Second Best Wife (18 page)

The children had crowded into the limited space behind them, their dark eyes large with curiosity and shining with the reflected light of the candles. They were beautiful, well-made children, much given to laughter and with all the curiosity about visitors that is universal among the less literate, who get their news by word of mouth rather than from the written word. It seemed to Georgina that there was no air at all left inside the temple and she began to hope the ceremony would soon come to an end.

When it did, it was with a suddenness that made her forget all about the slippery floor, and she very nearly fell as they turned and made their way outside again.

'The priest doesn't speak English,' Stuart warned her, so, as something was expected of her, she turned to Rabahindre and asked him to thank him for them.

'It was a great honour for us,' she insisted. 'I wouldn't want him to think us ungrateful. You will make sure that he understands that, while we're not Hindus ourselves, we're proud to have been allowed to visit his temple.'

Rabahindre grinned. 'He knows, madam. I have told him all about you and everyone is happy you came to see our gods. Now he has seen you for himself, he will allow you to see the demon as you asked. Excuse me, madam, if you will follow me, we will go now.'

He led the way through the pitiful houses of the lines where most of the workers on the estate lived. Children abounded, falling in and out of the puddles that had not yet dried out, and thoroughly enjoying the novelty of having these strangers among them. Yet they made little noise. No one cried out, as they would have done at home in England; they watched and giggled in almost total silence, nudging each other if anything of particular interest happened.

The masks and home-made dancing figures were kept in a shed at one end of the village. Rabahindre unlocked the rusty padlock on the door and, gesturing them to stay outside, went in himself and came out again carrying several highly coloured ancient masks in his arms.

'But they have no bodies!' Celine complained.

Rabahindre waggled his head. 'Not now, Miss Celine. Every year they have a new body specially made for them. They are made of palm leaves, plaited together, and are beautiful. But they last only a little time. These ones are not used at this time of year. They have their own festivals at other times.' He turned back to the shed with an unconsciously theatrical air. 'Now you will see Mahasona!'

There was a lengthy pause, disturbed only by the sounds of activity from within the shed, and then the mask that Georgina had seen the night before emerged from the battered door, rolling its eyes and opening and shutting its mouth, looking exactly as though it were indeed drinking the blood of the elephant's head that was raised again and again to its lips. Georgina found it hideous, the more so now that she could see the vivid colours in which it was painted: scarlet, green, yellow, and white, outlined in black. The body followed more slowly, its plaited shape catching in the light breeze and making it difficult to control. Finally it stood beside them, towering up into the sky, the result of many hours of work and startling in its evil aspect.

Georgina turned to Celine in time to see her normal pink and white complexion turn to a sickly green.

'Is that what you saw?' she demanded.

The younger girl put out a hand which was immediately captured by one of Stuart's. 'I can't look at it! Please, Georgina, don't make me look any more!'

'But is it the same?' Georgina insisted.

Celine closed her eyes and swayed in time to the gigantic figure in front of them. 'Take me away!' she pleaded to Stuart.

'But you haven't said if that's what you saw!' Georgina objected. She felt William's hand on her shoulder and tried to shake it off. 'Celine, you
must—'

'Leave her alone, Georgie,' William bade her. 'Can't you see she's in no state to be asked anything now?'

'But ------- '

'Georgina, don't bully her now!'

Georgina turned outraged eyes on to him. 'I was not —'

He pushed her hair away from her face. 'You've made your point, sweetheart. I'll do the rest. Okay?'

She didn't know whether she would have given in to him or not, because at that moment her attention was diverted by some of the men from the village gently lowering the plaited figure to the ground and releasing an excited Rabahindre from underneath.

'Come closer, madam,' he invited Georgina. 'You can see now how clever this mask is, yes? Hold it here, and here, madam. Now you can work it too! Excuse me, madam, like this!'

Georgina tugged on the ropes as she was bidden and found the mask less revolting when she was in charge of its movements. Indeed, she was beginning to see the fascination of an art form that at first she had found shocking and rather frightening. It was very cleverly made, fitting together as beautifully as if it had been made with precision instruments rather than the adze and clumsy knife that were the tools of the village carpenter.

She pulled on another rope and the mask rolled its eyes with devastating effect. Celine uttered a scream of fright and hid her ashen face against Stuart's shoulder. 'Take me away!' she moaned.

He went with her without a backward glance. Georgina, beginning to enjoy herself, made the mask stick out its tongue at William, and she grinned at him happily.

'Isn't it clever?' she remarked. 'Do you want to work it?'

He shook his head. 'Aren't
you
clever!' he mocked her. 'It would seem you were right, if Celine ever recovers sufficiently to confirm the fact. And not only about that. She's cut you out with Stuart, my poppet, and I don't think he looks on her as a child either. What are you going to do about that?'

She returned the mask to Rabahindre, giving her husband an uncertain smile. 'Encourage it?' she suggested hopefully.

'You may be right.' He dug a few coins out of his pocket and handed them

to Rabahindre.

‘Of course I'm right!' She picked a few more coins out of his hand and added them to the pile on Rabahindre's palm, enjoying the intimate feeling it gave her. Indeed, she felt so comfortable with William at that moment that she completely forgot to guard her tongue and said impulsively, ‘If only Jennifer doesn't upset everything when she comes! I could almost wish that she's still on about you, but that would be too much to hope. She'll probably want both of you!'

‘Celine has no reason to be jealous of your sister,' William rebuked her. ‘I hope they'll be friends.'

Georgina's spirits sank. It was impossible for her to explain to William that Jennifer scorned to have friends of her own sex and that she certainly wouldn't have any time for Celine, except to try and belittle her shining beauty. She would have plenty of time for Stuart, though, and she wouldn't be happy until she had him dancing attention on her. Even if she had come for William, she would still want Stuart too; it was the way she was made. Georgina had long ago accepted the fact that she would never change and she had spent so many years protecting Jennifer from the consequences of her own actions that it was second nature to her now. Even the best juggler in the world would occasionally let a ball drop, and Georgina had been cast in the role of the assistant who picks it up and sets it spinning in the air again so often that she had never resented that all the applause for the act had always been reserved for Jennifer. It was only now that she had found someone even more vulnerable, who needed protecting far more than Jennifer ever had, that she knew that this time she couldn't allow Jennifer to purloin Stuart away from her. Jennifer played with men's hearts as if they were toys created especially for her pleasure, and Stuart would be no different from any of the others. But to Celine he was the one person in the world who could give her a normal life, putting the tragedy that had marred her life behind her for ever.
This time she couldn't allow Jennifer to do it!

‘I suppose she has to come?' she sighed.

‘Why not?' he returned indifferently. ‘It will be on your own head if she takes anything you value away from you, Georgie Porgie. You have no reason to be jealous of her unless you want to be.'

Miss Campbell was waiting for them back at the bungalow. She took one look at Celine's pale face and turned on Georgina.

'I told you she wouldn't be able to stand up to seeing that —
thing!
I hope you're satisfied now! I shouldn't be surprised if we have more than a few nightmares tonight! Come along, Celine. Say thank you to Mr. Duffield for looking after you nicely.
He
wasn't to know that you aren't up to that kind of thing. We know whom to blame, don't we, dear?'

Celine clutched at Stuart's arm. 'I don't want to go with her!' she breathed, swallowing convulsively. 'I want to stay with you!'

'Oh, quite,' Stuart agreed, putting a matter-of-fact arm about her and hugging her in much the same way as he would have done a child. 'You can't go yet! You haven't told us if that was the same demon as the one you saw last night?' Celine shuddered visibly, but he went on speaking to her in the same calm tones. 'Georgina went to a lot of trouble to show you that it wasn't something in your own imagination which you saw. I think we ought to talk about it now, don't you?'

Celine's eyes were troubled, but there was none of the blankness of former times about them. 'Yes,' she said simply.

'Then you'd better sit down and tell us all about it.' Her fingers tightened on his shirt-sleeve. 'It's all right,' he soothed her. 'I'll be here.'

'Always?'

'As often as I can be. I can't always be with you, though. You'll have to get used to that. It won't matter, you know, once we've talked about it.'

'Won't it? You'll go on liking me — '

'Nothing could make me dislike you. You have my word on that.'

Apparently she believed him. 'It was the same demon,' she said on a sigh. 'But it wasn't the same as the one I saw before. He always burst into flames. There was always fire everywhere, just as there was when Mother died. I liked fires before that. I had some matches and I was lighting them one by one. I may have started the fire that burned down the house.'

'Was the demon around before the fire?' William asked suddenly.

Celine's eyes never left Stuart's face, but they widened with fright as she made a conscious effort to remember the night her mother had died.

'Yes,' she said at last. 'Mother saw him too — I'd forgotten that. All these years I'd forgotten that! I tried to tell Father that he'd been there and that Mother was frightened of him, but he and Miss Campbell said I'd imagined him— that there never had been anything.'

'Interesting,' William commented.

Miss Campbell's hand shot out and she slapped Celine hard on either side of her face. 'You're as mischievous as your mother! She was always trying to turn your father away from me too!'

Stuart moved towards the hysterical woman, but William was even faster. 'I think we've heard enough,' he said, bundling Miss Campbell into the house before him. 'I'll take Miss Campbell into Nuwara Eliya straight away and put her in a hotel. The rest is best forgotten once Celine has got it out of her system. Georgina, you'll look after her until I get back, won't you?'

Georgina started and nodded. 'How long will you be?' she asked.

He turned and looked at her, but she couldn't read the expression in his eyes. 'Who knows?' he said.

'Girls and boys, come out to play, The moon doth shine as bright as day.'

Georgina could hear Celine's pretty young voice rising and falling as she sang the old nursery rhyme to herself out on the verandah. But she had not been singing earlier; then she had been distressed and grey with fatigue.

'You can't possibly understand how it was,' she had said. 'You see, I've always thought I killed her. If I had, I wouldn't deserve any happiness, would I?'

'I don't know,' Stuart had murmured thoughtfully. 'Who gave you the matches to play with? I'd say the blame was largely theirs.'

Celine had responded with all the eagerness of a young puppy. 'But I can remember it all now!' she had exulted. 'I never did light any of the matches because I heard a funny, whirring noise. I looked out of the window and there was this black man with paint all over his body and he was whirling something round and round his head. Then everything went up in flames. I climbed out of the window and ran round to the front of the house, where Miss Campbell was standing. She was calling out something to the black man and he went inside the back door, but the fire must have come rushing out towards him when he opened the door, because I remember him being surrounded with flames — and he never came out again. I wanted to go inside to my mother, but Miss Campbell wouldn't let me go. She kept saying she was glad she was dead. It went round and round in my head until I thought I was saying it too.'

'I never did like Miss Campbell,' Georgina had said with distaste.

'No,' Stuart had agreed, 'but we'll never know now what her part in the fire was. Perhaps it's best that way.'

Celine had nodded decisively. 'Poor thing, she thought she would have Father all to herself, but all he wanted from her was a nurse for me. Funny, I might have hated her if we'd never left Australia, but now I know how she must have felt. Sometimes one can't make do with less than everything from a particular person. She should have gone away long ago.'