Part 36 (1/2)
To her fellow-pa.s.sengers Lucille was a puzzling enigma. What could be the story of the beautiful, and obviously wealthy, girl with the anxious, preoccupied look, whose thoughts were always far away, who took no interest in the pursuits and pastimes usual to her s.e.x and age on a long sea voyage; who gave no glance at the wares of local vendors that came aboard at Port Said and Aden; who occupied her leisure with no book, no writing, no conversation, no deck-games; and who constantly consulted her watch as though impatient of the slow flight of time or the slow progress of the s.h.i.+p?
Many leading questions were put to Auntie Yvette, but, dearly as she would have liked to talk about her charge's romantic trouble, her tongue was tied and she dreaded to let slip any information that might possibly lead to a train of thought connecting Lucille, Dam, and the old half-forgotten scandal of the outcast from Monksmead and Sandhurst. If her beloved nephew foolishly chose to hide his head in shame when there was no shame, it was not for those who loved him best to say anything which might possibly lead to his discovery and identification.
While cordially polite to all men (including women) Lucille was found to be surrounded by an impenetrable wall of what was either gla.s.s or ice according to the nature of the investigator. Those who would fain extend relations.h.i.+p beyond that of merest ephemeral s.h.i.+p-board acquaintances.h.i.+p (and the inevitabilities of close, though temporary, daily contact), while admitting that her manner and manners were beautiful, had to admit also that she was an extremely difficult young person ”to get to know”. A gilt-edged, b.u.mptious young subalternknut, who commenced the voyage apoplectically full of self-admiration, self-confidence, and admiring wonder at his enormous attractiveness, importance, and value, finished the same in a ludicrously deflated condition--and a quiet civilian, to whom the cub had been shamefully insolent, was moved to present him with a little poem of his composition commencing ”There was a puppy caught a wasp,” which gave him the transient though salutary gift of sight of himself as certain others saw him....
Even the Great Mrs. ”Justice” Spywell (her husband was a wee meek joint-sessions-judge) was foiled in her diligent endeavours, and those who know the Great Mrs. ”Justice” Spywell will appreciate the defensive abilities of Lucille. To those poor souls, throughout the world, who stand lorn and cold without the charmed and charming circle of Anglo-Indiandom, it may be explained that the Great Mrs. ”Justice”
Spywell was far too Great to be hampered by silly scruples of diffidence when on the track of information concerning the private affairs of lesser folk--which is to say other folk.
When travelling abroad she is THE Judge's Wife; when staying at Hill Stations she is The JUDGE'S Wife, and when adorning her proper sphere, her native heath of Chota Pagalabad, she is The Judge's WIFE. As she is the Senior Lady of all Chota Pagalabad she, of course, always (like Mary) Goes In First at the solemn and superior dinner parties of that important place, and is feared, flattered, and fawned upon by the other ladies of the station, since she can socially put down the mighty from their seat and exalt the humble and meek and them of low degree (though she would not be likely to touch the last-named with a pair of tongs, socially speaking, of course). And yet, such is this queer world, the said lesser ladies of the famous mofussil station of Chota Pagalabad are, among themselves, agreed _nemine contradicente_ that the Great Mrs. ”Justice” Spywell is a vulgar old frump (”country-bred to say the least of it”), and call her The First Seven Sister. This curious and unsyntactically expressed epithet alludes to the fact that she and six other ”ladies” of like instincts meet daily for tea and scandal at the Gymkhana and, for three solid hours, pull to pieces the reputations of all and sundry their acquaintances, reminding the amused on-looker, by their voices, manner, and appearance, of those strange birds the _Sat Bai_ or Seven Sisters, who in gangs of seven make day hideous in their neighbourhood ...
”Are you going to India to be married, my dear child?” she asked Lucille, before she knew her name.
”I really don't know,” replied Lucille.
”You are not actually engaged, then?”
”I really don't know.”
”Oh, of course, if you'd rather keep your own counsel, pray do so,”
snapped the Great Lady, bridling.
”Yes,” replied Lucille, and Mrs. Spywell informed her circle of stereotypes that Lucille was a stupid chit without a word to say for herself, and an artful designing hussy who was probably an adventuress of the ”fis.h.i.+ng-fleet”.
To Auntie Yvette it appeared matter of marvel that earth and sky and sea were much as when she last pa.s.sed that way. In quarter of a century or so there appeared to be but little change in the Egyptian and Arabian deserts, in the mountains of the African and Arabian coasts, of the Gulf of Suez, in the contours of the islands of the Red Sea, and of Aden, whilst, in mid-ocean, there was absolutely no observable difference between then and now. Wonderful indeed!
This theme, that of what was going on at Monksmead, and that of what to do when Dam was recaptured, formed the bulk of her conversation with her young companion.
”What will you _do_, dear, when we _have_ found the poor darling boy?”
she would ask.
”Take him by the ear to the nearest church and marry him,” Lucille would reply; or--”Stick to him like a leech for evermore, Auntie”; or--”Marry him when he isn't looking, or while he's asleep, if he's ill--or by the scruff of his neck if he's well....”
(What a pity the Great Mrs. ”Justice” Spywell could not hear these terrible and unmaidenly sentiments! An adventuress of the ”fis.h.i.+ng-fleet” in very truth!)
And with reproving smile the gentle spinster would reply:--
”My _dear!_ Suppose anyone overheard you, what _would_ they think?”
Whereunto the naughty girl would answer:--
”The truth, Auntie--that I'm going to pursue some poor young man to his doom. If Dam were a leper in the gutter, begging his bread, I would marry him in spite of himself--or share the gutter and bread in--er--guilty splendour. If he were a criminal in jail I would sit on the doorstep till he came out, and do the same dreadful thing. I'm just going to marry Dam at the first possible moment--like the Wild West 'shoot on sight' idea. I'm going to seize him and marry him and take care of him for the rest of his life. If he never had another grief, ache, or pain in the whole of his life, he must have had more than ten times his share already. Anyhow whether he'll marry me or whether he won't--in his stupid quixotic ideas of his 'fitness' to do so--I'm never going to part from him again.”
And Auntie Yvette would endeavour to be less shocked than a right-minded spinster aunt should be at such wild un-Early-Victorian sentiments.
Come, this was a better sort of dream! This was better than dreaming of prison-cells, lunatic asylums, tortures by the Snake, lying smashed on rocks, being eaten alive by vultures, wandering for aeons in red- hot waterless deserts, and other horrors. However illusory and tantalizing, this was at least a glorious dream, a delirium to welcome, a wondrous change indeed--to seem to be holding the hand of Lucille while she gazed into his eyes and, from time to time, pressed her lips to his forehead. A good job most of the bandages were gone or she could hardly have done that, even in a dream. And how wondrously _real!_ Her hand felt quite solid, there were tears trickling down her cheeks, tears that sometimes dropped on to his own hand with an incredible effect of actuality. It was even more vivid than his Sword-dream which was always so extraordinarily realistic and clear.
And there, yes, by Jove, was dear old Auntie Yvette, smiling and weeping simultaneously. Such a dream was the next best thing to reality--save that it brought home to one too vividly what one had lost. Pain of that kind was nevertheless a magnificent change from the other ghastly nightmares, of the wholly maleficent kind. This was a kindly, helpful pain....It is so rare to see the faces of our best-beloved in dreams ... Sleep was going to be something other than a procession of hideous nightmares then ...