Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 23

The wonder whether he knew, or whether the post which always went to him direct while he was in camp in order to save time, had failed to find him, made her cheek pale. She scarcely knew which would be worst; to meet him crushed by the news, or to have to kill his easy content with bitter tidings.

She found him already engaged with the tea and toast which the servant had brought in on his arrival, and her heart sank; face to face with it, anything seemed better than the task of telling.

"Hullo! Belle, little woman! is that you up so early? But it must have been deuced startling for you to have Marsden walking in like Lazarus--"

"Then you have heard?" she interrupted with quite a sigh of relief.

"Of course I've heard. One always does hear that sort of thing. But the fool of a _peon_[5] took the letters to the village I'd just left, so it was too late to send you word. And then I had to finish some work. It's a queer go, isn't it? Poor old Marsden! Somehow it makes me laugh."

Belle sat down helplessly in the low chair by her husband, feeling utterly lost. Was she never to be able even to guess at his moods? She had imagined that this would be the most bitter of blows, and he found it provocative of laughter. "I'm so glad you take it that way, John,"

she began, "I was afraid--"

"Afraid of what? By the way, he is here, I suppose. You haven't sent him elsewhere, or done anything foolish, I hope?"

"Why should I send him away? I don't understand--"

"Oh, nothing! Only,--you see, when you have got to keep on the right side of a man it is as well not to be too particular. I suppose you have been talking about the money. What did he say?"

A slow colour crept into Belle's face. "Not much,--at least,--I don't think we talked about it at all. There were so many other things."

John Raby whistled a tune; then he smiled. "Upon my soul, you are sometimes quite incomprehensible, Belle; but perhaps it is as well.

You might have put your foot in it somehow; and as it is absolutely necessary that the legacy should remain in the business, we must be careful. If we play our cards decently this ridiculous resurrection won't make much difference. You see, Marsden is a gentleman. He wouldn't ruin anybody, least of all a woman he-- Hullo! what's the matter now?"

Her hand gripped his arm almost painfully. "Don't, John, don't! For pity's sake, don't!"

"Phew! you needn't pinch me black and blue, my dear, for hinting at the truth. You know what Marsden did to save you once. Why shouldn't he do something to save you now? There is no use mincing matters when one is in a corner like this. I mean to have the use of that money, and if we play our cards fairly we shall get it. I mean to have it, and you're bound to help; for, though I don't wish to reproach you, Belle, you must see that you are mainly responsible for the position."

"I!"

"Yes, you. If it hadn't been for your squeamishness I should still have been a civilian and able to go back on my tracks. Then again, but for having to quarrel with Shunker for his impudence, I should only have been at half-risks; he would have had to sink or swim with me, and that would have ensured his advancing more capital. The fact is that luck has been against me all through."

"What is it you want me to do?" she asked faintly. "How can I help?"

"Oh, if you ask in that tragedy-tone it's no use answering. I want you to be sensible, that is all. There really is nothing to make a fuss about. I'll ensure him a fair interest. And his coming back doesn't alter our position; we have been living on his money for the last year."

"But we thought he was dead--that it was ours. Oh, John, there is a difference! Don't you see he is tied;--that he has no choice, as it were?"

"If you mean that Marsden is a gentleman and sees that the predicament is none of our making, then I agree."

She knelt down beside him, looking into his face with pa.s.sionate entreaty in hers. "John!" she said, "I can't make you understand, but if you love me,--ever so little--don't, don't beg of--of this man.

Surely we have taken enough! You have some money of your own,--indeed I would rather starve! It would kill me if you took advantage of,--of his kindness." Then, seeing the hopelessness of rousing sympathy in him, she buried her face against the arm of his chair with a sob of pain.

"I'll tell you what I do know, Belle," he answered kindly enough. "It was a confounded shame of Marsden to upset your nerves by popping up like a Jack-in-the-box. You're not a bit strong yet. Go and lie down till breakfast-time, and leave me to settle it. Why, you little goose, you don't think I'm going down on my knees to beg of any man! I am only, very wisely, going to take advantage of the natural strength of the position. It isn't as if you had ever cared a b.u.t.ton for him, you know."

Something like a flash of lightning shot down from heaven on poor Belle, shrivelling up all her strength. She crept away to her room, and there, with flaming cheeks, paced up and down wondering why the sky didn't fall on the house and kill every one; every one but Philip.

The memory of the night before had come back to fill her with shame and doubt, and yet with a great certainty. When had she felt so happy, so content? When had she talked to John, straight out from her very heart, as she had talked to Philip? What must he have thought? That she had been seeking to please him; as John called it, trying to play her cards well? No! he would not think such things; and yet the alternative was even less honourable to her. What had possessed her?

She, John's wife, who had tried,--who had always tried so hard to be content! How had this inconceivable thing come about? Preposterous!

Absurd; it had not come about; it could not, should not, must not be.

Yet, after all, what was the use in denying it? Philip stood far above John in her Pantheon. She had known that for months. But then it was allowable to canonise the dead. Why had he come back? Above all, why had he brought his saintship with him? So the circle of pa.s.sionate resentment at fate, and still more pa.s.sionate contempt for herself, went round and round, bringing no conclusion. She would have liked to throw herself on her bed and cry her eyes out; but, trivial yet insuperable barrier to this relief, it was too near breakfast-time for tears, since no one must guess at her trouble.

So she appeared at the appointed time, and asked Philip if he had slept well, and if he would take tea or coffee; and no one knew that she was wondering half the time why the sky didn't fall down and crush her for noticing that Philip saw she was pale, that Philip handed her the b.u.t.ter, and Philip looked to her always for an opinion. What right had he to do all this when her husband did not? Poor Belle; she had dreamed dreams only to find herself, as she thought, in the most despicable position in which a woman can possibly find herself. She never paused to ask if the verdict of society in its more virtuous moods was trustworthy, and that a woman who discovers some other man to be nearer the sun than her husband, must necessarily call her marriage a failure, and so forfeit some measure of her self-respect.

Her righteous ignorance simply made her feel, as she looked at the well-laid table, that here were all the elements of a _mariage a trois_; an idea hateful to her, and from which, according to what she had been taught, the only escape was flight. Yet how could there be flight if John would not give up the money? And then the thought that the table laid for two last night had been ever so much more pleasant, came to reduce her reasoning powers to pulp. She listened to the story of poor d.i.c.k's will,--that will which had led to the present puzzle,--feeling that the half-excuse it gave to John's avarice, was but another rivet in the chain which bound her life to Philip's; for with his kind face before her eyes, and his kind voice in her ears, it was useless denying the tie between them. That was the worst of it; she knew perfectly well that, as he sat there calmly talking to her husband, silence was no protection to her feelings. He knew them, just as she knew of a certainty what his were; not by any occult power, not by any mysterious affinity, but by the clear-eyed reason which affirms that, given certain conditions and certain ideals, the result is also certain. And yet, while she acknowledged her confidence in him, something, she knew not what, rebelled against his sympathy; it was an interference, an offence.

"It is a pity you did not take the will," she said coldly. "It would have saved us all a great deal of annoyance." The patience in his reply made her still more angry. She positively preferred her husband's frown, as he suggested with a very different tone in his voice, that if Major Marsden had finished breakfast he should come and talk over details in the office.

"But I should like your wife--" began Philip.

"John is much better at business than I am," interrupted Belle. "I don't take much interest in that sort of thing, and,--I would rather not, thank you."

So the two men whom fate had always placed in such strange antagonism to each other sat amicably arranging the business, while Belle wandered about from one occupation to another, angry with herself for knowing which of the two had her interest most at heart.

"It's all settled, Belle!" cried her husband gaily, as they came in to lunch. "Marsden's a trump! but we knew that before, didn't we? You'll never regret it though, Philip, for it is twenty per cent, and no mistake. I say, Belle! we must have a bottle of champagne to drink to the new firm, Marsden, Raby, and Co."

He hurried off for the wine, leaving Belle and the Major alone.

Marsden, Raby, and Co.! Horrible, detestable! Nor was the position bettered by Philip's remark that there was no other way out of it at present. d.i.c.k's will might turn up, if, as was not unlikely, some one had buried the poor lad; there was no doubt that some one had looked after his effects in the shanties. At all events her husband had arranged to pay back the money, by instalments, so soon as possible.

All this only made her reply stiffly, that she was sure John would do his utmost to lessen the risk.

"I shall leave it in his hands, at any rate," said Philip, who despite his pity and sympathy was human. "I shan't trouble you much with interference. By the way, when does the train leave tonight? I shall have to be going on my way."

"What's that?" cried John, returning with the champagne. "Going away?

Nonsense! You must see the new house, your new house for the time being. And then there is the new dam; you must see that as member of the firm, mustn't he, Belle?"

Her silence roused Philip's old temper. "Yes, I suppose I ought to see it all. Afzul is leaving tonight, as he has business somewhere or other, but I will stop till to-morrow. We might ride over in the morning to the house, if you have a horse at my disposal?"

"They are all at your disposal," said Belle quickly. "Major Marsden can ride Suleiman, John. I shall not want him."

They dined in the garden again that evening, but it was a different affair, and the perception that it was so added to Belle's wild rebellion at the position in which she found, or fancied she found, herself. When they stood out under the stars again saying good-night, Belle's hand lay in Philip's for an instant while John filled himself a tumbler from the tray in the verandah. Somehow the tragedy of her face proved too much for the humour of the man, who knew himself guiltless of all save a great tenderness. "I am not going to bite my poor Belle!" he said with a smile half of amus.e.m.e.nt, half of annoyance. "You needn't call in the aid of the policeman, I a.s.sure you."

She looked at him angrily, but as she turned away there were tears in her eyes.

He sat on the edge of his bed once more, pondering over the events of the day, but this time there was no doubt in his mind at all. He cared more for Belle's peace than for anything else in the world. He would go away for a while; but he would not give her up; he would prove to her that there was no need for that.

To his surprise she was waiting in the verandah when he came out of his room at daybreak next morning. She looked business-like and self-reliant, as all women do in their riding-habits, and she was fastening a rose at her collar.

"John's not quite ready," she remarked easily; "but he said we had better go on and he would catch us up. I want to see about the garden.

The roses here are mine, and as some of them are quite pretty,--this one for instance--won't you take it? you can't have seen many roses lately--I intend moving them. By the bye, I've sent out breakfast, so as your train doesn't leave till midnight we can have a jolly day."

Philip, fastening the rose in his b.u.t.tonhole, wondered if the best parlour with all the covers off was not worse than calls on the policeman. Both seemed to him equally unnecessary, but then he had all the advantage in position. He could show his friendship in an unmistakable way, while poor Belle had only the far harder task of receiving benefits.

"You don't remember Suleiman, my Arab at Faizapore?" she said as they cantered off. "You are riding him now,--oh, don't apologise, the pony does well enough for me; John gave me such a delightful surprise in buying him back after we were married."

"Got him dirt cheap from a woman who was afraid to ride him," remarked John coming up behind cheerfully; and Belle was divided between vexation and pleasure at this depreciation of his own merits.

"I should think you rode pretty straight as a rule," said Philip, looking at her full in the face. "Many women make the mistake of jagging at a beast's mouth perpetually. If you can trust him, it's far better to leave him alone; don't you think so?"

"John, race me to the next _kikar_ tree. It's our last chance, for we shall be among the corn soon. Come!"

Major Marsden, overtaking them at regulation pace, owned that Belle did ride very straight indeed. Perhaps she was right after all, and the position was untenable. He felt a little disheartened and weary, only his pride remained firm, telling him that he had a perfect right to settle the point as he chose. Surely he might at least rectify his own mistakes. The sun climbed up and up, and even in the cooler, greener river-land beat down fiercely on the stubble where here and there the oxen circled round on the threshing-floors and clouds of chaff, glittering like gold in the light, showed the winnower was at work. John was in his element, pointing out this field promised to indigo, and that village where a vat was to be built.