The Stars in their Courses: a modern romance of the Himalayas

Front matter

A MODERN ROMANCE OF THE HIMALAYAS BY EDITHA EWENS "Who will explain the mysteries of temperament? Who calculate the force of circumstances?" James Haxnai* LONDON WARD AND DOWNEY Limited 12 YORK BUILDINGS ADELPHI W.C. 1898. [All Rights Reserved.] DEDICATED IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO THAT FRIEND WITHOUT WHOSE HELP MY EVERY EFFORT HAD BEEN USELESS. Mooltan, India. " Motions sow To one another, even as tho' They were modulated so To an unheard melody, Which lives about thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses evermore Drawn from each other mellow-deep ; Who may express thee, Eleanore? 4 ***** * So full, so deep, so slow, Thought seems to come and go, In thy large eyes, imperial Eleanore." Tennyson, CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. Erratic and Generally Retrospective i II. A Fresh Start 41 III. Containing some of the Professor's Pet Opinions 52 IV.

The Beginning of an Adventure . . 70 V. In which Eleanore behaves disgracefully 84 VI. Illustrating the Laws of Attractions and Opposites 104 VII. In which Two People make Two Separate Discoveries 126 VIII. In which is made a Foolish Promise . 163 IX. In which Launcelot interviews his Conscience and Eleanore runs away . 188 X. Introduces a Cad, and winds up lamentably 206 XI. In which is fought an Unequal Battle 231 XII. In which an Angel Weeps 247 XIII. Concluding with an Interrogation . ERRATA. Page io line ii for here read where read angrily „ n „ ii for eagerly „ 18 ,, 7 for experiment read experiment? read daughter? read him „ „ ,, 10 for daughter! „ 58 ,, 20 for to him „ 67 „ 8 for plain read plane ,, 72 ,, 14 for Lopchas read Lepchas read Lepchas read marital read hukms read strangely „ 85 „ 5 for Lopchas „ 115 „ 8 for martial ,, 141 „ S for huskm „ 146 ,, 4 for strongly >< l$3 i> J5 for contradictions of „ 187 „ 21 for will read ' contradictious ' read will not ,,196 ,, 7 for ut place read out of place read led „ 217 „ 21 for lead „ 226 „ 19 for valuable read voluble ,, 250 „ 14 for to old „ 250 ,, 21 for imperiously „ 263 „ 11 for first read to her old read impatiently read just

Chapter I. Erratic And Generally Retrospective

DOWNSTAIRS the Professor sat in his study, the table a mass of litter, with heaps and rolls of dock eted papers strewn here and there, all the pigeon holes turned upside down, and the little drawers of the escritoire half or wholly open, and over all an unmistakable air of preparation and departure. Only with the comely figure of the Professor's widowed sister, who in her handsome silk gown sat knitting by the fire, was there any sense of serenity. The Professor turned to her abruptly. Where is Eleanore?" he asked "Upstairs, John, and busy," was the placid response. " I want her, Myra. Be kind enough to give her a call. These papers all seem to become hopelessly entangled when I attempt to arrange them myself." "Then leave them for the present, dear, for Eleanore is busy too. She has a lot of tidying to do, and she was tired to begin with, and I told her to rest awhile.

She will come back when she is ready." The Professor fidgeted in his chair, wiped his spectacles in an irritated manner, blew his nose in a succession of sharp little jerks. His sister was not in the least blind to these well-known signs of his displeasure, but she preserved an expression of indifference to them. Of the inmates of his house hold she was the only one that dared brave his displeasure and afifect not to observe his ill-concealed vexation. Mrs. Whitcombe never for a moment allowed herself to forget that her brother had been a baby while she was in the nursery, and that she had slapped him when he was put into knicker bockers, because he had pulled her hair and jeered at her lor being a girl. Upstairs, in the low, long, panelled room, with its deep bay window and wide-cushioned seat, the graceful, slender figure of a girl was outlined against the fading sky, as she stood gazing out upon the tan gled garden with its fluttering autumn leaves beneath.

A girl whose complexion was like tinted porcelain (although the doctors called it by an uglier name), whose hair, curling and rippling over a low fore head, shone even in the failing light, like burnished bronze — a girl who supported herself with one hand against the window frame, whilst in the other she held a flimsy lace handkerchief screwed up into a damp ball. The signs of tears, past and to come, made her great eyes look as deep as the tarn upon Scawfell. She might aptly have stood as the picturesque incarnation of complete abandon and grief. The silence of the room was broken by the hasty flinging back of the heavy oak door, and a girl flung herself headlong in. "Iolanthe!" exclaimed Eleanore. "Yes, it's me, Angel. Is it really true that you are going with him?" she panted, flopping down on the nearest sofa and drawing Eleanore with her.

She wore the neatest of tailor-made gowns, which displayed her charming little figure to the very best advantage, yet in spite of that she distinctly "flopped." It was Iolanthe Grantham's privilege to flop and to bounce, and no one ever attempted to break her of either habit. "Are you really going?" she repeated. Her face had not a single good feature, but her vivacious and changing expression forbade one to notice it. "Yes, I'm going, lo; how could I possibly stay behind?" " How couldn't you ? " the other retorted, regard less of grammar (grammar and spelling never stood in Iolanthe's way). " It would be easy enough. As for him— silly old thing — I shan't 'hush,' so there! — he could get on quite as well without you." Eleanore smiled. "Perhaps; but he would not let me stay." " Don't ask him ; say nothing about it at all, and at the very end come to me.

You could slip away at the very last moment, just before the ship sails, and if he had his frightful old specimens and his repulsive microbes and things — " "Microscopes, you mean." " It's all the same — one goes inside the other or something; don't interrupt — he would never dream of leaving them to come ashore and look for mere you." Eleanore sighed. Iolanthe inspected her curiously. "My dearest," she began, slipping her arm around Eleanore's slim waist, and giving her an assuring hug, "why won't you be sensible? Do you want to go to that rotten old India?" Eleanore looked back into her friend's eyes reflectively. "Do I?" she repeated, after a pause. "I'm not sure myself, Io — I sometimes think that perhaps I do. It will be a change from the things that hurt me here." Iolanthe gave an ironical sniff.

"It won't be a change from the Professor," she commented, "and if you stayed with me you might be as noisy as you liked, and sing songs all day. / adore your singing, you know, and so does Bertie. Do stay 1 " she added coaxingly. "It's a tempting picture," Eleanore answered, smiling, " but I must not think of it. I do not for a moment suppose that John would let me, even though I asked him." "What does he want you for?" " Oh, it isn't that so much, but he has been making all his plans, expecting me to go, and he does not like to have them altered. Nothing annoys him more than that sort of thing." Iolanthe opened her mouth, but shut it again with a little snap. "How glad I am that / did not marry a model and a learned husband ! " she burst out, after a moment. " It would have been so dull. Now as it is, when I want a little bit of excitement I sit on Bertie's knee and pretend that I have found out something.

He gets in such a state of funk over it, that I really do believe he must have been most fascinatingly wicked once, you know. It is most excruciating fun to see him. I am really glad he isn't a model. And then of course there is the baby. I really don't know how you can go away and leave my baby, Angel: you always pretended to be so fond of her," reproachfully. "It is hard, Io, — only she isn't a baby now; but what am I to do? " "She is a baby, and she is going to remain Baby always ; it's a great deal too risky to dream of any more. I made up my mind before she was born not to love her a bit till I saw if I had lost my figure; but you see I hadn't." She smoothed herself down with an air of pardonable satisfaction. " If I had I should have put the baby out to nurse and taken prussic-acid, I suppose.

As it pleased Heaven (with a big H — you always say ' Heaven' when you mean to be nasty and don't like to be too personal) to forget all about my face, and send me into the world with the features just roughly put in and no finish, I have to be doubly thankful that there was no carelessness about my figure." She stopped for breath, and looked at Eleanore reflectively. " You are too adorably beautiful for India," she observed, "and too impossibly good. Any other girl in your place would have bolted with Mr. Churchill long ago. I know a man who is out there now, and he told Bertie — ," she nodded her head wisely. Eleanore smoothed the little hand in its perfect glove that lay upon her knee. "What a lot of nonsense you talk, Io, and how horribly I shall miss you!" she exclaimed indulgently. " Write to me by every mail and tell me everything.

Bertie never touches my letters, and my maids are all French, and thorough dunces. Tell me everything without any humbug, and come back soon, and on these conditions I'll let you go. Kiss me, for I must fly back now. Nurse will be pining to go down to her everlasting tea, and my olive branch will be left alone." She disappeared in a whirlwind, and Eleanore heard the wheels of her hansom rattle away. The room seemed quieter, the prospect from the window more forlorn, life itself more cheerless in contrast with her friend's exu berant spirits. She lay back upon the cushions, her arms propping up her head, her eyes fixed upon nothing; she was contrasting her friend's life with her own, and considering if it would have suited her, when the door opened for the second time, and her sister-in-law came in.

"Oh, Myra, is that you?" "John has been asking for you, Eleanore, to help with some of his papers. I told him that you were tidying up. My poor child!" she added, as she caught sight of the grief-stricken face. "Don't pity me, Myra, don't!" Eleanore cried fiercely. " Call me names and abuse me, if you like — I can bear that; but I cannot bear your pity. As it is, I feel as if I should go mad. If one week without him feels like this, what will all the long years feel?" "Try not to fret so, Eleanore my dear. My child, where is all your old vaunted philosophy? You are going away from all these old scenes in a few short weeks. John has taken this appoint ment just when you require a change most. India with its new life and sights will distract your thoughts and — forgive me, Eleanore — Time, the great con soler, will bring relief to you, too."

" It brings me no relief now," Eleanore cried bitterly. " Each day is worse than the last so far ; and every day as it creeps on makes me miss him more and more. You say I shall forget with time: I do not believe it. I do not want to forget either: only this dreadful ache I feel that I cannot bear. This room, where only ten days ago he sat and we laid plans for this very day. Oh, Myra, it is too dreadful 1 Why did nothing tell me and warn me ? You believe that God is good and that He watches over His people. I believed it all too, a little while ago : now I do not believe a word of it. I shall never believe again." She had leant back upon the couch when Myra came in ; now she sprang up again and restlessly paced the floor. "I don't be lieve I shall be able to bear it, Myra," she said despairingly, " and now that I must live away from you it will be worse.

There will never be anyone who will understand. I must never let any one know. I must just always be sorry enough, and never too much ; and all the time he lies over there under that horrid cold earth and I shall never see nor speak to him again!" " Eleanore, listen ! I am not going to preach to you in any way : it is quite clear to me that if you have done wrong you have been bitterly punished ; but what I want to ask you is this. What good do you think all this does ? And John, though the least observant of men, will begin to suspect that there must be something more than sorrow at leaving home and the death of a friend however dear. Do not give way so, Eleanore, it is so unlike you, and it can do nothing but harm." Eleanore looked in her companion's face with the ghost of a smile lying on her lips.

She was very fond of her sister-in-law, but just at this moment she felt nothing but contempt for her. " How wise you are, Myra I" she exclaimed, with a little scornful inflexion in her silvery voice, that cut like a knife. "It would be more than foolish if I were to proclaim my own folly when no doubt there will be plenty of people to do it for mei" And she passed into the inner room with her head in the air; here the sight of Jenkins, who had followed her fortunes from babyhood, busy among her wardrobe, distracted her thoughts. Jen kins was not going to accompany her young mistress on her Indian tour, having an insurmountable horror of "heathens and mutinies" which it was impossible to overrule. "Jenkins," Eleanore began, at once slamming the door emphatically and turning to her old nurse, "the thought of going away without you gets worse every day.

It isn't even as though Myra was com ing. It will be just hateful." "Now look here, Miss Nelly, don't you go fret ting about any such silliness," Jenkins said. "I haven't a word to say against Mrs. Whitcombe, but it don't follow as I'm blind. I don't mind wagerin' that you get along wonderful well without her. Wives and 'usband's best let alone is my max im, and I don't hold with none of these new-fangled doctrines. You and the Professor won't have been many months in India by your two selves afore you'll see as everything Tl come right, and I shall be 'ere to look after the babies when you come back." She patted Eleanore's shoulder with all the confidence of an old and spoilt servant. "Jenkins, how dare you!" Eleanore stamped her foot eagerly. " I would never have believed you could be so common!"

" Him as 'as a nose on 'is face is common, and 'im as 'asn't isn't," Jenkins responded placidly. "Sit down, my dear, an' let me do your hair, for it's shameful untidy. When you are a little wiser you'll see as my words Tl come true." "I hope I shall never be wiser then," Eleanore exclaimed, as she sat down. "Him as lives longest sees most," Jenkins observed philosophically, taking out the hair-pins deftly. "Who wants to live in such* a beastly world!" Eleanore retorted. " You may perhaps. As for me, if there is to be a frizzling hereafter, I don't know that I should much care ! " "Listen to that now! Well, Miss Eleanore, I've ofttimes told you I never seem able to make out if you are most angel or devil. You do talk that wild," and she set herself to work to brush Elea nore's heavy hair, with a sigh.

She was sorry when the door opened and Mrs. Whitcombe came in. Unknown to herself Jenkins was jealous of her mistress's sister-in-law. As for Myra, she had followed Eleanore because it was the most natural thing to do. She was fond of her and readily forgave her stinging speeches, tell ing herself that it was natural that the girl should be angry and wretched. For she loved Eleanore dearly and sympathised with her sincerely, although she felt that she was never quite able to under stand her ; and since this trouble had overtaken her, Mrs. Whitcombe felt that her sister-in-law's fits of sudden abandon and, as sudden, restoration to stillness and calm were entirely inexplicable. In her good but old-fashioned way she understood that she was out of touch with much that domin ated Eleanore's more turbulent nature.

She had a mental pigeon-hole for all the kinds of characters with which she was conversant, but Eleanore's character fitted into none. A girl as beautiful and sweet as she, might have been expected to shed tears of grief and pain — there was no objection to make to that — but she should not have proved in consolable to the combined effect of Scriptural texts and beef-tea. Myra felt that there was something radically wrong in that. When she was young, a beautiful girl would not have fretted so defiantly. She would have felt that it was bad for her com plexion ; but Eleanore, although, of course, she must know that she was beautiful, never seemed to take much trouble over it. Before the advent of her first attachment she might almost have been said to object to it, regarding her "looks" as the cause of much of her childhood's trouble.

For even as a little thing she had been aware that her step sister regarded her with cold disfavour. Her Sun day texts had always been those which conveyed the moral that beauty should be avoided. " Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised." It was never suggested to the little Eleanore that it was possible for beauty and goodness to go hand in hand. She was always left to understand that her step-sister, who was plain and pale, was the chosen of heaven. She was the good, patient one who would certainly wear a crown and tread the golden streets; while as to Eleanore, how could she expect to have everything. Even as a child, Eleanore understood that all these were so many stabs in the dark to which no retaliation was permissible. She remembered vividly how she had once taken up the cudgels for that abstract beauty which she understood was being condemned so mercilessly.

After having learned the aforesaid text from Prov erbs, she had remarked that Solomon himself was an old change-about, as when he had written his "Song" he had called the Shunamite "thou fairest among women", which sounded as ifhe thought it a very good thing too. To the end of her life Eleanore remembered the horror with which her remark had been received. Solomon's Song ! The one book in all the Bible which she should nol have read ! " But what could have been expected of Eleanore?" Such a system had fostered in Eleanore a spirit of self-pity, and having neither sisters nor brothers she had confided all her woes to her dolls. The story of the little girl with the big eyes and thick hair who never managed to do right was one that she never tired of pouring into their sympathetic ears. And this early habit of self-commiser ation gave rise to a self-consciousness of a refined and pathetic kind.

She was always striving to sub due in herself those characteristics which she be lieved her people disapproved of, and was con- ■5 sequently even in childhood the most unnatural little mite, always trying to propitiate those in authority over her and to win a tardy word of praise. As the child developed into womanhood it was only natural that she should find abroad that appreci ation denied to her at home, but the habit formed so young of weighing her actions, of considering cause and effect, remained in a perfectly natural unnaturalness, which became the perfection of un conscious acting. Graceful in person and artistic in taste, her very attitudes and expressions were formed by the desire to please. In every situation of life, expected or otherwise, she was a heroine whose role was to say and to do the most artistic ally perfect thing.

For so long had she considered before she spoke that it was now second nature for her quick mind to review the position, and for her lips to give utterance only to the most tactful and pleasing remarks. This, added to her beauty, and a certain unaffected grace which even her rigorous bringing up had not been able to kill, and which Jenkins described as " Miss Eleanore's coaxin' ways," found her many friends and a few (feminine) foes. For it is an openly admitted fact that there is no one so irritating to women as a Beauty in whom they can see no fault. She must be so dreadfully sly! This early struggle to please those who refused to be pleased at any cost also fostered in Eleanore a species of morbid restlessness, which was the cause of much grief and tribulation to her worthy governess. The expression "What will people think of you?" with which she had been wont to subdue former pupils, was in Eleanore's case absolutely powerless.

"What's the good of minding what people say when nothing you do ever pleases them?" she would ask fiercely, and the governess, who was not wanting in intelligence, found herself pitying the pupil whom she had been engaged to scold. But it was Cedric Churchill who had discovered the true Eleanore. In the sunshine of his appre ciation there had been no necessity for her to con sider her words or take heed to her steps. Cedric always understood. With him she might be as dis agreeable as she pleased : he only laughed. He took no notice of her words because he could read her heart. But Mrs. Whitcombe could not under stand all this. A certain amount, of course, but not all; and now that her brother was going to India, even although it was supposed to be only for a year or two, she began to feel anxious when she remembered that for the first time since her marriage Eleanore would have her husband's society entirely to herself.

For Myra was remaining be hind, and she had lived with them ever since they were married, over two years now, and she had, she believed, been able to soften many things to Eleanore. She felt that she could not quite foresee what was likely to happen to them after they be gan alone. It was a great mistake that they had ever been married, though that was not her fault, beyond the fact that it was at her cottage, they had met, where Eleanore was keeping Mrs. Whitcombe company in the absence of her brother, and whither he had returned unexpectedly and be fore his time. Even then it had never occurred to Myra to consider the question of this meeting. She was perfectly aware of Eleanore's " friendship " for a young barrister in town ; they were insepar able companions, and had been for several years, and Myra in her own heart took it for granted that in due time they would be more.

Therefore she observed quite calmly her brother's appreciation of Eleanore's neat writing and the aid she so grace fully lent him with his papers — those papers which were to Myra a perpetual nightmare, but which Eleanore made light of. Then, too, he was sorry for her — it seemed to him a dreadful thing that so young a girl should be so delicate — and her fragility added to her cleverness, and her fascination added to her last merit, as a good listener, had settled the subject at once from Professor Heath cote's point of view. And Eleanore had accepted him — in the spirit of an experiment — to enable her to give a final conge to an obnoxious suitor, urged upon her by her own people who could ill-afford, she knew, the maintenance of an invalid daughter ! Who shall say? There still remained "the other man" of course, but Eleanore had brought all her naturally strong will to consider this relationship, and she had come to the conclusion that were she married or single this "friendship" would continue to flourish equally well.

It was only after the engagement was pro claimed that she had begun to doubt; only when on her return to town she had found an alteration in Cedric Churchill's manner to her that she had felt dubious. And they were a great deal too good friends for anything of an outside nature to come between them, and Eleanore had promptly pointed this out to Cedric ; but of course then it was too late. Cedric listened to all she had to say with defer ence and attention, with a distinct air of relief, when she referred to her betrothed as " anything of an outside nature." "And because I am engaged to Myra's brother, whom I have only just met, Cedric, that is no reason why I should make any difference to you who are my best friend," she wound up succinctly. "Just as you like, Nelly," Cedric had responded gravely; "nothing can alter my feelings for you, but of course a man must be honourable.

I have been a fool, Imperatrix, a blind, besotted fool, though I only discovered it, God knows, when I heard that you had said 'Yes' to another man." There had been no answer necessary to such a remark, and Eleanore had made none. She was at that time too young and too impossibly innocent to know that the wild thrill of happiness which filled her at his words was a flaring finger-post, which should have pointed out to her her own danger. For she had been brought up in the old fashioned style that decrees that a girl cannot be too ignorant upon certain subjects, and that the only person to enlighten her should be her husband. What we of the present day should dub lament able ignorance, they of this past era misnamed cherubic innocence, and the system counts its vic tims. Mrs. Whitcombe, while disapproving of Eleanore's bringing up, never dreamt of supplementing her knowledge.

She had always regarded Cedric (whom she but slightly knew) as Eleanore's future husband, and as he approved of Eleanore as a "friend" she concluded she would suit him as a wife. But she kept her ideas entirely to herself; she had never mentioned him to Eleanore except in the most casual way, and when Eleanore her self had introduced the subject. When her brother had come forward as her young friend's suitor she had done her best to dissuade him, and she had felt sorry for him in the prospect of his certain refusal should he persist. What then was her sur prise when Eleanore had said "Yes;" but even then she had said nothing, only she had sat and watched, and as she knitted and chatted to her friend, she thought that things began to reveal them selves to her. For although Professor Heathcote was her brother, Eleanore was her dearest friend, and all her sympathies were with her.

And Eleanore had made John a good wife, that is to say, a good secretary, and when he did not require her services he never enquired how she spent her time. Not that Eleanore made any secret about it ; she was always quite open with Myra. " I don't think I shall go out to-day ; Cedric said he would try and call," she would say quite naturally, and if Myra noticed that such days were invariably those on which the Professor was engaged away from home she had the good sense to keep the knowledge to herself. She noticed also that Eleanore made quite a habit of refusing invitations if she did not think Cedric would be there (unless, indeed, it were one that John had asked her to accept, when she went readily enough), and it was quite an ordinary thing for her to say to him when they met, " I am going to such and such an affair, Cedric, be sure you turn up," and Cedric would invariably make a note of it in his pocket-book, and Myra could never discover that he ever missed the appointment so made.

But it was all done so openly and so inno cently that she could not see that there was any possible harm in it, whereas, if she spoke, her very warning might cause mischief. She had once made the tentative suggestion to Eleanore that Cedric might marry, and Eleanore had looked up from her fancy work with a little start and an extra flush on her cheeks. "Do you think so?" she asked incredulously. "Well, I expect she would be a nice girl, but I don't think it could made any difference to me either way." Which somehow had not been quite the sort of answer that Myra had looked for, and which did not reassure her quite so much as she would have liked. It was a standing problem to Myra how her sister-in-law could have remained so guileless in spite of her cleverness; but little by little she came to the conclusion that this was in a great measure attributable to Cedric himself.