would not do it!
reason now no longer appeared under an enemy's shape, but came like a friend to her pillow and whispered words of soothing. they had no right to ask it of her. no power on earth could force her to it. all that the world had the claim to know about harry english, his comrades, his friend, those that had been beside him in his glorious fight against destiny, could give to it. what concerned the man, apart from the soldier; what concerned that inner life, had been hers alone. what sense of justice could there be in the demand that she should break through the deliberate seal of years, stultify the intention of a whole existence, at the bidding of an overbearing young man, of a pragmatic old one? once, for a little while, life had held for her mysterious possibilities—sweet, but no more unfolded than the bud in the narrow sheath. was she now to tear apart these reserves, close-folded, leaf upon leaf, dissect the "might-have-been" till her heart's blood ran? no, a hundred times! and then, upon the strength of this decision, the habitual long-cultivated calmness came floating back to her. she lay and gazed at the shafts of light as they filtered in through the blinds and fell in crosses and bars upon the marble floor. from their first inroad, when they had seemed but the laying of shadow upon shadow, to the awakening of colour in and under them, she watched them with wide-open yet dreamy eyes.
all the night she had battled with the nightmare horror. now, with the dawn, came peace: not the peace of acceptance, but cessation of feeling. she mused and pleasured her mind on the mere feast of sight, as, bit by bit, in the familiar places, the tints of her wonderful missal-page room returned to existence for her eye; here the turquoise-blue inlay, with its cool stripe of black and white, there a lance of rose-crimson on the tesselated wall, glowing like the dawn itself amid the surrounding gloom. across the light shafts of the garden window, there was a dance of flickering leaf shadows. and this greenness set her mind wandering, not in the over-luxuriant, untranquil, full-blossomed indian garden, but into cool dim english spaces—into some home wood where harebells grew sparsely and the dew glittered grey on bramble-brake and hollow; where last year's leaves lay thick and all the air was full of the scent of the honest, clean, wholesome soil of england.
and as she dreamed her placid waking dream, morning life in the governor's palace began to stir about her. already from the town below the too brief hour of stillness had been some time broken. but these outlandish sounds: the cry of the water-carriers and camel-drivers, the jingle of cow-bells, the blast of the shepherd's horn, the brazen gong of the temple, had not really broken in upon her thoughts: they had formed rather a background, vague and distant, haunting the sweetness of her far wanderings.
now, however, as the house itself became awake, creepingly, with slinking feet, she called upon sleep again for fear once more of what the day would bring her.
* * * * *
one came and bent over her, holding his breath. and she feigned unconsciousness. and then she heard him withdraw on exaggerated tiptoe. and next entered the ayah with her tea—jani, the ayah, who flung wide the windows on the garden side.
early as it was the lilies were throwing up incense to the rising sun-god; it gushed into the room as upon the swing of a censer. and, turning her languid eyes, rosamond saw how, in the fresh little breeze, the great green banana-leaves waved to and fro across her window against a sky of quivering silver.
when jani returned to the bed, rosamond handed her the empty cup with a smile. but as jani took it she looked at her mistress keenly; and, after a second or two, stretched out a stealthy hand and touched the forehead under the masses of golden hair, still heavy, from the night-sweat. the fair brow was cool enough —there was no trace of the ever-dreaded fever in the encircled eyes or on the smooth white face; only the weariness of a long night-watch. but jani shook her head to herself as she withdrew with her tray; and, meeting miss aspasia at the door, she was all for forbidding her entrance. but that young lady was not of those who are turned from their path.
"don't be a goose, jani!" cried she, briskly. "if you can see aunt rosamond, why should not i?" she ducked nimbly under the white-draped forbidding arm, as she spoke. "and she is not a bit asleep; her eyes are as wide awake as anything."
too strainedly awake, one more versed in the reading of the human countenance might well have deemed. but the last thing aspasia sought in life was its subtlety. rosy and fresh from her bath, her crisp hair crinkled into tighter curls than ever and still beaded here and there with the spray of her energetic ablutions, as she stood in the square of green light, wrapping her pink cambric dressing-gown tightly round her pretty figure, she was as pleasant to look upon as an english daisy. lady gerardine smiled more brightly.
"it's a glorious morning, aunt rosamond. are not you going to ride?"
"not this morning."
"aren't you well?" aspasia sat down on the side of the bed and took her aunt's hands into her firm grasp. there was a conscience-stricken anxiety in the girl's eyes.
"quite well; but i slept badly."
baby felt the beat of a slow pulse under her fingers. relieved but still weighted with a sense of guilt, she bent to kiss the face on the pillow. lady gerardine turned her cheek with that tolerant submission to caress that she was wont to display. then she drew her hands away and gently pushed aspasia from her.
"go and dress, you will be late. and tell your uncle that i am trying to sleep."
still aspasia hesitated. she would have liked to confess her last night's treachery and be forgiven. but lady gerardine, who was never a very approachable person, seemed this morning more distant than ever. and catching sight of the dancing leaves outside, the girl felt the joy of the young day suddenly seize her spirit. she shuffled gaily across the room in her heel-less slippers.
"i'll tell runkle you're sound asleep and he must not disturb you," she announced with cheerful mendacity, "otherwise you'll have him prowling in and thrusting that thermometer down your throat."
lady gerardine laughed a little, but made no protest.—that thermometer!
then she turned her head and fell to watching the garden window again, glad when across the open spaces she heard at last the crisp repeated rhythm of the horses' feet draw close and ring sharp, as the cavalcade moved up the road by the garden walls, and drop away in the distance.
* * * * *
when aspasia returned from her ride she found her aunt seemingly in the same attitude; the long white hands folded, she could have sworn, exactly as she had last seen them; the deep-dreaming eyes still gazing out of the window.
"i declare," cried the girl, "you lazy thing!" but there was still a shade of uneasiness in her voice and in her glance. "are not you ashamed of yourself?"
"not at all," said rosamond, "i've had a very happy time. and you?"
"hot, hot," said aspasia, flinging her panama hat across the room and rubbing her forehead. her cheeks had grown pale and there were moist dark rings round her eyes.
"i have had the better part, i think," said lady gerardine.
"not you," said baby, as she dumped her solid weight on her favourite corner of the bed. "it's been delightful, delicious. i've never enjoyed a ride so much." her bright hazel gaze misted over in remembrance. "oh dear," said she, "how can you lie there! you're quite young, aunt rosamond, but i think your idea of happiness is like a cat's. you just like to sit still and blink and think. and even the cats romp about—at night," she added, parenthetically.
"oh, i don't even think, or care to think much," said the other in that indulgent half-playful manner which she reserved for her niece, to whom she talked more as if she were five years old than eighteen. "while you were out i let my soul swing on that great green leaf over there by the window. do you see it, baby? it is beginning to catch a ray of sunlight now and shines like a golden emerald."
"gracious!" cried the girl.
"i think it is partly," said rosamond, pursuing her own thoughts, "because of this vivid passionate land, where every one lives so intensely. no wonder, poor things, their ideal of complete happiness over here is nirwana! i am glad, baby, that we shall soon be in our placid england again, where people go from the cradle to the grave, quietly as along a grey road green-hedged, from a cottage gate to a sleeping churchyard."
"i am glad, too, we are going to england," cried aspasia, catching up one phrase of her aunt's speech and neglecting the main idea. "i met major bethune, this morning," she said, half-bashful, half-defiant, "and he's going home on leave, too."
lady gerardine's eyelids drooped, just enough to veil her glance. she lay quite still, without even a contraction of the fingers that rested upon the sheet. baby peeped at her in a sidelong, bird-like way, and felt inexplicably uncomfortable. she babbled on, stumbling over her words:
"he was riding such a brute of a horse, and sat it like a centaur—or whatever you call the thing. you never saw such an eye as the creature had; one of those raw chestnuts, you know, with a neck that goes up in the air and seems to hang loose. and he sat, just with the grip of his knees, you know. he is as thin as—as——" simile was not aspasia's strong point; she broke off. "you are not listening to a word i am saying." she swung her legs pettishly, in the short linen habit.
"i heard," said rosamond, without lifting her eyes. "i heard very well."
"i'll go and take a bath," said aspasia, sliding off the bed, and pausing for the expected protest. aspasia's habit of plunging into water four or five times a day was a matter of perpetual household objurgation.
"yes—i'm simply made of dust!" she moved towards the door. still her aunt lay, fair and white and still. it seemed to the girl, scarcely even breathing.
"do you know, runkle's new secretary has come. the famous new indian secretary—the pure native spring, you know," she cried, with a childish effort at dispelling that uncanny supineness. "he gave me an awful fright."
the long drooped lids flickered with a swift upward look of unseeing pupils.
"fright! why?"
"oh! i don't know. it was fearfully silly of me. as i was coming along your passage, just now, i saw a hand hold back the curtain for me. i thought it was that simpson. and as i bounced through i nearly fell into his arms—and found it was a black man—ugh! the famous new secretary, in fact. he stood like a stock, and i squeaked in my usual way. and then he smiled. i don't like indians much, but that's a fine handsome fellow. looks like a sikh—i'm boring you. i'm off. lord, here's runkle! runkle, i'm going to have a bath."
she turned with gusto to fling her little glove of defiance afresh in the new-comer's face—and this time was not disappointed of the effect.
"my dear aspasia!"
"only number two!"
"it's not that you've not been warned...."
the wrangle of words rose in the air, to end in the inevitable mutual iterations: "don't say you've not been warned, my dear aspasia," and "don't care, runkle, i'm going to have a bath."
"i am afraid aunt rosamond's not well," was aspasia's somewhat spiteful parting shot, as she slipped out behind the door hangings.
"not well!"
with his short quick step sir arthur came to the bedside.
"would you mind," said his wife, "getting jani to pull the blinds again; the light is growing too strong!"
she wanted the shadows about her, for the struggle was coming, and she felt in her heart that she was doomed to lose. sir arthur attended to the detail himself, then hurried back.
"fever? no." even he could scarcely insist upon this with his stubby finger upon that pulse, the pulse of a life that found itself just now an infinite fatigue. "below par! i wish, dear, you would for once pay some attention to what i say. it is not that i have any desire to find fault with you, my love, but how many times must i represent to you that it is important to get the early freshness of the day in this climate, and take your rest later?'
"yes," said rosamond.
she lay waiting for the dreaded blow to fall. it was not long delayed.
"it is high time, indeed, that we should all have a change," pursued the lieutenant-governor.
he still held her hand in his and looked down complacently to see how white it lay, in the shaded room, upon his broad palm: how slight a thing, how delicately shaped, with taper fingers and filbert nails. the great man had chosen her in the zenith of his life and success because of her beauty. she had little birth to boast of, and no fortune. but it pleased him at every turn to trace in her those points which are popularly supposed to belong only to the patrician.
"it is high time," said sir arthur, turning the passive hand to gaze at a palm no deeper tinted than is the pale blush of mother-of-pearl, "that we should get back to england for a while. and, by the way, that young man, bethune of the guides, poor english's friend—you know, my love—has dear aspasia told you? we met him this morning; he is also going to travel home very shortly."
"so aspasia told me."
"i have advised him to wait for our boat. a good plan, don't you think? we could be talking over that biography together—pour passer le temps—eh, my dear?"
"pour passer le temps."
"yes. i informed major—ah—bethune, that you had some idea about preferring to do this little matter yourself. as i said to bethune: 'i am willing to undertake it for her; but in this, she must be free—quite free.'" he paused upon the generous concession. her lips moved.
"what did you say?" he asked.
she had but repeated, in the former mechanical manner: "quite free." now, however, she altered her phrase. through all the clamour of the inner storm there had pierced the consciousness of his irritable self-esteem on the verge of offence.
"thank you," said she.
"i am particularly anxious," resumed sir arthur, squaring his fine shoulders and inflating his deep chest, "that there should be no hitch in this affair. it would ill become me, as i said to bethune, me of all men, to place any difficulty in the way of a memorial to poor english. i am sure you understand me in this, my love!"
he bent his handsome grey head and kissed her hand with a conscious old-world grace. the sentiment he was delicately endeavouring to convey was truly a little difficult to put into definite language; and sir arthur had too much tact to attempt it. it might be transcribed thus: "if that excellent young man, your first husband, had not so obligingly left the world, i should not be standing in this present satisfactory position with regard to yourself." and if he were grateful to captain english, how much more so ought she—lady gerardine—to be on the same account? he was a little shocked that she should not have shown more alacrity to do justice to the worthy fellow's memory.
"well, my dear," said sir arthur, jocosely, after a pause, "i must not waste much more time in this flirtation. i have a busy morning before me. a very busy morning." he drew a long breath, to end up with a satisfied sigh. "and, by the way, my new secretary has come. a capable fellow he seems! quite extraordinarily well educated. speaks english perfectly. caste business will be a bit of a nuisance, of course. will have to feed apart, and all that nonsense. strange creatures, are not they? but he's worth it. well, we shall see you at tiffin."
the observation was an order, and rosamond assented to it as such. short of actual illness, when the precautions surrounding her would have been of the most minute, not to say wearisome nature, the wife of the lieutenant-governor was expected to fulfil the duties of her state of life to the last detail.
"and it's quite settled," added sir arthur, lightly, "that you intend to supply the material bethune requires yourself."
she sat up in bed, with a sudden fierce movement. and, catching her head in her hands, turned a white desperate face upon him.
"yes, yes," she cried, "oh god, yes!"
sir arthur was amazed. so much so, indeed, that even as last night, amazement superseded his very natural vexation.
"why, rosamond! really, my love. i am afraid, my love, that aspasia is right, that you are not well. this is the second time in twenty-four hours that you have answered me in this—in really, what i may call—quite with temper, in fact. i'm afraid, dear, that you cannot be well. i shall certainly request saunders to look in this evening."
lady gerardine fell back upon her pillow, and then, lifting the heavy mass of her hair, swept it across her face like a sheltering wing, as if, even in the dim room, she could not endure the gaze of human eyes upon her. sir arthur, for all his science of life, could not but own to himself that he was nonplussed. he shrugged his shoulders. fortunately, sensible men were not expected to understand the whims of the charming but irresponsible sex. rosamond was evidently not the thing, and therefore was to be indulgently excused. in spite of which philosophic conclusion his attitude towards his secretaries and other subordinates that morning was marked with unwonted asperity.
"something's turned our seraphic old ass a trifle sour," mr. george murray remarked to his junior, with a grin.
* * * * *
under the veil of her hair rosamond would have called, if she could, on all the shades of the world to come and cover her; would have gladly sunk under them, away from the light of life and the pain of living, somewhere where all would be dark and all quiet, where she might be forgotten—and allowed to forget.
