CHAPTER XXIV.
A few weeks had elapsed since Alfred Rayner had spurned the searchlight which might have shown him some of the plague spots of his own heart. They had proved very trying weeks in the house in Clive's Road. Hester was striving to be tactful and tender, but her husband's wayward outbursts of temper made things very hard for her, and even outsiders began to mark the change in her looks.
"The Madras climate is already beginning to tell on Mrs. Rayner! Her bloom has been short-lived, but I expect she will soon be carried off to the hills and get her good looks restored at Ooty," were the remarks passed from lip to lip, but none divined the true cause of the young wife's weary mien.
In official circles the yearly migration to the hills had already begun. The Governor and his suite had departed, and the constant succession of gaieties were over for the season. This indeed proved a relief to Hester, but it threw her husband more on his own resources, which was threatening to prove disastrous. He now habitually lounged at the Club and frequented card-playing resorts, returning late, often morose and self-accusing. His moods, whatever they were, always reacted on his wife, who was indeed learning patience through suffering.
One evening, however, he came home with an air of buoyancy which was now very unusual to him. He had hardly alighted from his mail-phaeton when he hurried to Hester, saying eagerly:
"I've got a project to unfold, my dear! What do you say to a jaunt to Calcutta? You're looking pale. It is warming up here in this southern hole. Three days at sea will do you a world of good, not to speak of a jolly holiday in Calcutta!"
"But, Alfred, this is surely all very sudden! Are you really thinking of a voyage all the way to Calcutta?" faltered Hester, whose breath was almost taken away by her husband's eagerness.
"Of course I am, and do you suppose I'd leave you all alone here? The trip will do you ever so much good—break the monotony that creeps over one like a fungus in this humdrum place. I've just written to accept Melford's invitation, so there's no drawing back now. You remember he brought out his bride the steamer after ours? It's some weeks since he wrote asking us to pay them a visit. It didn't seem to me possible then, but I've made up my mind to take the step now. The truth is, I have a desire to interview the reigning partner of my father's old firm, Truelove Brothers. My allowance comes to me with exemplary regularity, it is true, but it may be they owe me a much larger sum than I get. At all events, being a minor no longer, it's high time I should be investigating these matters for myself. So pack up, my darling, and let's have a second honeymoon on the ocean's breast!"
The proposal had many attractions for Hester. Not that she resented the alleged monotony of life on the plains of India as some around her were continually complaining they did, but truly there had been a monotony of jars and frets in her intercourse with her husband of late, and she longed to break the cruel spell. He was looking ill and haggard, perhaps the change of scene and the contact with old acquaintances might help him; and she also looked forward to seeing the great city with its historical associations.