CHAPTER XXXII.
Three weeks passed very quietly for George Lauriston and his wife without any markedly apparent result of the doctor’s visit, except that George, trying to shake off the lethargy into which he had sunk since his imprisonment, had put himself into harness for a new battle with fortune by writing articles on the condition of the army for a local paper. He also took a journey to London to fulfil his long-promised revenge upon Rahas, and would probably have got himself into fresh trouble by using other than legal means of chastisement upon the Arabian, if that ingenious gentleman had not just got into a little difficulty with the excise officers over a large consignment of choice tobacco which was more than suspected of having paid no duty, and some silver goods not up to standard, the hall-mark on which had been forged, which forced him to leave the land of his adoption for shores where genius is more respected.
Both George and Nouna for a long time refrained from mentioning her mother’s name, and it was with some emotion that they both recognised her handwriting one day outside a letter directed to the husband, the postmark of which was Bath. George took it away to read, and Nouna made no remark, but when he came back to her, holding it open in his hand, he found that she was trembling with intense excitement. She took it from him with a passionately anxious glance, but gathered comfort from his gravely smiling face.
Nouna then read these words:
“My dear Mr. Lauriston,
“I am writing to make a request which I pray you will generously grant. I know there are differences between us which would make another meeting undesirable and perhaps painful to both, I would not suggest that we should see each other again: but I implore you to let me see my daughter just once more. Six months ago I could have claimed this as a right, or I would have contrived it by a trick. But I have learnt to respect you, and I only ask. I am a different woman, I have grown old, I am changed, you would not mind her coming now—I swear it. Lord F. has been very generous, and I want nothing but just one more look at my daughter. Let her come and see the Condesa di Valdestillas, that is the name I bear here, and shall bear to the end of my life. A foreign title covers whatever of eccentricity is left in
“Yours very sincerely,
“Lakshmi di Valdestillas.”
Nouna was crying quietly as she finished. She clung to her husband’s arm.
“Must I go?” she whispered.
“Oh, yes,” said George promptly. “She has always loved you, Nouna; I will write to tell her you are coming.”
“Oh, George, George,” panted the little creature in the same low voice, “I feel so wicked for not wanting to go! But all my heart has turned to you now, and I can’t get the old feeling back.”
He clasped his hands round her shoulders.
“But you will, Nounday, you will have just the feeling that is right when you see her all by herself, lonely, waiting for you whom she has always loved better than anything in the world.”
All the sting had now gone out of his feelings towards the creature who, with all her odd mixture of coarseness and refinement, corruption and generosity, had lived to see the very virtues she had fostered in her child turn against her in the loneliness of her premature age. For George had learnt from Lord Florencecourt, who ran down to Plymouth two or three times to see him and Nouna, to whom he was beginning to be reconciled, that Chloris White had indeed retired from her old life, broken up and suddenly middle-aged, and had fixed her retreat in the pretty old city of Bath, where she lived safe from recognition in a colony of what the Colonel irreverently called “old tabbies,” feeling neither contrition for the past nor discontent with the present, and passing her time, with a serenity born of dulled faculties and worn-out energies, in petty charities and petty scandal.
Two days after the receipt of the letter George arrived with Nouna in Bath, left her at the door of her mother’s residence, a small, well-kept house in a quiet street, and walked up and down outside until she should rejoin him. When she reappeared at the door she was very serious, and she beckoned him to come up the steps to her.
“Mamma wishes—to say—good-bye to you,” she said in a tremulous voice.
Standing aside she let George see a bent figure, dressed in black, with greyish hair, and a wan dark face, who raised her great black burning eyes, but not with the old boldness, to his face. He took his hat off, and held out his hand. The lean little dark fingers she put into his were shaking.
“Good-bye, Mr. Lauriston. I shall not see you again. It has made me happy to see you. Remember when you think of me that I had no chance—from the beginning. But I kept my child pure, and so God sent you to her. I dare not bless you, but I thank you; if I were better I would pray for you. Good-night. Good-bye.”
The long evening shadows were creeping over the quiet streets, as George and his wife, walking slowly away, caught the final glimpse of a pale, drawn face, and great eyes like flaming fires, straining in the gloom for a last look at them. Nouna was very quiet, but she was much happier than she had been in coming.
“George,” she said in a low voice, “I can think about her and love her now just as I used to do. When may I see her again? She would not tell me.”
And George could not tell her either, though he gave her a ready assurance that she should come whenever she was summoned; for he had a shrewd suspicion that, in spite of Lord Florencecourt’s belief that she was happy and contented, the restless spirit of the reputed Countess was untamed still, and chafed in secret under the new bonds of broken health, changed habits, and disappointed ambition. Two days later this suspicion was confirmed, when he received the tidings, conveyed to him only, of the sudden end of the Condesa di Valdestillas, who had been found dead in her bed from an overdose of a sleeping-draught. But as she left a sealed letter for George with instructions to keep the news of her death from her daughter until Nouna was stronger, full of passionate thanks to him, and equally passionate regrets that she might not leave what she possessed to her child, he was not deceived, though he was the only person who ever knew the secret.
Poor Sundran, who was with her mistress to the last, implored George, who went at once to Bath on learning the tidings, to let her come back to her darling Missee Nouna. And as he was sure enough now of his influence over his wife no longer to dread that of the black woman, he promised that, at no distant time, she should return to her service.
On hearing that the “Condesa di Valdestillas” was dead, Lord Florencecourt, finally relieved from his fears, openly acknowledged Nouna as his daughter “by a former wife,” as indeed poor Chloris, thinking over the position of affairs on the eve of her first and last attempt at reparation, had foreseen that he would do, and settled a handsome allowance upon her. He came down to Plymouth in the last week of May to make this determination known to his son-in-law. He was accompanied by his niece Ella, who was in a state of strong but subdued excitement, but who gave no reason which her uncle could consider adequate for her entreaty that she might thus leave London for a few days in the height of the gaieties of the season.
On their arrival in Plymouth, Ella chose to remain alone at the hotel while the Colonel went to call upon the Lauristons. He thought this decision very extraordinary; but on his return a light came to him; for in the sitting-room, standing close by his niece’s side, and bending over her to speak with a passionate earnestness which seemed to infect the usually self-contained girl, was Clarence Massey. They both started guiltily on Lord Florencecourt’s entrance, and Clarence shook with nervousness as he greeted him. Ella rushed at her uncle, and asked about the health of the invalids with great vivacity and interest.
“What were you talking about when I came in?” asked the Colonel bluntly, when he had informed her that George and Nouna were neither better nor worse than they had been three weeks ago.
“We were talking about them—about the Lauristons,” answered Ella.
And Clarence echoed her words. The Colonel looked from the one to the other incredulously. His niece seized both his hands impulsively, with a light-hearted laugh.
“We must tell you—it’s a great secret, but it’s coming out now, and you shall be the first to hear it,” said she.
Then she made him sit down, and told him, rather breathlessly, a long story, to which Clarence played Chorus, and to which the Colonel listened with amazement, admiration, and something like consternation too.
“And who’s to pay for it all?” he asked at last in bewilderment.
“Oh, we’ve arranged all that,” said Ella airily.
Again Clarence echoed, “We’ve arranged all that.”
And this astonishing unanimity naturally led Lord Florencecourt to a conclusion the expression of which would have filled Ella with the loftiest indignation. In the meantime, having been informed of the plot, he was pressed into the service of the conspirators, and that evening, when it had grown dark, they all three went to the house where the Lauristons were staying, and the Colonel entered, leaving the two young people to walk up and down outside in a state of breathless expectancy.
“Break it gently!” was Ella’s last injunction as he left them.
Lord Florencecourt found his way up stairs to his son-in-law’s sitting-room in a state of great nervousness. He found George and Nouna, pale, thin, and languid as ever, the former sitting at the table, writing, while his tiny wife, curled up on the sofa with a large ball of wool, some long wooden pins, and a small, misshapen piece of work which was the result of many evenings’ labour, flattered herself that she was knitting. They were both surprised by this second visit from the Colonel, and by the fact that now he had come he seemed to have nothing to say.
“What are you doing?” he asked Nouna at last.
“I’m making George a comforter,” she answered proudly. “I can’t be idle while my husband’s at work.”
“Well, it keeps you quiet at any rate,” he observed injudiciously, a glance at the comforter having convinced him that if ever it should be finished and worn it would belie its name. The Colonel fidgeted for a few moments, and the young people began to assume an attitude of expectancy, perceiving that something was to come of this unusual restlessness. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to leave Plymouth—to go anywhere—to—India, for instance,” he blurted out at last.
Nouna sprang up with a cry, a great light in her eyes. George’s face flushed; he crossed the room and came to support his wife, who was tottering.
“Why does he say it? why does he say it? It can’t be true, oh, it can’t be true!” sobbed she, burying her face in his breast.
“What does it mean, Colonel? Are you serious?” asked George in a hoarse voice.
He hated England just now, sore and beaten down as he still felt, but he had felt that to run away from it was cowardly, even if he had been able to afford it. This suggestion of change for himself and joy for Nouna therefore came upon his heart like a ray of bright light in the dead grey level of their languid lives.
“Make all your preparations to-night,” said the Colonel, “for you will have to start to-morrow.”
And, as if afraid of committing himself by any explanation, he left the room, and darted out of the house like a lad before they had time to stop him. In the street Ella and Clarence met him, full of excitement.
“Well?” said they at the same time, both quivering with excitement.
“It’s all right. I told them—just enough and no more. I said it rather suddenly perhaps, but I was afraid they’d ask questions. They’re to be ready to start to-morrow, I said. You couldn’t have managed better yourself, Ella. They were delighted, absolutely delighted.”
The Colonel was right. To these two beings, whose hearts and minds were still scarcely as convalescent as their bodies after the trials of the preceding few months, the suggestion of this great change came as the grant of a new bright life to them. Nouna, in particular, was half crazy with delight, and seemed to recover in a moment all her lost vivacity, as she babbled of palms and sunshine, palaces with stately domes and graceful minarets, of elephants with rich trappings, birds with bright plumage, and dark depths of jungle where the tiger was known to lurk, and where every step was hedged with fascinating peril. That night she scarcely slept, and next morning, when Lord Florencecourt again made his appearance, accompanied this time by Ella, he was quite bewildered by the change in his daughter’s looks. Ella herself, although very quiet, was almost as much excited, as she asked whether they were ready. George, with dull masculine pertinacity, worried everybody by asking for details of the journey for which they had so hastily prepared; but at last perceiving, by the evasive answers he got, that some surprise was intended, he was in the end content to hold his tongue, and to wait patiently till the proper time should bring enlightenment. Arrangements had been made, they were told, for the transport of their luggage, and they had nothing to do but to start in the company of Ella and the Colonel. They set out on foot, which was one astonishing thing, and they were taken in the direction of the Hoe, which was another. It was a beautiful, bright May morning. From the seat by the camera obscura they all stood for a moment, looking down at the water, when suddenly Nouna burst forth into a cry of admiration at the sight of a beautiful yacht which was anchored half-way between the shore and Drake’s Island.
“When did it come?” she cried with much interest. “It wasn’t here yesterday. What a beautiful little thing!”
“Little thing!” cried Lord Florencecourt, with untimely impetuosity. “Why it’s 150 tons; big enough to go round the world in!”
Then an awkward silence fell upon everybody, for, vulgarly speaking, the cat was out of the bag. And the conversation was kept up with difficulty until, descending the cliff, they all came to the little landing-pier, where a small boat was waiting with Clarence Massey standing up in it, waving his hat frantically and beaming with unspeakable enthusiasm. Neither George nor Nouna asked any questions now; and they all got into the little boat in a state of surprising silence, and were rowed straight out towards the beautiful yacht without anybody’s remarking upon the strangeness of the circumstance. But as they drew near her, Nouna caught sight of the name, painted in bright gold letters on the stern—“Scheherazade.” She touched her husband’s arm, and made him read it too. Before he could speak, they were close under the yacht, and Lord Florencecourt was leading the way on board. Nouna climbed up next like a cat, and the rest followed quickly.
Then Ella took the young wife by the hand, and, leaving the three men on the deck, led her on a tour of inspection. The yacht was a tiny floating palace, fitted up by the dainty taste of one woman to suit the luxurious fancy of another. The rooms were hung with rich tapestry, and with delicate China silks embroidered in gold and pale colours. The woodwork was painted with birds and flowers on a background of faint grey landscape. The bed-room was fitted up with satin-wood, and hung with rose-coloured silk; while in order that George might have a corner better suited to masculine taste in this dainty little craft, a very small room, dark with old oak and serviceable leather, had been appointed for him as a study. Every corner of the yacht held something beautiful and curious: skins of white bears, mounted in maroon velvet; carvings in ivory, securely fixed on dark brackets that showed off their lacelike outlines; treasures in bronze, in delicate porcelain, in exquisitely tinted glass from Salviati’s, met the eyes at every turn. The whole furnishing and fitting of the little vessel, down to the choice of silver-gilt teaspoons from Delhi and a lamp which was said to have been dug up at Pompeii, had clearly been a labour of love.
Nouna was overwhelmed; she walked along with her hand in Ella’s, scarcely uttering a sound, until at last she heard the words whispered in her ear: “This is a present for you—all for you, with my love. You are to make good use of it, and be very happy in it. No”—she stopped Nouna, who was breaking into tears, and incoherent, passionate thanks—“you may thank me when you and your husband both come sailing back strong and rosy and well.”
Nouna smiled at her with glistening eyes as she put her little hands round the girl’s shoulders.
“I can’t thank you, I can scarcely try. You were born to be a good fairy to everybody. Kiss me, kiss me hard, and give me some of your own sweetness that I may be a better wife.”
When they came on deck again they were both very quiet; and George, who had in the meantime learnt that this fairy yacht was a present to his wife, and also that, in common with the fairy presents of tradition, for a whole year at least it would entail no expense upon its owner, could do nothing but shake Ella’s hand warmly and murmur some incoherent words.
All the visitors on board now felt that their task was done. The luggage was on board, the steam was up, the hands were ready to hoist the anchors; and both George and Nouna showed signs of having suffered as much excitement as their still weak frames could bear. Lord Florencecourt, Ella and Clarence took their leave quickly, descended from the yacht into the little boat, and rowed away in the sunshine, while the young husband and wife waved them good-bye.
“Where are we going to, George?” asked Nouna, when the little boat had reached the pier, and the passengers were landed.
“Just where you like. You are its mistress, you know.”
She drew a long breath of pleasure.
“Tell the captain to go, as quickly as possible, to some place—nearer than India—where there are palms and blue skies, and bright birds.”
George obeyed, and, coming back, told her that they were going first to Malta. She was satisfied, considering that Valetta was a pretty name, and remembering she had heard the air was good for people with weak lungs.
“Yes, yes, let us go to Malta, George, and there you will get well,” said she.
And she drew him towards a pretty little pavilion which had been erected on the deck. The hanging curtains were crimson and gold, and could be looped back to command a view of the sea in any direction.
“Why didn’t Ella take me in there?” she said.
“Perhaps it contains some great treasure which she kept as a bonne bouche at the last,” suggested he, smiling.
Already she had an inkling of the truth, and when she tore back the nearest curtain and found, kneeling on the ground on a leopard’s skin among white silken cushions which were to support her young mistress’s head, the old servant Sundran trembling with joy, she gave way, and fell sobbing into the Indian woman’s arms.
“Oh, George, George,” she whispered passionately, springing up again to her husband’s side, “Ella must have an angel from heaven hovering about her to whisper to her just what will make people happiest! Aren’t you afraid of waking up and finding it isn’t real?”
“No, Nounday,” said he, tenderly, but with a thoughtful face; “I’d rather think that we have been in a dreary, feverish sleep, and that we are sent away to wake us up to life again!”
Ten minutes later the anchor was weighed, and they were steaming out towards the breakwater and the open sea.
Meanwhile Ella and Clarence had engaged a small, swift boat to row them across to the foot of Mount Edgecumbe Park; and climbing at a great pace up the steep road that skirts the walls, they got into the field below Maker Church to get a last glimpse of the yacht. They were in time to see clearly against the blue of sea and sky the bright-hued pavilion with its curtains thrown back, and a group of scarcely distinguishable figures underneath.
“Yes—yes, I can see them—I can see them, George and Nouna and Sundran, too!” said Clarence excitedly.
Ella was shorter-sighted, stamped her foot with impatience because she could not make them out, and was fain to be content with watching the yacht until it was a mere speck. At last she could scarcely see it, for her eyes grew dim with rising tears. Clarence had now time to feel angrily jealous of her interest in the vessel.
“Poor little girl! Poor little Nouna!” she said at last. “How white and worn she looks still, so different from the brilliant little creature who came to us at Maple Lodge!”
“Perhaps she will die and leave him free,” said Clarence rather bitterly.
But Ella’s expression changed to one of sincerest anxiety.
“Oh, no, indeed I hope she won’t! It would break his heart!” she said.
“I thought you considered her such an inappropriate wife for him?”
Ella reddened. She had thought so once, and she thought so no longer; but when and how her thoughts and feelings on the subject had changed, she hardly knew.
“It is very difficult to judge accurately in such matters. You see it’s impossible to deny that they’re passionately fond of each other, and you mustn’t judge of the chances of a marriage by the way it came about, you know.”
“No,” said Clarence, interested, “marriage is an odd thing.”
“Well,” said Ella brusquely, “we must be getting back now.”
“Won’t you wait till the yacht’s out of sight?”
Ella stopped and looked out to sea again, but she dug the end of her sunshade into the ground with nervous impatience.
“I’m so sorry it’s all over; we’ve had such a jolly time getting it all ready, haven’t we?” said he sentimentally.
“Oh, yes, well enough,” she answered rather crossly, feeling herself an unpleasant void at the heart which she feared might lead to some foolish exhibition of weakness.
“It was an interest in life, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, but there are plenty more left.”
“For you, yes, because you’re so good.”
“Nonsense, I’m no better than you might be if you liked. It was your money that did most of it, remember. I assure you I don’t forget the obligation.”
“Now, Ella, don’t be ridiculous. What do I care about the miserable money?”
“You’d care a great deal, if you were wise. A rich man who makes himself comparatively poor by the good things he does with his money is a fine fellow.”
Clarence cleared his throat two or three times, and began to shake violently.
“Do you—do you think, Ella,” he began at last huskily, “that you’d ever—care to—care to—make a fine fellow—of me?”
Ella turned sharply about and faced him.
“Can’t you do it for yourself?” she asked loftily.
Clarence shook his head.
“Now you know I can’t,” he pleaded gently. Then, as she made no answer, he looked out to sea again, and saw that the Scheherazade was dwindling to a little grey point on the horizon. “Now I’ll give you till the yacht is out of sight to make up your mind,” said he.
Then they both looked at the vanishing speck. The moments passed, and neither spoke, though they could hear and almost feel the beating of each other’s heart, and though each felt the silence to be desperately disconcerting.
“It’s gone!” said he.
“No, it isn’t!” cried she.
Both were growing intensely excited. Ella opened her eyes wider and wider, and strained them to the utmost. Clarence tried to speak, but she stopped him by thrusting out her hand right in front of him, holding her breath. He looked down at it for a couple of seconds, and then ventured to take it very gently in his right hand, and to put his left on her shoulder. When he had remained in this position for a few moments, she drew a long breath, and blinked her eyes violently.
“Don’t cry,” said Clarence soothingly, and he stooped and kissed her.
“I haven’t answered you,” she objected, raising her shoulder pettishly.
“Never mind that now. Let me comfort you, and you shall answer me by and by.”
But Ella still looked persistently out to sea.
“The yacht’s quite gone now,” she said in a disconsolate voice, “and with it your twenty thousand pounds. I suppose, from a strictly business point of view, I owe you some compensation.”
“Well, twenty thou is twenty thou,” said Clarence, whose spirits were rising.
Ella raised her hand to her chin reflectively, a little beam of mischief coming into her eyes.
“On the whole,” she said at last musingly, making no further objection to the encroachments of her companion’s arm, “considering that I’m the ugly duckling of the family, perhaps I might have made a worse bargain! And to tell you the truth, Clarence,” she added presently in a gentler voice, with a touch of shyness, when he had made her seal the contract with a kiss for each thousand, “if you had gone your way and I had gone mine after the way you behaved over that yacht, I—I should have missed you awfully!”
The sun was growing hot over the land and over the sea, and a dim white haze seemed to soften the line between blue sky and blue ocean, as they stood still side by side under the tower of old Maker Church, savouring of the strange sweetness of having crowned an old romance and laid the foundation of a new one with the fitting up of the yacht Scheherazade.
Away over the quiet sea the little yacht steamed, the red-gold evening sunlight bathing her decks and cresting with jewels each tiny wave in her track. Under the silken canopy of the little pavilion George was still sitting, with Nouna curled up asleep by his side; while the freshening breeze, which rustled in the heavily fringed curtains, blew straight in his face, bringing health and hope with its eager kiss, and sweeping away like noxious vapours the dark memories of the bygone winter. Ambition was stirring again within him, and a craving for hard work, that his faults and follies in the past might be atoned for by worthy achievement in the future. Lost in thought, he had for a moment forgotten the present, when a slight movement of her right arm, which lay across his own, brought his sleeping wife again to his recollection. Bending down with a softened expression in his eyes, he looked long at the tiny face, the sweeping black eye-lashes, and the full red lips, the mutinous curves of which gave him a warning he scarcely needed that, when once the depression of weak health was past, it might still need all his love for her and all her love for him to keep the little wilful creature within the due bounds of dignified matronhood. The “semblance of a soul,” as Rahas called it, had indeed peeped forth in her, and George Lauriston’s belief that “the influence of an honest man’s love was stronger than that of any mesmerist who ever hid pins,” had been amply justified; but Nouna was not, and never would be, the harmless domestic creature, absorbed in household duties, whom a husband can neglect or ignore with impunity. Such as she was, however, George was more than content that she should be, and the wavering young heart which had turned to him in the dark days he was determined by every loving and wise means to keep true to him in the brighter time.
And so, with good promise of a fair future, the sun went down in a golden haze on the calm sea, as the yacht still sped on for the warm lands of orange and palm.
THE END.