"In the reproof of chanceLies the true proof of men."—Shakespeare.
"White hands cling to the tightened rein,Slipping the spur from the booted heel,Tenderest voices cry 'Turn again!'Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel.High hopes faint on a warm hearth-stone;He travels the fastest who travels alone."—Kipling.
Forthe first six weeks of the new year life flowed serenely enough in the bungalow on the mound.
Relieved of the greater part of her burden, and re-established in her husband's heart, Evelyn Desmond blossomed like a flower under the quickening influences of spring. Light natures develop best in sunshine: and so long as life asked no hard things of her, Evelyn could be admirably sweet-tempered and self-forgetful—even to the extent of curbing her weakness for superfluous hats and gloves and shoes. A genuine sacrifice, this last, if not on a very high plane. But the limits of such natures are set, and their feats of virtue or vice must be judged accordingly.
To Honor, whose very real sympathy was infallibly tinged with humour, the bearing of this regenerate Evelyn suggested a spoilt child who, having been scolded and forgiven, is disposed to be heroically, ostentatiously good till next time; and her goodness at least was whole-hearted while it lasted. She made a genuine effort to handle the reins of the household: waxed zealous over Theo's socks and shirts; and sang to his accompaniment in the evenings. Her zest for the tennis-courts waned. She joined Frank and Honor in their frequent rides to the polo-ground, and Kresney found himself unceremoniously discarded like a programme after a dance.
Wounded vanity did not improve his temper, and the ever-present Linda suffered accordingly. For Kresney, though little given to the weakness of generosity, never failed to share his grievances liberally with those about him.
"What is this that has come to little Mrs Desmond?" he demanded one evening on a querulous note of injury. "Whenever I ask her to play tennis now she always manages to be engaged. I suppose, because they have won that confounded Punjab Cup, she thinks she must give herself airs like the rest of them. But I tell you what, Linda, we have got to make her understand that she is not going to get money out of us, and then chuck us in the dirt like a pair of old gloves,—you see? You must tell her you are in a hole now, because of that three hundred rupees; that you have been forced to get cash from me to go on with, and to let me know about your little business with her; and you are afraid I may refer the matter to her husband. It would bring his cursed pride down with a run if he knew that his wife had practically borrowed money from me, and he could say nothing againstusfor helping her. It is she who would suffer; and I am not keen to push her into a hot corner if she can be made to behave decently enough to suit me. So just let her know that I will make no trouble about it so long as she is friendly, like she used to be. Then you can ask her to tea; and I bet you five rupees she accepts on the spot!"
Meantime Evelyn Desmond went on her way, in ignorance of the forces that were converging to break up her newly-gotten peace of mind. For the time being her world was filled and bounded by her husband's personality. The renewal of his tenderness and his trust in her eclipsed all the minor troubles of life: and with the unthinking optimism of her type she decided that these would all come right somehow, some time, sooner or later.
What Desmond himself thought did not transpire. Evelyn's happiness gave him real satisfaction; and if he were already beginning to be aware that his feeling for her left the innermost depths of his nature unstirred, he never acknowledged the fact. A certain refinement of loyalty forbade him to discuss his wife, even with himself. Her ineffectualness and the clinging quality of her love made an irresistible appeal to the vein of chivalry which ran, like a thread of gold, through the man's nature; and if he could not forget, he could at least try not to remember, that her standard of uprightness differed widely and radically from his own.
When Kresney's tactics resulted in a partial revival of her friendliness towards him, Desmond accepted the fact with the best grace he could muster. Since his promise to the man made definite objection impossible, he decided that the matter must be left to the disintegration of time; and if Kresney could have known how the necessity chafed Desmond's pride and fastidiousness of spirit, the knowledge would have added relish to his enjoyment of Evelyn's society.
Thus the passing of uneventful days brought them to the middle of February—to the end of the short, sharp Northern winter, and the first far-off whisper of the wrath to come; brought also to Honor Meredith a sudden perception that her year with the Desmonds was very nearly at an end. John's latest letter announced that he hoped to get back to the life and work he loved by the middle of April; and the girl read that letter with such strangely mixed feelings that she was at once puzzled and angered by her own seeming inconsistency. John had always stood unquestionably first in her life. It would be altogether good to have him with her again—to be able to devote herself to him entirely as she had dreamed of doing for so many years. And yet.... There was no completing the broken sentence, which, for some unaccountable reason, ended in a sigh.
Honor was sitting at the time in her favourite corner of the drawing-room, on a low settee constructed out of an empty case, cunningly hid, and massed with cushions of dull red and gold. As her lips parted in that unjustifiable sigh she looked round at the familiar pictures and hangings; at Desmond's well-worn chair, and the table beside it with his pipe-rack, a photo of his father, and half a dozen favourite books; at the graceful outline of Evelyn's figure where she stood by the wide mantelshelf arranging roses in a silver bowl, her head tilted to one side, a shaft of sunlight from one of the slits of windows, fifteen feet up the wall, turning her soft fair hair to gold.
From Evelyn's figure, Honor's glance travelled to the photograph of Desmond on the piano, and lingered there with a softened thoughtfulness of gaze. What deep roots she had struck down into the lives of these two since her first sight of that picture! A year ago the man had been a mere name to her; and now——
The clatter of hoofs, followed by Desmond's voice in the verandah, snapped the thread of her thought, and roused Evelyn from the contemplation of her roses.
"Theoisback early!" she exclaimed: and on the words he entered the room, elation in every line of him, an unusual light in his eyes.
"Whathashappened to make you look like that?" she asked. "Somebody left you a fortune?"
Desmond laughed, with a peculiar ring of enjoyment.
"No fear! Fortunes don't grow hereabouts! But we've had stirring news this morning. A big party of Afridis has crossed the Border and fired a village, murdering and looting cattle and women on a very daring scale. The whole garrison is under orders for a punitive expedition. We shall be off in ten days, if not sooner."
Evelyn's colour ebbed while he was speaking, and she made a quick movement towards him. But Desmond taking her shoulders between his hands, held her at arm's length, and confronted her with steadfastly smiling eyes.
"No, no, Ladybird—you're going to be plucky and stand up to this like a soldier's wife, for my sake. The Frontier's been abnormally quiet these many months. It will do us all good to have a taste of real work for a change."
"Do you mean ... will there be much ... fighting?"
"Well—the Afridis don't take a blow sitting down. We have to burn their crops, you see; blow up their towers; enforce heavy fines, and generally knock it into their heads that they can't defy the Indian Government with impunity. Yes; it means fighting—severe or otherwise, according to their pleasure."
"Pleasure!—It sounds simply horrible; and you—I believe you'regladto go!"
"Well, my dear, what else would you have? Not because I'm murderously inclined," he added smiling. "Every soldier worth his salt is glad of a chance to do the work he's paid for. But that's one of the things I shall never teach you to understand!"
Evelyn turned hurriedly back to her roses. Her throat felt uncomfortably dry, and two tears had escaped in spite of herself.
"How long will you be gone?" she asked, addressing her question to the flowers.
"A month or six weeks. Not longer."
"But won't any one be left to guard the station? In this horrible place we women don't seem to count a bit. You all rush off after a lot of stupid Afridis."
"Not quite all. An infantry regiment will come up from Pindi: and we leave Paul's squadron behind. Just like his luck to be out of it, poor old man. But six weeks will be gone in no time. This sort of thing is part and parcel of our life up here. You're not going to fret about it, Ladybird—are you?"
He turned her face gently towards him. To his astonishment eager entreaty shone through her tears, and she caught his hand between her own.
"No, Theo, I needn't fret, because—if somebody has to stay—it can just as easily be you. You're married and Major Wyndham isn't."
Desmond stepped back a pace, incredulous anger in his eyes. "Evelyn! Are you crazy? It's not the habit of British officers to sneak behind their wives when they're wanted at the front. It comes hard on you: but it's the price a woman pays for marrying a soldier and there's no shirking it——"
For answer she clung to his hand, pressing it close against her heart. Instinctively she understood the power of her weakness, and exercised it to the full. Perhaps, also, an undefined fear of Kresney gave her courage to persist; and the least mention of the man's name at that instant might have averted many things.
"Only this time, please," she murmured, bringing the beseeching softness of her eyes and lips very close to his set face. "You'll be sorry afterwards if you leave me alone—just now."
"Why just now? Besides, you won't be alone. You will have Honor."
"Yes. But I want you. It has all been so lovely since Christmas. Theo—darling,—Ican'tlet you go, and—and perhaps be killed by those horrid Afridis. Every one knows how brave you are. They would never think you shirked the fighting. And Major Wyndham would do anything you asked him. Will you—willyou?"
Desmond's mouth hardened to a dogged line, and he drew a little away from her; because her entreaty and the disturbing nearness of her face made resistance harder than he dared allow her to guess.
"My dear little woman, you haven't the smallest notion what you are asking of me. I never bargained for throwing up active service on your account; and I'll not give the fellows a chance to insult you by flinging marriage in my teeth."
"That means—you insist on going?"
"My dear—I can do nothing else."
She threw his hand from her with a choking sob.
"Very well, then, go—go! I know, now, that you don't really—care, in your heart—whatever you may say."
And turning again to the mantelpiece, she laid her head upon her arms.
For a few moments Desmond stood regarding her, a great pain and tenderness in his eyes.
"It is rather cruel of you to put it that way, Ladybird," he said gently. "Can't you see that this isn't a question—of caring, but simply of doing my duty? Won't you try and help me, instead of making things harder for us both?"
He passed his hand caressingly over her hair, and a little shiver of misery went through her at this touch.
"It's all very well to talk grandly about duty," she answered in a smothered voice. "And it's no use pretending to love me—when you won't do anything I ask. But—youwantto go."
Desmond sighed, and instinctively glanced across at Honor for a confirmation of his resolve not to let tenderness undermine his sense of right. But that which he saw banished all thought of his own heartache.
She sat leaning a little forward, her hands clasped tightly over Meredith's letter, her face white and strained, her eyes luminous as he had never yet seen them.
For the shock of his unexpected news had awakened her roughly, abruptly to a very terrible truth. Since his entrance into the room she had seen her phantom palace of friendship fall about her like a house of cards; had seen, rising from its ruins, that which her brain and will refused to recognise, but which every pulse in her body confirmed beyond possibility of doubt.
Desmond's eyes looking anxiously into hers, roused her to a realisation of her urgent need to be alone with her incredible discovery. Her lips lost their firmness; the hot colour surged into her cheeks; and smoothing out John's letter with uncertain fingers, she rose to her feet.
But in rising she swayed unsteadily; and in an instant Desmond was beside her. He had never before seen this girl's composure shaken, and it startled him.
"Honor, what has upset you so?" he asked in a low tone. "Not bad news of John?" For he had recognised the writing.
She shook her head, fearing the sound of her own voice, and his unfailing keenness of perception.
"You must be ill, then. I was afraid you were going to faint just now. Come into the dining-room and have a glass of wine."
She acquiesced in silence. It would be simplest to let him attribute her passing weakness to physical causes. And she went forward blindly, resolutely, with a proud lift of her chin, never looking at him once.
He walked beside her, bewildered and distressed, refraining from speech till she should be more nearly mistress of herself, and lightly holding her arm, because she was so evidently in need of support. She tightened her lips and mastered an imperious impulse to free herself from his touch. His unspoken solicitude unnerved her; and a sigh of pure relief escaped her when he set her down upon a chair, and went over to the sideboard for some wine.
She sipped it slowly, supporting her head, and at the same time shielding her eyes from his troubled scrutiny. He sat beside her, on the table's edge, and waited till the wineglass was half empty before he spoke.
"Did you feel at all ill this morning? I'll go for Mackay at once to make sure there's nothing wrong."
"No—no." There was a touch of impatience in her tone. "Please don't bother. It is nothing. It will pass."
"I didn't mean to vex you," he answered humbly. "But you are not the sort of woman who goes white to the lips for nothing. Either you are ill, or you are badly upset. You promised John to let me take his place while he was away, and if you are in any trouble or difficulty,—don't shut me out. You have done immensely much for both of us. Give me the chance to do a little for you. Remember, Honor," his voice took a deeper note of feeling, "you are more to me than the Major's sister or Ladybird's friend. You are mine, too. Won't you tell me what's wrong?"
At that she pulled herself together and faced him with a brave semblance of a smile.
"I am very proud to be your friend, Theo. But there are times when the truest friendship is just to stand on one side and ask no questions. That is what I want you to do now. Please believe that if you could help me, even a little, I would not shut you out."
"I believe you—and I'll not say another word. You will go and lie down, perhaps, till tiffin time?"
"No. I think I will go to Ladybird. She badly needs comforting. You broke your news to us rather abruptly, you know. We are not hardened yet, like Frank, to the boot-and-saddle life here."
"I'm sorry. It was thoughtless of me. We are all so used to it. One's apt to forget——"
He rose and took a few steps away from her; then, returning, stood squarely before her. She had risen also, partly to prove her own strength, and partly to put an end to the strain of being alone with him.
"Honor," he asked, "was I hard with Ladybird? And am I an unpardonable brute if I insist on holding out against her?"
"Indeed, no! You mustn't dream of doing anything else."
She looked full at him now, forgetful of herself in concern for him.
"I was half afraid—once, that you were going to give way."
"Poor Ladybird! She little guessed how near I came to it. And maybe that's as well, after all."
"Yes, Theo. It would be fatal to begin that way. I quite see how hard it is for her. But she must learn to understand. When it comes to active service, we women must be put altogether on one side. If we can't help, we are at least bound not to hinder."
Desmond watched her while she spoke with undisguised admiration.
"Would you say that with the same assurance, I wonder, if it were John? Or if it happened to be—your own husband?"
A rush of colour flooded her face, but she had strength enough not to turn it aside.
"Of course I would."
"Then I sincerely hope you will marry one of us, Honor. Wives of that quality are too rare to be wasted on civilians!"
This time she bent her head.
"I should never dream of marrying any one—but a soldier," she answered very low. "Now I must go back to my poor Evelyn and help her to see things more from your point of view."
"How endlessly good to us you are," he said with sudden fervour. "I know I can count on you to keep her up to the mark, and not let her make herself too miserable while we are away."
"Yes—yes. I am only so thankful to be here with her—this first time."
He stood aside to let her pass; and she went out quickly, holding her head higher than usual.
He followed at a little distance, still perplexed and thoughtful, but refraining from the least attempt to account for her very unusual behaviour. What she did not choose to tell him he would not seek to know.
On the threshold of the drawing-room he paused.
His wife still stood where he had left her, disconsolately fingering her roses, her delicate face marred with weeping. Honor went to her straightway; and putting both arms round her kissed her with a passionate tenderness, intensified by a no less passionate self-reproach.
At the unnerving touch of sympathy Evelyn's grief broke out afresh.
"Oh, Honor—Honor, comfort me!" she sobbed, unaware of her husband's presence in the doorway. "You're the only one who really cares. And he is so—so pleased about it. That makes it worse than all!"
A spasm of pain crossed Desmond's face, and he turned sharply away.
"Poor little soul!" he reflected as he went; "shall I ever be able to make her understand?"
"Love that is Life;Love that is Death,Love that is mine!"—Gipsy Song.
Notuntil night condemned her to solitude and thought did Honor frankly confront the calamity that had come upon her with the force of a blow, cutting her life in two, shattering her pride, her joy, her inherent hopefulness of heart.
The insignificant fact that her life was broken did not set the world a hair's breadth out of gear; and through the day she held her head high, looking and speaking as usual, because she still had faith and strength and courage; and, having these, the saddest soul alive will not be utterly cast down.
She spent most of her time with Evelyn; and succeeded in so far reconciling her to Theo's decision that Evelyn slipped quietly into the study, where he sat reading, and flinging her arms round him whispered broken words of penitence into the lapel of his coat; a proceeding even more disintegrating to his resolution than her attitude of the morning.
Honor rode out to the polo-ground with them later on in the day, returning with Paul Wyndham, who stayed to dinner, a habit that had grown upon him since the week at Lahore. She wondered a little afterwards what he had talked of during the ride, and what she had said in reply; but since he seemed satisfied, she could only hope that she had not betrayed herself by any incongruity of speech or manner.
During the evening she talked and played with a vigour and cheerfulness which quite failed to deceive Desmond. But of this she was unaware. The shock of the morning had stunned her brain. She herself and those about her were as dream-folk moving in a dream while her soul sat apart, in some vague region of space, noting and applauding her body's irreproachable behaviour. Only now and then, when she caught Theo's eyes resting on her face, the whole dream-fabric fell to pieces, and stabbed her spirit broad awake.
Desmond himself could not altogether shut out anxious conjecture. By an instinct he could hardly have explained, he spoke very little to the girl, except to demand certain favourite pieces of music, most of which, to his surprise, she laughingly refused to play. Only, in bidding her good-night, he held her hand a moment longer than usual, smiling straight into her eyes; and the strong enfolding pressure, far from unsteadying her, seemed rather to revive her flagging fortitude. For who shall estimate the virtue that goes out from the hand-clasp of a brave man, to whose courage is added the strength of a stainless mind?
At last it was over.
She had left the husband and wife together, happy in a reconciliation of her own making; had dismissed Parbutti, bolted the door behind her, and now stood like one dazed, alone with God and her grief, which already seemed old as the stars,—a thing preordained before the beginning of time.
She never thought of turning up the lamp; but remained standing very straight and still, her hands clenched, all the pride of her maidenhood up in arms against that which dominated her, by no will of her own.
She knew now, past question,—and the certainty crimsoned her face and neck,—that she had loved him unwittingly from the moment of meeting; possibly even from that earlier moment when she had unerringly picked out his face from among many others. Herein lay the key to her instinctive recoil from too rapid intimacy; the key to the peculiar quality of her intercourse with him, which had been from the first a thing apart; as far removed from her friendship with Wyndham as is the serenity of the foothills from the life-giving breath of the heights.
And now—now that she had been startled into knowledge, the whole truth must be confronted, the better to be combated;—the truth that she loved him—with everything in her—with every thought, every instinct of soul and body. Nay, more, in the very teeth of her shame and self-abasement, she knew that she was glad and proud to have loved him, and no lesser man, even though the fair promise of her womanhood were doomed to go down unfulfilled into the grave.
Not for a moment did she entertain the cheap consolatory thought that she would get over it; or would, in time, give some good man the husk of her heart in exchange for the first-fruits of his own. She held the obsolete opinion that marriage unconsecrated by love was a deadlier sin than the one into which she had fallen unawares; and which, at least, need not tarnish or sadden any life save her own. This last brought her sharply into collision with practical issues. In the face of her discovery, dared she—ought she to remain even a week longer under Theo's roof?
Her heart cried out that she must go; that every hour of intercourse with him was fraught with peril. The fact that his lips were sealed availed her nothing; for these two had long since passed that danger point in platonic friendship when words are discarded for more direct communing of soul with soul. Theo could read every look in her eyes, every tone of her voice, like an open book, and she knew it; though she had never acknowledged it till now. All unconsciously he would wrest her secret from her by force of sympathetic insight; and she, who implicitly believed in God, who held suicide to be the most dastardly sin a human being can commit, knew that she would take her own life without hesitation rather than stand proven disloyal to Evelyn, disgraced in the eyes of the man she loved. She did not think this thing in detail. She merely knew it, with the instinctive certainty of a vehement temperament that feels and knows apart from all need of words.
Her character had been moulded by men—simple, upright men; and she had imbibed their hard-and-fast notions of honour, of right and wrong. She had power to turn her back upon her love, to live out her life as though it were not, on two conditions only. No one must ever suspect the truth. No one but herself must suffer because of it. Conditions hard to be fulfilled.
"Oh,Theo!"
The cry broke from her unawares—a throb of the heart made vocal. It roused her to reality, to the fact that she had been standing rigidly in the middle of the room,—how long she knew not,—seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but the voice of her tormented soul.
She went forward mechanically to the dressing-table, and leaning her hands upon it, looked long and searchingly into her own face. Her pallor, the ivory sheen of her dress, and the unnatural lustre of her eyes, gave her reflection a ghostly aspect in the dim light; and she shuddered. Was this to be the end of her high hopes and ideals,—of her resolute waiting and longing and praying for the very best that life and love could give? Was it actually she,—John's sister—her father's daughter—who had succumbed to this undreamed-of wrong?
At thought of them, and of their great pride in her, all her strained composure went to pieces. She sank into a chair and pressed both hands against her face. But no tears forced their way between her fingers. A girl reared by four brothers is not apt to fall a-weeping upon every provocation; and Honor suffered the more keenly in consequence.
Suddenly the darkness was irradiated by a vision of Theo, as he had appeared on entering the drawing-room that morning, in the familiar undress uniform that seemed a part of himself; bringing with him, as always, his own magnetic atmosphere of alertness and vigour, of unquestioning certainty that life was very much worth living. Every detail of his face sprang clearly into view, and for a moment Honor let herself go.
She deliberately held the vision, concentrating all her soul upon it, as on a face that one sees for the last time, and wills never to forget. It was an actual parting, and she felt it as such—a parting with the man who could never be her friend again.
Then, chafing against her momentary weakness, she pulled herself together, let her hands fall into her lap with a slow sigh that was almost a sob, and wondered, dully, whether sleep would come to her before morning. Certainly not until she had considered her position dispassionately,—neither ignoring its terrible possibilities, nor exaggerating her own sense of shame and disgrace,—and had settled, once for all, what honour and duty demanded of her in the circumstances.
One fact at least was clear. Her love for Theo Desmond was, in itself, no sin. It was a force outside the region of will,—imperious, irresistible. But it set her on the brink of a precipice, where only God and the high compulsion of her soul could withhold her from a plunge into the abyss.
"Mine own soul forbiddeth me: there, for each of us, is the eternal right and wrong." For Honor there could be no thought, no question of the false step, or of the abyss; and sinking on her knees she poured out her heart in a passionate prayer for forgiveness, for light and wisdom to choose the right path, and power to walk in it without faltering to the end.
When at last she rose, her lips and eyes had regained something of their wonted serenity. She knew now that her impulse to leave the house at once had been selfish and cowardly; that Evelyn must not be deserted in a moment of bitter need; that these ten days must be endured for her sake—and for his. On his return, she could find a reasonable excuse for spending a month elsewhere till John should come to claim her. Never in all her life had she been called upon to make so supreme an effort of self-mastery; and never had she felt so certain of the ultimate result.
She turned up the lamp now, and looked her new life bravely in the face, strong in her reliance on a Strength beyond her own,—a Strength on which she could make unlimited demands; which had never failed her yet, nor ever would to the end of time.
"I will endure; I will not strive to peepBehind the barrier of the days to come."—Owen Meredith.
Fora few hours Honor slept soundly. But so soon as her bodily exhaustion was repaired, grief and stress of mind dragged her back to consciousness. She woke long before dawn; woke reluctantly, for the first time in her life, with a dead weight upon heart and brain; a longing to turn her face to the wall and shut out the unconcerned serenity of the new day.
But though hearts be at breaking-point, there is no shutting out the impertinent details of life. And on this particular morning Honor found herself plunged neck-deep in prose. Domestic trifles thrust themselves aggressively to the fore. Parbutti assailed her after breakfast with a voluble diatribe against the dhobi's wife, whose eldest son was going to and fro in the compound unashamed, wearing a shirt made from the Memsahib's newest jharrons. She did not feel called upon to add that her own under-jacket had begun life upon Evelyn Desmond's godown shelves. It was not a question of morals. It was the lack of a decent reserve in appropriating her due share of the Sahib's possessions which incensed the good lady against the dhobi's wife. Such unreserve in respect of matters which should be hid might rouse suspicion in other quarters; therefore it behoved Parbutti to be zealous in casting the first stone.
Honor listened with weary inattention, promised investigation of the matter, and passed on to the godown—a closet of broad shelves stocked with an incongruous assortment of household goods, and smelling strongly of kerosine oil and bar soap.
Here it was discovered that the oil had been disappearing with miraculous celerity, and Amar Singh cast aspersions on thekitmutgarand his wife. A jealous feud subsisted between him and them; and as ruler-in-chief of the Sahib's establishment, the bearer made it a point of honour to let no one cheat Desmond save himself. He had a grievous complaint to lodge against asais, who had been flagrantly tampering with the Desmonds' grain, adding a request that the Miss Sahib would of her merciful condescension impart the matter to the Sahib. "For he sitteth much occupied, and his countenance is not favourable this morning."
Honor complied, with a half-smile at the irony of her own position, which, until to-day, she had accepted without after-thought, and which of a sudden seemed unendurable.
Desmond, much engrossed in regimental concerns, and anxious to get off to the Lines, was inclined to irritability and abruptness; and the delinquent, who, with his charger ready saddled, awaited the Sahib's displeasure in the front verandah suffered accordingly. He bowed, trembling, to the ground, and let the storm sweep over his head; making no defence beyond a disarming reiteration of his own worthlessness, and of his everlasting devotion to the Protector of the Poor.
Turning back to the hall for his helmet, Desmond encountered Honor in the doorway, and his wrath gave place to a smile of good fellowship that brought the blood into her cheeks.
"Hope my volcanics didn't horrify you," he said apologetically. "It seems almost as cowardly to fly out at those poor chaps as to strike a child; but they have a genius for tripping one up at critical moments."
He paused, and scanned her face with kindly anxiety. "You're all right again now? Not troubled any more—eh?"
"No. I'm perfectly well. Don't bother your head about me, please. You have so much more important things to think about."
Her colour deepened; and she turned so hastily away that, in spite of his impatience to be gone, Desmond stood looking after her with a troubled crease between his brows. Then he swung round on his heel, vaulted into the saddle, and straightway forgot everything except the engrossing prospect of the campaign.
But for all his preoccupation, he had not failed to note the wistfulness in Evelyn's dutifully smiling eyes. He was more than usually tender with her on his return, and successfully banished the wistfulness by giving up his polo to take her for a ride. Honor stood watching them go, through tears which rose unbidden from the depth of her lonely grief, her haunting sense of disloyalty to the two she loved. She dashed them impatiently aside the instant they moistened her lashes; and betook herself for an hour's rest and refreshment to Mrs Jim Conolly,—"Mrs Jim" was her station name,—whose open-hearted love and admiration would give her a much-needed sense of support.
She entered her friend's drawing-room without formal announcement, to find her seated on a low sofa, barricaded with piles of cotton frocks and pinafores, which had suffered maltreatment at the hands of that arch-destroyer of clothes and temper—the Indian dhobi.
"Don't get up, please," the girl said quickly, as Mrs Conolly gathered her work together with an exclamation of pleasure. "I've just come for a spell of peace and quietness, to sit at the feet of Gamaliel and learn wisdom!"
She settled herself on the carpet,—a favourite attitude when they were alone together,—and with a sigh of satisfaction leaned against her friend's knee. The older woman put an arm round her shoulders, and pressed her close. Her mother's heart went out in very real devotion to this beautiful girl, who, strong and self-reliant as she was, turned to her so spontaneously for sympathy, counsel, and love.
"Arrogant child!" she rebuked her, smiling. "Remember who it was that sat at the feet of Gamaliel! But what particular kind of wisdom are you wanting from me to-day?"
"No particular kind. I'm only liking to have you near me. One is so sure of your faith in the ultimate best, that there is encouragement in the touch of your hand."
She took it between both her own, and rested her cheek against the other's arm, hiding her face from view.
Mrs Jim smiled, not ill pleased. She was one of those rare optimists who, having frankly confronted the evil and sorrow, the ironies and inconsistencies of life, can still affirm and believe that "God's in his Heaven; all's right with the world." But an unusual note in the girl's voice perplexed her.
"Are you in special need of encouragement just now, dear?" she asked. "Is that big baby of yours making you anxious on account of this expedition?"
"No—oh no! She is going to behave beautifully. The shock upset her at first, and she wanted Theo to stay behind. It was hard for him; but he held out; and I think I have helped her to see that he was right. He has taken her for a ride this afternoon and she is very happy."
"She has a great deal to thank you for, Honor," the elder woman said gravely. "I felt from the first that you were in rather a difficult position between those two, and you have filled it admirably. I have said very little to you about it, so far; but I have watched you and thought of you unceasingly; and I believe Major Meredith would be prouder of you than ever if he could realise that you have turned your time of waiting to such good account."
Honor's cheek still rested against Mrs Conolly's arm, and the warmth that fired it penetrated the thin muslin of her blouse. She wondered a little, but said nothing; and after a short pause Honor spoke in a low voice and with an attempt at lightness which was not a conspicuous success.
"You think too well of me, so does John. I have done little enough. Only, I care very much for—them both, and I want them to be happy—that's all."
"There are always two ways of stating a fact," the other answered, smiling. "And—do you know, Honor,Icare very much for you—if you were my own child, I could hardly care more—and, frankly, I want to seeyouhappy in the same way." She laid her free hand over the two that held her own. "It would be a sin for a woman like you not to marry. I take it for granted you have had chances enough, and I have sometimes wondered——"
The girl lifted her head and sat upright. She had come here to escape her trouble, and it confronted her at every turn.
"Please—please don't begin wondering about that," she said decisively, "or I shall have to get up and go away; and I don't want to do that."
"No, no! my child, of course not. We will talk of other things."
But the shrewd woman said within herself: "Thereissome one after all," adding a heartfelt hope that it might be Major Wyndham. Thus her next remark was more relevant to the forbidden subject than Honor was likely to guess.
"I hear Major Wyndham's squadron remains behind. You are glad, I suppose? You seem to be good friends."
"Yes; it will be a great comfort to have him when one will be missing—all the rest. There are very few men in the world like Major Wyndham; don't you think so? He has the rare secret of being in it, yet not of it. I sometimes wonder whether anything could really upset that self-contained tranquillity of his, which makes him such a restful companion."
Here was high praise, and Mrs Jim echoed it heartily; yet in spite of it, perhaps because of it, she was far from content. "It is not Major Wyndham," she decided, regretfully. "But then,—who else is it likely to be?"
At this moment children's voices sounded in the garden and Honor sprang impulsively to her feet. "Oh, there are Jimmy and Violet!" she cried. "Let me go and be foolish with them for a little and give them their tea. We can play at wisdom again afterwards—you and I."
With that she hurried out into the garden; and in surrendering herself to the superbly unconscious egotism of childhood, found passing respite from the torment of her own thoughts. But it was some time before Mrs Conolly returned to her interrupted work.
Paul Wyndham dined again at the blue bungalow that night; and it soon became evident to Honor that something had succeeded in upsetting the schooled serenity which was the keynote of the man's character. Desmond kept the conversation going with unflagging spirit, obviously for his friend's benefit; but he never once mentioned the campaign; and Honor began to understand that Paul rebelled, with quite unusual vehemence, against an order which sent his friend on active service without him. Then it occurred to her that he must have been unlike himself the night before, and that she, in her blind self-absorption, had noticed nothing. Remorse pricked her heart and gave additional warmth to her manner,—a fact which he was quick to perceive, and to misinterpret.
The men sat a long while over their cigars, and thereafter went into the study at Paul's request.
Honor had been right in her guess. The fiat of separation, coming at a time of active service, had roused him as he was rarely roused; had proved to him, if proof were needed, that in spite of the strong love, which had opened new vistas of thought and emotion for him during the past year, his feeling for Desmond was, and always would be, the master-force of his life. That he should be condemned to play the woman's part and sit with idle hands while his friend risked life and limb in the wild mountain country across the Border, seemed for the moment more than he could accept in silence.
He was obliged to own grudgingly that the Colonel was justified in his decision,—that as Second in Command he was the right man to remain in charge of the station. But the acknowledgment did not make the necessity one whit less detestable in his eyes; and to-night the two men's positions were reversed. It was Paul who moved to and fro with long restless strides; while Theo, enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke, sat watching him in profound sympathy and understanding, making occasional attempts at consolation, with small result.
During the next ten days Honor Meredith discovered how much may be achieved and endured with the help of use and wont; discovered also that habit is the rock on which man's soul shall be wrecked or anchored in his evil day.
She forced herself to speak of Theo more often than she had done hitherto; for she now understood the reason of her instinctive reserve where he was concerned; and the mere effort of breaking through it was a help. She succeeded in talking to him also, if with less frankness, still with something of her old simplicity and ease; and in playing his favourite preludes and sonatas, even though they stirred unsounded depths of emotion, and made the burden laid upon her shoulders seem too heavy to be borne.
One habit alone seriously hindered her. Her spirit of candour—which was less a habit than an elemental essence—chafed against the barrier between her and those she loved. For she now found herself constrained to avoid the too discerning eyes of Paul and Mrs Conolly, and, above all, of Theo himself. Men and women whose spirit hibernates more or less permanently in its temple of flesh have small knowledge of the joy of such wordless intercourse; such flashes of direct speech between soul and soul; but Honor felt the lack of it keenly. She experienced, for the first time in her life, that loneliness of heart which is an integral part of all great sorrow.
But when things are at their worst we must needs eat and sleep, and find some degree of satisfaction in both. Honor was young, practical, healthy, and her days were too well filled to allow of time for brooding; nor had she the smallest leaning toward that unprofitable occupation. She sought and found refuge from her clamorous Ego,—never more clamorous than at the first awakening of love,—in concentrating thought and purpose upon Evelyn; in bracing her to meet this first real demand upon her courage in a manner befitting Theo Desmond's wife.
And she reaped her measure of reward. Evelyn bore herself bravely on the whole. Theo's manifest approbation acted as a subconscious pillar of strength. But on the last day of all, when the strain of standing morally on tiptoe was already producing its inevitable effect, an unlooked-for shock brought her back to earth with the rush of a wounded bird.
The troops were to march at dawn; and in the evening it transpired that Theo intended to dine at Mess, returning, in all probability, just in time to change and ride down to the Lines. The programme was so entirely a matter of course on the eve of an expedition, and his squadron had absorbed so much of his attention, that he had forgotten to speak of the matter earlier; and the discovery was the last touch needed to upset Evelyn's unstable equilibrium. Her collapse was the more complete by reason of the strain that had gone before.
At the first she entreated him to give up the dinner and to spend his last evening with her; and upon his gentle but definite answer that such a departure from precedent was hardly possible, she fell to sobbing with the passionate unrestraint of a child. In vain Desmond tried to reason with her, to assure her that these big nights on the eve of active service were a time-honoured custom; and that all married officers attended them as a matter of course.
"I would willingly stay at home to please you, Ladybird," he added, "but the fellows would probably come round and carry me off by main force. It would all be done in the way of a joke, of course; but can't you see that any lack of regimental spirit on my part is a reflection on you, which I won't have at any price?"
No, she could see nothing, poor distracted child, except that he was rewarding her cruelly ill for the genuine effort at control she had made for his sake; and having once lost hold upon herself, all the pent-up fears and rebellion, at loss of him, found vent in a semi-coherent outbreak of reproaches and tears, till Desmond finally lost his patience, and went off to change for Mess in a mood of mind ill-tuned to the boisterous night ahead of him.
"Big nights," an immemorial feature of army life, are a specially marked feature of the Frontier, where the constant recurrence of Border warfare, and the hardness of existence generally, produce more frequent outbursts of the schoolboy spirit that characterises the British soldier of all ranks; that carries him unafraid and undismayed through heart-breaking campaigns; keeps him cheerful and uncomplaining in the face of flagrant mismanagement, fell-climates, disaster, and defeat. Big nights, sixty years ago, left a goodly number of men, either under the table or in a condition only a few degrees less undignified. But, in spite of the outcry against modern degeneration, these things are not so to-day; and the big nights of the Frontier Force, on the eve of active service, are singularly free from this, the least admirable part of the programme.
The week before departure was necessarily a week of hard work, culminating in the task of getting all details into perfect marching order, and setting every item in readiness for the start at dawn. This done, the British predilection for "letting off steam" resulted in a night of uproarious hilarity, incomprehensible to those ignorant of the conditions which gave it birth, and unable to realise its tonic effect on men who are setting out to face danger, hardship, and possibly a violent death.
Wild games and contests were the order of the evening,—the wilder the more acceptable. Cock-fighting, mock-polo matches, or gymkhanas,—on such occasions nothing comes amiss in the way of riotous foolishness pure and simple. The senior officer forgets his seniority; the most dignified lets fall the cloak of dignity for a few exhilarating hours.
Colonel Buchanan himself entered with zest into the maddest innovations which Desmond or Olliver could devise; and those who knew Paul Wyndham, in his normal habit as he lived, would scarce have recognised him masquerading as Desmond's polo pony, in a inter-regimental match played with billiard balls, brother officers doing duty for mounts and cues for polo-sticks. It was all excellent fooling; and the bar of grey in the east came far too soon.
Close on five o'clock Desmond re-entered the bungalow; his scarlet kummerbund disordered; his white mess-jacket in a hundred creases; yet alert and ready in every fibre for the day's march that lay before him.
The grey twilight of dawn was already creeping in through the skylights and long glass doors, as he passed through the drawing-room into his study.
Here he came to a standstill with a low exclamation of surprise.
On his cane deck-lounge Evelyn lay fast asleep, her face so turned upon the cushion that its delicate profile showed clear as a cameo against a background of dull blue. Her white dinner dress gleamed ghostly in the dusk of morning. One bronze slipper had fallen off; and one bare arm hung limply over the chair's edge, the fingers curled softly upwards. A slender chain bangle, with a turquoise pendant, had almost slipped over her hand.
Desmond drew nearer with softened tread, and stood looking down upon her, a world of tenderness in his eyes;—tenderness touched with the reverence a finely tempered man is apt to feel in the presence of a child or woman asleep. For by some mysterious process sleep sanctifies a face; perhaps because it is half brother to death.
Evelyn's face was white as her dress, save for the coral tint of her lips. Their downward droop, the red line along her eyelids, and the moist handkerchief clutched in her right hand, were more heart-stirring than tears.
He knelt down beside her and lightly caressed her hair.
"Ladybird," he said softly, "time to wake up."
His touch brought her back to life with an indrawn breath like a sob; and at sight of him her arms went round his neck.
"Theo, darling," she whispered, drawing his head down close to hers. "I—was dreaming—that you were gone. I suppose you are going very soon now?"
"Yes; in about an hour."
She held him closer.
"I was bad and selfish to you last night, Theo. I didn't mean to be; but—I was. Honor made me understand."
"Bless her brave heart!" he said fervently. "She comes of the best stock I know. By the way, I am sure she never told you to spend the night here."
"No. She thought I had gone to bed. But I was too unhappy to trouble about that—and——"
"You thought I might turn up before morning,—wasn't that it?"
"Y—yes." She flushed softly on the confession.
"Poor dear little soul!"
He drew her to her feet, slipped on the fallen shoe, and put his arm round her. "Come along to the dressing-room and help me to get into my khaki."
She walked beside him in so strange a confusion of happiness and misery that it was impossible to say where one ended and the other began. In the semi-darkness she tripped and stumbled on the threshold, and he caught her close to him, holding her thus for a long moment. Then he began to dress.
At this point the long lean form of Amar Singh appeared in the doorway. But at sight of the Memsahib, arrayed for dinner, he departed as noiselessly as he had come; not without a lurking sense of injury, since it was clearly his privilege to do those last offices for his Sahib of twelve years' standing.
Evelyn, anxious to show that she could be useful on occasion, followed Theo to and fro like a shadow; handed him the wrong thing at the wrong moment with pathetic insistence; and hindered his progress by a host of irrelevant questions. But some women can hinder more engagingly than others can help; and in any case Theo Desmond was in no humour to lose patience with his wife that morning.
Once her attention was caught and held by Desmond's sword and revolver, laid ready on a small table. She regarded them with a kind of fearful fascination. They were no longer mere ornaments of his uniform, but actual death-dealers, going forth to do murderous work. The short blue muzzle of the revolver had a sinister look, and a point of light at the tip winked like a mocking eye.
"Theo," she said suddenly in an awestruck undertone, "do you know what I was dreaming when you woke me? I dreamt that you were fighting with Afridis,—ever so many of them,—and you were all alone. I thought they were going to—kill you every minute. They were running after you——"
Here Desmond dispelled the tragic vision with a shout of laughter.
"They'll never get the chance to dothat, Ladybird, so long as I have the use of my bare hands, let alone my sword!"
"But, Theo, just think, if you were all alone, and you were bound to get killed if you stayed, and there was me at home praying to get you back safe; wouldn't you be allowed to run away—even then?"
Desmond smiled; but he did not answer at once. The ludicrous suggestion, with its unconscious touch of pathos, hurt him more than he cared to acknowledge.
"It isn't a case of being allowed," he said. "I should never be left quite alone like that; and anyway, they don't lay down a code of morals for us in the Queen's Regulations. It is understood that a British officer will play the man, even in desperate straits."
She knitted her brows wistfully. "Yes, of course. Only—it seems rather hard on—the wives and mothers."
"You never said a truer word, little woman. That's why they need to have such good grit in them,—don't you see?"
"Yes—I see. But mayn't you just get out of the way of a bullet if you happen to see it coming?"
Desmond shook his head.
"One generally happens to feel it before one gets a chance of seeing it," he said. "But now, let's have done with nonsense. Buckle on my sword and we'll go to breakfast. The whole house is astir."
She set the leathern belt round his waist, and tried to fasten it; but her fingers trembled in spite of herself, and a mist blinded her eyes. He took the heavy strap from her very gently, and fastened it himself.
"You won't change and ride out a little way with us as the others mean to?" he asked.
"N—no; I couldn't. I don't want to make you ashamed of me, Theo."
For answer he held out his arms; and there was a long silence in the dimly lighted room.
Then he led her to the door of their room, and himself went out to the breakfast-table with a brisk elasticity of tread. He would not have been the man he was, if even the pang of parting could altogether quench his ardour to be gone.
In the dining-room he found Honor ready equipped for the start. She looked paler than usual, and there were blue shadows under her eyes; but she answered his greeting cheerfully enough, and busied herself with pouring out his tea.
"Ladybird is changing into a morning gown," he explained. "She never went to bed last night poor child!"
"Oh, I wish I had known that! I did my best to comfort her."
"So she told me: and you succeeded. You generally do."
He glanced at her thoughtfully, a shade of anxiety in his eyes. "You're not looking as fit yourself as you did a fortnight ago," he said.
"Don't talk nonsense," she answered with a touch of impatience.
"Well, I hope it may be nonsense. But I feel responsible for you. Take good care of yourself, please, while I am away; and—take care of my Ladybird as well.... Hullo, there's Paul!"
Wyndham entered as he spoke, wearing the undress uniform of station life: and Honor had seldom been so glad to see him as at that moment.
The two men stood facing one another for quite a long time. Then they smiled, and sat down to breakfast. Both knew that in that long look they had said all that need ever be said between them and it sufficed.
Evelyn came in a few minutes later, pale and subdued, but not uncheerful. Her real sorrow, and no less real determination to control it, gave a rare touch of dignity to the grace and simplicity that were hers by nature;—a fact which her husband was quick to perceive and admire. Both men, by a natural instinct, were a trifle more attentive to her than usual, without the least hint of intrusion upon the privacy of her grief; and it is in just such acts of unobtrusive chivalry that Englishmen, of the best type, stand unrivalled throughout the world.
The meal over, Evelyn accompanied them into the verandah, and stood smiling and waving her hand to them as they rode away, with a composure born of a stunned sense of the unreality of it all. Theo was just going down to the Lines, and he would be back to tiffin as a matter of course. Nevertheless, half an hour later the rims of her eyes were again reddened with weeping: and donning a sun-hat, she hurried out to a point where she could watch the little force move across the space of open country between the cantonment and the bastioned fort that stands at the entrance to the hills.
By the time Evelyn reached her coign of vantage, the cavalcade was already nearing the prescribed mile where the final parting would take place, to the strains of "Auld Lang Syne"; a piece of gratuitous torment, honoured by custom, which many would have willingly foregone.
The slowly retreating mass, half enveloped in dust, showed a few shades darker than the desert itself. A patch of vermilion indicated the Pioneer band, now blaring forth, with placid unconcern, "The Girl I Left Behind Me!" Lesser specks denoted officers, riding out, like the rest of the station, to speed the parting troops.
The cavalry riding in the van were a mere moving dust-cloud, followed by artillery, infantry, ambulance doolies, borne by half-naked Kahars; while a jumble of men and animals, camp-followers and transport, formed, as it were, a disorderly tail to the more compact body. Camels, groaning under tent-poles and heavy baggage, shuffled and swayed on the outskirts, with leisurely contempt; grass-cutters bobbed cheerfully along on ponies of no birth or breeding, that appeared oddly misshapen under vast loads of grass: and at the last came miniature transport carts, closely followed by the rear-guard, a mixed body of all arms.
While Evelyn still watched, the halt was called, and the disturbing strains of parting reached her where she stood. Hill, plain, and nearer objects lost their crispness of outline; and she went back to the silent house awaiting her,—the lively strains of the return march already sounding in her ears.
As she stood still for a moment, fighting against her emotion, Owen Kresney rode past. She barely acknowledged his greeting; and he had the tact to pass on without speech. For the man saw plainly that the coveted opportunity for striking a blow at Desmond, behind his back, was very near at hand; and he could afford to bide his time.