On the morning of the third day after her visit to Mr. Morpeth, as
Hester sat with Mrs. Fellowes at early tea in the verandah at
Royapooram, a chit was handed to her and the butler announced that her
carriage was waiting. The note was from her husband telling her of his
arrival at Clive's Road.
"Do, my darling Hester, hurry to me at once," it ran. "I am pining to
hold you in my arms. I have only just arrived, but this horrid south
wind is making a wreck of me already. I feel so nervous I can hardly
hold a pen."
Having shared her news with her hostess, Hester rose to make hasty
preparations for her departure.
"This is a blow to me," said Mrs. Fellowes. "I hoped at least to keep
you a week longer with us. Your husband has evidently changed his
plans."
"He has seemingly. But why should this wind be troubling him? I was just
thinking how refreshing it was."
"Ah, but your husband is right there. This south wind is an enemy we
dread, it is baleful in its effects, I assure you. When it first blows
on one it does seem refreshing, but the very next moment one begins to
feel its bad influence. It is like a gust of hot damp air blown over
marshes, penetrating to one's joints and marrows."
"Alfred evidently resents it," returned Hester. "I fear it will blow
away all the good effects of his change. I wonder what can have made him
hurry back so soon," she added, with a sigh she repressed at once and
turned to her friend, saying, "How can I thank you for all that has
made this time so pleasant to me? I shall never forget these days."
The tears sprang to her eyes as she clasped her friend's hand. "I feel
as if I were leaving Paradise for the thorns and thistles of the
wilderness," she murmured; and in this remark she laid bare more of her
heart than she had ever done, even to her trusted friend, who now looked
at her with keen concern.
"But I mustn't put it like that," she added. "Poor Alfred needs me. I
must go back strong and cheerful!"
Presently Mrs. Fellowes stood in the verandah with a sorrowful face
watching her departing guest.
"You don't mean to say the fellow has come back already like a bad
shilling and requisitioned that wife of his a whole week earlier than we
reckoned on!" exclaimed the colonel with vexation, when he returned from
his morning's work and heard of Hester's sudden summons to Clive's Road.
"That is a blow! Why, she should have sent back the landau empty and
told him he still owed her a week's release from his presence!"
"Though you say that, Joe, you know it would not be like the faithful
wife she is to take things into her own hands like that," returned his
wife. "But somehow my heart misgives me about her. I feel as if she were
going down into a valley of suffering. But she never complains, and we
must not probe her secret sorrow."
Meanwhile the pair of swift Walers had borne their mistress to her
destination.
"How ill you look, Alfred!" she exclaimed, when her husband met her on
the verandah steps. "What is the matter? Had you a bad passage? Surely
the south wind can't affect you so much when you've only just arrived!"
"That's all you know, Hester! It's made a perfect wreck of me already.
The fact is I feel more miserable than ever I did in my life," said
Rayner with a groan, and threw himself on to a lounging chair,
welcoming the baleful wind as the excuse of his haggard looks, of which
he was fully conscious.
The revelation made to him at the Shrine of Kali seemed still to scorch
his nature like a flame, and his return to familiar scenes appeared only
to intensify his misery. He scanned his wife's face anxiously to see
whether by any unlucky chance she might already be in possession of the
hateful secret; but he perceived nothing except sweet kindness in her
demeanour, and at once began to think how foolish he had been to let the
matter gnaw his heart as he had been doing. The whole story was probably
trumped up by Truelove Brothers, he tried to persuade himself with a
juggler-like effort at self-deception. More than likely the Eurasian
clerk was the firm's tool in a conspiracy. Alternating hopes and fears
still haunted him, however, as he listened to his wife's soothing talk.
At length, feeling so comforted by it, he decided to absent himself from
the High Court and spend the whole day in her society. Then he changed
his mind, and, to Hester's surprise, his mail-phaeton instead of his
office bandy was hastily ordered after breakfast. He drove off, saying
he would return early and have a drive with his wife when the south wind
had abated.
Hester was already experiencing the languor that accompanied the gusty
wind she had at first welcomed as a friend. She tried to occupy herself
with various household duties which claimed her attention after her
absence. With her ayah's help she set about arranging all her
possessions, taking her books and ornaments from their retreat, but was
dismayed to find that the wind was bringing in its train, not only damp,
but also clouds of dust. She had recourse to closing the glass doors of
the drawing-room, which had always stood open since her arrival in the
tropical clime, before she felt safe to spread out her treasures. She
gave Mr. Morpeth's gift an honoured place among them, smiling as she
laid a packet of her mother's letters in the precious casket.
When the time came for her husband's return she was surprised to see him
drive up in a hired bandy instead of the mail-phaeton.
"What have you done with your phaeton?" she asked.
"You may well ask, Hester, but wait till I've taken refuge from the
hurricane behind the glass doors, which I see you've been sensible
enough to have closed, and I'll tell you," he said cheerfully; and
linking his arm in hers, he led her to one of the sofas in the
drawing-room.
"Well, what do you think I've done with my fine phaeton? Been and gone
and sold it, horses, harness and all! I was going to add the syce, for
he was also thrown in! I met a Mahomedan who was so enamoured of the
whole turn-out that I concluded the bargain there and then!"
Hester, not being of an inquisitive turn of mind, did not ask the name
of the phaeton's purchaser, and her husband preferred to withhold it.
The transaction was the result of an interview with Zynool Sahib. He had
appeared that morning at the High Court in an agitated state and begged
to see La'yer Rayner, who had invited him to accompany him to Waller's
Stables, where he had left the phaeton for some small repair. They could
have a freer talk driving, Mr. Rayner had decided, than in the precincts
of the High Court.
"Things are going from the bad to the worst at Puranapore," said Zynool,
shaking his head dolefully. "Nothing but insults from these pigs of
Hindus, backed up by that great enemee of mine, Doctor Campbell. Whatt's
the good to us of the Government order stopping tom-toms and conchs at
certain hours onlee. By Allah, our mosque is open day and night for
prayer. These swinish sounds must not pass its door. We must stop them,
La'yer Rayner," he wound up, with a significant glance at his companion.
"Yes, Zynool, that bit by the river, so near the mosque too, would make
a fine site for a garden-house for you, such as you want. You desire an
order to move the Hindu burning place from there, don't you?"
"That is so," returned the Mahomedan brightening. "You're a clever one,
La'yer Rayner!"
"Wouldn't it be best to get up a little thunderstorm? It would clear the
atmosphere if you could combine and give it hot to these troublesome
Hindus. Pack the town beforehand with your people from outlying
villages, and the fire won't need much fanning to burst into a flame.
But take care you only mine underground. Complicity found might mean the
Andaman Islands!"
Zynool's fat body shivered.
"By the holy Prophet there is need for a fight! They come when we are at
our prayers, sounding and bellowing those horrible conchs fit to break
the drums of our ears."
"The Mohurram will soon be on," said Mr. Rayner. "There's a chance for
you! When you're passing in one of your processions along the streets
arrange to go for some howling crowd that may be annoying you, and the
fat will be in the fire! May I be there to see, Zynool Sahib! You'll
slay many a craven wretch with that brawny arm of yours."
The Mahomedan laughed complacently as he spat on the floor of the bandy.
"Believe you are right, La'yer Rayner. I will say a word to one or two
of the Faithful and try to get them up to the scratch, as you say."
"A regular dressing down is what they need. And it will give Worsley and
that puppy, his sub., a scare into the bargain," said Rayner with a
malicious smile. He had been surprised that the rash granting of the
site for the mosque had not caused more acute trouble to the Collector
of Puranapore, and his malice now prompted him to wish that he should be
reprimanded or made to suffer in some way. There were possible ugly
aspects in the agreeing to that site which might be used to Mr.
Worsley's disadvantage, he thought with a gratified smile, though he did
not share these conclusions with his companion. A breaking of the peace
would do excellently well as a first move in the game.
On their arrival at Waller's, Zynool was so fascinated by the smart
mail-phaeton that he at once proposed taking it over there and then as
part payment of Rayner's debt to him. As his financial embarrassments
were pressing, Rayner decided to part with his once much-prized
possession, though he made it the occasion to ask the usurer for another
loan. To this the Mahomedan willingly agreed, though he demanded higher
interest. A cheque was transferred to Rayner's pocket which he went
forthwith to cash at the bank; while Zynool, with childish glee, made
arrangements with Waller for the sending of his latest possession to his
stables at Puranapore.
Hester seemed more disturbed by her husband's news regarding the sale of
his mail-phaeton than he expected.
"Surely it was too hurried a step to part with it like that," she
faltered, her home ideas being against such raw haste in an important
matter.
"How do you know I did it without premeditation? You women always jump
to such hasty conclusions! Let me tell you, Hester, it has been at least
four days simmering in my mind," returned her husband; then he stopped
and bit his lip. To be sure, he thought, he must tell his wife sooner or
later some tale about his quarrel with Truelove Brothers. That they were
cheating him out of his rights--that was how he would put it--but he
would not spoil the first day of his return by such communications. It
would surely impress her favourably, for the time being, that he had in
this self-sacrificing manner begun by abandoning one of his chief
luxuries.
Perceiving that she seemed to regret his self-denial, he set about to
make light of it, assuring her that with such a sweet wife he could
afford to dispense with bachelor delights. The load of misery which had
weighed him down so heavily these last days seemed already to be rolling
away as he sat by Hester's side in the drawing-room shut in from the
raging wind, and listened to her beautifully modulated tones as she read
aloud to him.
Though he laughingly declared he was not an invalid, and did not require
to be coddled when she placed her softest cushions under his head, her
quick eyes discerned that from whatever cause her husband's holiday had
been no gain to his health, but very much the reverse. His cheeks looked
hollow and his eyes lustreless, and his step had an uncertain tread
which she had never observed before.
Dinner was over, and they had again taken refuge in their sheltered
retreat, for as the wind still raged the verandah was impossible. Mr.
Rayner began to pace up and down the room as he listened to Hester's
playing, which he seemed to appreciate as he had seldom done. In his
walk he was suddenly attracted by the ivory box which lay on his wife's
writing table.
"Hallo, Hester, where came you by this treasure? What a beauty! This one
is real ivory and no mistake. My poor bone fellow must hide its head for
ever now. Why this is a genuine work of art! What splendid carving! Did
Mrs. Fellowes present this as a supreme proof of her admiration of my
wife? Or did you dip deep into your own purse? I shouldn't have thought
these things were in the market nowadays. Where did you pick it up?"
"Well, Alfred, I'll tell you," answered Hester slowly, as she wheeled
round on the piano-stool to face her husband. "It ought to seem a
peace-offering to you, for you once behaved so badly to the dear old
man. Mr. Morpeth actually gave it to me the other day when Mrs. Fellowes
and I paid him a visit in his most interesting house."
"You got it from _him_? You paid _him_ a visit? You actually dared to
enter that man's house?" panted her husband, growing deadly pale, his
eyes flashing, and his lips quivering in uncontrolled passion. "You
shall not--you shall not keep it."
As he spoke he lifted the box high above his head and dashed it on the
floor, where it lay dismembered. Then with a savage gesture he stamped
on the fragments, crushing them to atoms with his foot.
Hester sat staring at him as if spell-bound. She gazed alternately at
her husband's face and at the ruins of her priceless box. Ignorant as
she was as to the source of his wild emotion, she realised that there
was something quite exceptional in his attitude. It seemed nothing less
than frenzy. She rose, appalled and trembling from head to foot, her
courage for once deserting her. She made a movement to cross the room
and escape by the glass door to seek refuge under the dark blue heavens.
Then she sank down on her seat again and, covering her face with her
trembling hands, bursted into a torrent of tears.
At length she raised her eyes to her husband, who still stood with
folded arms and ghastly pale, looking silently down on her. She rose
from the music stool and quietly picked up, one by one, the broken
fragments of the ivory box which had been so precious to her. Gathering
them in the folds of her muslin gown as a child might guard its
treasure, she hurried away and went up-stairs, leaving her husband
standing motionless and silent.
When she reached her room she sank down under the light of the lamp as
if she meant to examine the broken fragments. Instead of doing so she
sat holding them covered up in her lap, for there was a greater tragedy
gripping her heart than the ruin of the box. Her thoughts were
involuntarily following the same train as Mr. Worsley's when in his pity
for the young wife he had remarked to her friend, "What a vista of
misery lies before her!"
Yes, it was some glimmering of this vista which Hester was seeing now
more clearly than she had ever done before. Was it to be in a succession
of such scenes that she was to pass all her earthly years till death
released her? They might be many, for she was young and strong of body.
What would it matter now if to-morrow her husband were to greet her
gaily and seemingly forgetful of the wounds which he had inflicted on
her heart, or even if he expressed himself penitent and desirous to
atone for his fit of demoniac fury? Could he efface by a light word, a
manufactured smile--as he flattered himself he was able to do--the
recollection of his blighting words and deeds?
Love for him was dead, but Pity was now knocking gently at the door of
her tender heart. A true compassion for that disordered soul came
creeping in. Surely this desperate pass made a stronger claim for her to
put forth every effort to help her husband. She might perhaps, when he
was calmer, be able to show him the misery which he was inflicting on
both their lives by these ungoverned outbursts. She must be more brave
and firm for the right than she had been in the past. Other disordered
lives had been won over by patience; and was not the great patient Love
of One the source of all hope and trust? To that never-failing Love she
carried her burden now and found there the promised peace.
Unfolding her muslin dress, she drew forth the pitiful fragments of the
shattered thing of beauty, and opening her _almirah_, brought out an old
box which had been one of the treasures of her childish days. Into it
she reverently laid the relics, wrapping them in a fold of paper on
which she wrote the words: "The True," and the date of the tragedy. She
stowed the box safely away, fearing lest even her ayah should discover
it and marvel at the fate of the much-prized treasure.