“He that would have a good revenge, let him leave it to
God.”--_English Proverb._
Captain Lewin’s bearer was what Mr. Halton would have described as an
“average idiot” among niggers, but he was anxious to earn his fee,
and his anxiety increased his intelligence to a disastrous extent. As
soon as he got out of his employer’s range of vision, of course his
shambling trot degenerated into a saunter, and he loafed up Maitso
Hill, calling out salutations to the natives whom he met coming down
from work, for they employed black labour at the garrison. Still he
did not absolutely stop, even to talk to the rickety trains of mule
carts, whose drivers began a high-pitched conversation with him as
soon as they came within sight. No Key Island nigger waits to begin
his gossip until he is close to his friend; most of his conversation
is screamed in patois from one end of a street to another, as his
acquaintance comes round a corner, and the mixture of bastard Arabic,
and African-Dutch, and what he thinks is English, bound together by
long, lovely Malagasy words, is, to say the least of it, peculiar. By
dint of keeping on, however, even at a saunter, the bearer reached the
Churtons’ bungalow in some half-hour’s time after he started from the
club, and came soundlessly through the screen of logwood, his bare feet
lost in the dust, and guided by the lights that twinkled from the stoep.
Before he reached the house itself he saw one of its inmates
approaching leisurely, and paused himself, because it would have
been waste of energy to take the few extra steps and call up the
mistress, when here was the master of the house already at hand.
Major Churton was smoking, the red end of his cigar looking like a
strayed firefly among the light logwood leaves as he advanced, his
big person very big indeed in its white linen and looming through the
dusk like a substantial ghost. He had come out in the hope of getting
more air than was possible on the stoep, and being in canvas shoes
his advance was almost as soundless as the nigger’s. Both men stared
at each other through the darkness as if to make sure of the other’s
personality,--Major Churton because he did not expect to see a ragged
loafer from the town about his house after dusk, and Captain Lewin’s
bearer because he saw the end of his responsibility before him if this
were really the Bimbashi (Major).
“Well, what do you want?” said Churton shortly.
“A letter, Baas!” The man drew it out of the rags that covered his
breast, and shifted from one foot to the other in the dust, with an
apologetic smile on his vacant face. He held the letter to Churton and
nodded insistently.
“For me?” said the Major as he took it. It was too dark to see the
inscription, but he held the cigar between his large white teeth and
broke the seal, moving into the faint light from the stoep to decipher
it.
“Yaas, Baas. Captain Lewin sent it--I give it to you yourself!”
The man had jumbled his orders, and in all good faith believed that
the letter was to go to the owners of the bungalow direct--whether the
Bimbashi or the Missus had it, did not enter his head as of importance,
for he thought the point was that it should not pass through the hands
of the servants. Having delivered his message he did not linger in the
hope of a reward at this end of his journey, for Major Churton’s crisp
manner was not encouraging; he hurried off to catch his employer still
at the club and claim his fee, and with a brief “Efenin’, Baas!” his
noiseless figure shambled into the darkness again, and departed down
the hill.
But Major Churton did not answer the salutation. He was standing close
against the railing of the stoep, but necessarily below it, as the
bungalow was lifted a foot or so above the ground on account of snakes.
The man’s shoulder reached the top of the rail, and he held the letter
carefully so that the light beyond fell across it. It touched his own
face, too, and showed two deep furrows between his brows, and the grey
in his thick dark hair--such a slight sprinkling from the hand of time
that it hardly showed unless in such a full light. Somewhere in that
lighted house his wife was busy over feminine affairs of her own; she
was not in this front room, however, otherwise by lifting his eyes he
could have seen her. He was vaguely glad of that even in the first
shock of his surprise, for he was always afraid of his own temper.
Ally had not begun that letter even in an informal manner, or the
“Dear Di” would have prevented Major Churton reading further. It was
unguarded in its phrasing, and incriminating to a degree in which
he had never written before, because he knew he was going away. To
a jealous nature there was no question as to the meaning of its
references; but just because Bute Churton knew his own power of anger
he was terribly just, and kept an iron control over his judgment. He
would not be sure--not quite yet. He would wait and see if the woman
made this ugly suspicion a certainty by any incautious speech on her
part. He thought for a moment of going down to the club now, whence
this had come, and dealing direct with Lewin; but he was not sure--the
letter he was mechanically twisting and crushing in his strong fingers
was no proof of anything but a dangerous intimacy--no literal proof at
least--and there was plenty of time to-morrow.
He looked down at the letter again, and tried to piece the matter out.
For years Di and he had gone their own ways, and he had made no fuss
over the succession of men who had been her dubious “friends,” because
through some infatuated belief in a man’s own wife being different from
other women, he had fancied that she was always on the safe side--she
had certainly always kept herself beyond the range of scandal, if not
gossip. Had the theory of the thing even drifted through his mind, as
an indiscretion of the past, he might have shut his eyes to it. It
was as an actual experience of the present that made it a hideous and
impossible position. A general tenet with regard to loose morals is
a very different thing to the example which affects one personally.
The most broad-minded people in profession are generally the least
charitable in practice.
He stood out there in the darkness until he had regained his grip on
himself, and thought that he was cool. He could not re-read Ally’s
letter, so he put it in his pocket for further consideration, before
deciding to give it to Diana. Perhaps also he hoped that Lewin’s
departure meant nothing to her such as the letter suggested; if she did
not read Ally’s urgent request to her to ride down and say good-bye to
him, it might not occur to her. He would give her that chance.
They had already dined, and the table was cleared and reloaded with the
Tantalus and soda-water, when he entered the dining-room. Diana came in
as he was helping himself to whiskey,--sparingly, this time,--and flung
her writing-case on to a distant table with a movement suggestive of
weary impatience.
“It _is_ hot!” she remarked. “I’ll have some claret and soda,--leave
me some ice, Bute.” She mixed it for herself, and spoke as she did so.
“Have you heard when the _Greville_ is going?”
“No!”
“Didn’t you see Captain Stern this morning at the club?”
“Yes. He didn’t say.”
“Bother!” said Diana frankly. “I must telephone through the first
thing.”
“Where?”
“To the Lewins, of course. They will know.”
“Why?”
The monosyllables did not warn her, for his voice was perfectly under
control. And his back was towards her as he helped himself to another
cigar from the box on the sideboard.
“I’m going down to see old Ally Sloper off if he goes in the middle
of the night!” said Diana shortly. The openness of the speech sounded
brazen to him to-night, for he forgot that yesterday it would have
passed him by. In her certainty of being secure from his suspicion
she took no trouble to disguise her motives, and she was in some sort
desperate also. The feeling that had been half-hearted on Ally’s side
had grown to painful intensity on Diana’s until her fondness for him
made her as weak as he.
“He will probably start early, and only his wife will be there. I
shouldn’t make myself an unwelcome third if I were you.”
“Half the place will be there!” said Diana, with an unnatural laugh.
“You know we always turn up to see the last of any one, it’s one of the
few little distractions left us. Of course I shall go--Chum won’t mind.”
“I never argue,” said Churton, the cigar between his teeth making the
words sound ominously as if he had set them. “All I have to say is that
if I were you--I shouldn’t go.”
For a minute she looked up sharply, and her heart throbbed with fear of
him. He was standing at his full height, and though she was not a small
woman, he made her feel suddenly that his masculine strength might be
brutal--in any case that she was but a child to him, physically. Then
with the old sore sense of injustice that has rankled in woman from all
generations, she set his sins beside her own, and demanded dumbly if he
could throw the first stone, even though he knew! He did not guess, of
course--she would not harbour that idea; but even if he did he had no
right to accuse her. She shut her lips in a hard line, and said no more.
Churton looked at her also for a moment. He saw the hard, sun-scorched
face and the embittered lips, and perhaps he thought of the red-haired
girl he married. Diana was never untidy--her head was as sleek and
well-groomed now as a racer’s coat, and below the collar-line her neck
was milk-white where her evening dress betrayed its original beauty.
She had the transparency peculiar to red-haired women, and there was
neither flaw nor fleck on her shoulders.
They went up to bed in silence, and the peace between them remained
unbroken. She could hear him moving about in his dressing-room for a
while, but she was undressed and asleep before he lay down by her side,
and she was unaware that he lay hour after hour, awake and thinking,
piecing one thing in with another, proving his own dishonour, and
unconsciously
“Nursing his wrath to keep it warm.”
He thought himself cool and collected, while the smouldering fury in
him burned steadily to white heat. He had always been afraid of his own
temper--it was cheating him now.
Diana woke early, for she had fallen asleep wishing to do so, and
thinking that her husband was still oblivious of her she slipped out
of bed and began to do her hair rapidly. She glanced at him once, and
saw that he was lying on his back as he often did, the covering sheet
thrown off him, and one perfectly-moulded knee drawn up, which was also
a habit of his. He would sleep so, and she thought his eyes were closed
now without more than a cursory glance. He was, in fact, not much in
her thoughts, though again it flitted across her mind that his large
supine limbs suggested terrible strength. He was a splendidly-built
man--as well built as Alaric Lewin, though his added years had
thickened him somewhat--and even the raised knee was rounded with a
massive beauty that would have pleased a sculptor.
By and by she found that the linen gown she wanted hung in a closet
outside her room, on the other side of the passage. She slipped out
almost noiselessly to get it, and as she returned she heard a clock
somewhere in the house strike four. She was in plenty of time, but
the last report of the _Greville’s_ departure which had reached her
had been stated at five, and the grooms must saddle up for her at
once. She did not wait to telephone to the Lewins after all, for fear
of hindering herself rather than otherwise. The thought occupied her
mind, so that when she re-entered the room she did not notice that her
husband had gone.
There was no time for a bath now, she could have that later when she
had ridden up the hill again, and was dusty and hot. Ally would be gone
then--gone at least for a month, for no one expected the trouble in
East Africa to last longer. A month was long enough--a month without
Ally! She did not realise that she had grown a foolish woman, whose
empty heart could not feed for ever on passing attractions, and so
craved greedily to really fill itself, though with an unsatisfying
love. Alaric Lewin had been like a renewal of youth and its
possibilities; he was young and vital, and his very lack of purpose
made him seem like a boy far into his manhood. She was clinging to
the thought of him, when she saw her husband enter quietly from the
dressing-room.
He was in his shirt, but the sleeves were rolled up to the elbow over
his muscled arms. He seemed to have been washing, for he held a towel
loosely in one hand. She noticed vaguely that it was wet, or had been
dipped in water and wrung out. It looked almost like a rope-end,
twisted in that way.
Conscious that her own shoulders were bare, she resented the unusual
intrusion of his entrance, and turned on him curtly.
“I have not finished dressing,” she said. “You can’t have this room
yet. What do you want?”
“Why are you up so early?” he returned, as curtly as she had spoken.
“I am going down to see the _Greville_ off!”
“You _will_ go?”
Her eyes met his, the hard brown of them reddish with anger. “Yes, I
will!” she said boldly.
He laid a tumbled letter before her, spreading it out that she might
see the familiar writing, and speaking carefully, as though he picked
his words.
“Captain Lewin’s bearer gave me this in the dark last night, telling me
it was for me--I could not see the address, and he had evidently made a
mistake, for he insisted on my reading it. You can see for yourself----”
He broke off, waiting with a terrible patience while she glanced over
the page. There was no need to tell her more openly what she was to
see, but her face hardly altered save that it was frankly insolent as
she looked at him.
“I won’t say anything about your reading my letters,” she said,
“because you say it was by mistake. The only thing I will say is
that you have no right to question me. I have never read any of your
letters, by mistake or otherwise, but----”
She flung the taunt at him, and saw his face darken. Well, if there was
to be a row she did not mind much. Her rage at being found out, and
the pain of losing Ally at the same time, made her like some fierce
animal that turns to bay and longs to fight. It would not be an open
scandal--she knew that instinctively. Let him do his worst!
He interrupted before she could accuse him further.
“That is beside the point. You will not go down to see the _Greville_
off.”
“I _will_!”
He caught her by the arm, his fingers closing like iron on the white
flesh, and with his other hand he brought the wet towel down heavily
across her bare shoulders. She was right in saying that it was the
equivalent of a rope-end--it had been tightly wrung out, and it fell
heavier than a rope. The long red weals followed each cut, and she set
her teeth under the pain.
He had not said a word more, and she did not cry out. It never occurred
to her to struggle, for she was like a child in his grip, and it would
but have completed her humiliation. The hot anger and grief in her
heart swelled up and choked her, and the temper he had justly feared
blinded him. The first he knew of the weight of his own blows was his
wife slipping quietly to his feet, her bruised shoulders a sickening
witness to his strength.
He lifted her and laid her in bed again, drawing the sheet over her up
to her neck. Then he closed the shutters and barred out the dreadful
daylight, and before he left he mechanically sprinkled her face with
water and saw the colour coming back to her lips. Di was too strong
to swoon like other women--she had never gone off like this before,
except--except at Agra when the child died. He was not sorry as yet;
he did not feel anything except a grim satisfaction that she would not
attempt to see the _Greville_ off now.
He finished dressing and ordered his own pony, riding off in the cool
of the morning to the town. He had not heard, as his wife had, of the
cruiser’s probable departure at daybreak, for her information had come
from Mrs. Ritchie Stern the day before, and in Lewin’s letter he had
not been sure when they would go--at least, he had said he was not
sure. When Major Churton rode on to the wharf the first reaction came
over him and took the momentary form of disappointment, for fading out
of the harbour, her smoke a trail on the horizon, was the cruiser,
and he saw that he was too late. Then the other view of what he had
done rose before him, and the blind passion that had driven him into
immediate revenge on the person nearest at hand seemed to die out with
the _Greville’s_ smoke trail. He should have dealt with the man first,
not with that poor woman, whose hinted accusations were true enough
when one was cool to listen to them. He had been too angry to heed,
and his conscience did not accuse him of vices more than other men’s,
while it had seemed to him that she was worse than many wives. He had
been unjust to begin with--brutal to end with. In his stupid rage he
had let Lewin go scot free, while the woman bore the brunt of it. His
eyes followed the _Greville_ over the edge of the horizon with the
keener humiliation because he was a strong man with the reserve which
many years had taught him, and it was bitter to realise himself in the
wrong. He had believed in his own manliness at least; now he felt that
he despised himself, and he was too honest to prevaricate.
There were not many people on the wharf, for Captain Stern’s movements
had been left uncertain until the last moment. Mrs. Ritchie Stern and
Mrs. Lewin were standing together close to the water’s edge, as if
unanimously they had pressed after the ship as far as they dared. Their
ponies were held at a little distance, Liscarton’s vagaries making
it unsafe to take him very near the unguarded edge of the quay. The
Commissioner was there too, and Arthur White and Brissy Nugent, no one
else. It was White who saw the motionless figure of the O.C.T. first,
and rode up to him.
“Ah, Churton! You were too late,” he said, shaking hands cordially. “I
was afraid you might be. It’s an awful pull to get down from Maitso so
early.”
“Yes!”
The grave face under the white helmet made the Attorney-General leap to
a wrong conclusion.
“Were you ordered out last night? No? Heard nothing of the row?”
“Where was it?” The steady, dark eyes came back from the last glimpse
of the _Greville_ and fixed themselves on White’s red pleasant face.
“At Government House. Halton has just been telling me. He knew
nothing of it, any more than I, for he rode down to see me last
night, and didn’t get back until eleven or half-past. I’m to meet the
Administrator later, but I don’t suppose I shall hear much more. He
makes light of it--says it was a flash in the pan, and rather amusing,
but I know I shouldn’t have cared to face a couple of hundred niggers
after the ultimatum about the crops. I’m going to ask Mrs. Lewin what
really happened.”
“Mrs. Lewin!”
“Yes, she was in it all. Lewin had gone down to the club to say
good-bye to you all, I suppose--you missed him, by the way?” (“Yes!”
said Churton bitterly, “I am sorry I did!”)--“and Mrs. Lewin heard
something of the disturbance and got in a funk and rushed up to
Government House. Very sensible thing to do, only unfortunately she got
into the middle of it.”
This was Gregory’s very natural explanation of her presence there, as
Mrs. Lewin had already found. She accepted it dully, with an added
feeling of fear at his facility. Churton’s eyes wandered to her for a
minute across the quay, and he thought she looked as if last night’s
strain and this morning’s parting had tried her, and was gentler than
usual in his manner when she greeted him.
“I am sorry you arrived too late to see Ally,” she said, “he hoped to
catch you at the club last night. I was to say good-bye for him.”
He thought of that helpless figure with scarred shoulders that he had
laid on the bed, but he did not wince. His voice, as he asked her about
the trouble at Government House, was so kind and sympathetic, that it
came to nearer making her break down than all that had gone before.
“I was very much frightened,” she said. “Though Mr. Gregory says that
there was no danger. He cleared the stoep with a shambok--that was
all!” She tried to smile, and her eyes were rather misty.
“You look as if you had had about enough of it!” he said, unconscious
of the effect of the morning sunlight on his own face. He wished too
that she had not, with her few words, drawn him a picture of Gregory
and the shambok--it reminded him of his own action this morning. Men
like himself and Gregory--men proud of their masculine quality of
strength--seemed of a brutal type to him just now.
“I feel rather as if I had been to three balls all at once, and danced
into daylight--that is all. Dissipation always gives me the same cheap
feeling as a great strain. Mrs. Stern is coming home to breakfast
with me to cheer me up, she is leaving in the mail this afternoon,
unfortunately, or I should try and persuade her to stay for a few days.”
“I hear there is another cruiser signalled at Port Albert,” said Mrs.
Ritchie, as she turned from Arthur White, to whom she had been talking.
“The _Skate_ I think it must be--I suppose you all know Captain
Tullock? The bay will be quite lively this afternoon with our departure
and his arrival. I shall see your wife then, of course, Major Churton?”
“She is seedy this morning, but she may feel well enough to come down,”
he said composedly. “Good-bye, Mrs. Lewin, take care of yourself.”
She wondered why he was so particularly kind to her, and if he would
have been could he only have known all the inward workings of her
heart! Life would be a little humiliating were it not for its power
of secrecy. As Bute Churton’s big figure disappeared along the narrow
street to the town, Leoline looked after him and guessed nothing of
the irony of their relations with each other, for he was thinking that
worthless fellows like Lewin were blessed with wives like this, while
she shrank from a consciousness of thoughts disloyal to her husband.
“Major Churton looks very ill!” she said. “I never noticed it before;
but I am sure he ought to get away. I have grown selfish with my own
concerns.”
“He looks as if he had had some kind of shock,” said Mrs. Ritchie,
with her fatal intuition. “I wonder what made him late!”