The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
Mudlianah. Charlie! where have you been this morning?”
“Been, dear! Why, to mess and barracks, to be sure! Where else should
I have been?”
“There are plenty of houses to call at, I suppose. What is the use of
pretending to be so dull? You made a call late last night, if I am not
much mistaken!”
“Last night! What, after mess? I only went home with Jack Lawless for
a minute or two.”
“Did you go home with Mr. Lawless?”
“Yes; at least--he didn’t walk home with me exactly; but he came in
soon afterwards.”
“Of course she was in bed?”
“Oh no, she wasn’t. She was as brisk as a bee. We talked together for
a long time.”
“So I have heard! In the garden,” remarks Mrs. Dunstan pointedly.
“Yes! Was there any harm in that?” replies her husband. “Our talk was
solely on business. Is anything the matter, Ethel, darling? You are
not at all like yourself this morning.”
But the only answer Mr. Dunstan gives him is indicated by her suddenly
rising and leaving the room. She is not the sort of woman to tell her
husband frankly what she feels. She thinks--and perhaps she is
right--that to openly touch so delicate a matter as a dereliction from
the path of marital duty, is to add fuel to the flame. But she suffers
terribly, and in her excited condition Colonel Dunstan’s open avowal
appears an aggravation of his offence.
“‘He is too noble to deceive me,’ she thinks, ‘and so he will take
refuge in apparent frankness. He confesses he admires her, and he will
tell me every time he goes there, and then he will say,--“How can you
suspect me of any wrong intention when I am so open with you?”’
“Business indeed! As if he could have any business with a doll like
Mrs. Lawless. It is shameful of her to flirt with married men in this
disgraceful way.”
Yet Mrs. Dunstan and Mrs. Lawless meet at the band that evening, and
smile and bow to and talk with one another as if they were the best
friends in the world; but the Colonel is prevented by duty from doing
more than arrive in time to take his wife home to dinner, and so
Ethel’s heart is for the while at rest. But during dinner a dreadful
blow falls upon her. A note is brought to the Colonel, which he reads
in silence and puts into the pocket of his white drill waistcoat.
“From Mr. Hazlewood, dear?” says Ethel interrogatively.
“No, my love, purely on business,” replies the Colonel, as he helps
himself to wine. But when the meal is concluded he walks into his
dressing-room, and re-appears in his mess uniform.
“Going to mess, Charlie?” exclaims his wife, in a tone of
disappointment.
“No, my darling--business! I may be late. Good-night!” and he kisses
her and walks out of the house.
“Business,” repeats Mrs. Dunstan emphatically; and as soon as his back
is turned, she is searching his suit of drill. Colonel Dunstan has not
been careful to conceal or destroy the note he received at dinner. It
is still in his waistcoat pocket. His wife tears it open and reads:--
“Dear Colonel,--Do come over this evening if possible. I have had
another letter, which you must see. I depend upon you for everything.
You are the only friend I have in the world. Pray don’t fail me.--Ever
yours gratefully,
“Cissy Lawless.”
“Cat!” cries Mrs. Dunstan indignantly, “deceitful, fawning,
hypocritical cat! This is the way she gets over the men--pretending to
each one that he is the only friend she has in the world--a married
woman, too! It’s disgusting! Miss MacQuirk is quite right, and some
one ought to tell poor Jack Lawless of the way she is carrying on. And
Charlie is as bad as she is! It was only to-day he told me as bold as
brass that that creature’s eyes are so innocent and guileless-looking
they reminded him of little Katie’s--and not ten minutes afterwards,
he said my new bonnet from England was a fright, and made me look as
yellow as a guinea. Oh! what is this world coming to, and where will
such wickedness end? I wish that I was dead and buried with poor
mamma.” And so Mrs. Dunstan cries herself to sleep, and when her
husband comes home and kisses her fondly as she lies upon the pillow,
he decides that she is feverish, and has not been looking well lately
and must require change, and remains awake for some time thinking how
he can best arrange to let her have it.
In the middle of that night, however, something occurs to occupy the
minds of both father and mother to the exclusion of everything else.
Little Katie, their only child, a beautiful little girl of three years
old, is taken suddenly and dangerously ill with one of those violent
disorders that annually decimate our British possessions in the east.
The whole household is roused--Dr. MacQuirk summoned from his bed--and
for some hours the parents hang in mental terror over the baby’s cot,
fearing every minute lest their treasure should be taken from them.
But the crisis passes. Little Katie is weak but out of danger, and
then the consideration arises what is the best thing to facilitate her
recovery. Dr. MacQuirk lets a day or two pass to allow the child to
gain a little strength, and then he tells the Colonel emphatically
that she must be sent away at once--to England if possible--or he will
not answer for her life. This announcement is a sad blow to Colonel
Dunstan, but he knows it is imperative, and prepares to break the news
to his wife.
“Ethel, my dear, I am sorry to tell you that MacQuirk considers it
quite necessary that Katie should leave Mudlianah for change of air,
and he wishes her, if possible, to go to England at once.”
“But it is _not_ possible, Charlie. We could never consent to send the
child home alone, and you cannot get leave again so soon. Surely it is
not absolutely necessary she should go to England.”
“Not absolutely necessary, perhaps, but very advisable, not only for
Katie, but for yourself. You are not looking at all well, Ethel. Your
dispirited appearance worries me sadly, and in your condition you
should take every care of yourself. I hardly like to make the proposal
to you, but if you would consent to take Katie home to your sister’s,
say for a twelvemonth, I think it would do your own health a great
deal of good.”
But Colonel Dunstan’s allusion to her want of spirits has recalled all
her jealousy of Mrs. Lawless to Ethel’s mind, and the journey to
England finds no favour in her eyes.
“You want me to go away for a twelvemonth,” she says sharply, “and
pray what is to become of you meanwhile?”
“I must stay here. You know I cannot leave India.”
“You will stay with Mrs. ----, I mean with the regiment, whilst I go
home with the child.”
“Yes. What else can I do?”
“Then I shall _not_ go. I refuse to leave you.”
“Not even for Katie’s sake?”
“We will take her somewhere else. There are plenty of places in India
where we can go for change of air; and if you _cared_ for me, Charlie,
you would never contemplate such a thing as a whole year’s
separation.”
“Do you think I _like_ the idea, Ethel? What should I do left here all
by myself? I only proposed it for your sake and the child’s.”
“I will not go,” repeats Mrs. Dunstan, firmly, and she sends for Dr.
MacQuirk and has a long talk with him.
“Dr. MacQuirk, is it an absolute necessity that Katie should go to
England?”
“Not an absolute necessity, my dear leddy, but, from a mee-dical point
of view, advisable. And your own hee-alth also--”
“Bother my health!” she cries irreverently. “What is the nearest place
to which I could take the child for change?”
“You might take her to the Heels, Mrs. Doonstan--to the heels of
Mandalinati, which are very salubrious at this time of the year.”
“And how far off are they?”
“A matter of a coople of hundred miles. Ye canna get houses there, but
there is a cairs-tle on the broo’ o’ the Heel that ye may have for the
airsking.”
“A castle, that sounds most romantic? And whom must we ask, doctor?”
“The cairs-tle is the property of Rajah Mati Singh, and he bee-lt it
for his ain plee-sure, but he doesna’ ceer to leeve there, and so he
will lend it to any Europeans who weesh for a change to the Heels of
Mandalinati.”
“Rajah Mati Singh! That horrid man! There will be no chance of seeing
him, will there?”
“No, no, Mrs. Doonstan! the Rajah will not trouble ye! He never goes
near the cairs-tle noo, and ye will have the whoole place to yersel’
in peace and quietude.”
“I will speak to the colonel about it directly he comes in. Thank you
for your information, Dr. MacQuirk. If we must leave Mudlianah, I
shall be delighted to stay for a while at this romantic castle on the
brow of the hill.
“Yes,” she says to herself, when the doctor is gone, “we shall be
alone there, I and my Charlie, and it will seem like the dear old
honeymoon time, before we came to live amongst these horrid flirting
cats of women, and perhaps some of the old memories will come back to
him, and we shall be happy, foolish lovers again as we used to be long
ago before I was so miserable.”
But when Colonel Dunstan hears of the proposed visit to the
Mandalinati Hills, he does not seem to approve of it half so much as
he did of the voyage to England.
“I am not at all sure if the climate will suit you or the child,” he
says, “it is sometimes very raw and misty up on those hills. And then
it is very wild and lonely. I know the castle MacQuirk means--a great
straggling building standing quite by itself, and in a most exposed
position. I really think you will be much wiser to go to England,
Ethel.”
“Oh, Charlie! how unkind of you, and when you know the separation will
kill me!”
“It would be harder, just at first, but I should feel our trouble
would be repaid. But I shall always be in a fidget about you at
Mandalinati.”
“But, Charlie, what harm can happen when you are with us?”
“My dear girl, I can’t go with you to the castle.”
“Why not?”
“Because business will detain me here. How do you suppose I can leave
the regiment?”
“But you will come up very often to see us--every week at least; won’t
you, Charlie?”
“On a four days’ journey! Ethel, my dear, be reasonable. If you go to
Mandalinati, the most I can promise is to get a fortnight’s leave
after a time, and run up to see how you and the dear child are getting
on. But I don’t like your going, and I tell you so plainly. Suppose
you are taken ill before your time, or Katie has another attack, how
are you to get assistance up on those beastly hills? Think better of
it, Ethel, and decide on England. If you go, Captain Lewis says he
will send his wife at the same time, and you would be nice company for
each other on the way home.”
“Mrs. Lewis, indeed! an empty-headed noodle! Why, she would drive me
crazy before we were half-way there. No, Charlie; I am quite decided.
If _you_ cannot accompany me to England, I refuse to go. I shall get
the loan of the castle, and try what four weeks there will do for the
child.”
And thus it came to pass that Mrs. Dunstan’s absurd jealousy of Mrs.
Lawless drives her to spend that fatal month at the lonely castle on
the Mandalinati Hills, instead of going in peace and safety to her
native land. For a brief space Hope leads her to believe that she may
induce Mrs. Lawless to pass the time of exile with her. If her woman’s
wit can only induce the fatal beauty to become her guest, she will
bear the loss of Charlie’s society with equanimity. But though Cissy
Lawless seems for a moment almost to yield, she suddenly draws back,
to Mrs. Dunstan’s intense annoyance.
“The old castle on the hills!” she exclaimed. “Are you and Colonel
Dunstan really going there? How delightfully romantic! I believe no
end of murders have been committed there, and every room is haunted.
Oh, I should like to go, too, of all things in the world! I long to