A VALSE À DEUX TEMPS
'What am I? Why, a mutiny lady, of course. Don't you see my crinoline;
I suppose I am the first to arrive, but there are a lot of us coming in
the dress. We are going to have a sixteen mutiny Lancers; perhaps two,
and all sorts of fun. Rather a jolly idea, isn't it?'
The speaker was Mrs. Chris Davenant as she stood buttoning her white
gloves in the anteroom of the club which was all decorated and
illuminated for the Service ball. She was daintiness itself in a
widespread pink tarlatane frilled to the very waist. A wreath of
full-blown pink roses headed the fall of white lace that lay low down
on the white sloping shoulders, which seemed as if, at the least
movement, they would slip up from their nest of flowers to meet the
fair shining hair that slipped downwards in a loose coil from the
wreath of pink roses round her head.
The steward who had been told off to record the costumes, and see that
no one evaded the rule of fancy dress without permission, raised his
eyebrows slightly as he bowed.
'And admirably carried out in your case,' he replied politely, ere
turning to Chris, who stood beside the pink tarlatane in the garments
of civilisation which had been rescued from Sri Hunumân. He was
looking, for him, moody, ill-humoured.
'And you, I suppose, have permission,' began the steward, when Mrs.
Chris with a hasty look-half of appeal--at her husband, interrupted
gaily--
'Oh, he is mutiny too. The fashion in dress-clothes has not changed.'
'Excuse me,' said Chris in a loud voice. 'I come as an English
gentleman of the nineteenth century. It is fancy dress for me, sir. Are
you ready, Viva?'
The white shoulders did slip from the lace and the roses with the
half-petulant, half-tolerant shrug they gave, and which expressed, as
plain as words could have done, the owner's mental position. If Chris
chose to take that line and make a fool of himself, it did not concern
her. She meant to enjoy herself.
'Execrable taste!' remarked the steward at the other door whose
business was with the ball programmes.
'Which?' asked his neighbour pointedly.
'Oh, both. But the mutiny idea is the worst. Who the deuce started it?'
'Lucanaster's lot, I believe. We couldn't exactly stop it, if they
chose.'
'Well, I hope to goodness Filthy Lucre won't come as John Ellison, or I
shall feel it my duty to knock him down.'
'Oh, we barred that sort of thing, of course. And it is really rather a
jolly dress'--the speaker gave a glance after the pink tarlatane--'at
least, she looks ripping in it.'
She certainly looked her best; and had caught the sweetly feminine
suggestion of the style better than any other of the score or so of
women belonging to the smart set, who, by degrees, came to make up the
mutiny Lancers. A fact which the men belonging to it were not slow to
recognise, so that a group of stiff-stocked uniforms soon gathered
round her, while Mr. Lucanaster--who looked his best, also, in the
gorgeous array which Hodson of Hodson's Horse in the middle of all the
strain and stress of the mutiny, evolved from his inner consciousness
for his 'Ring-tailed Roarers'--could not take his eyes off her gleaming
pink and white. He even risked the resentment of more important ladies
by rearranging the whole set so as to secure her being next to him in
it.
But that gleam of pink and white was responsible for more than the
setting of Mr. Lucanaster's blood on fire. It made Chris, for the first
time, fiercely jealous. Ever since he had allowed himself, for that
minute on the bridge, to compare his wife with his ideal, and his ideal
with the little cousin whose familiar beauty had so disturbed him, he
had been far more exigeant as a husband than he had ever been before.
And now, as he watched his wife's success, it was with clouded eyes
that followed her wherever she went; even when, just before supper--the
night being marvellously warm for the time of year--some one's
suggestion that it would be infinitely jollier to have the mutiny
Lancers outside in the gardens, sent the whole party of dancing feet
trooping out, amid laughter and chatter, to the lawns and flower-beds
which forty years ago had lain bare and bloodstained under the weary
feet of those defenders of the flag.
The verdict of execrable taste given by the steward had been endorsed
by many; by none more fully than by the Government House party which
had come over late. But even Lesley felt bound to admit that, taste or
no taste, there was a certain uncanniness in the look of these men and
women who might indeed be ghosts from that gay Nushapore life of forty
years back.
So, many a one might have been dressed, so they might have danced, and
flirted, and chattered, on the very night when John Ellison ended that
gay life and called them to death, with a brief order to close in on
the Garden Mound and defend the flag that floated from its central
tower. And Grace, more imaginative, more fanciful than Lesley, found
her thoughts wandering more than once in a wonder whether some call to
show themselves worthy of that past might not come again, come there in
the midst of the lights and the laughter. There is always an atmosphere
of unreality in a fancy dress ball when the masqueraders mean to enjoy
themselves; but it was more marked that night than Grace Arbuthnot had
ever seen it.
There was a fascination in it--in the uncertainty of it.
But there was one small soul for whom the sight had fascination, not
from its unreality, but its reality. This was Jerry, who in consequence
of a special invitation from the ball committee of which Jack Raymond
was secretary, that the little lad might be allowed to see the show
till supper-time, had been brought over for an hour or two.
'He isn't weally Hodson of Hodson's Horse, is he, mum?' he said,
squeezing his mother's hand tight, as, in his little Eton suit, his
wide white collar seeming to stare like his wide grey eyes, he watched
the couples passing out into the garden, 'cos _he_ was bigger. It's
only pwetence, weally, isn't it?'
'Of course, it is pretence, Jerry,' she answered almost carelessly;
then something in the child's expression made her stoop to smooth his
hair, and look in his freckled face with a smile. 'You would like to go
and see them in the garden, wouldn't you? Well, wait a bit, and Lesley,
when she comes back from her dance, shall take you, and then you must
be off to bed. It is getting late.'
'Let me take him, Lady Arbuthnot,' said Jack Raymond's voice. 'I am
engaged to Miss Drummond for these Lancers, and I am sure she would
prefer not to dance them with me, even if she hasn't forgotten the
fact.'
He had come up behind her from the supper-room where he had been busy,
and Grace, who had not seen him before that evening, felt a sudden pang
at the sight of him. For he was dressed in the political uniform which,
except on such frivolous occasions as these, had not seen the light for
ten years. She told herself that he looked well in it, _as he had
always done_; and then the reminiscence annoyed her, for she had been
taking herself to task somewhat for the persistency of such
recollections.
'Thanks so much,' she replied. 'I can see her coming back now, so you
can combine the two. That will do nicely.'
It would, in fact, fit in very nicely with her plans; for in
consequence of that taking to task she _had_ been making plans, as
women of her sort do when they feel an interest in a man which they
cannot classify. And Grace Arbuthnot could not classify hers for Jack
Raymond; though she went so far as to acknowledge that she could not,
even now, treat him as she treated all other men with the exception of
her husband.
He made her feel moody and restless. This was intolerable, even though
the cause was, clearly, nothing more than a regret at his wasted life.
It could, indeed, be nothing else. Had she not at the very beginning
sought him out solely in the hope of rousing him to better things? He
had repulsed her by saying that hers was not the hand to win his back
to the plough; and she had resented this at first--had refused to
believe that the past could interfere with the present. But she had
been reasoning the matter out with herself during the last few days.
There had been many links and also many _lacunæ_ in the chain of that
reasoning; yet she had been quite satisfied with the result of it,
namely--a conviction that Lesley Drummond would be the very person to
compass regeneration! For women like Grace Arbuthnot are never more
inconsequent than they are in regard to Love with a big L; since in one
breath they call it Heaven-sent, and the next set springes to catch it
as if it were a woodcock or a hedge-sparrow!
Having arrived at this conviction with a curious mixture of shrewdness
and sentiment, Grace had gone on to be practical. She herself was
debarred by her position from any more becoming dress than the latest
Paris fashion, but that was no reason why Lesley should not have the
advantage of clever wits and clever fingers. For the girl herself was
of that large modern type which, without in the least despising dress,
being, in fact, curiously sensitive to its charm, are personally quite
helpless concerning it.
The result of this being, that as Lesley approached, Jack Raymond
stared at the transformation, took in its details, and finally gave in
to the perfection of the dress by saying, with a laugh-=
'God prosper thee, my Lady Greensleeves!'
'My Lady Greensleeves!' echoed Lesley. 'Yes, of course it is! How
stupid of me, Lady Arbuthnot, not to have guessed before. Oh! I'm
sorry; I promised not to tell who made my dress, didn't I?'
The cat was out of the bag, and Grace flushed up with vexation. She had
not thought any one would recognise the source whence she had taken
Lesley's 'smock o' silk' and 'gown of grassy green,' her 'pearl and
gold girdle' and 'gay gilt knives,' the 'crimson stockings all o'
silk,' and 'pumps as white as was the milk.' She had not even told the
girl herself, partly from the love of such fanciful little mysteries
which is inherent in such as she; partly because she feared to injure
the unconscious indifference which made Lesley look the character to
perfection.
'Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And yet she would not love me.'
And now Jack Raymond, of all people, had found her out; found her out
altogether! She could see that in his eyes, hear it in his voice as he
said--
'Whoever made it, it is charming. This is our dance, Miss Drummond, I
believe, but Lady Arbuthnot wants us to desecrate the past. I mean,' he
went on after a slight pause, 'that we are to take Jerry to see some
dreadful people dance the Lancers!'
'There are some pasts which do not admit of desecration,' put in Lady
Arbuthnot sharply, 'and that is one of them.'
'Neither to be desecrated, nor forgotten,' he added. 'Come along,
Jerry!'
As they passed out into the garden Lesley remained silent.
She was conscious once again of not understanding the whole drift of
the words which had just been spoken. And this time her temper rose
with the certainty that she was mixed up in them; so, after a bit, she
frowned and said point blank--
4 Tell me, please, why Lady Arbuthnot chose this dress for me. I am
certain you know, don't you?'
For a moment he was staggered; then he laughed. 'Why,' he echoed, 'have
you forgotten, so soon, that Greensleeves are your racing colours?
Bonnie Lesley's colours. I'm not so ungrateful as that, Miss Drummond;
but then the money I won on her is next my heart at the present moment.
Fact, I assure you; for I always carry my betting-book in my
breast-pocket so as to be handy!'
She told herself he was incorrigible; had, in fact, almost gone on to
the faint blame--which in a woman's mind covers all possible breaches
of the ten commandments--of thinking he was '_not at all a nice man_,'
when Jerry, as he had already done more than once, prevented quarrel by
such a tight grip on both the hands he held, that alienation seemed
impossible to them.
'Oh dear?' he sighed, his wide eyes on the couples that were waiting in
front of the Residency for the native infantry band, which had been
hastily summoned for the _al-fresco_ dance, to strike up. 'I do wish
there wasn't any nasty old past to come and make it all make-believe,
when it might be real; 'cos it is a deader, you know, and we're alive?'
Jack Raymond looked over to the Greensleeves and laughed. 'Sound
philosophy, Jerry,' he said. 'If it was real, what would you do?
Jerry looked round thoughtfully. Beyond the lawns the cemetery gate
showed dimly, with Budlu's white figure crouched beside it.
'Kill Budlu, or take him prisoner, I 'spect,' he replied gravely, ''cos
the band, you know, _might_ be loyal.'
At that moment it crashed into the opening bars of the Lancers with all
the go and rhythm which the natives put into dance music.
'You're top!' came one voice; 'No! you are,' answered a second; 'Oh! do
begin, some one!' protested another. So, with a laugh, a scramble, a
confusion, a dozen or more of dancing feet trod the grass which had
grown out of blood stains. But the confusion ended in order, so that
the pink tarlatane was in its place to be twirled by Hodson's Horse,
and join the clapping of hands which ended the figure.
There was something weird in the sight out there, with the flower-beds
set with coloured lights, the Chinese lanterns swinging in the trees,
and the shadowy pile of the Residency lying--more felt than seen--with
its solitary tower and drooping flag.
'Inside! outside! Outside! inside!' came the reckless gay voices after
a time.
In the far distance a fire balloon from some wedding in the city,
sailed up into the sky above the trails of smoke rising from the
torches which outlined the boundary of the Garden Mound. Budlu's
figure, watching the graves of heroes, showed closer in, then the band
busy with cornets and oboes, and the masquerading figures with that
gleam of pink and white among them, watched by Chris as he stood half
hidden in the shadow of the ruins.
'Outside! inside! Inside! outside!'
So, with another crash of the band, the endless circle of men and women
caught at each other's hands as if in that touch lay all things
necessary to salvation.
'Inside and outside,' echoed Jack Raymond grimly. 'Yes! Brian O'Lynn's
breeches were comparatively sane. But we are all more or less mad
to-night, my Lady Greensleeves. Upon my soul, Jerry, you, as the
British Boy, are the only one in the place fit to carry on the British
rule! so come along and have some supper, young man, before you go to
bed. The champagne is A1--that's my department, Miss Drummond; it's all
_I'm_ fit for.'
But Jerry, who had let go their hands to step nearer the Residency as
if he saw something, stopped suddenly and pointed.
'Mr. Waymond,' he said, in a loud voice, 'who's that?'
'Who's who?'
'Him!'--
The child stood pointing into the shadows, his eyes wide, his whole
face expectant.
Jack Raymond caught him up by the arms with a laugh, and swung him up
to his shoulder. 'Don't be creepy, old man!--there's no one there,' he
said, as he turned back to the club.
But Jerry was insistent. He had seen some one, he protested; and
brought in a long tale of what Budlu knew, and every one knew,
including his _syce_ and his _chuprassi_, to prove that he had. Why!
Budlu himself had seen the ghost several days, and it meant something
just 'orful bad, for there didn't use to be no ghosts in the Mound
except Jân-Ali-shân.'
'I wouldn't let him talk so much to Budlu and that lot, if I were you,'
said Jack Raymond, aside to Lesley; 'he takes it too hard, dear little
chap.'
'I can't prevent it,' retorted Lesley rather resentfully. 'You see he
has to go out and come in through the Mound, and then he is such a
favourite. The natives simply worship him. I can't think why.'
Jack Raymond glanced at the sturdy little figure which was now tackling
roast turkey and ham in blissful forgetfulness of ghosts.
'I expect they know,' he replied briefly, 'and they are not often
wrong.'
The Thakoor of Dhurmkote, at any rate, had no doubts; for an hour
after, Jerry--under responsible escort--had been sent home across the
Garden to bed, Jack Raymond, having strolled beyond the line of lights
and light feet to enjoy a quiet cigar, found the two of them, with an
admiring tail--composed of the responsible escort and the old
nobleman's retinue--going the round of the batteries, while Jerry
explained them solemnly to the old warrior in English.
'And we beat 'em here too, sir; boys like me beat all their biggest
men, right here.'
'_Wah! wah!_' chorussed the tail approvingly, while the stern old face
melted into smiles, with a '_Suchch mera beta suchch!_' (Truth, my son,
truth!)
'Hullo! you young scamp!' said Jack Raymond, coming up; 'not gone to
bed yet?--be off with you at once.'
But the Thakoor laid a hand on the arm of authority, not in petition,
rather in blame.
'Lo! friend of mine,' he said chidingly, 'why is there no son of thine
to match this son of heroes?' What hast thou been doing all these
years?'
The Eastern reproof of the old for those who leave their duty to the
race undone, fell on Jack Raymond's Western ears and held them
unexpectedly.
Why had he no son, in whom to live again? The answer could not be
avoided--because the woman he loved had jilted him, and he had not
chosen----
Not chosen what? To do his duty?
He smiled. 'Lo! friend of mine,' he answered lightly, 'such things are
chance. My son might have been a coward.'
But as, after having seen Jerry marched off in the direction of bed,
and bidden good-bye to the Thakoor--who was far more sleepy than the
child--he strolled on with his cigar, he knew quite well that the
excuse was a false one. The thought of inheritance, either of heroism
or cowardice, did not enter into the question with Englishmen and
Englishwomen as a rule. Marriage was a purely personal matter. There,
in fact, lay the fundamental difference between the East and West. That
was what made it impossible for the two races----
The sound of voices in anger made him pause. He had come back to the
verge of lights, to the limit of the dancing feet, and before him rose
the ruins of what in the old days had been the hospital. The roof had
fallen in, but the marble flooring, raised above the levels outside by
a half-sunk foundation of cellars, was still in almost perfect repair.
And here, after supper--the _al-fresco_ Lancers having proved so great
a success--the mutiny group had chosen to improvise a ball-room. Such
things are easily compassed in India, where an army of sweepers and
servants appear in a moment. Once swept, it needed little garnishing;
for the great wreaths of coral bignonia garlanded it from end to end,
and even flung themselves across it here and there like rafters. As for
lights, a few Chinese lanterns, torn from the trees and swung among the
flowers, were sufficient for dancing; and who wanted more? Not these
masqueraders, with whom, as the hours grew towards dawn, the fun had
become fast and furious. The club-house, indeed, was now almost
deserted, except by the line of carriages, and even this was lessening
every minute. Supper itself appeared to have migrated to the open
during Jack Raymond's stroll, for, to his intense disgust, he saw a
table--with champagne bottles showing prominent--behind the flitting
forms of the dancers; flitting unsteadily, unevenly, for they were
trying the old valse, and a woman's voice rose above the laughter.
'Oh! do try and remember it is a _valse à deux temps_--you can't help
treading on people's toes if you don't!'
Jack Raymond had flung away his cigar at the sight of the table, and
was going forward to object, forgetful of those angry voices, when they
rose again close beside him.
'I insist on your coming home, Viva!--Mr. Lucanaster, sir, let my wife
go!'
'Damn!' said Jack Raymond under his breath. Ha grasped the situation in
a second and saw its hopelessness.
'Go 'way, sir--go 'way,' came in Mr. Lucanaster's voice; 'don't be
foolish.' There was a faint elation as well as elision in the words; no
more, but it seemed to make them sound more contemptuous.
'Yes; don't be foolish, Chris. I'm going to dance this valse with Mr.
Lucanaster. You can go home if you like.'
The woman's voice had the note of defiance in it which means danger;
but Chris did not recognise the fact. He had been working himself up to
this revolt all the evening, and now, having begun it, he went on in
strict accordance to what he had settled with himself was the proper
and dignified course to pursue.
'Sir,' he said, drawing himself up and speaking with great
deliberation, 'you are a scoundrel, and I shall take the earliest
opportunity of allowing you to prove the contrary if you choose. In the
meantime, pray do not let us quarrel before ladies. I request you to
unhand my wife.'
It was not only a man who laughed, it was a woman; and at the sound
Jack Raymond swore under his breath again, and slipped towards the
voices.
The gleam of pink and white and the 'Ring-tailed Roarer' must evidently
have been sitting out in a small summer-house, where Chris had found
them; and Mr. Lucanaster must have risen and tried to pass out with the
pink tarlatane, for Chris stood barring the way boldly enough. But that
laugh was fatal to him. It brought back in a rush the sense of his own
helplessness, his inexperience, and with it came the self-pity which is
ever so close to tears.
'Viva!' he began, 'surely you----'
Mr. Lucanaster waved his hand lightly, as he might have waved a beggar
away.
'Don't be an idiot, my good man. What the deuce have you got to do with
an English lady?--Come, Jennie, this two-time valse is ripping.'
'Excuse me,' said Jack Raymond, stepping forward; 'but Mrs. Davenant is
engaged to me. If you don't think so, Lucanaster, we can settle the
point by and by, but for the present I advise you not to have a row. It
won't pay.'
The assertion varied not at all from that made by poor Chris; but the
method was different, and Mr. Lucanaster fell back on bluster.
'You're d--d impertinent, sir; but, of course, if Mrs. Davenant----'
'It will not pay Mrs. Davenant to waste time either,' interrupted Jack
coolly, holding out his arm, 'especially as she is so fond of dancing.
It has been a capital ball, hasn't it?' he added, as if nothing unusual
had occurred, when, with a half-apologetic look at her partner, she
accepted the proffered arm, and they passed on. 'A pity it is over,
but--_perhaps_--you _may_ have others like it. Davenant! if you will
find the dogcart, I will take your wife to get her cloak, and I daresay
she would like a cup of soup before driving. I know it is ready.'
When they were alone, she tried a little bluster too, but he met it
with a smile. 'My dear lady,' he said, 'it only wants a very little to
kick Lucanaster out of the club, so please look at the business
unselfishly. It is always a pity to risk one's position for a trifle.'
As he handed Mrs. Chris into the dogcart, duly fortified by hot soup,
Chris tried to wring his hand and say something grateful, with the
result that Jack Raymond felt he had been a fool to interfere, since
the catastrophe must come sooner or later.
The sooner the better. It was always a mistake to prolong the agony in
anything.
He felt unusually low in his mind, and so, after having waited to the
very last as in duty bound, to turn any would-be revellers decently out
of the club, he lit another cigar--his first one having been
interrupted--and wandered out into the Garden Mound again. Most of the
lights were out, only a belated lantern or two swung fitfully among the
trees, but a crescent moon was showing, and there was just that faint
hint of light in the sky which tells of dawn to come. He sat down on
the step of the granite obelisk, which held on all four sides the
close-ranged names of those who had given their lives to keep the
English flag flying, and, full of cynical disgust at much he had seen
that evening, asked himself if Nushapore was likely to bring such
heroism again to the storehouse of the world's good deeds?
Perhaps; but even so, it would have to be something very different from
that past story,--something that Englishmen and women could not
monopolise. For if, after forty years of government, our rule had
failed to win over the allegiance of men--like Chris Davenant, for
instance--would not that, in itself, be a condemnation?
And had it won such allegiance? With that scene fresh in his memory,
Jack Raymond doubted if it were possible.
Truly the conditions had changed, indeed! As he had said, Brian
O'Lynn's breeches were not in it for topsyturveydom!
But with the thought came also the memory of what he had said about
Jerry and the carrying on of British rule; and with that came the
memory of what the Thakoor had said about the boy.
Dear little chap!
A great tenderness swept through him for the child. And for the child's
mother, the woman who had refused----?
The question was not answered.
He started up--incredulous--then set off running, calling as he ran,
"Jerry! Jerry! What on earth are you up to? Jerry! Jerry!"
For in the dimness that was not quite darkness, he had seen a little
figure running like a hare between the bushes, a little figure in an
Eton suit with a gleam of white collar.
"Jerry! Jerry! you little fool! pull up, will you!" There was no
answer, and he had lost sight of the boy; but, as he ran on, the sound
of other footsteps behind him made him look round and pause. For it was
my Lady Greensleeves running too. He could see the "crimson stockings
all o' silk, and pumps white as is the milk," as they sped over the
grass.
"Jerry!" she gasped. "Where is he? What is it?"
"On ahead somewhere! God knows! I told you we were all mad," he
answered as he ran on. The flowering bushes, growing thick upon the
lawns near the cemetery, hid his quarry; but suddenly, on the double
back towards the Residency, the child's figure showed, still running
like a hare. In the light of a Chinese lantern that flared up as candle
met paper, his face looked dogged.
'Whoo hoop! gone away! Stick to 'im, sir! stick to 'im--
"For we'll all go a-'unting to-day! we'll all go a-'unting to-day!"
trolled a new voice, and two more pairs of running feet joined the
chase as Jân-Ali-shân and Budlu appeared from the cemetery.
'What, in the devil's name, is it all about, Ellison,' called Jack
Raymond. 'Are we all mad? What is it?'
'The ghost, sir,' called back Jân-Ali-shân, 'thet's w'ot it is. Me and
Budlu was watchin' for 'im, for 'e 's bin takin' away my charakter,
sir, an' stealin' from the poor an' needy. But Master Jeremiah must a'
seen 'im fust, thet's 'ow 'tis.'
'He was wide awake in his bed when I came in,' panted my Lady
Greensleeves, 'talking about wicked men pretending, and I told him to
go to sleep--he must have got up and dressed. Jerry! Jerry! Stop! Come
back, do you hear!'
She might as well have called to the dead. The child's figure showed on
another double, and before him--yes, before him, just rounding another
bush was a ghostly figure in a white uniform.
'By Jove!' exclaimed Jack Raymond, ignoring his faint feeling of
creepiness. 'There is some one. This is getting exciting. Come on!
don't let him slip through.'
'Whoo hoop! gone away! Tantivy, tantivy, tantivy!' sang Jân-Ali-shân.
So round the Residency, and back towards the hospital where the _valse
à deux temps_ had been danced, Lesley, her green sleeves flying like
flags, ran blindly, to pull up in a heap among the little group of
balked faces, stopped by the wall of the half-sunk cellars below the
marble dancing floor. A wall all garlanded down to the ground with
bougainvillea and bignonia.
'He's here! the ghost's here!' wailed Jerry. 'I sor' him from the
window when I was watchin', lest he should pull down the flag. Oh, Mr.
Waymond, please catch him!'
Jack Raymond, who was feeling below the trailing-flowers, gave a short
exclamation. 'There's a door here. Have you a match about you,
Ellison?'
'Lord love you!' replied the loafer reproachfully, 'I ain't such a
fool, sir, as to go ghost-'unting without a lucifer. Here you are,
sir!'
The next instant, beneath the creepers that parted like a curtain, an
open door showed in the match light; and in the darkness within was
something.--What?--
'What a horrid smell!' said Lesley, as Jack Raymond took a step inside
and held up the match.
'Begging your parding, miss,' put in Jân-Ali-shân, 'it's a dead rat,
that's w'ot it is--"_once known, loved for ever, oh! my darling_."'
'Horrid!' echoed Jack Raymond, in rather an odd tone of voice. 'Stand
back, and let me close the door; there's no use in any one running the
gauntlet of it.'
He had acted on the words before any one could raise an objection, and
they could only hear his voice inarticulately from within.
'He's got the ghost!' cried Jerry triumphantly. 'I knew'd he was here.
I see'd him all along.'
'Seems a peaceable sort, anyhow,' remarked Jân-Ali-shân, as something
like a faint whimper filtered through the closed door.
It was lighter now. The sky had paled. The shadows were turning grey.
That was perhaps why Jack Raymond's face showed so pale, and grey, and
stern above his political uniform, as he came out, closed the door
behind him, and, flinging down the lighted match he carried, trod it
under foot.
'It s only a poor devil of a stowaway,' he said calmly. 'Been living
here, I expect, some days. Ellison or Budlu, you'd better go and call
the police. Stay, I'll give you a note. And Miss Drummond, it is high
time that young ghost-hunter was out of the dew--and you also.'
Lesley looked at him with a new swiftness and light in her eyes. 'Dew!'
she echoed, 'there is no dew! I'm not a bit wet--feel that!' She walked
deliberately up to where he stood, his back still against the door, and
catching her long green sleeve in her hand, held it out.
'I'll take your word for it,' he answered lightly.
She did not move, but her eyes sought his.
'_C'est la peste, monsieur_,' she said in a low voice.
He looked at her for a second.
'_C'est la peste, mademoiselle_,' he replied with a bow.