for thirty-six hours the unconsciousness for which she had longed cradled rosamond, and when she came to herself it was slowly and with dimness. three times, indeed, did day and night slip by her in her darkened and silent room before she even began to wonder how it was she should be left in such peace. but upon the fourth dawn, as the sun set to work to paint once more the jewel glories of her walls, memory came back upon her like a torrent.
she sat up, wildly crying:
"jani, the box! what have they done with the box?"
the ayah's arms were round her in a second. jani whispered and soothed her mistress as, long ago, she had soothed her nursling. safe was the mem sahib's box; no one should lay finger on it but herself. but the mem sahib must be good and sleep, for jani was by her. and rosamond let her head rest gratefully upon the wasted bosom that once had held such loving bounties for her, and from thence slid back upon her pillows into forgetfulness again. she was weary still, with a great and blessed weariness.
* * * * *
dr. saunders paid brief daily visits. in sir arthur's opinion he was inclined to make culpably light of the whole affair—to allow those unimportant fever cases in the compound to weigh against the indisposition of the lieutenant-governor's wife.
it is a notable fact that the medical man treats the feminine syncope as not calling for much notice. and though the excellent scot conceded that there might be some shock caused by the fall, to account for the prolonged unconsciousness, he declined to admit to sir arthur there was ground for anxiety or to recommend any treatment but quiet—absolute quiet. the preliminary symptom of irritability towards himself which sir arthur commented upon as extraordinary and alarming, dr. saunders in so many words declined, as a waste of time, even to discuss.
nevertheless, as days succeeded each other and the patient's languor, not to say apathy, continued unabated, dr. saunders abruptly changed his tactics and informed his excellency that he had better lose no time in sending his wife home.
"pack her off," he said brusquely.
"pack her off!" the choice of words was as unfitting as the idea they embodied was distasteful.
"i thought," said sir arthur, loftily, "that you were aware, dr. saunders, of my intention of progressing homewards next month."
"well, i should pack off lady gerardine by the next boat," said the doctor, no whit abashed. "there's a good deal of sickness about, and i should not like to take the responsibility of keeping her on here in this condition. she's in a queer low state—damn queer low state, sir arthur."
sir arthur puffed an angry breath down his nostrils and fixed a withering gaze on the other's dry, impassive countenance.
what sort of a physician was this who, having charge of the precious health of such a distinguished household, could allow one of its most important members to get into a damn queer low state and then brazenly announce the fact? sir arthur, a spot of red anger burning upon each cheekbone, gave dr. saunders clearly to understand how grossly he had failed in his post of trust, and announced his own intention of procuring higher opinion without delay. whereat the doctor shrugged his shoulders and drove off in his little trap at break-neck speed, as philosophically as ever.
the higher medical opinion was procured. and though it was enveloped in phraseology better suited to the patient's distinguished station, it was substantially the same as the first—with the single difference that it seemed to take a more serious view of the case. lady gerardine was once more ordered home with the least possible delay, this time under penalties so obscurely hinted at as to seem far more alarming than the most explicit statement.
sir arthur's irritable anxiety caught fire again. he hastened the departure with as much energy as he had hitherto displayed in repudiating the idea. truth to tell, no prescription could have well been less pleasing to him. precluded himself by public business from leaving before his allotted time, not only would his stately "progress" home be sorely shorn of its chief adornment, but the visit of his distinguished relative, lady aspasia melbury, would have to be unceremoniously postponed. moreover, it was never part of his views of the marital state to allow his beautiful wife to remove herself more than a day's journey from his personal influence. scornfully as he would have repudiated any suggestion of jealousy (and indeed, as aspasia had asserted, he was perhaps too vain a man to entertain so unflattering a guest in the complacency of his thoughts), he had, whether from long residence in the east or natural disposition, an almost oriental manner of regarding the wife as an appanage to the man's estate—a satellite, pleasing and brilliant enough, but yet a mere satellite in the greater luminary's orbit of glory. and therefore, while feverishly speeding the necessary preparations, he could not but let it be seen that he was disappointed, not to say hurt, that there should be any necessity for them.
lady gerardine showed herself as gently indifferent to reproach as she had been to solicitude. but the physician's wisdom was so far justified that, from the moment she was told of his decision, she roused herself and began to take some interest in life again.
"home," she said, "england! oh, i am glad!"
and, by-and-by, when she was alone with aspasia, she began, to the girl's delight, to discuss plans with quite an eagerness in her weak voice.
they were in a long cool room, one of the bygone zenana apartments preserved practically untouched, which opened upon the one side into the garden through the arches of a colonnade, and was secluded even from that quiet spot by marvellous stone lacework screens, each different down to the smallest detail of design, yet all in harmony. however the small dusky eastern beauties may have rebelled in their day against these exquisite prison walls; the present northern mistress of the whilom palace found pleasure in their very seclusion, their apartness; and, according to her wont, she feasted her soul lazily on their artistic perfections.
she was stretched on a highly painted indian couch which had been converted into a sofa, and let her eyes wander from the carving of the window screens themselves to their even lovelier reflections, cut in grey shadow on the white marble of the pavement. from the inner rooms the waters of the baths played murmurous accompaniment to her thought and her interrupted speech. aspasia, squatting on the rug at the foot of the couch, listened, commented, and suggested.
the latter had not yet quite overcome her horrified sense of guilt in connection with lady gerardine's singular breakdown. without being able to piece together any reasonable explanation of late events, she felt instinctively that here was more than met the eye; that there was in the web of her aunt's life, so to speak, an under-warp of unknown colour and unexpected strength; that behind the placid surface there lay secret depths; and that her own trifling treachery had unwittingly set forces in motion with incalculable possibilities. she had gone about, these days, with a solemn look—a living presentment of childish anxiety. the scared shadow was still on her pretty face as she now sat in attendance.
"home in six weeks..." said rosamond, dreamily. "we shall still find violets amid the dark-green leaves, baby, and brown and yellow chrysanthemums on the top of their frost-bitten stalks."
"and is it not jolly," said aspasia, hugging her knees, "to think that we can go and paddle about in the wet as much as ever we like, without any one after us! and isn't it delightful to be going off just our two selves. oh! aunt rosamond, you gave me an awful fright, you know; but really it was rather well done of you, to faint off like that. you see, the doctor says, whatever they do, now, they're not to contradict you. if ever i get an illness i hope it will be that sort. it is worth anything to be leaving runkle behind."
rosamond did not answer, unless a small secret smile in her pillows could be called an answer.
"i don't suppose," proceeded baby, emboldened, "that you have ever been free from the dear runkle for more than three days at a time since you married him."
the phrase being a mere statement of fact, it was again left without response.
"and really," pursued aspasia, warming to her subject, "the way he pounced upon us last summer up in the hills was enough to ruin the nerves of a camel. no sooner gone than he was back. positively one would rather have had him at home the whole time!"
force of comparison evidently could no further go. lady gerardine gave one of her rare laughs. baby's face was all wrathful gravity.
poor sir arthur! disciplinarian as he was, he failed to inspire his immediate circle with anything like average respect. it was a study in morals to watch the rapidity with which the first awe of some newly joined member of his english staff, the flattered reverential fascination produced by early intercourse with the great man, gave way to the snigger, the jeer, the grudging submission. but, serene in his own consciousness of power and his own heaven-born gift of applying it, sir arthur laid down the law smilingly and inflexibly; and the native world about him, at least, bowed to his rule with impassive face and supple back. and, if there were any symptoms of that mutiny which his niece declared a long continuance of his rule must inevitably foster, it is quite certain that he would have refused to believe in it until the rebel's knife was actually at his throat.
"ah," cried he, coming in upon them at the sound of his wife's laugh, "that's better! i thought we should soon have you on the right road when sir james took you in hand."
sir james's harmless ammonia mixture, orange-scented, differed as little from dr. saunders' sedative drops as the pith of his flowery advice from the latter's blunt statement. but dr. saunders was in deep disgrace, and would probably remain so until the governor's next colic.
lady gerardine's face had instantly fallen back to its usual expression of indifference.
"i hope you weren't listening," cried aspasia, pertly, "we were just saying what a bore you are."
sir arthur laughed again, very guilelessly, and stooped to pinch her little pink ear.
"i have wired to sir james to have his opinion upon the best resort for you in england, until my arrival, dear. his answer has just come."
he spread out the flimsy sheet and ran his short trim finger along the lines: "'decidedly brighton, margate, or eastbourne.' it is evident he thinks you require bracing."
"i have quite decided where i am going," answered lady gerardine, turning her head on her cushion to look at him.
"eh?" cried sir arthur, scarce able to believe his ears.
"i have been unable to talk business, hitherto," proceeded his wife, gently. "but i wanted to tell you i have decided: i go to saltwoods."
"to saltwoods?" his eyes were fixed, protruding, in displeased amazement.
to saltwoods, that paltry little dorsetshire manor-house which, by the recent demise of captain english's mother, had devolved upon his young widow! the old ancient house, as it was invariably called throughout the countryside, set in such preposterous isolation that the letting of it on any terms had ever remained an impossibility—the legacy was by no means acceptable to sir arthur. the various sums that he had already had to disburse for its upkeep and repairs had been a very just grievance with him; and one of the many matters of business he had resolved to accomplish on his return to england was the sale, at any loss, of this inconvenient estate.
"i mean to go there," said lady gerardine in the same tone of delicate deliberation, but sitting up among her cushions and pushing the hair from her forehead with the gesture that he had already learned to regard with some dismay as indicative of "her nervous moments." "old mary, the housekeeper, can easily get in a couple of country girls, and that will do for me and aspasia very well."
"preposterous! now that's what i call perfectly idiotic! i don't want to find fault with you, my dear girl, and of course you've been ill and all that. but it's quite evident you are not yet in a state to see things in their right light. 'a case of sudden neurasthenia upon a highly sensitive organisation,' as sir james says."
this was certainly a more suitable definition of her ladyship's malady than the "damn queer low state" of dr. saunders; and sir arthur rolled it with some complacency upon his tongue.
"there, there, we won't discuss the matter any more just now. rely upon me to arrange all that is necessary in the most suitable and satisfactory manner." he drew a carved stool to the head of the couch, and possessed himself of her hand in his affectionate way. "there, there, she must not be worried!"
across the fatigue of lady gerardine's countenance came an expression that was almost a faint amusement, tempered with pity. aspasia watching, very demure, mouse-still, from her lowly post, found the situation one of interest.
"you are always kind," said rosamond then; "but i shall be better at saltwoods than anywhere. you forget that i have work to do."
"work?" echoed sir arthur. he drew back to contemplate her uneasily; positively this sounded like wandering.
"it was your wish," she continued (could there lurk in that soft voice an undertone of resentment?), "that i should ... look over"—she hesitated as if she could not pronounce her dead husband's name and remodelled her phrase—"that i should assist major bethune with his book."
"ah!"
sir arthur remembered. but the proposition was none the less absurd. that lady gerardine, too delicate to be able to remain with him—with him, sir arthur, the lieutenant-governor, at a moment when a hostess was eminently needed at government house—should be taking into her calculations the claims of so unimportant a personality as that of poor dead and gone english, was, for all his consciously punctilious chivalry towards his predecessor's shade, a piece of irritating feminine perversity that positively stank in sir arthur's nostrils. he snorted. for a moment, indeed, he was really angry. and the sharpness of his first exclamation brought the blood racing to aspasia's cheeks. she hesitated on the point of interference. but the invalid's unruffled demeanour made no demand upon assistance. suddenly realising himself the unfitness of his tone towards a neurasthenic patient of highly sensitive organisation, sir arthur dropped from loud indignation to his usual indulgent pitch:
"see, my love, how perverse you are. first, when it seemed a mere matter of justice to poor english's memory and could have been accomplished with a very trifling expenditure of trouble, you were opposed to the matter. and now, when, as sir james says, it is so important for you to have absolute rest, to put even your ordinary correspondence on one side, you tell me, childishly, that it is my wish you should work! i hope, i hope," said sir arthur, appealing to space, "that i am not an unreasonable man."
"i was wrong," said lady gerardine; "i do not intend to do it because it was your wish, but because it is now mine."
once again sir arthur paused for want of the phrase that would lit his sense of the extraordinary attitude of his wife and yet not induce any recurrence of the dreaded symptoms. then a brilliant solution of the difficulty flashed across his mind.
"i will write and inform major bethune of the necessary postponement of the whole affair. and now, not a word more."
lady gerardine smiled, but it was with lips that were growing pale.
"i have myself written to major bethune," said she. "it is all settled. he will be travelling by our boat and will come to me at saltwoods as soon as i am ready for him."
she sank a fraction deeper among her cushions as she spoke, and a blue shade gathered about her mouth and nostrils. aspasia scrambled to her feet in time to arrest the storm that was threatening in clouds upon her uncle's brow.
"for heaven's sake," she cried, "hold your tongue and go away, runkle. you'll kill her!" she dived for the smelling-salts and shrieked for jani. "good gracious," she rated him, holding the bottle with pink, shaky fingers to the waxen nostrils, "after all the doctors said, and everything!"
sir arthur retired, remarkably crestfallen, to his study. how was a man to exercise the proper marital control upon the marble-white obstinacy of a fainting woman?
neurasthenic shock was a very fine diagnosis. but it was a question, after all—he lit his cheroot—whether a "damn queer state" did not more aptly picture the actual condition of affairs.
* * * * *
the receipt of a letter from lady aspasia melbury was the first drop of balm in his excellency's unwontedly distasteful cup. she pooh-poohed his old-fashioned suggestion that the hostess's enforced absence necessitated a postponement of her visit—announced her arrival at the prescribed time, and her conviction that she and her cousin would get on "like a house on fire." such being the great lady's opinion, the great man was delighted; and, before many further hours had gone by, the younger and less important aspasia, with hardly suppressed giggles, heard him hold forth at the dinner table to the following effect:
"what my wife requires really is absolute country quiet. i have arranged that she should pass her first weeks in england at her own little place in dorsetshire, a charming old manor-house. she naturally does not wish to see much society till my return; and, anyhow, there is a small piece of work which she is undertaking at my suggestion." here he whispered audibly to the general—his guest of the evening: "poor english, you know—a little biography we are getting up about him. he was killed, you remember, in that baroghil expedition."
"umph, yes; i remember, inziri pass—seven years ago, nasty business," grumbled the general, as he guzzled his soup; and aspasia's eyes danced and her cheeks grew pink with suppressed laughter. young simpson thought she was laughing at him, and became abjectly wretched for the evening.
* * * * *
having re-established his supremacy to his own satisfaction, sir arthur took an enormous interest in the protocol of his wife's departure. as he himself intended to accompany her to bombay—he was to meet lady aspasia at an intermediate town on her may north—all the pomp and circumstance in which his soul delighted was to grace the occasion: the escorts, the salutes, the special trains, and so forth. finding that major bethune was bound by the same boat, he annexed him to his "progress," with a condescension peculiarly his own. "he is engaged in some literary work, at my request. a very good kind of fellow; very intelligent, too," he explained.
and so raymond bethune found himself one of the lieutenant-governor's brilliant retinue that autumn evening of the departure. "a silent, unemotional man," sir arthur might have added to his description, had he, in his own sublime content, ever thought of examining the impressions of others.
yet, under his impassive exterior, raymond bethune was conscious of a keener interest than he had felt these many years. but it was not in the smartness of the lieutenant-governor's escort, in the gorgeousness of his equipages or the general splendour of the magnate himself that he found food for speculation; it was in the personality of sir arthur's wife—a repellent yet fascinating enigma. his thoughts perpetually worked round it without being able to solve it.
in another manner, a sweet, vague stirring of his being—totally new experience this!—the girlish presence of aspasia filled his mind also to an unacknowledged degree. he felt as if his life had been caught up out of its own vastly different course and suddenly intertwined with that of these two women; the one whose every action, every word, was mysterious to him; and the other, clear to the eye as running water, child-heart, child-soul, impulse elemental, nature itself from her spontaneous laugh to her frank impertinence.
"do you know," whispered aspasia to him, as they stood side by side under the great colonnade waiting for their turn to descend to the carriage, "i have been hating myself ever since i was such a beast about poor aunt rosamond. i think it has half killed her, this business. even the runkle wants her to give it up while she's so ill."
the man's eyes had been lost in a musing contemplation of the rosy pointed face surrounded by diaphanous folds of grey gauze. a dainty figure was aspasia in her soft greys—the sort of travelling companion a man might gladly take with him through the arid and dusty journey of life. but at these words his singular light gaze kindled.
"surely," said he, "you do not connect lady gerardine's illness with anything that you or i have done? that would be absurd, in the circumstances"—he threw a scornful glance about him—"too absurd a proposition to be entertained for a moment." ("this sensibility in a woman who has consoled herself so quickly and to such good purpose!" he added to himself.)
"oh," said aspasia back, in a brisk angry whisper, "you don't understand, and neither do i. but i feel, and you don't ... and i think you are perfectly hateful!"
she had caught his look, followed his thought, and was indignant.
* * * * *
and now out into the divine indian evening they set. the travellers, with their crowd of attendants, moved of necessity slowly, for lady gerardine went upon her husband's arm, in the languor of the semi-invalid. through the frowning gateway, down the stairway they passed, to halt again before the last flight of steps, rosamond drew herself away from sir arthur's support, leaned up against the rough stone slabs of the wall, and laid a slender gloved hand absently in one of five prints that mark it.
"do you see those?" cried baby turning, all her ill-humour forgotten in her desire to impart a thrilling piece of information to major bethune as he walked behind her. "do you see those funny marks? those are supposed to be made by the hands of the queens, when they came down to be burned. ugh! i say, aunt rosamond, are not you rather glad you are not an ancient indian princess, and that runkle is not an old rajah, and that you've not got to look forward to frizzle on his pyre?"
"you forget," came rosamond's dreamy voice in reply, "i should not have been alive to grace sir arthur's pyre. my ashes would have mingled with other ashes long, long before.... oh, i'm not so sure," she went on, again fitting a delicate hand into the sinister prints, "i am not sure that it was not a kind law in the end."
"gracious!" cried the irrepressible aspasia, with a shriek and a laugh. and then she whispered, all bubbling mischief, into bethune's ear: "the poor runkle, he is not as bad as all that, after all!"
then, at sight of his face, she suddenly fell grave; and the two stood looking at each other. bethune had first been startled by lady gerardine's look and accents even more than by the words themselves. the next moment, however, he mentally shrugged the shoulder of contempt.
whom did she think to take in by her affectation of sensibility, this languid, self-centred creature in the midst of her chosen luxury?
thus, when his eyes met aspasia's, they were sad with the scorn of things, sad for the sordid trickeries of the soul of her on whom the love of his dead friend had been lavished.
sir arthur, with touching unconsciousness of the interlude, was once again affectionately sustaining his wife. then, as the procession moved on once more, baby, troubled and discomfited—she could have hardly explained why—moved childishly close to raymond bethune, and shivered a little.
"i am glad to be getting away from this haunted place and this uncanny country," she whispered again. "i feel sure i should have ended by making one of these dreadful natives stick a knife into me. i am always plunging in upon their feelings and offending their castes, and all the rest of it. just look at saif-u-din's face—runkle's new secretary—i never saw such a glare as he threw upon us all just now. i suppose he thought we were making fun of their precious suttee!" aspasia's idea of native distinctions was still of the vaguest.
bethune turned the keen gaze of the conscious dominator upon the man that aspasia had indicated with her little indiscreet finger. the red-turbaned, artistically draped figure, with the noble dusky head and the fan-shaped raven beard, was striding in their wake with a serene dignity that looked as if nothing could ever ruffle it. had he been ruffled? had the glare existed merely in aspasia's imagination? while recognising a pathan (whose contempt for the hindoo probably exceeded baby's own), bethune knew that it was quite possible the irritable pride of the mountain man had taken fire at some real or fancied slight; but the betrayal could have been no more than a flash.
the major of guides smiled to himself. he knew his native: the man who will never give you more than an accidental peep of the bared blade in the velvet sheath—no, not till he means to strike! about this fellow, a splendid specimen of the noblest race, a creature cut out of steel and bronze, there was, he thought, a more than usual sinister hint of the wild nature under all the exquisite manner and the perfect self-restraint; and he found himself regarding him with the complacent eye of the connoisseur. the artistic lion-tamer likes his lions savage.
as he looked he wondered once and again how one so evidently a son of the warlike pathans could have sought the pacific calling of secretary.
sir arthur was taking his new toy down to bombay with him, where there were, he had been informed, certain documents which might be of value to the "monumental work." and so it came to pass that bethune and muhammed saif-u-din, destined to share one of the subordinate vehicles, found themselves presently standing side by side at the foot of the steps.
whether because of the interest he must have seen he had inspired in the officer, or whether he was simply drawn towards him by his racial military instincts, raymond could not determine, but, as they halted, well-nigh shoulder to shoulder, the pathan suddenly wheeled round, looked him full in the face in his turn, then smiled. it was a frank smile, showing a flash of splendid teeth; and it lit up the fierce, proud features in a way that was at once bright and sad.
"it would be curious," reflected bethune, "to know what sort of a soul dwells in that envelope, which might become the greatest gentleman on earth. i'll warrant the fellow has many a bloody page in his story that a man might scarce look upon, and yet he has got a smile to stir you like a woman's."
the first horses of the escort began to move with much crisp action, for sir arthur was at last installed in his state chariot. through the great glass windows he might be seen and admired of all beholders, feeling his wife's pulse with an air of profound concern; while she, submissive, her patient smile upon her lips, was gazing up into his face with gentle abstracted eyes.
"a model couple!" sneered bethune to himself. and, turning impatiently aside to devote his attention to the more pleasing subject of the oriental, he found the latter just in the act of dropping his glance from the same spectacle, and thought to notice a flicker as of kindred scorn pass across the statuesque composure of the dark face.
"for ever will the east and the west be as poles apart," cogitated the soldier, even as m. chatelard had done; "upon no point do they in their heart more despise us than in our subserviency to our women. i am not sure," he pursued to himself, cynically, as the splendid presence of saif-u-din settled itself with dignity upon the seat beside him; "i am not sure but that the orientals knew what they were about when they made their laws concerning the false and mischievous sex."
loud and deep rang the great guns of the salute: their excellencies had started. rosamond gerardine was bound for england. in a waggon, at the tail of all the other equipages, sat jani, withered and sad-faced, wrapt in her thoughts as closely as in her dusky chuddah. she would not talk with the bearers or even lament her coming exile. she held on tightly with one thin brown hand to a much-battered military tin case, which she herself had laid on the seat beside her. no one else would she permit to touch it. the other servants mocked her about it, vowing it was full of her hoardings and that they would rob her of it. at that she would menace them fiercely with her monkey paw. strange, sad, inscrutable little parca keeping guard on the fate of lives!
