Part 3 (1/2)

What Peter saw evidently satisfied him as to her common sense, for he plunged _in medias res_ at once: ”How much do you know of this unfortunate affair?” he asked.

”Very little,” she answered, ”and that little extremely vague. Will you tell me has Hugo come to total grief or not?”

”Officially, yes. He is finished, done for--may thank his lucky stars he's not in gaol. It's well you should know this at the very beginning, for of course he won't allow it, and poor Fay--Mrs. Tancred (I'm afraid we're rather free-and-easy about Christian names in India)--doesn't know the whole facts by a very long way. From what she tells me, I fear he has made away with most of her money, too. Was any of it tied up?”

Jan shook her head. ”We both got what money there was absolutely on my father's death.”

”Then,” said Peter, ”I fear you've got the whole of them on your hands, Miss Ross.”

”That's what I've come for,” Jan said simply, ”to take care of Fay and the children.”

Peter Ledgard looked straight in front of him.

”It's a lot to put on you,” he said slowly, ”and I'm afraid you'll find it a bit more complicated than you expect. Will you remember that I'd like to help you all I can?”

Jan looked at the stern profile beside her and felt vaguely comforted.

”I shall be most grateful for your advice,” she said humbly. ”I know I shall need it.”

The motor stopped, and as she stepped from it in front of the tall block of buildings, Jan knew that the old easy, straightforward life was over.

Unconsciously she stiffened her back and squared her shoulders, and looked very tall and straight as she stood beside Peter Ledgard in the entrance. The pretty colour he had admired when he met her had faded from her cheeks, and the face under the shady hat looked grave and older.

Peter said something to the smiling lift-man in an extremely dirty dhoti who stood salaaming in the entrance.

”I won't come up now,” he said to Jan. ”Please tell Mrs. Tancred I'll look in about tea-time.”

As Jan entered the lift and vanished from his sight, Peter reflected, ”So that's the much-talked-of Jan! Well, I'm not surprised Fay wanted her.”

The lift stopped. An elderly white-clad butler stood salaaming at an open door, and Jan followed him.

A few steps through a rather narrow pa.s.sage and she was in a large light room opening on to a verandah, and in the centre stood her sister Fay, with outstretched arms.

A pathetic, inarticulate, worn and faded Fay: her pretty freshness dimmed. A Fay with dark circles round her hollow eyes and all the living light gone from her abundant fair hair. It was as though her face was covered by an impalpable grey mask.

There was no doubt about it. Fay looked desperately ill. Ill in a way not to be accounted for by her condition.

Clinging together they sat down on an immense sofa, exchanging trivial question and answer as to the matters ordinary happy folk discuss when they first meet after a long absence. Jan asked for the children, who had not yet returned from their early morning walk with the ayah. Fay asked about the voyage and friends at home, and told Jan she had got dreadfully grey; then kissed her and leant against her just as she used to do when they were both children and she needed comfort.

Jan said nothing to Fay about _her_ looks, and neither of them so much as mentioned Hugo Tancred. But Jan felt a wild desire to get away by herself and cry and cry over this sad wraith of the young sister whose serene and happy beauty had been the family pride.

And yet she was so essentially the same Fay, tender and loving and inconsequent, and full of pretty cares for Jan's comfort.

The dining-room was behind the sitting-room, with only a curtain between, and as they sat at breakfast Fay was so eager Jan should eat--she ate nothing herself--so anxious lest she should not like the Indian food, that poor Jan, with a lump in her throat that choked her at every morsel, forced down the carefully thought-out breakfast and meekly accepted everything presented by the grey-haired turbaned butler who bent over her paternally and offered every dish much as one would tempt a shy child with some amusing toy.

Presently Fay took her to see her room, large, bare and airy, with little furniture save the bed with its clean white mosquito curtains placed under the electric fan in the centre of the ceiling. Outside the window was a narrow balcony, and Jan went there at once to look out; and though her heart was so heavy she was fain to exclaim joyfully at the beauty of the view.

Right opposite, across Back Bay, lay the wooded villa-crowned slopes of Malabar Hill, flung like a garland on the bosom of a sea deeply blue and smiling, smooth as a lake, while below her lay the pageant of the street, with its ever-changing panorama of vivid life. The whole so brilliant, so various, so wholly unlike any beautiful place she had ever seen before that, artist's daughter she was, she cried eagerly to Fay, ”Oh, come and look! Did you ever see anything so lovely? How Dad would have rejoiced in this!”

Fay followed slowly: ”I thought you'd like it,” she said, evidently pleased by Jan's enthusiasm, ”that's why I gave you this room. Look, Jan! There are the children coming, those two over by the band-stand.

They see us. _Do_ wave to them.”