bombay, a very dream-city, was fading—ever more dreamlike, enwrapped in pale-tinted sunset mists—into the distance.
the salt breeze was in their faces; in their ears was the rushing of the waters from the sides of the ship as she cut her way through. already the something of england that the sea must always bring her children, the surroundings of an english ship especially, was about them! they seemed to have come from the land of languor and secret doings into open life, into simple action, into a busy, wholesome stir.
beneath them pulsed the great heart of the ship, white foam pointing her way as she forged ahead. behind her stretched the furrow of her course, two long lines, ever wider divergent till they lost themselves to the eye. and now, by some fantastic mirage effect, the great oriental port, with its glimmering minarets and cupolas, showed as if caught up into the sky itself. let but this iron heart labour on a little while longer, let but this eager prow cut its way a little deeper towards the sunset, and the east would have vanished altogether.... the travellers would not even see the first glimmer of her evening lights hung a jewel necklace on the horizon, so swiftly had the sea laid hold of them.
homeward bound! the step from pier to steamer had already severed the link of their strange affinity with the east. its mystery had fallen from them. already this was england. rosamond gerardine and aspasia, side by side, watched the shores retreat, fade, sink, and vanish.
"good-bye, india!" said aspasia, her head sentimentally inclined, dropping at last the little handkerchief with which she had been frantically signalling long after there was any possibility of the vessel being descried from the land otherwise than as a black spot; "good-bye, india, and hey for home!"
lady gerardine fixed the fading vision with wide, abstracted eyes.
"god grant," she said, under her breath, more to herself than to the girl beside her, "that i may never see those shores again!"
"amen!" said aspasia, cheerfully.
rosamond laid her hand upon aspasia's wrist as they leaned against the railings and pressed it with a grasp that almost hurt.
"an accursed land!" she went on, this time in a low, intense voice. it was as if she flung anathema to the retreating shores. "cruel, cruel, treacherous! oh, god, what has it not already cost us english! is there a home among us that has not paid its blood tribute to that relentless monster? listen, child. i was as young as you when i last beheld its shores—thus—from the sea. it was in the dawn (it is fit it should now be dusk), and we stood together as i stand beside you to-day. and i saw it grow out of the sky, even with the dawn, a city of rose, of pearl, beyond words beautiful—unimaginable, it seemed to me, in promise! he said to me: 'look, there is the first love of my life; is she not fair? and i am bringing to her my other love ... and you two are all that i will have of life.' and then he laughed and said: 'it would be strange if i wanted more, with two such loves.' and, again: 'not even for you could i be false to her.'"
aspasia, mystified, turned her bright gaze full upon her aunt's face. in the pupils of rosamond's eyes there was enkindled a sullen fire.
"he came back to her," she went on; "and she—that land—lay smiling in the sunrise to receive him. oh, how she can smile and look beautiful, and smell fragrant, and caress, with the dagger hidden under the velvet, the snake in the rose, and the sudden grave yawning! i've never been home since," she said, with a sudden change of tone, bringing her glance back from the misty horizon, to fix it upon aspasia with so piteous and haggard a look that the girl lost her composure. "and now i am coming home alone, and he remains there." she made an outward sweep with her left hand towards the north. "i am coming home alone. the other has kept him. she has kept him. i am alone: he is left behind."
"who?" cried the bewildered baby, who had utterly failed to seize the thread of her aunt's strange discourse. and, upon her usual impulsiveness springing to a conclusion of mingled amazement and derision: "who—runkle?" she exclaimed.
no sooner had the foolish cry escaped her lips than she could have bitten out her tongue for vexation.
a change came over lady gerardine's face, colder and greyer than even the rapid tropic evening that was closing upon the scene. the light went out in her eyes, to be replaced by a distant contempt. the features that had quivered with passion became set into their wonted mask of repose; it was as if a veil had dropped between them, as if a cold wind drove them apart.
"i was not speaking of your uncle," said rosamond, at length, very gently. then she suggested that as it was growing late they should take possession of their cabin.
and aspasia, as she meekly acquiesced, trembled upon tears at the thought of her blundering. for one moment this jealously centred heart had been about to open itself to her; for one moment this distant enfolded being had turned to her as woman to woman; impelled by god knows what sudden necessity of complaint, of another's sympathy, of another's understanding, the lonely soul had called upon hers. and she, aspasia—baby, well did they name her so—had not been able to seize the precious moment! the sound of her own foolish laugh still rang in her ears, while the unconscious contempt in rosamond's gaze scorched her cheeks.
* * * * *
from the very first day, fate, in the shape of an imperiously intimate aspasia, drew raymond bethune, the saturnine lonely man, into the narrow circle of lady gerardine's 'board-ship existence. in her double quality of great lady and semi-invalid, the lieutenant-governor's wife was to be withdrawn from the familiar intercourse which life on a liner imposes on most travellers. it had been sir arthur's care to see that she was provided with an almost royal accommodation, which, as everything in this world is comparative, chiefly consisted in the possession of a small sitting-room over and above the usual sleeping-cabin.
into these sacred precincts miss cuningham hustled bethune unceremoniously, as the first dusk closed round their travelling home on the waste of waters.
"steward! ... oh, isn't it too bad, major bethune! i've been ringing like mad, and poor old jani's bewildered out of her wits; and gibbons—that's our english fool of a maid—she's taken to groaning already. there's not a creature to do anything for us, and that idiot there says he's nothing to say to the cabins!"
her arms full of flowers, she stood close to him; and the fragrance of the roses and carnations came to him in little gushes with her panting breath. her rosy face, in the uncertain light, had taken to itself an ethereal charm very different from its usual clear and positive outline. hardly had this realisation of her personality come to him than, under the hands of the ship's servant she had so contemptuously indicated, the flood of the electric light leaped upon them. and behold, she appeared to him yet fairer—youth triumphant, defying even that cruel glare to find a blemish in bloom or contour.
"what do you want?" he asked, with the softening of his hard face which so few were ever privileged to see.
"a vase for our flowers—a big bowl. i hate messy little dabs; and i don't want them to die an hour before they can help it. oh, a really big bowl, at once!"
her residence in an indian governor's palace had been short, but sufficient to give miss aspasia the habit of command.
raymond bethune gave his dry chuckle as he set to work to fulfil her behest.
"i've captured a salad bowl," cried he, almost jovially, when he returned; "and the head steward is in despair!"
"tell him to steal the cook's pudding-basins," said aspasia, and swept him back with her to the minute sitting-room.
here sat lady gerardine, still wrapped in her cloak but bareheaded, under the shaded light. leaning back among her cushions, her feet crossed on a footstool, she seemed to have taken full possession of her quarters. the narrow commonplace surroundings had already received her special personal imprint. the flowers, the cushions, a few books, a great cut-glass scent bottle—the very disorder even of a litter of rich trifles that had not yet found their place, removed the trivial impression of steamer upholstery. she received him without surprise, if without any mark of welcome; and aspasia chattered, ordered, laughed, kept him employed and amused. now and again lady gerardine smiled vaguely at her niece's outbursts. bethune could not feel himself an intruder. and certainly it was better than his fourth share of a bachelor's cabin, better than the crowded saloon and smoking-rooms, with their pervading glare and odour of high polish.
through the open port-hole came the sound of the rushing, swirling waters, punctuated by the slap of some sudden wave against the flank of the ship. a wind had arisen, and now and again gusts, cold and briny, rushed in upon the warm inner atmosphere of flowers.
lady gerardine held a large bouquet of niphetos roses, and her pale long fingers were busy unrolling the bonds that braced them in artificial deportment. their petals, thought the man, were no whiter than her cheeks.
presently aspasia plunged her healthy pink hands down among the languid blossoms and began pulling out the wires.
"i shouldn't, if i were you," said rosamond; and then she held up a spray. "see, the poor flower, all stained, all fallen apart, all broken. never draw away the secret supports, baby. it is better to hold one's head up, even with the iron in one's heart, and pretend it is not there."
bethune looked at her, a little startled. in some scarcely tangible way the words seemed aimed at him; but he saw that for her, at that moment, he did not exist.
for the first time a pang of real misgiving shot through him. he seemed to behold her with new eyes. she struck him as very frail. could it be true, or did he but imagine it, that that lovely head, once so defiantly uplifted against him, now drooped?
feeling the fixity of his gaze upon her, she glanced up and then smiled. strange being! was he, then, so easily forgiven? his heart gave a sudden leap.
the memory of this first evening was one which haunted him all his life with a curious intimate sweetness.
* * * * *
time passed as time will pass on board ship; vague hours resembling each other, dropping to dreamy length of days; days that yet lapse quickly and moreover work a sure but subtle change. no traveller that lands after a long sea journey is the same as he who started. sometimes, indeed, he will look back upon his former self as upon another, with surprise.
so it was with raymond bethune; and if he came to view himself with surprise, still more inexplicable to him was the new lady gerardine as he learned to regard her. according to his presentiment, these two women—she to whose puzzling personality he had vowed antipathy, and she whose fresh young presence made dangerously strong demands upon his sympathy—soon began to absorb all the energies of his thoughts. to a man who had hitherto known no other emotion, outside a very ordinary type of home affection, than friendship for another man; whose life, with the exception of one brief period of glamorous hero-worship, had been devoted to duty in its sternest, most virile form, this mental pre-occupation over two women, both comparative strangers, was at first a matter for self-mockery. it was afterwards one of self-conflict. whoso, however, has reached the point of actually combating an idea is already and obviously its victim, and the final stage of abandonment to the obsession cannot be very distant.
looking back upon his memories, in later days, it was singular to him how completely the girl and the woman divided his most vivid impressions of that journey. if the vision of aspasia, fresh as the spray, rosy as the dawn, coming to meet him of a morning, brisk and free, across the deck, her young figure outlined against sparkling sea and translucent sky, was a memory all pleasant and all sweet, the picture of that other, slow moving and pallid, so enwrapped in inexplicable mourning, so immeasurably indifferent to himself, was bitten into the tablets of his mind as with burning acid, fixed in lines of pain.
it is never flattering for a man to realise that he is of no consequence to a woman with whom he is brought into daily intercourse. and to feel that, though his acts have had a distinct influence upon her life, his personality has failed to make the smallest impression, is a situation certain to pique the most unassuming. in the end bethune began to wish that lady gerardine had retained even her original attitude of resentment. now and again, indeed, he would find her eye fixed upon him, but at the same time would know unmistakably that her thought was not with him. sometimes her attitude of inexplicable sorrow seemed harder to bear than her first evidences of heartlessness.
one day aspasia had suddenly attacked her aunt upon the subject of her black garb, crying, with her noted heedlessness:
"i declare, any one would think you were in mourning."
lady gerardine shifted her distant gaze from the far horizon to aspasia's countenance, and her lips moved but made no sound. in her heart she was saying:
"how else should i clothe myself, when i am travelling with my dead?"
almost as if he read her thought, bethune sneered as he looked at her, and with difficulty restrained the taunt that rose to his tongue. "lady gerardine wears belated weeds!"
her attitude of hopeless melancholy, her raiment of mourning, irritated him bitterly. yet, while he looked at her in harshness, he marked the admirable white throat, rising like a flower stem from the dense black of her dress, and found himself wondering whether any shimmer of colour would have become her half so well.
towards the end of their journey together he was once summoned to speak with her alone. it was about the forthcoming book. nothing could be more brief, more businesslike than her words, more unemotional than her manner. she asked for his instructions; she discussed, criticised, concurred. it was obvious that, when she chose, her brain could act with quite remarkable clearness. it was also obvious that she had completely capitulated to his wishes; and yet never was victory more savourless.
at the conclusion of this conversation she settled with him that, when she had accomplished her part of the task, she would send for him. and as he withdrew, he felt himself dismissed from her thoughts, except as a mere instrument in what now seemed more her undertaking than his own. at heart he found it increasingly difficult to accept the position with good grace.
after this, during the few days of ship life together left to them, lady gerardine seldom admitted him to her company; and thus raymond was the more thrown with aspasia. the girl, unconventional by temperament and somewhat set apart by her position of "governor's niece," unhesitatingly profited by a situation which afforded her unmixed amusement. she was not in love as yet with the major of guides. indeed, she had other and higher ambitions. aspasia's dream-pictures of herself were ever of a wonderful artist of world-wide celebrity, surrounded by a sea of clapping hands, graciously curtseying her thanks from the side of a steinway grand.... but bethune interested her, and there was something piquantly pleasant in being able to awaken that gleam in his cold, light eye, in noticing that the lines of his impassive face relaxed into softness for her alone.
one afternoon, as they sat on deck—the great ship cutting the blue waters of the adriatic, between the fading of a glorious red and orange sunset and the rising of a thin sickle moon, aspasia wrapped against the chilly salt airs in some of her aunt's sables, out of which richness the hardy, wild-flower prettiness of her face rose in emphatic contrast—she told him the story of her short life.
she spoke of her musical career, of the bright student days at vienna; the hard work of them, the anguish, the struggle, the joy. then of the death of her mother, and the falling of all her high hopes under the crushing will of sir arthur, her appointed guardian.
"when mother went," said aspasia, "everything went." as she spoke two tears leaped out of her eyes, and hung poised on the short, thick eyelashes. "the runkle thinks it's a disgrace for a lady to do anything in life. 'and, besides,' he says, 'she can't, and she'd better not attempt it.' but wait till i'm twenty-one," cried the girl, vindictively, "and i'll show him what his 'dear raspasia's' got in her!"
she smiled in her young consciousness of power, and the big tears, detaching themselves, ran into her dimples. raymond, looking at her with all the experience of his hard life behind him, and all the disillusion of his five-and-thirty years, felt so sudden a movement at once of pity and tenderness that he had to stiffen himself in his seat not to catch her in his arms and kiss her on those wet dimples as he would have kissed a child.
"oh, you'll do great things," said he, in the tone in which one praises the little one's sand castle on the beach, or tin soldier strategy. "and may i come with a great big laurel crown, tied with gold ribbons, when you give your first concert in the albert hall?"
"albert hall," mocked she, "the very place for a piano recital!" then she let her eyes roam out across the heaving space. once more she saw herself the centre of an applauding multitude; but, in the foremost rank, there was the lean, brown face, and it was moved to enthusiasm, too. and, somehow, from that evening forth, the dream-visions of her future glory were never to be quite complete without it.
* * * * *
a mist-enwrapped, rain-swept shore, parting the dim grey sea and sky in twain, was their first glimpse of england after years of exile.
"ugh," said aspasia, shivering, "isn't it just like england to go and be damp and horrid for us!"
lady gerardine, looking out with eager straining gaze towards the weeping land, turned with one of her sudden, unexpected movements of passion upon the girl.
"i'm glad it's raining," she said. "i'm glad it's cold, and bleak, and grey. i'm glad to feel the raindrops beating on nay face. i'm sick of hard blue skies and fierce sunshine.... and the trees at saltwoods will be all bent one way by the blowing of the wet sea wind. it's england, it's home; and, oh, i'm glad to be home!"