_ PART I CHAPTER XIV. THE DARK HOUR
He had not made love to her! That was the thought uppermost in Olga's mind when the wild tumult of her spirit gradually subsided. He had not so much as touched upon his own feelings at all. Not the smallest reason had he given her for imagining that he cared for her, and very curiously this fact inclined her towards him more than anything else. Had he proposed to her in any more ardent fashion, she would have been scared away. Possibly he had fathomed this, and again possibly he had not wanted to be ardent. He was hard-headed, practical, in all he did. She was sure that his profession came first with him. He probably thought that a wife would be a useful accessory, and he was kind-hearted enough to be willing to do her a good turn at the same time that he provided for his own wants.
Violet's malicious declaration regarding a professional man's preference for a plain woman recurred to her at this point and made her feel a little cold. She did not know very much about men, and she had to admit to herself that it might quite easily be the truth. And then she thought of Hunt-Goring, reflecting with a shudder that that explanation would not account for his preference, if indeed what Max said were true and he actually did prefer her to Violet at whose feet he was so obviously worshipping.
She wondered if she ought to tell Max all about the man, and shuddered again at the bare thought. Not that there was much to tell, but even so, it was enough to set the blood racing in her veins and to make her hotly ashamed. She remembered with gratitude that he had not pressed her to be open on this point. He had left the matter almost at the first sigh of her reluctance to discuss it. She liked him for that. It furnished proof of a kindly consideration with which she had not otherwise credited him. It also furnished proof that he did not think very seriously of the matter. And for that also, lying awake in the moonlight, Olga secretly blessed her champion. Hard of head and cool of heart he might be, but he was undoubtedly a white man through and through.
From that she began to wonder if she really had met her fate, and if so, what life with him would be like, whether she would find it difficult, whether they would quarrel much, whether--whether they would ever fall in love. Of course there were plenty of people in the world who didn't, excellent people to whom romance in that form came not. Olga had always been quite sure that she was not romantic. She had always loved cricket and hockey and all outdoor sports. She had even--quite privately--been a little scornful over such shreds of romance as had come beneath her notice, dismissing them as paltry and ridiculous. Possibly also Violet's scoffing attitude towards her adorers had fostered her indifference.
No, on the whole she decided that it was verging upon foolish sentimentality to contemplate the possibility of falling in love. She was convinced Max would think so, even pictured to herself the one-sided smile that such nonsense would provoke. Doubtless he deemed her too sensible to waste time and thought over anything so absurd. He would even quite possibly be extremely annoyed if she ever ventured beyond the limits of rational friendship which he had marked out. Olga's sense of humour vibrated a little over this thought. He was always so scathing about her worship of Nick. He would certainly find no use for such feminine trash himself.
And yet--and yet--through her mind, vague as a dream, intangible yet not wholly elusive, there floated once more the memory of a voice that had reassured, a hand that had lulled her to rest. Had he really spoken that word of tenderness? Had his lips really touched her hair? Or had it all been a trick of her fancy already strung to fantastic imaginings by that magic draught?
She told herself that she would have given all she had to know if the dream were true and then found herself trembling from head to foot lest haply she might one day find that it had been so. Yes, on the whole she was relieved, thankful beyond measure, that he had not made love to her. Things were better as they were.
The church clock struck one as she arrived at this comfortable conclusion, and she turned her back to the moonlight and composed herself for slumber. Her thoughts wandered off down another track;--India as Nick had described it to her, a land of rivers and jungles, tigers and snakes, natives that were like monkeys, horses that moved like camels, pigs with tusks that had to be hunted and slain. Elephants too! He had left out the elephants, but they crowded in royal array into Olga's quick imagination. She and Nick would often go elephant-riding in the jungle. Mysterious word! It held her like a spell. Tall trees and winding undergrowth, a gloom well-nigh impenetrable, creatures that hid and spied upon them as they passed! Perhaps they would go tiger-hunting together. She thrilled at the thought, picturing herself creeping down one of those dim glades, rifle in hand, in search of the enemy. Nick would certainly have to teach her to shoot. He was a splendid shot, she knew. She believed that she could be a good shot too. It would not be easy to mark the striped body sliding through the undergrowth, but it would be a serious thing to miss. Olga's eyes closed. She began to wander down that jungle path, in search of the monster that lurked there. The lust of the hunt was upon her. She was about to secure the largest tiger that had ever been seen.
Her breath came quickly. Her blood ran hot. She forgot all lesser things in the ardour of the chase. The elephants had disappeared. She was running on foot through the jungle, eager and undismayed. Ah! What was that? Something that moved and was still. Two points that shone out suddenly ahead of her! Green eyes that gleamed triumphant mockery! Her heart stopped beating. Those eyes! Those eyes! They struck terror to her soul.
Headlong she turned and fled. Back through the jungle with the anguished speed of fear. The ground was sodden. It seemed to hold her flying feet. She tore them free, only to plunge deeper at every step, while behind her, swift and remorseless, followed her fate.
Wildly she struggled, powerless but persistent, till at last her strength was gone. She sank in utter impotence.
And then he came to her, he lifted her, he held her in his arms, pressed sickening kisses upon her lips; and suddenly she knew that she had fled from a myth to hurl herself into the power of her enemy. She had eluded her fate but to find herself at the mercy of a devil.
Gasping and half-suffocated she awoke, starting upright in a cold sweat of fear. Her heart was pumping as if it would burst. Her starting eyes searched and searched for the face of her captor. Her ears were strained for the sound of his soft, hateful laugh.
Ah! He was at the door! She heard a hand feeling along the panels, heard the handle turn! As one paralyzed she sat and waited.
Softly the door opened.
"Allegro!" whispered a hushed voice.
Olga turned swiftly with outflung arms. "Oh, come in, dear! Come in! I've had such a ghastly dream! You've come just in the nick of time."
Softly the door closed. Violet came to her, wonderful in the moonlight, a white mystery with shining eyes. She stood beside the bed, suffering herself to be clasped in her friend's arms.
"What have you been dreaming about?" she said.
"Oh, sheer nonsense of course," said Olga, hugging her in sheer relief. "All about that hateful Hunt-Goring man. Get into bed beside me and help me to forget him!"
But Violet remained where she was.
"Allegro," she said, "I've had--a bad dream--too."
"Have you, dear? How horrid!" said the sympathetic Olga. "What can we both have had for supper, I wonder?"
Violet uttered a hard little laugh. "Oh, it wasn't that! I haven't been asleep at all. I generally do sleep after Hunt-Goring's cigarettes. But to-night I couldn't. They only seemed to make things worse." She sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. "Don't cuddle me, Allegro! I'm so hot."
Olga leaned back on her pillows, with a curious sense of something gone wrong. "Shall I light a candle?" she said.
"No. It's light enough. I hate an artificial glare, Allegro!"
"Well, dear?" said Olga gently.
Violet was sitting with her back to the moonlight, her face in deep shadow. Her black hair was loosely tied back and hung below her waist. Olga stretched out a hand and touched the silken ripples caressingly.
Violet threw back her head restlessly. "I'm going to give up Hunt-Goring," she said.
"My dear, I am glad!" said Olga fervently.
Violet laughed again. "I only encouraged him for the sake of his cigarettes. But I'm going to give up them too. The opium habit grows on one so."
"Opium!" echoed Olga sharply.
"Opium, dear child! It's a cunning mixture and most seductive. The astute Max little knew what he was inhaling this afternoon." Violet's words had a curious tremor in them as of semi-tragic mirth.
Olga listened in horrified silence. So this was the secret of Max's peculiar behaviour! If he did not know by this time, then she did not know Max Wyndham.
"Yes," Violet went on. "Hunt-Goring is counting on those cigarettes of his to get me under his influence. I know. But I'm tired to death of the man. I'm going to pass him on to you."
"I hate him!" said Olga quickly.
"Oh, yes, dear! But he has his points. You'll find he can be quite amusing. Anyhow, take him off my hands for a spell. It isn't fair to make me do all your entertaining."
"Why don't you snub him?" said Olga, with some impatience. "It certainly isn't my fault that he comes here."
"Allegro, don't be horrid! I didn't refuse to help you when you wanted help." There was actually a pleading note in Violet's voice.
Olga responded to it instantly, with that ready warmth of hers that was the secret of her charm. "My dear, you know I would do anything in my power for you. But I can't--possibly--be nice to Major Hunt-Goring. I do detest him so."
"You detest Max Wyndham," said Violet quickly. "But you manage to be nice to him."
The words rang almost like an accusation. For the moment Olga felt quite incapable of replying. She lay in silence.
"Allegro!" Again she heard that note of pleading, vibrant this time, eager, almost passionate.
With an effort Olga brought herself to answer. "I've changed my mind about him. We are friends."
"Friends!" Violet sprang from the bed, and stood tense, quivering, with an arrow-like straightness that made her superb. Her eyes glittered as she faced the moonlight that poured through the unshaded window. "Does that mean you--care for him?" she demanded.
Olga hesitated. Violet in this mood was utterly unfamiliar to her, a strange and tragic personality before which she felt curiously small and ill at ease, even in some unaccountable fashion guilty.
"Dear, please don't ask me such startling questions!" she said. "I can't possibly answer you."
"Why not?" said Violet. Her hands were clenched. Her whole body seemed to be held in rigid control thereby.
"Because--" again Olga hesitated, considered, finally broke off lamely "I don't know."
"You do know!" There was actual ferocity in the open contradiction. Violet was directly facing her now. Her eyes shone so fiercely, so unnaturally, bright that a queer little sensation of doubt pricked Olga for the first time, setting every nerve and every muscle on the alert for she knew not what. "You do know, Allegro! And so do I!" The full voice took a deeper note, it throbbed the words. "Do you think I haven't watched you, seen what was going on? Do you think it has all been nothing to me--nothing to see you spoiling my chances day by day--nothing to feel you drawing him away from me--nothing to know--to know--" she suddenly flung her clenched hands wide open to the empty moonlight--"to know that you have set your heart on the only man I ever loved--you who wanted me to help you to get away from him--and have shouldered me aside?"
Her voice broke. She turned to the girl in the bed with eyes grown terrible in their wild anguish of pain. "Allegro!" she cried. "Allegro! Give him up! Give him up--if not for my sake--for your own! You couldn't--be happy--with him!"
With the words she seemed to crumple as though all power had suddenly left her, and sank downwards upon the floor, huddling against the bed with agonized sobbing, her black head bowed almost to the floor.
Olga was beside her in an instant, stooping over her, wrapping warm arms about her. "My darling, don't, don't!" she pleaded. "You know I would never do anything to hurt you. I never dreamed of this indeed--indeed!"
Violet made a passionate movement to thrust her away, but she would not suffer it. She held her close.
"Violet dearest, don't cry like this! There is no need for it. Really, you needn't be so distressed. There, darling, come into bed with me. You'll be ill if you cry so. Violet! Violet!"
But Violet was utterly beyond control, and her paroxysm of weeping only grew more and more violent, till after some minutes Olga became seriously frightened. She stood up, and began to ask herself what she must do.
It was then that to her intense relief the door slid open and Nick's head was poked enquiringly in.
"Hullo!" he said softly. "Anything wrong?"
She motioned him to enter, being on the verge of tears herself.
"Nick, she's hysterical! What am I to do?"
"Better fetch Max," he said.
But the words were hardly out of his mouth before Max himself pushed the door wide open and entered!
He bore a small lamp in his hand which threw his somewhat grim features into strong relief. He made a weird figure in his night-attire, and his red hair looked as if it had been brushed straight on end.
He looked at neither Olga nor Nick, merely for a single instant at the shivering, sobbing girl on the floor, ere he set down his lamp with decision and turned to the washing-stand.
Olga stood and watched him as one fascinated. He was quite deliberate in all he did. With the utmost calmness he took up a tumbler and poured out some cold water.
Then very quietly he went to Violet, bent over her, gathered the dark hair back upon her shoulders.
She started at his touch, started and cried out in wild alarm, raising her head. And Max, with a set intention which seemed to Olga scarcely short of brutal, dashed a spray of water full into her deathly face.
She flinched away from him with another cry, gasping for breath and staring up at him as one in nightmare terror.
"You!" she uttered voicelessly. "You!"
He held what was left of the water to her lips. "Drink!" he said with insistence.
She tried feebly to resist. Her teeth chattered against the glass.
"Drink!" Max said again relentlessly.
Olga stooped swiftly forward and slipped a supporting arm around her. Violet drank a little, and turned to her, weakly sobbing.
"Allegro, send him away! Send him away!"
"Yes, dear, yes; he's going now," murmured Olga soothingly.
Max gave the glass to Nick with the absolute detachment of the professional man, and proceeded to take Violet's pulse. He watched her closely as he did so, with shaggy brows drawn down.
Violet gazed at him wide-eyed. She was no longer sobbing, but she shivered from head to foot.
"Yes," said Max at last, in the tone of one continuing an interrupted conversation. "Well, now you are going back to bed."
Violet shrank against Olga. "Let me stay with you, Allegro!" she murmured piteously.
"Of course you shall, dear," Olga made quick reply.
But in the same instant she saw Max elevate one eyebrow and knew that this suggestion did not meet with his approval.
"You will sleep better in your own room," he said. "Come along! Let me help you."
He put his arm about her and lifted her to her feet; but she clung fast to Olga still.
"I won't go without you, Allegro," she cried hysterically.
"My dear, of course not!" Olga answered. She caught up her dressing-gown and wrapped it round her friend. "You're as cold as ice," she said.
They helped her back to her own room between them, almost carrying her, for she seemed to have no strength left.
Max said nothing further of any sort till she was safely in bed, then somewhat brusquely he turned to Olga.
"Put on your dressing-gown and go down to the surgery! I want a bottle out of the cupboard there. It's a poison bottle, labelled P.K.R.; you can't mistake it. Third shelf, left-hand corner. The keys are in your father's desk. You know where. Put on your slippers too, and take a candle! Mind you don't tumble downstairs!" His eyes travelled to the doorway where Nick hovered. "Go with her, will you?" he said. "Bring back a medicine-glass too! There's one on the surgery mantelpiece."
He turned back to Violet again, stooping low over her, his hand upon her wrist.
Olga fled upon her errand with the speed of a hare, leaving Nick to follow with a candle. Even as she went she heard a cry behind her, but she sped on with a feeling that Max was compelling her.
When Nick joined her a few seconds later she had already found the keys and was fumbling in the dark for the cupboard-lock.
They found the medicine-bottle exactly where Max had said, and Olga snatched it out, seized the glass, and was gone. She was back again in Violet's bedroom barely two minutes after she had left it, but the instant she entered she was conscious of a change. Violet was lying quite straight and stiff with glassy eyes upturned. Max was bending over her, tight-lipped, motionless, intent. He spoke without turning his head.
"Just a teaspoonful--not a drop more. The rest water."
Olga poured out the dose, controlling her hands with difficulty.
"Not a drop more," he reiterated. "There's sudden death in that. Finished? Then give it to me!"
He raised Violet up in bed and took the glass from Olga. A curious perfume filled the room--a scent familiar but elusive. Olga stood breathing it, wondering what it brought to mind.
Max held the glass against the pale lips, and suddenly she remembered. It was the magic draught he had given to her two days before.
Violet seemed to be unconscious, but she drank nevertheless very slowly, with long pauses in between. Gradually the glassy look passed from her eyes, the long lashes drooped.
Max held out the empty glass to Olga. "You go back to bed now," he said. "She will sleep for some time."
"I can't leave her," Olga whispered.
He was lowering the senseless girl upon the pillow and made no reply. Having done so, he stooped and set his ear to her heart for a space of several seconds. Then he stood up and turned quietly round.
"You can't do anything more. Thanks for fetching that stuff! Why didn't you put on your slippers as I told you?"
His manner was perfectly normal. He left the bedside and took up the medicine-bottle, holding it against the lamp.
"Are you sure she will be all right?" whispered Olga.
"Quite sure," he said.
She turned her attention to the bottle also. "What is that stuff?" she asked.
He looked at her, and for an instant she saw his sardonic smile. "It's sudden death if you take enough of it," he said.
"Yes, I know," said Olga. "It's what you call 'the pain-killer,' isn't it?"
"Exactly," said Max, "Hence the legend on the label. But what do you know about the pain-killer? Who told you about it? I know I didn't."
"It was Mrs. Briggs," said Olga, and then turned hotly crimson under his eyes.
There fell a sudden silence; then, "You go back to bed," said Max. "And you are to settle down and sleep, mind. Don't lie awake and listen."
"You are sure she will sleep till morning?" said Olga, lingering by the bed.
"Yes." He put his hand on her shoulder, and wheeled her towards the door. "There's Nick waiting to tuck you up. Run along! I am going myself immediately."
She went, more to escape from his presence than for any other reason. There was undoubtedly something formidable about Max Wyndham at that moment notwithstanding his light speech, something that underlay his silence, making her curiously afraid thereof.
She did not lie and listen when she returned to bed, but a very long time passed before she slept. _