Ah King (33 page)

Then one day when Neil came back from collecting, though he had delayed till the last possible minute before tiffin, he was surprised to find that Munro had not yet returned. Darya was lying on a mattress on the veranda, sipping a gin pahit and smoking. She did not speak to him when he passed through to wash. In a minute the Chinese boy came into his room and told him that tiffin was ready. He walked out.

“Where’s Mr Munro?” he asked.

“He’s not coming,” said Darya. “He sent a message to say that the place he’s at is so good he won’t come down till night.”

Munro had set out that morning for the summit of the mountain. The lower levels had yielded poor results in the way of mammals, and Munro’s idea was, if he could find a good place higher up, with a supply of water, to transfer the camp. Neil and Darya ate their meal in silence. After they had finished he went into the house and came out again with his topee and his collecting gear. It was unusual for him to go out in the afternoon.

“Where are you going?” she asked abruptly.

“Out.”

“Why?”

“I don’t feel tired. I’ve got nothing much else to do this afternoon.”

Suddenly she burst into tears.

“How can you be so unkind to me?” she sobbed. “Oh, it is cruel to treat me like this.”

He looked down at her from his great height, his handsome, somewhat stolid face bearing a harassed look. “What have I done?”

“You’ve been beastly to me. Bad as I am I haven’t deserved to suffer like this. I’ve done everything in the world for you. Tell me one single little thing I could do that I haven’t done gladly. I’m so terribly unhappy.”

He moved on his feet uneasily. It was horrible to hear her say that. He loathed and feared her, but he had still the respect for her that he had always felt, not only because she was a woman, but because she was Angus Munro’s wife. She wept uncontrollably. Fortunately the Dyak hunters had gone that morning with Munro. There was no one about the camp but the three Chinese servants and they, after tiffin, were asleep in their own quarters fifty yards away. They were alone.

“I don’t want to make you unhappy. It’s all so silly. It’s absurd of a woman like you to fall in love with a fellow like me. It makes me look such a fool. Haven’t you got any self-control?”

“Oh, God. Self-control!”

“I mean, if you really cared for me you couldn’t want me to be such a cad. Doesn’t it mean anything to you that your husband trusts us implicitly? The mere fact of his leaving us alone like this puts us on our honour. He’s a man who would never hurt a fly. I should never respect myself again if I betrayed his confidence.”

She looked up suddenly.

“What makes you think he would never hurt a fly? Why, all those bottles and cases are full of the harmless animals he’s killed.”

“In the interests of science. That’s quite another thing.”

“Oh, you fool, you fool.”

“Well, if I am a fool I can’t help it. Why do you bother about me?”

“Do you think I wanted to fall in love with you?”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ashamed? How stupid! My God, what have I done that I should eat my heart out for such a pretentious ass?”

“You talk about what you’ve done for me. What has Munro done for you?”

“Munro bores me to death. I’m sick of him. Sick to death of him.”

“Then I’m not the first?”

Ever since her amazing avowal he had been tortured by the suspicion that what those men at Kuala Solor had said of her was true. He had refused to believe a word of it, and even now he could not bring himself to think that she could be such a monster of depravity. It was frightful to think that Angus Munro, so trusting and tender, should have lived in a fool’s paradise. She could not be as bad as that. But she misunderstood him. She smiled through her tears.

“Of course not. How can you be so silly? Oh, darling, don’t be so desperately serious. I love you.”

Then it was true. He had sought to persuade himself that what she felt for him was exceptional, a madness that together they could contend with and vanquish. But she was simply promiscuous.

“Aren’t you afraid Munro will find out?”

She was not crying any more. She adored talking about herself, and she had a feeling that she was inveigling Neil into a new interest in her.

“I sometimes wonder if he doesn’t know, if not with his mind, then with his heart. He’s got the intuition of a woman and a woman’s sensitiveness. Sometimes I’ve been certain he suspected and in his anguish I’ve sensed a strange, spiritual exaltation. I’ve wondered if in his pain he didn’t find an infinitely subtle pleasure. There are souls, you know, that feel a voluptuous joy in laceration.”

“How horrible!” Neil had no patience with these conceits. “The only excuse for you is that you’re insane.”

She was now much more sure of herself. She gave him a bold look.

“Don’t you think I’m attractive? A good many men have. You must have had dozens of women in Scotland who weren’t so well made as I am.”

She looked down at her shapely, sensual figure with calm pride.

“I’ve never had a woman,” he said gravely.

“Why not?”

She was so surprised that she sprang to her feet. He shrugged his shoulders. He could not bring himself to tell her how disgusting the idea of such a thing was to him, and how vile he had thought the haphazard amours of his fellow-students at Edinburgh. He took a mystical joy in his purity. Love was sacred. The sexual act horrified him. Its excuse was the procreation of children and its sanctification marriage. But Darya, her whole body rigid, stared at him, panting; and suddenly, with a sobbing cry in which there was exultation and at the same time wild desire, she flung herself on her knees and seizing his hand passionately kissed it.

“Alyosha,” she gasped. “Alyosha.”

And then, crying and laughing, she crumpled up in a heap at his feet. Strange, hardly human sounds issued from her throat and convulsive tremors passed through her body so that you would have thought she was receiving one electric shock after another. Neil did not know if it was an attack of hysteria or an epileptic fit.

“Stop it,” he cried. “Stop it.”

He took her up in his strong arms and laid her in the chair. But when he tried to leave her she would not let him. She flung her arms round his neck and held him. She covered his face with kisses. He struggled. He turned his face away. He put his hand between her face and his to protect himself. Suddenly she dug her teeth into it. The pain was so great that, without thinking, he gave her a great swinging blow.

“You devil,” he cried.

His violent gesture had forced her to release him. He held his hand and looked at it. She had caught him by the fleshy part on the side, and it was bleeding. Her eyes blazed. She was feeling alert and active.

“I’ve had enough of this. I’m going out,” he said.

She sprang to her feet.

“I’ll come with you.”

He put on his topee and, snatching up his collecting gear without a word, turned on his heel. With one stride he leaped down the three steps that led from the floor of the house to the ground. She followed him.

“I’m going into the jungle,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

In the ravening desire that possessed her she forgot her morbid fear of the jungle. She recked nothing of snakes and wild beasts. She did not mind the branches that hit her face or the creepers that entangled her feet. For a month Neil had explored all that part of the forest and he knew every yard of it. He told himself grimly that he’d teach her to come with him. He forced his way through the undergrowth with rapid strides; she followed him, stumbling but determined; he crashed on, blind with rage, and she crashed after him. She talked; he did not listen to what she said. She besought him to have pity on her. She bemoaned her fate. She made herself humble. She wept and wrung her hands. She tried to cajole him. The words poured from her lips in an unceasing stream. She was like a mad woman. At last in a little clearing he stopped suddenly and turning round faced her.

“This is impossible,” he cried. “I’m fed up. When Angus comes back I must tell him I’ve got to go. I shall go back to Kuala Solor tomorrow morning and go home.”

“He won’t let you go, he wants you. He finds you invaluable.”

“I don’t care. I’ll fake up something.”

“What?”

He mistook her.

“Oh, you needn’t be frightened, I shan’t tell him the truth. You can break his heart if you want to; I’m not going to.”

“You worship him, don’t you? That dull, phlegmatic man.”

“He’s worth a hundred of you.”

“It would be rather funny if I told him you’d gone because I wouldn’t yield to your advances.”

He gave a slight start and looked at her to see if she was serious.

“Don’t be such a fool. You don’t think he’d believe that, do you? He knows it would never occur to me.”

“Don’t be too sure.”

She had spoken carelessly, with no particular intention other than to continue the argument, but she saw that he was frightened and some instinct of cruelty made her press the advantage.

“Do you expect mercy from me? You’ve humiliated me beyond endurance. You’ve treated me like dirt. I swear that if you make any suggestion of going I shall go straight to Angus and say that you took advantage of his absence to try and assault me.”

“I can deny it. After all it’s only your word against mine.”

“Yes, but my word’ll count. I can prove what I say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I bruise easily. I can show him the bruise where you struck me. And look at your hand.” He turned and gave it a sudden glance. “How did those teeth marks get there?”

He stared at her stupidly. He had gone quite pale. How could he explain that bruise and that scar? If he was forced to in self-defence he could tell the truth, but was it likely that Angus would believe it? He worshipped Darya. He would take her word against anyone’s. What monstrous ingratitude it would seem for all Munro’s kindness and what treachery in return for so much confidence! He would think him a filthy skunk and from his standpoint with justice. That was what shattered him, the thought that Munro, for whom he would willingly have laid down his life, should think ill of him. He was so unhappy that tears, unmanly tears that he hated, came to his eyes. Darya saw that he was broken. She exulted. She was paying him back for the misery he had made her suffer. She held him now. He was in her power. She savoured her triumph, and in the midst of her anguish laughed in her heart because he was such a fool. At that moment she did not know whether she loved or despised him.

“Now will you be good?” she said.

He gave a sob and blindly, with a sudden instinct of escape from that abominable woman, took to his heels and ran as hard as he could. He plunged through the jungle, like a wounded animal, not looking where he was going, till he was out of breath. Then, panting, he stopped. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the sweat that was pouring into his eyes and blinding him. He was exhausted and he sat down to rest.

“I must take care I don’t get lost,” he said to himself.

That was the least of his troubles, but all the same he was glad that he had a pocket compass, and he knew in which direction he must go. He heaved a deep sigh and rose wearily to his feet. He started walking. He watched his way and with another part of his mind miserably asked himself what he should do. He was convinced that Darya would do what she had threatened. They were to be another three weeks in that accursed place. He dared not go; he dared not stay. His mind was in a whirl. The only thing was to get back to camp and think it out quietly. In about a quarter of an hour he came to a spot that he recognized. In an hour he was back. He flung himself miserably into a chair. And it was Angus who filled his thoughts. His heart bled for him. Neil saw now all sorts of things that before had been dark to him. They were revealed to him in a flash of bitter insight. He knew why the women at Kuala Solor were so hostile to Darya and why they looked at Angus so strangely. They treated him with a sort of affectionate levity. Neil thought it was because Angus was a man of science and so in their foolish eyes somewhat absurd. He knew now it was because they were sorry for him and at the same time found him ridiculous. Darya had made him the laughing-stock of the community. If ever there was a man who hadn’t deserved ill usage at a woman’s hands it was he. Suddenly Neil gasped and began to tremble all over. It had suddenly occurred to him that Darya did not know her way through the jungle; in his anguish he had hardly been conscious of where they went. Supposing she could not find her way home?

She would be terrified. He remembered the ghastly story Angus had told them of being lost in the forest. His first instinct was to go back and find her, and he sprang to his feet. Then a fierce anger seized him. No, let her shift for herself. She had gone of her own free will. Let her find her own way back. She was an abominable woman and deserved all that might come to her. Neil threw back his head defiantly, a frown of indignation on his smooth young brow, and clenched his hands. Courage. He made up his mind. It would be better for Angus if she never returned. He sat down and began trying to mount a skin of a Mountain Trogon. But the Trogon has a skin like wet tissue-paper and his hands trembled. He tried to apply his mind to the work he was doing, but his thoughts fluttered desperately, like moths in a trap, and he could not control them. What was happening over there in the jungle? What had she done when he suddenly bolted? Every now and then, against his will, he looked up. At any moment she might appear in the clearing and walk calmly up to the house. He was not to blame. It was the hand of God. He shuddered. Storm clouds were gathering in the sky and night fell quickly.