THE MEETING
While Joyce climbed the road preceded by her Lepcha coolie, a scene of
dramatic possibilities was taking place in a room of the hotel to which
she was bound.
It was Mr. Meredith's sitting-room, comfortably furnished; a fire was
burning cheerfully in the grate, and the actors were himself and Mrs.
Dalton, who had called upon him in a crisis of her affairs.
She was eager and excited, bold, and yet somewhat baffled.
He was nervous and uncomfortable, while fidgeting with a letter in his
fingers.
"He has made a rather sporting offer, don't you think?" she asked with
biting sarcasm, her eyes studying his face.
"What are you going to do?"
"Surely!--that's for you to say."
"Me?" (irritably).
"Of course. You know that he and I parted long ago over incompatibility
of temper, and that his offer is made only to save his precious honour.
He has heard rumours! There is no love in it; instead, it is carefully
ruled out. I may return to his protection whenever I like; but as his
wife _only in name_."
"It will be better than this knock-about sort of life you have led, with
an allowance wholly inadequate to your needs" (conciliatingly).
"But is there nothing else in life for a young woman of my years and
temperament? What about you and me?" (tenderly).
Meredith reddened as he said resolutely, "That page will have to be
turned down for good, in the fullest sense of the word."
It was a page of which he was heartily ashamed. The shame was
inevitable, the affair having been, from the first, a comedy of degrees
in which his heart had never been involved; begun while he was a
helpless invalid dependent upon this woman for nursing and
companionship. That she had started the flirtation, and had taken
advantage of his loneliness and temporary weakness to bring him almost
to the verge of a deep dishonour, were memories he would have given much
to forget. Mrs. Dalton was a type of woman he had always held in
contempt; but he had failed to identify her as such, till his normal
health had reasserted itself. Latterly he had allowed himself to drift
with the tide while looking for a means of escape from his intolerable
position.
"Do you mean that?" she asked with whitening lips.
"I think it is the only thing to do," he replied.
"If you say that for my sake, then I might just as well be frank. You
know I love you, Ray Meredith, and I believe you love me, only you have
never quite let yourself go, for some hidden reason--possibly your
career? It can't be consideration for that bloodless and callous
creature, your wife? I refuse to believe that you have any feeling for a
woman who has placed her child before her husband and is content to live
apart from him when she knows that men are but human after all! Your
career is safe. A man's private life is his own affair. If we throw in
our lot together, we can after the divorce marry and live happily ever
after, as the good little story books tell us in the nursery." She
laughed tenderly. "My husband will gladly have done with me, for I can
tell who it is he wants. I paid a stolen visit to his bungalow at
Muktiarbad and snapshots of her live all about him in his den. Can I
tolerate the position I shall occupy in his house, knowing all the while
it has been flung at me like a bone to a dog? If he could marry her
tomorrow he would; only she isn't the sort, I am told, who would take
him unless I am dead! Now, this is frankness indeed!"
Meredith was silent.
"Can't you speak?"
"I have spoken."
"And is that all?" she cried passionately, creeping nearer, her dark
eyes compelling his surrender. "Don't you know that all Darjeeling is
talking of us? That, for your sake, people are treating me abominably
while they smile kindly on you? I am only a woman, therefore may be
crushed. My God!--and you would turn me down, like a 'page' for 'good'!"
"Perhaps I should not put it like that," he said nervously as he trifled
with Captain Dalton's letter to his wife, and allowed it to fall to the
floor. His cigarette case suggested comfort and was drawn forth as a
diversion.
"Put it as you like, it is rather a knock-out blow for me!"
"Say, rather, that it is a mercy things have not gone too far, and that
you can accept your husband's 'sporting' offer with a clear--a
clear"--_conscience_ was scarcely a suitable word. He was certain she
had smothered it long ago.
"Oh, damn my husband! I want nothing to do with him since knowing you!
Ray, old dear, have you ceased to love me?--I don't believe it!" She
flung her arms about his neck and laid her cheek to his. In her tones
was beguilement, in her eyes the lure of an evil thing. Her back was
turned to the door so that she did not see that it had opened suddenly
to admit someone. Both had been too preoccupied to hear the gentle
knock.
Meredith looked up and saw his wife enter,--his little Joyce, whom he
imagined was in England. For a moment he was petrified--the next instant
he shook himself free of Mrs. Dalton's embrace, and stood apart,
convicted and ashamed.
Joyce stood stock still as if paralysed, and could only murmur
conventionally, "I am sorry," purely a mechanical expression of apology
such as she would have made to a stranger. "No one answered my knock, so
I came in."
The very air was electrical. Meredith could only utter his wife's name
in blank amazement. What could he say under such damning circumstances?
Mrs. Dalton laughed hysterically.
Collecting her scattered wits, Joyce explained, reaching a hand out to a
cabinet for support: "I came out with the mails. There was a hint of
_this_, only I dared not let myself believe it. It seemed impossible
from my knowledge of you. But it appears I was wrong," her lip curled.
Turning to Mrs. Dalton she said coldly, "Perhaps you will be good enough
to leave us together?"
Standing there erect in her pride and beauty, dressed exquisitely, yet
simply, she was a revelation to the woman who had sought to rob her and
was now brazen enough to carry off the situation with effrontery.
"It was pretty smart of you to act the spy, stealing on us without
warning! However, we are not afraid. Do your worst!"
"I am waiting for you to leave the room," said Joyce with immovable
calm. Her queenlike dignity was something new to her husband, and it
commanded Mrs. Dalton's unwilling respect and obedience.
Meredith walked swiftly to the door and held it open for the lady to
pass out, his features rigid, his eyes bent on the carpet at his feet,
nor did he raise them when she brushed past him and lightly touched his
hand as it held the door-knob.
"Why didn't you cable?--or wire from Calcutta?" he asked through white
lips.
Joyce looked in scornful silence at him and then said with a perceptible
shrug, "I am glad I did neither."
"Things look pretty bad against me, I admit," he said bitterly. "Is it
any use for me to ask you not to judge me too hastily? The situation you
surprised was not of my creating."
Joyce laughed suddenly, a strained and mirthless laugh as she mentally
recalled the words, "The woman gave me, and I did eat."
"Judge you hastily? Such a situation requires no explanation. It is
plainly a confession of guilt, or it could not have been."
"By that do you mean you will take action?"
"Action?--do you mean, divorce you?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps you would like to marry Mrs. Dalton if her husband gives her
up!" she said bitterly, hardly recognising the tones of her own voice.
"Good God!--never!" he shuddered involuntarily.
"I do not understand you."
"You would not believe me if I told you."
"I am beginning to understand more of men than I did when we parted. It
seems, you could make love to this lady without being in love with her?
You even humiliated me in the eyes of the world, merely for the sake of
a vulgar intrigue?"
She astonished Meredith with every word she spoke. His little Joyce had
suddenly become a woman, a thousand times more wonderful than he had
ever known her.
"I am innocent of anything but an ordinary flirtation, of which I am
heartily ashamed, believe it or not," he returned pacing the floor
restlessly, his face pallid, his eyes miserable. "What are you going to
do?" coming to a stop before her. It was as well that he should know the
worst she contemplated.
"I don't know ... but I cannot advertise my shame to the world!" she
said icily as she turned to leave the room.
"Where are you going?"
"There is my trunk. I shall need to engage a room."
"Sit down by the fire, and I will see to everything for you."
Joyce sank nervelessly into a chair and saw him leave the room, only to
re-enter shortly afterwards with the news that the hotel, being full,
she would have to occupy his own bedroom while he made shift with the
dressing-room attached.
Joyce scarcely heeded him. So long as he was not to share her room,
nothing mattered. "And what about the Planters' Ball tonight?" she asked
to his profound surprise. "Are you going?"
"I was, but not now. How can you ask?" What on earth was she after?
"Why not? I would rather you kept your engagement--and--took me."
Meredith stared, wide-eyed. "You?" For the moment he thought her mind
deranged. How could she contemplate taking part in a frivolous social
function in the midst of their tragedy? Their lives were sundered; their
happiness blasted; and she was thinking of the Planters' Ball!
Joyce was thinking of the women who were expecting to enjoy the
spectacle of Ray Meredith's flirtation with Mrs. Dalton; and no doubt
there were a great many others also prepared to amuse themselves at his
expense, and her eyes hardened. A jealous determination to punish the
woman who had spoiled the happy relations between husband and wife,
possessed her, so that the idea of slighting her publicly at this grand
ball was a temptation. That her husband would slight Mrs. Dalton, she
had no doubt. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes. Honor Bright
had said that, were he guilty of wrong-doing, self-loathing and remorse
would punish him more heavily than she could conceive of! He was already
ashamed, and would yet repent in the dust at his wife's feet. When that
came to pass, she might see fit to relent--not now. Now her whole soul
was in revolt. Her heart felt like stone in her breast. What would
another woman have done in her place? She had no experience. Honor had
advised her against precipitancy. She would act with infinite
deliberation, surpassing anything Honor would have counselled. Honor had
talked of love! For the moment she had lost her faith in love, and knew
no feeling so strong as revenge. She would go to the ball, and Ray
should have no eyes for any other woman but his wife. It had been so in
the past, and it would be so again, or she would hate to live. People
had always said that she was pretty, and she had been glad for his sake.
She was more than glad now; for it put the strongest weapon for
punishment into her hand.
Meanwhile, her husband was amazed that she should think of the ball,
and, doubtless, feared she was mad!
"I am not insane, if that is what is on your mind. But I have to think
of the future," she said coldly. The future was another point that Honor
said, would have to be considered. "We shall go to this dance together
to keep up appearances. For the same reason, we shall, if you have no
objection, dance a great deal together. For Baby's sake the world must
think that we are rejoiced to come together again after so many months
apart, and it might help to make people forget the ugly things they have
been saying. Do you mind?"
"Not at all. You shall do as you please, in this, as in everything
else."
"I have no doubt Mrs. Dalton will find someone in the hotel to escort
her?"
"She can take care of herself."
"Very well then," looking at her watch, "perhaps I had better dress, for
it is rather near the dinner hour."
"And is that all you have to say to me?" he asked with quivering lips.
"What would you have me say?"
"Anything would be better than this coldness--this avoidance of all that
is most vital to us both. Even if you raved and stormed, I could stand
it better, for I might have a chance to explain. Things are not as bad
as you think."
"They are bad enough for me!" she returned calmly, her lovely profile
and the lowered sweep of her eyelashes, her straight carriage and the
gentle curve of her bosom, outlined against the dark hangings of the
window.
"Will you listen to me for a bit?"
"I would rather not."
"Then you condemn me outright?"
"You have condemned yourself."
"You cannot have forgotten my love for you?" he cried desperately.
She turned and lifted grave, blue eyes to his face in mute condemnation.
"You do not understand--I have been ill--I don't seem to have been
myself for a long time, I--I--it seemed to me that you did not care a
farthing what became of me. You left it to me to cable if I wanted you
when you should have known that I was yearning for nothing so much as a
sight of your face. It was pointed out to me that any woman with a spark
of true love for her own man, would have let nothing stand in the way of
her joining him the moment she heard of his illness. Did you?" He
laughed harshly. "No! It was the old story, 'Baby,' and always, 'Baby!'
God!--you never cared."
"I cared so much, that I never wanted to amuse myself with another man
though I had plenty of opportunities." Yet, his passionate denunciation
had gone home.
"Joyce, am I to have no chance?"
With a gesture of disgust, she dismissed the subject peremptorily, and
passed out of the sitting-room, trembling with emotion from head to
foot.
In the adjoining apartment, which was his bedroom, she struggled with
the straps of her fibre trunk till they were taken out of her hands and
the leathers unbuckled, by her husband who had followed her in. Joyce
watched him with a pain at her heart as he bent over his task. A lump
came into her throat too big to swallow. She felt choked with a rising
hysteria which only a great effort of will controlled. He looked so
handsome, so like the lover-husband she had known, that it was all she
could do not to fling herself into his arms and say "Let us forget
everything and remember only our love!" Her natural place was in his
arms now that she had come out all that distance to be with him;
instead, they had not even exchanged the most formal of greetings! He
had been false to her--a crime no woman feels disposed to forgive.
"I had to come in here as this is the only way to my dressing-room,"
Meredith explained as he rose to his feet.
Joyce thanked him coldly and watched him pass through the heavy curtains
which separated the two rooms and was the only apology for a door. When
he was gone, she writhed in anguish. Oh, if she could have crushed her
pride and called out to him to come back!
It was not so easy, however, and she hardened her heart for the task
that lay before her.
While dressing, her trembling fingers almost refusing their work, she
wondered how Mrs. Dalton would behave when they met again? If she would
have the audacity to speak to Ray? A woman of her sort would be equal to
any impertinence. Why had she not returned to her husband, who, Honor
had said, was willing to take her back? At all events, Joyce was
infinitely glad she was on the spot to curtail the woman's opportunities
for further mischief. It was worth the risk of the journey.
When she slipped on her evening gown, a rich, black _crepe de chine_,
she was seized with consternation when she remembered that it fastened
at the back. Under no circumstance would it meet without assistance. A
maid, or an ayah?--Both were equally impossible to procure at a moment's
notice.
She made several futile efforts, then looked about her in dismay! What
was to be done? Flushed, and in despair, she cast a glance at the
curtains behind which lay her only hope. Her husband had often
officiated with the hooks and eyes, and was otherwise expert as a maid.
The only alternative was to forego the ball and her great reprisal; and
this was unthinkable now that all her hopes were centred on revenge. Had
Joyce belonged to a lower order of society, she would probably have
gratified her wrath by making a scene and scratching out the woman's
eyes, or tearing out her hair in handfuls. As it was, the picture of
Mrs. Dalton seated as a wall-flower, openly despised and neglected by
the man she had tried to seduce from his allegiance, appealed powerfully
to her imagination.
Timidly she called, "Can you help me, please?"
There was no answer.
"Ray!" her voice was still more diffident, but her call met with
immediate response. Ray who had not yet begun to change for dinner, was
with her in an instant.
"I cannot dress without help. Will you please?" she asked frigidly.
Meredith took infinite pains, his face, as reflected in the mirror,
looking haggard and pale. He had never seen his wife in black, which was
an excellent foil to her fair beauty, and the sight of her rendered him
tongue-tied. He had nothing to say even when she dismissed him with a
"Thanks, I'll manage very well, now."
When Joyce entered the winter-garden,--the principal lounge of the
hotel, with glazed roof and walls, its interior full of flowering
orchids, palms, and tropical plants of varied beauty, she saw Mrs.
Dalton already there, resplendent in crimson satin and jewellery,
cultivating the acquaintance of new-comers to Darjeeling who had arrived
by the train that day. It was a daring gown for colour and cut, and
Joyce was put in mind of the description she had overheard in the train,
of the lady's ball-room attire. Mrs. Dalton evidently set a high value
on the generous curves of her handsome shoulders, for she displayed them
with liberality.
Ray entering soon afterwards, performed a few introductions with a
self-control that was remarkable, considering his shaken nerves, after
which they passed into the glare of the dining-hall to the table at
which he had always dined in company with men.
Joyce excelled him in her power to sustain the role she had marked out
for them both. Her manner was winning and delightful, and, but for
Meredith's inner knowledge, it might have misled his hopes disastrously.
"Yes," she once said with subtle meaning as she smiled at an ardent
admirer who had been captivated at first sight, "I would not cable or
wire, for I wanted to give my dear husband the surprise of his life. You
can imagine his feelings! It is a mercy that joy seldom kills, or he
might have died on the spot. And I am so glad I came, though I had to
leave my wee baby with his grannie. But things might have become too
difficult later, owing to the war; and I could not be parted from Ray
indefinitely; could I, dear?" to her husband.
Ray smiled unsteadily.
"India is such a delightful country. Nothing will induce me to leave it
in a hurry again. Do you know Muktiarbad? No? It's a little paradise
though officials will call it a Penal Settlement!"
"Lucky dog, your husband!" said an admirer fatuously. "And so plucky of
you to go to the ball tonight, after your long and fatiguing journey. I
hope I may have a dance?"
"Certainly. You surely did not think I would deprive my husband of this
pleasure when he is, I am sure, one of the best dancers in Darjeeling? I
should never have been forgiven by his friends!"
"May I have the first 'Boston'?"
"That is for my husband to decide," she said archly with the familiar
play of the eyelashes and dimple peeping in and out of her cheek. "He
has first choice of the dances on my programme."
"We'll see about the programme when we are there," said Meredith
quietly. His position was more than he could support.
"I mean to enjoy myself thoroughly tonight!" sighed Joyce.
Meredith stole a glance at his wife and noted the feverish light of
excitement in her eyes, under which blue shadows of fatigue lay, and the
nervous movement of her fingers as they crumbled her bread into morsels.
He could see that she, too, was suffering from nerves.
"Damn the ball!" he cursed inwardly. He had no interest in it; no wish
to be there.
"Are you sure you are not too tired?" he asked her, longing for a
loophole for escape.
"Not in the least," she replied, over-doing her part by touching his
hand lightly with her fingers. It was a graceful mark of confidence and
affection which won the indulgence of all the men at that table; but to
Meredith it was deliberate cruelty. Her touch was an electric shock, and
his heart stood still for a moment while the room swam before his eyes.
He made no reply, but having finished dinner, rose abruptly, without
waiting for the initiative to come from her. Across the room was the
woman who had often hung upon his breast with her cheap caresses and
offers of love which he had been too weak to spurn altogether. Already
the sight of her flaunting charms nauseated him.
* * * * *
A 'rickshaw carried Joyce to the Club while her husband accompanied her
on foot. When he tried to engage her in conversation, he had to learn
that her bright speeches were only for others. When they were alone, she
was dumb. It was clear that he had sinned in her eyes past all hope of
forgiveness.
At the ball, Meredith went through his part as in a dream. He smiled to
order, made many introductions, and danced with his wife, and no other.
Obedient to her example, he made idle conversation while they danced
together, though his heart was on fire with longing; and when he was not
dancing with her, he could but watch her from the doorways, remembering
the existence of friends only when they accosted him; appearing
hopelessly absent and inconsequent the while.
It seemed to him that his life was broken and ended.
"You're a dark horse, you blighter," he was chaffed. "Keeping it up your
sleeve all this time that your wife was on her way out!"
"Introduce me, old son," said the _aide-de-camp_ to the Governor. "Mrs.
Meredith dances divinely."
"Let me congratulate you, Meredith," said the Governor, in his
friendliest manner. "Your wife is the most charming little woman I have
met for some time. I have quite lost my heart to her!" He patted Ray's
shoulder to impress the fact on "this foolish fellow" who had scarcely
"played the game" in his lovely little lady's absence. "It was a damned
shame!"
Joyce was unquestionably the "belle of the ball"; there were no two
opinions about that. Few remembered that she had been at Darjeeling the
previous season, since she had kept to her hotel as a semi-invalid with
a very young child; so that she had the additional advantage of being
fresh. India loves new sensations and is grateful to those who supply
them, gratis.
Men surrounded her and paid her marked attentions, fought with each
other, good-naturedly, for portions of dances, and served her as a
princess at the suppers. Yet, in spite of her bewildering success, she
never forgot the object that had taken her there, and was more than
repaid. Her manner to her husband was faultless, and it kept him
regardful of her slightest wish. Her mission was to charm all, her
husband in particular, so that Mrs. Dalton's humiliation should be
complete; and before midnight, victory was achieved. Mrs. Dalton ordered
her 'rickshaw at the stroke of twelve, and retired from the ball, her
almost empty programme in pieces on the floor. She had been overlooked
by men, cut by women, and obliged to look on, with a raging heart, at
Mrs. Meredith's triumph. Ray Meredith, with the rudeness of utter
contempt, had left her absolutely alone. The cruelty of his behaviour
had been insupportable. When, on one occasion, she had seized the chance
of a word with him, he was deaf to her exhortations, and she was shaken
off with a contemptuous disregard for her feelings.
When she left the building, it was to suffer the tortures of a woman
scorned. She was learning to swallow that bitterest of all pills, the
knowledge that she was utterly despised by the man for whom she had been
willing to lower her womanhood in the dust.
She had come to the realisation of the fact that the woman who lowers
herself in the eyes of men, will inevitably find herself shamed and
scorned.
* * * * *
When she arrived at the hotel, she brooded far into the night over her
bedroom fire, reviewing bitterly her moral decline from the day of her
first great mistake. Feeling unable to face the people who had known her
in the Station, she departed the next morning for Muktiarbad, leaving
her infantile charge and its ayah to the tender mercies of the
Sanitarium.