Leonie of the Jungle

by Joan Conquest

CHAPTER XXXII

"And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, a byword."—The Bible.

When Leonie returned to Calcutta she found that the tale of her courageous act which had preceded her, and of which home and local papers had exhausted themselves in praise, had not served to endear her to that little white community, which suffers from social myopia, and the self-adjusted chains of what it most mistakenly calls caste.

Not likely that the feminine members of Jute, military, railway, or law circles would open their arms any wider to this young, and beautiful, widowed creature with the mop of naturally curling hair, now that, if so minded, she could verbally and positively flap one of the finest tiger skins that had ever come out of Bengal in their heat-stricken faces.

In fact some of the young ones as they wrestled with the nightly problem of their own dank, straight particular bit of woman's glory, would doubtless, if questioned, have upheld the Hindu custom of completely shaving the widowed head.

Many, in fact, had been the meetings of these younger mem-sahibs in bungalows, or flats, at Firpoes, or in clubs, where, under the pretext of criticising the latest fashions from overseas, they discussed the pros and cons of accepting this person into the haven of their Anglo-Indian bosom.

The elder ones kept out of the clatter, having suffered and fought in similar crises in their own day as had their mothers, and their mothers' mothers before them since the days before the mutiny; being moreover resigned to the corrugated appearance of their faces, and the, in consequence, perambulatory instincts of their lords.

"Her undies," said a woman who, with the excuse of borrowing a book, had essayed to spy out the land of Leonie's cabin. "I saw her running ribbons in them—the most ex-quisite crêpe de Chine, hand embroidered and trimmed with real lace!"

"How de trop!" had answered a matron, whose household linge and personal lingerie showed complete only in the sections of finger napkins and undervests, as is the way of a careless, untidy woman's linen stock.

"Well, that's easily understood," chimed in a third. "After all she is trade."

And the no's had carried it.

Wherefore, although in ignorance of the verdict, she did exactly what every other woman did, and went where they went, she most certainly did not have what one would call a good time. She loved the Maidan and golf at the Jodhpur Club, or Tollygunge, before breakfast; she cordially loathed shopping and duty calls; grudged the hours lost out of life in the daily afternoon siesta, and took part in dances, bridge, dinners, and all the usual monotonous effort to kill time, with the air of an indifferent, disgruntled statue.

Gossip was no joy to her, scandal she would not tolerate, and the women commenced the task of ostracism by means of half-uttered phrases and little invidious smiles; and most men voted her odd owing to a certain indescribable barrier which they invariably encountered when they approached her over impulsively, and which really did not tally with her enticing, bizarre beauty.

Yes! they voted her odd, certainly, but in the secret places of their hearts and bungalows some of them would ponder.

Had not the major sahib's bearer curled himself up on the mat beneath the bed and gone to sleep, while the major sahib, after the ball, had sat in his shirt-sleeves upon that bed until three in the morning; and over and over again mentally slid up and down the room with supple, slender Leonie in his arms, where, in the earlier hours of the night, she had rested seemingly content for one half-second before he had let her go under the palms.

And, "Damn it all, she's not a flirt," did not a certain youthful sahib who worshipped openly at her shrine exclaim, as he thought, in the unpleasantly heated watches of the night, of that moment when she had smiled down sweetly into his adoring eyes, as his cheek brushed her hand while she was arranging her habit, and he her stirrup leather.

How were they to know that, distracted by an ever-increasing fear, and lost in an overwhelming love, Leonie had no more remembrance than the man in the moon of the fact that she had danced with the one, and smiled upon the other.

It was the final flare of the season in the shape of a ball at Government House; one of those mixed massed gatherings to which you are invited either on account of your rank, or your unblemished reputation, or the fact that you've had the forethought to inscribe your name in the visiting-book.

Leonie was standing with Jan Cuxson near an open door under a revolving fan which disturbed the outer masses of the hair she had piled haphazard upon the top of her small head, catching the great coils together with huge pins, and strengthening the entire structure by means of a finely wrought, diamond-hilted steel dagger, looted in the Mutiny by a not over-punctilious forbear.

"I wonder you don't cut your hair to bits," had once remarked before a multitude, an envious dame, whose curls reposed cosily in a box o' nights, and who had grave doubts as to the sincerity of Leonie's tawny locks.

"I run it through in its sheath," Leonie had replied, pulling the sheathed dagger out as she spoke, so that her hair had fallen in a jumbled scented mantle all over her, causing the men to put their hands in their pockets, or behind their backs, and the women to mechanically pat their heads; just as you fidget unconsciously with your veil, or the curls above your ear, when someone of your own sex, and far better turned-out, happens upon your horizon.

On this night her absurdly small feet made her head look almost top heavy, just as the uncorseted small waist emphasised the width of her shoulders, and the violet shadows enlarged the opalescent weird eyes looking wearily on the scene around her.

Why didn't she go back to England if she hated it all so much?

Because she couldn't! Because India held her and she waited upon Fate as patiently as ever did Mr. Micawber.

"Lady Hickle ought to go to the hills, she's looking absolutely fagged!"

The male voice drifted in through the window upon a pause in the music.

"Well! continuous sleep-walking's not likely to make you look your best, is it?"

The damnable giggle at the end of the remark brought a frown to Jan Cuxson's face as he picked up somebody's wrap from a chair, put it round Leonie and led her unresistingly down the steps into the grounds.

It sounds better to say "grounds" rather than "compound" when speaking of Government House.

"I—I hate all this," Leonie said impulsively as she sat down on a marble seat. "I hate India—I—I——"

She flung her head back, and it came to rest upon the man's shoulder, and she shivered ever so lightly when he pressed it still further back, pinioning her arms so that she could not move.

"Leonie."

The sudden authority in the voice brought a light to the eyes on a level with his mouth; she moved unconsciously, and Cuxson suddenly letting her go caught both her hands in one of his, pulled her round sideways, and jerked them up to his chin, and she laughed softly as she fell slightly forward; and laughed even more softly when he crushed her back again against him with his hands upon her breast.

Both heedless in their love of the eyes watching, of the hidden form, and above all of that relentless will which causes some of us uncontrollably to do odd things at odd moments under the Indian stars.

If only he had not hesitated, if only he had turned the face to him then and there and closed the gold-flecked eyes with kisses.

But instead he held her crushed to the point of agony against him with his mouth upon the sweetness of her neck, leaving the gold-flecked eyes to open wider, and still wider as they stared straight into the shrubbery around, where the flaming poinsettia flowers looked black under the stars.

"Beloved! Leonie, listen——"

"Don't! please don't!"

She pulled herself free and knelt on one knee upon the bench, with both hands outstretched against him; and he, not grasping the psychological points of the moment, sat down dumbly beside her, instead of mastering her physically, or mentally on the spot as it behoved him to do.

Heavens! what fools some men can be with that jungle animal woman within their hands.

"Leonie, listen dear, I want you to marry me, dear—soon!"

The words fell upon Leonie's clamouring soul as dismally as the raindrops of your childhood fell upon the window-pane when you were waiting to start for a picnic.

"You don't know what you are saying!" she replied. "It is criminal even to think of such a thing—mad as I believe I am—mad as I shall be when I end in a padded room!"

Her voice was barely a whisper, but it cut like slate on slate, and her eyes stared straight ahead as she continued speaking rapidly, almost uncontrollably, and yet with a certain air of relief as though glad to give vent in words to the horror which pressed upon her brain.

"Although you pretend it is only sleep-walking," she went on, heedless of his efforts to interrupt her, "you know perfectly well there is something wrong with me. You know it, so did your father, so does Auntie, people here are whispering it. Yes! they are, they are," she reiterated, "and they are right. Something more than just being frightened by my ayah happened to me in India all those years ago, oh! you know it did, I'm under a spell or bewitched—sometimes I have a—a—" she struck her forehead with her open hand as she crouched back upon the bench like some animal at bay—"a—oh! my God—you see—I cannot even say what it is. Can't you tell me, Jan? Can't you help me? You—you say you love me—you say you have found a clue—for pity's sake follow it, follow it and save me—you—you——"

"Leonie, look at me!"

Something in his voice forced her to look at him, and her eyes shone like flat pieces of opalescent glass so contracted were the pupils, but they widened even as she looked into the steadfast grey eyes, and her mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile.

Good heavens, why didn't he take her in his arms and smother her up against his heart, or put a bag over her head, or failing the bag, put his hand before her eyes?

What fools some men can be with the woman they love within their reach.

But instead he left her, hurt and humiliated and desolate, to sit half crouched by herself, whilst her eyes, against all striving, slowly veered round to the shrub.

He held her hand, it is true, whilst he talked, but what good is that to a frightened woman whose heart is crying for protection, and whose body is clamouring to be forced into submission?

"Dear," he said as Leonie stared at the poinsettia bush, "I am on the track at last, and in a very little time shall know exactly what happened to you all those years ago. There is only one link missing, and that I shall surely find, as I find everything when I set my mind to it. Then the whole thing will be cleared up, and this mysterious cloud lifted from you. Look at me, dear!" Leonie turned and looked at him blankly, and as he continued speaking, slowly, and as though against her will, turned her eyes back to the poinsettia bush. "I want you now in your distress. I want you in the storm as well as in the sunshine, dear; I love to see you smile, it would be heaven to make you smile. Marry me, beloved, now. Dear, won't you? Let me lift the cloud from my wife. Oh! Leonie, think of it—my wife!"

Leonie answered mechanically, as though she were repeating a lesson and had not heard one word of the man's pleading.

"What have you found out? And what is missing?"

"I have found the woman who was your ayah."

Leonie pulled her hands away, and pushing the hair off her forehead, sat quite still listening, but not hearing the music as it floated through the night air, watching without seeing the couples as they strolled about the grounds.

And then she answered, but without any real interest, although very distinctly, shivering slightly as the man put the wrap over her bare shoulders.

"Have you? And who is she, really? Of course I know her name—but—but what do you know about her? I have had no answer to my letters since I've been out here, is the poor thing still working?"

"She's—not exactly working for a living, dear, and she is—is——"

He stopped short with a world of perplexity in his eyes, then went on as slowly and mechanically as Leonie had done.

"Perhaps, dear, I—I had—better not say any more until—until I have everything quite clear."

And he drew his hand sharply across his eyes as Leonie sighed.

"Very well!" she replied gently. "Just as you think best."

"Tell me you love me, Leonie, let me be sure of that, let me just hear you say it once."

She put out both her hands, and he took them and kissed them.

"Dear, do you count me as so little? Don't you know, cannot you feel that a love like mine endures for ever?"

"Do you still want the little white house behind the white wall—Leonie, do you!"

"Oh! Jan!"

"Well, marry me—marry me, beloved, and give me the right to protect you—from trouble, and these slanderous, murderous tongues."

Leonie's face was lovely to behold, swept by a wave of colour, and with eyes like stars; but she shook her head although a little smile parted the crimson mouth.

"No! Jan! Nothing will make me change. Not until we know and until I am cured. Do you think I would risk our love, and our happiness? I shall never, never marry you as long as I have this—this longing to—this desire to—to—oh! what is it. Find out what has happened to me, find out what I do when I walk in my sleep—just how mad I am, and if the madness can be cured, and if it can, then I will—will——"

"Yes, dear?"

"I will—will——!"

It was no pretty sight to watch her striving to speak, her mouth opening and shutting without sound, her hands against her throat.

Then she looked at him suddenly, smiling sweetly, and put both hands in his, while he, sick with pain and unconfessed fear, changed the conversation abruptly by the grace of understanding.

"I think you ought to go away, Leonie—to the hills—for a change.
It's getting frightfully hot, why don't you?"

"Yes!—I might—I think I will—I'm so tired of everything—so very—very tired!"

"Where to, dear?"

Leonie bent her head a little sideways as though listening, made a strange little movement with both her hands, then placed the open palms against her forehead and replied:

"To Benares!"

She had barely whispered the words, so quietly did she speak, as the poinsettia flowers bent slightly—to a passing breeze—may be!