第54章

>From the complication that surged round Miss Anderson's waking hours one point emerged, and gave her a perch for congratulation.That was the determination she had shown in refusing to let Frederick Prendergast leave her his money, or any part of it.

It has been said that he had outlived her tenderness, if not her care, and this fact, which she never found it necessary to communicate to poor Frederick himself, naturally made his desire in the matter sharply distasteful.She was even unaware of the disposition he had made of his ironical fortune, a reflection which brought her thankfulness that there was something she did not know.

'If I had let him do it,' she thought, 'I should have felt compelled to tell her everything, instantly.And think of discussing it with her!' This was quite a fortnight later, and Mrs.Innes still occupied her remarkable position only in her own mind and Madeline's, still knowing herself the wife of 1596 and of 1596 only, and still unaware that 1596 was in his grave.Simla had gone on with its dances and dinners and gymkhanas quite as if no crucial experience were hanging over the heads of three of the people one met 'everywhere,' and the three people continued to be met everywhere, although only one of them was unconscious.The women tried to avoid each other without accenting it, exchanging light words only as occasion demanded, but they were not clever enough for Mrs.Gammidge and Mrs.Mickie, who went about saying that Mrs.

Innes's treatment of Madeline Anderson was as ridiculous as it was inexplicable.'Did you ever know her to be jealous of anybody before?' demanded Mrs.Mickie, to which Mrs.Gammidge responded, with her customary humour, that the Colonel had never, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, been known to give her occasion.

'Well,' declared Mrs.Mickie, 'if friendships--UNSENTIMENTALfriendships--between men and women are not understood in Simla, I'd like to be told what is understood.'

Between them they gave Madeline a noble support, for which--although she did not particularly require it, and they did not venture to offer it in so many words--she was grateful.A breath of public criticism from any point of view would have blown over the toppling structure she was defending against her conscience.The siege was severe and obstinate, with an undermining conviction ever at work that in the end she would yield; in the end she would go away, at least as far as Bombay or Calcutta, and from there send to Mrs.

Innes the news of her liberation.It would not be necessary, after all, or even excusable, to tell Horace.His wife would do that quickly enough--at least, she had said she would.If she didn't--well, if she didn't, nothing would be possible but another letter, giving HIM the simple facts, she, Madeline, carefully out of the way of his path of duty--at all events, at Calcutta or Bombay.But there was no danger that Mrs.Innes would lose the advantage of confession, of throwing herself on his generosity--and at this point Madeline usually felt her defenses against her better nature considerably strengthened, and the date of her sacrifice grow vague again.

Meanwhile, she was astonished to observe that, in spite of her threat to the contrary, Mrs.Innes appeared to be enjoying herself particularly well.Madeline had frequent occasion for private comment on the advantages of a temperament that could find satisfaction in dancing through whole programmes at the very door, so to speak, of the criminal courts; and it can not be denied that this capacity of Mrs.Innes's went far to increase the vacillation with which Miss Anderson considered her duty towards that lady.If she had shown traces of a single hour of genuine suffering, there would have been an end to Madeline's hesitation.But beyond an occasional watchful glance at conversations in which she might be figuring dramatically, and upon which she instantly turned her back as soon as she was perceived, Mrs.Innes gave no sign even of preoccupation.If she had bad half-hours, they occurred between the teas and tennises, the picnics, riding-parties, luncheons, and other entertainments, at which you could always count upon meeting her;and in that case they must have been short.She looked extremely well, and her admirable frocks gave an accent even to 'Birthday'

functions at Viceregal Lodge, which were quite hopelessly general.

If any one could have compelled a revelation of her mind, I think it would have transpired that her anxieties about Capt.Valentine Drake and Mrs.Vesey gave her no leisure for lesser ones.These for a few days had been keen and indignant--Captain Drake had so far forgotten himself as to ride with Mrs.Vesey twice since Mrs.Innes's arrival--and any display of poverty of spirit was naturally impossible under the circumstances.The moment was a critical one; Captain Drake seemed inclined to place her in the category of old, unexacting friends--ladies who looked on and smiled, content to give him tea on rainy days, and call him by his Christian name, with perhaps the privilege of a tapping finger on his shoulder, and an occasional order about a rickshaw.Mrs.Violet was not an introspective person, or she might have discovered here that the most stable part of her self-respect was her EXIGENCE with Captain Drake.

She found out quickly enough, however, that she did not mean to discard it.She threw herself, therefore--her fine shoulders and arms, her pretty clothes, her hilarity, her complexion, her eyelashes, and all that appertained to her--into the critical task of making other men believe, at Captain Drake's expense, that they were quite as fond of her as he was.Mrs.Vesey took opposite measures, and the Club laid bets on the result.