Part 15

"Excuse, your Excellency," said Muhammed. He drew himself together with a little effort, stepped across to the open dining-room door, and laid down his burden. Sir Arthur followed him, hot on the scent of the new grievance. Upon his word, everybody was off his head! Mohammed's manner, his secretary's manner, was downright cool--cool!

"I don't think I engaged you for this sort of business, Muhammed," said he.

Muhammed, with the point of a corkscrew just applied to the first bottle, paused and looked reflectively at the speaker. Then the points of his upturned moustaches quivered. He laid down bottle and corkscrew and made a profound salaam.

"Excuse, Excellency," he said again. His fine bronzed countenance was subtly afire with some spirit of mocking irony. "There was a fear that your Excellency should be ill served in this poor house!"

Well, well, this was laudable, of course! Yes, even the babu felt that here was no fit entertainment for a Lieutenant-Governor. But nevertheless, intangibly, Sir Arthur found something disquieting in that smile, in the dark eye that fixed him. Vaguely a sense as of something mysterious and relentless came upon him. "You never know where to have them," he thought to himself.

In the pomp of his own palace, surrounded by scores of servitors of his own magnificence, he had not given a thought, hitherto, to the possibility of treachery from the Indian subject. There he felt himself too great a man to be touched; but here, in this desolate house on the downs! ... A small cold trickle ran down his spine. It was queer that the creature should have been so eager to come to England! ... But the next instant the natural man asserted himself. Sir Arthur would certainly have been no coward even in actual danger; he was far too sure of himself to entertain idle fears.

"I shall see you to-morrow," he said imperiously, and left the room.

A whirlwind of silks upon the stairs heralded Aspasia. She caught her uncle by the arm and dragged him into the drawing-room.

"Pray, pray, my dear Aspasia; you are really too impetuous!" cried he, disengaging himself testily. The familiarity which in India had added a piquancy to his sense of importance was here a want of tact. "The country has not improved your manners, my dear," he went on, taking up his place on the hearthrug and sweeping the room with contemptuous gaze. "It's high time to get you out of this."

Miss Aspasia's ready lips had already parted upon a smart retort when the sound of Lady Aspasia's voice, uplifted from without, prevented the imminent skirmish. Her ladyship was evidently addressing Dr. Châtelard, for those strident tones were conveying, in highly British accents, words of what she supposed to be French:

"Drôle petit trou, pensez-vous pas?"

"Ah, but extremely interesting," responded the _globe trotteur_, in his precise English. He always obstinately answered in English Lady Aspasia's less perfect but equally obstinate French.

The two entered together, she towering over him, as might a frigate over a sloop.

Lady Aspasia Melbury was a handsome woman of the "horsey" type. A favourite, even in royal circles, her praise ran in men's mouths expressively as "a real good sort." A woman kind to others, with the ease afforded her by splendid health, unlimited means, and an assured position. Modern to the very last minute, frank beyond the point of offence, she might be cited as one of those rare beings to whom life is almost an absolute success; the more safely, perhaps, because most of her ideals (if ideals they could be called) were of the most practical description. Yet life had failed Lady Aspasia upon one point--she had had one unsatisfied desire; her youth had held a brief romance, interrupted by a _mariage de raison_; and when her millionaire had left her free, she had looked, with the confidence of her nature, to the instant renewal of the broken idyll. But here it was that fate had played its single scurvy trick upon the woman.

Arthur Gerardine, the once handsome, penniless lad, the now still handsome, distinguished man, who had remained bachelor all these years (she had fondly hoped for her sake), had married--a year after her own widowhood--married, not the ready Lady Aspasia, but a poor unknown widow out in India. Lady Aspasia's solitary unrealised ideal, then, was Sir Arthur Gerardine. In what strange nests will not some ideals perch! And unattainable it seemed likely to remain.

As she now stood, her large, bold eyes roaming quizzically round the faded room--which seemed to hold her ultra-modern presence with amazement, to echo her loud laugh with a kind of protest, like a simple dame of olden times raising mittened hands of rebuke--no one would have guessed that she was inwardly eaten with impatience to behold her rival, to know at last the creature who had supplanted her.

"It is, indeed, a poor little place," said Sir Arthur, bustling forward to advance a chair. "I had no idea it was such a tumble-down old house. We must get rid of it as soon as possible."

"Ah, but pardon!" interposed Dr. Châtelard. "It is old if you will, Sir Gerardine, but thereby it is rich. Nowhere else have I so felt the unpurchasable riches of past time. I am charmed to have come here. After your gorgeous Melbury, the piquancy of this antique abode of gentility is to me delicious!"

"Ah, well," said Sir Arthur, magnificently, "I don't say it has not got a sort of picturesqueness and all that, but it's not what we are accustomed to in England, you know. Comfort, Châtelard, the land of comfort, we say. You don't know what it is in your country. But in the good old days--people did not understand it either, here, you see. Look at that chair, now. As hard as nails, eh, Lady Aspasia? I dare say a collector or somebody might like it. What do you say--Chippendale, eh? Elizabethan? Well, it's all the same thing. It's not my sort, anyhow. I shall sell it all, bag and baggage."

"Sell the Old Ancient House!" interrupted the younger Aspasia, hotly. The aggravation her uncle had ever the talent of awakening in her was now in full force. "I think you'll find there will have to be two words to that, dear Runkle. Aunt Rosamond's devoted to it."

Sir Arthur inflated his chest.

"My dear Raspasia!" ...

There was concentrated acrimony in his accents. The elder lady scented storm, and storm was not the atmosphere she liked.

"I declare, Arty," she said, "you made me jump. I thought those stern tones were directed to me. There are two Aspasias here--Docteur Châtelard--elle est ma--namesake--appellée après moi, ou comment vous dites! Come here, namesake, and let's have a look at you."

Aspasia fell on her knees beside the imposing tailor-made figure, and raised her pretty, pert face--pinker than usual, with a variety of emotions--for inspection. M. Châtelard put up his eyeglass to look down benevolently upon her. The English Miss had yet scarcely come under his microscope; but he quite saw that she would be a fascinating study. He now thought the contrast between the two Aspasias somewhat cruel. "Fraîche comme une rose, la petite. Ronde comme une caille, mutine comine la fauvette--Mais l'autre--oh lala, quelle carcasse!"

The fine lines of Lady Aspasia's anatomy--not inharmonious, but over-prominent, it must be owned, from the hardening effects of a too great devotion to sport--appealed not at all to the temperament of the French critic.

"I don't know what _you_ think of your godparents," Miss Aspasia was remarking, with the gusto of a well-established grievance, "but I know what I think ought to be done to mine for giving me such an i-di-o-tic name."

She rolled her eyes meaningly towards Sir Arthur. Lady Aspasia pinched the tilted chin not unkindly, while her loud laugh rang out.

"And you won't ever be able to change it, either, that's the worst of it," she cried. "Thank your stars, anyhow, it can't brand you all your life, as it does me, like an ugly handle to a fine jug--aha! By the way, Arty, you'll have to do something to help this poor child to change the Cuningham, anyhow. She won't do it down here."

"I don't want to change that at all," cried Baby. Her quick ear had caught the sound of Bethune's tread on the threshold. She jerked her chin from Lady Aspasia's fingers and jumped to her feet. "I've never seen any one whose name I thought better worth having than Cuningham yet."

In her young pride she unconsciously flung an angry glance upon the newcomer for appearing at just the wrong moment--a glance which Lady Aspasia caught, and from which she immediately drew conclusions.

These conclusions tallied to a nicety with some others that Lady Aspasia, not without a certain satisfaction, had been forming of late regarding the Gerardine _ménage_.

Lady Gerardine had shown an unmistakable disinclination to join her husband after a long absence; she had suddenly ceased corresponding with him except by telegram; and in these telegrams the name of the visitor whose presence was offered as excuse had been unaccountably omitted.

"Poor child," cried the woman of fashion, with her crow of laughter and the brutal outspokenness of her circle; "she's about tired of playing chaperon here! Never mind, my dear, your time will come by-and-by. 'Nous avons changé tout cela,' as M. Châtelard would say; and a jolly good thing, too. We are only proper in our teens, and after that we can have a high old time till we are eighty. C'est ce que nous appellons un score, M. Châtelard."

"I think, Lady Melbury," said M. Châtelard, suavely, "that I should prefer to watch the high young time."

But, as he spoke, his eye was on Sir Arthur; and from thence it went with eager curiosity to Bethune. He was rubbing mental hands of glee. What stroke of superlative fortune had landed him in the very middle, in the great act, he felt sure, of that drama, the beginning of which he had noted with such interest in far-off India? The poor, good, trusting Sir Gerardine, who had ordered his wife to fall in with her lover's scheme, with such touching--such imbecile--confidence! Ah, but he was beginning to suspect; he had winced even now at the words of yonder impossible female. And that other? Why, it was clear that the Major had encompassed his design--but up to what point? That relentless, impenetrable mask was as hard to decipher as ever. It could not be said that he looked like the fortunate lover, but neither did he look like one who would spare or give way. "It is a nature of granite," thought the Frenchman, as he watched Bethune's deliberate movements about the room. "Successful or still plotting, the advent of the husband at this moment--what a situation! And yet, behold the lover; immovable, implacable. It will be tragic!"

"She's tired of acting chaperon." Sir Arthur let the words pass because they were spoken by Lady Aspasia. But they had pierced right through his armour of self-satisfaction and self-security. The new grievance became again unpleasantly active.

Rosamond had indubitably been incredibly, reprehensibly foolish. No one had a right so to neglect the ordinary conventions. He would have to speak to her very seriously, by-and-by.

"What can your aunt be about, my dear Aspasia?" cried he, impatiently. "I think I must really go up and bring her down, if you will just direct me to her room."

That he should have to ask to be directed to his wife's room; that, having been a couple of hours in the same house, they should not yet have met--it was preposterous, intolerable, it was most inconsiderate of Rosamond! It was an abuse of his chivalrous solicitude for her!

"Oh, I'll run up!" cried Baby, anxiously.

"Here is Lady Gerardine herself," said Major Bethune's calm voice. He stepped to the door and opened it.

*CHAPTER XVII*

Up went Lady Aspasia's eyeglasses. Often had she pictured to herself the woman who had "cut her out." She vowed she knew the type: "men are so silly!"--the Simla belle, ill-painted, ill-dyed, with the airs of importance of the Governor's wife badly grafted upon the second-rate manners of the Indian officer's widow.

As Rosamond came into the room, her long black draperies trailing, her radiant head held high, a geranium flush upon cheeks and lips, Lady Aspasia's glasses fell upon her knees with a click; then she lifted them quickly to stare afresh. She forgot to rise from her chair; she forgot even to criticise.

"I'm done for--I'm stumped!" cried the poor sporting lady, in her candid soul. "It's all u-p! Lord, what a fool I have been!"

Sir Arthur, filling his lungs with a breath of righteous reprehension, looked; and exhaled it in a puff of triumph. A beautiful creature. By George, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen! And she was his--his wife--Lady Gerardine. The old glorious self-satisfaction rushed back upon him. How well he had chosen, after all! A little neurasthenia might well be forgiven to one who so superlatively vindicated his taste. It was a glorious moment, this, of presenting the shining star of his selection to the poor old flame.

"Sac-à-papier! ... Quand une anglaise se mêle d'être belle, elle ne fait pas les choses à moitié."

Dr. Châtelard adjusted his spectacles. This was the woman whom the astute Bethune, under the purple Indian sky, had accused in his hearing of being cold. Cold? Just heavens--what a bloom, what a flower! Ah! the answer to that question he had been asking himself with devouring curiosity ever since his recognition of the manor-house guest, was here given him without a word. The poor--the poor Sir Gerardine! Here was what he, Châtelard, with his enormous experience, had securely predicted. _Voici la conflagration!_

Not a jewel did Rosamond wear; but her soft draperies were strung with long lines of jet, so that, with each movement, subdued fires seemed to flash about her. The fever colour in her cheeks, the fever light in her eyes, lent her usually pale and pensive beauty an unnatural brilliancy. All in the room were unwittingly struck into immobility, that their every energy might be given to so rare a sight.

Raymond Bethune flung but one look, then dropped his eyes.

"He is afraid to betray himself," thought the shrewd Châtelard (his own inquisitive eye was everywhere); for once he was right in the midst of his wild surmises.

Even Baby stared, open-mouthed.

Rosamond advanced, looked round with unseeing glances. "I am here. What is wanted of me?" she seemed to ask, vaguely.

"Painted!" cried Lady Aspasia to herself, her gaze fixed hungrily. "No"--for here Sir Arthur bent to kiss his wife, and the scarlet cheek turned to him was suddenly blanched--"No. What's the matter with the creature? She looks as if she were going to faint."

But Lady Aspasia was in no mood to follow the fertile train of thought suggested by Lady Gerardine's evident emotion under her husband's caress; her own emotions were for the moment unwontedly acute and painful. Sir Arthur's fond and proud look at his beautiful consort struck the old love with a stab. She was not even regretted!

"My dear," said Sir Arthur, one of his wife's cold hands in his, "here is Lady Aspasia, of whom you have heard so much."

Then Lady Aspasia remembered her manners, and rose to greet her hostess. As she did so, she caught the reflection both of herself and of Lady Gerardine side by side in the mirror over the chimney-piece. Both tall women, their heads were nearly on a level; but between the two faces what a chasm! How could the old love be regretted? She was not even regrettable.

The elder woman gave a harsh laugh.

"Awfully glad," she muttered, for once at a loss for words. "She's got it all," she was saying to herself. "Youth and beauty--and Arty. Poor Arty; she does not care a snap of her finger for him, and Heaven knows what's on her conscience!"

"You remember Dr. Châtelard, my love," proceeded Sir Arthur. M. Châtelard made his preliminary French bow, and respectfully took possession of Rosamond's icy fingers. While his lips were forming an elegant little speech of greeting, while he was assuring her ladyship of his acute sense of privilege at being under her roof, his swift thoughts were busy on fresh conclusions. He looked down at the pale hand, the death-like touch of which lay inert in his palm, and up at the hectic loveliness of the face.

"C'est qu'elle est malade--tres malade même!" he said to himself, with sudden gravity. "Ah, she is not one to whom sin is easy! The young man may remember he was warned." And, as he gave his arm to his hostess to lead her into the dining-room, he was perhaps the only member of the company to realise that Lady Gerardine had not so far uttered a single word. "This will end in tragedy," he told himself again; and the ring of Sir Arthur's laugh, the jovial content of his voice behind him, struck the Frenchman's ear, mere student of psychology as he was, with an actual sensation of pain.

As they crossed the hall they passed the figure of the Indian secretary standing motionless, with folded arms, at the further end. The man salaamed as they went by, and M. Châtelard felt Lady Gerardine shudder.

"Does the Eastern inspire you with repugnance?" queried he, as they entered the dining-room.

"With horror," she answered, in a deep, vibrating voice; "with hatred."

The note of her passion was so incongruous to the occasion that the traveller found nothing to reply.

Once seated at the table, however, he set himself, with tactful assiduity, to cover a situation which tended to become awkward, not to say impossible. Fortunately, too, both the Aspasias kept up an almost violent conversation, and between them Sir Arthur was allowed very little time for reflection or observation.

Baby had purposely placed a large erection of ferns and flowers in the centre of the table. Sir Arthur had to peer round if he wanted to catch his wife's eyes. The four candles, in their red shades, gave but faint illumination. The dark oak panelling absorbed the side lights. It was only to Bethune on the one hand, to M. Châtelard on the other, that Rosamond's persistent mutism, her abstraction, became obtrusive.

"You have, I fear, small appetite, madam," said the Frenchman at last, with kindly anxiety, unable himself to enjoy the excellent plain fare provided by old Mary while this lovely dumb creature beside him shuddered from the food on her plate, much as she had shuddered from the sight of the Pathan in the hall.

She turned her eyes, unnaturally bright in their haggard setting, slowly upon him, as if aware that he had spoken, and yet unable to grasp his meaning.

"You do not eat," he repeated, with more explicitness. On the other side of him Lady Aspasia, wheeling round from her absorbing conversation with Sir Arthur, caught the words. She looked curiously at Lady Gerardine.

"We have taken away her appetite," she cried, in her literal French. "Too bad--and such a good dinner, too! I am ravenous still, in spite of the scones." And she fell with zest upon the chop before her.

Jealousy might beset her, and angry suspicion of the woman who had supplanted her, but the business of the moment for Lady Aspasia was dinner.

"Capital wine," said Sir Arthur. "I had no idea, my dear Rosamond, that you could give us anything like this." He peered round the chrysanthemums at her, and received again the agreeable shock of her beauty in its new garb of colour. "I shall have to visit the cellar to-morrow. It's quite old wine, 'pon my soul. Châtelard," and he burst into his ultra-Parisian French, "you maintain a pretty fashion in your country, which we have given up in ours. Let us clink glasses."

There was a flutter of napkins, an exchange of salutations. M. Châtelard rose, bowed his close-cropped grey head, and reached over his brimming glass. When it had touched Sir Arthur's, he turned and held it out, for the same ceremony, towards Lady Gerardine. Again she merely lifted her eyes towards him. He sank back on his chair and drank hastily.

"_Saperlotte_--she looks at one like a suffering dog.... And that fellow opposite, with his face of marble! He drinks, that one, if he eats as little as she. And Sir Gerardine, the poor husband, so touching in his joy of family affection--and the little Miss, so innocent and gay--and the storm gathering--gathering! I could almost wish myself out of this, after all. The interest is undeniable, but the situation lacks comfort!"

"Look," said Aspasia, suddenly, in a low tone to Major Bethune, and laying her hand on his sleeve; "look, now that the door is open! Muhammed has been in the hall all the time of dinner. He's listening to us and watching."

"Muhammed?" echoed Major Bethune, starting slightly. His thoughts had been fixed so intently upon a painful and tangled speculation that he had some difficulty in bringing them back to Aspasia and her fears.

"Yes," urged the girl, "Muhammed. Don't you see? There he is." She dropped her voice still lower. "I do think he's got his eye on Runkle. Oh, dear, I don't believe I ever knew what it was to be frightened before I came to this dreadful Old Ancient House!"

Bethune glanced at her paling cheek, and then out through the half-open door into the hall, where the figure of the Pathan might indeed be perceived leaning against the staircase post in his former attitude of composed watchfulness.

"Don't be frightened," said the officer of Guides, smiling, "the Eastern are as curious as children, for all their grand impassive airs; and this very fine westernised specimen has come to stare at us, and despise us in the depths of his soul, which is as savage, no doubt, as that of his brethren, in spite of his veneer. Besides, Miss Aspasia, he's not looking at Sir Arthur; he's looking at Lady Gerardine."

"He knows she hates him, perhaps," said Baby, with a fresh chill of apprehension. "Oh, Major Bethune, you may laugh, but I don't believe the creature's safe; and I, who thought him quite human when he helped me with the wine to-night. Fancy, I was down in the dark cellars with him!"

"Capital pheasants," said Sir Arthur; "capital."

"Lord!" cried Lady Aspasia's shrill voice; "I wish my _chef_ would only learn to make bread sauce like this."

"I hope there's another bottle up of that excellent wine," resumed the great man, genially.

"Excellent wine in very truth," echoed M. Châtelard.

Rosamond's soul sickened within her. How they ate and drank! How nauseating was the clatter of knives and forks, the clink of glasses, the fumes of wine and roast! Away, away, in the old grey fort, at the end of endless winding valleys under the snows, one was a-hungered and a-thirst.

"_We shall have to draw in our belts_," he was saying, making mock, as strong men will, of his physical pain. "_Only four dozen boxes of pea-meal and twenty bags of rice left_." ...

"_When men are slowly starved they can bear the hunger ... but thirst is an active devil_."

Oh, God, the smell of the wine--his wine--to see them drink it, laughing, while his dear lips in vain were calling out for water!

* * * * *

She felt his anguish burn in her own throat, desiccate her own mouth. Some one was speaking to her; her dry tongue clicked and could form no sound. She groped for the glass of water and lifted it to her lips, but laid it down untouched in a spasm of horror. How could she drink when he was parched?

"_Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me?_" She put her hand to her throat; the room went round with her.

"You are suffering," said Bethune, leaning over to her.