“La paix n’est que le sommeil de la guerre.”--_French Proverb._
“There must be something wrong between the Churtons,” said Mrs.
Gilderoy, taking off her hat and sitting down beside Mrs. Lewin to chat.
“What is the matter?” asked Leoline, in some surprise. “I haven’t seen
Di for ever so long, though all the rest of you have been most good in
cheering my solitude. Major Churton is away, isn’t he?”
“He has gone for a ride round the island. That is how I know something
is wrong. It is our one resource for mental disturbance--if a man has
been refused, or a woman found out, they arrange to ride round the
island until things calm down again. You see, we can’t get out of it,
so we begin to run round and round to ease our distress.”
“Like rats in a trap!” said Mrs. Lewin absently, her mind with Halton’s
simile.
“Exactly. Churton said he was going to shoot on the Tableland, but
young Rennie, who went out there some days later, found him starting
for Africa Point and Sand Bay. He will come home by Hashish Valley, and
I hope he won’t come in for the trouble there!”
“There is no further disturbance, is there? Mr. Halton told me
positively that he would leave in the next mail. But that may be
desperation!”
“Poor man! I don’t wonder. He has been kept hanging about on the
chance of a rising, when he might just as well have gone by the same
boat as Mrs. Ritchie Stern. Look how tamely the snuff-coloured people
took the crop-burning, after all!”
“Rather ominously so, I thought. I feel somehow as if we were not
through yet.”
“Well, what there was to see, you saw! I can’t think how you lived
through that night at Government House, Chum. I expected to see your
hair grey next morning.”
“It was really not so terrifying as it sounded afterwards. Mr. Gregory
was so cool too--he was almost insolent to the natives.”
“I suppose you expected to find Captain Lewin there. You have not heard
anything of him, by the way--I mean cabled through from Capetown, for
instance--have you?”
“Not a word. All I know is that the boat reached Port Cecil, and it was
also confirmed that his regiment was up there.”
“So he will have his friends about him, anyway. It is a month since he
left, isn’t it? Aren’t you very anxious?”
“No, I don’t think so. It would be so unreasonable, because I know that
I could not hear. If he wrote at once _viâ_ Capetown the mail will
bring it. But Ally is a bad correspondent, and if he were very much
taken up with the business in hand he might forget and miss the mail.
And I might never hear at all until he came back!”
“You take it very philosophically. I know if I didn’t hear from my good
man under the circumstances, I should begin writing abusive letters to
the Government at Capetown.”
“I think they find Key Island quite enough of a worry, without
having to calm disaffected wives there, as it is,” said Mrs. Lewin,
with a pang of conscience. How often had she thought of Ally through
these halcyon summer days that had drifted past her so softly and
easily--they seemed, on looking back, merely a golden haze? She had
thought of him, indeed, as the fly in her amber, and had thrust the
thought away when conscience pressed too hard. “I can’t think why
they brigaded us with South Africa,” she added, more to dodge her own
thought than with any real interest in the Home Government’s disposal
of the Empire. “Mauritius has its own governor; why shouldn’t we?”
“We are too small. And besides, they never give Gregory’s Powder an
absolute monarchy--perhaps when he goes Key’land will be made a Crown
colony. I am sorry for Capetown having such a firebrand tacked on to
them, myself. He was under Milner once, and they nearly quarrelled; but
the man of men he hates is Kitchener. Gregory always wants the troops
at his instant disposal when he sets out to soothe the wily native, and
Kitchener won’t have it. Can’t you imagine Gregory trying to snatch a
few soldiers when the General is not looking, and the poor wretched
officer in command being dragged in two, like a Christmas cracker,
between them?”
“And going off with a bang,” said Mrs. Lewin, laughing. “I am sure I
should, in his place. Mr. Gregory started in the Army himself--you know
that, of course.”
“Yes; I believe he served with Roberts for a short time--a _very_ short
time! He never could obey his senior officers. So he was taken out of
the Army and put into the Colonial service. Apropos of nothing, Chum,
you are not looking well. When are you going to Vohitra?”
“I am too much afraid of your thinking it a proof of mental
disturbance,” said Mrs. Lewin, with a languid smile. “When people ride
round the island it always begins at Port Albert, doesn’t it?”
“Generally; though in very bad cases I have known them ride right
through the Rano Valley, and up to Vohitra that way--on some one else’s
pony, of course. Do you notice that the pony is the pledge of affection
here? We don’t give engagement-rings--we give ponies. ‘He has given
her a pony’ is tantamount to saying, ‘they are engaged,’ and if you
ride any man’s cattle save your husband’s you are accepting serious
attentions.”
“What a dreadful thought! For we have never really bought Liscarton,
Captain Nugent _would_ lend him to me, and I am so dishonest that I
have not returned him yet.”
“Well, my dear, it is such a known thing that Bristles worships your
untied shoestrings, and hangs upon the tilt of your Panama, that no one
would be surprised if you took his entire stud!”
“I suppose I have no character!” said Mrs. Lewin resignedly.
“Not a shred! You are much too good-looking, and your clothes suggest
Bond Street and general wickedness.”
Again Leoline laughed, for she was content that Key Island should
bracket her with Brissy Nugent. Her conscience was nearly dormant
during those days, and only roused occasionally when a gust of remorse
or realisation swept over her reasonlessly and made her shudder. Then
it would pass, and she would face the situation steadily again. Had
she been in England, among influences which had moulded her life, and
with the chance of a larger outlook, she would not have deemed such a
state of mind as her present one to be possible to her. That her whole
self could be absorbed in a man whom to love was frankly dishonourable,
would have seemed to her impossible while she had the intelligence to
foresee and fight it down. But it is impossible in a land policed by
the conventions of countless generations, where at least one lives in
wholesome fear of one’s next door neighbour, to realise or understand
the influence of the waste places of this earth under the sway of the
Imperial Government. Men lose their boundaries there, and be a woman
what she will she is bound to feel the influence in her thoughts if not
her actions. The laxity of the manners and morals in such rat-traps as
Key Island is due to the opinion of the majority, for sin is after all
a matter of the law of nations, and there is no universal standard of
right and wrong. When the thermometer stands at 90° in the shade, and
Society consists of forty persons who must go on meeting each other
indefinitely, it is probable that the forty will tacitly agree to
overlook each other’s peccadilloes for the sake of comfort. And it is
hard to be less charitable to one’s own failings than one’s neighbour
will be.
The stronger nature with which she was in close intercourse, too,
was influencing if it could not entirely dominate Leoline. Gregory
had absolutely kept his word with regard to their relations with each
other; he did not ask her for a material proof of her affection, but
it was not in human nature that they should not be often together and
alone without some such hint of passion as had overtaken them on the
evening of Alaric’s departure. His visits were spasmodic, and dependent
to a certain extent on caution while Halton was still at Government
House, but she never knew when he might not appear, and had given
herself up to receiving him with a submission that yet kept her nerves
on edge. Sometimes they merely talked--intimately, it is true, for he
unfolded his plans to her as to no one else--but with hardly a kiss to
disturb her pulses. It was a relief to Gregory to confide in a mind
which he found both receptive and capable of following him, even of
counselling him at times. He made her the partner of plans he would not
have trusted to a fellow-man, and would have missed her from his life
as a confidante, apart from her attraction as a woman; for the craving
for sympathy is as great as the craving for alcohol--once aroused, it
becomes a habit, and is hard to satisfy. During the greater part of his
life Gregory had taught himself to live alone, and regard men and women
alike as likely to be a hindrance to him unless he could make a passing
use of them. Now he had found a helpmate he meant to bind her to him by
the strongest tie he could fashion.
Leoline gave regally in the expansion of all her forces, and made him
the master of her brain and spirit as well as heart. Every vital power
she had was at his disposal, and while she gloried in the bestowal she
was troubled that her sensations were not all clear gain in perfect
joy. The temperate, uncomplicated affection she had felt for Alaric
had in a way made her less unhappy, if also less happy, which was
disturbing. Take it how one will, being in love is not a comfortable
process, provided it is a real case of unreasoning attachment between
two human beings--unreasoning in that the advantages of such an
attachment do not influence the feeling at all. No one really enjoys
violent emotion, and of all experiences a sexual love is most likely
to be violent, however it may differ in degree, through a warmer or
colder nature. “All pleasure is negative,” says Schopenhauer, for the
fulfilment of a desire only concludes the pangs of it. Love as purely,
as mentally as one may, it is a torturing joy--a bewildering experience
that upsets and revolutionises the ordinary routine of life, and which
one naturally resents. Who cares for the unused depths of his being
brought up to the surface, and forcing him to live in extremes? It is
the memory of love which is divine; the present experience is by no
means so pleasant, and sooner or later brings the pain that is only
tolerable when it has passed.
On the day when Mrs. Gilderoy came to see her, Leoline was looking
forward to the arrival of the mail with mixed feelings. It was due the
next day, and Alfred Halton was going to leave Key Island by it, for
there was peace in Hashish Valley and China Town, and the natives of
Port Victoria were dully quiet, almost as if the burning of the crops
had been a salutary lesson and had cowed them. There had been very
little drunkenness in the streets of late--always the prevailing sin
of Key Island--and thefts of cattle had been rare. So far things were
well, and the removal of Halton would be an unfeigned relief, for Mrs.
Lewin had an intuitive dread of him that all the rest of the population
could not inspire. She had warned Gregory, who would hardly be warned
because of an instinctive contempt at the roots of his nature for the
man who had always been afraid to act; but the boat that took Alfred
Halton out of her immediate life was as welcome as a human rescuer,
if it had not also brought the mail. Mrs. Lewin dreaded the mail, and
the sight of her husband’s familiar handwriting. It would force her
to face her own intention again, to consider their relations, and how
she should deliberately sever herself from him. While he was absent
there had been a certain pause in action that had left her finally
uncommitted. She did not mean to flinch from the actual step, and yet
she wished that his return might be delayed.
She had not expected the Administrator that night, for he had been
to Port Albert, and she had not heard of his return. His visits were
almost always made in the evening after dinner, when he could snatch a
half-hour unobserved and likely to be undisturbed, and his appearance
on this occasion was later than his usual hour. There was something
hurried and almost abrupt about his entrance too, partly from the fact
that he was in riding dress, and it seemed as if he must have come
straight from his return journey.
She had risen rather hastily as Abdallah announced him, and
instinctively looked past his broad shoulders to see the white turban
vanish out of sight before she greeted him. But he hardly waited for
safety, and drew her into his arms with an unusual demonstration of
passion. They stood silent for a moment, and she was suddenly a little
faint. Either some desperate feeling in him communicated itself to
her, or the violent demand of his nature sapped her strength. She had
not the resistance to draw her lips away, but it was a relief when the
interminable kiss was over. She gave an odd little laugh to recover
herself, and laid her hand against his face with tender familiarity.
“You haven’t shaved to-day! How dare you kiss me?”
“I know--I’m only just back. I came straight in.”
“Haven’t you been home?” she asked, startled. “Haven’t you dined?”
“Yes!”--something seemed to strangle him in the one word. “Yes--I--went
home. No, don’t call any one. I’m going back to Government House to
feed--later.”
“But, Evelyn”--her arms suddenly tightened about his large loose
figure; she looked up with a beautiful white face--“have you bad news?”
“No!”--he spoke the one word with no uncertainty, but then he framed
her face in his two hands and looked hard into her eyes. “Do you know,”
he said fiercely, “I am tempted to break my word to you!”
“How?”--but she knew in all her leaping blood.
“To make you rather more mine than I have a right to yet, to-night.”
For a minute it seemed that his decision hung in the balance, while she
wondered blankly why her will seemed frozen, and she could not say at
once, as she must do, “I will not!”
“If I let you off, promise me afresh to come to me some day--when we
are free,” he said urgently, the assurance of his first words startling
her. “You will not throw me over for some woman’s scruple--will you?”
Such uncertainty was even more unusual than his taking her consent
for granted, for he was anxious now, pleading for what he had already
gained, as if there were some real fear of losing it.
“Evelyn, there is something troubling you!” she exclaimed. “There _is_
something wrong!”
“No, nothing--but say what I want. Promise me----”
“What?”
“That you are mine whatever happens. That nothing shall stand between
us.”
She hesitated, panic-stricken. All the responsibility of such
selfishness as he asked for weighed upon her with a sudden burden.
“We have decided----” she began.
“No, but swear it----”
Then his mood changed as strangely as it appeared to have come upon
him. He clasped her waist with his arm again, and dropped his head
heavily against her breast. She almost staggered under his massive
weight, even though he held her.
“No, I will ask nothing of you,” he said thickly. “I will trust you
to give me more than I deserve, Leo--but you are free to choose. I am
too hardened a sinner for you to be bound to, or smirch yourself with,
perhaps. And yet--I love you--love you!”
The cry was so genuine that it frightened her for their safety,
and she said “Hush” instinctively. His face when he raised it was
lined and scarred as if with his own storm of feeling, and he looked
harsher-featured and more rugged than ever. Even after he had regained
his usual control and left her, she kept going over the incident with
a feeling of bewilderment. It was the only occasion on which she had
seen him so upset, and he appeared to her almost wild--almost as if
possessed by some unlooked-for remorse. She could but suppose that
their mutual relations stung his sense of honour, too, at times, though
it was a venial sin, but such a revelation was almost pitiful to her,
and, strange to say, strengthened her own resolution to sacrifice the
rest of the world to him, as no appeal of his could have done. Even
the momentary danger she had been in of a sexual advance in their
relations with each other did not alarm her as it had at the time. She
realised that the danger had been there, for Gregory’s force of will
had at times almost a hypnotic influence upon her, and where she would
once have been confident in her own power of denial, she had learned
to doubt herself; but she realised also that it was no mere access of
passion and self-indulgence that had made him desire a more complete
possession of her. For some reason he was afraid of a possible break in
the tie that bound them, and wished to strengthen it by every means in
his power. He judged that, once master of her body, her morality would
be uneasy until he had an established right to such privilege, and by
foregoing that claim he had weakened his own position with her. But why
should he doubt her resolution now, and why be so suddenly anxious to
secure her even to the extent of compromising her honour?
The question troubled her waking thoughts, and followed her even into
her dreams. But she found no answer to her own vague disquietude, and
the darker knowledge in Gregory’s mind was hidden from her.
“Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle ... that he may be
smitten, and die.
“And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city, that he assigned
Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were.
“And the men of the city went out and fought with Joab; and there fell
some of the people of the servants of David; and Uriah the Hittite died
also.”
For, as Gregory had said, he had been home before he came on to the
bungalow, and there he found that during his absence in Port Albert
news had arrived, and awaited him.
There had been a cable from Capetown.