Said the Most Important Lady, she always knew that there was
something queer about it. "Looks as if the whole of his ultimate
objections to Mr. Maur were rooted in the fact that he knew Maur
would probably let it out."
"But how did Maur himself find it out?"
"Probably the girl told him."
"Sounds hardly possible. Why should she?"
"My dear! He is not a young man exactly and she was obviously
attracted by Maur. Hence these stripes!"
"Have you seen his face?"
"The men are rather inclined to doubt Maur's version."
"My dear! The men! She'd have had them all in tow if she hadn't
suddenly concentrated upon Maur and disgusted everybody. Men are wax
when it comes to a red head and a white skin. Children!"
"But what does Maur exactly say?"
"Apparently Sterne saw green over the portrait-sittings and insulted
him. Maur referred him to his own little indiscretion and all
parties began to snarl about their rights. The girl appears to have
played the part of passive resister to both sides. That Type of
Woman.... Well, Sterne lost his temper and hit Maur unawares when he
was quite defenceless, and then the girl rushed between them and gave
away the true relationship. From what one gathers, she was
infatuated with Maur--got him to paint her twice over for an excuse
to be with him--and, while he remained under the impression that she
was Sterne's widowed sister, he admits to having considered the
possibilities of matrimony. His discovery of what she really
was--you know they say the husband divorced her and is still
alive?--startled him into confessing that his feelings had altered in
one respect.
"There was nothing for it then but for her to go home with Sterne;
and Maur can hardly be blamed for doing his duty by this credulous
Station which has also been suffering under the delusion that all was
square and above-board."
"For the sake of the natives alone, one's got to be so down upon That
Sort of Thing in this country."
"All the same," drawled the more tolerant voice of Somebody's
Husband, "I don't see how anybody has suffered particularly except
the Eternal Triangle. I've always considered Sterne a jolly decent
fellow, and Mrs. Clifford not nearly so red-haired as Maur has
probably painted her."
"Well, I think the whole business is fishy. There's something horrid
about a household, in any case, which brazenly maintains that kind of
Burmese child; and John is probably the co-respondent's son of the
divorce case. The co-respondent can't be Sterne or, surely, he'd
have married her. Probably the real man bunked after marrying her,
and Sterne, aware that his own past would not bear too close a
scrutiny, took pity on her and..."
"Aren't we getting on a little fast, Dolly? It makes a good story,
I'll admit, but we couldn't hold to it in the face of a summons for
libel, and you know you want to send the boys to Winchester."
In the bar one heard a good bit of low chuckling.
"And Diogenes wearing the air of a Trappist monk through the whole
joke!"
"All the same, when it comes to bringing a woman of that stamp into a
respectable God-fearing district, and introducing her to its wives
and daughters under false pretences, it's a bit thick."
"Of course he'll have to go."
"Good God, yes! He'll have to go."
"And I shouldn't be sorry to kick out Digby Maur along with him."
"Oh, Maur! His doings cut no ice. But, somehow, we have looked upon
Sterne as a creature with principles, and I, for one, am sorry for
this smash-up."
"Personally, I was dashed keen on the little lady."
"Well, none of the crowd were better than they should be. Still, I
am glad that someone has whacked Maur. I can't quite believe in his
injured innocence. If he didn't deserve a licking for this he's
simply asked for it elsewhere, for many moons. But I hate a rotten
show of this sort in any Station. I wish Sterne would hurry up and
get out. But wherever they go in Burma now, people can hardly be
expected to call."
* * * * * *
Yes, most decidedly Cyprian would have to go. The children
complicated matters, particularly Thu Daw. Otherwise, things were
made easier by Peter's telegram which Cyprian had forgotten to give
Ferlie until the morning after that interview in Digby Maur's garden.
It was a long telegram explaining that Maddock had been invited to
betake himself, and party, on a visit to the Andaman Islands, where
an old friend of his was acting as Chief Commissioner.
"Bring John and come self Cyprian if possible," ended the telegram.
"It's so like Peter to prepay the reply in order to give me no time
to think," said Ferlie. "Do we go, Cyprian?"
That they should separate she did not contemplate for a moment. But
he glanced at Thu Daw before raising questioning eyes to her.
She picked up the gurgling golden-skinned atom and smiled at him over
its head.
"Why! We have no choice in the matter."
"I haven't, my dear, but you..."
"Have none either, then," said Ferlie.
He had sent in his resignation.
"And from now on," he said inconsequently, "it is to be the truth?"
"Why not?" she asked. "Can anything hurt us so long as we are
together?"
His answering smile was very wistful.
"I had great ideas of protecting and caring for the woman I loved
when I was twenty-eight," he said.
"And I had great ideas of protecting the man I loved when I was
seven," said Ferlie.
She gently placed little Thu Daw on his feet and took up her position
along the side of his chair, drawing his arm around her.
"When you come to think of it, Cyprian, it was very stupid of us not
to guess that we couldn't live without one another. The night I was
frightened, and you came up and told me about Muriel! Do you
remember I wanted you to marry the vicar's daughter in my sublime
faith that her home-made chocolate fudge would utterly console? And
you promised that whoever you married you'd always love me best. And
then, I was the first to marry, eleven years later. Oh, Cyprian,
Cyprian! I want to get out--I want to get out of the cage."
Her sudden sobbing hurt him.
"Don't, dear. We are out. To me, we seem the great exception to
every rule on earth."
"But earth isn't the end of everything," Ferlie gasped, "and you'll
see that too, some day; even if I were to take advantage of your
blindness now. Is there not one corner in all this wide world where
you and I can hide ourselves with John and Thu Daw and live out our
friendship in peace?"
"Dear, you've given me the key and I have turned the lock. The bolt
is on the inside. I yielded up some none-too-solid convictions to
your mysticism; cannot you, in return, yield a little of your
mysticism to my common sense? We are in the twentieth century: it is
a day of elastic ideas for all who have imbibed the plain truth that
to live in peace we must let our neighbours live in peace. The
minimum observance of Herd Law, and Civilization is satisfied. As a
woman who has divorced her husband--in the last divorce bill we can
find cause for that without touching upon more personal
reasons--you'd be remarried to a man who had had a son by a dead
Burmese girl. The position would, at least, be comprehensible, even
to the narrow-minded. Why are we torturing ourselves with the
precepts of a dead Jewish Teacher, whose dead words are only kept in
evidence by those to whose interest it is to exploit them?"
He spoke with quick diffidence, pricked by the thought that he was
literally attacking her God.
The circumstances in which they were living might meet with the
censure of the Church's accumulated wisdom and understanding of human
nature, but he would have had her oppose directly the inflexible word
of One who taught all lovers that His Name is Love.
She pulled herself together and stood up, spreading wide her arms as
if to embrace the light which eluded her.
"This much I will yield, Cyprian. Let me try and find some quiet
place where we can be alone and think. I am glad we have been forced
to sever all artificial connection with our fellow-men. Bless Aunt
B.! We have enough money to go where we please, and when I have
chosen a refuge where we can be, figuratively, apart in the desert,
when we have had time to forget the harsh inharmonies of the past
weeks; when there is no need any longer for us to live under the
shadow of a lie, then I will promise you to approach the whole
question with an open mind; to make sure that my sense of values is
rightly adjusted. And there we can decide, at rest in one another's
trust, which of us two in these visionary matters, as you describe
them, is finally to follow and which to lead."
Before he could answer John walked into the room; the broad-brimmed
cow-boy hat which he usually wore for shade, pressed flat against the
back of his head like a plate. The Burman boy, who accompanied him
daily on his afternoon jaunts, silently disappeared as he caught
sight of the master and mistress.
"How funny you look, John," said Ferlie. "Pull your hat on properly
if you are going out."
But John demurred.
"The Lord Jesus wears his topee like this," he informed them
pleasantly.
And, "O crumbs!" exclaimed Cyprian collapsing. "Yet another Infant
Samuel!"
But his amusement was short-lived. John had a grievance and had come
to report it.
"Mother," he said, "there was one tea-party in the Gardens and nobody
didn't let me go to it."
"How do you mean, darling?"
"It was Jimbo's birthday this day. And I tooked him the red
coal-truck what Po Sein did make me to-morrow. And I saw's Jimbo
going to the party and his nurse saw'd me and didn't stop, and Jimbo
runned back an' she was werry angry. An' he said he could not take
the truck, 'cos his mother said he wasn't not to play with me any
more. An' he said Derrick's mother said he wasn't not to play with
me neither, an' then his nurse comed up and told Po Sein we couldn't
come up that road 'cos it was Mrs. Grey's party and Jimbo must go
away at once."
Ferlie turned to look blankly at Cyprian. The sins of the fathers...
For the first time in her life he swore thoroughly and completely in
her presence, and without apologizing. Then he pushed back his chair
and swung John up on his shoulder.
"We have no time to think of parties now, you and I. Don't you know
that we are going away in the train? And I do believe you've not
packed a thing."
But when the pair of them had vanished down the verandah, shouting,
Ferlie knelt down beside the baby on the floor whence it was
surveying her with the puzzled concentrated gaze of the man she
worshipped.
"Little thing, forgive them!" she whispered. "They, who know not
what they do...."
As soon as it was possible the four of them, and Po Sein, boarded the
evening express for Rangoon, and the house on the hill with the
frangipani trees stood forlornly empty for quite a long time.
* * * * * *
They had decided to account for themselves verbally and not attempt
the written word. Accordingly, they arrived, unwelcomed, to take up
their quarters in the hotel, and it was agreed that Ferlie should
send for Peter, while Cyprian sought an interview with Maddock.
Eventually, the exact opposite transpired. Peter, wearing a
Head-of-the-Family air, presented himself before Cyprian with "my
sister" possessively decorating his lips, and Ferlie ran the old
Colonel, accidentally, to earth on the yacht, in the meantime.
Just as well, perhaps; for, while Cyprian was quite equal to Peter's
lofty dutifulness, Ferlie was much more likely to prove a match for
the Colonel.
He had known her all her life but they had not met since her
marriage. She did not mean to make a Father-Confessor of him, but
his mellowness invited confidence. He had outlived all passionate
visions of altering his neighbours' landmarks and had developed,
instead, a distinct sense of humour.
Ferlie imagined Peter to be lacking a little in that commodity.
"Well, young woman!" was the Colonel's greeting as he unbashfully
embraced her. "So you are playing truant and, likewise, leading the
future Lord John Greville-Mainwaring astray from his ancient
heritage. Are any of us to be enlisted as peace-makers?"
"Peace is my present objective," said Ferlie, "but I do not
anticipate that Black Towers will supply it, Uncle Ricky, even at
your invitation."
"What's the trouble, Duckie? I've given up trying to fit square pegs
into round holes at my time of life. I'm a lonely old man and the
secrets of a pretty girl would just about rejuvenate me."
"Yes, you're nice and old," she agreed pathetically; "it's the young
who are so cruel."
"The young! Well, I'm... And who has been accusing you of dyeing
that burning bingled bush? Show me the woman, for it was never no
lady!"
"Uncle Ricky! You've asked Cyprian, John and me to join you.
There'll be a Fourth Child too if we come. Will you be quite serious
and listen to me for at least a quarter of an hour?"
He noted the tired shadows under her eyes and drew her arm through
his.
"You come into my cubby-hole," he commanded.
He heard her out over American iced drinks with fruit floating in
them. He was sane and sea-bronzed and unexclamatory.
"Of course, m'dear," he told her in the end, "the position would just
about have killed your poor mother."
"I can't help being glad that I have been spared the hopeless task of
trying to make darling Mother understand, this side of her
tombstone," owned Ferlie. "But I've always been sure that if Father
had not been so ill, he would have positively forbidden me to marry
that particular Catch of the Season."
"Ill or well, he never knew, any more than the rest of us, that you
cared for--anyone else," he reminded her.
"That was because Anyone Else wouldn't admit that he cared for
me--no, not even to himself. And I couldn't force him to, though I
did try. I knew we 'belonged.' But there was Peter and Mother and
Margery Craven and Lady Cardew and everyone sighing over my
hesitation, and at last it seemed the only thing to do to yield.
Right up to the Wedding Voluntary I wondered if, perhaps, Cyprian
might not rouse up and rescue me. But he only sent me a golden
apple, and not a line with it! I began to believe that I'd mistaken
what I knew was the truth about Cyprian and me."
He leant forward and patted her hand.
"What's finished is finished. The question now is to find the
shortest cut to regularizing the affair. Divorce?"
"I'm a Catholic, you know."
"So? Most short-sighted of you. I thought it was just another dish
Peter wanted to taste. But he, too, is going to set up a row of
names, like ninepins, for me to knock down. Rude names that suit
Biblical Royalty but not the sort of people one knows. Tut! tut!
You were always a complicated couple. What of our self-restrained
hero?"
"Cyprian? He--he is against divorce on principle, but..."
"Quite so! Quite so! Circumstances over which he has no control!
By Gad, I'd take that line myself if you were the woman in the case!"
"Uncle Ricky! You've been a Christopher Columbus all your life.
Don't you know one spot on this troublesome earth where Cyprian and I
could have a peaceful holiday with the babies? He's had to retire,
and without work and nowhere to go--Oh, don't you see we can't come
to any conclusion while we are occupying the situation of living
targets to Society's very natural curiosity?"
"Where on earth do you suppose you'd like to be?"
"Somewhere with sea and sands and open sky and trees and warmth and
loveliness and ..."
"Here, Ferlie! Put the brake on. You want a tropical island, fully
supplied with everything but worry."
She jumped at that.
"An island! Yes. You are going to the Andamans. What are they
like?"
"Populated where habitable, alas!"
"Don't tease. There must be an odd one among the number, where we
might picnic."
"Under what flag? I mean, with what suitable excuse? You'd be
hunted up and fêted and asked to Government House.... No, but let me
think."
When he next raised his head she saw a solution had struck him.
"It's a daft scheme enough," he muttered. "But you are just a pair
of lunatics at present, so here goes."
He pulled open a drawer and unrolled a couple of maps, selecting one
to push towards her.
"These are the Nicobars; the nearest of 'em is twenty-four hours'
journey from Port Blair of the Andamans. The Nicobarese are a
totally different race from the Andamanese aboriginals, and a
solitary missionary lives among them obeying the letter of the
Christian Law with more spiritual optimism than horse-sense.
A ship takes his mails from Port Blair every three months, and, once
a year, the Chief Commissioner inspects the tin church on bamboos,
the dozen beehive huts and the wooden shanty which constitutes the
Settlement of Car Nicobar. The missionary has a luxurious wooden
house of three or four rooms and a verandah.
He has to flavour his diet with quinine, and so will you if you join
him. Mind, I don't advocate it, I'm merely putting it to you that,
as I know him, I can run down there--it won't alter our course enough
to matter--and introduce you as friends of mine who--well, desire to
study the flora and fauna of the islands!
He'll offer to put you up at the Settlement, overwhelmed by the
prospect of your company, but of course, if you prefer it, I suppose
you can build yourselves huts, or get the converted sheep of his fold
to build them for you----"
"Oh, huts!" cried Ferlie. "Of course, huts!"
He paused to study her transformed face.
"Bless my soul!" said the Colonel. "And I half expected to be
dismissed as an old fool for my pains!"
* * * * * *
Cyprian and Peter interrupted them making detailed lists of stores
and physic.
Cyprian had been finding Peter a little difficult; Peter had been
finding Cyprian, to use his own desperate expression, "as little open
to reason as Balaam's donkey."
"Which saw the guiding angel and was prepared to follow it, while
Balaam was only likely to bump his nose against a tree," said
Cyprian. And then resorted to brutality.
"Do you think it in the best of taste to criticize Ferlie and myself
when our destiny has been completely blasted in order that yours
might flourish?" he inquired.
"What are you getting at? Ferlie is a Catholic."
"Driven to become one by a marriage to which she was driven by
necessity for money. Has it never struck you that Ferlie and I meant
a great deal to one another before Greville-Mainwaring appeared upon
her horizon--and her family's?"
Peter looked blank.
"The little idiot never said so!"
"No. She did not consider herself at all, Peter."
"All the same, that being true, you gave her up to him pretty coolly,
if I remember rightly. Even Mother remarked that you seemed to have
lost interest in Ferlie."
"I was cowardly enough to leave that particular decision to Ferlie,"
admitted Cyprian. "I bear my share of all now. But I hardly see
where you come in."
"What you've told me certainly rather slams the door in my face. I
thought Ferlie had cut loose simply because Clifford was impossible;
not because you were the only possible dispenser of her happiness.
But as to Clifford--have you heard anything about my hypnotic
experiments?"
"I know the line you've taken up. It must be hellish work."
"I suppose that's the best way to describe dragging folks out of
hell," said Peter. "It's not always their own fault that they are
there, you know. To my way of thinking, unfortunate products, like
Clifford, and the Vane woman, are less worthy of censure than you
with your Burmese kid."
Cyprian made no reply to this. His close-lipped control appealed to
Peter as could have neither anger nor attempted self-justification.
"Never mind," he added, "you're a damned good fellow, Cyprian, and
you'll be relieved to hear that I'm not going to shove my oar in any
more. As Ferlie's only brother I considered I had no choice but to
tackle you. It's a rotten business, and I am more sorry than I can
say for you both; but, after all, I'm not Ferlie's confessor."
"That's all right, old chap," said Cyprian.
So Peter, though tempted to facetiousness, was inclined to be
encouraging about the island.
"We could leave them the small motor-boat," he suggested to Maddock.
"We never use it, Uncle Rick."
"Ferlie has wheedled more than half the contents of the yacht out of
me already," grumbled the Colonel, who was immensely in his element
as the only genuine man-of-the-world in the party untrammelled by
Creed or Convention. "Look round my cabin, Sterne; mark down what
suits you. Don't mind me."
"I wonder," said Peter, "when we call to fetch them, three months
hence, before the monsoon sets in, whether they'll be tattooed all
over and chastely clothed in the Nicobarese Sunday gear of half a
coco-nut and an old top-hat?"
Thus, by a maintained flow of chaff, the sense of incipient strain in
the atmosphere was dispelled.
Cyprian regarded Ferlie ruefully when she first broke the news.
"And you really want to disappear into this incomparably rural
retreat?"
"Don't you think it's a perfect plan? We shall, at least, have time
to breathe."
"Yes, there'll be plenty of time--for everything," he agreed.
One matter troubled the Colonel.
"It'll have to be as Mr. and Mrs. Sterne, you know, Ferlie. Not that
that little Jellybrand is of a suspicious nature--they won't want a
passport from him, hereafter, to prove that of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven. But, hang it all, I'm standing sponsor for you, and I desire
to take my undeservedly unblemished reputation to the grave. And you
and Cyprian don't look at one another with either a brotherly or a
sisterly regard. Best make it 'Ferlie Sterne,' and no questions
asked."
"As if it were necessary for me to wear Cyprian's hat to indicate
that I have belonged to him since the world began," stormed Ferlie.
"All this bother comes from Civilization's idiotic habit of changing
a woman's name. I am just 'Ferlie Marguerite' in this Evolution, and
that's all about it. I'd rather be 'Ferlie Cyprian' than 'Sterne';
which is only half his name, because it certainly wasn't his
mother's."
But Uncle Ricky was not going to be drawn into any more Ferlie-esque
controversy.
"In whatever capacity you belonged to Cyprian twelve thousand years
ago," he said, "and in whatever capacity you intend to belong to him
when there is no more marrying and giving in marriage, you're landing
on Car Nicobar as his lawful, or unlawful, wife."