_ PART II CHAPTER III. THE NEW LIFE
"It isn't in the least what I thought it would be," said Olga.
"Nothing ever is," said Nick.
He was sprawling on a _charpoy_ on the verandah of their new abode, smoking a cigarette with lazy enjoyment.
Though within sound of the native city, their bungalow stood well outside. It was surrounded by a compound of many tangled shrubs that gave it the appearance of being more isolated than it actually was. Not so very far away from it, down in the direction of Will Musgrave's growing reservoir, there stood a _dak_-bungalow; and immediately beyond this were corn-fields and the native village that clustered along the edge of the river. The cantonments were well out of sight, more than a mile away along the dusty road, further than the polo-ground and race-course.
Behind the bungalow, approached only through a dense mass of tall jungle grass, stretched the jungle, mile upon mile of untamed wilderness, home of wild pig and jackals, monkeys and flying foxes. Very quiet by day was that long dark tract of jungle, but at night strange voices awoke there that seemed to Olga like the crying of unquiet spirits. Neither by day nor night did she feel the smallest desire to explore it.
The native city of Sharapura held infinitely greater fascinations for her. Some of its buildings were beautiful, and she was keenly interested in its inhabitants. She never entered it, however, save under Nick's escort. He was very insistent upon this point, and he would never suffer her to linger in the long, narrow bazaar, with its dim booths and crafty, peering faces.
Down by the river there was a mosque about which pigeons circled and cooed perpetually, but beggars were so plentiful all round it that it was next to impossible to pause near the spot without being beset on all sides, a matter of real regret to the English girl, who longed to wander or stand and admire at will.
In His Excellency the Rajah she was frankly disappointed. He had been educated in England, and had acquired a patronizing condescension of demeanour which she found singularly unattractive. He never treated her with familiarity, but she did not like the look of his dusky eyes. They always smiled, but to her there was something unpleasant behind the smile. In her private soul she deemed him treacherous.
He invariably wore European costume, with the exception of his green turban with its flowing puggaree. He was an excellent and graceful horseman, and spoke English with extreme fluency.
Nick spent a good many hours of every day at the Palace, and they were always on the best terms; yet Olga never saw him go without a pang of anxiety or return without a thrill of relief.
Probably her recent severe illness had had a lasting effect upon her nerves, for she was never easy in his absence, though Daisy Musgrave did much to reassure her. She had taken Olga under her wing as naturally as though they had been related, and they were much together.
The old life had begun to seem very far away to Olga, her childhood as remote as a half-forgotten dream. The blank space in her memory remained as a patch of darkness through which her thread of life had run indeed but of which no record remained. She had ceased to attempt to read the riddle, half in dread and half in sheer helplessness. It did not seem to matter. Surely, as Max had once said to her, nothing mattered that was past.
She did not spare much thought for Max either just then, instinctively avoiding all mention of him. She had a vague consciousness that was more in the nature of a nightmare memory than an actual happening, that they had parted in anger. Sometimes there would rush over her soul the recollection of piercing green eyes that searched and searched and would not spare, and her heart would beat in a wild dismay and she would shrink in horror from the vision. But it was not often that this came to her now. She had learned to ward it off, to put away the past, to live in the present.
For nearly a month she had been established with Nick in the bungalow on the outskirts of the city, and the novelty of things had begun to wear off. She was not strong enough to go out very much, and beyond a few calls with Nick and a dinner or two at the cantonments she had not seen much of the social life of Sharapura.
That night, however, they were to attend a State dinner at the Palace, to which all the officers of the battalion and their wives had been bidden. Olga was relieved to know that the Musgraves were also going, for at present she was intimate with no one else, with the possible exception of Noel, who visited them in a fashion which he described as "entirely unofficial" almost every day. He seemed to entertain a vast admiration for Nick, and as Olga was wholly in sympathy with him on this great point, they did not find it difficult to agree upon smaller matters. She even bore with his bare-faced Irish compliments, mainly because she knew he did not mean them and she found it easier to be amused than offended.
The new life was undeniably one of considerable interest, and now and then, more particularly when she went for her morning ride with Nick--a function which Noel almost invariably attended when off duty, appearing with a brazen smile and not the faintest suggestion of an excuse--the old zest would awake within her, almost deluding her into the belief that her lost youth had returned.
She still had her hours of depression and strange heart-heaviness so alien to her nature, and even in her lighter moments she was far more restrained than of yore--shrewd still, quick of understanding still, but infinitely graver, more womanly, more reserved.
Nick, who watched her as tenderly as a mother, sometimes asked himself if after all he and Jim had done the right thing. Her remoteness worried him. She seemed to live in a world of her own, asking no questions, making no confidences. Not that she ever barred him out. He was well aware that she had not the vaguest desire to keep him at a distance. But her old spontaneity, her child-like demonstrativeness, seemed to have gone, and a nameless shadow haunted the eyes that once had been so clear.
They often sat together on the verandah as now, when the day's work was done, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, always in complete accord.
Olga's remark that the India to which Nick had introduced her was wholly unlike her expectations had been called forth by some comment of his upon the Rajah's exceedingly British tastes.
"I thought things would be much more primitive," she said.
And Nick laughed, and after a long draught of whisky and soda observed that possibly they were more primitive than she imagined. After which he stretched himself luxuriously, and asked her if she were aware that they were within a week of Christmas Day.
"Of course," she said. "Did you imagine I had forgotten? It seems so strange to have nothing to do."
He sat up very abruptly with his knees drawn up to his chin and blinked at her with extreme rapidity. "Olga," he said, "I believe you're homesick."
The colour that of old had been so quick to rise faintly tinged her face as she shook her head. "Oh, no, Nick! Don't be absurd! How could I be, with you?"
"I'm not absurd--on this occasion," returned Nick.
"It's the fashion for absentees to be homesick all the world over at Christmas-time. However, we are not bound to follow the fashion. How are we going to celebrate the occasion? Have you any ideas to put forward?"
"None, Nick."
He nodded. "That makes it all the easier for me. Shall we give a picnic at Khantali--you and I? It won't be much fag for you if you drive over with Daisy Musgrave. Noel can take most of the provisions in his dog-cart. He's a useful youngster. How does that strike you? There is a ruined temple or a mosque at Khantali, I believe, and you like that sort of thing."
He paused. She was listening with far-away eyes. "Yes, I shall like that," she said. "It is very nice of you to think of it."
Nick straightened his knees and got up. "Do you know what I would do if I had two hands, Olga _mia?_" he said.
She looked up questioningly. His face was for the moment grim.
"I would take you by the shoulders and give you a jolly good shaking," he said.
She opened her eyes in astonishment. "Really, Nick!"
"Yes, really," he said. "You didn't hear a word of what I said just now."
"Oh, but I did!" she protested, flushing in earnest this time. "I heard you and I answered you."
"Oh, yes, you answered me," he said, "as kindly and indulgently as if I had been prattling like Peggy Musgrave. I won't put up with it any longer, my chicken. Understand?"
He put his hand under her chin and turned her face upwards.
She quivered a little and the tears sprang to her eyes. "I'm sorry, Nick," she said.
He shook his head at her. "I won't have you sorry. That's just the grievance. Be hurt, be indignant, be angry! Sulk even! I know how to treat sulks. But don't cry, and don't be sorry! I shall be furious if you cry."
She smiled up at him wistfully, saying nothing.
"Fact of the matter is," proceeded Nick, "you're spoilt. It's high time I put my foot down. If you don't wake up, I'll make you take a cold bath every morning and swing dumb-bells for half an hour after it."
She began to laugh. "I love to see you playing tyrant, Nick."
He let her go. "I'm not playing, my child. I'm in sober, deadly earnest. Have you made up your mind yet what you're going to say to young Noel when he asks you to marry him?"
She started. "Oh, really, Nick!" she said again, this time with a touch of annoyance in her tone.
He smiled as he heard it. "It's coming, I assure you. You see, the station is short of girls, and our young friend is impressionable. He is the sort of amorous swain who gets engaged to a dozen before he settles down to marriage with one. The question for you to decide is, are you going to be one of the dozen?"
"No, that I certainly am not." Olga spoke with undoubted emphasis, and having spoken rose and laid her hands upon Nick's shoulders. "I don't think he would be so silly as to ask me," she said. "And if he did, I certainly should not be silly enough to say Yes."
"I'm glad to hear that anyway," said Nick briskly. "I was afraid you might accept him out of sheer boredom."
"Nick! I'm not bored!"
He looked at her quizzically, as if he did not quite believe her.
"I am not bored," she reiterated, with something like vehemence. "I am happier with you than with anyone else in the world."
"Really?" said Nick, still smiling.
"Don't you believe me?" she said.
He laughed. "Not quite, dear; but that's not your fault. What are you going to wear to-night?"
Nick could switch himself from one subject to another as easily as a monkey leaps from tree to tree, and when once he had made the leap no persuasion could ever induce him to return. Olga knew this, and abandoned the discussion, albeit slightly dissatisfied.
They separated soon after to dress for the Rajah's dinner. Olga had chosen a dress of palest mauve, and very fair and delicate she looked in it. In a crowd of girls she would doubtless have been passed over by all but the most observant, but she was not one of a crowd at Sharapura. There were not many girls in that region, or Noel Wyndham's volatile fancy had scarcely strayed in her direction.
She told herself this with a faint smile, as she took a final glance at herself when her _ayah_ had finished. There never had been any personal vanity about Olga, and that night she told herself she looked positively ugly. What in the world did Noel see in her, she wondered? It seemed incredible that any man could find anything to admire in the colourless image that confronted her.
And yet as she went up the Palace steps with Nick into the blaze of light that awaited them, he was the first to greet her, and she saw his eyes kindle at the sight of her after a fashion that made her heart contract with a sudden pain for which at the moment she was wholly at a loss to account.
"I say, you look topping!" he said, smiling down at her with pleasing effrontery. "Do you know you are very nearly late? I've been watching out for you for the past ten minutes."
"What a waste of time!" said Olga; but she returned his smile, for she could not do otherwise.
"No! Why? I had nothing better to do," he assured her. "And my patience is well rewarded. Hope you're keen on music. I've brought my banjo for the Rajah's edification. It's better than a tomtom anyway. I wonder if the fates have put us next to each other. I'll lay you five rupees to a sixpence that they haven't."
Olga refused to take this generous offer, saying she had no sixpences to spare him, a remark which he declared to be both premature and uncalled for.
"You shouldn't kick a man before he's down," he said. "It's bad policy. If you have to sit next to me after that, it will serve you right."
But when she found that he actually was to be her neighbour she was far from quarrelling with the destiny that made him so. He was so blithe and gay of heart, so blandly impudent, the very wine seemed to shine the redder for his presence. It was not in her nature to flirt with any man, but it was utterly impossibly not to enjoy his society. Less and less did she believe that his butterfly pursuit of her had in it the smallest element of serious intention. He was altogether too young and giddy for such things. She dismissed the matter without further misgiving. _