The Jungle Girl

by Gordon Casserly

She never acknowledged to herself that any gratitude or loyalty was due from her to her husband. On the contrary she felt that she owed him, as well as Fate, a grudge. She was young, warmblooded, of a passionate temperament, yet she found herself wedded to a man who apparently needed a housekeeper, not a wife. Her husband did not appear to realise that a woman is not essentially different to a man, that she has feelings, desires, passions, just as he has—although by a polite fiction the prudish Anglo-Saxon races seem to agree to regard her as of a more spiritual, more ethereal and less earthly a nature. Yet it is only a fiction after all. Violet was a living woman, a creature of flesh and blood who was not content to be a chattel, a household ornament, a piece of furniture. It was not to be wondered at that she longed to enter into woman's kingdom, to exercise the power of her sex to sway the other and to experience the thrill of the realisation of that power. Often in her loneliness she pined to see eyes she loved look with love into hers. She was not a marble statue. It was but natural that she should long for Love, a lover, the clasp of strong arms, the pressure of a man's broad chest against her bosom, the feel of burning kisses on her lips, the glorious surrender of her whole being to some adored one to whom she was the universe, who lived but for her.

Now for the first time in her life her errant dreams took concrete shape. At last she began to feel the companionship of a particular man necessary for her happiness. She had never before realised the pleasure, the joy, to be derived from the presence of one of the opposite sex who was in sympathy, in perfect harmony with her nature.

In her lonely hours—and they were many—she thought constantly of Wargrave; his face was ever before her, his voice sounding in her ears. She usually saw her husband—absorbed in his work and studies—only at meals; and as she looked across the table at him then she could not help contrasting the heavy, unattractive man sitting silent, usually reading a book while he ate, with the good-looking, laughter-loving playfellow who had come into her life. She learned to day-dream of Wargrave, to watch for his coming and hate his going, to enjoy every moment of his presence. He had brought a new interest into her hitherto purposeless life, the life that he had preserved and that consequently seemed to belong to him. New feelings awakened in her. The world was a brighter, happier place than it had been. It pleased her to realise what it all meant, to know that the novel sensations, the fluttering hopes and fears, the strange, delightful thrills, were all symptoms of that longed-for malady that comes sooner or later to all women. She knew at last that she loved Wargrave and gloried in the knowledge. And she never doubted that he loved her in return.

Did he? It was hard to tell. To a man the thought of Love in the abstract seldom occurs; and the realisation of the concrete fact that he is in love with some particular woman generally comes somewhat as a shock. He is by nature a lover of freedom and in theory at least resents fetters, even silken ones. And Wargrave had never thought of analysing his feelings towards Violet. He was not a professional amorist and, although not a puritan, would never set himself deliberately to make love to a married woman under her husband's roof. He was fond of Mrs. Norton—as a sister, he thought. She was a delightful friend, a real pal, so understanding, so companionable, he said to himself frequently. It had not occurred to him that his feelings for her might be love. He had often before been on terms of friendship with women, married and single; but none of them had ever attracted him as much as she did. He had never felt any desire to be married; domesticity did not appeal to him. But now, as he watched Violet moving about her drawing-room or playing to him, he found himself thinking that it would be pleasant to return to his bungalow from parade and find a pretty little wife waiting to greet him with a smile and a kiss—and the wife of his dreams always had Violet's face, wore smart well-cut frocks like Violet's, and showed just such shapely, silken-clad legs and ankles and such small feet in dainty, silver-buckled, high-heeled shoes. And he thought with an inward groan that such a luxury was not for a debt-ridden subaltern like him, that his heavily-mortgaged pay would not run to expensive gowns, silk stockings and costly footwear.

Yet it never occurred to him that Violet cared for him nor did it enter his mind to try to win her love. But he felt that he would do much to make her happy, that saving her life made him in a way responsible for it in future; and he knew that she was not a contented woman. His sympathy went out to her for what he guessed she must suffer from her ill-assorted union.

But soon he had no need to surmise it; for before long Violet began to confide all her sorrows to him and the recital made his heart bleed for one so young and beautiful mated to a selfish wretch who was as blind to her suffering as he was to her charm. The younger man's chivalry was up in arms, and he felt that such a boor did not deserve so bright a jewel. At times Frank was tempted to confront the callous husband and force him to open his dulled eyes to the bravely-borne misery of his neglected wife and realise how fortunate he ought to consider himself in being the owner of such a transcendent being. But the next moment the infatuated youth was convinced that Norton was incapable of appreciating so rare a woman, that only a nature like his own could understand or do full justice to the perfections of hers. Such is a young man's conceit. He rejoiced to know that his poor sympathy could help in a measure to make up to Violet for the happiness that she declared that she had missed in life. And so he gladly consented to play the consoler; and she, for the pleasure of being consoled, continued to pour out her griefs to him.

But if Frank was unconscious of the danger of his post as sympathising confidant to another man's young and pretty wife, others were not. Her husband, of course, was as blind as most husbands seem to be in Anglo-Indian society. For in that land of the Household of Three, the Eternal Triangle, it is almost a recognised principle that every married woman who is at all attractive is entitled to have one particular bachelor always in close attendance on her, to be constantly at her beck and call, to ride with her, to drive her every afternoon to tennis or golf or watch polo, then on to the Club and sit with her there. His duty, a pleasant one, no doubt, is to cheer up her otherwise solitary dinner in her bungalow on the nights when her neglectful husband is dining out en garçon. No cavaliere servente of Old Italy ever had so busy a time as the Tame Cat of the India of to-day. And the husband allows it, nay seems, as Major Norton did, to hail his presence with relief, as it eases the conscience of the selfish lord and master who leaves his spouse much alone.

But if the Resident saw no harm or danger in the young officer constantly seeking the society of his pretty wife others did. At first Frank's well-wishers tried to hint to him that there was likelihood of his friendship with her being misunderstood. But he laughed at Raymond's badly-expressed warning and rather resented Major Hepburn's kindly advice when on one occasion his Company Commander spoke plainly, though tactfully, to him on the subject. Then Violet's enemies took a hand in the game. Mrs. Trevor, having failed to decoy him to her bungalow for what she called "a quiet tea and a motherly little chat," cornered him one afternoon when he was on his way to the Residency and spoke very openly to him of the risk he ran of being entangled in the coils of such an outrageous coquette as "that Mrs. Norton," as she termed her. Frank was so indignant at her abuse of his friend that for the first time in his life he was rude to a woman and snubbed Mrs. Trevor so severely that she went in a rage to her husband and insisted on his taking immediate steps to arrest the progress of a scandal that, she declared, would attract the unfavourable attention of the higher military authorities to the regiment.

"Do you realise, William, that you will be the one to suffer?" said the angry woman. "If anything happens, if Major Norton complains, if that shameless creature succeeds in making that foolish young man run away with her, you will be blamed. You can't afford it. You know that the General's confidential report on you last year was not too favourable."

"It wasn't really bad, my dear; it only hinted that I lacked decision," pleaded the hen-pecked man.