Verona was now painfully conscious that she could no longer harbour
illusions, and had begun to realise her situation, her relations and
her home. Her home, large, dark, straggling, with an atmosphere close
and airless, the handsome furniture, picked up at auctions--dead
bargains, surrounded by a deep verandah and a bushy garden, full of old
apricots, cork trees, dried-up water channels, straggling rose bushes,
beds of tomatoes and a few sickly orange trees.
She understood and conformed to the daily routine of the household.
There was the scrambling breakfast at nine o'clock, at which neither
her father nor grandmother appeared. The latter partook of coffee and
"hoppers" in the seclusion of her own quarters, and busied herself
with the feeding of fine buff fowl, making coffee and condiments, and
giving audience and medicine to numbers of native visitors, chiefly
the sick and afflicted. Dominga, her red mane in two thick plaits,
wearing a dressing-gown and slippers, practised her songs, knitted
ties, wrote letters, or lay on her bed, devouring novels and bazaar
sweetmeats--such as paras and jalabies--having commandeered the sole
punkah coolie.
Pussy and Nicky were unaffectedly idle, but Mrs. Chandos, on the
other hand, was feverishly busy, whisking in and out of the rooms,
herding the servants here and there, scolding every one in her high,
far-reaching falsetto. Twelve o'clock was the orthodox visiting hour,
and three days after Verona's arrival it brought Mrs. Trotter, Miss
Lizzie Trotter, Miss Georgina Louisa Trotter in all their best clothes,
to make a formal call. Mrs. Trotter, a worthy, hard-working woman, who
always declared that "she knew her place and kept to it," had a round,
flat face, resembling a bread platter, the idea being well carried out
by a toque in tussore silk.
She was obviously abashed on her first introduction to the new Miss
Chandos, and stared at her with genuine surprise, but Susan Trotter
very soon rallied and found her tongue, and taking a good grip of her
self-possession, began:
"You and I, Verona----"
Verona started.
"----have more in common than all the other members of your family--as
we have both been in England; I," she bridled, "of course was born
there," and she looked round the room. "You," to Verona, "were born out
here--whereabouts?"
Verona glanced at her mother interrogatively.
"Oh--in Murree," she answered sharply, then exclaimed:
"My! whatt a long time since Mrs. Trotter has been in England; she will
not know it as you do, Verona. Twenty-five years, is it not?"
"Yes," assented Mrs. Trotter with obvious reluctance.
"So Lizzie was born at home? And that makes her at least twenty-seven,"
and Mrs. Chandos closed her eyes, as much as to say "I have scored."
"Lizzie is twenty-six next birthday; she looks just as young as
Dominga, but that is because she is English."
"I suppose you were awfully gay in England?" said Lizzie, now
addressing Verona for the first time.
"Yes, but we lived chiefly abroad," replied Verona.
"And in grand, smart society," announced Mrs. Chandos; "princes and
dukes and all that sort of thing."
"There is not much of that sort of thing out here; you will only know
the railway people, and contractors and such like," remarked Mrs.
Trotter. "I suppose London is a good deal changed since I was there; I
remember going in the Underground and thinking it so wonderful."
"That is an old story now," rejoined Verona with a smile; "there is the
Tube."
"And the Crystal Palace and Madame Trousseaux's" (she meant Tussaud's),
"with the murderers in the basement. What a sight!--Oh!" with a start,
"here is Mrs. Watkin; I thought she was coming, for I saw her ayah
shaking out her best dress--so now I will go, as at present we do not
speak."
Enter Mrs. Watkin, a young woman, pale, very stiff, and smartly
dressed. She stared at Verona with cold inquisitive eyes, and chiefly
confined her conversation to the climate. The lady was--as Pussy
had hinted, "stuck up," but although there was some conversation
with respect to flowers, she had no opportunity to introduce the two
gardeners.
A proper sequel to these morning calls was a visit to Blanche in the
afternoon. Mrs. Chandos excused herself, but Verona and Pussy started
off in the victoria to spend a happy afternoon in Rajahpore!
The residence of Mrs. Montagu-Jones was a trim little red brick
bungalow, with a shallow verandah, covered with purple railway creeper.
Everything looked precisely as it was--or had been--cheap; everywhere
was evident, audacious apings at style and at fashion; everywhere the
ugly adjective "makeshift" obtruded itself with heartless prominence.
There were scrimpy cretonne curtains in the windows; sixpenny fans and
brackets on the walls; unreliable flounced cane chairs, a gaudy Europe
carpet and many rickety tables crowded the drawing-room.
Quite a number of guests had been specially invited to meet Miss Verona
Chandos at tea, and ladies connected with the railway, commissariat and
telegraph departments were well to the fore; smart, dark young men,
slender and effusive; gaily dressed women, their faces covered with
powder and reeking of sickly scents.
As Verona looked round the company she asked herself what she would
have thought of this society a year ago? Of Mrs. De Castros, in a black
crêpe hat trimmed with poppies, who drank loudly from her saucer,
and put her tongue out at a friend; of Mistress Thomas, elaborately
painted, wearing a very low white gown and a transparent blouse; of
young Braganza Brown, the beau of the party, in a florid waistcoat
with silver buttons, and a pink satin tie, scented and oiled like some
ancient Roman dandy. Pussy was undoubtedly in her element, and giggled
and talked incessantly, for she was a social favourite.
"Fie! For shame! Pussee, whatt a noise you are making," expostulated
Blanche. "Do be quiet."
"Oh, Pussy," cried a girl, leaning over and addressing herself to her,
"Dom is too grand to look at me now; she is always in the station; they
say she will marry an officer. Whatt do you think?"
"Aré Bap! don't ask me," cried Pussy; "ask Dom."
"But I dare not. I hear Dom will sing at the concert," resumed the
girl; "we shall all go and hear her, and pay eight annas. Whatt a
voice; where _did_ she get it? where does she keep it?"
"But I do not like it," interposed Ada Diaz; "it is so big, it hurts my
head; and tell us, Pussy, who is the little officer so awfully in love
with Dom?"
"I believe it is quite a case!" added another uneasily.
"Oh, I don't know," said Pussy, helping herself to sweets. "There is
often some one in love with her, but she is so hard to please; she has
such grand notions."
On the other hand Blanche was saying:
"Mother has so many engagements; she is going to buy another horse; one
was enough for _me_, but she never grudges anything for Dominga; every
one knows thatt. Now, Verona, do you come along; we are going to the
railway tennis ground, and Mr. Bott wants you to play with him."
Mr. Bott, a stout dark man, was the chief guest--and perfectly alive
to his own importance. As Blanche pulled her sister's sleeve, she
whispered, with a smothered giggle:
"Five hundred rupees a month! He is baby's godfather, but you may marry
him if you like!" and she pushed Verona before her.
What an afternoon it had been--of pretension and make-believe, of civil
speeches and staring eyes, of long whispers and sidelong looks, and of
warm invitations, and strokings and flattery and painfully sustained
effort.
Verona was thankful when she and Pussy were at last ushered to the
overworked victoria and driven home along the flat, white road to the
sequestered bungalow in Manora; which now appeared to the miserable
pleasure-goer a veritable harbour of refuge.
The morning succeeding this dissipation, found Verona lying on her
bed racked with a headache and fever; she was unable to rise, and lay
prone, fervently hoping that she was going to be very ill and die. In
the midst of these miserable reflections, Pussy burst in to announce:
"Rona, this is Sunday; we cannot all fit into the victoria, but you and
Dominga and mother must go to the cantonment church; there is a grand
parade--you will see the officers!"
"I cannot stir," protested Verona; "my head aches so dreadfully."
"Ah," coming over and taking her hand, "so you have fever. Now I wonder
how you got thatt?" (By midnight rambling on the river banks when the
air was full of mist and malaria.)
For two long days Verona remained in her room, her head burning,
her bones racked with pain. She was driven nearly distraught by
affectionate Pussy's well-meant attendance and tireless chatter, by
Dominga, who sat upon the bed and poured forth a stream of questions
(questions respecting dress, deportment, hair-dressing, letter-writing,
and the manners and customs of society at home); by Nicky, whose
carpentering was close at hand, and by the ceaseless barking of the
Trotters' pariah.
On the third night she got up--finding herself alone--put on a
dressing-gown and slippers, and staggered about the room; then she
tottered out to contemplate the river.
Oh, how cool it looked! And she was burning--her veins ran fire. How
delightful to slip into it, and thus end her life; she was useless now
to herself--or any one. From her former existence she was separated by
a great gulf; her new existence was intolerable. To her relations she
was an encumbrance, and to her they were a nightmare.
She stole further and stared about her. There was the light in the
office window; between it and her a stooping head. The recent rains had
filled the Jurra to its brim. As it flowed past muttering to itself
in the moonlight it looked most enticing. The river spirit seemed to
whisper in her ear with seductive, rippling murmur:
"Come with me! Come with me!"
Only a little choking feeling and all would be over! Drowning, people
said, was such an easy death. "Why wait?" urged the rippling river; in
two minutes from this very time, she might be elsewhere, safely landed
on the other shore. She must cross the River of Death sometime--why
not now? It would not be wrong; on the contrary, it would be a blessed
relief to every one, including herself. Oh, why should people speak of
suicide with bated breath and horror?
"Oh, it is not wrong," she said aloud; "God knows all. He will forgive
me. God pardon me and give me rest," she exclaimed, and raising her
arms, she stepped down to the water's brink; suddenly a boat shot up
close to the steps, a white figure rose before her, a firm, peremptory
hand was laid on her wrist.
"Surely you would not bathe at this hour?" remonstrated a man's voice.
She drew a long, shuddering breath and moaned:
"Oh, let me go! Let me go!"
"Are you not afraid of the crocodiles?" he asked.
"Crocodiles," she stammered, and began to laugh; "crocodile, no, it's
in my dressing bag!"
"You must go back to the house at once, and promise to remain there,"
continued the stranger authoritatively. "Your arm is burning--you have
fever."
"But, who are you?" she asked; "are you the Angel of Death? Is this
the boat to take me over? Oh, I am so thankful you have come," and she
gazed into his face, her eyes ablaze with fever. "Oh, Angel of Death, I
am not afraid; let us go," and she prepared to enter the boat. "Let us
go now."
"No, no, no!" protested Salwey, in a voice so persuasive and gentle
as to sound like that of another person. "I cannot take you over this
time; the current is too strong."
"Oh, do, please; I cannot stay. Oh! I cannot wait!" and she wept and
wrung her hands with a gesture of frantic despair. "Well, then I must
go alone," and as she spoke, she thrust him aside with all her feeble
might.
It was not often that Brian Salwey found himself in such a
dilemma--although it was by no means the first time that he had
indirectly represented the Angel of Death. If he left this distracted
girl in order to seek for assistance she would drown herself without
a doubt. After considerable delay and many solemn and astounding lies
he induced her to believe that he truly was the Angel Azrael and would
return for her, without fail, on the following evening. Having made
this soothing and mendacious promise he "charmed so wisely" that he
prevailed upon Verona to re-enter her room. He then fastened the door
outside, in a makeshift fashion, with his handkerchief and necktie, and
ran at the top of his speed in order to summon his aunt.