Leonie of the Jungle Part 26

What is it that causes the saint suddenly to fling aside his holiness and hurl himself headlong to perdition? or the sinner to hurl aside his evilness and fling himself headlong into a monastery?

The jogging of memory, mostly, I think.

For what resolutions can not be conceived, and accomplished, or broken by the scent of a flower, the touch of a hand, or the feel of a piece of stuff.

Love, sudden, overpowering oriental love consumed the man, pa.s.sion scorched his soul, and desire shook him from his dark head to the slender feet.

He was awake and the girl was asleep, and craving to set his seal upon her in her unconsciousness, he bent towards her until the fierceness of his breath disturbed the lacey frill about her breast, bringing to view the jewel suspended from a golden chain.

Instantly his joined hands were raised towards his face mechanically in prayer, his eyes burned with the fanaticism of his creed, and his face became old in knowledge.

The dividing line? the lifted veil? Nay! nothing but a jewel with the form and the colouring of a cat's-eye, which had cunningly winked up at him from the secret places of the girl's bosom; so that she returned to her cabin with her body unscathed, and her soul on the edge of the precipice.

And the most razor-tongued, detested colonel mem-sahib of the line in India thanked her stars that the mosquitoes had roused her frantically, but just in time, to see the trailing edge of Leonie's indecorous night attire disappear through the door.

Aloofness, allied to perfect shoes and silken hose, will find a woman more enemies on board than all the pretty faces and frocks in the world; and if, in addition, she _can_ heap on such items as a seductive face and figure; and if gossip via the newspapers can and _does_ supply information as to the contents of her pa.s.s-book, plus savoury rumours concerning mysterious incidents in her past; well! 'twere better for that woman to stop at home, bob her hair, and take to that field of literature which is not bound on any side by the hedge of convention.

So it came about that her friends, after stumbling up the gangway at the Kidderpore Docks, with handkerchiefs held against their noses to protect them from the effluvia wafted from Garden Reach, lifted their eyebrows slightly at the frostiness of the adieux between their guest and her fellow-pa.s.sengers.

And no one in the scramble and flurry noticed the elderly pock-marked ayah who had been engaged as Leonie's bodywoman as she lifted the hem of the mem-sahib's skirt and laid it against her forehead, and touched the instep of the high caste native when he pa.s.sed behind the girl and disappeared in the crowd of his countrymen which opened up a way before him.

An ayah, who, to the utter astonishment of her friends, had given up the high position of head body-woman to a Ranee of the North, in order to accept the humble post of ayah to a mem-sahib.

A post she had gained by the baffling methods of the East which bind each man's work to that of his neighbour with an unbreakable, untraceable chain; and gained too, over the sleek heads of many of her sister ayahs, who, armed with countless and phenomenally laudatory chits, had squatted patiently for hours in the servants' quarters of the bungalow at Alipore.

CHAPTER XXVII

"For lo! the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone!"--_The Bible_.

"That's Lady Hickle!"

The two men turned in their saddles as Leonie went by at a canter near the rails.

The raking great waler forging ahead like an engine of destruction was kept in check by Leonie, exuberant with health, the knowledge of a perfect seat and hands, and that uprush of spirits which an early ride on the Maidan brings--to some of us.

"Not _the_ Lady Hickle?"

"The same!"

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned! she's only a girl, and _what_ a seat! Chucked the millions, too, didn't she? Having a good time?"

John Thorne frowned as he backed his horse before answering.

"We're great friends," he said shortly, and the other man tapped his teeth with his whip.

Thorne hadn't the slightest intention of implanting a snub, as the other man knew, knowing him and his most unfortunate manner.

Friends, yes! they were friends, two strong, super-sensitive characters drawn in sympathy one to the other; and John Thorne would have liked to have been a good deal more than a friend, but he had the sense to realise that the only kind of woman he could ever ask to share his rising fortune, bad manners, and worse temper, would be of the type designated in the short and unromantic word _cow_.

One of those slumbrous, sleek creatures who stand knee deep and content in a field of domestic trivialities; ruminate placidly upon the happy little events of the past hour; and always find a hedge under which to shelter at the first intimation of a storm.

Lucky, lucky cattle who do not know the temperamental ups and downs, the mental lights and shadows, the physical and psychological upheavals, or the intense joys and griefs of the more highly strung goat.

At that moment Leonie rode back slowly with some friends, and smiled at John Thorne.

"No!" Thorne went on meditatively, "no, she's _not_ having a good time.

I can't quite make it out. You see, although she was only married for a day, the defunct tradesman husband rather overshadows her father's splendid career--old Bob Hetth, V.C., you remember. It _would_ in this caste-bound country. Caste amongst _us_, ye G.o.ds! Then her clothes are really lovely, oh! ripping! make Chowringhee confections look as though they'd come from the _durzi_ or the Lal Bazaar. And it seems that she's living on her capital, and that her hair curls naturally----"

The other man laughed out loud.

"Oh! you needn't laugh. Wait until you've been stationed as long as I have in Calcutta, then you'll----"

Leonie had turned and was coming up at a gentle trot.

"Gad! isn't she beautiful?" said the newcomer.

"Yes! I think that's _really_ her trouble," replied Thorne as he moved to meet her.

"Good morning, and don't come too near the Devil. We were out in the fog this morning and it has made him as touchy as anything. Isn't it a simply perfect morning!"

For a moment she sat and looked at the funnels and masts swarming the placid Hoogli, turned her head as a far-away siren announced the arrival of a liner, gave a little sigh as she looked up at a kite sailing care-free overhead, and came back to earth with a smile.

"How d'you do," she smiled, upon the introduction of the other man. "And don't come too near the Devil, he's nervy; in fact I think he will burst with suppressed energy if I keep him standing longer. Shall we canter as far--oh!----"

"h.e.l.l!" finished Thorne after his kind, causing the corners of Leonie's beautiful mouth to lift as she raised a reproving finger.

The razor-tongued, most feared and detested colonel mem-sahib of the line, in the whole of India, rode up with a seat which would not have disgraced the sands of Margate.

Thinking that she might as well share the pig-skin, she had, upon her husband attaining his majority, taken a dozen riding lessons somewhere near Regent's Park; had hacked irregularly ever since, and still, when off her equine guard, talked about a horse's ankles.

"Don't come too near the Devil, Mrs. Hudson, he's _so_ fidgety."

"Nonsense!" brusquely replied the lady as she nodded to the men. "It's you who are fidgety; comes of all your sleep-walking, brain f.a.g or whatever you call it; you've--you've inoculated the poor darling," she added, clapping her hand on the Devil's hind-quarters.

Thorne made an ineffectual grab as the Devil reared so straight that Leonie's face was hidden in the mane, and backed his horse as the waler came down with a terrific clatter on the hard ground, sc.r.a.ping the colonel mem-sahib's foot as she wheeled about, emitting silly little cries, whilst men tore up from all sides with desire to help.

Up again he shot, pawing the air until it seemed that he surely must fall backwards, and men and women stared aghast until Leonie, raising her arm, brought her whip down between the silky ears.

"d.a.m.nation!" said John Thorne as Leonie patted the Devil's neck as he danced nervously on one spot.

"Time I took him home," she said. "The syce?--no! I daren't give him to anyone as he is--oh! good morning----

"Saw your _haute ecole_ stunt, Lady Hickle," burst out a lad who rode a fallen star in the shape of a discarded discreditable polo pony. "Simply topping--but the Devil's a nervy demon, you _shouldn't_ ride him--he'll get away with you one of these fine days. What happened?"

"He b.u.mped into my horse, he's not safe to be out amongst us--indeed, he is _not_. Lady Hickle, I have been in Cat----"