A Question of Marriage Part 2

"Service in what capacity? As a--"

"Oh, I have no profession. I am just an ordinary business man--buying and selling, and watching the markets, like the rest."

"Humph!" Vanna pursed her lips with a militant air. "I think a very good case might be made for the soldier _versus_ the merchant. He works, or waits, for the good of his country. There is precious little to be made out of it from a personal point of view. A merchant's aim is entirely selfish. He is absorbed in piling up his own fortune."

Mr Gloucester laughed.

"Oh, you are too down on the poor merchants, Miss Strangeways. They have their own share in helping on the country, and it's not every man who can get a fortune to pile. I can't, for one. The faculty of gaining money is as inherent as the writing of poetry. Some fellows like myself can never attain to it." He held out his right hand, pointing smilingly at the hollow palm. "Look at that. Palmists would tell you that with that hand I shall never 'hold money.' The day may come when I should be thankful to exchange my fortune for the soldier's shilling a day."

Vanna did not reply. She was looking at that hollowed palm with puckered, thoughtful glance. "Palmist!" she repeated slowly, "fortune-telling! It's not often one hears a man quoting such an authority; but you have lived in the East. I suppose that unconsciously alters the point of view. India is the land of--what should one call it?--superst.i.tion, mysticism, the occult. It is a subject which fascinates me intensely. I know very little about it; I'm not at all sure that it is good to know more; but--it beckons. Tell me, have you seen anything, had any extraordinary experiences? Are the stories true, for instance, that one hears of these native jugglers?"

"Snake-charming, you mean, the boy in the basket, the mango trick? Oh, yes. I've seen them often, on the deck of a ship, as well as on the open plain. People say it is hypnotism, that the fellow doesn't really do it, only makes you _think_ he does; but that's rubbish. It's sleight-of-hand, uncommonly clever, of course, but pure and simple conjuring. The mango is chosen because he can get dried-up specimens, several specimens, of different sizes, to which he attaches false roots, and it is a plant which will quickly expand beneath the water with which he deluges the ground. All that sort of tricks can be explained, but there are other things more mysterious: the transmission of news from station to station, so that it is known in the bazaars before the post can bring the letters, the power of reading others' minds, of seeing into the future."

"But you don't believe, you can't seriously believe that that is possible?"

Robert Gloucester bent forward, his elbows crossed on his knees, his brown, extraordinarily clear eyes fixed on her face.

"Why not? How shall one dare to put a limit to what is possible even in material things? Look at this new electricity, for instance. One cannot imagine all that it may mean in improved facilities for the world. Its power seems immense--illimitable. If we live to grow old, Miss Strangeways, we shall see things as everyday occurrences which would seem fairy-tale impossibilities to-day. The most conservative man would hardly deny that; then why should he be presumptuous enough to suppose that in the spiritual plane we have reached the limits of our powers? It is unthinkable. There are forces--binding forces, electric forces--hidden away in the most commonplace human soul, only awaiting development, powers which may revolutionise our lives, even as this new electricity will revolutionise the world."

Vanna stared out into the night with rapt, unseeing eyes. Life, which a few minutes ago had seemed so dreary in the flat barrenness of outlook, became suddenly illumined with interest. She felt the stirrings within of new life, new powers, and reached out eagerly to meet them.

"You have had experiences yourself--_personal_ experiences--which prove to you the existence of such powers. Can you tell me about them? I don't ask out of curiosity alone; but if it is too sacred, too private, I shall quite understand."

He smiled at her with an utter absence of embarra.s.sment.

"Oh, there is nothing private. My convictions are not founded on any definite occurrence; but as it happens, I _have_ had one experience which defies explanation. Not in India, but by all that is _mal a propos_ and out of place, in the most modern and material of cities--New York. I'll tell it to you with pleasure. It's an uncommonly good tale, and it has the merit of being first-hand, and capable of proof. It came about like this. A man asked me to dine in a private room at a hotel with two or three other men, bachelors--mutual friends. While we were sitting over dessert, he said, 'I've got a little excitement for you fellows this evening. I've engaged a conjurer--thought-reading sort of fellow, to come in and give you an exhibition. He's quite the most uncanny thing in that line that I've ever met. I never believed in second-sight before, but it makes one think. He'll give you a new sensation; I can promise you that.'

"Well, he came about half an hour after that. An ordinary-looking fellow--a white man; nothing in the least unusual about him except his eyes--light, colourless-looking eyes, extraordinarily wide and clear-- eyes that gave one an uncanny sort of thrill when they were fixed upon you. You felt that those eyes could see a lot more than would ever fall to your own vision. Well, he told us to sit against the wall at the far end of the room, and each to write something as personal as possible on slips of paper, which were afterwards to be shuffled and handed round.

While we were writing he would leave the room. When we had finished, we were to ring a bell and he would return. We ranged our chairs as he said. There were no windows on that side, only the bare papered wall.

I couldn't think what to write. It puzzles one when one is suddenly told to do a thing like that. Eventually I put my mother's maiden name, 'Mary Winifred Fielding,' and the date of her marriage, 1822. The fellow next me showed me his slip, 'I don't believe in any of this trickery.' We chuckled together while I read it. We folded up the papers, put them in a bowl, and drew out the first that came. Then we rang the bell, and the fellow came back. He first shut the door and leant back against it. There were a good eight or ten yards between him and the end of the room where we sat. He looked across at me, and we all laughed together.

"'The words written on the paper in your hand are: "Burmah! To the memory of a good old time!" You did not write it yourself--you have never been in Burmah; it was the gentleman to your left who wrote it-- the gentleman with the grey hair. Am I not right, sir?'

"'You are,' said my friend, gasping. We did not laugh any more. He pointed to another fellow, and read out what I had written.

"'That was written by the gentleman with the brown eyes. It is his mother's name,' he said; and I felt cold all down my spine. The man who had showed me his paper had drawn his own slip when they were shuffled together in the bowl. The conjurer knew that too. He pointed at him and said: 'You have written your own opinion of me in the paper you hold. "_I don't believe in any of this trickery_."' He paused for a moment, and then said quietly: 'You are prejudiced, sir; but you will learn wisdom. A year from to-day you will understand my secrets.' He drew himself up, and his eyes flashed; he turned to us, each in turn, and said a few, short, prophetic words. There was a poor barrister among us, a clever fellow, but he had no luck; he was in a very tight place at that time. He said to him: 'on the 2nd of February, 1862, you will put your foot on the first step of the ladder which leads to fortune.' That was five years later on. The poor fellow smiled and said: 'can't you hurry it on a bit?' The man who was dining us came next. He didn't like his share. It sounded cryptic enough to the rest of us, but _he_ understood. You could see that by his face. My own message--"

He stopped short, laughing softly, but with an utter absence of embarra.s.sment, and Vanna's eager glance bespoke her curiosity.

"My own message was equally cryptic, but I did _not_ understand. I don't understand it now. I have not been too fortunate in money matters, and it refers to that, no doubt. He said: 'you will seek fortune, and find it not. Where the rose blooms beneath the palm, there awaits your treasure.'"

"'Where the rose blooms beneath the palm!'" Vanna repeated the words in a breathless whisper. "But how thrilling--how exciting! What could he mean? Aren't you anxious; aren't you curious? Don't you go about daily waiting to see what will happen?"

Mr Gloucester laughed with boyish abandon.

"Rather not! It is a good eight years ago, and it has less chance of being fulfilled at this moment than it has ever had before, for I have said goodbye to the land of palms. I should never think of it again but for the fact,"--his face sobered swiftly--"that two out of those five prophecies did, as a matter of fact, come true. Three out of the six men who were there that evening I have never seen again. I can't tell you what happened in their cases, but by the most absolute chance I ran up against the barrister fellow two years ago. We talked about our last meeting, and he said:

"'You remember what that fellow said to me? It came true to the very hour. I had to speak in my first good brief that morning. I made a hit, carried the case, got a heap of kudos, and have never looked back from that hour.' The second man was the one who had said he did not believe in such trickery. He--"

"Yes?"

"He died. Within a year from our meeting."

Vanna shivered, and drew her scarf more closely round her shoulders.

There was silence for several minutes, while the beating of invisible wings seemed to throb in the air around. Her thoughts strayed away on a long, rambling excursion, from which a sudden crash of music from the band awoke her with a shock of remembrance.

"You look quite scared. I hope I haven't depressed you with my reminiscences. It was an uncanny experience, but you said you were interested."

"And I am. Immensely. Thank you so much for telling me. I only hope your fulfilment, when it comes, may be as satisfactory as your barrister friend's. Are you sorry to leave India and settle at home? Most men seem to find it difficult to get back into the old ways."

Mr Gloucester shrugged carelessly.

"Oh, I don't mind. It doesn't trouble me. One does one's work; one is tired; one rests. What does it matter what country one does it in?

They both have their points. I can be happy in either."

A glance at his face proved the truth of his words. His was one of the unexacting, sweet-tempered natures, which was content to take life as it was; enjoying each good which came, and troubling nothing for sorrows ahead.

"If he were in my place he would not be sad! His life has not gone too smoothly; he has not found success, but he is content. I must learn his lesson," Vanna told herself mentally.

"Go on talking!" she said dreamily. "Do you mind? Tell me about things that have happened. I have lived all my life in a little English hamlet, and it's so good to hear. I could listen for hours."

He gave her a bright, pleased look, and without question or protest went on talking easily and pleasantly about Indian customs, peculiarities, and rites. He had lived in the great cities and in the wilds; had worked and played, hunted elephants and climbed Himalayan peaks; had come through hair-breadth dangers, had drunk Ba.s.s's beer on a steaming plain, and, as he himself expressed it, "come out smiling every time."

"I'm as strong as a horse," he added. "A fellow has no right to grumble when he doesn't know the meaning of pain."

"I should not think you ever grumbled," replied Vanna, smiling. The next moment she started as the chime of a distant clock struck on her ear. "What time was that? The half-hour, wasn't it--half-past one?

Have we been here nearly an hour? It seems impossible. It is a great compliment to your powers of conversation, Mr Gloucester, for before we met I was feeling terribly tired and bored; but I am afraid I must run away now. I arranged to leave at one o'clock, and I must be already in disgrace."

"I'm awfully grateful to you for having listened to me so kindly. I hope we shall meet again, and continue the conversation. I am staying with these people for a few weeks. They are old family friends. It's the nearest approach to a home I have left."

"Thank you. I hope we may meet. I am only a guest in town like yourself, but I am making a longish stay." Vanna led the way through the conservatory, walking with somewhat rapid footsteps, her eyes looking forward through the door leading into the ballroom. She had reached the centre of the floor when she was arrested by the sound of a laugh, and a light, flute-like voice breaking across the crash and clatter of the band.

"Well!" cried the voice. "Have you come at last? I am waiting for you.

How long must I wait?"

Vanna wheeled round. Beneath the shade of a great palm tree, whose leaves swept the gla.s.s roof, stood Jean in her rose draperies, a wreath of roses crowning her dark head.

"I am waiting!" she said once more, and her eyes, pa.s.sing by Vanna, rested on Robert Gloucester's face. Vanna looking at him, saw his teeth clench, and his cheeks pale beneath their tan.

CHAPTER FOUR.

RIVAL INTERESTS.

That night Vanna lay awake long after lying down, living over again the dramatic happening of the last few days.

"'It's a mad world, my masters,'" she said to herself between a smile and a sigh. "No sooner do I receive a sentence of celibacy for life than I am promptly introduced to a new and interesting personality, a nice man, a superlatively nice man, a man, moreover, who shows every sign of returning the compliment and thinking me a superlatively nice girl into the bargain--when, presto! he discovers himself in the light of Jean's future husband. I know it, and she doesn't. The drollness of the situation! At this moment she is sleeping in placid innocence, while I am a-thrill at the dawning of her romance. She will marry him-- oh, yes! She will marry him; as certainly as she stood under that palm tree waiting to-night. What a lovely rose she made, and how his eyes glowed as he looked at her! Superst.i.tion or no superst.i.tion, that big, simple heart has accepted her as his wife as unquestionably as if a trumpet blast from heaven had proclaimed her name. It's such an easy thing to tumble into love with Jean; the trouble is for any masculine thing to keep steady on his feet. He will worship her, and she must love him in return, as the perfect complement of herself. He so calm, and trustful, and serene; she, airy, impulsive, rebellious; but even in her naughtiest moods so lovable and feminine a thing. Well! as I am never to have a romance of my own, I must needs find double interest in Jean's and enjoy myself vicariously through her. It will be quick work.

That dramatic meeting carried him in a flash past all the initial stage of wonder and uncertainty. It's rather a pity, I should have loved to watch it grow; but it has sprung into life full-grown. Oh, Jean, Jean, how little you know--how little you guess!"