Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 4

He bowed to her again, severely formal. "May I wish you joy?" he said.

There was an instant's pause, and in that instant something happened.

She had not moved. Her eyes still met his own, but it was as if a veil had dropped between them suddenly. He saw the purple depths no more.

"Thank you," said Rosa Mundi, with her little girlish laugh.

As he strode down the Pier a few minutes later, he likened the scent of the crushed roses that strewed the way to the fumes of sacrifice--sacrifice offered at the feet of a G.o.ddess who cared for nothing sacred. Not till long after did he remember the tears that he had seen her shed.

A Debt of Honour

I

HOPE AND THE MAGICIAN

They lived in the rotten white bungalow at the end of the valley--Hope and the Magician. It stood in a neglected compound that had once been a paradise, when a certain young officer belonging to the regiment of Sikhs then stationed in Ghantala had taken it and made of it a dainty home for his English bride. Those were the days before the flood, and no one had lived there since. The native men in the valley still remembered with horror that awful night when the monsoon had burst in floods and water-spouts upon the mountains, and the bride, too terrified to remain in the bungalow, had set out in the worst fury of the storm to find her husband, who was on duty up at the cantonments. She had been drowned close to the bungalow in a ranging brown torrent which swept over what a few hours earlier had been a mere bed of glittering sand. And from that time the bungalow had been deserted, avoided of all men, a haunted place, the abode of evil spirits.

Yet it still stood in its desolation, rotting year by year. No native would approach the place. No Englishman desired it. For it was well away from the cantonments, nearer than any other European dwelling to the native village, and undeniably in the hottest corner of all the Ghantala Valley.

Perhaps its general air of desolation had also influenced the minds of possible tenants, for Ghantala was a cheerful station, and its inhabitants preferred cheerful dwelling-places. Whatever the cause, it had stood empty and forsaken for more than a dozen years.

And then had come Hope and the Magician.

Hope was a dark-haired, bright-eyed English girl, who loved riding as she loved nothing else on earth. Her twin-brother, Ronald Carteret, was the youngest subaltern in his battalion, and for his sake, she had persuaded the Magician that the Ghantala Valley was an ideal spot to live in.

The Magician was their uncle and sole relative, an old man, wizened and dried up like a monkey, to whom India was a land of perpetual delight and novelty of which he could never tire. He was engaged upon a book of Indian mythology, and he was often away from home for the purpose of research. But his absence made very little difference to Hope. Her brother lived in the bungalow with her, and the people in the station were very kind to her.

The natives, though still wary, had lost their abhorrence of the place.

They believed that the Magician, as they called him, had woven a spell to keep the evil spirits at a distance. It was known that he was in constant communication with native priests. Moreover, the miss-_sahib_ who dwelt at the bungalow remained unharmed, so it seemed there was nought to fear.

Hope, after a very few months, cut off her hair and wore it short and curly. This also seemed to discourage the evil ones. So at length it appeared that the curse had been removed, or at least placed in abeyance.

As for Hope, she liked the place. Her nerves were generally good, and the joy of being near the brother she idolized outweighed every other consideration. The colonel's wife, Mrs. Latimer, was very kind to her from the outset, and she enjoyed all the Ghantala gaieties under her protection and patronage.

Not till Mrs. Latimer was taken ill and had to leave hurriedly for the Hills did it dawn upon Hope, after nearly eight happy months, that her position was one of considerable isolation, and that this might, under certain circ.u.mstances, become a matter for regret.

II

THE VISITOR

It was on a Sunday evening of breathless heat that this conviction first took firm hold of Hope. Her uncle was away upon one of his frequent journeys of research. Her brother was up at the cantonments, and she was quite alone save for her _ayah_, and the _punkah-coolie_ dozing on the veranda.

She had not expected any visitors. Visitors seldom came to the bungalow, for the simple reason that she was seldom at home to receive them, and the Magician never considered himself at liberty for social obligations.

So it was with some surprise that she heard footsteps that were not her brother's upon the baked earth of the compound; and when her _ayah_ came to her with the news that Hyde _Sahib_ was without, she was even conscious of a sensation of dismay.

For Hyde _Sahib_ was a man she detested, without knowing why. He was a civil servant, an engineer, and he had been in Ghantala longer than any one else of the European population. Very reluctantly she gave the order to admit him, hoping that Ronnie would soon return and take him off her hands. For Ronnie professed to like the man.

He greeted her with a cool self-a.s.surance that admitted not the smallest doubt of his welcome.

"I was pa.s.sing, and thought I would drop in," he told her, retaining her hand till she abruptly removed it. "I guessed you would be all forlorn.

The Magician is away, I hear?"

Hope steadily returned the gaze of his pale eyes, as she replied, with dignity:

"Yes; my uncle is from home. But I am not at all lonely. I am expecting my brother every minute."

He smiled at her in a way that made her stiffen instinctively. She had never been so completely alone with him before.

"Ah, well," he said, "perhaps you will allow me to amuse you till he returns. I rather want to see him."

He took her permission for granted, and sat down in a bamboo chair on the veranda, leaning back, and staring up at her with easy insolence.

"I can scarcely believe that you are not lonely here," he remarked. "A figure of speech, I suppose?"

Hope felt the colour rising in her cheeks under his direct and unpleasant scrutiny.

"I have never felt lonely till to-day," she returned, with spirit.

He laughed incredulously. "No?" he said.

"No," said Hope with emphasis. "I often think that there are worse things in the world than solitude."

Something in her tone--its instinctive enmity, its absolute honesty--attracted his attention. He sat up and regarded her very closely.

She was still on her feet--a slender, upright figure in white. She was grasping the back of a chair rather tightly, but she did not shrink from his look, though there was that within her which revolted fiercely as she met it. But he prolonged the silent combat with brutal intention, till at last, in spite of herself, her eyes sank, and she made a slight, unconscious gesture of protest. Then, deliberately and insultingly, he laughed.

"Come now, Miss Carteret," he said, "I'm sure you can't mean to be unfriendly with me. I believe this place gets on your nerves. You're not looking well, you know."

"No?" she responded, with frozen dignity.

"Not so well as I should like to see you," said Hyde, still smiling his objectionable smile. "I believe you're moped. Isn't that it? I know the symptoms, and I know an excellent remedy, too. Wouldn't you like to try it?"

Hope looked at him uncertainly. She was quivering all over with nervous apprehension. His manner frightened her. She was not sure that the man was absolutely sober. But it would be absurd, ridiculous, she told her thumping heart, to take offence, when it might very well be that the insult existed in her imagination alone. So, with a desperate courage, she stood her ground.

"I really don't know what you mean," she said coldly. "But it doesn't matter; tell me about your racer instead!"

"Not a bit of it," returned Hyde. "It's one thing at a time with me always. Besides, why should I bore you to that extent? Why, I'm boring you already. Isn't that so?"

He set his hands on the arms of his chair preparatory to rising, as he spoke; and Hope took a quick step away from him. There was a look in his eyes that was horrible to her.

"No," she said, rather breathlessly. "No; I'm not at all bored. Please don't get up; I'll go and order some refreshment."