CHAPTER XVI
CORNERED
When Joyce made her final plea to be sent home to her people without waiting for the spring, it met with little opposition. Meredith had come to the point of almost welcoming a break in the impossible deadlock at which his domestic life had arrived. His beloved one's nerves had broken down from one cause and another, and she was drifting into the habits of a confirmed invalid. If he did not let her go, he would, perhaps, have to stand aside and watch her increasing intimacy with the doctor whom he could not challenge without creating a disgusting scandal; which would make life in Bengal intolerable for himself as well as for her. So he agreed to her departure with the child in the hope that "absence would make her heart grow fonder," and that she would come back to him, restored, when the cold season returned and made life in India not only tolerable, but pleasant.
Hurried arrangements were put through, a passage secured, and Joyce roused herself to bid her friends a formal farewell.
At the Brights', only Honor was at home, her mother having driven to the bazaar for muslin to make new curtains. Christmas was approaching and a general "spring cleaning" was in full swing in order that everything should look fresh for the season.
"It is the greatest day in the year, and even the natives expect us to honour it. Our festival, you know," Honor explained.
"It always looks so odd to have to celebrate Christmas with a warm sun shining and all the trees in full leaf!" said Joyce. "That is why it never feels Christmas to me. I miss the home aspect,—frost and snow, and landscapes bleak and bare."
"The advantage lies with us. We can calculate on the weather with confidence, and it is so much more comfortable to feel warm. And then everything looks so bright!"
"I am glad you like it since you have to stay. I hate India more than ever."