The old Khân's forecast proved correct in every particular. By noon on the day after the outbreak the ringleaders were safe in the lock-up awaiting trial, and, save for the smouldering house and the yellow flood of water sliding down the old channel, there was nothing to tell of the past night's work. For the dead bodies had been carried to their homes, and the women wailed over them discreetly behind mud walls, as if they had died in their beds. All save John Raby's, and that was making a dismal procession towards the nearest railway station, preceded at a little distance by poor Belle, crushed and but half-conscious of the truth. Philip, riding by the side of the litter, felt there was something exasperating in the absolute insignificance of the whole affair. It almost seemed as if some one must be to blame, as if something could surely have been done to avert so terrible an ending to what was, after all, but a storm in a tea-cup. But then neither he, nor the authorities who had to inquire into the matter, were in possession of that master-key to the whole position which was to be found in Shunker Dâs's desire for revenge. For he had worked carefully, leaving scarcely a trace behind him; and though Kirpo came forward boldly to declare his responsibility, her palpable motive for spite discredited her statements. Besides, at the very outset of the inquiry, it became clear that John Raby's murder by Râmu had nothing whatever to do with his action in regard to the water; and however absurd the man's jealousy might seem, it was certainly sufficient to explain the rancour with which Kirpo's husband had set himself to conspire against the Englishman. It was evident therefore that the latter had met his death, not from his harshness towards the people, but from the good-nature with which he had originally espoused the woman's cause. Both Philip Marsden and the Khân could only witness to the freedom from all attempt at personal violence on the part of the crowd, even when John Raby had thrown himself among the workers and taken a spade from them by force; while the subsequent burning and looting of the factory was evidently an after impulse caused by the rage of the survivors at the loss of their companions. The whole affair, in short, being one of those perfectly maddening mistakes and misapprehensions which serve sometimes to emphasise the peculiar conditions of life in our Indian Empire.
All this, or most of it, was in due time dinned into the widow's ears by kindly but strange voices; for there was one familiar voice which she dreaded to hear because the owner knew of something which the others did not know: something she could not remember without despair. So day after day she lay in the spare room of the head official's house,--that spare room which shelters such an odd variety of guests, the travelling Member of Parliament, the widow, the homeward and outward bound, the dying, sometimes the dead--and when Philip's name was mentioned she would turn her head away and beg to be left alone a little longer, just a little longer. Hurt as he could not fail to be at her avoidance of him, he understood the reason of it all too well, and waited patiently. Then the last day of his leave came, and he sent to say hemustsee her before he left; so Belle, white as her widow's cap, nerved herself for the interview with the man whom she had preferred before her dead husband. That is how, in her abject remorse, she put it to herself. She had chosen her lover. The natural indignation at deceit, the generous instinct, the sense of injustice which had forced her to the decision were all forgotten before the memory of those minutes of delay. How could she meet Philip?--Philip, round whose neck she had thrown her arms while defying the husband whom she had sent alone to seek death! That Philip had refused to play the part she gave him, that he had forced her to play a better one herself, brought her no comfort. She was too much absorbed in the scene as it affected her and the dead man to care what Philip had said or done. The very fact of his entering into it at all was an offence. She would not consider him in the least, except to tell herself that she was also responsible tohimfor the loss of his money. To this additional self-reproach she clung firmly, as if to a protection, and when she saw him pausing for half a second at the first glimpse of her in her widow's weeds, she thrust it forward hastily, like a shield against his sympathy.
"I am so sorry," she began coldly, "it was not his fault. He did his best about the money, and now you have lost it all."
A sort of irritated amazement came over him. What did he care for the money? Why should she be fretting over it when his thoughts were full of her,--of her only? He looked into her grief-darkened eyes with a certain impatience--the old impatience at seeing her unhappy--the old eagerness to rouse her into hope. "Oh Belle! what does all that matter? Don't look so miserable over it, for pity's sake!"
She drew her hand from his, slowly, with her eyes full on his face. "You are fond of saying that. But how can I look anything else when I killed my husband?"
"Belle!" The horrified surprise in his tone scarcely expressed his bewilderment, for he had little experience of women or the morbid exaggerations in which, at times, they find a positive relief. "Belle, what do you mean? How can you say such things?"
"What is the use of hiding the truth from ourselves?" she answered almost with satisfaction at her own self-torture. She had not meant, at least she thought she had not meant, to broach the subject at all; but now that it was begun she threw herself into it with out reserve. "You know as well as possible that it was I who really killed him; I who prevented your being in time to save him."
There was more pity than amazement in his voice now. "Have you been tormenting yourself with that thought all these long days? Poor child! No wonder you have been miserable. Belle, my dear, it isn't true. You know yourself,--surely you must know it isn't true."
"I know nothing of the sort," she interrupted quickly, with a dull hard voice. "I kept you, and you were too late. Nothing can alter that. It is the truth."
"It is not the truth," he answered quietly. "If you had but let me see you at first I might have spared you this unnecessary pain. Perhaps I ought to have insisted on seeing you, but--" He went on after a slight pause, "but I respected your wishes, because--"
"Because you knew I had reason to dread seeing you!" she broke in passionately. "Because you knew it was I who killed him! Because you were afraid! Don't deny it, Philip; you knew,--yes! you knew why."
He stood before her, manly and strong, pitiful yet full of vexation. "I will not have you say such things--of me at any rate, Belle. I will not even have you think them of me; or of yourself either. In your heart of hearts you know they are not true. True!--they are lies, Belle, wicked lies. You have been working yourself up in your loneliness to believe something impossible, preposterous, and it is my fault for letting you be lonely. I was not too late. No power on earth could have saved John. I was there armed, ready; the Khân was there also with drawn sword; yet we could not save him. No one could have saved him.Thatis the truth."
"If you had gone sooner," she murmured, pressing her hands tightly together till the rings on them cut and hurt, as if she were glad of pain, of something to appease her own self-condemnation; "if you had not been delayed, you might have persuaded him to be more cautious."
Philip almost smiled, a smile of vexed surprise at her perversity. "My dear Belle! Am I a man to preach caution when I am opposed? Was John a man to listen to such caution when the time for action had come? Nonsense! I don't wish to be hard, dear; I don't say, mind you, that the remembrance of his anger is not very bitter--God only knows how bitter--for you to bear. But, Belle, if he knows anything now, he knows that he was wrong."
"He was not wrong; he was right. I chose you and forsook him."
Philip gave a little impatient shake of his head, then walked away to the window feeling how hopeless it was to argue with a woman in Belle's position. A man was absolutely helpless before such weakness and such strength. Yet, after a pause, he returned to the attack by a side route. "Besides," he said, coming back to where she was seated, and standing beside her resting one hand on the back of her chair, "it was not really you who delayed me. It was something else of which you know nothing. If I had seen you I would have told you, but there was no use mentioning it to others because the man had gone and there was nothing to be done. It was Afzul kept me. He came to my room when I went to fetch my revolver, and barred the door. He wanted me to listen as you did. I think he was mad, but I had to fire ere he would let me pass. You see it was he who delayed me, not you. One reason why I did not mention it was this: the man was a deserter, but he had saved my life and,--I think--I think he must have been mad."
But Belle made no answer. With her head resting on her hand she was frowning slightly in pursuit of a fugitive memory. "Afzul!" she echoed at last in puzzled tones. "I had quite forgotten; but surely he came to me in the drawing-room. He gave me something and he said something; surely about Dick! Could it have been about Dick?"
Her eyes sought Philip's for the first time with appeal, and he was sorry to chill the interest in them with a negative. Yet what could Afzul possibly have to say about poor Dick Smith? "Hardly, I should think; I doubt if they ever met even at Faizapore. But this reminds me,--you had something tight clasped in your hand when I found you close to the river;--so close,--did they tell you how close it was to death, my dear, when I came upon you lying--Oh, Belle, so close!"
"Something in my hand," echoed Belle coldly. "What did you do with it?"
"Like you I had forgotten," said Philip, recovering from the break in his voice. "I put it in the pocket of my coat when I was trying to bring you back to consciousness in the hut. I dare say it is there still. Shall I go and see?"
Her affirmative sent him away relieved at the more human interest in her face. A minute afterwards he returned with a little brocaded packet looking as if it had lain in damp lodgings. "I hope it isn't hurt," he said lightly; "but having no servant here, my clothes have dried as best they could, and it feels rather pulpy. Open it and see what parting gift that inexplicable compound of fidelity and treachery left behind him. He had a great admiration for you, Belle."
"It is not for me after all. It is for you," she replied after a pause, as she smoothed out the long blue envelope which had been rolled round a smaller packet. "At least I think so. The writing above is smudged, but 'Marsden, 101st Sikhs' is quite clear. Look at it, while I open the other."
He took the letter from her calmly, without a misgiving. His first glance at it, however, roused a sudden doubt, a sudden memory; but ere he had grasped the meaning of his own thoughts, Belle's hand was on his arm, and her voice appealing to him in a new, glad tone of hope. "Oh Philip, it is Dick's ring! I have seen him wear it,--so often; I can't be mistaken. It is Dick's ring,--can he be alive,--is he,--do you think he can be alive still?"
For an instant they stood so, she like a resurrection of her girlhood, he stupidly staring at a curious dark stain blotting out part of the address. Then the truth began to dawn upon him, and his hand clenched in a growing passion. "No!" he said fiercely, and his voice was almost a whisper at first. "No! This is his will,--the will I would not take,--Afzul! My God! Afzul had it all the time! He must have been in the Pass,--Ah! I remember,--thesubadar,--those others, allhisenemies,--He must have killed the boy,--He must have killed the boy!"
His horror, his anger, burst bounds. He forgot everything else in the wild hatred which rose up in him against the murderer, as he strode up and down the room, silent for the most part, but every now and again breaking out into a passionate regret. Why had he been so blind? To think that all the time this man had nursed him, all the time he had taken so many benefits from that hand, it had been red with poor, brave Dick's blood. Why had he not shot the scoundrel when he had the chance?
But Belle stood as he had left her, the fingers of her right hand still caressing the ring which, half unconsciously, she had slipped to the third finger of her left, where, over-large for the slender resting-place, it almost hid the golden circlet of her wedding ring. Her eyes, soft with a great tenderness, seemed to see nothing but a young face eager in its plea for toleration. Dick, poor Dick! Had anything better than his love ever come into her life? The sight of her as she stood almost with a smile on her face brought a new element into Philip's thoughts. All that time, while Belle had been beating her wings against the cage, Afzul had been walking about with release in his pocket. "It is God's will!" The scene in the verandah at Saudaghur on the first night of their return from death recurred to Philip's mind, as such forgotten incidents do when time has shown their true significance, making him realise more clearly than he had ever done before in all his life what mere shuttlecocks in the game of Fate the strongest-willed may be at times. A certain defiant revolt made him cross to where Belle stood and put his arm around her as if to claim her. "The Fates have been against us, my darling," he whispered passionately, "against us all along!"
She scarcely seemed to hear him, scarcely seemed to notice his touch. In truth she had forgotten him, forgotten even her troubles. "Philip," she said, and there was a strange thrill in her voice, "if we had only known, he could have told us what Dick did. It was something very brave, I know; but if we could only be sure what it was."
Before the eyes full of a great tenderness which were raised to his, he felt as far beneath her in his selfishness as she had seemed to him but just now in her morbid weakness. How could he be angry with her? How could he even blame her?
And yet when he left her room at length, he looked so dispirited that the little Irish doctor coming in on his daily visit to Mrs. Raby, felt impelled to clap him on the back and remark somewhat inconsequently that "women, God bless 'em!" were only occasionally responsible for their words; certainly not so when their nerves were jangled and out of tune. Whereat Philip's pride rose at the very idea that the bystanders understood, or thought they understood, the position. Perhaps they were even now speculating how soon those two would give up mourning and be married. The only drop of comfort came from Mildred Van Milder, who had come to be with Belle, and take her back to the little house at Missouri when she was fit to travel. And her consolation consisted in a tearful remark that Belle had far better have married Dick Smith. He was very young, of course, and had no money, but Charlie Allsop hadn't any either, and yet she wouldn't change him for all the legacies in the world. The news of the discovery of Dick's will was a nine days' wonder, and even found its way into the daily papers, much to Philip's annoyance. Otherwise the fact itself was a distinct relief, since it gave Belle independence and removed the fear of her choosing poverty in preference to his help; a choice which in her present frame of mind seemed a foregone conclusion. At the same time it was likely to raise a new crop of difficulties, for three years had passed by since the money had fallen in to the charity, and a long time must elapse before it could be recovered; if indeed it could be recovered at all. Luckily the proving of the will was not difficult, despite the peculiarities of its custody. To begin with it was in Dick's own writing, and the old Khân was able to speak with certainty as to having seen both envelope and ring in the Pathan's possession, and bear out the fact that Philip had taken the brocaded packet from Belle's hand in the hut. The question as to how Afzul had come by it was, in Philip's opinion, all too clear; especially when inquiry proved that the Pathan had at any rate been on the Peiwar Pass about the time of the murder. So far good; the remainder, however, was more puzzling, and Philip felt that Belle made a wise decision in refusing to disturb any existing arrangements until, as she put it, time should show what she ought to do. The doctors strongly advised her going home to England as soon as the advent of the rains should make the long railway journey to Bombay possible. The complete change would give her the best chance of recovering the shock, and she could then see with her own eyes how the money had been spent, and what portion of it, if any, she would care to leave in its present employment.
"I shall meet you in Delhi," he wrote in reply to the letter in which she gave him her final decision, "and see you safe to Bombay. To begin with, there are one or two little business formalities which require my presence as executor, and then I must see you once more. There is to be a punitive expedition over the frontier in spring; so leave will be impossible until the cold weather after next, and that is a long time. I may never see you again."
She read these words as she sate on the window-seat of the little drawing-room where she had read the news of his death three years before. Three years! Was it only three years, since, with her eyes still wet with the tears she did not understand, she had gone out into the mist and the rain to find that vision of a sunlit world at her feet with John Raby standing at her side? And now he was dead, dead in anger, while tears, far more bitter than those she had shed at the thought of Philip's death, came to her eyes with the thought of seeing him again. Yet the world seemed to have stood still otherwise; the little room, the slanting pines, the drifts of cloud over the hills, even Maud in the rocking-chair, and Mrs. Stuart still aggressive in her tears and widow's caps--for the good lady had ordered a new one in anticipation of Belle's visit, moved thereto by an ill-defined but very kindly impulse of sympathy. But Belle did not know this; she only saw that sameness which is almost irritating when we ourselves have changed so much. She used to sit in the little room where she had slept the night before her wedding, and wonder what she had done to bring herself into this position; herein, for once, agreeing with Philip, who far away with his regiment asked himself many and many a time what either of them had done of which they needed to be ashamed.
Meanwhile the little household went on its monotonous way contentedly. Charlie was at school, much improved, and glad of Belle's presence; partly because he was fond of her, partly because she occupied his room and thus prevented that weekly return home from Saturday to Monday at which he was beginning to grow restive, since it was almost as derogatory to dignity as being a home-boarder. Mrs. Stuart employed herself in weeping placidly over Belle's misfortunes, and paying visits to her friends, during which she darkly hinted that she had always been against the match; for Mr. Raby had playedécarté, and though of course he had not lost his money that way, it was notcomme il fautin a young civilian. Maud was growing older in the rocking-chair, and inclined, as ever, to resent other people's tears.
"I don't think Belle is so much to be pitied after all," she cried captiously. "Other people are not always having legacies left them, and £30,000 means more to a widow than to a married woman. Besides, she needn't remain a widow unless she likes; Philip Marsden has been in love with her all the time." Whereat Mildred, signing her daily letter to Charlie Allsop with a flourish which would have done credit to the heiress of millions, interrupted her sister hotly. "I think it's a beastly shame to say so all the same, Maudie. I dare say it's true; but I'm sure if any one said such things of me when I was a widow, I'd never marry the man. No, not if I liked him ever so much! I'll tell you what it is: Belle has had a hard time of it; and if poor Dick were only here, as well as his money, I believe she would marry him and be happy."
"My dear girls!" expostulated their mother feebly, "her husband is not six weeks dead till next Tuesday. If any one had suggested marriage to me when poor Colonel Stuart--"
"Oh, that is different, mamma," retorted Mildred impatiently. "Belle only married John by mistake. Lots of girls do the same thing. Mabel has, with her Major; but then she will never find it out, so it doesn't matter. Charlie says--"
"Oh, if Charlie says anything, that settles the matter," broke in Maud peevishly. "I wish you two would get married, and then you would soon cease to think each other perfection. For my part, I consider Belle is not to be pitied. She has plenty of money, and by and by she will have a baby to amuse her when she's tired of other things. What more can any woman want? I'm very sorry for her now, but grief doesn't last forever, and after all she never was in love with John. That's one comfort."
Perhaps if Belle had been asked she might have denied the last statement. If she had loved him, the past would certainly have been less of a regret, the future less of a fear. What was to be the end of it all? That question clamoured for answer as the big ship began to slide from its moorings. Leaning over the taffrail, her eyes heavy with unshed tears, she could see nothing but Philip standing bareheaded in the boat which slipped landwards so fast. A minute before his hands had been in hers, his kind voice faltering good-bye in her ears. And now? Suddenly her clasped fingers opened in a gesture of entreaty. "Philip!" she whispered. "Comeback, come back!"
But the swirl of the screw had caught the boat and Major Marsden was in his place at the tiller-ropes, his face set landwards. The rowers bent to their oars and so, inch by inch, yard by yard, the rippling sunlit water grew between those two. Was that to be the end?
Seven years! Time enough, so physiologists tell us, for the whole structure of the body to be worn out and renewed again. And for the mind? Is it to be allowed no chance of change, no throwing aside of effete matter, no relief from the monotony of a fixed body of opinions, thoughts, and emotions? That would be hard indeed. Yet Belle Raby--for she was Belle Raby still--had altered little either outwardly or inwardly in the seven years which had passed since she stood leaning over the taffrail watching a boat slip landwards, and asking herself if that was to be the end of it all. Perhaps this lack of change was the less remarkable because, as she leant over the wicket-gate looking into the lane beyond, she was still watching and waiting, and asking herself what the end was to be. Not, however, as she had done then; for then she had been in a state of nervous collapse and unable to judge fairly of anything or any one, of herself least of all. To do her justice this state of mind had not lasted long; indeed Belle had found herself facing the white cliffs of England, and the uncertain future awaiting her there with more equanimity than she would have deemed possible or even proper a month before. The long journey home,--that slow passaging day after day towards a set haven regardless of storm or calm,--the imperturbable decision of the big ship which seems to have absorbed your weakness in its strength--the knowledge that day and night, night and day, while you forget, the engines like a great heart are throbbing on purposefully across the pathless sea,--all this has worked many a miracle of healing in mind and body exhausted by the struggle for existence. It wrought one for Belle, luckily, since the future held many a difficulty. Despite them all, as seven years afterwards, she stood bareheaded in the cool English sunshine she looked wonderfully young and happy; even though those seven years had been the fateful ones which find a woman in the twenties and leaves her in the thirties. True it is that wisdom, either of this world or the next, brings a sadness to most eyes, but in this case a sweetness had come with it which more than counterbalanced the loss of gaiety. In fact Belle Raby had never looked more attractive than she did as she stood in a white dress with a Jacqueminot rose tucked away in the lace at her throat leaning over the wicket-gate waiting,--waiting for what?
For Philip, of course. Ten o'clock had just chimed from a church-tower close by, and the time between that and the half-hour had belonged for years to her best friend. Sometimes during those short thirty minutes of a busy day she wrote to him; sometimes, as now, she stood watching for him with tolerable certainty that, if steamers and trains were punctual, he would step with bodily presence into her life for a few weeks; but most often she was setting time, and space, and absence, and all the trivialities which clip the wings of poor humanity at defiance. In other words she was allowing her imagination to get the better of her common sense. That is one way of putting it. Another is possible to those who, like Belle, have learnt to recognise the fact that the outside world exists for each one of us, not in itself, but in the effect which it produces on our consciousness. Two women are grinding at the mill; the one weeps over the task, the other smiles; just as they choose to weep or smile. The secret of the emotion lies not in the cosmic touch itself, but in the way the consciousness receives it, and in the picture which the imagination draws of our own condition; the abstract truth, the actual reality affects us not at all. So Belle Raby, as she looked out to the wild roses in the hedgerow and the yellow butterflies fluttering over the grey bloom of the flowering grasses, saw nothing of the placid English landscape spread before her eyes. She was standing on a faraway Indian platform where the crows sat on the railings cawing irrelatively, and a tall man in undress uniform was listening to those first words,--"it is father." That had been the beginning of it all; the keynote both of the discords and harmony of the whole. Then suddenly, as irrelatively perhaps as the cawing of the crows, the scene changed. The flood of sunshine faded to mirk and fog; such mirk and fog as humanity and its ways creates in London on a dull November day. An atmosphere of civilisation and culture, say some. Perhaps; but if so, civilisation with all its advantages is apt to smell nasty. She saw a man and a woman standing opposite each other in a London lodging, in a London fog. But five minutes before Philip had come into it buoyantly, decisively, bringing with him a memory of sunshine and purer air. Now he stood with his back to the grey square of the window, his hands stretched out to her in something between command and entreaty. "Belle! put down the child and let me speak to you." And then for the first time, she had gone over to him, with the child still in her arms, and kissed him. "Jack will not trouble me, dear," she said; "he is such a quiet wee mite. Come, let us sit down and talk it over."
Now when lovers fall to talking hand in hand it is proper, even in a novel, to avert one's head and smile, saying that the conversation can have no possible interest to outsiders. Or, if a sentence or two be suggested, it is necessary to insist that love, divine love, can only find its first expression in mere foolishness. Belle and Philip therefore could evidently not have been lovers, for they talked serious and sound good sense while the year-old Jack with his wide, wistful eyes lay in his mother's arms and listened to it all. What was it to him if more than once a reluctant tear fell on his tiny wrinkled hands, and more than once Philip's voice trembled and then stopped a while? What were such emotions to a life which had come into the world barred from them forever? For Belle's child would never be as other children are; so much was certain; whether he would ever need her care more than another's was yet to be seen. But it was strange, was it not? she seemed to hear herself saying in a calm voice, the steadiness of which surprised her even at the time, that poor Dick's legacy had gone to a hospital for just such poor little God-stricken children.
"Don't, Belle,--don't, for pity's sake,--I can't bear it." That had been the man's cry, bringing home to her the fact that she and Philip had changed places. In the old days a duty had lain between them; a duty lay between them now. Why had she seen evil and shame in this man's love then, and yet find none in it now? Then he had been calm, and she had fretted. Now with another man's child in her arms, and just the same love in her heart, she had the decision, and he the restless pain. In those days no thought of such love as deals in marriage had ever arisen between them; but now Philip had come all the way from India full of a man's determination to end the story in what the world said was the only possible, natural, or moral ending to any love-story. And on such stories as theirs the worldly verdict runs thus: they had loved each other when they could not marry, which was very wrong; but a kindly Providence having removed the unnecessary husband, they could marry, which set everything right.
The mirk and fog settled very closely round them as they sate by the fire; closer on Philip than on Belle, for it was his turn to be scared by the phantom of foregone conclusions. What he had strenuously denied when the position ran counter to his pride, seemed true enough now that it joined issue with it. He loved Belle, so of course he must want to marry her. The two things were synonymous; when, of course, there was a possibility of getting married. Yet Belle, even with tears in her eyes, could smile as she told him that her first thought in life lay in her arms; that she could not even give him hope in the future, or bid him wait, since the waiting might be forever.
That had been more than five years ago, and there was still a smile on Belle Raby's face as she roused herself from her day-dreams, looked at her watch, and turned back into the garden. Perhaps he had missed his train. Even if he had he would still come by and by to see how magnificently the roses were blooming that year. There were roses everywhere; wild in the hedgerows, many-coloured in the borders, white in the trailing sprays that climbed round about the verandahs of the low cottage which formed one wing of a plainer yet more important building beyond. It was evidently the later addition of a different taste, for the gardens surrounding them showed a like dissimilarity. In the distance, open stretches of well-kept lawns and wide gravelled paths; civilised, commonplace. Round the cottage a strip almost wild in its profusion of annuals, its unpruned roses, and the encircling shade of tall forest trees which must have stood there long before either the cottage or the pretentious building beyond had been thought of; a strip of garden suggestive, even to a casual observer, of a less conventional fashion of life than is usual in the old country. To Belle, as she stooped to push a tangle of larkspur within reasonable bounds, it served as a reminiscence of days which, with all their sadness, she never ceased to regret. She envied Philip often; Philip in command of his regiment, away on this expedition or that, able to come back always to the sociable yet solitary existence so strangely free from the hurry and strain inseparable from life in the West. Philip, whose name was known all along the frontier as the boldest soldier on it. A perfect content for and in him glowed at her heart as with her hands clasped behind her she strolled back to the gate. And there he was, his head uncovered, his pace quickening as he saw her. Her pulse quickened too, but she composed herself to calm. For they had a little game to play, this middle-aged man and woman; a game which they had played with the utmost gravity on the rare occasions when Fate brought them into each other's presence.
"Your train is a little late to-day, Phil, isn't it?" she asked as she held the gate open for him.
"Rather. Have you been waiting long?"
His voice trembled a little in the effort to take it all as a matter of course, though hers did not; but then the novelty of environment was greater for him than for her.
"How long is it this time, Phil? I forget, and after all what does it matter? Come and see the roses, dear; there are such a lot out this morning."
He stopped her for an instant by drawing the hand he held towards him, and clasping it in both of his. "More roses than there were yesterday, Belle?" he asked with a sort of eager certainty in his tone.
She looked at him fondly. "Yes, more than yesterday "--then suddenly she laughed and laid her other hand on his. "I will say it, dear, since it pleases you. There are more roses to-day because you have come, and this is holiday-time."
Their welcome was over; they had stepped for a time into each other's lives. A ridiculous pretence, of course; a mere attempt to make imagination play the part assigned since all eternity to facts. But if it pleased these two, or if it pleases any number of persons who find facts are stubborn things, why should the world quarrel with it? Belle had once on a time made herself unnecessarily miserable by imagining that she and Philip were in love with each other, and that, since love was inextricably bound up with marriage or the desire for it, she must be posing as the heroine of the third-rate French novel. Her consequent loss of self-respect had very nearly spoiled her life, and even Philip had never ventured to think what might have happened had John lived to force them into action. The unreality of her past fears had come home to Belle, however, during the long months when she had waited for her last legacy. And with the first sight of the baby-face whereon Fate had set its mark of failure all too clearly, had come a resolution that in the future nothing but her own beliefs should rule her conduct. Her life and Philip's should not be spoiled by other people's ideas; her imagination should be her slave, not her master. So much, and more, she had said to Philip on that mirky day when in his first disappointment he had declared that he could not bear it. But that had been five years ago, and life seemed more than bearable as he walked round the garden with her hand drawn through his arm and held there caressingly. A man who is in command of a regiment in which he has served since he was a boy, whose heart is in his profession, whose career has been successful, has other interests in life besides marriage; if he has not, the less he figures as a hero, even in a novel, the better.
"It is like Nilgunj, isn't it?" said Belle pointing to the tangles of flowers.
"With a difference. You can't grow Maréchal Niel roses in England. They were,--well,--overpowering as I came through. Mildred has the garden very nice; you would hardly recognise the place. The trees you planted are taller than the house; but everything grows fast in India,--their eldest girl is up to my elbow. Oh! and Maud was there on a visit, wearing out her old clothes. She hasn't forgiven you yet, Belle, for what she calls throwing away your money and becoming a hospital nurse. I spent some time in trying to explain that you were simply spending your money in the way which pleased you best; but it was no use. She only said that caps were no doubt very becoming. Why don't you wear them, Belle? You always tellmeto take what pleasure I can out of life, and I obey orders."
There was a pause ere he went on. "And Charlie is quite a dandy. More like you, Belle, than I should have thought possible from my recollection of him as a youngster at Faizapore. Allsop gives a first-rate account of him, says he is working splendidly. And Allsop himself! what a rare good fellow he is, with just that touch of determination his race generally lack. He is making the business pay now; not as John would have done, of course, but it supports them and leaves something over for the bloated capitalist. Besides it is so much better for Charlie than loafing about at home like the others."
"You needn't tell me that, Phil," said Belle softly. "Don't you think I see and understand all the good you have forced from what promised to be evil?"
"That is rather strong, isn't it? It would most likely have done as well without my interference; things generally come right in the end, especially if you trust other people. At least that is my experience in the regiment. By the way, I went over to see the old Khân when I was at Nilgunj. He is a bit broken, though he won't allow it, by his wife's death. Obstinate old hero! He declares, too, that it is no satisfaction having his son back from the Andamans because he is only out on ticket-of-leave. He stickles for a full apology; as if life would be endurable without a grievance of some kind or another. If he only knew how I had backstaired and earwigged every official on the list over that business! I wasted a whole month's leave at Simla,--which I might have saved up and spent on board a P. and O. steamer, my dear. It was during the rains, and I seemed to live in a waterproof on my way to someburra sahibor another. But my pride is all broken and gone to bits, Belle; I shall be asking the authorities for a C.I.E.-ship some day if I don't take care. Well! the old man sent you hissalaamas usual, said the women ruled the roost nowadays, and in the same breath fell foul of them collectively because his daughter-in-law had not prepared some peculiar sherbet which old Fâtma always produced on state occasions. Not that Haiyât-bi minds his abuse, now she has a husband to bully in her turn. That, says the Khân, is women's way; since the beginning of time deceitful and instinct with guile. And then, Belle--yes, then he brought out the old sword, and here it is, dear, his and mine in the old way, if only in the spirit."
He stood beside her, stretching out his hands in the well-remembered fashion, as if something sacred lay in them and before the tenderness in his face, the calmness of hers wavered for an instant. "Did we really go through all that together, Phil?" she asked with a tremble in her voice. "Oh my dear, my dear, how much you have all given me! And I give,--so little. But my pride is, like yours, all broken and gone to bits, and I take everything I can get. You should see how I beg for the hospital."
She turned to the big white building beyond the cottage as if to escape into another subject; and Philip turned also.
"Is it,--is it getting along nicely?" he asked dutifully.
"Yes, dear," she replied, looking at him again with a smile; "but we shall have time to talk of that by and by. You haven't given me half the budget of news. And do you know, Phil, I begin to suspect that in writing you tell all the pleasant things and keep back the disagreeables. Now that isn't fair; as children say, it spoils the game."
"Does it? Well, I won't do it again. Let me see what is the most unpleasant story I have heard for the last few months. Ah--yes! that is about the worst." He paused with a frown.
"Well?"
"Only Shunker Dâs is dead. That isn't very distressful; but you remember Kirpo?"
"Why, Philip, it was her husband who--"
"Yes, of course, of course; but I was not thinking of that; only of the day when she came out of the coolies' hut with a child in her arms, and told us why he was called Nuttu. Well, it is a horrid story, Belle, but that pitiless old fatalist the Khân, who was my informant, saw the hand of high heaven in it. Shunker got the telegram informing him that he was to be made aRai Bahâdur, and another announcing his son's death by the same messenger. Ghastly, wasn't it? He had a fit, and though he lived for some weeks they never could understand a word he said, though he talked incessantly. One can imagine what he wanted from the sequel. Well, at his funeral-pyre, up turns Kirpo with a strapping boy of about eight years old, and there was an awful scene. She swore it was Shunker's son, and made the child defile the ashes. Do you remember her face that day, and how I said she hated somebody? Great Heavens! there is something perfectly devilish in the idea of such a revenge."
"And yet we talk calmly enough of the sins of the fathers being visited on the children." She paused as the church clock struck eleven. "It is time I went to see my bairns, Phil. Will you come too? They will be at their best; the out-ones just in from the garden, the in-ones ready for their midday rest. They look so comfortable all tucked up in their cots."
The bravest man winces sometimes, and Philip, despite the five years, had never forgotten that day of mirk and fog when he had first seen John Raby's child, and Belle had bidden him go away if he could not be satisfied with what she had to give him. To be satisfied, or go away! Both, it had seemed to him then, equally impossible; yet he had done both. Still the memory was painful. "You are going to build the new wing next year, I suppose?" he said as indifferently as he could when, leaving the shady wilderness, they made their way along the gravel walks which were seamed in every direction by the wheel-marks of invalid carriages.
"It depends," she replied quickly, answering the effort in his tone by a grateful look. "I may not have to build it. I may not be here. I am to go where I am most wanted; that was settled long ago, Phil."
He was silent; what was there to say?
Side by side they climbed the terrace steps to reach the front of the hospital which looked right across a stretch of wind-swept down to the open sea. A row of perambulators and wheeled couches stood under a glazed verandah, and above the level lines of square windows the words "SMITH'S HOME FOR INCURABLE CHILDREN" showed in big gold letters as a balustrade to the semi-Grecian façade.
Belle glanced up at it before passing through the noiseless swinging doors. "I always wish I had been in time to stop that awful inscription," she said; "but it was scarcely worth while pulling it all down. You see none of them can read. We take them young, and those who stop don't live to be old; that is one thing to be thankful for. You don't like my speaking of it, Phil, but I often wonder what would have become of this empty shell of a house if my Jack had been born as most children are born,--as I wished him to be born. Some one would have carried on the work, I suppose, if I hadn't, and yet,--these bairns might have been God knows where, instead of in the sunlight."
She opened an inner door, and signed to him to pass before her. There was sunlight there, and no lack of it, though it shone on sights which to Philip Marsden's unaccustomed eyes seemed to dim the brightness. Rows of little crutches along the walls, weary unchildlike faces resting on the low divans in the windows; in the centre a more cheerful picture of little ones gathered round a table set with bread and milk.
"This is my show room and these are my show babies," said Belle with a smile. "We all get about more or less and play by ourselves; don't we, nurse? And some of us, like Georgie here, are going home again because we are too strong for the place. We don't keep noisy, romping, rioting ragamuffins, do we, children?"
The face she turned up to hers as she passed grinned doubtfully, but all the other little white faces dimpled and wrinkled with mirth at the very idea of Georgie's exile. They went up stairs now, into more sunshine streaming on rows of beds where childhood wore away with no pleasure beyond a languid joy at a new picture-book or a bunch of flowers. Here they trod softly, for some of the little ones were already asleep.
"Where is Freddy?" asked Belle in a whisper of the nurse busy smoothing an empty cot.
"He seemed so restless this morning, ma'am, that Dr. Simmonds thought we had better put him in the White Ward; he was afraid--"
Belle passed on, her face a shade graver, and as Philip followed her up another wide staircase she paused before a closed door and asked him to wait for her; she would not be long.
He caught a glimpse of a smaller, more home-like room, white and still, with the light shaded from the open windows. Then he stood leaning against the bannisters, watching the dancing motes in a sunbeam slanting down from the skylight overhead; a skylight looking as if it were glazed with sapphire.
"That was the White Ward," said Belle, coming out and passing upward through the beam of light. She spoke almost cheerfully, but Philip, who had faced death, and worse horrors than death, many a time without a qualm, felt himself shiver. Once again they paused before a closed door and she gave Philip a hurried half-appealing glance, before she said nervously, "I have Jack in this ward now. Dr. Simmonds thinks it good for him to be with the other children, and he seems to like it better."
It was the sunniest room of all, for the windows were set wide open, and the blinds drawn up. The scent of the roses from Belle's garden drifted in with the cool fresh wind. The children had evidently all been out, for a pile of hats and cloaks lay on the table, but they were now seated on their cots awaiting their turn for lunch. Philip's eyes, travelling down the row of beds, rested on a crop of golden curls, and he gave a little exclamation, half groan, half sigh. That was a face he could not mistake, strange and wistful as it was; not an unintelligent face either, and great heavens! how like the father's as it fell stricken to death.
"Listen!" said Belle, touching his arm. A nurse passing with a tray paused in pleased expectancy.
"Jack!" her voice echoed softly through the silence.
The golden head turned, the veriest ghost of a smile came to the pinched face, and the thin little hands stretched themselves aimlessly into space with a sudden plaintive cry which sent a lump to Philip's throat.
"Lor!" protested the nurse full of pride; "didn't he say it beautiful clear that time? Mother? Yes, it is mother, my pretty; and you knows her voice, don't you, dearie? just as well as any on us."
Belle sate down on the cot, gathering the child in her arms, and the yellow curls nestled down contentedly on her shoulder. A mite of a boy with great wide blue eyes fixed on the only face he ever recognises. "Do you think him grown at all?" she asked; then seeing Philip's look bent over the child and kissed the blue veins on the large forehead. There was a passion of protection in her kisses. "If he were the only one, Phil, I should break my heart about it; but there are so many,--and,--and it is so causeless." Her eyes seemed to pass beyond the child and she went on more cheerfully, "Then he is such a contented little fellow when he is with me,--aren't you, Jack?"
Again came the ghost of a smile, and the same plaintive cry. Philip walked to the window and looked out on the roses. It was a very slight thing, that cry, to have come between a man and a woman,--if it had come between them. He turned to look at Belle instinctively, and found her looking at him. No! nothing had come between them. Before the insoluble problem of what Belle held in her arms love seemed to him forever divorced from marriage. The veriest pariah, born of God knows what, or of whom, the outcome of the basest passion, might enter the world fair and strong and capable, while their child, if they married, bringing each to each a pure devotion, might be as these children here.
He crossed the room again and sate down on the bed beside her. "How many have you in the hospital now?" he asked in a low voice, for Jack, contented and comfortable, was evidently falling asleep.
"Fifty; but Dr. Simmonds says he could fill a hundred beds to-morrow. It is the best place, he declares, of its kind."
"Would you undertake so much?"
She shook her head. "I never know,--no one knows from day to day. They are all so frail. Freddy, for instance, was no worse yesterday, and to-day! There are plenty to fill my place here when,--when the time comes."
"It may never come. Besides," he added, "I may be incurable myself ere long. Don't you remember promising me the gatekeeper's place if ever I was pensioned off minus a leg or an arm?"
"Did I?" she answered in the same light tone, as she rose to lay little Jack on his pillow and draw the blanket over him. "Then I must warn the present old cripple that his place isn't a permanent one. Isn't he like his father, Phil?" she added, laying her hand on the child's pretty soft curls.
"Very."
They passed along the sunny corridors again and so out into the open air. Philip drew his hand over his forehead as if to brush away puzzling thoughts, and gave a sigh of relief. "Come down to the cliffs with me, Belle," he said. "There is plenty of time before lunch, and I feel as if I wanted a blow. It's rather an irrelevant remark, but I wonder what will become of the babies if women become men?"
They crossed the downs keeping step together, and walking rapidly as if to leave something behind, finally seating themselves in a niche between two great white pillars of chalk, whence they could see the waves ebbing and flowing among the rocks at their feet. The horizon and the sky were blent into one pale blue, so that the fishing boats with their red-brown sails seemed hovering between earth and heaven.
"How long is it this time?" she asked after a pause. "The usual three months?"
"Yes! the usual three months from the frontier. That leaves me six weeks with you; six whole weeks."
There was another pause. "Philip!" she said suddenly, "I'll marry you to-morrow if you like,--if,--if it would make you happier."
He was sitting with his hands between his knees, looking out absently over the waves below. He did not stir, but she could see a smile struggling with his gravity.
"My dear Belle! The banns haven't been called."
"Perhaps we could afford a special license on the easy-purchase system by monthly instalments," she suggested quite as gravely. "But really, Philip, when I see you--"
"Growing so old; don't be afraid of the truth, Belle. Am I very bald?"
"Bald! No, but you are grizzling fast, Phil; and when the fact is brought home to me by seeing it afresh, I ask myself why you shouldn't have a wife and children."
"I could, of course; there are plenty of young ladies now on the frontier. Oh, Belle! I thought we had settled this long ago. You can't leave Jack; you wouldn't with a clear conscience, if you could. I can't leave the regiment; I shouldn't like to, if I could. Is not that an end of marriage from our point of view? Besides," he turned to her now with a smile full of infinite tenderness, "I am not at all sure that I do want to marry you. When perfection comes into a man's life, can you not understand his being a little afraid--"
"Philip!"
"Not of you, dear; but this love of ours seems better than we are ourselves,--thanIam, certainly. Then marriage, as I take it, is for young people, and what they call Love is the bribe held out by Nature to induce her thoughtless children to undertake a difficult duty. The sweet isn't unwholesome in itself, but that is no reason why we should call it manna from heaven and say it is better than plain, wholesome bread and butter."
"You are growing detestably didactic in your old age, Phil. When you come to the gatekeeper's house I shall have to amend your ways."
"You forget I shall be incurable then; but you are right. I am fast becoming a real old crusted military fogy, and of all fogies that is the worst. You can't think what a nuisance I am to the boys at mess; they depute a fresh one to prose to the Colonel every night."
"I know better. When young Cameron came home sick he had a very different story."
"Young Cameron isn't to be trusted. To begin with he had had a sunstroke, and then he proposed marrying on subaltern's pay."
"Well, you can't expect the world to give up falling in love because you don't approve."
"Let it fall by all means; only let us call things by their proper names. You and I, Belle, know the trouble which follows on the present confusion. And if we, eminently respectable people, suffered much, many must suffer more. Many! Why the question, 'Is Marriage a Failure?' fills up the interstices of conversation left between the Rights of Labour and Home Rule. How can it be anything but a failure when people are taught to expect impossibilities? when they are told that love is better than duty? Thank heaven, we never were in love with one another!"
"Never?"
"No,--at least,--yes! perhaps I was one day. Do you remember when you kissed your cousin Dick in the church garden at Faizapore? I was decidedly jealous as I stood by the canal bridge. If he had lived, Belle, I think you would have married him."
She did not answer, but sate softly smiling to herself. "So long ago as that," she said at last in a contented tone of voice.
Philip started to his feet with a half-embarrassed laugh. Even now, after all these years, her woman's nature, in its utter inconsequence, was a puzzle to him,--perhaps to herself.
"Come," he said prosaically, "I'm sure it must be time for lunch."
"Are you so very hungry?" she asked, dusting from her dress, with something of regret in the action, the sweet-smelling herbs which she had idly gathered from the crannies of the cliff and crumbled to pieces for the sake of their perfume.
"I ought to be, seeing I had no breakfast."
She started up in her turn. "Philip! How could you? and never to tell me!"
"You see we were late all through; something went wrong somewhere, and then I had to catch the ten o'clock train. Don't look horrified; I got a stale bun at Swindon."
"Stale buns are most unwholesome."
"That is what materialists like you always say of any diet which does not suit them. Personally I like stale buns."
"You mean that you can put up with them when you have a solid lunch in prospect."
He had taken her hand to help her to the level and now suddenly he paused, and stooping kissed it passionately. "Oh, Belle, my darling, why should we talk or think of the future? To-day is holiday-time and I am happy."
So, hand in hand, like a couple of children, they went homewards across the down; while the great gilt letters of the legend above the hospital glowed and shone like a message of fire against the blue sky.