Interference

Alas! This gay butterfly life was not permanent! Before six months had passed, Mrs. Holroyd had ceased to be the joy and delight of the station. Before a year had elapsed, she had figuratively thrust a torch into her own roof tree, and set Mangobad in a blaze.

The honeymoon had barely waned, before George Holroyd discovered that he was married to an insanely jealous woman, with an ungovernable temper, and an untrammelled tongue. He had seen her tear an ill-fitting dress to shreds with the gestures of a maniac, he had seen her strike her ayah, and stamp at himself. True, she had subsequently offered a rupee to the ayah, and sobs and apologies to him, and that these outbreaks were always followed by scenes almost equally trying—fits of hysterical remorse, but the future looked gloomy, very gloomy. Belle was not in love with her husband, brave, handsome, and honest as he was. She would have (privately) jeered at the idea. She had a vague notion that she had been in love once—years ago—that she was constant to “a memory”—a gross mental deception; her first love was with her still, and confronted her daily in the glass. Were the choice given her to be torn from her husband or “Mossoo,” it would not have been “Mossoo.” But he was a good-looking, presentable appendage, whose polo playing and hurdle racing reflected credit on herself. Since his marriage he had given up tennis and dancing, and to this she made no objection, for it kept him somewhat aloof from ladies’ society. She could not endure to see him speaking to another young woman. She, herself, was to be admired by all; he was to admire no one.

As for George, he was woefully changed; he had become silent, solitary, and perhaps a little cynical. He had done his utmost to be a good husband to Belle, believing, in his folly, that she had been desperately in love with him, but he was soon disabused of this error. When at home, Belle was generally recruiting her exhausted powers; she read, and yawned, but rarely talked; and, when abroad, she never noticed her husband save to make jokes at his expense, and to send him on her errands. Many a day when he returned from barracks, fagged and weary, he found the bird flown, the nest empty, and the bird’s absence a relief. “Mem Sahib bahar gaya.” The Mem Sahib was much too nervous to ride; she did not care for driving along monotonous roads, that led nowhere in particular. The splendid sunsets, the waving fields of yellow rice and millet, the majestic clumps of forest trees and picturesque rivers, with the cattle swimming homewards at sunset, had no charms for her, nor the dazzling flight of green parrots, nor the teak trees’ feathery flowers—nor the tête-à-tête with George! No, no, she much preferred to bowl down to the club to hear the latest “gup,” display her dresses, and play tennis. And her husband spent his time among the racket, and whist and billiard players, as if he were a mere bachelor (Oh that he were!) At public and private entertainments, his wife constantly made him the hero of her little stories, and the butt of her malicious jokes. This he bore without wincing, but when she levelled her shafts at others, he protested most emphatically.

One night they returned late from a large dinner party, where Belle had made herself surprisingly disagreeable, and had shown more than a glimpse of the cloven foot. Possibly something had irritated her—a supposed slight, a tight shoe, or it might be, what Miss Dopping would have called “just pure divilment.” George followed her into the drawing-room, resolved to speak sternly, and to scotch the fire at once.

“Belle, what possessed you to-night?” he asked in sharp incisive tones, unlike his usual manner.

“What do you mean?” she snapped, turning on him quickly.

“You told Mrs. Craddock, who has fiery hair, that you never trusted a red-headed woman; they were invariably deceitful and ill-tempered.”

“Yes, quite true, so they are.”

“You told Colonel Scott that you despised all black regiments.”

“So I do.”

“You gave Mrs. Lundy, in polite words, the lie.”

“I did far worse than that!” exclaimed Belle triumphantly. “When we were all in the drawing-rooms afterwards, and talking of the fancy-ball, they appealed to me about Mrs. Mountain’s costume. I said she was so large, and her face was so red, she might wear her usual dress, with a paper frill round her neck, and go as a round of beef! And only fancy! She turns out to be Mrs. Lundy’s mother! Laugh, George, do laugh.”

“No, certainly I shall not laugh. I am like Mr. Redmond. I never see a joke after ten o’clock at night, even where there is one to see. I was amazed at you this evening; you abused people’s friends, you abused my regiment. If you cannot restrain your tongue, we won’t dine in public again.”

“Who says so?” she demanded scornfully.

“I do,” he rejoined with resolute determination.

“Pooh! you can stay by yourself then and I shall go alone, and all the better!” and she tossed her head with a gesture of defiance.

“If you do, it will be only once.”

“Why?”

“Because I shall send you home,” he answered with prompt sternness.

“Send me home. Ha! ha! ha! What a joke. To whom—to your mother?” and she burst into a scream of laughter.

“No, to yours.”

“I would not go—I will never go.”

“We would soon see about that.”

“Yes, we would. I would shriek, and scream, and have to be carried to the railway by force. I would make a scene at every station between this and Bombay; and if you did get me on board, I’d return in the pilot boat. No, no. Husband and wife should never be separated. Nothing but death should part them—nothing—but—death—shall—part—you and me,” she concluded with laboured distinctness.

“Belle, you are talking nonsense; talking like a fool.”

“Am I? but I am not such a fool as to go to the hills, or to hateful Ballingoole, and leave you here to flirt with Janie Wray.”

“Miss Wray!” he echoed; “I have scarcely spoken ten words to her in my life.”

“You see her out with the hounds when I cannot look after you; you gave her the brush—and I am told that she says you are the handsomest man in the station. She had better not let me see her flirting with you, that’s all,” she concluded excitedly.

“Miss Wray—it’s too bad to talk of her in this way! on my honour she is no more to me than that picture on the wall.”

“Nor am I!” cried Belle fiercely. “Nor any woman! I don’t believe you care a straw about me. I don’t believe, in spite of the letter you wrote, that you ever loved me. Come——” suddenly walking up to him, “be honest, answer me.”

“I married you—that is my answer,” he replied after a pause.

“True, and I had no money—my face was my fortune,” exclaimed Belle, gazing at him thoughtfully. “And yet I sometimes think that you are capable of une grande passion, of being desperately in love. Were you ever in love before you met me? Was there ever any other girl, George?” she exclaimed in a much sharper key. “George, speak! Why do you look so white? There was some one——”

“Do I ever ask to look into your past?” he interrupted impatiently.

“Then it’s true—you have admitted as much. Who is she? Where is she? Have I seen her? Is she alive?”

Belle’s eyes flamed like two lamps as she seized his arm and shook it violently.

“Ah—you won’t tell me! George, if I dreamt that you cared for her still—I could kill her, do you hear? you had better keep us apart, you know I have a high spirit,” and the lines of her face twitched convulsively.

“I know you have a high temper,” calmly removing her hand. “And it is rather late hours for heroics. If you will take my advice, you will leave my past alone—you will be more amiable at future entertainments, and you will now go to bed.”

Belle was not very robust; according to her mother she had a great spirit in a frail body, and according to Captain La Touche “her engines were much too powerful for her frame.” Her folly in braving the sun, and her life of ceaseless activity, began to tell; long before the hot weather was heralded in by that most obnoxious of the feathered tribe, “the brain fever bird.” She suffered from fever and ague—her face became sallow, her eyes sunken, and her figure lost its roundness and her thin red lips their smile.

The climate of India is said to be trying to the temper, but Belle’s temper was trying to the whole station. Once the novelty of her new house had worn off, she began to harry her domestics, with merciless energy; she was unreasonable, unmethodical, and capricious; and deplorably mean about small things. She foamed at the mouth over a lost jharun (duster), fined transgressors relentlessly, and in one great gust of fury, dismissed the whole respectable black-bearded retinue, without wages or character, but they gave her a fine character in the bazaars, and she subsequently discovered that no good self-respecting servant would engage with her, even for double wages. By the time she had been six months in Mangobad her household troubles were the joke of the place, but they were no joke to her husband; to him they were a most tragic reality. Belle began her day at six o’clock by bursting out of the house with a shriek at the milkman; then she had a painful scene with the cook and his accounts, and the daily giving out of the stores was looked upon as a sort of “forlorn hope.” Belle had always been what Sally Dopping termed, very “near” in her ideas—save with respect to outlay on her own little luxuries and personal adornment; and this trait in her character had developed enormously of late, and pressed sorely on her unlucky retainers; she weighed out each chittack of butter, and each ounce of sugar, with her own fair hands; there was no latitude allowed in the matter of “ghee,” and she made searching enquiries after empty bottles, and bare bones.

Only the bravest dared to face the Mem Sahib! Every egg, every bottle of lamp oil, every seer of gram, was figuratively fought over, and only wrested from her and carried off after a severe action. Naturally, it was but the very worst class of servants who would engage in her service—the incapable, drunken, dishonest, or miserably poor. She soon picked up sufficient of the vernacular to call them “idiots, pigs, and devils,” and had a dreadful way of creeping unexpectedly about their godowns, and pouncing on them when they were enjoying the soothing “huka” at unlawful hours. Not a week passed without an explosion, and dismissal; in six months she had thirty cooks; George’s life was wretched, especially since Belle had been compelled to relinquish some of her amusements, and had taken so fiercely to housekeeping; squalid meals (an hour late), dusty rooms, insolent attendants, and the shrill voice of the wife of his bosom, storming incessantly. Their little dinner parties covered him with shame and confusion, and although Belle, gaily dressed, talked and laughed vivaciously, and subsequently sang, what talking and singing can appease a hungry man? Mysterious soups, poisonous entrées—half full of cinders, a universal flavouring of mellow ghee, and, on one immortal occasion, cod liver oil handed about as a liqueur. Belle always declared that this particular “faux pas” was the act of a diabolical “khitmatgar,” who did it for spite. Be that as it may, it was but cold comfort to those unhappy guests who had swallowed a glass of noxious medicine, as a kind of “chasse” to a gruesome dinner! Mrs. Holroyd’s temper developed month by month. Hasty speeches, furious retorts, combustible notes, dislocated various friendships. She quarrelled with the chaplain about a hymn—with Captain La Touche about a waltz—disputes over newspapers, tennis, flowers, precedence, embroiled her with half the station, and here she could not shift her sky, as in the good old days, when she roamed about with her mother, and their lives were a series of hegiras. No, it was now George’s unhappy lot to be apologist and peacemaker, to interview angry and insulted ladies, and to draft copies of humble letters—occasionally the effect of these epistles was minimised, by Belle’s surreptitious postscript, “I don’t mean this letter in the least, but George made me write it.”

Poor George! once (only once) he got out his revolver, and handled it meditatively; but no, what about his mother, and the regiment, and Betty? No, to take his own life would be the act of a coward. A climax came at last when the tennis tournament was in full swing. Belle played with her usual skill and vigour, but at lawn tennis it is a fatal mistake to become feverishly excited, and to lose your temper. Belle lost hers, and also the ladies’ doubles. She fought desperately hard for the singles, the general and friendly interest in her adversary goading her to frenzy; after a most exciting match, she was beaten by one point, and in a transport of disappointment and rage, launched an anathema, and her racquet, at her opponent’s head.

The Mangobad community was kind. They talked of “a touch of the sun,” and Belle was really laid up with intermittent fever. The doctor conferred with George, and recommended Mrs. Holroyd a complete change of scene and a sea voyage! In short there was a universal feeling that either she, or the rest of the population, would have to leave the station—and she went.

Belle had a cousin in Melbourne, who (having never seen her) had sent her more than one pressing invitation. This invitation was now graciously accepted, and George escorted his wife and “Mossoo” down to Calcutta, put them on board a P. and O. in charge of the captain, and returned to Mangobad, a free man. Yes—for six months he was a free man; and he hoped that his joy was not indecently manifest.

He shut up his house, and departed on a two months’ shooting trip with Captain La Touche. It was quite like old times, and, by mutual consent, they scrupulously avoided the remotest allusion to a certain absent lady. They became two collarless vagabonds. They went into Thibet, and had capital sport, and returned to the station at the very last hour of their leave, sunburnt and satisfied, thirsting for regimental soda-water, and the latest regimental news.

The travellers had scarcely entered the mess, and hardly exchanged greetings with their friends, when an officious comrade rushed at George open-mouthed, saying: “Your wife is back, arrived three days ago; she only stayed a week in Australia.”

“What?” stammered George, turning pale beneath his tan.

“Yes—I saw her yesterday. She returned in the same steamer, and is very fit. She loathed Melbourne, and said she knew you could not get on without her.”

Alas! This was no hoax—it was painfully, pitifully true (and there was a unanimous impression that Garwood might have kept his news till George had had his breakfast). Belle spent exactly ten days with her cousin—a strong-minded forcible woman, who told her some very wholesome facts, and made no objection to her premature departure. Belle detested Melbourne, and her relative—was afraid that George might be flirting (Poor George! he had had a lesson for life)—gave out that her health was completely restored, and that her husband was miserable in her absence, and so took ship.

But her Australian trip was of benefit to Mrs. Holroyd in more ways than one! She was more reasonable, more manageable, and more mild.

Long-suffering Mangobad noted the change with the deepest gratitude to Belle’s unknown kinswoman, received the prodigal politely, and signed a treaty of peace.