“No, you were never a beauty,” returned Mrs.
Annesley musingly, “but you were what you are still — an indescribable being. And, do you know, I don’t think men get on with indescribable beings. Antony liked Cleopatra, and she was indescribable; but then the modern man is never a Marc Antony, though I believe there are plenty of Cleopatras among modern women. You are a sort of enigma, you know; you can’t help it — you were made like that, and men are always silly at guessing enigmas.”
Idreana smiled rather sadly. “I think you mistake me, dear,” she said gently: “I am not an enigma. I am only a weak, loving woman whose best emotions have been killed like leaves in a frost. There never was any mystery about my nature, and if there seems to you any mystery now, it is only because I try to shut within myself the secret of my life’s disappointment and sorrow. If my heart is broken, the world need not know it. And you will help me, will you not?” she added with a certain tremulous eagerness. “You will not let any one guess my husband’s—” here she paused and sought for a word, and finally said, “my husband’s failing. One must always keep up appearances, and there is no occasion to make an exhibition of one’s domestic griefs for the benefit of unsympathetic society. While we are here, you, as hostess, can do so much for me; in your hospitality you will not, I am sure, encourage Captain Le Marchant in his habit—”
She broke off, and her self-command gave way a little. — Mrs. Annesley saw the tears in her eyes, and her own throat contracted unpleasantly.
“Of course not, my dear,” she said hastily. “But — I must tell Claude. Otherwise, you see, he will keep on passing the wine and other things. He is very good-natured, and he has an idea that every decent man knows when he has had enough—” — Here she paused, remembering that ‘poor Claude’ himself was one of these decent men. “He is really an awfully good fellow,” she thought, with a most curious and quite novel touch of remorse. “Now I come to consider it, he has been the most perfect of husbands!” Aloud, she went on, “You agree with me, don’t you, Idreana, that it will be best just to mention it to Claude?”
Mrs. Le Marchant’s large pathetic eyes appeared to be looking dreamily into futurity.
“Yes, it will be best,” she answered at last. “Besides, your husband is a good man, and naturally you can have no secrets from him.” Mrs. Annesley winced a little and flushed. Things were not exactly as Idreana put them. But never mind! Idreana was always fanciful.
She was silent, and presently Mrs. Le Marchant spoke again.
“One thing I have not told you,” she said. “I had a child.”
“You had, Idreana!” and Mrs. Annesley gazed at her with a lurking envy in her soul, for in this respect the Fates had not been good to her. “When?”
“Oh! nearly two years ago.” And the delicate face of the belle dame sans merci grew paler and more wistful. “It was a pretty little creature, and I always imagine it loved me, though it was so young. It died when it was three months old.”
“My poor darling,” exclaimed Mrs. Annesley, slipping an arm round the younger woman’s waist. “What a trial for you! What a grief!”
“No, it was a gladness,” said Idreana quietly. “I have thanked God many a time for my baby’s death. If it had lived” — she shuddered—” it might have grown up to be like its father!”
The intense horror in her tone sent quite a disagreeable chill through her listener’s blood. This was dreadful! Idreana was dreadful; the conversation was dreadful! It must be put a stop to. Mrs. Annesley’s eminently practical nature suddenly asserted itself.
“My dear girl, for goodness’ sake don’t let us get on these melancholy subjects,” she said briskly, the social ‘Lolly,’ beginning to shine out of every feature of her still handsome face. “You mustn’t think about troubles while you are with me. You are here for a little change and gaiety, and I intend that you shall enjoy yourself. We’ll manage Captain Le Marchant, and you will have no need to fret yourself. Just you put on a pretty gown now, and make yourself look as sweet as ever you can; there are some nice fellows coming to dine to-night, and I want them to admire you. I shall have to run away myself now to change my dress. Will you be long?”
“No,” answered Mrs. Le Marchant gently, “I shall not be long.”
Mrs. Annesley paused on the threshold, with a bright look. “And, oh!” she said, “I forgot to tell you that we are going to have a wonderful native prince here on a visit — a really very delightful Maharajah, extremely well educated. He speaks English perfectly, and he wears — oh! my dear! such diamonds! We are going to hold some big receptions in his honour, and wind up with a ball. I am sure you will enjoy it all immensely.”
She nodded and tripped off, meeting Captain Le Marchant on the way. He was coming up to his room to dress for dinner, under the escort of Colonel Annesley.
“Claude,” she said in her sweetest voice, “when you have shown Captain Le Marchant his room, will you come to me? I want to speak to you.”
The Colonel returned assent, and presently came into the drawing-room, where he found his wife awaiting him.
“Claude,” she began hesitatingly, “it’s a dreadful thing to have to say, but I’m obliged to tell you, Captain Le Marchant drinks!”
“He looks it,” responded the Colonel briefly, and then stood ‘at attention’ ready for further revelations.
“Oh, Claude,” exclaimed ‘Lolly’ irrelevantly, “I have never seen you drunk!”
Colonel Annesley stared.
“Of course not! What’s that got to do with it?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” And Mrs. Annesley looked up, and then down nervously, and finally assuming her most impressive and wife-like manner she added, “I’m only so glad and proud, Claude, that I never have!”
The tall Colonel blushed and looked extremely young. A stranger observing him would have said he was evidently ashamed of himself. Perhaps he was. He said nothing, however, and only smiled dreamily.
“Claude,” went on Mrs. Annesley, “you must try and keep this man sober — you must, really! Fancy if he were to make a scene with Idreana, before people, and here!”
“Does he make scenes with her?” inquired the Colonel.
“Well, she hasn’t actually said so much, but I imagine he does. Anyway, keep the wine and spirits out of his reach, because, you see, if he never knows when to stop—”
“Beast!” muttered the Colonel under his breath.
His wife looked at him almost humbly. “Yes, he must be,” she agreed. “Poor little Idreana!”
The Colonel did not echo this sentiment. He was playing with a small bullet that was set as a charm on his watch-chain (a bullet that had a history) and appeared stolidly unmoved.
“You understand, Claude, don’t you?” went on his wife. “You are the host, and you mustn’t be the one to set temptation in his way. Don’t let him have the chance to disgrace himself.”
The Colonel looked perplexed. “I’ll do my best,” he said curtly, and turned on his heel to leave the room.
“Claude!” called his wife softly.
He came back obediently.
“You haven’t got a flower in your coat for dinner,” she said with a trembling little laugh. “Let me give you one.”
She took a small, sweet-scented blossom from a vase and fastened it in his button-hole. Under his clear skin the blood swiftly reddened and rose to the very roots of his close-cropped brown hair. He was blushing again apparently, and again he looked extraordinarily young. A novel and peculiar sense of being petted and made much of was on him, but he was quite silent. He was too much astonished to speak.
“There!” said Mrs. Annesley with a coquettish look of triumph as she finished decorating him. “Now you do me credit!”
Surprise gave him a little catch in his throat. He coughed nervously.
“Do I?” he managed to say at last. “I — er — thank you!” And out he went in a whirl of amazement. She meanwhile laughed and scolded herself for indul
ging in a sort of side flirtation with her own husband.
“Poor Claude!” she murmured, repeating that favourite phrase which had now become almost hackneyed. “But he really is a gentleman.”
The dinner that night went off successfully. Captain Le Marchant made himself most agreeable, and managed to impress everybody more or less with the idea that he was really a ‘charming’ man. Even Mrs. Annesley decided that he was “not so bad after all,” and that perhaps Idreana, always imaginative, had unconsciously exaggerated his ‘failing.’ The Colonel sat listening to him, like a good host, with polite and apparently absorbed attention. The gentlemen who added the intellectual grace and splendour of their presence to the table were chiefly young subalterns, open admirers and followers of Mrs. Annesley, who alternately flattered them, laughed at them, mocked them, neglected them, and drove them to despair, just as her humour suited her; and on this particular occasion these ‘boys’ were rendered rather awkward and bashful by the fairylike loveliness of Mrs. Le Marchant.
Idreana, dressed in pure white, with her gold hair knotted in a Greek twist, and her tragic-sweet eyes, was a wonderful sight to see. She said so little, she looked so much. She was only a small woman, but to the dazzled subalterns she was ‘immense!’ They found her, as Mrs. Annesley had said, ‘indescribable,’ and did not quite know what to make of her. Her husband himself seemed to stand just a little in awe of her. What Colonel Annesley thought concerning her was not new. His first comment, “Poor little sweet soul!” still held good as the sum and substance of his opinion. It was a relief to the whole party to talk of the coming Maharajah. What he would do, and what they would do, formed a perpetually interesting topic of conversation. The ‘boys’ commented silently on the fact that neither Colonel nor Mrs. Annesley seemed very lavish of wines at dinner, and that the ‘drink’ generally was dispensed with a somewhat stingy care. But they were charitable ‘boys’ and concluded that ‘Lolly’ had run out of supplies and was laying in fresh stock. So that the evening passed off pleasantly without a hitch, and Captain Le Marchant showed no tendency whatever to fall into his ‘habit.’
Some days now passed in pleasant tranquillity. Colonel Annesley, though he kept a constant watch on his guest with the ‘failing,’ began himself to think that the case had been over-stated. Beyond a more or less settled gloominess of disposition, Captain Le Marchant was very much like any other ordinary army man. He was not clever, and in conversation he was occasionally coarse, but on the whole he maintained a decent and well-bred behaviour. He was a magnificent athlete and a keen sportsman, and these attributes made him rather a popular ‘man’s man.’ Idreana began to look happier; a little of the tragedy went out of her eyes, leaving the light of hope there instead, whereat Mrs. Annesley rejoiced unselfishly.
And at last the Maharajah arrived. In splendid garb he came, and showed himself to be a somewhat remarkable specimen of an Oriental. In the first place he was exceedingly handsome; secondly, he was exceptionally well-mannered. Courteous, yet not abating one jot of his dignity, he and a limited suite — limited in order not to put his hosts to too much trouble — took possession of that part of Mrs. Annesley’s house reserved and arranged for his special accommodation. All the particulars of his caste had been noted and remembered, and he showed his appreciation of this careful forethought and consideration by proving himself to be what rumour had already described him, a brilliant and gifted man, whose conversational capacities were not to be despised. From the first hour of his arrival, he had fastened his glowing dark eyes on the fair and spirituelle beauty of Mrs. Le Marchant, and had, in the briefest possible space of time, fallen secretly a victim to her unconsciously exerted charm. For her he strove to appear at his best; to interest her he spoke of the long vigils which he was wont to pass on the flower-garlanded flat roof of his palace, his great telescope set up and pointed at the stars; to her he told strange legends of the East, myths and fantasies of India’s oldest period; to see her large eyes sparkle and her sweet lips part in breathless attention he related hair-breadth escapes from the jaws of wild beasts, and wonderful adventures in forest or jungle.
And the other visitors would listen to him entranced, fascinated not only by his attractive personality, but also by the priceless jewels that flashed on his breast, diamonds clear as drops of dew, and opals shining with the mystic evanescent light of frozen foam. He had about him a certain air of sovereignty which became him well, and which kept the fashionable vulgarity of the ‘fast’ set in check. He was by turns elegant, wise, witty and humorous, and distinctly proved to a few of the frivolous and empty-headed that there is no necessity to cultivate ‘chaff’ or learn stable slang in order to be considered clever. He was a curious lesson in good-breeding to some of the English, this Maharajah; and one or two of the more thoughtful mused unpleasantly on what might happen in India if ‘college education’ turned out goodly numbers of ‘natives’ such as he. His visit to the station, however, was an undoubted success; nothing else was talked of in the whole place, and Mrs. Claude Annesley had ‘scored’ again, and added another to her long list of social triumphs.
Meanwhile, if the truth must be told, the Maharajah himself was undergoing the tortures of the damned. His beautiful manners were with difficulty maintained, his polished grace, his fluent talk, his easy urbanity and apparent calm covered a passion and a rage as fierce as that of any famished tiger. For the belle dame sans merci had him in thrall. The strange and subtle languor that lurked in her large pathetic eyes, her delicate and elfin beauty, had run like a swift poison through his Eastern blood and set it on fire. Of what avail? None, he knew; she was as absolutely denied to him as the stars he studied in the hot summer midnights. Nevertheless, he loved her; loved her with a fury and despair that nearly drove him frantic. To approach her made him tremble; the wondering, unconscious, half-wistful looks she gave him made his heart beat to a sense of tears and suffocation. Once, when she by chance dropped a few flowers from her bosom, and he snatched them up stealthily, his act unseen, he thought he must have gone mad with the joy of kissing them. Yet with all this fever at work within him he kept his secret; no hint of it ever escaped him by so much as an unguarded look or tremor of the voice, for he was brave. He had received his death-blow, so he said within himself, but none should see the wound. And he played his part as a manly man should, living his agony down hour by hour heroically, till the last day of his sojourn came, the day fixed by Mrs. Annesley for her grand ball.
This entertainment was to be the climax of the festivities, and was to outdo everything in the way of balls that had ever been given in the neighbourhood. A splendid pavilion was erected for dancing, the decorations were magnificent, everything was as complete as it could be, and Mrs. Annesley herself was satisfied. Mrs. Annesley, indeed, was in a state of devout thankfulness generally — she was even thankful for her husband. She felt instinctively sure that it was owing to his apparently unobservant observation that Captain Le Marchant had had no lapse into his ‘habit,’ and had always passed muster as a gentleman and officer worthy of serving the Queen.
On the evening of the ball and just before it, a grand dinner-party was arranged to take place, at which the Maharajah was not present. From the half-open door of his apartment he saw Idreana descend the stairs, dressed for both dinner and ball, and as he beheld her, himself unseen, his heart sank like an aching weight within him. What was code or caste or anything in the world compared to the desire of possessing this ethereal small woman, clad in her floating white draperies, her gold hair knotted loosely on her neck, and a strange scarlet flower at her bosom! He peered after her, she all unconscious of his anguished gaze, then, withdrawing himself softly he closed the door, and covered his eyes with his hand, ashamed of the great tears that forced their burning way through his lashes. “The difference of race, the difference of creed, the difference of law,” he muttered. “These part man and woman more than God and Nature would ever part them!”
That night, when some twent
y or more people sat down to dine at Mrs. Claude Annesley’s well-spread table, there could naturally be no stint of wine. The Colonel kept a vigilant eye on Captain Le Marchant, and judged him to be drinking moderately, and keeping well within bounds. Before dessert was quite over the ladies adjourned to the ball-pavilion, and Mrs. Annesley insisted on her husband accompanying them, in order to help her in receiving the already arriving-guests. The Maharajah, attired in a dazzling glitter of gold and gems, entered with his attendants, and took his seat in a gilded chair set on a canopied dais for his special honour and accommodation.
The music struck up and the dancing commenced. At the first sound of the band all the other lingerers at the dinner-table came in, Captain Le Marchant among them. Colonel Annesley, busy assisting his wife as well as he was able, glanced at him as he entered, decided that he was all right, and took no further notice of him. The Captain sauntered about aimlessly for a little, spoke to two or three people, and then left the ball-room again without his departure being noticed. Dancing was soon in full swing, and the tide of swift motion and merriment rose quickly to its height. The Maharajah, sitting enthroned apart, the flashing jewels he wore contrasting singularly with his dark and rather grave features, was entirely absorbed in watching Mrs. Le Marchant dancing. His ardent sombre eyes followed her everywhere as she floated to and fro, round and round, light as thistle-down, with her different partners, the loose knot of glistening hair shining at the back of her white neck, the scarlet flower like a flame on her white bosom.
And as she danced on, he presently descended from the dais, and stood at the side of the pavilion in order to observe her more closely, and also in the hope that haply her white gown might touch him in its silvery whirl, for he felt he could not bear to lose even that possible chance of contact with her. And by-and-by he saw a young subaltern approach her rapidly and say something to her in a low tone. She turned very pale, and her eyes seemed to close, then rousing herself she smiled faintly, murmured some excuse to her partner and hurried away. Led by some instinct, and careless of what might be thought of his also absenting himself, the Maharajah followed. He had the stealthy step of a cat or a panther, and his tread behind her was unheard. She passed out of the ball-pavilion, and along the flower-garlanded corridor which divided it from the house — the young subaltern was with her, and together they entered Mrs. Annesley’s dining-room. There, at the half-cleared dinner-table, fallen forward in a sort of stupor, sat Captain Le Marchant, with one empty brandy bottle before him and another half begun. The Maharajah came to a stand-still outside the door — he was still unheard and unperceived.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 923
