When George Lauriston, having relieved his feelings by his summary
treatment of Massey and closed the door upon the young Irishman’s
groans and voluble remonstrances, turned his attention to Nouna, he
was seized with remorse at having given such free rein to his anger,
when he saw what a strong effect it had upon the girl. She persisted
in crouching on the ground at his feet like a dog that has been
whipped, and when he stooped down and laid his hands upon her, gently
telling her to get up and speak to him, she only murmured, “Don’t hurt
me. I haven’t done anything wrong,” and tied herself up with
extraordinary suppleness into a sort of knot, which George surveyed
helplessly, not knowing well how to handle this extraordinary
phenomenon. At last it occurred to him that this exaggerated fear
could be nothing but one of her elfish tricks, and he began to laugh
uneasily in the hope that this would afford a key to the situation.
On hearing his puzzled “Ha, ha!” Nouna did indeed uncurl herself and
look up at him; but it was with a timid and bewildered expression. He,
however, seizing his opportunity, swooped down, passed his arms under
her, and lifting her bodily from the floor, carried her over to the
sofa, placed her upon it, and sat down beside her.
“And now, little one, tell me what is the matter with you, and why and
how you came here.”
Instead of answering, she looked at him steadily, with a solemn and
penetrating expression. Angry as he still felt, anxious as he was to
know the reason of her unexpected coming, her appearance was so
comical that George could not help smiling as he looked at her. She
wore again the shot silk frock in which he had seen her on his second
visit to Mary Street; a deep, purple embroidered fez made a Romeo-like
covering for her short and curly dark hair; while a sop thrown to
conventionality in the shape of a small black-beaded mantle only
brought into greater prominence the eccentricity it was meant to
disguise. She had either forgotten or not thought it necessary to
exchange her open-work pink silk stockings and embroidered scarlet
morocco slippers for foot-gear less startling and picturesque; her
gloves, if she had worn any, she had long ago thrown aside, and George
could not help acknowledging, as he looked at her, that it would need
an intelligence stronger than poor Massey’s to discover in this
remarkable guise the carefully brought-up young English lady whom
alone his code taught him to respect. As this thought came into his
mind, George’s expression changed, and grew gloomy and sad. The young
girl was still watching him narrowly.
“Are you often--so?” she asked, with a pause before the last word, and
a mysterious emphasis upon it.
“What do you mean, Nouna?”
“So full of anger that your face grows all white and grey, and your
mouth like a straight line, and you look as if you would kill the
person that offends you.”
And she shuddered and drew away from him again. George took one of her
hands very gently in his.
“No, Nouna, I am very seldom angry like that. It is only when any one
does something which seems to me very wrong.”
“Oh.” This explanation did not seem so re-assuring to the young lady
as it ought to have been. “You were listening at the door all the time
then?” she said, after a pause, not so much in fear as in timid
respect.
“No,” said he vehemently, growing hot at the suggestion. “Gentlemen
don’t listen at doors.”
“Don’t they?” said she incredulously. “Why not?”
“It is mean, sneaking, bad form altogether.”
“Is it? Then how do you find out things? Ah, you would pay a servant,
perhaps, to do all that for you?”
George grew scarlet and drew his hands away from her, half in
indignation, half in horror.
“Nouna!” he exclaimed, “where on earth did you pick up these awful
ideas? To pay a servant to play the spy is the most rascally thing a
man could do! A man who did it would deserve to be kicked.”
“Would he? Then what would he do if he thought his wife deceived him?
Wouldn’t he mind?”
George sprang up to his feet, and took a few turns about the room. He
was appalled by this fearful perversion of mind, by this terrible
candour, and he thought with a shudder of Rahas’ statement that the
women of the East have no souls. How should he set to work to make her
see things with his eyes? He glanced at her, and saw that she had
changed her attitude; curling her feet up under her, and leaning her
head on her hand, she sat quite still, nothing moving but her eyes,
watching him. He came back, knelt before her, and looked into her
face.
“In England, Nouna,” he said very gently, “when a man wants a wife, he
chooses a girl whom he believes to be so good, so true, so noble that
he couldn’t possibly think she would do anything that wasn’t right.
And he loves her with all his heart, and never thinks of anybody but
her, and spends all his time trying to make her happy. So he never
thinks about such a dreadful thing as her deceiving him, because, you
see, she couldn’t, unless she was very wicked, treat a man badly when
he was so good to her.”
“Then what Sundran says is all wrong.”
“Who is Sundran?”
“My servant, my ayah. She says that Englishmen love other women
besides their wife, who is only like the chief wife in our country,
and that Englishwomen are not so good as Indian ladies, because they
are not shut up.”
“Sundran must be sent away. She tells you falsehoods,” said George
indignantly.
“She shall not be sent away,” retorted Nouna, flashing out at once
into passion. “She loves me. It is she who tells me of the land where
I was born, who sings me my Indian songs, and tells me the tales of my
own country. She shall not go.”
George did not press the point, though he made an inward vow to remove
this most noxious influence as soon as he had authority over the
wayward creature before him.
“And doesn’t some one else love you, Nouna?” he asked reproachfully,
looking into her flashing eyes; “some one whom you are treating very
cruelly this evening?”
The appeal melted her at once, or rather it turned the passion of
anger into a passion of affection. She threw her arms round his neck
and fervently kissed his mouth, nestling her red lips under his
moustache, and scratching his left ear fearfully with the beadwork on
her mantle.
“I am not cruel, I love you,” she said earnestly. “I came here
to-night because I could not live without seeing you again; only I
will not marry you; I have made up my mind to that.”
“But why, Nouna, why?” asked poor George in consternation.
“We are not of the same race; we should not be happy; Rahas is right.
If I made you angry, you would look as you did to-night, and you would
kill me.”
“But, Nouna, I am not a savage; I don’t get angry over little things.
And I should never be angry with you.”
“I don’t know. You say you would not have me watched, you would trust
me. Well, I would rather be watched, then I should feel safe. But if I
always did just as I felt, I should some day make you angry, I know. I
am not like your English girls--the girls at the school, who always
know what they are going to do. Something comes up here,”--and she put
her hands over her heart--“and then it mounts up there,”--joining her
fingers over her head--“and says, ‘Nouna, love; Nouna, hate; Nouna, be
sweet and gentle;’ or ‘Nouna, be proud and distant.’ And I go just as
the little voice guides. Well, that is not English!”
“You are impulsive, darling, that’s all. If you love me truly, the
little voice will always tell you to do what I wish.”
“Will it? But I am afraid. I tell you I would rather kill myself than
have you look at me as you looked at the little curly-haired man
to-night. Why did you hate him so?”
“When I came in he was trying to kiss you.”
“But I would not have let him.”
“No, of course not. That is because you are good and true to me, whom
you love.”
“Is it? I did not know it was that. I only knew that he was small and
ugly, and I did not like him.”
“No; you must not like any man but me.”
“Ah, then you had better shut me up.”
“Well, so I will, my darling. I will shut you up in my heart so close
that you shall have no eyes for any one but me.”
And with a great impulse of tenderness for the little dark-eyed thing
who was drinking in new impressions of life and morals with so much
solemn perplexity, he flung his arm round her and buried his head in
the folds of her dress.
“You will scratch your beautiful face,” said she solicitously,
removing the beaded mantle, and ruffling up his hair with light
fingers. “How can Rahas say you are not handsome? You are like Brahma
himself when he rides in his sun-chariot!” she said with loyal
intention if with confused lore.
The name of Rahas, used thus for the second time, roused George from
the intoxicating oblivion of outside things into which this unexpected
interview with the girl he loved had thrown him.
“Rahas!” he repeated, raising his head sharply. “You haven’t seen him
again to-day?”
“Now you are going to be angry,” exclaimed the girl shrinking.
“No, my darling, I am not,” said George in a most gentle tone. “But if
I am to watch over and protect you, I must keep you out of the way of
men like Rahas. When did you see him? What did he say to you?”
“Well, I saw him this evening, just before I came here. Mrs. Ellis and
I had just finished dinner. I had been very quiet and good all day,
writing a long letter to mamma, telling her how handsome you were, and
how I would never look with love on the face of any other man, if only
she would give me her permission to love you. And I was tired of
sitting still, and the air was hot, and Mammy Ellis was sleepy. So I
opened the door, and she said there was a draught, and I must shut it.
And I could not bear the heat, so I did shut it, with myself outside.
And I went into the next room--the one where I had pulled down the
hangings; and I was so lonely and sad and weary that I was sorry I had
pulled them down, and I began to cry and tried to nail up the long
trails of silk to the wall again; and when I found I could not, I sat
down and cried again; and then I looked up and I saw Rahas in the room
watching me like a tiger. And I sprang up; but he came to me with his
eyes shining, and fell at my feet and told me a lot of strange things
that I forget.”
“What things? What did he tell you?” asked George, trying to keep
calm.
“Must I remember them? He frightened me; I do not want to remember
them.”
“Try, my darling.”
“He said he loved me, and that I must love him, for the planets said
so, and had given him an influence over me which I could not resist.
He said he had tried to conquer himself, and had consented to give me
up; but his love was too strong, and I must forget you--that you were
hard and cold. When he said that I flew into a passion, and told him I
hated him and should marry you. And I threw open the window and told
him if he came near me I would shriek with all my strength. And so he
had to grow quieter; and then he said he knew strange things about me
I myself did not know, and that you never meant to marry me, that you
looked upon me as a little girl to play with, and would marry a staid
English lady. And I burst out crying again, and said that would make
no difference to him, for I should go away and perhaps drown myself.
Then he was very quiet for a long time, and he presently spoke in oh!
such a low voice, with a smile on his face that was not sweet and
kind, but horrible. He told me if I wanted you to marry me I had
better go to your rooms at once and tell you not to forget I loved
you, or else that you would see some other lady and perhaps marry her
before I could see you again. So I sprang up at once, and he told me
where you lived, and I slipped into my own room and put on my mantle,
and told Sundran not to say where I was gone, and I would be back
soon. Then Rahas put me into a cab, and told me at the last to be sure
and wait till I saw you. And I thanked him and said, ‘Be sure I will.’
And so I came; and it was a long way, and I am tired. Why do you look
like that? Why are you angry? Did you not want me to come? Rahas said
you would be glad.”
“The infernal scoundrel!” burst out George, who had been listening to
this recital in almost incredulous horror.
Nouna got on to her feet, and looked at him with a puzzled inquiring
face.
“Did he know you would be angry then?” she asked in a low voice. “I
remember he said I should be less proud when I came back.”
With a strong effort George controlled himself, lest an incautious
word should give any inkling of the rascal’s meaning to the girl’s
mind. He drew forward an arm-chair and invited her to take it with the
manner he would have used to a princess. In seating herself she held
up her arms towards him, but he would not touch her. He sat down
gravely a little way off as he said:
“You will not go back to Mary Street at all, Nouna.”
“No? Shall I stay here with you?”
“Not here, dear. These are bachelor’s quarters. But you will stay
after Friday in apartments that I shall take for you.”
“Why after Friday?”
“Because I cannot marry you before then.”
“Marry me! You said you were not going to marry me for two years!”
“You see I’ve changed my mind.”
“Since last night?”
“Since an hour ago, since I found you here.”
She sprang up and flung her arms about him, with kisses, and caresses,
and incoherent words.
“Then you are not angry with me for coming. Oh, I’m so glad, I’m so
glad I came. I don’t know what to do, I’m so happy. It seemed so
dreadful to have to wait two years, two years always away from you.
For I never felt like this before, as if my heart would break, or
would burn my breast if I was away from you. That is love, isn’t it?
Kiss me, kiss me, don’t be so cold. Don’t you love me? Why are you
going to marry me if you do not love me?”
She pushed herself suddenly away from him, keeping her hands on his
shoulders and devouring his face with an eager scrutiny. His dark eyes
were very bright, and his skin, burnt red and brown like that of most
young Englishmen in summer time, was a deeper colour than ever with
excitement. But his forehead was puckered into lines and wrinkles, and
his mouth was closed in a firm straight line, a fact which Nouna
discovered for herself by brushing up his moustache with a quick and
unexpected movement.
“You are thinking!” she cried indignantly. “When I tell you of my love
you are full of nothing but your thoughts. When I am your wife I will
not let you think.”
This last passionate sentence struck George with the ominous force of
a prophecy. He got up and lifted the girl playfully right above his
head, however, while he spoke in grave tones, the tenderness of which
was unmistakable. “When two people love each other, little one, one of
the two at least always has to think. And when you are my wife you
will have to let me do as I please, just as now you have to let me
hold you in the air until it is my good pleasure to put you down.”
But as he spoke the little creature, who had been trying in vain with
her weak fingers to undo the clasp of his strong ones on her waist,
suddenly ceased to struggle and lay limp and heavy on his hands, her
head and limbs hanging loose, and her cap falling to the ground.
George let her down and placed her on the sofa in consternation,
blaming himself for ignoring the fragility of the tiny thing. There
she lay just as he placed her, as still as the dead. No sooner,
however, had he rushed into his bedroom, returning with a glass of
water which he began nervously to sprinkle on her still face, than she
opened her eyes with a sly and elfish delight, and began to curl up
with mischievous laughter. George fell back with a sick feeling which
was not all relief at finding she was less fragile than he had
supposed. He had challenged her to take his playful action as an
allegory, and she had had the wit to accept and continue it. When
their two wills should clash she would obtain by fraud what she could
not get by force. It was at least a fair warning. He was angry with
her and he got up from his knees without speaking, without looking at
the laughing girl. Nouna understood, and in a moment all merriment had
died from her face; she was clinging to his arm, entreating him
passionately to forgive her; she was a wicked, ungrateful girl; she
had only meant to tease him, to see if he would mind if she were ill;
she would obey him, she would do whatever he wished her to do; she
would throw herself out of the window if he would not turn and kiss
her.
So he turned, of course, and the kiss of peace was given; but George
had had a chill in the height of his passion, and even while he passed
his hand over her soft hair and made her pretty, low-voiced
love-speeches, his mind was full of practical matters concerning her
lodging for the three nights to be passed before he could possibly
marry her, and other details connected with this step.
“Where was this school you lived at before you came to London with
Mrs. Ellis, Nouna?” he asked suddenly.
“School! It wasn’t quite a school. There was only six of us, and we
all had rooms apart and our own servants,” said Nouna.
“Well, but where was it?”
“It was at Clifton. But why--”
“Clifton! That’s no use,” said George to himself. Then he continued
aloud, “Now, Nouna, will you be a good child and stay quietly where I
take you to-night?”
“Yes,” said she, nodding like a child, “if you come too.”
“I’ll take you there to-night, and I’ll come and see you quite early
in the morning. It is to the house of an old servant in our family who
now lets part of her house in apartments. She will be very kind to
you, I know.”
“But you won’t leave me there all alone--without Sundran or anybody?”
“I won’t leave you until I see you are quite happy and comfortable
there, and if you don’t like the place and the people I won’t leave
you there at all.”
Without giving her time for further objections, George brought her a
comb, which she kissed because it was his and proceeded to pass
through her short, thick hair in a very helpless and unaccustomed
fashion; at last, coming to a decided knot, she stamped her foot and,
leaving the comb in her hair, presented her head to George, who placed
her again in the armchair and reverently and laboriously set to work
on the soft curly tangle. He grew very hot over the occupation, which
was new to him, and began to understand why hairdressers are generally
of the abler sex. By the time he had reduced the pretty wavy hair to
order, and admired its soft silkiness by the light of the candle he
had set burning, Nouna had added to his difficulties by falling, like
a tired kitten, fast asleep. He called to her gently two or three
times, and was at last forced to come to the conclusion that she did
not mean to wake up. After a moment’s reflection he resolved to take
advantage of the circumstance. It was getting very late, and if he
were to insist on rousing her, she might have another little scene in
store for him before she would consent to go. So he put on her cap,
picked up her gloves and put them in his pocket, and lifting her in
his arms, wrapped the beaded mantle about her and carried her down
stairs, during which proceeding she patted his cheek sleepily but
really seemed only half awake. He passed nobody but the sentry, who
could scarcely conceal his surprise on finding which of the young
officers it was who was engaged in such an evident “lark.” He was just
in time to catch a train to Victoria, and until they arrived there
Nouna declined to wake up. Outside the station, George got with his
sleepy charge into a hansom and, after giving the driver an address in
a street at Brompton, occupied himself, as his companion remained
motionless except that as he propped her in the corner she promptly
fell back against him, in getting her little hands into her gloves. He
was very tenderly busy with the first, when a voice from the depths of
his shoulders surprised him.
“Wrong hand!”
“Hallo! So you’re awake, are you, little one? Come, lift up your head;
I want to put you to rights before we get there.”
“No, no, I don’t want to get there,” said she, stretching up her arm
across his breast, “I want to drive about like this all night with
you.”
“But we can’t do that, Nouna.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you’d catch cold--”
“No, I shouldn’t; I’m quite warm; feel me.”
“And--and it wouldn’t be considered right.”
“Now you’re not going to talk as Mrs. Somers used to talk, are you?”
asked Nouna warningly. “Because if you do I shall hate you just as I
used to hate her, and I shall want to get away from you just as I used
from her.”
“But, Nouna, some one must tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, and
who is to do it if you won’t let me whom you say you love?”
“Don’t say I only _say_ it,” cried she, nestling up to him with
pleading reproach. “Go on, go on lecturing me; but keep your hand so
on my shoulder all the time.”
And his lecture had to die away into endearing words, and when the
hansom stopped, George found it difficult to resist the temptation,
urged upon him in a soft whisper by his companion, to tell the cabman
to “drive on.” But he nerved himself to a sense of duty and propriety,
jumped out and rang the bell of a well-kept house, at the door of
which appeared a neat servant who informed him that Miss Glass was at
home.
Miss Glass was a woman of five and forty, with an honest
fresh-coloured face, who insisted on kissing George because she had
nursed him when he was a baby, and who willingly consented to do all
she could for his bride-elect. The eccentric appearance of that lady
when she was brought inside the house seemed somewhat to shock her
ideas of propriety; but when, after George had bidden her good-night
and gone to the door, the poor child ran out after him and entreated
him not to leave her--she was so lonely--she had never been all by
herself among strangers before--Miss Glass put her arms round the girl
in very kindly fashion, and soothed her into some sort of despondent
and melancholy resignation.
“You’ll come early, won’t you?” Nouna cried from the doorstep in
heart-broken tones. “If you don’t come before ten I shall come to the
barracks after you.”
George assured her that he would come before breakfast, and drove off,
excited by the rapidity with which this important step of marriage was
forcing itself upon him. He had surprised himself lately by developing
an infinite capacity for doing rash things, but he was saved by his
native obstinacy from the weakness of regretting them; therefore,
although he acknowledged to himself that this headlong plunge into
matrimony was the rashest act of all, and that his chances of domestic
happiness were about the same as if he had decided to unite himself
for life to a Cherokee squaw, he was resolved in dare-devil fashion to
stick to his colours and make the best of it, and this state of mind
left him calm enough to think of a little act of kind consideration
towards poor Mrs. Ellis who, he knew, must by this time be half crazy
with anxiety about her charge. So he drove to Mary Street, and after
satisfying the governess that Nouna was safe, though he declined, for
fear of Rahas, to give her address, he went down stairs and knocked at
the door of the Oriental merchant’s apartments. The grey-haired Fanah
opened it, however, and with a real or affected ignorance of English,
explained, chiefly by gestures and incoherent noises that his nephew
was “gone away.” So that George, who was burning for some short and
sharp vengeance, he hardly knew what, upon Rahas for his infamous
advice to Nouna, was forced to retire with that praiseworthy wish
unsatisfied.
Scarcely, however, had the old merchant, with a low bow, closed the
door of his apartments, when a little lamp, borne by a figure in
white, cast a feeble light upon the walls above, which shifted rapidly
downwards until it was flashed in George’s eyes by the bearer, who
proved to be no other than Nouna’s Indian servant Sundran. The young
man started when he saw the bronze-coloured face peering up into his.
It was a most unprepossessing countenance, bearing the impress of mean
passions and low cunning, which not even the brown dog’s eyes, full of
affection and a certain sagacity, could redeem. The woman might have
been of any age between thirty-five and fifty, though the supple
agility of her movements seemed to prove that the wrinkles and lines
in her dark face were premature. She looked up into Lauriston’s face
with eager anxiety.
“Missee, little missee, my mistress, where is she?” she asked in a
whisper.
“She’s all right, quite safe; I came to tell Mrs. Ellis so.”
“But me want to see her, she not sleep till I come to her and sing and
tell her the old stories. Take me to her, sahib, take me, and Sundran
love you very dear.”
“I can’t do that, Sundran; she is a long way from here. But she is
quite safe. I am going to marry her, so you may be quite sure she is
safe. Mrs. Ellis trusts me, so you can.”
“But, sahib, Missee Ellis not know her so long as me. I come with her
from her country with the Mammee Countess, her mother. She always have
me, she love her old nurse. Sahib, take me to her.”
But George was looking upon the woman with more and more distaste.
Hers was the pernicious influence which, working by the spells of
early association, of wild fable, of romantic devotion, had filled
Nouna’s young mind with its prejudices, had excited her imagination by
its dangerous pictures, and had made her blind and deaf to all the
better influences around her.
“I cannot indeed,” he said gravely. “I am going straight back to my
own rooms now. It would take me another hour to drive you first to the
house where she is staying, and by that time your mistress would be
fast asleep.”
The woman noticed the increased coldness of his tone, and recognised
the uselessness of further entreaty. She tried another tack.
“Sahib,” she whispered lower than ever, in a wheedling tone, with a
glance all round the hall and a particularly careful scrutiny, by the
light of the lamp, of the chinks of the doors, “if you take me to
Missee Nuna, if you tell me where she is, I take you to Sahib Rahas, I
tell you where he is.”
George started, and the offer confirmed him in his resolution to have
nothing to do with this woman. He thought it proved conclusively that
she had been bought by Rahas, but that she was willing to betray him
if she could get her price; and though he did her the justice to
believe in the sincerity of her devotion to her young mistress, he
knew how much more harm than good it was likely to do his poor little
_fiancée_. As he repeated that it was impossible for him to comply
with her request, the dark face of the Indian woman grew hideous with
baffled passion. She retreated a few paces and showed her teeth at him
like an angry ape; then twirling her lamp twice round her head with
some muttered, inarticulate words, as if she were repeating an
incantation, she turned her back upon him and slunk stealthily up
stairs like a wild animal thwarted in a search for its young.
George left the house with shuddering thankfulness that Nouna had
escaped from her perilous associations. “Marriage, thank heaven,”
thought he, “works such changes in a woman that it will drive them all
out of her head and fill her heart and mind with new thoughts and
feelings.”
And of course he forgot that marriage can work changes in a man too.