Black is White 16

Black is White 16

On this particular night Yvonne had asked a few people in for dinner.

They were people whom Brood liked especially well, but who did not

appeal to her at all. As a matter of fact, they bored her. Yet she

was happy in pleasing him. When she told him that they were coming

he favoured her with a dry, rather impersonal smile and asked, with

whimsical good humour, why she chose to punish herself for the sins of

_his_ youth.

 

She laid her cheek against his and purred. For a moment he held his

breath. Then the fire in his blood leaped into flame. He clasped the

slim, adorable body in his strong arms and crushed her against his

breast. She kissed him, and he was again the fierce, eager, unsated

lover. It was one of their wonderful, imperishable moments, moments that

brought oblivion.

 

Then, as he frequently did of late, he held her off at arm’s length

and searched her velvety eyes with a gaze that seemed to drag the very

secrets out of her soul. She went deathly white and shivered. He took

his hands from her shoulders and smiled. She came back into his arms

like a dumb thing seeking protection, and continued to tremble as if

frightened.

 

When company was being entertained downstairs Mr Dawes and Mr Riggs,

with a fidelity to convention that was almost pitiful, invariably donned

their evening clothes. They considered themselves remotely connected

with the festivities, and, that being the case, the least they could do

was to “dress up.”

 

Moreover, they dressed with great care and deliberation. There was

always the chance that they might be asked to come down; or, what was

even more important, Mrs Brood might happen to encounter them in the

upper hall, and in that event it was imperative that she should be made

to realise how stupid she had been.

 

Usually at nine o’clock they strolled into the study and smoked one

of Brood’s cigars with the gusto of real guests. It was their habit

to saunter about the room, inspecting the treasures with critical,

appraising eyes, very much as if they had never seen them before. They

even handled some of the familiar objects with an air of bewilderment

that would have done credit to a Cook’s tourist.

 

It was also a habit of theirs to try the doors of a large teakwood

cabinet in one corner of the room. The doors were always locked, and

they sighed with patient doggedness. Some time, they told themselves,

Ranjab would forget to lock those doors, and then----

 

“Joe,” said Mr Dawes, after he had tried the doors on this particular

occasion, “I made a terrible mistake in letting poor Jim get married

again. I’ll never forgive myself.” He had said this at least a hundred

times during the past three months. Sometimes he cried over it.

 

“Danbury, old pal, you must not take all the blame for that. I am as

much at fault as you, blast you!” Mr Riggs always ended his confession

with an explosion that fairly withered his friend and gave the lie to

his attempt at humility.

 

“That’s right,” snapped Mr Dawes; “curse me for it!”

 

“Don’t make so much noise.”

 

“If you were ten years younger I’d--I’d----” blustered Dawes.

 

“I wish Jack Desmond had lived,” mused the other, paying no attention to

the belligerent. “He would have put a stop to this fool marriage.”

 

They sat down and pondered.

 

“If Jim had to marry someone, why didn’t he marry right here at home?”

demanded Dawes, turning fiercely on his friend.

 

“Because,” said Riggs, with significant solemnity, “he is in the habit

of marrying away from home. Look at the first one. He married her,

didn’t he? And see what came of it. He ought to have had more sense the

second time. But marrying men never do get any sense. They just marry,

that’s all.”

 

“Jim’s getting mighty cranky of late,” ruminated Dawes, puffing away at

his unlighted cigar. “It’s a caution the way he snaps Freddy off these

days. He--he hates that boy, Joe.”

 

“_Sh--h!_ Not so loud!”

 

“Confound you, don’t you know a whisper when you hear it?” demanded

Dawes, who, in truth, had whispered.

 

Another potential silence.

 

“Freddy goes about with her a good deal more than he ought to,” said

Riggs at last. “They’re together two-thirds of the time. Why--why, he

heels her like a trained dog. Playing the pianner morning, noon, and

night, and out driving, and going to the theatre, and----”

 

“I’ve a notion to tell Jim he ought to put a stop to it,” said the

other. “It makes me sick.”

 

“Jim’ll do it without being told one o’ these days, so you keep out of

it. Say, have you noticed how piqued Lydia’s looking these times? She’s

not the same girl, Dan; not the same girl. Something’s wrong.” He shook

his head gloomily.

 

“It’s that dog-goned woman,” announced Dawes explosively, and then

looked over his shoulder with apprehension. A sigh of relief escaped

him.

 

“She’s got no business coming in between Lydia and Freddy,” said Riggs.

“Looks as though she’s just set on busting it up. What can she possibly

have against poor little Lydia? She’s good enough for Freddy. Too good,

by hokey! ‘Specially when you stop to think.”

 

“Now don’t begin gossiping,” warned Dawes, glaring at him. “You’re as

bad as an old woman.”

 

“Thinking ain’t gossiping, confound you! If I wanted to gossip I’d up

and say flatly that Jim Brood knows down in his soul that Freddy is no

son of his. He----”

 

“You’ve never heard him say so, Joe.”

 

“No; but I can put two and two together. I’m no fool.”

 

“I’d advise you to shut up.”

 

“Oh, you would, would you?” with vast scorn. “I’d like to know who it

was that talked to Mrs Desmond about it. Who put it into her head that

Jim doubts----”

 

“Well, didn’t she say I was a lying old busybody?” snapped Danbury

triumphantly. “Didn’t she call me down, eh? I’d like to know what more

you could expect than that. Didn’t she make me take back everything I

said?”

 

“She did,” said Riggs with conviction. “And I believe she would have

thrashed you if she’d been a man, just as she said she would. And didn’t

I advise her to do it, anyway, on the ground that you’re an old woman

and----”

 

“That’s got nothing to do with the present case,” interrupted Dawes

hastily. “What we ought to be thinking about now is how to get rid of

this woman that’s come in here to wreck our home. She’s an interloper.

She’s a foreigner. She----”

 

“You must admit she treats us very politely,” said Riggs weakly.

 

“Certainly she does. She has to. If she tried to come any of her

high-and-mighty--ahem! Yes, Joseph, I consider Mrs Brood the loveliest,

most charming----”

 

“It was the wind blowing the curtain, Danbury,” said Riggs,

reassuringly.

 

“As I was saying,” resumed his friend, “I’d tell her what I thought of

her almighty quick if she got uppish with me. The trouble is, she’s

so darned careful what she says to my face. I’ve never seen anybody as

sweet as she is when she’s with a feller. That all goes to prove that

she’s sly and unnatural. No woman ever lived who could be sweet all the

time and still be as God made her. Why, she even comes up here and tries

to be sweet on that ‘Great Gawd Budd’ thing over there. I heard her ask

Ranjab one day why he never prostrated himself before the image.”

 

“Well?” demanded Riggs, as the other paused.

 

“She didn’t have sense enough to know that Ranjab is a Brahmin, a

worshipper of Vishnu and Shiva. I also heard her say that you had been

so drunk up here one night that a lady fainted when she saw you sprawled

out on the couch. She thought you were dead.”

 

“I haven’t been drunk in ten years! What’s more, I don’t remember ever

having seen a strange woman in this room since I came here to visit Jim

Brood, twelve years ago. She must be crazy.”

 

“She didn’t say you saw the woman. She said the woman saw you,” said

Dawes witheringly.

 

“No one ever thought of locking that cupboard until she came,” said

Riggs, abruptly altering the trend of speech but not of thought. His

gaze shifted to the cabinet. “Jim is like wax in her hands.”

 

“He has no right to forget those days in Calcutta, when we shared our

grog with him. No, Joe, we’re not good enough for him in these days.

She has bewitched him, poor devil. I’ve stuck to him like a brother for

twenty years--both of us have for that matter----”

 

“Like twin brothers,” amended Joseph.

 

“Exactly. We don’t forget those old days in Tibet, Turkestan, the Congo,

the Sahara----”

 

“I should say we don’t! Who is really writing this book of his? Who

supplies all the most important facts? Who--who--well, that’s all. Who?”

 

“We do, old chap. But you’ll find that we shan’t have our names on the

title-page. She’ll see to that. She’ll have us shunted off like a

couple of deck-hands. Lydia can tell you how much of the material I have

supplied. She knows, bless her heart. You furnished a lot, too, Joe, and

John Desmond the rest.”

 

“Oh, Jim has done his share.”

 

“I’ll admit he has done all of the writing. I don’t pose as a literary

man.”