Page:Quartette - Kipling (1885).djvu/24

 Five minutes later I had left the room, and was groping my way along the dimly-lighted passage to my chamber, across the threshold of which my bearer lay sleeping.

I fell asleep that night in the midst of pleasant thoughts. Life could not be as colourless as I had anticipated with the daily companionship of such a woman as Laura, and with such a haven of repose open to me as this brilliant bower of hers, this dainty shrine in which the goddess, the Madonna—my last waking memory was of mother and child as I had seen them pass into some unknown region through the doorway of which I had drawn away the curtain as they vanished for the night.

That first evening with all its details is firmly fixed in my memory, but of many days succeeding I have no distinct recollection. Morning after morning I rode with my host to one plantation or another; and on our return found Laura in the verandah, sweet and fresh as a newly-blown white rose. Her child was often with her, a dainty miniature of its mother, but with eyes blue as forget-me-nots, and tiny curls of pure gold. Evening after evening we drove, or rode again, but in the evening Laura generally accompanied us; and after our early dinner came an hour or two in the room which I had named my "lady's chamber."

When I had been the planter's guest for a few weeks I suggested that it was time I should seek a residence elsewhere, but my kind host would not hear of it. He pointed out that I should be obliged to build a house if I were determined to have one of my own—a formidable expense which he was sure I should regret; that the hot weather was already upon us, when I should be able to do little or nothing; that I should be lonely to a suicidal degree, and in conclusion urged me to remain where I was. "The house is big enough for all," he said, "and whatever you may think now, I am certain you will not care to stay here as long as your father intended. By this time next year you will have learnt all that is to be learnt here, and a season in Calcutta will teach you more than another twelve months on the plantations. And your company is pleasant to us," he added kindly. "It's dull for Laura without a companion near her own age. You and she get on very well together; you seem to care for the same kind of books and things, and that's