From the complication that surged round Miss Anderson’s waking hours
one point emerged, and gave her a perch for congratulation. That was
the determination she had shown in refusing to let Frederick Prendergast
leave her his money, or any part of it.
It has been said that he had outlived her tenderness, if not her care,
and this fact, which she never found it necessary to communicate to
poor Frederick himself, naturally made his desire in the matter sharply
distasteful. She was even unaware of the disposition he had made of his
ironical fortune, a reflection which brought her thankfulness that there
was something she did not know. ‘If I had let him do it,’ she thought,
‘I should have felt compelled to tell her everything, instantly. And
think of discussing it with her!’ This was quite a fortnight later, and
Mrs. Innes still occupied her remarkable position only in her own mind
and Madeline’s, still knowing herself the wife of 1596 and of 1596 only,
and still unaware that 1596 was in his grave. Simla had gone on with its
dances and dinners and gymkhanas quite as if no crucial experience were
hanging over the heads of three of the people one met ‘everywhere,’ and
the three people continued to be met everywhere, although only one
of them was unconscious. The women tried to avoid each other without
accenting it, exchanging light words only as occasion demanded, but they
were not clever enough for Mrs. Gammidge and Mrs. Mickie, who went
about saying that Mrs. Innes’s treatment of Madeline Anderson was as
ridiculous as it was inexplicable. ‘Did you ever know her to be jealous
of anybody before?’ demanded Mrs. Mickie, to which Mrs. Gammidge
responded, with her customary humour, that the Colonel had never, in the
memory of the oldest inhabitant, been known to give her occasion.
‘Well,’ declared Mrs. Mickie, ‘if friendships--UNSENTIMENTAL
friendships--between men and women are not understood in Simla, I’d like
to be told what is understood.’
Between them they gave Madeline a noble support, for which--although she
did not particularly require it, and they did not venture to offer it in
so many words--she was grateful. A breath of public criticism from
any point of view would have blown over the toppling structure she was
defending against her conscience. The siege was severe and obstinate,
with an undermining conviction ever at work that in the end she would
yield; in the end she would go away, at least as far as Bombay or
Calcutta, and from there send to Mrs. Innes the news of her liberation.
It would not be necessary, after all, or even excusable, to tell Horace.
His wife would do that quickly enough--at least, she had said she
would. If she didn’t--well, if she didn’t, nothing would be possible but
another letter, giving HIM the simple facts, she, Madeline, carefully
out of the way of his path of duty--at all events, at Calcutta or
Bombay. But there was no danger that Mrs. Innes would lose the advantage
of confession, of throwing herself on his generosity--and at this
point Madeline usually felt her defenses against her better nature
considerably strengthened, and the date of her sacrifice grow vague
again.
Meanwhile, she was astonished to observe that, in spite of her threat
to the contrary, Mrs. Innes appeared to be enjoying herself particularly
well. Madeline had frequent occasion for private comment on the
advantages of a temperament that could find satisfaction in dancing
through whole programmes at the very door, so to speak, of the criminal
courts; and it can not be denied that this capacity of Mrs. Innes’s went
far to increase the vacillation with which Miss Anderson considered
her duty towards that lady. If she had shown traces of a single hour
of genuine suffering, there would have been an end to Madeline’s
hesitation. But beyond an occasional watchful glance at conversations in
which she might be figuring dramatically, and upon which she instantly
turned her back as soon as she was perceived, Mrs. Innes gave no sign
even of preoccupation. If she had bad half-hours, they occurred between
the teas and tennises, the picnics, riding-parties, luncheons, and other
entertainments, at which you could always count upon meeting her; and in
that case they must have been short. She looked extremely well, and
her admirable frocks gave an accent even to ‘Birthday’ functions at
Viceregal Lodge, which were quite hopelessly general. If any one
could have compelled a revelation of her mind, I think it would have
transpired that her anxieties about Capt. Valentine Drake and Mrs. Vesey
gave her no leisure for lesser ones. These for a few days had been keen
and indignant--Captain Drake had so far forgotten himself as to ride
with Mrs. Vesey twice since Mrs. Innes’s arrival--and any display of
poverty of spirit was naturally impossible under the circumstances. The
moment was a critical one; Captain Drake seemed inclined to place her
in the category of old, unexacting friends--ladies who looked on and
smiled, content to give him tea on rainy days, and call him by his
Christian name, with perhaps the privilege of a tapping finger on his
shoulder, and an occasional order about a rickshaw. Mrs. Violet was not
an introspective person, or she might have discovered here that the most
stable part of her self-respect was her EXIGENCE with Captain Drake.
She found out quickly enough, however, that she did not mean to discard
it. She threw herself, therefore--her fine shoulders and arms, her
pretty clothes, her hilarity, her complexion, her eyelashes, and all
that appertained to her--into the critical task of making other men
believe, at Captain Drake’s expense, that they were quite as fond of her
as he was. Mrs. Vesey took opposite measures, and the Club laid bets on
the result.
The Club was not prepossessed by Captain Drake. He said too little and
he implied too much. He had magnificent shoulders, which he bent a great
deal over secluded sofas, and a very languid interest in matters over
which ordinary men were enthusiastic. He seemed to believe that if he
smiled all the way across his face, he would damage a conventionality.
His clothes were unexceptionable, and he always did the right thing,
though bored by the necessity. He was good-looking in an ugly way, which
gave him an air of restrained capacity for melodrama, and made women
think him interesting. Somebody with a knack of disparagement said that
he was too much expressed. It rather added to his unpopularity that he
was a man whom women usually took with preposterous seriousness--all but
Kitty Vesey, who charmed and held him by her outrageous liberties.
When Mrs. Vesey chaffed him, he felt picturesque. He was also aware of
inspiring entertainment for the lookers-on, with the feeling at such
times that he, too, was an amused spectator. This was, of course, their
public attitude. In private there was sentiment, and they talked about
the tyranny of society, or delivered themselves of ideas suggested by
works of fiction which everybody simply HAD to read.
For a week Mrs. Innes looked on, apparently indifferent, rather
apparently not observing; and an Assistant Secretary in the Home
Department began to fancy that his patience in teaching the three
dachshund puppies tricks was really appreciated. He was an on-coming
Assistant Secretary, with other conspicuous parts, and hitherto his time
had been too valuable to spend upon ladies’ dachshunds. Mrs. Innes
had selected him well. There came an evening when, at a dance at the
Lieutenant-Governor’s, Mrs. Innes was so absorbed in what the Assistant
Secretary was saying to her, as she passed on his arm, that she did
not see Captain Drake in the corridor at all, although he had carefully
broken an engagement to walk with Kitty Vesey that very afternoon,
as the beginning of gradual and painless reform in her direction. His
unrewarded virtue rose up and surprised him with the distinctness of
its resentment; and while his expression was successfully amused,
his shoulders and the back of his neck, as well as the hand on
his moustache, spoke of discipline which promised to be efficient.
Reflection assured him that discipline was after all deserved, and a
quarter of an hour later found him wagging his tail, so to speak, over
Mrs. Innes’s programme in a corner pleasantly isolated. The other chair
was occupied by the Assistant Secretary. Captain Drake represented an
interruption, and was obliged to take a step towards the nearest lamp to
read the card. Three dances were rather ostentatiously left, and Drake
initialled them all. He brought back the card with a bow, which spoke
of dignity under bitter usage, together with the inflexible intention of
courteous self-control, and turned away.
‘Oh, if you please, Captain Drake--let me see what you’ve done. All
those? But--’
‘Isn’t it after eleven, Mrs. Innes?’ asked the Assistant Secretary, with
a timid smile. He was enjoying himself, but he had a respect for vested
interests, and those of Captain Drake were so well known that he felt a
little like a buccaneer.
‘Dear me, so it is!’ Mrs. Innes glanced at one of her bracelets.
‘Then, Captain Drake, I’m sorry’--she carefully crossed out the three
‘V.D.’s’--‘I promised all the dances I had left after ten to Mr.
Holmcroft. Most of the others I gave away at the gymkhana--really. Why
weren’t you there? That Persian tutor again! I’m afraid you are working
too hard. And what did the Rani do, Mr. Holmcroft? It’s like the Arabian
Nights, only with real jewels--’
‘Oh, I say, Holmcroft, this is too much luck, you know. Regular
sweepstakes, by Jove!’ And Captain Drake lingered on the fringe of the
situation.
‘Perhaps I have been greedy,’ said the Assistant Secretary,
deprecatingly. ‘I’ll--’
‘Not in the very least! That is,’ exclaimed Mrs. Violet, pouting, ‘if
I’M to be considered. We’ll sit out all but the waltzes, and you shall
tell me official secrets about the Rani. She put us up once, she’s a
delicious old thing. Gave us string beds to sleep on and gold plate to
eat from, and swore about every other word. She had been investing in
Government paper, and it had dropped three points. “Just my damn luck!”
she said. Wasn’t it exquisite? Captain Drake--’
‘Mrs. Innes--’
‘I don’t want to be rude, but you’re a dreadful embarrassment. Mr.
Holmcroft won’t tell you official secrets!’
‘If she would only behave!’ thought Madeline, looking on, ‘I would tell
her--indeed I would--at once.’
Colonel Innes detached himself from a group of men in mess dress as she
appeared with the Worsleys, and let himself drift with the tide that
brought them always together.
‘You are looking tired--ill,’ she said, seriously, as they sought
the unconfessed solace of each other’s eyes. ‘Last night it was the
Commander-in-Chief’s, and the night before the dance at Peliti’s.
And again tonight. And you are not like those of us who can rest
next morning--you have always your heavy office work!’ She spoke with
indignant, tender reproach, and he gave himself up to hearing it. ‘You
will have to take leave and go away,’ she insisted, foolishly.
‘Leave! Good heavens, no! I wish all our fellows were as fit as I am.
And--’
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Don’t pity me, dear friend. I don’t think it’s good for me. The world
really uses me very well.’
‘Then it’s all right, I suppose,’ Madeline said, with sudden depression.
‘Of course it is. You are dining with us on the eighth?’
‘I’m afraid not, I’m engaged.’
‘Engaged again? Don’t you WANT to break bread in my house, Miss
Anderson?’ She was silent, and he insisted, ‘Tell me,’ he said.
She gave him instead a kind, mysterious smile.
‘I will explain to you what I feel about that some day,’ she said;
‘some day soon. I can’t accept Mrs. Innes’s invitation for the eighth,
but--Brookes and I are going to take tea with the fakir’s monkeys on the
top of Jakko tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Anybody else, or only Brookes?’
‘Only Brookes.’ And she thought she had abandoned coquetry!
‘Then may I come?’
‘Indeed you may.’
‘I really don’t know,’ reflected Madeline, as she caught another glimpse
of Mrs. Innes vigorously dancing the reel opposite little Lord Billy in
his Highland uniform, with her hands on her flowered-satin hips, ‘that I
am behaving very well myself.’