THE SHADOW BEFORE
Jan had been a week in Bombay, and her grave anxiety about Fay was in no
way lessened. Rather did it increase and intensify, for not only did her
bodily strength seem to ebb from her almost visibly day by day, but her
mind seemed so detached and aloof from both present and future.
It was only when Jan talked about the past, about their happy girlhood
and their lovable comrade-father, that Fay seemed to take hold and
understand. All that had happened before his death seemed real and vital
to her. But when Jan tried to interest her in plans for the future, the
voyage home, the children, the baby that was due so soon, Fay looked at
her with tired, lack-lustre eyes and seemed at once to become
absent-minded and irrelevant.
She was ready enough to discuss the characters of the children, to
impress upon Jan the fact that Tony was not unloving, only cautious and
slow before he really gave his affection. That little Fay was exactly
what she appeared on the surface--affectionate, quick, wilful, and
already conscious of her own power through her charm.
"I defy anybody to quarrel with Fay when she is willing to make it up,"
her mother said. "Tony melts like wax before the warmth of her
advances. She may have behaved atrociously to him five minutes
before--Ayah lets her, and I am far too weak with her--but if _she_
wants to be friends Tony forgets and condones everything. Was I very
naughty to you, Jan, as a baby?"
"Not that I can remember. I think you were very biddable and good."
"And you?"
Jan laughed--"There you have me. I believe I was most naughty and
obstreperous, and have vivid recollections of being sent to bed for
various offences. You see, Mother was far too strong and wise to spoil
me as little Fay is spoilt. Father tried his best, but you remember
Hannah? Could you imagine Hannah submitting for one moment to the sort
of treatment that baby metes out to poor, patient Ayah every single
day?"
"By the way, how is Hannah?"
"Hannah is in her hardy usual. She is going strong, and has developed
all sorts of latent talent as a cook. She was with me in the furnished
flat I rented till the day I left (I only took it by the month), and
she'll be with us again when we all get back to Wren's End."
"But I thought Wren's End was let?"
"Only till March quarter-day, and I've cabled to the agent not to
entertain any other offer, as we want it ourselves."
"I like to think of the children at Wren's End," Fay said dreamily.
"Don't you like to think of yourself there, too? Would you like any
other place better?"
Jan's voice sounded constrained and a little hard. People sometimes
speak crossly when they are frightened, and just then Jan felt the cold,
skinny hands of some unnameable terror clutching her heart. Why did Fay
always exclude herself from all plans?
They were, as usual, sitting in the verandah after dinner, and Fay's
eyes were fixed on the deeply blue expanse of sky. She hardly seemed to
hear Jan, for she continued: "Do you remember the sketch Daddie did of
me against the yew hedge? I'd like Tony to have that some day if you'd
let him."
"Of course that picture is yours," Jan said, hastily. "We never divided
the pictures when he died. Some were sold and we shared the money, but
our pictures are at Wren's End."
"I remember that money," Fay interrupted. "Hugo was so pleased about it,
and gave me a diamond chain."
"Fay, where do you keep your jewellery?"
"There isn't any to keep now. He 'realised' it all long before we left
Dariawarpur."
"What do you mean, Fay? Has Hugo pawned it? All Mother's things, too?"
"I don't know what he did with it," Fay said, wearily. "He told me it
wasn't safe in Dariawarpur, as there were so many robbers about that hot
weather, and he took all the things in their cases to send to the bank.
And I never saw them again."
Jan said nothing, but she reflected rather ruefully that when Fay
married she had let her have nearly all their mother's ornaments, partly
because Fay loved jewels as jewels, and Jan cared little for them
except as associations. "If I'd kept more," Jan thought, "they'd have
come in for little Fay. Now there's nothing except what Daddie gave me."
"Are you sorry, Jan?" Fay asked, presently. "I suppose there again you
think I ought to have stood out, to have made inquiries and insisted on
getting a receipt from the bank. But I knew very well they were not
going to the bank. I don't think they fetched much, but Hugo looked a
little less harassed after he'd got them. I've nothing left now but my
wedding ring and the little enamel chain like yours, that Daddie gave us
the year he had that portrait of Meg in the Salon and took us over to
see it. Where is Meg? Has she come back yet?"
"Meg is still in Bremen with an odious German family, but she leaves at
the end of the Christmas holidays, as the girl is going to school, and
Meg will be utilised to bring her over. Then she's to have a rest for a
month or two, and I daresay she'd come to Wren's End and help us with
the babies when we get back."
Fay leant forward and said eagerly, "Try to get her, Jan. I'd love to
think she was there to help you."
"To help us," Jan repeated firmly.
Fay sighed. "I can never think of myself as of much use any more;
besides ... Oh, Jan, won't you face it? You who are so brave about
facing things ... I don't believe I shall come through--this time."
Jan got up and walked restlessly about the verandah. She tried to make
herself say, heard her own voice saying without any conviction, that it
was nonsense; that Fay was run down and depressed and no wonder; and
that she would feel quite different in a month or two. And all the time,
though her voice said these preposterously banal things, her brain
repeated the doctor's words after his last visit: "I wish there was a
little more stamina, Miss Ross. I don't like this complete inertia. It's
not natural. Can't you rouse her at all?"
"My sister has had a very trying time, you know. She seems thoroughly
worn out."
"I know, I know," the doctor had said. "A bad business and cruelly hard
on her; but I wish we could get her strength up a bit somehow. I don't
like it--this lack of interest in everything--I don't like it." And the
doctor's thin, clever face looked lined and worried as he left.
His words rang in Jan's ears, drowning her own spoken words that seemed
such a hollow sham.
She went and knelt by Fay's long chair. Fay touched her cheek very
gently (little Fay had the same adorable tender gestures). "It would
make it easier for both of us if you'd face it, my dear," she said. "I
could talk much more sensibly then and make plans, and perhaps really be
of some use. But I feel a wretched hypocrite to talk of sharing in
things when I know perfectly well I shan't be there."
"Don't you want to be there?" Jan asked, hoarsely.
[Illustration: "It would make it easier for both of us if you'd face it,
my dear."]
Fay shook her head. "I know it's mean to shuffle out of it all, but I
_am_ so tired. Do you think it very horrid of me, Jan?"
In silence Jan held her close; and in that moment she faced it.
The days went on, strange, quiet days of brilliant sunshine. Their daily
life shrouded from the outside world even as the verandah was shrouded
from the sun when Lalkhan let down the chicks every day after tiffin.
Peter was their only visitor besides the doctor, and Peter came
practically every day. He generally took Jan out after tea, sometimes
with the children, sometimes alone. He even went with her to the bank in
Elphinstone Circle, so like a bit of Edinburgh, with its solid stone
houses, and found that Hugo actually had lodged fifty pounds there in
Fay's name. The clerks looked curiously at Jan, for they thought she was
Mrs. Tancred. Every one in business or official circles in Bombay knew
about Hugo Tancred. His conduct had, for a while, even ousted the usual
topics of conversation--money, food, and woman--from the bazaars; and an
exhaustive discussion of it was only kept out of the Native Press by the
combined efforts of the Police and his own Department. Jan gained from
Peter a fairly clear idea of the _débâcle_ that had occurred in Hugo
Tancred's life. She no longer wondered that Fay refused to leave the
bungalow. She began to feel branded herself.
For Jan, Peter's visits had come to have something of the relief the
loosening of a too-tight bandage gives to a wounded man. He generally
came at tea-time when Fay was at her best, and he brought her news of
her little world at Dariawarpur. To her sister he seemed the one link
with reality. Without him the heavy dream would have gone on unbroken.
Fay was always most eager he should take Jan out, and, though at first
Jan had been unwilling, she gradually came to look upon such times as a
blessed break in the monotonous restraint of her day. With him she was
natural, said what she felt, expressed her fears, and never failed to
return comforted and more hopeful.
One night he took her to the Yacht Club, and Jan was glad she had gone,
because it gave her so much to tell Fay when she got back.
It was a very odd experience for Jan, this tea on the crowded lawn of
the Yacht Club. She turned hot when people looked at her, and Jan had
always felt so sure of herself before, so proud to be a daughter of
brilliant, lovable Anthony Ross.
Here, she knew that her sole claim to notice was that she had the
misfortune to be Hugo Tancred's sister-in-law. Fay, too, had once been
joyfully proud and confident--and now!
Sometimes in the long, still days Jan wondered whether their father had
brought them up to expect too much from life, to take their happiness
too absolutely as a matter of course. Anthony Ross had fully subscribed
to the R.L.S. doctrine that happiness is a duty. When they were both
quite little girls he had loved to hear them repeat:
If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain;
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take,
And stab my spirit broad awake.
Surely as young girls they had both shown a "glorious morning face." Who
more so than poor Fay? So gay and beautiful and kind. Why had this come
upon her, this cruel, numbing disgrace and sorrow? Jan was thoroughly
rebellious. Again she went over that time in Scotland six years before,
when, at a big shooting-box up in Sutherland, they met, among other
guests, handsome Hugo Tancred, home on leave. How he had, almost at
first sight, fallen violently in love with Fay. How he had singled her
out for every deferent and delicate attention; how she, young,
enthusiastic, happy and flattered, had fallen quite equally in love with
him. Jan recalled her father's rather comical dismay and astonishment.
His horror when they pressed an immediate marriage, so that Fay might go
out with Hugo in November. And his final giving-in to everything Fay
wanted because Fay wanted it.
Did her father really like Hugo Tancred? she wondered. And then came the
certainty that he wouldn't ever have liked anybody much who wanted to
marry either of them; but he was far too just and too imaginative to
stand in the way where, what seemed, the happiness of his daughter was
concerned.
"What a gamble it all is," thought Jan, and felt inclined to thank
heaven that she was neither so fascinating nor as susceptible as Fay.
How were they to help to set Hugo Tancred on his legs again, and
reconstruct something of a future for Fay? And then there always
sounded, like a knell, Fay's tired, pathetic voice: "Don't bother to
make plans for me, Jan. For the children, yes, as much as you like. You
are so clever and constructive--but leave me out, dear, for it's just a
waste of time."
And the dreadful part of it was that Jan felt a growing conviction that
Fay was right. And what was more, that Peter felt about it exactly as
Fay did, in spite of his matter-of-fact optimism at all such times as
Jan dared to express her dread.
Peter learned a good deal about the Ross family in those talks with Jan.
She was very frank about her affairs, told him what money she had and
how it was invested. That the old house in Gloucestershire was hers,
left directly to her and not to her father, by a curious freak on the
part of his aunt, one Janet Ross, who disapproved of Anthony's habit of
living up to whatever he made each year by his pictures, and saving
nothing that he earned.
"My little girls are safe, anyway," he always said. "Their mother's
money is tied up on them, though they don't get it except with my
sanction till my death. I can't touch the capital. Why, then, shouldn't
we have an occasional flutter when I have a good year, while we are all
young and can enjoy things?"
They had a great many flutters--for Anthony's pictures sold well among a
rather eclectic set. His portraits had a certain _cachet_ that gave them
a vogue. They were delicate, distinguished, and unlike other work. The
beauties without brains never succeeded in getting Anthony Ross to paint
them, bribed they never so. But the clever beauties were well satisfied,
and the clever who were not at all beautiful felt that Anthony Ross
painted their souls, so they were satisfied, too. Besides, he made their
sittings so delightful and flirted with them with such absolute
discretion always. The year that Hugo Tancred met Fay was a particularly
good year, and Anthony had bought a touring-car, and they all went up to
Scotland in it. The girls were always well dressed and went out a good
deal. Young as she was, Jan was already an excellent manager and a
pleasant hostess. She had been taking care of her father from the time
she was twelve years old, and knew exactly how to manage him. When there
was plenty of money she let him launch out; when it was spent she made
him draw in again, and he was always quite ready to do so. Money as
money had no charms for Anthony Ross, but the pleasures it could
provide, the kindnesses it enabled him to do, the easy travel and the
gracious life were precious to him. He abhorred debt in any form and
paid his way as he went; lavishly when he had it, justly and exactly
always.
On hearing all this Peter came to the conclusion that Hugo Tancred was
not altogether to blame if he had expected a good deal more financial
assistance from his father-in-law than he got. Anthony made no marriage
settlement on Fay. He allowed her two hundred a year for her personal
expenses and considered that Hugo Tancred should manage the running of
his own house out of his quite comfortable salary. He had, of course, no
smallest inkling of Hugo's debts or gambling propensities. And all might
have gone well if only Anthony Ross had made a new will when Fay
married; a will which tied up her mother's money and anything he might
leave her, so that she couldn't touch the capital. But nothing of the
kind was done.
It never occurred to Jan to think of wills.
Anthony Ross was strong and cheerful and so exceedingly young at
fifty-two that it seemed absurd that he should have grown-up daughters,
quite ludicrous that he should be a grandfather.
Many charming ladies would greatly like to have occupied the position of
stepmother to "those nice girls," but Anthony, universal lover as he was
within strictly platonic limits, showed no desire to give his girls
anything of the sort. Jan satisfied his craving for a gracious and
well-ordered comfort in all his surroundings. Fay gratified his æsthetic
appreciation of beauty and gentleness. What would he do with a third
woman who might introduce discord into these harmonies?
Fay came home for a short visit when Tony was six months old, as Hugo
had not got a very good station just then. She was prettier than ever,
seemed perfectly happy, and both Anthony and Jan rejoiced in her.
After she went out the Tancreds moved to Dariawarpur, which was
considered one of the best stations in their province, and there little
Fay was born, and it was arranged that Jan and her father were to visit
India and Fay during the next cold weather.
But early in the following November Anthony Ross got influenza,
recovered, went out too soon, got a fresh chill, and in two days
developed double pneumonia.
His heart gave out, and before his many friends had realised he was at
all seriously ill, he died.
Jan, stunned, bewildered, and heart-broken, yet contrived to keep her
head. She got rid of the big house in St. George's Square and most of
the servants, finally keeping only Hannah, her old Scottish nurse. She
paid everybody, rendered a full account of her stewardship to Fay and
Hugo, and then prepared to go out to India as had been arranged. Her
heart cried out for her only sister.
To her surprise this proposition met with but scant enthusiasm. It
seemed the Tancreds' plans were uncertain; perhaps it might be better
for Fay and the children to come home in spring instead of Jan going out
to them. Hugo's letters were ambiguous and rather cold; Fay's a curious
mixture of abandonment and restraint; but the prevailing note of both
was "would she please do nothing in a hurry, but wait."
So, of course, Jan waited.
She waited two years, growing more anxious and puzzled as time went on.
Her lawyer protested unavailingly at Hugo's perpetual demands (of
course, backed up by Fay) for more and more capital that he might
"re-invest" it. Fay's letters grew shorter and balder and more
constrained. At last, quite suddenly, came the imperative summons to go
out at once to be with Fay when the new baby should arrive.
And now after three weeks in Bombay Jan felt that she had never known
any other life, that she never would know any other life than this
curious dream-like existence, this silent, hopeless waiting for
something as afflicting as it was inevitable.
There had been a great fire in the cotton green towards Colaba. It had
blazed all night, and, in spite of the efforts of the Bombay firemen and
their engines, was still blazing at six o'clock the following evening.
Peter took Jan in his car out to see it. There was an immense crowd, so
they left the car on its outskirts and plunged into the throng on foot.
On either side of the road were tall, flimsy houses with a wooden
staircase outside; those curious tenements so characteristic of the
poorer parts of Bombay, and in such marked contrast to the "Fort," the
European quarter of the town. They were occupied chiefly by Eurasians
and very poor Europeans. That the road was a sea of mud, varied by quite
deep pools of water, seemed the only possible reason why such houses
were not also burning.
Jan splashed bravely through the mud, interested and excited by the
people and the leaping flames so dangerously near. It was growing dusk;
the air was full of the acrid smell of burnt cotton, and the red glow
from the sky was reflected on the grave brown faces watching the fire.
Any crowd in Bombay is always extremely varied, and Jan almost forgot
her anxieties in her enjoyment of the picturesque scene.
"I don't think the people ought to be allowed to throng on the top of
that staircase," Peter said suddenly. "They aren't built to hold a
number at once; there'll be an accident," and he left her side for a
moment to speak to an inspector of police.
Jan looked up at a tall house on her left, where sightseers were
collecting on the staircase to get a better view. Every window was
crowded with gazers, all but one. From one, quite at the top, a solitary
watcher looked out.
There was a sudden shout from the crowd below, a redder glow as more
piled cotton fell into the general furnace and blazed up, and in that
moment Jan saw that the solitary watcher was Hugo Tancred, and that he
recognised her. She gave a little gasp of horror, which Peter heard as
he joined her again. "What is it?" he said. "What has frightened you?"
Jan pointed upwards. "I've just seen Hugo," she whispered. "There, in
one of those windows--the empty one. Oh, what can he be doing in those
dreadful houses, and why is he in Bombay all this time and never a word
to Fay?"
Jan was trembling. Peter put his hand under her arm and walked on with
her.
"I knew he was in Bombay," he said, "but I didn't think the poor devil
was reduced to this."
"What is to be done?" Jan exclaimed. "If he comes and worries Fay for
money now, it will kill her. She thinks he is safely out of India. What
_is_ to be done?"
"Nothing," said Peter. "He'll go the very minute he can, and you may be
sure he'll raise the wind somehow. He's got all sorts of queer irons in
the fire. He daren't appear at the flat, or some of his creditors would
cop him for debt--it's watched day and night, I know. Just let it alone.
I'd no idea he was hiding in this region or I wouldn't have brought you.
We all want him to get clear. He might file his petition, but it would
only rake up all the old scandals, and they know pretty well there's
nothing to be got out of him."
"He looked so dreadful, so savage and miserable," Jan said with a
half-sob.
"Well--naturally," said Peter. "You'd feel savage and miserable if you
were in his shoes."
"But oughtn't I to help him? Send him money, I mean."
"Not one single anna. It'll take you all your time to get his family
home and keep them when you get there. Have you seen enough? Shall we go
back?"
"You don't think he'll molest Fay?"
"I'm certain of it."
"Please take me home. I shall never feel it safe to leave Fay again for
a minute."
"That's nonsense, you know," said Peter.
"It's what I feel," said Jan.
It was that night Tony's extempore prayer was echoed so earnestly by his
aunt.