A Bed of Roses. George Walter Lionel
spite of everything it had not been a bad life in its way. Victoria had been the belle, in spite of Mrs Major Dartle and her peroxidised tresses. And there had been polo (Dicky always would have three ponies and refused three hundred guineas for Tagrag), and regimental dances and gymkhanas and what not. Under the sleepy sun these three years had passed, not like a flash of lightning, but slowly, dreamily, in the unending routine of marches, inspections, migrations to and from the hills. The end had come quickly. One day they carried Dick Fulton all the way from the mess and laid him under his own verandah. The fourth day he died of cirrhosis of the liver. Even Mrs Major Dartle who formally called and lit up the darkened room with the meretricious glow of her curls hinted that it was a happy release. The station in general had no doubt as to the person for whom release had come.
As Victoria lay in the coffin-like berth she vainly tried to analyse her feeling for Fulton. The three years had drawn over her past something like a veil behind which she could see the dim shapes of her impressions dancing like ghostly marionettes. She knew that she had loved him with the discreet passion of an Englishwoman. He had burst in upon her ravished soul like the materialised dream of a schoolgirl; he had been adorably careless, adorably rakish. For a whole year all his foibles had been charms in so far as they made the god more human, nearer to her. Then, one night, he had returned home so drunk as to fall prostrate on the tiles of the verandah and sleep there until next morning. She had not dared to call the ayah or the butler and, as she could not rouse or lift him, she had left him lying there under some rugs and mosquito netting.
During the rest of that revolutionary night she had not slept, nor had she found the relief of tears that is given most women. Hot waves of indignation flowed over her. She wanted to get up, to stamp with rage, to kick the disgraceful thing on the tiles. She held herself down, however, or perhaps the tradition of the English counties whispered to her that anything was preferable to scandal, that crises must be noiseless. When dawn came and she at last managed to arouse Fulton by flooding his head with the contents of the water jug, the hot fit was gone. She felt cold, too aloof, too far away from him to hate him, too petrified to reproach him.
Fulton took no notice of the incident. He was still young and vigorous enough to shake off within a few hours the effects of the drink. Besides he seldom mentioned things that affected their relations; in the keep of his heart he hid the resentment of a culprit against the one who has caught him in the act. He confined his conversation to daily happenings; in moments of expansion he talked of the future. They did not, however, draw nearer one another; thus the evolution of their marriage tended inevitably to draw them apart. Victoria was no longer angry, but she was frightened because she had been frightened and she hated the source of her fear. Fulton, thick skinned as he was, felt their estrangement keenly. He grew to hate his wife; it almost made him wish to hurt her again. So he absented himself more often, drank more, then died. His wife was free. So this was freedom. Freedom, a word to conjure with, thought Victoria, when one is enslaved and meaning very little when one is free. She was able to do what she liked and wished to do nothing. Of course things would smooth themselves out: they always did, even though the smoothing process might be lengthy. They must do so, but how? There were friends of course, and Ted, and thirty pounds of Consols unless they'd gone down again, as safe investments are wont to do. She would have to do some work. Rather funny, but how jolly to draw your first month's or week's salary; everybody said it was a proud moment. Of course it would have to be earned, but that did not matter: everybody had to earn what they got, she supposed, and they ought to enjoy doing it. Old Flynn, the D.C., used to say that work was a remunerative occupation you didn't like, but then he had been twenty years in India.
Molly turned uneasily in her bunk and settled down again. Victoria's train of thought was broken and she could not detach her attention from the very gentle snore that came from the lower berth, a snore gentle but so insidious that it seemed to dominate the steady beat of the screw. Through the porthole, over which now there raced some flecks of spray, she could see nothing but the blackness of the sky, a blackness which at times turned to grey whenever the still inkier sea appeared. The cabin seemed black and empty, lit up faintly by a white skirt flung on a chair. Slowly Victoria sank into sleep, conscious of a half dream of England where so many unknowable things must happen.
CHAPTER II
'No, Molly, I don't think it's very nice of you,' said Victoria, 'we've been out four days and I've done nothing but mope and mope; it's all very well my being a widow and all that: I'm not suggesting you and I should play hop scotch on deck with the master gunner, but for four days I've been reading a three months old Harper's and the memoirs of Mademoiselle de I don't know what, and.'
'But what have I done?' cried Molly.
'I'm bored,' replied Victoria, with admirable detachment, 'and what's more, I don't intend to go on being bored for another fortnight; I'm going on deck to find somebody to amuse me.'
'You can't do that,' said Molly, 'they're washing it.'
'Very well, then, I'll go and watch and sing songs to the men.' Victoria glared at her unoffending companion, her lips tightening and her jaw growing ominously squarer.
'But my dear girl,' said Molly, 'I'm awfully sorry. I didn't know you cared; come and have a game of quoits with me and old Cairns. There's a place behind the companion which I should say nobody ever does wash.'
Victoria was on the point of answering that she hated quoits as she never scored and they were generally dirty, but the prospect of returning to the ancient Harper's was not alluring, so she followed Molly to the hatchway and climbed up to the upper deck still shining moist and white. Apparently they would not have to play behind the companion. Four men were leaning against the bulwarks, looking out at nothing as people do on board ship. Victoria just had time to notice a very broad flannel-clad back surmounted by a thick neck, while Molly went up to the last man and unceremoniously prodded him in the ribs.
'Wake up, Bobby,' she said, 'I'm waiting.'
The men all wheeled round suddenly. The broad man stepped forward quickly and shook hands with Molly. Then he took a critical look at Victoria. The three young men struggled for an absurd little bag which Molly always dropped at the right moment.
'How do you do, Mrs Fulton,' said the broad man stretching out his hand. Victoria took it hesitatingly.
'Don't you remember me?' he said. 'My name's Cairns. Major Cairns. You know. Travancores. Met you at His Excellency's hop.'
Of course she remembered him. He was so typical. Anybody could have told his profession and his rank at sight. He had a broad humorous face, tanned over freckled pink. Since he left Wellington he had grown a little in every direction and had become a large middle aged boy. Victoria took him in at one look. A square face such as that of Cairns, distinctly chubby, framing grey blue eyes, was as easily recalled as forgotten. She took in his forehead, high and likely to become higher as his hair receded; his straight aggressive nose; his little rough moustache looking like nothing so much as a ragged strip off an Irish terrier's back.
While Victoria was wondering what to say, Molly, determined to show her that she was not going to leave her out, had thrust her three henchmen forward.
'This is Bobby,' she remarked. Bobby was a tall young man with a round head, bright brown eyes full of cheerfulness and hot temper. 'And Captain Alastair.. and Mr Parker.' Alastair smiled. Smiles were his method of expression. Mr Parker bowed rather low and said nothing. He had at once conceived for Victoria the mixture of admiration and dislike that a man feels towards a woman who would not marry him if she knew where he had been to school.
'I hope,' said Mr Parker slowly, 'that your..' But he broke off suddenly, realising the mourning and feeling the ground to be unsafe.
'Mr Parker, I've been looking for you all the morning,' interjected Molly, with intuition. 'You've promised to teach me to judge my distance,' and she cleverly pushed Bobby between Mr Parker and Victoria. 'Come along, and you Bobby, you can pick the rings up.'
'Right O,' said Bobby readily. She turned towards the stern followed by the obedient Bobby and Mr Parker.
Captain Alastair smiled vacuously, made as if to follow the trio, realising that it was a false start, swerved back and finally covering his confusion by sliding a few yards onwards