A Bottle in the Smoke Part 33

"There are only half-caste bounders crawling about here, Hester," said Alfred Rayner irritably, after the encounter with Leila Baltus and her aunt. "Mrs. Glanton and all our acquaintances have gone to the hills. Go where you will, seemingly, you only get stared at by these odious creatures. Suppose we go towards the Ice House, where we may get a chance of the pavement to ourselves."

Hester agreed, nothing loth to prolong her walk, and they wandered on facing the coast with its circling outlets and the great swelling ocean flooded now by the evanescent afterglow of the setting sun. Hester's eye was fascinated by the tender spreading light. She was gazing intently seaward, and did not notice the solitary pedestrian who was slowly approaching them. Her husband did, however, and now and here in this peaceful gloaming was to be enacted a supreme tragedy for two lives. Not till they were face to face did Hester perceive that the solitary walker was none other than David Morpeth. Her heart throbbed uneasily, for she had remarked that more than once even the mention of his name had been the signal for a furious outburst on her husband's part. Her face betrayed her nervousness as she bowed and smiled. But to-night David Morpeth had no eyes for his sweet young friend who held such a warm place in his heart. A letter had reached him from Mr. Fyson of Truelove Brothers some days ago which definitely told him that Alfred was now aware of their close relations.h.i.+p, though Mr. Fyson had refrained from sharing with him the cruel words in which Alfred announced that for the future he rejected with disdain his father's allowance. This was a crucial moment for both--their first meeting since the son was in possession of the secret of his birth. For a second he stared with a searching, fascinated glance at his father's face; while the father, as he raised his hat to Hester, was casting a yearning look of love and longing upon his son. Then he held out his hand, not to Hester, but to his son. Had Alfred willed it, a moment more and life might have been changed for both these defrauded ones! But the young man's corrupted will leant all the other way. He held his hand stiffly by his side, saying:

"Come along, Hester, the breeze is getting chilly!" He put his arm in hers and almost pulled her away. "Didn't I tell you the beach was simply crawling with these half-castes to-night," he muttered, as he pushed past his father with an angry scowl.

The old man's hand dropped. His face took an ashen hue. The bedrock of trouble had been fathomed. He gazed after his son with a face of unutterable sorrow.

"Oh my G.o.d!" he groaned. "Save him from the curse of spurning a father's love! Is this my punishment for the sore blunder I made in keeping a rash vow?" And he moved on with the step of a broken man.

"Alfred, how could you? Oh, this is terrible," murmured Hester, with a look of horror mingled with fear as she glanced at her husband's scowling face. She felt she must protest, whatever it cost her. "Did you not see he wanted to speak to us?--to you particularly? He even held out his hand to you and you were so cold--oh, so cruel!"

"Yes, I meant to be! There's no other way of choking off these half-castes. I tell you, Hester, if you want to be a good wife to me you'll cut all that connection with Vepery. It's only a perpetual annoyance to both of us."

Hester made no reply, and was glad to take refuge in the carriage and be driven swiftly home without exchanging words with her husband. She absented herself from dinner with a sense of physical illness upon her as well as a heart sick with sorrow and shame.

Had she known it, her husband's waking thoughts that evening, as well as his dreams that night, might have found a place in Dante's Inferno. His haggard aspect was piteous to behold when he came down to late breakfast next morning. There had been no rising with the dawn for him; his feverish dreams did not vanish with the night, but made part and parcel of all his daylight hours.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

The first frenzy, which succeeded the reception of the secret imparted to Alfred Rayner at the Shrine of Kali had subsided. Never again after the terrible scene in the drawing-room at Clive's Road when he had crushed the ivory box with such ferocity, and the still more poignant one in which he had spurned his father when brought face to face with him, had the unhappy man given way to any ebullition of temper.

Though these incidents were graven as if by hot iron on his wife's heart, she made no allusion to them and even tried to forget them. Her att.i.tude towards her husband was now more like that of a mother to a weak, erring child than that of a young wife to the husband of her choice. Alfred's evident efforts at self-restraint were very patent to her and touched her tender heart many times every day. He seemed in fact to cling to her with almost child-like affection, and she spared no efforts to make the days pa.s.s harmoniously. Being deprived of his mail-phaeton, he now accompanied her in her evening drives, never lingering at the Club or other resorts as he had formerly done. The occasion on which they were met by Mrs. Rouat and her niece was one of the many in which no untoward incident had happened. They walked peacefully on the beach or sat in their landau enjoying the rising of the evening breeze, so welcome after the airless hours of the long hot day. But Leila Baltus judged truly when she said that Hester's brilliant beauty had gone. She looked pale and wan, and there was an air of languor about her whole bearing. Her pretty frocks too were becoming stained by the damp red dust, and she was at no pains to replace them.

Even her books grew spotted with the red powdering, and she could not open an old favourite without seeing its baleful traces. Intense la.s.situde invaded her, and sometimes her effort to greet her husband cheerfully seemed well-nigh impossible, though she still kept a brave heart and a cheerful mien, and still joined Mrs. Fellowes at the meeting for the Eurasian girls.

Her friend, however, perceived that there was a subtle change in her.

She seemed less frank and accessible than formerly. Recalling with what pleasure she had welcomed the visit to Mr. Morpeth, Mrs. Fellowes suggested they should repeat it one afternoon, but Hester had rejected the proposal almost coldly. Neither did Mrs. Fellowes fail to note how pathetic Mr. Morpeth looked when in a conversation with him she had dwelt on her anxiety concerning their mutual friend. On confiding to him that she and the colonel felt convinced her marriage was not a happy one, she observed that, though he had been about to make some reply, he suddenly lapsed into pained silence and seemed unable to even rouse himself to interest over his schemes for the good of the Vepery people.

Alfred Rayner had so often of late come back from the High Court with an air of depression that Hester was surprised one evening when he returned home in his office-bandy in high excitement.

"I've great news for you, my darling," he greeted her gleefully, as he hurried up the verandah steps. "I've been and gone and shaken the paG.o.da tree, as the natives say, and I've brought down a crop of gold! To the hills at once, Hester, and gather your English roses once more. I can't stand those pale cheeks a day longer."

"But, Alfred," she faltered, recalling her last disappointment and deciding not to be too sanguine. "Why this sudden idea?"

"It's not sudden, I've been thinking of it for some time, and now I can do it," he cried, with an excited laugh. "Is it to be Ooty or Conoor?

Which does your fancy turn to?"

"Oh, Ooty would be my choice if we were really going to the hills. Those Blue Mountains--those great gra.s.sy slopes they talk about have always fascinated my imagination," replied Hester, with a dreamy smile.

"Well, Ooty, be it! I think you're right. I shall wire at once and see if we can get rooms at an ideal boarding-house I know. I'm particularly anxious to be off at once. I've a case in Court to-morrow, but the day after we can start. Now, all you've got to do is to pack up and 'Come away all for the sake of a holiday'"; and humming the then popular song, Rayner hurried off to his writing-room for the telegram forms.

The evening was spent in talk concerning the coming holiday and the planning of expeditions, for Mr. Rayner had spent a vacation month at Ootacamund previous to his furlough and knew it fairly well. He decided that it would be well to send a letter to follow his telegram to the lady-manager of the boarding-house where he hoped to get rooms. On leaving for the High Court next morning he carried the letter with him.

"I'll not even trust it with my other _tappal_ in case of misadventure,"

he remarked. "When the reply to my wire arrives be sure to open it so that you may not be kept an unnecessary moment from your happy prospect.

Won't it be joy to me to carry you off from these vile plains to the glorious Blue Mountains! It'll be worth everything," he added enigmatically, as he drove off.

Her husband's delight in the prospect was infectious. Hester smiled in sympathy and began to busy herself with preparations, bringing forth her warmest garments which had been stowed away in camphor by her careful ayah.

The day pa.s.sed all too quickly. The hour for Mr. Rayner's return and the evening drive had arrived, when a shabby bandy was driven up to the verandah steps. Two visitors descended from it and were shown to the drawing-room by the butler. Hester, on going to receive them, at once recognised one of them as the haughty-looking girl who had mysteriously presented herself at the "Friendly" and in her verandah. It was, however, the older woman, unknown to her, who took the lead. She rose from the comfortable chair in which she had seated herself and addressed Hester with a broad smile on her face.

"Maybe you'll not know me. I'm Mistress Rouat from Chandrychoke, Calcutta, on a visit to my sister-in-law--this young lady's mother in Vepery."

"I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Rouat," said Hester, deciding that at last the wilful niece had been brought as a prospective member of the Girls'

Club by this benevolent-looking aunt, though on glancing at the girl she was obliged to admit that her haughty demeanour was not hopeful. She made no response to Hester's friendly outstretched hand, but stood quite still, then with a nod to her aunt she resumed her seat.

Mrs. Rouat leaned back in her chair and fixed her eyes on Hester.

"Though you don't know me, my dear, and maybe your husband won't either, seeing he was but a babee when he last saw me, yet believe me, Mrs.

Rayner, I am a veree old friend of the family! Your husband's dead mother, Rosina Castro, and me was veree chief when we lived next door in Chandrychoke--thatt's the Eurasian quarter--or one of them, in Calcutta, in case you don't know, bein', as I hear, new from England. Also Mr.

David Morpeth, your husband's father, was well known to me. In fact I had the pleasure of calling for him the other day----"

"Mr. Morpeth! I don't quite understand," faltered Hester. "I think you are making some mistake. Mr. Morpeth is in no way related to my husband."

"Ain't he just," said Leila, with a harsh laugh.

"It's you thatt's makin' the mistake, ladee," Mrs. Rouat went on.

"Alfred Rayner is David Morpeth's veree own son, born in lawful wedlock, I do a.s.sure you, and there's others can vouch for thatt as well as me.

The good man himself will not deny it if you was puttin' it to him, he was always a truth-lovin' man was David, veree different from his late wife, Rosina."

Mrs. Rouat glanced uneasily at Hester, and reminded herself that she must keep in mind the close relations.h.i.+p of the "parties."

"Your information is incorrect," said Hester firmly. "Unfortunately my husband has no relatives in India or anywhere else. His father and mother both died when he was a child," she added placidly, never doubting the truth of her a.s.sertion.

"Tell thatt to your grandmother," interjected Leila, with a rude laugh.

"It's easy to see, Aunt Tilly, she's been taken in by Alfred's lies same as I was till he jilted me," ended the girl, with a spiteful glance on the paling face of the woman she hated.

Hester rose from her chair, folded her hands, and said in a restrained voice:

"I must ask you to excuse me! Boy, call the carriage," she added, calling the butler. Then she pa.s.sed out of the room, leaving the aunt and niece staring at each other with discomforted air.

"Perhaps I acted a little suddenly," murmured Hester to herself, as she climbed the stair to her room. "But Alfred may be here at any time, and if he found these two Eurasians seated in the drawing-room, I really could not answer for the consequences! I suppose their extraordinary tale has been manufactured by that fat person. It does seem very odd--and what was that the girl said about Alfred having jilted her?

Perhaps she is under some hallucination, but I dare not mention it to Alfred. One of these terrible fits of temper would be sure to follow, and just when we are going to try to be happy and throw off all our worries on the Blue Mountains."

But the longer Hester's thoughts dwelt on the visitors' tale, the more uncomfortable she felt. She recalled how the woman had mentioned Mr.

Morpeth, and decided that her husband's aversion to the good Eurasian must be known to the community.

"There was evident malice in it all. What a cruel plot to spring upon us all of a sudden!" she said to herself, as she busied herself with preparations for the coming journey, finding relief from her troubled thoughts.

Soon, however, she began to wonder why her husband was delaying his return. The landau had been waiting for some time for the evening drive, but at length she dismissed it to the stables, not being inclined for a solitary drive. The hour for dinner arrived and still he did not appear, nor was there any message from him which surprised her, since he had been unfailingly punctual of late. After her lonely dinner she betook herself to her home-letters for the outgoing mail on the following day, eager to share with her dear ones the great news that she was to exchange the hot winds and red dust for the breezy Neilgherry Hills.

It was not till nearly midnight that she began to grow really anxious about her husband's non-appearance. All was silent about the house. The butler had gone for the night to his own home in one of the villages near. The other servants had retired to their G.o.downs, and the maty-boy in charge lay on his mat in deep slumber in a back verandah. Even the ayah had retired to her corner in the room next to her mistress's, having first paid one or two visits to see whether "Dosani" was not thinking of going to bed. Still Hester sat in the verandah, looking out on the vivid dark blue of the cloudless sky, inhaling the penetrating scents of the aromatic shrubs which bounded the gravel sweep. Sometimes she fancied she caught the sound of an approaching footfall, but decided it was only a stirring among the ghost-like trees. Once or twice she dozed, to awaken with a start as if someone was whispering her name, but only the mingling eerie sounds of the Indian night fell on her listening ear.