As soon as she had closed and carefully bolted the door on Pussy's pretty entreating face, Verona turned down the smoky lamp and sat for a considerable time in the dark, alone with her own thoughts. Presently these thoughts became so terrible—so unbearably painful, like some intense physical agony, that she rose, unfastened the window and wandered into the verandah and down a path by the bank of the river. The river was wide and swift, being swollen by the recent rains; on the further side it was bordered by a high jungle of reeds and rushes, and beyond it, as seen through a filmy veil of gauze, lay the spreading moonlit plain which seemed to stretch away into the infinite, which was also India! Behind rose the bungalow, large and straggling: on the left towered the factory; to the right lay the office, with the light still burning in the window. Verona noticed these details as she paced the pathway, flitting to and fro like some distracted spirit on the banks of the Styx; and was she not a creature suddenly transported to an unknown world? She was no longer Verona Chandos, who had fared delicately all her life, who had a carefully cultivated taste in music and literature, definite ideas respecting bindings and coloured prints, who collected book plates, was discriminating in her choice of associates, dainty in her tastes, a much-desired partner for golf, bridge or cotillon, a girl who had found her world a pleasant place to live in, and had tried to share with others some of the sunshine which had fallen to her lot. And she was not a bad girl—though she might have been better; was inclined to be quick-tempered and a little supercilious, but she had endeavoured to be sincere, to be kind to the sick and poor, and to champion dumb animals. Well, that Verona was dead; she had passed away for ever, with all her little vanities and tempers and love of pretty clothes and interesting pursuits.
And here was the other, the real original Verona, a poor half-caste, whose life and thoughts must be confined to the limits of her parents' purse and wishes, who must keep in step with her two sisters and look for nothing beyond the horizon of her home. And what had she in common with her relations? Nothing beyond the mere fact of her existence and name. Apparently their aim in life was to climb into station society; and her aim in life?—what was her dearest wish at the present moment? Her dearest wish—she scarcely dared whisper it even to her inner soul. Verona was making acquaintance with the truth, the hideous, hard-hearted truth, and her thoughts were so disordered that she did not realise what time of night it was, or even that it was night! But at last her tired body refused to co-operate with her restless mind, and completely exhausted, she was compelled to drag herself to her bed—where sleep immediately claimed her.
Though dreams visited the worn-out traveller, her slumbers were almost as profound as if she had really passed away. Once she awoke in the still night; the moon streamed full into the room; there was a faint sound of flowing water. Where was she? Her drowsy brain failed to recall the great events of yesterday.
Suddenly a strange, weird sound pierced the silence, the wild, horrible howl of a pack of hunting jackals as they swept across the plain beyond the river, and for a frantic moment the wretched girl believed herself to be listening, in some dim region, to the agonised wailing of lost souls.
But no; it was only a hideous nightmare! She turned on her side with a sigh of relief, and again relapsed into slumber.
In the morning when Verona opened her eyes, it was to gaze vacantly about her. She was at a loss to remember how she came to be lying in this great bare room. Where was she? Was she in Spain, or some out-of-the-way French town? She strove to summon her scattered thoughts, and all too soon they came trooping back and assured her that she was at last at home—yes, in her real home, among her own people! She was sensible of a feeling of repulsion and absolute despair, and yet another self—which must have been her original baby self—cried shame on her for her hard heart and unnatural, wicked pride. Why should she be proud? She was nothing more nor less than a well-educated half-caste, who had been foolishly removed from her proper sphere, her own particular class. Her father—oh! why had he married a woman of such a race? Now, she understood his constrained manner, his ashamed silence and his downcast air, why he seemed to shun his former associates and to withdraw from society like some social outlaw. And she, who had never had one hint of her own origin, had acquired the ideas, refinements and prejudices of a high-bred English girl. What was to become of her?
She sat up in bed, holding her hands to her throbbing head, and endeavoured to individualise her relations. Her father—the broken-down gentleman, lethargic and dumb; her mother—she shrank from the subject as a flame; her sisters—uneducated, emotional, shrill; given to cheap scents and greasy sweetmeats; her grandmother—but one degree above the ayah; and her own good looks complacently attributed to an ancestress, a Temple girl who danced before the gods!
It all sounded like an Opéra Bouffe, a transformation scene of wild, topsy-turvy comedy, instead of which it was the sharp, agonising truth; no burlesque, but a heart-breaking tragedy—the tragedy of her life. How was she to endure this existence? What could she do? Where could she go? Where hide herself? For the first time in her existence, a longing for death surprised her.
There was a loud rattling and calling at the door, which she opened, to discover (as she half expected), Pussy, in a tattered pink dressing-jacket and bare feet, bringing her her morning Chotah Hazri. Here was an end to silence and self-communion; she must rouse herself, summon her self-command and confront her fate. Meanwhile a cup of fragrant Indian tea, some slices of curious grey bazaar bread and peculiarly white butter seemed delicious fare to a girl, who had scarcely tasted food for four-and-twenty hours.