CHAPTER XXV
"And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee."--_The Bible_.
Leonie and her aunt were having tea at the Ladies' Union Club, of whichthe latter was almost an original member.
You know the place where, arriving on foot or with the trail of theomnibus upon you in the shape of a two-penny ticket grasped tightly inyour right hand, you receive a stony stare as welcome from the hallporter, and one of dead fish glassiness from the rest of the staff.
There is a certain air of geniality diffused around a taxi arrival, buta _car_!--two or eight cylinder--owned, borrowed, or stolen, well!there you win in honours, no matter _what_ kind of private address youcamouflage with that of your club.
Having cleared a way across the tobacco-laden atmosphere, through whichcan be spied ladies, young and old, inhaling and exhaling with morevigour than grace, they had ensconced themselves in the seat for twowhich lies isolated from the jumble of chairs and couches.
That seat having the advantage of isolation, your conversation does notgladden the ears of your neighbour nor theirs yours.
You know what that is like--if you don't, well, it's the kind that ifwritten would read in italics: _Ayah--kitmutgar--pukka--chotarhazri--syce_, with reference, ultra-distinct and emphatic, to_Government House_, _Simla_, and my dear old friend, _GeneralMethuselah_.
Just those little British odds-and-ends which go to the ruling, more orless, of the land of the peacock. Add to that the general, what shallI say, touch-and-go attire of the majority of the members. You knowwhat it is like.
Lace collars over reconstructed tailor-mades; pseudo-suede gloves,chiffon scarfs, generally ropey and heliotrope of hue; odd-colouredjerseys affiliated to odd-cut skirts, plus jangling oriental braceletsand chains, and mix that with a few puckered, leather-hued countenancesand you get the club's principal ingredient.
Anglo-Indian.
Anyway the place is conveniently situated, and quite bearable if youcan put up with the waiter or the somewhat overdecorated andever-changing waitress telling you, in front of your guest, that you"can only 'ave cakes and bread-un-butter forrer shilling,every-think-else-is extra."
Cheery, when you may have been doing your best to make an impression!
Of course every member (if she ever gets as far as this) of everyladies' club will here draw her pharisaical skirts about her and edgenearer to her neighbour.
"_Did_ you read this"--quotes--"_awfully_ good, isn't it? Of courseit's meant for the Imperatrix--the Toga--the Ninth Century--the Spook."
It _isn't_!
It's just typical.
Is there any one thing in any one ladies' club to differentiate it fromits sister establishment--especially in the canteen?
I will pay one year's town subscription to any woman knowing, ofcourse, the difference between husks and food, who will honestlydeclare that her heart has _not_ plumped to her boots after aspur-on-the-moment invitation to a _man_ to lunch or dine at her club.
By spur-on-the-moment I mean when she has not had the time to negotiatewith the cook, via the head waiter.
You do not need the menu to tell you that plaice is here your portion;or a lightning glance to ascertain that the exact number of your prunesis six, and that of your guest half a dozen; or just a sip of yourcoffee--well! there you begin to talk feverishly and to press liqueursand cigarettes upon the suffering guest.
But to come back to the club tea-room.
"My dear," Susan Hetth was saying, jangling with the best, and pitchingher voice so that it literally, though slangily, beat the band, "Ireally think, considering your position and recent bereavement, thatyou _should_ wear----"
"Please be quiet, Auntie," said Leonie, who in a grey and pale mauveconfection looked like a field of statice against a pearl-grey sky. "Icame here to talk about you, not clothes. You see I want to tell youhow I have settled things before I sail."
Her aunt fretted with a teaspoon, and spoke in the absurd peevish waywhich had been so attractive at seventeen.
"For the last time, Leonie, I want you to listen to me!"
"Other way round, Auntie," said Leonie, who had chosen the club, of allplaces, for a last _tete-a-tete_ with her relation, in the hope thatthe presence of others would serve as a dam to the flood of tears whichhad streamed almost unceasingly during the last month.
"But it's absurd, idiotic----"
"Auntie, dear, we've been through all that a hundred times, and ahundred million times more won't make me change. I will _not_ touch apenny of Sir Walter's money----"
"Oh! Leonie, your _husband_!"
"Not my husband in any sense at all, except for the awful name.Why"--and she spoke with sweet intense enthusiasm--"do you know theyare going to build a house in Devon for blind babies out of my marriagesettlement, and endow it, and have resident teachers--think of it----"
Leonie broke off to manipulate the tea-things to the rhythm of aone-step.
"And all the rest of the money, Leonie, oh! it's scandalous!"
"Oh, that!" said Leonie, manoeuvring the milk out of a broken milk-jug."Except for Sir Walter's special bequests, it all goes back to thefamily. They've almost all come to see me at the hotel, such honest,nice people; and oh! so grateful. Mrs. Sam Hickle is moving to Balhamfrom the Waterloo Road to open a fruit shop, she brought me a hugebasket of vegetables, carried it into my room herself; and a young BertHickle, who has a whelk-barrow in the Borough, brought me a wholeturbot which had soaked through its newspaper wrapping. He gave it tothe page-boy to carry, and I _do_ wish you had seen their faces whenthe tail suddenly burst through, just as the page-boy was gingerlylaying it down on a most appropriate resting-place, a marble consol."
Leonie laughed just as the music stopped, a ringing, happy laugh whichcaused people to stare and then nudge, or kick each othersurreptitiously as they recognised her.
"It's all settled about you, Auntiekins. I'm paying your debts, whicharen't so terrific, only foolish, and giving you five hundred pounds togo on with. That, with your own income, will be all right if only youwill live in the country instead of hanging on to the edge of a societywhich doesn't want you. Still, you do exactly as you like, dear, onlyremember that I shall only have just enough to live on when I've gotthrough the thousand pounds, and don't run up any more debts."
"Why not _invest_ the thousand, Leonie, _sensibly_." Susan Hetth'svoice was dull, choked doubtlessly by the dust of her castle ruins.
"I've got to go to India!"
"Why, for goodness sake?"
"I don't know, Auntie, I've simply got to go!"
"How silly," said Auntie, as she forced a cigarette inartistically intoa holder, adding abruptly, as her commonplace mind jumped at acommonplace loop-hole, "Where is Jan Cuxson? I should think----"
Leonie answered quickly, breaking her aunt's words.
"I have no idea! I haven't heard from him since he left England."
"Huh!" said Susan Hetth, putting up an absolute smoke screen, "and whatwill you do after the money is spent, pray?"
Leonie stared wide-eyed into the tobacco haze. "That," she saidslowly, "is on the knees of the gods!"
Talking being temporarily suspended by the band in the death throes ofthe overture to Zampa, the two women sat silent; one frantically tryingto solve financial problems, the other with her head a little on oneside as though trying to catch the thread of some conversation.
A strange thing happened as the band stopped.
Leonie rose quite suddenly, with a half-eaten cake half-way to hermouth.
"I must go!" she said quite flatly, placing the cake on a plate andlooking at her aunt without seeing her.
"_Go_!" shrilled Susan Hetth, putting her fourth cup of tea down withan irritated slam. "Where on earth _to_?"
But Leonie turned and walked away with never a word of explanation, andher aunt, with the thrifty side of her plebeian soul uppermost, turnedto the task of getting through as much as possible of what was left ofthe two teas for which two shillings
had been paid.
The porter looked hard at Leonie when she asked for a taxi, hesitatedfor a moment, looked hard again, and refrained from putting thequestion hovering on his tongue.
"Seemed quite dazed like," he explained later to his wife in Camberwellas she juggled with sausages, "pale as death, with a kind of funny lookround her eyes!"
"To the British Museum," Leonie said through the window as the taxidoor closed, and the funny look round her eyes deepened into a line ofperplexity between the eyebrows, as the cab bore her swiftly to herdestination and her destiny.
She walked swiftly up the steps to the institution she was visiting forthe first time, and through the glass swing doors, just as though shewas hurrying to an appointment; she turned, without hesitating, sharplyto the left up the long flight of stairs, passed through the roomsfilled with relics of Rome found in Britain, and stopped.
Just for a second she put the palm of her ungloved hand against herforehead, sighed quickly, with her head bent forward, then passedthrough the doorway, turned to the left, stopped and said "Yes?"
And the man, in faultless western clothes save for the white turbanwhich with its regulation folds outlined the pale bronze face, with alook of satisfaction in the dark eyes, salaamed before the beautifulwoman who had looked at him questioningly.
"Allow me!" he said simply, bending to pick up the glove she haddropped, the smile of satisfaction deepening as he looked at her again.
She had turned from him, and stock-still was staring into the glasscase which lined the wall.
Closer she pressed, until her nose, flattened against the glass lookedlike a white cherry.
"Kali," she read, "Kali, the Goddess of Death. I thought--I----"
Lower she leant to look at the square stone image numbered thirty-seven.
High breasted, squatting on her crossed legs, garlanded with skulls,with five hands, holding a sword, a thunderbolt, a skull, a snake, acup, and the other two raised in blessing, the goddess leers at youlike a very old woman from behind the glass.
Leonie turned swiftly to find herself alone; and the hunted look in hergold-flecked eyes deepened to horror as she gathered her skirts abouther, and fled blindly through the rooms, and down the stairs, and outof the building.
Heading straight down Museum Street for Oxford Street, she ran acrossthe road at the risk of her neck and the wrath of a taxi-driver; gaveone terrified backward glance at a law-abiding student from India, whowas going to his cheery lodgings in Bloomsbury; and fled into thetea-rooms which lure you outside with the pretty apple-painted ware inthe window, and where inside, one beautiful little blonde head shineslike a field of ripening wheat.
Safe, she crouched down behind the window curtain with her eyes fixedunseeingly on the distorted figures of the Java frieze.
Leonie of the Jungle Page 25