Chapter VII

"Life is stronger than a single soul."--HERRICK.

Rain and wind; wind and rain; rattling at blurred casements, lashing and battering the patient trees.

Lilamani Sinclair, sick in body and soul, lay listening to the unwearied rush and patter of it in the premature dusk of a February afternoon; till it seemed as though the downpour beat upon her bared nerves, and the wind blew chill through her heart. Now and again the hard dry cough--born of that first cold and never quite dispelled--shook her unmercifully, and drove shafts of pain through her head. Otherwise she lay motionless, with closed eyes, acutely aware of alternating cadences in the storm without; while images and sensations drifted to and fro in her brain scarce coherently enough for thought.

Nominally, she was resting in obedience to doctor's orders, enforced by Nevil. But true rest implies peace of mind--a condition neither doctor nor husband could ensure: and true rest had been far from Nevil Sinclair's wife these many weeks. Morning and night she felt unaccountably tired--mind, body, and soul; unable to feel strongly about anything, even about the pictures, her one supreme link with the artist and the man. They were nearing an end now; the last one already on the easel; the private view fixed for the first week in March. Rejoice though she might in this his great consummation, for her it meant a break beyond which she could see nothing plain, save that he must needs embark on others in which she would probably have no share. And she--with no life of the Inside, and small taste still for the mixed social life of the outside--how would it be with her then----? Unless--unless----?

But no beacon of promise gleamed in that direction. Nor could she hope and pray with the same whole-hearted fervour since the cruel instant of illumination in her shrine. Loyally though she strove against that haunting suspicion, the pain and dismay that had engendered it still acted like a bruise under the skin. How long ago it seemed, viewed across the grey stretch of half-hearted illness and yet more half-hearted convalescence that lay between.

Yet, pain or no, that Christmas fortnight showed like an oasis in the winter's uphill stretch of effort, that seemed to progress at the rate of three steps forward and two steps back: effort to play her part as Lady Sinclair, more especially at the dinner-table; effort to ignore sudden sharp attacks of nostalgia; to still the mother-longing with its attendant fear; to conquer her jealous hate of Leslie de Winton and the seemingly established antagonism of Jane. For Nevil's appeal had been over-long delayed; and though his wife religiously kept her word, such shy tentative advances as she could bring herself to make had, as often as not, passed unregarded. Nor were matters made easier by a disturbing spell of friction between George and Phil, which Jane shrewdly guessed to be less unfounded than it seemed. That episode of the mistletoe had rather stimulated the man's admiration than otherwise. But, since Phillippa had her pride, and he his modern remnant of chivalry, Lilamani's name was tacitly avoided by both. Lady Roscoe did not doubt for a moment that the disturbance would fizzle out in time. Phillippa's reasonableness and George's good sense were surety for that. None the less she hardened her heart against the unconscious offender; and Lilamani's reluctant hand knocked, almost unheard, upon a closed door.

Happily, after Christmas, meetings had been less frequent. The obsession of the pheasant gave place to the obsession of the fox, and the three carried the light of their countenances elsewhere. But there seemed no evading the malice of the gods. Less of Jane brought more of Leslie de Winton, who infuriated Lilamani by an almost proprietary enthusiasm for a subject peculiarly her own. The intrusion of Janes and Phils, Uncle Bobs and Aunt Julias was as nothing to the renewal of an intimacy so clearly congenial to Nevil that his wife could only keep the door of her lips and suffer the more.

January and February had been months of strenuous work, interspersed with Bohemian week-ends that had brought Mrs. Lunn near to despair. But for Leslie weekends had not sufficed. While the Ordeal scene was in progress she had frankly begged leave to stay "the clock round," and her critical, conversational presence in the studio had made this--the crowning picture of the group--an ordeal indeed. Above all things Lilamani enjoyed the atmosphere of quiet while her husband worked. How could she lose herself in Sita and Sita's tragedy, as she loved to do, while the slow, strong voice jarred on her nerves, and the deliberate gaze brooded now on her, now on her lord? If the physical energy of her sister-in-law had made her feel ineffectual, how much more so did this artist woman's breadth and vigour of brain, that matched and challenged the brain of the man; that also, in some subtle fashion, made the things of the heart seem childish, the things of the spirit shadowy and unreal. Worse than all, the dread conviction grew in her that here was her lord's true mate of his own race. Did he not guess it now--yet, at any moment, there might come the knowledge that would wake him from his "foolish passion outside control of judgment." And then--then? An end of Lilamani. That was certain. She would not survive, by so much as five minutes, the death of his love.

So passionate a drama of jealousy and pain at work within; and without a smiling acquiescence that did not altogether deceive her husband. At the week's end he had apologized, half in jest, for the infliction, adding: "I know you're not quite in tune with Leslie; but it's been a real help having her. I find her extraordinarily stimulating. Always did."

And she--marvelling how he could stand so blindly on the threshold of knowledge: "If help to your work, you must not trouble for me."

"I must and I do," he had answered gravely. "Though you did have Ronald to balance things a bit!"

The words were ordinary enough to be scarce worth noting, save for the veil of constraint, new as it was unwelcome, that too often of late had hovered between them: so slight a thing, that natures less sensitive had hardly felt it. The trouble was that neither seemed able to brush it aside. Perhaps Lilamani had yet to learn that overmuch self-suppression, however heroic, is good neither for man nor wife, in the more equalized marriage of the West. She could and did hide from her husband her remittent attacks of home-sickness, her secret jealousies. But she could not altogether hide their effect upon her spirits; and at this time an underlying sense of discord jarred their daily life; saddening her, irritating him. For in the last white-heat of inspiration the artist dominated the man; a passing dominion essential to true creative achievement.

Now it was he who would fain have recaptured the conditions of their life on Como; and behold a tired, listless Lilamani--at moments even a little fretful; her inner self seeming to keep _purdah_ from her lord. Small wonder if he gravitated toward the only other woman in any degree able to supply his need. At this time all thoughts, all interests that did not concern the pictures were apt to be ruthlessly swept aside. Only deep down, even in the most strenuous hours at his easel, lurked the ache of anxiety about his wife's health.

Her first winter in his country without a climate had been a singularly unlucky one. A drenching November and open December had given place to bitter weeks of black frost with interludes of snow; and now February seemed determined to outvie March in the matter of gales. That early morning escapade and the severe cold which followed it had left seeds of chest trouble, unnoticed at the time. The excitement of Christmas, following upon over-much zeal in Clara's service, had culminated in a fresh chill. Pneumonia supervened; and slight though the attack was, she had never quite rallied. Doctor Ransome, fussy and good-hearted, if not a brilliant specimen of his kind, wrinkled his brow in growing puzzlement over this child of an alien race, who would have none of the stethoscope, obviously resented his questions, and in secret watered the evergreens under her window with his favourite tonic. His faith in that tonic was invincible as his faith in the British Constitution; and seeing it fail, he had muttered vaguely of hysteria and nervous depression, change of air and scene.

This morning he had spoken straightly to Sir Nevil in his wife's hearing, bidding him get her out of England as soon as might be, and keep her out of it till spring's smiling treachery was overpast. Lilamani's heart leapt at the words. She forgave the old man his questions and his chest bogey forthwith. But the worried frown on her husband's brow held her silent. Just at present, he had said, leaving England was impossible. He would see what could be done.

Now, while she lay listening to the swish and patter without, their talk came back to her, and a sudden conviction glowed in her like a star. India--India! There lay the one certain cure for mind, soul, and body. To her own home and people she could not go. But India was a great land and a wide. The mere sight and smell and feel of the country would instil new life into her veins. Only ten days now, and her father would be with them for three little weeks. Then--if they could all return together----! If Nevil would but allow----!

She started. His step was on the stair; his hand on the door. Now for courage to broach her daring request. The coincidence of inspiration and opportunity lit a spark of hope in her heart.

But at sight of his face it went out. The clear blue of his eyes had the veiled, tired look not uncommon after long hours at his easel; and the set of his brows bespoke irritation near the surface. Listlessness flowed over her again like a Dead Sea wave; and she waited for him to speak. He came close and stood looking down at her.

"Well, little wife, it strikes me you've been mooning up here quite long enough. Rested--are you?"

"Yes. A little."

Disappointment lent an added weariness to her tone; and he sighed.

"Only a little. What's come to your natural sparkle, Jewel of Delight? Sometimes I think you're overdoing the sofa business. Do, for my sake, try and pull yourself together instead of drifting limply like a bit of seaweed. You must know how it spoils everything to have you lying here day after day, a mere shadow of your true self. Here's the great end we've both been working for almost in sight; and really sometimes it's hard to believe you care----"

"Oh Nevil--dear lord!" she broke in, her lips a-quiver. "Your heart _must_ know, how I am caring. Only some days there seems no life in me--for anything. You said once not ever to think--I am useless wife. But now----"

"Look here, Lilamani--I've told you that's all nonsense, and you must believe it. If you let yourself be hag-ridden by such foolish notions, you'll end in becoming worse than useless."

"Oh, forgive! It is only--I am ill----"

He caught the appealing hands held out to him and knelt at her side.

"Yes. You _are_ ill, in some vague mysterious way. I'm hanged if old Ransome seems to know what's wrong. Perhaps a specialist----"

She shrank into her cushions.

"No, no. Not any more doctor-people, please!"

"But, my dear, you must be reasonable. How can there be any peace of mind for me till we get you right? And your father--what will _he_ say if he thinks I've married you only to kill you by inches----"

"He is too wise to think any such thing. He will understand how it is difficult at first for Indian-born when all is so cold--so grey. Oh Nevil----" the concern in his eyes gave her courage to speak. "There is one thing that can make me a new Lilamani, better than all doctors and medicines. It is--when father is going back to India"--she caught her breath--"if--if we could only go too----"

"India--India?" he repeated the word in amazed iteration. The idea was more than a surprise. It was a shock. It recalled too vividly that one experience of the East which he had no desire to repeat. It also awakened a new fear. His grasp on her hands tightened.

"Lilamani, tell me truthfully--is home-sickness at the root of it all?"

He did not see that the question was a temptation hard to resist.

"If--if it is ... then _can_ we go?" she breathed, scarce able to hold eagerness in check. But the set of his lips gave answer before he spoke.

"My dear little wife, can you seriously ask that? Heaven knows it's hard to refuse you anything, especially at present. But just consider--with this great house on my hands---- I thought I made my position pretty clear to you before Christmas."

"Yes--yes." She bit her lip to steady it. "Only I was hoping--money from that picture----"

"Most of it went to help clear the mortgage. The rest to meet Christmas expenses and the cost of starting our little exhibition."

She hesitated; then spoke without looking up. "But for such a thing as this--my own money----"

"You've been spending that too freely, as it is, on Clara's children--to say nothing of your own expenses. You don't realize what it costs to dress a Lilamani in mother-o'-pearl and night-sky _saris_, still less what it would cost to take her out to India----"

She sighed. "Then--then father? He would so gladly----"

"My darling, you are tantalizing yourself to no purpose," Nevil checked her with a touch of impatience. "India's impossible--for a dozen reasons. You must just be plucky and accept the fact."

"You mean--you do not wish----"

She could get no further. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and sobs shook the whole of her slight frame.

In a moment her husband's arms were round her, his lips on hers. "My little one--my poor little one! Is it as bad as all that? Didn't you realize, when we married, that most probably--you would never see India again?"

"Y--yes."

"And did you mind so terribly--then?"

"N--no."

"Yet now--has England, and the whole life here, been such an utter failure?"

"No--no!" she clung to him, quivering. "Only--I could not help for hoping. But--if you do not wish----"

"I wish above everything to get a well and happy Lilamani back again. I'm so hedged around at present. But the first minute it's possible we'll get you out of this."

Her light fingers caressed the hair at the back of his neck.

"Perhaps--Egypt?"

"No. I think not. Give me time to turn things over in my mind, and I'll do the best I can." He kissed her again with lingering tenderness. "Now I'm going to dry your eyes, and carry you down to the studio. I've done with Rāma for the present, and Broome's there waiting to lift you out of the flames." Broome had volunteered his services as fire-god, to the delight of both. "It's an ordeal by water that my Sita has to win through--eh?"

She laughed and nestled closer, while he dabbed her eyes with his own handkerchief.

"Your Sita is not worthy for going through fire. She is not enough heroine-made."

"Quite enough to suit her husband! So she need not trouble her foolish head about that. Now then--ready?"

"Yes. But--will he have to hold me in arms again?"

"Once more. I haven't got all the lines right yet. You mustn't mind. He's as old as your father."

"I am willing for anything to help your pictures. It is only ... I don't like ... other kind of arms."

"No more do I. We're agreed on that point!" And he gathered her up in his own.

Outside the studio door she insisted upon being set down; and Broome, looking keenly from one to the other, decided that a plain fact or two must be submitted to Sir Nevil Sinclair before they parted that night. Ronald had gone home after another dream-week in the paradise that held his Peri. But not until the Peri had been carried off to bed did the novelist get his chance.

Nevil, returning to finish the evening in the studio, found his friend standing squarely on the hearth-rug; pipe between his teeth, smiling determination in his kindly eyes.

"Light up, my son, and don't use language if I touch you on the raw," said he without preamble. "Broome on the Responsibilities of the Married State may prove worth listening to."

"Oh, Lord!" groaned the other, only half in joke. "Responsibilities were never my strong point. How the deuce have I been shirking them now?"

Said Broome, shifting his pipe to the corner of his mouth: "Thy question bewrayeth thee. It tacitly admits a prick of conscience. As for mine--the Puritanical thing will give me no peace till I've said my say."

"Fire away, then."

Nevil sank into a chair and opened his cigar-case with a leisured air of detachment less deceptive than he believed. The shock of that one word, India, and his wife's unusual paroxysm of grief had so deeply perturbed him that he had no mind to speak of it even to Broome, unless in self-defence.

"Well?" he queried, looking up and throwing his match into the grate.

"_Is_ it well, Nevil--there's my question? Is it well with that exquisite, porcelain wife of yours, who has sacrificed all that really counts for her on the altar of marriage, and has given you, not herself only, but"--he waved a hand round the studio walls--"a new kingdom? Have you asked yourself yet, point-blank, how it seems likely to work out, this unique experiment of translating a love-bird from the tropics into a British barn-door fowl?"

Nevil frowned. "No. I've not," he answered bluntly. "First, because I've no use for a British barn-door fowl; second, because even the amount of adaptation that is essential must take time. Though I admit things don't look as promising as they might."

"My impression exactly. The obvious dissonance with Lady Roscoe is more than unlucky. And how about the good folk of the neighbourhood?"

Nevil shook his head.

"I thought not. Between religion and the Island Pharisee business there's little hope, in the country, for a human product not measured in our own workshops and cut out to pattern. London's another matter. Fish of every shape and colour have a chance in her seething ocean of nationalities and types."

"Yes. If the fish can live out of water. In London, I believe Lilamani would die outright."

The older man brooded a moment over that statement. Then: "Hasn't it struck you, Nevil," said he, "that the same process may possibly be going on here--at a reduced rate?"

Nevil Sinclair started and paled as if under a blow. "Good God, Broome! you don't think----?"

Broome's hand closed firmly on his shoulder.

"Forgive me, old man. I didn't mean to give you such a shock. But I see now it's just as well I spoke. You've been blinding yourself to the obvious; metaphorically bidding everyone and everything stand aside till the last touch is laid on, the white fervour of inspiration spent. Oh, I know it all down to the ground, my dear chap. I've sinned in much the same fashion myself before the birth of every blessed book that bears my name. The Lord our God is a consuming fire, jealous of every impulse but the impulse to create--and all the rest of it. I don't deny we're bound to feel that way if the divine spark is alight inside; and our belongings too often pay the price. But yours is a very special case, Nevil. Your love-bird of the tropics is dependent on you for almost everything, in a way that no English girl would be; and ... well ... May I say what I think?"

Nevil nodded, without looking up; and, while Broome spoke on, the formation of a glowing cave between two blocks of coal photographed itself upon his brain.

"I think," said the novelist with a quiet deliberation not devoid of feeling, "that of late your wife has grown too light and too transparent even for a porcelain Princess. Dr. Ransome must know better than I can the state of her lungs. But it's my belief that in spite of a devotion to yourself that is little short of worship, she is eating her heart out, in secret, for the light and warmth and colour which are quite as essential to her health of mind and body as fresh and cold water to yours. I may be wrong----"

Nevil looked up quickly, decision in his eyes.

"Quite the reverse, old man. You're most confoundedly right."

He paused; shirking further speech; then went resolutely on. "I suppose you saw that she seemed rather upset when I brought her down. Well--she had just told me, for the first time, that the one certain cure for her would be a spell of India. Seems she had a notion we might go out with her father. I can't tell you the shock it gave me to know the craving was there."

Broome brought his teeth together with an audible click. "And you refused?" he asked quietly.

"My dear chap, could I do anything else?" Unstrung by the recollection, he rose and paced the room. "Look at my position. This exhibition just coming off. The estate on my hands and that millstone of a mortgage round my neck!"

"Quite so. Yet--on the other hand, there's your wife's health in a precarious condition. The trip she craves would be a certain cure; and the house difficulty's not insuperable. You could let for the summer."

"At a month's notice! And--the deuce of it is I've not the smallest wish to leave the old Place just now. I never guessed what a grip it would get on me once I handled it myself. But that's beside the mark. The truth is"--he swung round sharply, hands plunged in pockets--"there's a bigger obstacle behind. I never meant to speak of it to a living soul. But you've such a confounded way with you----!"

For half a minute their eyes held silent conference. Then Broome spoke.

"Well--what is it now? Sit down, my son, and keep yourself in hand."

Nevil obeyed to the letter; and it was Broome who paced the room with meditative deliberation, finally coming to a standstill before the first picture of the nine--Sita clinging to her lord, imploring devotion in her gaze.

When all was said that Nevil Sinclair could bring himself to say, of Egypt, of that nameless alienation, and the struggle to win free of its insidious taint, Broome came slowly back; laid an extinct pipe on the mantelpiece, and sat down opposite his friend.

"I see," he said gravely. "And--in a measure--I understand. Poor Lilamani! It's a serious complication. You're really afraid a repetition of that might wreck everything?"

"I'm hanged if I know. I can't picture such a thing. All I'm certain of is that--as yet, I shirk the risk, for both our sakes."

Broome nodded feelingly. "But the fact of her ill-health remains. If it can't be the East, it must be the South, and that speedily."

"Yes. She has my promise."

"Good man. As for the Beeches, a highly desirable 'let'--for whose respectability I'll go bail--is sitting not ten feet from you at this moment."

"By Jove, Broome! D'you mean it--honour bright?"

"As bright as you please! Name your terms."

"Oh, as to that--a nominal sum----"

"Nonsense! I intend to pay a good fair rental. Since, by some queer accident I managed to catch the long ear of the public, I've been raking in more than one man has any right to possess."

"Glad to hear it. As for me, I'd be thankful to hand over to you at any price, instead of to a stranger."

"So I thought! And the sooner the better. Why not Antibes? Miss Hammond's there. Get her father to go too; and you add to the sweet influences of light and warmth the greater one of happy association."

"Capital! We'll tell her to-morrow. I want to see her looking different before Sir Lakshman arrives----"

"M--yes. It would be advisable."

Something in his tone made Sinclair eye him closely. "What are you thinking now?"

"Merely wondering what he will say to it all. When fathers love as he and I do their intuitions become extraordinarily keen."

"I don't know about saying. But if he really thought she was unhappy, I believe he'd be capable of knifing me straight."

At that Broome's big laugh broke out. "No fear, my dear boy! But melodramatics apart, I anticipate some plain speech between the two of you if she looks like this. In fact, the way things are going now, it strikes me you will soon have to consider seriously how far you are prepared to vindicate your great experiment by meeting sacrifice with sacrifice on a bigger scale than you have contemplated yet. It's the ultimate test; and in your complicated case, may prove a severer one than you realize."

Nevil watched the roof of his glowing cavern crumble. Then he drew a long breath. "I'm beginning to realize it now," he said slowly; and the coals fell together with a soft crash.

Broome reached for his pipe. The artist rose, and going over to his unfinished picture stood before it lost in thought.