Star of India by Alice Perrin (ereader ebook txt) 📗

Court and The Chestnuts, and Grandmamma and the Aunts; had any detail of Stella's childhood, imparted to him by her, faded from his mind!

"We only got into touch with each other again at the beginning of this hot weather; somehow we'd stopped writing. But when I settled to come up here I wrote and asked if I could break my journey with the Crayfields for a few days. What an awful hole Rassih is! I found Stella half dead. That old brute, Colonel Crayfield, ought to be shot, and his horrible servant too. Between them they had nearly killed the poor girl."

Philip moved uneasily, and drew in his breath. "Do you——" he began, but he was not allowed to finish his question; Mrs. Matthews took it up.

[Pg 253]

"Do I know everything? Of course Stella told me, and the silly row about the pearls that gave the show away. She had a perfectly poisonous time after you left; I don't know how she got through it, and I'm sure she doesn't know either. When I turned up, old Crayfield was getting rather sick of her always being seedy; and I diddled him into letting her come with me. He took a fancy to me, and I let him—any port in a storm! We've lived in terror that he would come up on leave, but luckily he hasn't been able to get away. Stella was awfully ill for the first few weeks after we arrived——"

"She looks very well now," said Philip coldly, "and happy," he added.

His companion smote him sharply on the knee with her fan.

"My good man, you ought to be thankful, both for your own sake and for hers!"

"I am; and for that reason don't you think I'd better go without seeing her again?"

Mrs. Matthews hesitated; and Philip waited, hoping for some crumb of comfort, for the smallest encouragement to stay.

The answer came slowly. "I think you ought to go. You see—you see Stella has found out the power of her beauty and her charm, and it's a sort of consolation to her. She'll never get into mischief, not seriously, I mean, with anyone else, and as you and she can't come together again without the risk of a lot of bother and trouble, you'd much better let her alone. You can't blame her if she takes what she can get out of life under the circumstances——"

[Pg 254]

"I don't," he said shortly. "If she can put the past behind her I can but try to do the same."

"Wise man! Oh! look at this creature making for me; I shall have to go, the dance has begun."

A cowboy had climbed the daïs in pursuit of Mrs. Matthews, and further hope of confidential conversation was blocked. Philip rose and held out his hand.

"Good-bye, then—and thank you for your advice. I will take it. I recognise that you are right."

As they parted he saw sympathy in her bright eyes, and was grudgingly, miserably grateful.

[Pg 255]

CHAPTER VI

"Oh! How slack I feel. Dances are the devil!" Maud Matthews yawned and stretched amid a nest of cushions in a long chair. "I'm sure I must look about sixty. Do I, Stella?"

She appealed to her friend who at that moment joined her in the veranda of the Swiss Chalet-like habitation perched on the hill-side. Clear midday sunshine blazed over the terraced garden thick with dahlias, crimson and purple, orange-red, yellow, a wild, luxuriant growth. Pots of chrysanthemums fringed the veranda steps, an autumn odour pervaded the atmosphere, a smell of ferns and moss and pungent evaporation. The sky was like pale blue glass, and far, far away, beyond valleys and rising ranges, glittered and sparkled the everlasting snows.

Outside, on the narrow pathway, young Richard was asserting himself in a perambulator, attended by the long-suffering ayah who every few minutes retrieved a woolly toy, handing it back to the small tyrant with indulgent remonstrance. "Hai-yai! What is to be done with such a malefactor! Must not throw; it is forbidden."

"Beat him," his mother advised lazily. "Beat him with a big stick."

"Dost harken?" warned the ayah. "One more throw, and see what will befall!"

Instantly the woolly toy was again hurtled down[Pg 256] among the dahlias, and the child shrieked with mischievous glee.

"Aree! Narty!" the ayah picked up her petticoats and plunged into the foliage.

Unperturbed by her son's misdemeanours, Mrs. Matthews turned once more to her guest and began to patter nonsense. Truth to tell she was nervously delaying the moment when Stella's questions must be answered.

"If possible, dear thing, you look even more dreadful than I do, though you went home so early last night. I got back at some disreputable hour and peeped into your room, but you were asleep. Really, to look at you, one would imagine your husband was coming up on leave next week instead of mine. What on earth shall I do with Dick! He'll hate all my men friends, and be rude to them, and expect me to break all my engagements. I suppose we shall go to bed early and have long walks before breakfast, and devote ourselves to young Richard with intervals for arguments over domestic affairs——"

"Oh! to hear you," interrupted Stella with exasperation, "one would think you didn't care one snap for Dick or that imp in the perambulator. Why humbug with me of all people?"

"Yes, I know," in hasty apology. "I know I am lucky. Yet you have your compensations. You are ever so much better looking than I am, and your looks are of the sort that will last. Your nose, for example; it's a nose for a lifetime! You can amuse yourself with a clear conscience, without feeling a pig, as I do when I flirt till all's blue. How I am to suppress[Pg 257] Bobbie Nash when Dick appears on the scene is a problem, and I can't give the young owl a hint beforehand; that would be a bit too low! Now, you and your old play-boy—even Dick couldn't make a fuss if it was the General instead of Bobbie Nash!"

"Oh, Maud, do stop!" cried Stella, at the end of her endurance. Maud's little excitements and intrigues were so trivial; no misery, no heartache, lay beneath the surface of her frivolity. Stella knew well enough that Maud loved her husband, and that once he was on the spot she would be happy in his company, though in his absence the attentions of a herd of irresponsible young men was as the breath of her nostrils. "How can you go on gabbling like this when you know what I am longing to hear?"

Last night she had fled from the ballroom, distraught by the sudden, unexpected meeting with Philip. It had been beyond her to remain as if nothing had happened. She was at a loss to interpret his demeanour, so distant, so formal; did he intend her to understand that his feelings had changed? She had relied upon Maud to find out; for hours she had lain awake listening for Maud's return till, from sheer exhaustion, she had fallen asleep, and, after all, Maud had not awakened her. Both of them had slept late into the morning, and now Maud would only drivel about her own silly affairs. The suspense was intolerable; she could bear it no longer.

"Aren't you going to tell me anything?" she demanded furiously.

"Wait a moment." Mrs. Matthews rose from her long chair and went to kiss her obstreperous [Pg 258]offspring in the perambulator, gave some directions to the ayah and banished the pair to another quarter of the garden out of sight and hearing. Then she returned to her seat and faced Stella with reluctance.

"It's rather difficult to tell you," she began. "That was why I was putting it off. He has gone."

Stella flushed and paled. "Gone? Gone away from Surima—from—from me?"

Maud nodded. "Now, dear thing, be sensible. I assure you he hopes you may have got over that unfortunate business between you. He wants to get over it too. I don't say he has, any more than you have, altogether, but you both will, given the chance. Isn't it best? You can't deny it, Stella."

"Oh, Maud, what have you done?" Stella's voice rang sharp with pain and reproach. Her disappointment was poignant. She had expected some message, she hardly knew what, but something of solace and reassurance, at the least that Philip wanted to see her alone. She had never dreamed that he would not wish to see her.

"I haven't done anything," declared Maud defensively. "He saw for himself that you weren't exactly pining away without him, and if you do still care about him you ought to be thankful that he has gone off like this without making further trouble for you or for himself. After all, you wouldn't bolt with him when you had the chance, and quite right too! And now you shouldn't want him to be a martyr any more than he wants you to mope for the rest of your life."

Stella gazed at her blankly. Staunch friend[Pg 259] though Maud was, how little she understood. Oh, why had she not stayed on at the ball? She might have got at the truth for herself. Instead, she had behaved like a fool, like a coward; and so Philip had gone!

She burst out: "Tell me what he said, what you said. Tell me exactly. Don't dare to keep anything from me."

"My dear girl, keep calm. You can't expect me to remember every single word we uttered. I'm not trying to make mischief and muddles, like people in stories. I simply told him how I had got you away from Rassih and how ill you were, and he simply said that as you looked very happy and well he thought the best thing he could do was to clear out, and I agreed with him. I pointed out that you had learnt to enjoy yourself, and that he couldn't blame you. He said he didn't. I must say I don't wonder you fell in love with him, especially at Rassih. He is an awfully good sort; but you know if he had stayed here now the whole thing would have begun all over again, and been worse than ever. Buck up, Stella! You had a lucky escape. I dare say I might have persuaded him to stay, but I knew it was best not to. When you have thought it all over you'll say I was right and be grateful, instead of looking as if you would like to poke my eyes out!"

Stella sat miserably silent. There was nothing further to be said. It would hardly be fair to accuse Maud of having done her an ill turn, but at present she certainly could not bring herself to feel grateful. Sore and wretched, she rose.

[Pg 260]

"I'm going for a walk before tiffin," she said abruptly.

"Keep out of the sun, then," advised Maud, "or you'll have a headache. Remember it's the General's garden party this afternoon, and the club dinner and theatricals to-night. Just put out the 'Not at home box,' will you? I'm not fit to be seen this morning, and can't be bothered with callers."

A little later Stella strolled along the pathway. She hung the protective card-box on the trunk of the pine tree that guarded the small domain; then she wandered up the steep incline towards an upper road little frequented by the English community. It led to the back of the hill, where as yet no bungalows had been erected, dwindling eventually to a mere bridle path used by the hill people from far distant villages. Once away from all sound of the station, she seated herself on a moss-covered boulder and gazed gloomily over the blue valleys and the opposite mountains that in the rarefied atmosphere looked so unnaturally near. Jungle fowl were calling, crickets sang lustily among the ferns that fringed the tree branches; a family of black monkeys crossed the path and went crashing and chattering down the wooded precipice below; round the shoulder of the hill trudged a stalwart hill-woman, a load of charcoal on her back in a conical-shaped basket. She had a flat Mongolian countenance, red colour in her brown cheeks, and her eyes were like green agates; a heavy turquoise necklace hung round her neck. She grinned a friendly greeting as she passed the forlorn figure seated by the wayside, and Stella envied her. How[Pg 261] contented and independent she looked, though probably she had two or three husbands and led a hard life of toil. At any rate, she was neither desolate nor oppressed. The sound of her stately tramping died away, and at last, influenced unconsciously by the solitude, the grand beauty of the landscape, the purity