CHAPTER IX.
When George Lauriston, having relieved his feelings by his summary treatment of Massey and closed the door upon the young Irishman’s groans and voluble remonstrances, turned his attention to Nouna, he was seized with remorse at having given such free rein to his anger, when he saw what a strong effect it had upon the girl. She persisted in crouching on the ground at his feet like a dog that has been whipped, and when he stooped down and laid his hands upon her, gently telling her to get up and speak to him, she only murmured, “Don’t hurt me. I haven’t done anything wrong,” and tied herself up with extraordinary suppleness into a sort of knot, which George surveyed helplessly, not knowing well how to handle this extraordinary phenomenon. At last it occurred to him that this exaggerated fear could be nothing but one of her elfish tricks, and he began to laugh uneasily in the hope that this would afford a key to the situation.
On hearing his puzzled “Ha, ha!” Nouna did indeed uncurl herself and look up at him; but it was with a timid and bewildered expression. He, however, seizing his opportunity, swooped down, passed his arms under her, and lifting her bodily from the floor, carried her over to the sofa, placed her upon it, and sat down beside her.
“And now, little one, tell me what is the matter with you, and why and how you came here.”
Instead of answering, she looked at him steadily, with a solemn and penetrating expression. Angry as he still felt, anxious as he was to know the reason of her unexpected coming, her appearance was so comical that George could not help smiling as he looked at her. She wore again the shot silk frock in which he had seen her on his second visit to Mary Street; a deep, purple embroidered fez made a Romeo-like covering for her short and curly dark hair; while a sop thrown to conventionality in the shape of a small black-beaded mantle only brought into greater prominence the eccentricity it was meant to disguise. She had either forgotten or not thought it necessary to exchange her open-work pink silk stockings and embroidered scarlet morocco slippers for foot-gear less startling and picturesque; her gloves, if she had worn any, she had long ago thrown aside, and George could not help acknowledging, as he looked at her, that it would need an intelligence stronger than poor Massey’s to discover in this remarkable guise the carefully brought-up young English lady whom alone his code taught him to respect. As this thought came into his mind, George’s expression changed, and grew gloomy and sad. The young girl was still watching him narrowly.
“Are you often—so?” she asked, with a pause before the last word, and a mysterious emphasis upon it.
“What do you mean, Nouna?”
“So full of anger that your face grows all white and grey, and your mouth like a straight line, and you look as if you would kill the person that offends you.”
And she shuddered and drew away from him again. George took one of her hands very gently in his.
“No, Nouna, I am very seldom angry like that. It is only when any one does something which seems to me very wrong.”
“Oh.” This explanation did not seem so re-assuring to the young lady as it ought to have been. “You were listening at the door all the time then?” she said, after a pause, not so much in fear as in timid respect.
“No,” said he vehemently, growing hot at the suggestion. “Gentlemen don’t listen at doors.”
“Don’t they?” said she incredulously. “Why not?”
“It is mean, sneaking, bad form altogether.”
“Is it? Then how do you find out things? Ah, you would pay a servant, perhaps, to do all that for you?”
George grew scarlet and drew his hands away from her, half in indignation, half in horror.
“Nouna!” he exclaimed, “where on earth did you pick up these awful ideas? To pay a servant to play the spy is the most rascally thing a man could do! A man who did it would deserve to be kicked.”
“Would he? Then what would he do if he thought his wife deceived him? Wouldn’t he mind?”
George sprang up to his feet, and took a few turns about the room. He was appalled by this fearful perversion of mind, by this terrible candour, and he thought with a shudder of Rahas’ statement that the women of the East have no souls. How should he set to work to make her see things with his eyes? He glanced at her, and saw that she had changed her attitude; curling her feet up under her, and leaning her head on her hand, she sat quite still, nothing moving but her eyes, watching him. He came back, knelt before her, and looked into her face.
“In England, Nouna,” he said very gently, “when a man wants a wife, he chooses a girl whom he believes to be so good, so true, so noble that he couldn’t possibly think she would do anything that wasn’t right. And he loves her with all his heart, and never thinks of anybody but her, and spends all his time trying to make her happy. So he never thinks about such a dreadful thing as her deceiving him, because, you see, she couldn’t, unless she was very wicked, treat a man badly when he was so good to her.”
“Then what Sundran says is all wrong.”
“Who is Sundran?”
“My servant, my ayah. She says that Englishmen love other women besides their wife, who is only like the chief wife in our country, and that Englishwomen are not so good as Indian ladies, because they are not shut up.”
“Sundran must be sent away. She tells you falsehoods,” said George indignantly.
“She shall not be sent away,” retorted Nouna, flashing out at once into passion. “She loves me. It is she who tells me of the land where I was born, who sings me my Indian songs, and tells me the tales of my own country. She shall not go.”
George did not press the point, though he made an inward vow to remove this most noxious influence as soon as he had authority over the wayward creature before him.
“And doesn’t some one else love you, Nouna?” he asked reproachfully, looking into her flashing eyes; “some one whom you are treating very cruelly this evening?”
The appeal melted her at once, or rather it turned the passion of anger into a passion of affection. She threw her arms round his neck and fervently kissed his mouth, nestling her red lips under his moustache, and scratching his left ear fearfully with the beadwork on her mantle.
“I am not cruel, I love you,” she said earnestly. “I came here to-night because I could not live without seeing you again; only I will not marry you; I have made up my mind to that.”
“But why, Nouna, why?” asked poor George in consternation.
“We are not of the same race; we should not be happy; Rahas is right. If I made you angry, you would look as you did to-night, and you would kill me.”
“But, Nouna, I am not a savage; I don’t get angry over little things. And I should never be angry with you.”
“I don’t know. You say you would not have me watched, you would trust me. Well, I would rather be watched, then I should feel safe. But if I always did just as I felt, I should some day make you angry, I know. I am not like your English girls—the girls at the school, who always know what they are going to do. Something comes up here,”—and she put her hands over her heart—“and then it mounts up there,”—joining her fingers over her head—“and says, ‘Nouna, love; Nouna, hate; Nouna, be sweet and gentle;’ or ‘Nouna, be proud and distant.’ And I go just as the little voice guides. Well, that is not English!”
“You are impulsive, darling, that’s all. If you love me truly, the little voice will always tell you to do what I wish.”
“Will it? But I am afraid. I tell you I would rather kill myself than have you look at me as you looked at the little curly-haired man to-night. Why did you hate him so?”
“When I came in he was trying to kiss you.”
“But I would not have let him.”
“No, of course not. That is because you are good and true to me, whom you love.”
“Is it? I did not know it was that. I only knew that he was small and ugly, and I did not like him.”
“No; you must not like any man but me.”
“Ah, then you had better shut me up.”
“Well, so I will, my darling. I will shut you up in my heart so close that you shall have no eyes for any one but me.”
And with a great impulse of tenderness for the little dark-eyed thing who was drinking in new impressions of life and morals with so much solemn perplexity, he flung his arm round her and buried his head in the folds of her dress.
“You will scratch your beautiful face,” said she solicitously, removing the beaded mantle, and ruffling up his hair with light fingers. “How can Rahas say you are not handsome? You are like Brahma himself when he rides in his sun-chariot!” she said with loyal intention if with confused lore.
The name of Rahas, used thus for the second time, roused George from the intoxicating oblivion of outside things into which this unexpected interview with the girl he loved had thrown him.
“Rahas!” he repeated, raising his head sharply. “You haven’t seen him again to-day?”
“Now you are going to be angry,” exclaimed the girl shrinking.
“No, my darling, I am not,” said George in a most gentle tone. “But if I am to watch over and protect you, I must keep you out of the way of men like Rahas. When did you see him? What did he say to you?”
“Well, I saw him this evening, just before I came here. Mrs. Ellis and I had just finished dinner. I had been very quiet and good all day, writing a long letter to mamma, telling her how handsome you were, and how I would never look with love on the face of any other man, if only she would give me her permission to love you. And I was tired of sitting still, and the air was hot, and Mammy Ellis was sleepy. So I opened the door, and she said there was a draught, and I must shut it. And I could not bear the heat, so I did shut it, with myself outside. And I went into the next room—the one where I had pulled down the hangings; and I was so lonely and sad and weary that I was sorry I had pulled them down, and I began to cry and tried to nail up the long trails of silk to the wall again; and when I found I could not, I sat down and cried again; and then I looked up and I saw Rahas in the room watching me like a tiger. And I sprang up; but he came to me with his eyes shining, and fell at my feet and told me a lot of strange things that I forget.”
“What things? What did he tell you?” asked George, trying to keep calm.
“Must I remember them? He frightened me; I do not want to remember them.”
“Try, my darling.”
“He said he loved me, and that I must love him, for the planets said so, and had given him an influence over me which I could not resist. He said he had tried to conquer himself, and had consented to give me up; but his love was too strong, and I must forget you—that you were hard and cold. When he said that I flew into a passion, and told him I hated him and should marry you. And I threw open the window and told him if he came near me I would shriek with all my strength. And so he had to grow quieter; and then he said he knew strange things about me I myself did not know, and that you never meant to marry me, that you looked upon me as a little girl to play with, and would marry a staid English lady. And I burst out crying again, and said that would make no difference to him, for I should go away and perhaps drown myself. Then he was very quiet for a long time, and he presently spoke in oh! such a low voice, with a smile on his face that was not sweet and kind, but horrible. He told me if I wanted you to marry me I had better go to your rooms at once and tell you not to forget I loved you, or else that you would see some other lady and perhaps marry her before I could see you again. So I sprang up at once, and he told me where you lived, and I slipped into my own room and put on my mantle, and told Sundran not to say where I was gone, and I would be back soon. Then Rahas put me into a cab, and told me at the last to be sure and wait till I saw you. And I thanked him and said, ‘Be sure I will.’ And so I came; and it was a long way, and I am tired. Why do you look like that? Why are you angry? Did you not want me to come? Rahas said you would be glad.”
“The infernal scoundrel!” burst out George, who had been listening to this recital in almost incredulous horror.
Nouna got on to her feet, and looked at him with a puzzled inquiring face.
“Did he know you would be angry then?” she asked in a low voice. “I remember he said I should be less proud when I came back.”
With a strong effort George controlled himself, lest an incautious word should give any inkling of the rascal’s meaning to the girl’s mind. He drew forward an arm-chair and invited her to take it with the manner he would have used to a princess. In seating herself she held up her arms towards him, but he would not touch her. He sat down gravely a little way off as he said:
“You will not go back to Mary Street at all, Nouna.”
“No? Shall I stay here with you?”
“Not here, dear. These are bachelor’s quarters. But you will stay after Friday in apartments that I shall take for you.”
“Why after Friday?”
“Because I cannot marry you before then.”
“Marry me! You said you were not going to marry me for two years!”
“You see I’ve changed my mind.”
“Since last night?”
“Since an hour ago, since I found you here.”
She sprang up and flung her arms about him, with kisses, and caresses, and incoherent words.
“Then you are not angry with me for coming. Oh, I’m so glad, I’m so glad I came. I don’t know what to do, I’m so happy. It seemed so dreadful to have to wait two years, two years always away from you. For I never felt like this before, as if my heart would break, or would burn my breast if I was away from you. That is love, isn’t it? Kiss me, kiss me, don’t be so cold. Don’t you love me? Why are you going to marry me if you do not love me?”
She pushed herself suddenly away from him, keeping her hands on his shoulders and devouring his face with an eager scrutiny. His dark eyes were very bright, and his skin, burnt red and brown like that of most young Englishmen in summer time, was a deeper colour than ever with excitement. But his forehead was puckered into lines and wrinkles, and his mouth was closed in a firm straight line, a fact which Nouna discovered for herself by brushing up his moustache with a quick and unexpected movement.
“You are thinking!” she cried indignantly. “When I tell you of my love you are full of nothing but your thoughts. When I am your wife I will not let you think.”
This last passionate sentence struck George with the ominous force of a prophecy. He got up and lifted the girl playfully right above his head, however, while he spoke in grave tones, the tenderness of which was unmistakable. “When two people love each other, little one, one of the two at least always has to think. And when you are my wife you will have to let me do as I please, just as now you have to let me hold you in the air until it is my good pleasure to put you down.”
But as he spoke the little creature, who had been trying in vain with her weak fingers to undo the clasp of his strong ones on her waist, suddenly ceased to struggle and lay limp and heavy on his hands, her head and limbs hanging loose, and her cap falling to the ground. George let her down and placed her on the sofa in consternation, blaming himself for ignoring the fragility of the tiny thing. There she lay just as he placed her, as still as the dead. No sooner, however, had he rushed into his bedroom, returning with a glass of water which he began nervously to sprinkle on her still face, than she opened her eyes with a sly and elfish delight, and began to curl up with mischievous laughter. George fell back with a sick feeling which was not all relief at finding she was less fragile than he had supposed. He had challenged her to take his playful action as an allegory, and she had had the wit to accept and continue it. When their two wills should clash she would obtain by fraud what she could not get by force. It was at least a fair warning. He was angry with her and he got up from his knees without speaking, without looking at the laughing girl. Nouna understood, and in a moment all merriment had died from her face; she was clinging to his arm, entreating him passionately to forgive her; she was a wicked, ungrateful girl; she had only meant to tease him, to see if he would mind if she were ill; she would obey him, she would do whatever he wished her to do; she would throw herself out of the window if he would not turn and kiss her.
So he turned, of course, and the kiss of peace was given; but George had had a chill in the height of his passion, and even while he passed his hand over her soft hair and made her pretty, low-voiced love-speeches, his mind was full of practical matters concerning her lodging for the three nights to be passed before he could possibly marry her, and other details connected with this step.
“Where was this school you lived at before you came to London with Mrs. Ellis, Nouna?” he asked suddenly.
“School! It wasn’t quite a school. There was only six of us, and we all had rooms apart and our own servants,” said Nouna.
“Well, but where was it?”
“It was at Clifton. But why—”
“Clifton! That’s no use,” said George to himself. Then he continued aloud, “Now, Nouna, will you be a good child and stay quietly where I take you to-night?”
“Yes,” said she, nodding like a child, “if you come too.”
“I’ll take you there to-night, and I’ll come and see you quite early in the morning. It is to the house of an old servant in our family who now lets part of her house in apartments. She will be very kind to you, I know.”
“But you won’t leave me there all alone—without Sundran or anybody?”
“I won’t leave you until I see you are quite happy and comfortable there, and if you don’t like the place and the people I won’t leave you there at all.”
Without giving her time for further objections, George brought her a comb, which she kissed because it was his and proceeded to pass through her short, thick hair in a very helpless and unaccustomed fashion; at last, coming to a decided knot, she stamped her foot and, leaving the comb in her hair, presented her head to George, who placed her again in the armchair and reverently and laboriously set to work on the soft curly tangle. He grew very hot over the occupation, which was new to him, and began to understand why hairdressers are generally of the abler sex. By the time he had reduced the pretty wavy hair to order, and admired its soft silkiness by the light of the candle he had set burning, Nouna had added to his difficulties by falling, like a tired kitten, fast asleep. He called to her gently two or three times, and was at last forced to come to the conclusion that she did not mean to wake up. After a moment’s reflection he resolved to take advantage of the circumstance. It was getting very late, and if he were to insist on rousing her, she might have another little scene in store for him before she would consent to go. So he put on her cap, picked up her gloves and put them in his pocket, and lifting her in his arms, wrapped the beaded mantle about her and carried her down stairs, during which proceeding she patted his cheek sleepily but really seemed only half awake. He passed nobody but the sentry, who could scarcely conceal his surprise on finding which of the young officers it was who was engaged in such an evident “lark.” He was just in time to catch a train to Victoria, and until they arrived there Nouna declined to wake up. Outside the station, George got with his sleepy charge into a hansom and, after giving the driver an address in a street at Brompton, occupied himself, as his companion remained motionless except that as he propped her in the corner she promptly fell back against him, in getting her little hands into her gloves. He was very tenderly busy with the first, when a voice from the depths of his shoulders surprised him.
“Wrong hand!”
“Hallo! So you’re awake, are you, little one? Come, lift up your head; I want to put you to rights before we get there.”
“No, no, I don’t want to get there,” said she, stretching up her arm across his breast, “I want to drive about like this all night with you.”
“But we can’t do that, Nouna.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you’d catch cold—”
“No, I shouldn’t; I’m quite warm; feel me.”
“And—and it wouldn’t be considered right.”
“Now you’re not going to talk as Mrs. Somers used to talk, are you?” asked Nouna warningly. “Because if you do I shall hate you just as I used to hate her, and I shall want to get away from you just as I used from her.”
“But, Nouna, some one must tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, and who is to do it if you won’t let me whom you say you love?”
“Don’t say I only say it,” cried she, nestling up to him with pleading reproach. “Go on, go on lecturing me; but keep your hand so on my shoulder all the time.”
And his lecture had to die away into endearing words, and when the hansom stopped, George found it difficult to resist the temptation, urged upon him in a soft whisper by his companion, to tell the cabman to “drive on.” But he nerved himself to a sense of duty and propriety, jumped out and rang the bell of a well-kept house, at the door of which appeared a neat servant who informed him that Miss Glass was at home.
Miss Glass was a woman of five and forty, with an honest fresh-coloured face, who insisted on kissing George because she had nursed him when he was a baby, and who willingly consented to do all she could for his bride-elect. The eccentric appearance of that lady when she was brought inside the house seemed somewhat to shock her ideas of propriety; but when, after George had bidden her good-night and gone to the door, the poor child ran out after him and entreated him not to leave her—she was so lonely—she had never been all by herself among strangers before—Miss Glass put her arms round the girl in very kindly fashion, and soothed her into some sort of despondent and melancholy resignation.
“You’ll come early, won’t you?” Nouna cried from the doorstep in heart-broken tones. “If you don’t come before ten I shall come to the barracks after you.”
George assured her that he would come before breakfast, and drove off, excited by the rapidity with which this important step of marriage was forcing itself upon him. He had surprised himself lately by developing an infinite capacity for doing rash things, but he was saved by his native obstinacy from the weakness of regretting them; therefore, although he acknowledged to himself that this headlong plunge into matrimony was the rashest act of all, and that his chances of domestic happiness were about the same as if he had decided to unite himself for life to a Cherokee squaw, he was resolved in dare-devil fashion to stick to his colours and make the best of it, and this state of mind left him calm enough to think of a little act of kind consideration towards poor Mrs. Ellis who, he knew, must by this time be half crazy with anxiety about her charge. So he drove to Mary Street, and after satisfying the governess that Nouna was safe, though he declined, for fear of Rahas, to give her address, he went down stairs and knocked at the door of the Oriental merchant’s apartments. The grey-haired Fanah opened it, however, and with a real or affected ignorance of English, explained, chiefly by gestures and incoherent noises that his nephew was “gone away.” So that George, who was burning for some short and sharp vengeance, he hardly knew what, upon Rahas for his infamous advice to Nouna, was forced to retire with that praiseworthy wish unsatisfied.
Scarcely, however, had the old merchant, with a low bow, closed the door of his apartments, when a little lamp, borne by a figure in white, cast a feeble light upon the walls above, which shifted rapidly downwards until it was flashed in George’s eyes by the bearer, who proved to be no other than Nouna’s Indian servant Sundran. The young man started when he saw the bronze-coloured face peering up into his. It was a most unprepossessing countenance, bearing the impress of mean passions and low cunning, which not even the brown dog’s eyes, full of affection and a certain sagacity, could redeem. The woman might have been of any age between thirty-five and fifty, though the supple agility of her movements seemed to prove that the wrinkles and lines in her dark face were premature. She looked up into Lauriston’s face with eager anxiety.
“Missee, little missee, my mistress, where is she?” she asked in a whisper.
“She’s all right, quite safe; I came to tell Mrs. Ellis so.”
“But me want to see her, she not sleep till I come to her and sing and tell her the old stories. Take me to her, sahib, take me, and Sundran love you very dear.”
“I can’t do that, Sundran; she is a long way from here. But she is quite safe. I am going to marry her, so you may be quite sure she is safe. Mrs. Ellis trusts me, so you can.”
“But, sahib, Missee Ellis not know her so long as me. I come with her from her country with the Mammee Countess, her mother. She always have me, she love her old nurse. Sahib, take me to her.”
But George was looking upon the woman with more and more distaste. Hers was the pernicious influence which, working by the spells of early association, of wild fable, of romantic devotion, had filled Nouna’s young mind with its prejudices, had excited her imagination by its dangerous pictures, and had made her blind and deaf to all the better influences around her.
“I cannot indeed,” he said gravely. “I am going straight back to my own rooms now. It would take me another hour to drive you first to the house where she is staying, and by that time your mistress would be fast asleep.”
The woman noticed the increased coldness of his tone, and recognised the uselessness of further entreaty. She tried another tack.
“Sahib,” she whispered lower than ever, in a wheedling tone, with a glance all round the hall and a particularly careful scrutiny, by the light of the lamp, of the chinks of the doors, “if you take me to Missee Nuna, if you tell me where she is, I take you to Sahib Rahas, I tell you where he is.”
George started, and the offer confirmed him in his resolution to have nothing to do with this woman. He thought it proved conclusively that she had been bought by Rahas, but that she was willing to betray him if she could get her price; and though he did her the justice to believe in the sincerity of her devotion to her young mistress, he knew how much more harm than good it was likely to do his poor little fiancée. As he repeated that it was impossible for him to comply with her request, the dark face of the Indian woman grew hideous with baffled passion. She retreated a few paces and showed her teeth at him like an angry ape; then twirling her lamp twice round her head with some muttered, inarticulate words, as if she were repeating an incantation, she turned her back upon him and slunk stealthily up stairs like a wild animal thwarted in a search for its young.
George left the house with shuddering thankfulness that Nouna had escaped from her perilous associations. “Marriage, thank heaven,” thought he, “works such changes in a woman that it will drive them all out of her head and fill her heart and mind with new thoughts and feelings.”
And of course he forgot that marriage can work changes in a man too.