Mr. Morpeth returned to Clive's Road in the evening as he had promised,
to tell Hester all he thought needful for her to hear, withholding much
which might have added to her pain. He had already secured a passage for
her on the first homeward bound steamer, and for her ayah, who he
insisted should accompany her. He had also arranged his own sad journey
to Calcutta for the same morning.
On the following days, Mrs. Fellowes proved invaluable in all
preparations for the departure from Clive's Road. She observed with much
concern that Hester seemed in a sort of stupor and forbore to obtrude
her sympathy. She had as yet exchanged but few words with her friend,
and when she had occasion to ask some needful question Hester would
reply mechanically.
She sat now at the evening hour by her friend's side in the verandah,
glancing anxiously at the listless, folded hands, the wan face, and the
dry, despairing eyes gazing up at the dark blue star-strewn sky as if
seeing strange visions. Happening to meet Mrs. Fellowes' inquiring
glance, Hester stretched out her hand to clasp hers.
"How good you have been to me!" she murmured, "and so patient!" Then she
added, as if in explanation. "I can't speak of it yet. I don't seem able
even to feel. My heart seems shrivelled up. I am like something ayah
showed me this morning. She was asking me which of her possessions she
must take across the black water, and I could only think of one at the
moment--a gay-coloured new leathern bottle she had once showed to me
with pride. She went and fetched it from her godown and said: 'See,
missus, what that bottle done come to!' and she held up a black,
shrunken thing that had been hanging in the smoke of her godown since I
came to Madras. I think that bottle and my heart have had the same
history these last months. Both have been shrivelled in the smoke of
scorching fires!"
"Why, there's a verse in the Psalms like that," said Mrs. Fellowes
briskly, glad that the silence had been broken. She took her little old
Bible from her bag. "Here it is, in the longest Psalm, and a very
graphic description the Psalmist gives of himself. 'I am become like a
bottle in the smoke.' He must have felt like that too, dear child, but
if we read further we'll find how he turned to the Healer--the Restorer,
till he was able to say, 'It is good for me that I have been
afflicted.'"
Hester did not speak at once. "Thank you, dear friend," she said at
length, and Mrs. Fellowes could see that the torpid air had passed, that
life and thought had come back. "You have done me good! I think I see a
little through the smoke now. I shall go and give Rosie a last lesson
after all," she added, rising. "It is so good of you to promise to take
care of the little maid till ayah comes back again. No more Mrs.
Harbottles," she added, with something of her old bright smile.
"Yes, the smoke will rub off by degrees," thought Mrs. Fellowes, as she
looked after Hester's retreating figure. "This terrible experience must
leave its mark. 'A bottle in the smoke' she has been truly all her days
here! Thank God the process has not been soiling! What life must have
been with such a husband it passes me to understand! He hadn't a single
redeeming point--except his good looks; and the Colonel even questions
them. But poor Rayner had a beautiful face there is no doubt."
In the early dawn next morning Hester took farewell of her wedded home,
bestowing a kindly smile on the sad-faced company of servants who were
grouped round the verandah to make their last salaams to the sweet
English lady whose husband had come by such an evil fate.
Many kindly notes of condolence had reached her those last days from her
numerous acquaintances of varying degrees of intimacy, for Mrs. Rayner
had been an esteemed member of the little Anglo-Indian society of the
past season--even by some who were inclined to look askance on her
husband. Now the place that had known her those short months of her
wedded life would know her no more. Her memory would pass in the
changing society of the Indian town like the passage of a swift flying
bird through a lighted chamber. Even as she gazed at the familiar scene,
the stately buildings, the towering Fort of St. George that skirted the
shore while she was being carried over the waves by the stalwart brown
rowers of the Massulah boat, she felt as if her life on that strand was
already beginning to recede dream-like from her vision.
The surf was crossed now, and Hester and her little party, consisting of
Colonel and Mrs. Fellowes, were safely landed on the deck of the _El
Dorado_. Mr. Morpeth had been inventive in all kindly arrangements for
the young widow, and their parting was memorable to both. His grey eyes
had gazed with unutterable sorrow and tenderness into her face as he
held her hands.
"This land of ours will call you again, I feel sure, my daughter;
whether I am here to see it or not. One day you will return to work for
our people once more."
Hester had pleaded for a promise that he should come on a visit to
Pinkthorpe, knowing well that her father and mother would honour the
noble Eurasian gentleman; but Mr. Morpeth shook his head, smiling sadly.
"No, my child, my visit to England would be thirty years too late now."
But still Hester would not hear of being robbed of all hope that it
might still be one of the happy events which the future had in store for
her. Colonel and Mrs. Fellowes were to be home for good the following
year, so that the strong link forged with these friends was not long to
be severed.
There was one true friend whose hand Hester would fain have grasped, one
pair of frank eyes into which she would have wished to look once more
before she finally left this place of mingled memories; but Mark
Cheveril had made no sign. He evidently did not desire to meet Alfred
Rayner's wife again after all that had come and gone. She did not wonder
that he felt so, but the knowledge of his kind offices to her dead
husband would always be graven on her heart, and she had wished just
once to put her hand in his and whisper her thanks.
A few minutes before the last bell rang her wish was realised, for she
caught sight of her trusty comrade coming up the ladder. He came forward
to greet her with grave earnest courtesy. There was not time for many
words. The last bell was about to ring, and all, except intending
passengers, were ordered to leave the ship. Colonel and Mrs. Fellowes
made their farewells with looks of encompassing affection. Then Hester
turned to Mark, who stood pale and repressed, a sad smile on his lips.
"I only wish I were going to Pinkthorpe too," he said. "But we shall
meet there some day, I hope," he added, gazing at her wan face.
"So you will come, even after all?" she murmured. "Till then, Mark, I
will keep my thanks for all your kindness, and for all your loving care
of him--I have heard--Mr. Morpeth told me," she whispered, laying her
hand in his.
In another moment he was gone, and was hurrying down the ladder to join
the Massulah boat.
Hester stood watching the rocking craft which carried her friends across
the surf. The newly risen sun was shedding its golden light on the
great rolling waters of the Bay of Bengal, and on the noble buildings
skirting the shore which were glittering like fabled marble palaces
under its bright rays. Beyond stretched vistas of stately trees all
tinged by the glow, intersected by many a winding road and leafy
compound where the scattered denizens of Madras camped during their
exile. Many spots were dear and familiar to Hester. Now the vision of
the desolate house in Clive's Road rose before her; the early days which
seemed to promise as bright and fair as the golden dawn. Then the
shattered hopes, the wrecked life, all passed in procession before her
dimmed eyes as the familiar shores receded from her view, like the
vanishing wake of the great steamer's track as it ploughed its way
through the glistening waters.