Mr. Rayner had promised to return from Palaveram in time for dinner, but
long, solitary hours till dusk still stretched before Hester on her
return from morning service. She had not as yet yielded to the habit of
taking a siesta, though she was assured that when the hot weather came
she would find the need of it imperative. She sought instead
companionship in her piano, rehearsing some of her old favourites, and
then turned to a prettily bound volume of hymns set to music, which had
been a wedding present from a Wesleyan friend. She tried over some of
the airs, and coming on one which attracted her began to sing the words.
Her sweet voice, which was so much missed in the ivy-mantled village
church, vibrated melodiously through the verandah. So absorbed was she
in her solace of song that she did not hear the arrival of a carriage on
the gravel-sweep. Its occupant indeed stood at her elbow, silently
looking down at her as her fingers strayed along the keys, before she
was aware of his presence.
"Mark Cheveril!" she exclaimed at length, looking up with joy in her
face. "This is a happy surprise!"
"It is so for me, anyhow. I wanted to have come earlier in the day to
wish you a merry Christmas, but the Collector seemed dull, and I
couldn't leave him. But better late than never. And to be greeted by the
sound of your voice was good," he added, glancing at the slender,
girlish figure on the music stool on which she had wheeled round to
greet him in her surprise at his presence. "This will make a delightful
paragraph in the letter to your mother I mean to date 'Christmas Day,
Madras.' But I must really tell you before we pass on to other things a
strange coincidence about this very hymn you were singing. You remember
Mr. Morpeth whom we met at Mrs. Fellowes' that morning? I felt so drawn
to him that I did what I don't think I ever confessed to you--I sought
him out. When I stepped into his verandah I found him alone, and singing
that very hymn." Mark hummed some of the lines--
"Light of those whose dreary dwellings
Borders on the shades of death."
"It has haunted me ever since. I must tell him of this coincidence. I
have been corresponding with him, and mean to keep up the acquaintance.
I heard from him that you had found your way to Vepery too, Hester, and
are doing wonders there."
"Ah, that reminds me, Mark! A little bird told me only yesterday that
you were the kind donor of our lovely piano for the girls' club. You
can't think what a boon it is."
"I hope it's a decent one. I fear pianos are rather a lottery out here,
and it would have lost a whole season to have ordered one from home."
"It has a beautiful tone, Mrs. Fellowes just loves it. It was a good
thought of yours, Mark. How pleased mother will be when she hears you
were the giver of the piano I told her about! I'm so glad Mrs. Fellowes
wormed the secret out of Mr. Morpeth. Do you know I've never seen him
since you left? He seems to elude me still--perhaps it's no wonder."
Hester lowered her eyes, for she suddenly recalled her husband's
reception of him, which she feared Mark must have overheard. "But
notwithstanding," she said with a smile, "I don't think he does bear me
a grudge, for Mrs. Fellowes told me he seemed pleased to hear I wished
to go to see him with her. She says his house is full of interesting
things."
"It is," returned Mark cordially. "But the man--his personality, his
talk--is the most interesting of all. Truly fate has been very good to
me since I came to the East. In my first week I met two of the best men
I've ever known, David Morpeth and Felix Worsley. To be sure, they are
very unlike--as far as the poles asunder in almost everything. The one
seemed to me a wise, patient saint, while the Collector is the most
impatient of men. I fear, too, he would say I was defaming the name if I
was to dub him 'a saint,' yet there is about him the beauty of real
dominant goodness. For instance, people say he is proud and all
that--well, I find him full of the most winning humility."
"Why, I've always pictured Mr. Worsley as a most terrifying person from
the stray remarks I've heard about him. Surely you idealise him, Mark,
and see in him the reflection of your own good self. I think that's how
Charlie would interpret your feelings."
"Ah, I see I shan't win you over to my hero till you see him."
"With your eyes?" said Hester, with an arch smile.
"No, with your own, if I mistake not! I only wish I could bring about a
meeting. But I confess my hero is somewhat incorrigible. Nothing will
induce him to face a fashionable dinner-party, and that reminds me,
Hester, I must tell you how sorry I was not to be with you last night
and not to bring the Collector--but he simply wouldn't hear of going to
a dinner-party."
"Yes, Alfred was disappointed. He said he was once introduced to Mr.
Worsley, and seemed to set his heart on having him as his guest," said
Hester simply.
Mark felt a sharp twinge of self-reproach, for had not the truth been
that the Collector had rejected the invitation stormily, saying he
"declined to dine with Zynool's partner"? As Mark recalled it he feared
that some of the borrowed stigma might also attach itself to this sweet
friend in Mr. Worsley's mind--until they met, at least. When that hour
struck, he felt confident that all would be well. As he glanced at
Hester, he perceived that there was a subtle change in his old comrade.
Her beauty had strengthened and deepened. There was a new air of tender
grace in all her movements; but she was paler and thinner, the plump,
girlish contour had vanished. The features, more delicately pencilled
than heretofore, seemed written over with a bit of life-history not free
from fret and jar, even blurred by patient tears. How could it be
otherwise, he asked himself, with this high-souled girl exposed to the
daily companionship of a nature so vain, so shallow, and he feared, so
false, as he was reluctantly discovering Alfred Rayner to be? He
recalled with fresh anxiety his shifty air when he had met him at
Puranapore during his mysterious visit to the unprincipled Zynool. But
happy chance had thrown Hester and him together on this Day of Glad
Tidings. He must do all in his power to bring some pure, healthful
pleasure into those few days on which he would be near her.
"By the way," he said, as he rose to take a cup of tea from Hester's
hand, "I mustn't forget that one of the chief objects of my call to-day
is to ask you to ride with me one morning. Some of the roads here are
capital."
"Oh, that would be delightful--just like old times," said Hester
brightening. "I haven't ridden since I came here. Alfred doesn't like
riding, though he is so devoted to driving. Even when he was at the
Rectory after our engagement, which you know was very short, he wouldn't
go out with Charlie and me. Charlie thought he was really timid, and
told me not to urge him. He won't mind my riding--at least I don't think
so," she added, a shadow crossing her face not unnoticed by her visitor.
"But he'll be here presently, and we'll ask him. You'll stay to dinner
and see him, won't you?"
"With pleasure. I'm quite free this evening and we'll arrange this one
ride anyhow. I've seen a perfect horse for you at Wallers'. I shall
bring it round to-morrow morning. What do you say to going to St.
Thomas's Mount? It's a place I've a fancy to explore. Have you been
there?"
"No, I've really seen very few places round about--beyond the range of
the wide compounds. I think your touring must be delightful. But you
haven't told me anything of Puranapore yet except about the Collector,
and I didn't get much from Alfred even after he had visited you."
Mark was silent. Rayner then had given his wife the impression that he
had been at the English station while at Puranapore, and had, no doubt,
concealed the fact that he was visiting Zynool. The discovery was
disturbing, and he wondered if it would be wise to enlighten Hester
there and then. He felt, however, that he could not bear to bring a
deeper shadow to the sweet face, and proceeded instead to give some
annals of the station-life.
"Well, to begin with the ladies. There's Mrs. Samptor, wife of the
Superintendent of the District Jail, a big giant of a man, and a capital
fellow. She is a little country-bred person who had never been to
England and has a perfect horror of Eurasians."
Hester's eyes opened wider. She was about to exclaim: "Just like
Alfred!" But that topic had cut too deep for her to touch it lightly.
"You wonder perhaps how she tolerates me," said Mark with a smile, as if
divining her thoughts. "Well, as it happens, we are very good friends.
Her mental process regarding the matter is peculiar, I allow, but it
seems to her convincing, as she is a lady who prides herself on knowing
everything about everybody. She volunteers to prove from my hands, my
nails, and from my toes, I expect, if she were allowed to inspect them,
from every feature of my face in fact, that I do not belong to the race
she detests."
"And does the Collector like this little lady?"
"He does, I think. She amuses him. I sometimes accuse him of even
encouraging her gossip. In that connection I once reminded him of the
old proverb: 'One man may steal a horse, another may not look over the
stable door,' as a case in point. The Collector's denunciations against
gossip are most scathing, for instance, where Mrs. Goldring, the Judge's
wife, is in question. She is a pompous, snobbish woman, and the
Collector thinks that she sits on her little husband, the Judge, of whom
he is very fond. Nor can he forgive her for her treatment of her
weird-looking daughter Jane. The poor girl hates station life, and wants
to go home and do governessing with some beloved aunts who keep a
school. Then we have a Civil Surgeon and his wife, Dr. and Mrs.
Campbell, delightful Scotch people."
"I wonder Alfred did not tell me about all these people. He must have
met them when he was at Puranapore," said Hester, with a thoughtful air
which Mark noticed, and he at once led the conversation into other
channels.
Hester narrated to him the errand which had obliged her husband to go to
Palaveram on this Christmas day, and they talked with sobered hearts of
the sadness of it all; of the great entanglement in the meshes of which
poor young Hyde had fallen a victim; and of the ever haunting mystery of
life where evil triumphs in lives which seem inclined to good rather
than to evil.
Shortly before the dinner-hour a telegram arrived from Palaveram to say
that Mr. Rayner to his great regret would be unable to eat his Christmas
dinner with his wife. But so congenially did the talk glide on between
these two old friends, the young hostess decided, as she sat at dinner,
that, after all, two might be an even more ideal number than eight for
the complete enjoyment of the dinner-table.
When Mark rose to go, he was rejoiced to see Hester looking more like
her old self than she had done since they had met in their new
surroundings. She seemed to hold to her decision that there was no
obstacle to the morning ride which he had suggested, saying as they
parted:
"Alfred has so often reproached me for not going further afield in my
drives, I'm sure he will be pleased to hear I've been adventurous enough
to scale St. Thomas's Mount. You can't think what a joy an hour on
horseback will be to me! It's a delightful suggestion, Mark, and I thank
you for it," she said, with happy, grateful eyes, as she bade him
good-night.