Fay laughed, a sad, bitter little laugh. "It was Hugo who asked Peter to lend his flat."
"Then what about his servants? What has he done with them while you are here?"
"These are his servants."
"But Hugo said...."
"Jan, dear, it is no use quoting Hugo to me. I can tell you the sort of thing he would say.... Did he mention Peter at all?"
"Certainly not. He said you were "installed in a most comfortable flat"
and had brought your own servants."
"I brought Ayah--naturally, Peter hadn"t an ayah. But why do you object to his servants? They"re very good."
"But don"t they think it ... a little odd?"
"Oh, you can"t bother about what servants think in India. They think us all mad anyway."
There was silence for a few minutes while Jan realised the fact that, dislike it as she might, she seemed fated to be laid under considerable obligation to Mr. Peter Ledgard.
"Where is Hugo?" she asked at last.
"My dear, you appear to have heard from Hugo since I have. As to his whereabouts I haven"t the remotest idea."
"Do you mean to say, Fay, that he hasn"t let you know where he is?"
"He didn"t come with us to the flat because he was afraid he"d be seized for debts and things. We"ve only been here a fortnight. He"s probably on board ship somewhere--there hasn"t been much time for him to let me know...."
Fay spoke plaintively, as though Jan were rather hard on Hugo in expecting him to give his wife any account of his movements.
Jan was glad it was dark. She felt bewildered and oppressed and very, very angry with her brother-in-law, who seemed to have left his entire household in the care of Peter Ledgard. Was Peter paying for their very food, she wondered? She"d put a stop to that, anyhow.
"Jan"--she felt Fay lean a little closer--"don"t be down on me. You"ve no idea how hard it has all been. You"re such a daylight person yourself."
"Hard on you, my precious! I could never feel the least little bit hard.
Only it"s all so puzzling. And what do you mean by a "daylight person"?"
"You know, Jan, for three months now I"ve been a lot alone, and I"ve done a deal of thinking--more than ever in all my life before; and it seems to me that the world is divided into three kinds of people--the daylight people, and the twilight people and the night people."
Fay paused. Jan stroked her hot, thin hand, but did not speak, and the tired, whispering voice went on: "_We_ were daylight people--Daddie was very daylight. There were never any mysteries; we all of us knew always where each of us was, and there were no secrets and no queer people coming for interviews, and it wouldn"t have mattered very much if anyone _had_ opened one of our letters. Oh, it"s such an _easy_ life in the daylight country...."
"And in the twilight country?" asked Jan.
"Ah, there it"s very different. Everything is mysterious. You never know where anyone has gone, and if he"s away queer people--quite horrid people--come and ask for him and won"t go away, and sit in the verandah and cheek the butler and the boy and insist on seeing the "memsahib,"
and when she screws up her courage and goes to them, they ask for money, and show dirty bits of paper and threaten, and it"s all awful--till somebody like Peter comes and kicks them out, and then they simply fly."
In spite of her irritation at being beholden to him, Jan began to feel grateful to Peter.
"Sometimes," Fay continued, "I think it would be easier to be a night person. They"ve no appearances to keep up. You see, what makes it so difficult for the twilight people is that they _want_ to live in the daylight, and it"s too strong for them. All the night people whom they know--and if you"re twilight you know lots of "em--come and drag them back. _They_ don"t care. They rather like to go right in among the daylight folk and scare and shock them, and make them uncomfortable. You _can"t_ suffer in the same way when you"ve gone under altogether."
"But, Fay dear," Jan interposed, "you talk as though the twilight people couldn"t help it...."
"They can"t--they truly can"t."
"But surely there"s right and wrong, straightness and crookedness, and no one _need_ be crooked."
"People like you needn"t--but everybody isn"t strong like that. Hugo says every man has his price, and every woman too--Peter says so, too."
"Then Peter ought to be ashamed of himself. Do you suppose _he_ has his price?"
"No, not in that way. He"d think it silly to be pettifogging and dishonest about money, or to go in for mad speculations run by shady companies; but he wouldn"t think it _extraordinary_ like you."
"I"m afraid my education has been neglected. A great many things seem extraordinary to me."
"You think it funny I should be living in Peter"s flat, waited on by Peter"s servants--but what else could I do?"
Jan smiled in the darkness. She saw where her niece had got "what nelse?"
"Isn"t it just a little--unusual?" she asked gently. "Is there no money at all, Fay? What has become of all your own?"
"It"s not all gone," Fay said eagerly. "I think there"s nearly two thousand pounds left, but Peter made me write home--that was at Dariawarpur, before he came down here--and say no more was to be sent out, not even if I wrote myself to ask for it--and _he_ wrote to Mr.
Davidson too----"
"I know somebody wrote. Mr. Davidson was very worried ... but what _can_ Hugo have done with eight thousand pounds in two years? Besides his pay...."
"Eight thousand pounds doesn"t go far when you"ve dealings with money-lenders and mines in Peru--but _I_ don"t understand it--don"t ask me. I believe he left me a little money--I don"t know how much--at a bank in Elphinstone Circle--but I haven"t liked to write and find out, lest it should be very little ... or none...."
"Mercy!" exclaimed Jan. "It surely would be better to know for certain."
"When you"ve lived in the twilight country as long as I have you"ll not want to know anything for certain. It"s only when things are wrapped up in a merciful haze of obscurity that life is tolerable at all. Do you suppose I _wanted_ to find out that my husband was a rascal? I shut my eyes to it as long as I could, and then Truth came with all her cruel tools and pried them open. Oh, Jan, it did hurt so!"
If Fay had cried, if her voice had even broken or she had seemed deeply moved, it would have been more bearable. It was the poor thing"s calm--almost indifference--that frightened Jan. For it proved that her perceptions were numbed.
Fay had been tortured till she could feel nothing acutely any more. Jan had the feeling that in some dreadful, inscrutable way her sister was shut away from her in some prison-house of the mind.
And who shall break through those strange, intangible, impenetrable walls of unshared experience?
Jan swallowed her tears and said cheerfully: "Well, it"s all going to be different now. You needn"t worry about anything any more. If Hugo has left no money we"ll manage without. Mr. Davidson will let me have what I want ... but we must be careful, because of the children."
"And you"ll try not to mind living in Peter"s flat?" Fay said, rubbing her head against Jan"s shoulder. "It"s India, you know, and men are very kind out here--much friendlier than they are at home."
"So it seems."
"You needn"t think there"s anything wrong, Jan. Peter isn"t in love with me now."
"Was he ever in love with you?"
"Oh, yes, a bit, once; when he first came to Dariawarpur ... lots of them were then. I really was very pretty, and I had quite a little court ... but when the bad times came and people began to look shy at Hugo--everybody was nice to me always--then Peter seemed different.