CHAPTER XVII

Up went Lady Aspasia's eyeglasses. Often had she pictured to herself the woman who had "cut her out." She vowed she knew the type: "men are so silly!"—the Simla belle, ill-painted, ill-dyed, with the airs of importance of the Governor's wife badly grafted upon the second-rate manners of the Indian officer's widow.

As Rosamond came into the room, her long black draperies trailing, her radiant head held high, a geranium flush upon cheeks and lips, Lady Aspasia's glasses fell upon her knees with a click; then she lifted them quickly to stare afresh. She forgot to rise from her chair; she forgot even to criticise.

"I'm done for—I'm stumped!" cried the poor sporting lady, in her candid soul. "It's all u-p! Lord, what a fool I have been!"

Sir Arthur, filling his lungs with a breath of righteous reprehension, looked; and exhaled it in a puff of triumph. A beautiful creature. By George, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen! And she was his—his wife—Lady Gerardine. The old glorious self-satisfaction rushed back upon him. How well he had chosen, after all! A little neurasthenia might well be forgiven to one who so superlatively vindicated his taste. It was a glorious moment, this, of presenting the shining star of his selection to the poor old flame.

"Sac-à-papier! ... Quand une anglaise se mêle d'être belle, elle ne fait pas les choses à moitié."

Dr. Chatelard adjusted his spectacles. This was the woman whom the astute Bethune, under the purple Indian sky, had accused in his hearing of being cold. Cold? Just heavens—what a bloom, what a flower! Ah! the answer to that question he had been asking himself with devouring curiosity ever since his recognition of the manor-house guest, was here given him without a word. The poor—the poor Sir Gerardine! Here was what he, Chatelard, with his enormous experience, had securely predicted. Voici la conflagration!

Not a jewel did Rosamond wear; but her soft draperies were strung with long lines of jet, so that, with each movement, subdued fires seemed to flash about her. The fever colour in her cheeks, the fever light in her eyes, lent her usually pale and pensive beauty an unnatural brilliancy. All in the room were unwittingly struck into immobility, that their every energy might be given to so rare a sight.

Raymond Bethune flung but one look, then dropped his eyes.

"He is afraid to betray himself," thought the shrewd Chatelard (his own inquisitive eye was everywhere); for once he was right in the midst of his wild surmises.

Even Baby stared, open-mouthed.

Rosamond advanced, looked round with unseeing glances. "I am here. What is wanted of me?" she seemed to ask, vaguely.

"Painted!" cried Lady Aspasia to herself, her gaze fixed hungrily. "No"—for here Sir Arthur bent to kiss his wife, and the scarlet cheek turned to him was suddenly blanched—"No. What's the matter with the creature? She looks as if she were going to faint."

But Lady Aspasia was in no mood to follow the fertile train of thought suggested by Lady Gerardine's evident emotion under her husband's caress; her own emotions were for the moment unwontedly acute and painful. Sir Arthur's fond and proud look at his beautiful consort struck the old love with a stab. She was not even regretted!

"My dear," said Sir Arthur, one of his wife's cold hands in his, "here is Lady Aspasia, of whom you have heard so much."

Then Lady Aspasia remembered her manners, and rose to greet her hostess. As she did so, she caught the reflection both of herself and of Lady Gerardine side by side in the mirror over the chimney-piece. Both tall women, their heads were nearly on a level; but between the two faces what a chasm! How could the old love be regretted? She was not even regrettable.

The elder woman gave a harsh laugh.

"Awfully glad," she muttered, for once at a loss for words. "She's got it all," she was saying to herself. "Youth and beauty—and Arty. Poor Arty; she does not care a snap of her finger for him, and Heaven knows what's on her conscience!"

"You remember Dr. Chatelard, my love," proceeded Sir Arthur. M. Chatelard made his preliminary French bow, and respectfully took possession of Rosamond's icy fingers. While his lips were forming an elegant little speech of greeting, while he was assuring her ladyship of his acute sense of privilege at being under her roof, his swift thoughts were busy on fresh conclusions. He looked down at the pale hand, the death-like touch of which lay inert in his palm, and up at the hectic loveliness of the face.

"C'est qu'elle est malade—tres malade même!" he said to himself, with sudden gravity. "Ah, she is not one to whom sin is easy! The young man may remember he was warned." And, as he gave his arm to his hostess to lead her into the dining-room, he was perhaps the only member of the company to realise that Lady Gerardine had not so far uttered a single word. "This will end in tragedy," he told himself again; and the ring of Sir Arthur's laugh, the jovial content of his voice behind him, struck the Frenchman's ear, mere student of psychology as he was, with an actual sensation of pain.

As they crossed the hall they passed the figure of the Indian secretary standing motionless, with folded arms, at the further end. The man salaamed as they went by, and M. Chatelard felt Lady Gerardine shudder.

"Does the Eastern inspire you with repugnance?" queried he, as they entered the dining-room.

"With horror," she answered, in a deep, vibrating voice; "with hatred."

The note of her passion was so incongruous to the occasion that the traveller found nothing to reply.

Once seated at the table, however, he set himself, with tactful assiduity, to cover a situation which tended to become awkward, not to say impossible. Fortunately, too, both the Aspasias kept up an almost violent conversation, and between them Sir Arthur was allowed very little time for reflection or observation.

Baby had purposely placed a large erection of ferns and flowers in the centre of the table. Sir Arthur had to peer round if he wanted to catch his wife's eyes. The four candles, in their red shades, gave but faint illumination. The dark oak panelling absorbed the side lights. It was only to Bethune on the one hand, to M. Chatelard on the other, that Rosamond's persistent mutism, her abstraction, became obtrusive.

"You have, I fear, small appetite, madam," said the Frenchman at last, with kindly anxiety, unable himself to enjoy the excellent plain fare provided by old Mary while this lovely dumb creature beside him shuddered from the food on her plate, much as she had shuddered from the sight of the Pathan in the hall.

She turned her eyes, unnaturally bright in their haggard setting, slowly upon him, as if aware that he had spoken, and yet unable to grasp his meaning.

"You do not eat," he repeated, with more explicitness. On the other side of him Lady Aspasia, wheeling round from her absorbing conversation with Sir Arthur, caught the words. She looked curiously at Lady Gerardine.

"We have taken away her appetite," she cried, in her literal French. "Too bad—and such a good dinner, too! I am ravenous still, in spite of the scones." And she fell with zest upon the chop before her.

Jealousy might beset her, and angry suspicion of the woman who had supplanted her, but the business of the moment for Lady Aspasia was dinner.

"Capital wine," said Sir Arthur. "I had no idea, my dear Rosamond, that you could give us anything like this." He peered round the chrysanthemums at her, and received again the agreeable shock of her beauty in its new garb of colour. "I shall have to visit the cellar to-morrow. It's quite old wine, 'pon my soul. Chatelard," and he burst into his ultra-Parisian French, "you maintain a pretty fashion in your country, which we have given up in ours. Let us clink glasses."

There was a flutter of napkins, an exchange of salutations. M. Chatelard rose, bowed his close-cropped grey head, and reached over his brimming glass. When it had touched Sir Arthur's, he turned and held it out, for the same ceremony, towards Lady Gerardine. Again she merely lifted her eyes towards him. He sank back on his chair and drank hastily.

"Saperlotte—she looks at one like a suffering dog.... And that fellow opposite, with his face of marble! He drinks, that one, if he eats as little as she. And Sir Gerardine, the poor husband, so touching in his joy of family affection—and the little Miss, so innocent and gay—and the storm gathering—gathering! I could almost wish myself out of this, after all. The interest is undeniable, but the situation lacks comfort!"

"Look," said Aspasia, suddenly, in a low tone to Major Bethune, and laying her hand on his sleeve; "look, now that the door is open! Muhammed has been in the hall all the time of dinner. He's listening to us and watching."

"Muhammed?" echoed Major Bethune, starting slightly. His thoughts had been fixed so intently upon a painful and tangled speculation that he had some difficulty in bringing them back to Aspasia and her fears.

"Yes," urged the girl, "Muhammed. Don't you see? There he is." She dropped her voice still lower. "I do think he's got his eye on Runkle. Oh, dear, I don't believe I ever knew what it was to be frightened before I came to this dreadful Old Ancient House!"

Bethune glanced at her paling cheek, and then out through the half-open door into the hall, where the figure of the Pathan might indeed be perceived leaning against the staircase post in his former attitude of composed watchfulness.

"Don't be frightened," said the officer of Guides, smiling, "the Eastern are as curious as children, for all their grand impassive airs; and this very fine westernised specimen has come to stare at us, and despise us in the depths of his soul, which is as savage, no doubt, as that of his brethren, in spite of his veneer. Besides, Miss Aspasia, he's not looking at Sir Arthur; he's looking at Lady Gerardine."

"He knows she hates him, perhaps," said Baby, with a fresh chill of apprehension. "Oh, Major Bethune, you may laugh, but I don't believe the creature's safe; and I, who thought him quite human when he helped me with the wine to-night. Fancy, I was down in the dark cellars with him!"

"Capital pheasants," said Sir Arthur; "capital."

"Lord!" cried Lady Aspasia's shrill voice; "I wish my chef would only learn to make bread sauce like this."

"I hope there's another bottle up of that excellent wine," resumed the great man, genially.

"Excellent wine in very truth," echoed M. Chatelard.

Rosamond's soul sickened within her. How they ate and drank! How nauseating was the clatter of knives and forks, the clink of glasses, the fumes of wine and roast! Away, away, in the old grey fort, at the end of endless winding valleys under the snows, one was a-hungered and a-thirst.

"We shall have to draw in our belts," he was saying, making mock, as strong men will, of his physical pain. "Only four dozen boxes of pea-meal and twenty bags of rice left." ...

"When men are slowly starved they can bear the hunger ... but thirst is an active devil."

Oh, God, the smell of the wine—his wine—to see them drink it, laughing, while his dear lips in vain were calling out for water!

*      *      *      *      *

She felt his anguish burn in her own throat, desiccate her own mouth. Some one was speaking to her; her dry tongue clicked and could form no sound. She groped for the glass of water and lifted it to her lips, but laid it down untouched in a spasm of horror. How could she drink when he was parched?

"Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me?" She put her hand to her throat; the room went round with her.

"You are suffering," said Bethune, leaning over to her.

His nature was all unused to introspection. By character and breeding he was given to hold in scorn all troubles that were not concrete, all conflicts conducted in those nebulous regions known as the heart or the soul. His life had been mapped out on positive lines, where right and wrong were as white and black. But, since his first meeting with Lady Gerardine, his simple ethics no longer sufficed. Not only did others discover to him desires, motives, heights and depths undreamed of in his philosophy, but he had become aware of some such forces in his own being. Like a man who first suspects within himself the germs of mortal illness, he had tried to prove their non-existence by denial. But the pain-life is too strong for human will, and the time comes when the only fight the will can make against it is that of silent endurance.

As Bethune sat by his hostess to-night, he was feeling, inarticulately, according to his nature, but acutely, not only the pain of her own situation as he dimly guessed it, but the actual physical pain of her suffering, her sick recoil from meat and bread, almost the spasm in her beautiful throat that would not let her swallow one drop of the water her fevered lips yearned for.

He spoke at last. Her dumb anguish was more than he could bear.

She inclined her head towards him. Vague at first, he saw understanding of his speech, consciousness of his presence gather into her glance; and then, something else—something, the name of which he could not formulate, even in his own mind, but which turned him cold. Suddenly she spoke, in so low a voice that the words, like some distilled poison, seemed, drop by drop, to fall straight from her lips into his heart only:

"You sit at his table, you drink his wine—you—you who took the sacrifice of his life for your own—you, who should have died, that dawn, that he might live!"

What things are these, our conventions of civilisation! There sat Bethune, in his high white collar, his stiff shirt-front, his trim black coat, listening to Lady Gerardine's mad words, one hand still on his fork, with that air of courteous attention which a man should pay to his hostess' conversation, be it on the subject of the weather or the last political conundrum.

Even had M. Chatelard adjusted his spectacles for a piercing look at the hero of his drama at that particular moment, he would have read nothing on the lean saturnine countenance. Yet had it not been for the conventions of society, how would not Raymond Bethune have answered Rosamond Gerardine? With what madness leaping to hers; with what passion, down on his knees! ... "Scorn me, for I deserve your scorn. I cast myself and my worthless life before you. Crush me into the dust if you will, only let me feel as I die the print of your foot upon me. Oh, you—most beautiful!"

"I think," said M. Chatelard, rising abruptly, "that Lady Gerardine is ill."

She was leaning back, deathly white, save for two hectic spots on each cheekbone which heightened the ghastliness of her look.

Poor Sir Arthur! It was too bad! Just as he was beginning to feel so comfortable, in spite of the pokey little place, so connubially satisfied.

"Tut, tut!" he cried, as he fussily made his way round the table. "I had hoped we had left all this in India."

Baby warded off his approach with a pointed elbow.

"Keep away, for goodness' sake, Runkle," she cried sharply. "She's faint; she wants air, that's all. Come with me, darling."

But, with unexpected strength, Lady Gerardine rose abruptly from her chair and pushed the faithful child on one side.

"I am not faint," she said. "I am not faint; I am sick. Oh ... to see you all eat and drink!" She swept the circle with her eyes; her last glance resting upon Bethune. Then, with a beating heart, he knew what it was, this new nameless thing he had never seen before in her soft eyes—it was hatred.

Her light draperies, weighted with their embroideries, swung against the chairs and the panelling of the narrow room as she hurried out from among them, head erect—scorn, abhorrence, in the very wind of her swift passage.

With a sudden dilation of the eye, Muhammed Saif-u-din watched her come. He checked a forward movement towards her, and drew himself up sharply. But as she passed him he bent his supple frame and bowed deep—deep. Suddenly aware of him, she started fiercely from the proximity.

"Out of my sight," she exclaimed, with a hoarse, deep cry, "son of treachery; his blood is still upon your hands!"

The tread of her foot, curiously heavy, resounded, measured, all up the oaken stairs.

Muhammed shot one eager glance after the retreating figure, then turned abruptly and plunged into the side passage.

In the dining-room a dead little silence had fallen. Even Aspasia dared not follow her aunt. Consternation sat upon every countenance; the eye of each guest was instinctively dropped, as if dreading to betray a thought. Dr. Chatelard drew his brow together with professional gravity.

"Insane—the poor, beautiful lady?" he asked himself. "Here is a solution, par exemple, that even I could not have foretold!"

"I'm afraid Lady Gerardine has found our surprise party a little overwhelming," cried Lady Aspasia at last, with her harsh laugh.

Young Aspasia began to sidle towards the door. Sir Arthur, rousing himself from his painful astonishment, arrested her in the act.

"No, my dear Aspasia," said he, not without dignity; "you remain here and entertain our guests. I will see to your aunt. You are right, Lady Aspasia, it was inconsiderate of me to take my wife by surprise in this way. The poor girl is quite overwrought. Never fear, my dear," he went on, again addressing his niece, in answer to her last feeble objection, "I shall find my way, the house is not so large. Une neurasthénie, mon cher Chatelard, compliquée d'hyperésthésie," he added, with his seraphic smile. "I do not know if your experience has brought any such cases under your notice, but, of course, you know they require careful handling."

Sir Arthur might have been a fool, and a pompous one, but long traditions leave their stamp, even on unworthy material. You may be a bad specimen of porcelain, but porcelain will remain refined clay. Grand seigneur in breeding, if in nothing more, he carried off the situation with due regard to his guests and due regard to English reserve, as well as a better man. Nevertheless, no situation could be imagined more galling, perhaps, to his particular temperament. His hand on the door knob, he made them a courtly little bow, and left the room.

"Overwrought!" commented Lady Aspasia, dilating her nostrils, with an expression that made her long-featured face look more equine than ever. "Some people would call it 'high strikes'; and, if you ask me, I think the 'high strikes' in this case are sheer temper."

Baby sat down, looking sick and faint herself.

"The fat's in the fire, now," said she, in a desperate whisper to Bethune.

The man made no response, but taking a nut from the dish before him, seemed exclusively interested in the task of cracking it between his fingers.

"Neurasthenia is, I fear, sadly on the increase," said M. Chatelard, in a non-committal manner to Lady Aspasia.

The latter laughed again.

"Neurasnonsense and hyperfiddlesticks! Poor Arty—with his careful handling! Careful handling. I should carefully handle the water-jug."

She flung an irate and contemptuous look at Bethune, who was absorbed in his nut-cracking. What sordid hole-and-corner business had this two-penny-halfpenny Indian officer been concocting with the Lieutenant-Governor's wife to account for these tantrums?

"So ill-bred," said the lady of birth to herself. "When people make these slips, at least they should have the decency not to parade them!"