"They are one and one, with a shadowy third;One near one is too far."—Browning.
Quita was troubled.
A full week had elapsed since that day so strangely compounded of rapture and dread; of matter-of-fact service, and shy, tender intimacies that had seemed to set a seal on the completeness of their reunion. Yet, in the days that followed, she had been increasingly aware of a nameless something, an indefinable constraint between them, which instinct told her would not have been there if conscience had surrendered all along the line.
It was not his mere avoidance, after the first, of caresses congenial to the opening phase of marriage that disconcerted her. Such emotional reticence squared with her idea of the man. She would not have had him otherwise. They were sure of one another; and in both natures passion was proud and fastidious. It could thrive without much lip-service. The undefined aloofness that troubled Quita was spiritual, rather than physical. She was conscious of walls within walls, separating her from his essential self; and behind these again of an unobtrusive reserve force, whose power of endurance she could not estimate; because her dealings with Michael's shallower nature had afforded her no experience of a moral stability free from the warp of the personal equation. It was as if some intangible part of him, over which she could establish no hold, stood persistently afar off,—tormented, but immovable.
She could not know that the form of opium administered during his illness had revived and strengthened temptation when he himself was physically unfit to cope with it; that by her impulsive return to him, at a critical moment, she was forcing him open-eyed toward a catastrophe more lasting, more terrible for them both, than the initial harm done by her rejection of him five years ago. Reserve and self-disgust made speech on the subject seem a thing impossible; while his mere man's chivalry shrank from allowing her to guess that by an act of seeming reparation, she had run grave risk of putting real reparation out of her power. Once only did the love that consumed him break through the restraint he put upon himself in sheer self-defence.
It was the first day he had been allowed up at a normal hour; and coming into the dining-room, he had found her alone at her easel, near one of the long glass doors. At the sound of his step she turned her canvas round swiftly, and came to him with a glad lift of her head. He took her hands in his big grasp, and kissed her forehead.
"Good morning, lass," he said. "You never told me you had brought that with you. Couldn't be divorced from it, eh? What's the great work now? May I see?"
"But yes, naturally. I've been keeping it as a surprise for you. I don't believe I should ever have got through this last fortnight without it.Voilà!"
She set it facing him, and standing so with her eyes on the picture, waited eagerly for his word of praise. But as the seconds passed, and it did not come, she turned, to find him looking at her, not at the picture; his teeth tormenting his lower lip; a suspicious film dimming the clear blue of his eyes. Emboldened by this last incredible phenomenon, she came and stood close to him, yet without touching him.
"Darling, you do like it, don't you? I can't complete it till you give me a few sittings; but then—it will be my masterpiece. I shall never show it, at home, though. It's too much a part of myself . . . my very inmost self."
And he could not withhold the demonstration that such a confession provoked.
"Oh, my dear," he said at last, without releasing her. "You made too little of me once; and now you're making too much. I'm not worth it all."
She put a hand on his lips.
"Be quiet! I won't hear you when you talk so. Look properly at my picture now. You haven't told me it's good."
"Of course it's good. Amazingly good. But . . ." he laughed, a short contented laugh—"it's beyond me how you could be misguided enough to waste your remarkable talent in perpetuating anything so ugly!"
Her smile hinted at superior knowledge; yet she paid his obvious sincerity the compliment of not contradicting his final statement.
"In the first place, because I love it. And in the second place, because, for all true artists, who see in form and colour just a soul's attempts at self-expression, there is more essential beauty in certain kinds . . . of ugliness, than in the most faultless symmetry of lines and curves. One is almost tempted to say that there is no such thing as actual ugliness; that it is all a matter of understanding, of seeing deep enough. For instance, I find that essential beauty I spoke of in Mrs Olliver's face."
"Ah . . . so do I; of a rare quality."
"Well then, dear stupid, allow me to find it in yours also!"
"One to you," he admitted, smiling. "But now . . . I am in your hands till tiffin. What are you going to do with me? Read? Sing? The drawing-room's empty; and I haven't heard you since Kajiar."
"Do you want the Swinburne again?"
"No; by no means."
"Why not? Don't you like the song?"
"I like it far too well; and I'm not strong enough yet to stand a brutal assault upon my feelings! Come along, and give me something wholesome and simple. A convalescent needs milk diet mentally as well as physically, you know!"
This was on one of his best days. But there were others,—following upon nights of sleeplessness, and pain, and heart-searching unspeakable, only to be alleviated by the one unfailing remedy,—when the strain of repression demanded by her constant presence so wrought upon his nerves that he would get up and leave her abruptly without excuse; or shut himself into his room on the empty pretext of revising manuscript. As a matter of fact, he spent most of the time girding at the deliberate waste of good hours; till the consciousness of slipping deeper into the mire and the dread of ultimate defeat became almost an obsession, aggravated by ill-health and want of rest.
Quita, who remembered well his inexhaustible capacity for keeping still, was distressed and puzzled by these moods of restlessness verging on irritability, whose true significance she could not guess at; though she was woman enough to know that a position merely unsatisfactory for her, must be an actual strain on him. And as his strength returned, she could only hope from day to day for some allusion to the possibility of moving into their own bungalow; since it was clear that they could not remain with the Desmonds for ever! Pride and delicacy alike withheld her from the lightest mention of the subject. It seemed to her that she had transgressed sufficiently in both respects already. Yet, as the days accumulated to a week, and still he said no word, she grew definitely anxious to know what was going to happen next.
But, with all its drawbacks and difficulties, this week of intimate everyday companionship had been one of the best weeks in her life. It had served, above all things, to establish her conviction that the husband she had chosen, by a lightning instinct of the brain rather than the heart, was in all respects a man among men. He appealed to the artist in her by a natural dignity and distinction of person and character, by a suggestion of volcanic forces warring with the ascetic strain in him yet steadfastly controlled; and above all, by a superb simplicity and unconsciousness of self, that draws introspective temperaments as infallibly as the moon draws the sea.
And apart from her joy in him, she was keenly alive to her surroundings; to the practical work going on about her; to the stimulating contact with a new type, a new atmosphere. At first she saw little of outsiders, or indeed of any one besides her husband. John Meredith came over every day; Wyndham, though still living in the house, had gone back to duty; while Desmond—after one day of complete collapse, when Frank revenged herself on him by monopolising Honor—had taken up his work again with heightened zest, and devoted every spare hour to his wife. But the four met at meals, and in the evening, when Quita kept all three men alert and amused by her intelligent questionings, her frank interest in every detail of her new profession, as it pleased her to call it.
Before the week was out her pocket note-book contained a small portrait-gallery of studies in pencil and water-colour. She sketched Desmond's old Sikh Ressaldar, with his finely carved features, deep eyes, and vast lop-sided blue and gold turban; and Desmond himself in the white uniform and long boots, which so greatly pleased her, occupied several pages.
Mounted on Shaitan's successor, she rode down with him twice to early parade; and sat entranced through the whole proceeding; watching the long lines of men and horses sweeping across the open plain, wheeling, retiring, advancing, changing formation with exquisite and instantaneous precision, in response to Meredith's brisk words of command; while massed lance-heads and steel shoulder-chains flashed and winked in the level light.
It was her first experience of meeting soldiers in the mass, on their own ground, and the man who has faced death and dealt it out to others appeals irresistibly to the fundamental barbaric in women. To this fascination, Quita added the artist's reverence for the men who 'do things,' as opposed to the men who record or express them.
She enlarged on the subject at breakfast one morning, in her usual direct fashion; but Desmond would have none of it.
"Remember, Quita," said he, "that an artist, in the inclusive sense, when he is worth anything, stands for the strongest thing in the world . . . an idea."
Her face brightened with interest.
"That's true. But unhappily great art doesn't necessarily imply great character, and great action does. That's why the world's heroes have nearly always been men of action; and always will be."
"Ah, now you've given yourself away neatly!" Desmond cried, like a great schoolboy. "Where would your heroes be a hundred years after their death, but for the men who immortalise them on canvas, and in print? Would the effect of their noble living be one-half as far-reaching, if it remained unrecorded? It's no case for comparison, any more than the eternal man and woman question. They are diverse; and the world has equal need of both. So there's consolation for us all!"
"Well played, Desmond!" Lenox remarked, smiling and nodding across the table at his wife.
"I surrender at discretion," she admitted sweetly. "But still, being an artist, I take off my hat to men of action, and always shall."
"Good luck for the men of action!" Desmond retorted, with an amused glance at Lenox, as they rose from the table.
By now cholera and fever were dying out slowly, like spent fires. The Infantry had come in from camp; and the Battery was expected back shortly, only two fresh cases having occurred. Then, as Honor began to mend, people dropped in again at tea-time, eager for news of her; and Quita discovered how widely and deeply she was beloved. Little Mrs Peters disappeared behind a very crumpled handkerchief while trying to express her feelings; and the Chicken blew his nose vigorously when Quita announced that Honor would soon be allowed into the drawing-room for tea.
She was getting used to her new name now. Officers of all ranks came to call on her as a 'bride'; an embarrassing attention which she would gladly have dispensed with in the circumstances, since Eldred basely deserted her on each occasion; and she was introduced to Norton, who inspected her critically and flagrantly, as a possible stumbling-block to a promising career. Altogether, she was beginning to see India in a new perspective. Hitherto, in her aimless wanderings with Michael, she had merely looked on at its vast and varied panorama of life; had studied it with the detached interest of the outsider. Now she felt herself absorbed into the brotherhood of those who worked and suffered for the great country of her husband's service; who were as flies on the wheels of its complex mechanism; and who heartily loved or hated it, as the case might be.
At last, after a week of devoted nursing, Honor was allowed to make her first appearance in the drawing-room; and Desmond invited a 'select few' to tea for the occasion. Wyndham stood alone on the hearth-rug when she entered, her husband supporting her with his arm. She was visibly thinner; and her face was almost as colourless as the sweeping folds of her tea-gown. Otherwise her beauty had reasserted itself triumphantly; and Wyndham caught his breath as he came towards her.
She gave him both her hands; and he held them closely for a long moment. Then, obeying a rare and imperative impulse, he bent down and touched them with his lips. A faint colour tinged Honor's cheeks. "Dear Paul," she said under her breath: and Desmond, leading her to the sofa, established her in a nest of cushions, with a light covering for her feet, just as Quita and Lenox came in, closely followed by Max Richardson in uniform.
He had come in from camp not an hour ago; and had ridden over without changing, in his zeal to shake hands with Lenox and his wife. The former had endured his congratulations and delight at the news with the best grace he could muster; and had avoided a word with him alone. Now he drew up a chair and sat down by Honor: while Quita, pricked to a passing jealousy by his instant gravitation to her, moved off with Max Richardson, talking and laughing as if she had known him for years. It was not her habit to waste time in preliminaries.
"They'll get on splendidly, those two," Honor said, smiling as she watched them.
"I'll be glad if they do," Lenox answered without enthusiasm; and her eyes scanned his face.
"You aren't getting on splendidly, though. You look worn to a shadow.I'm afraid it's been difficult."
"Hideously difficult."
"And you ought both to be so happy, now of all times . . ."
"Yes. That's the exquisitely refined torment of it."
"You haven't been sleeping?"
"No . . . nothing to speak of. But don't give yourself a headache on my account, dear lady. Desmond would never forgive me! I'm a tough customer. I shall pull through somehow."
"If you could only bring yourself to talk it over with Theo," she urged in a lower tone, as he came towards them with Mrs Peters, who flung shyness to the winds, and fairly took Honor's breath away by kissing her on both cheeks.
Desmond's 'select few' amounted to less than a dozen. Honor's sofa was the centre of attraction; and her sympathetic spirit thrilled in response to the friendliness that glowed, like a jewel, at the heart of everyday talk and laughter. For the past fortnight of pain and stress seemed to have drawn them all indefinably closer to one another: which is the true mission of pain and stress in this very human world.
Later in the evening there were light sports on the Cavalry parade-ground, which Meredith, Desmond, and Olliver were bound to attend; Wyndham and half a dozen others remaining behind.
Courtenay, on his way to the door, remarked to Lenox that a short outing would do him no harm; and Quita, who chanced to be standing at his elbow, pressed lightly against him.
"Drive me down, dear," she said softly. "I should love it." And since he had avoided her for the greater part of the morning, he could not well refuse.
"I like your 'Dick,' Eldred," she informed him, as they bowled along the wide straight road. "He isbon garçon, through and through. Not brilliant, perhaps: but quick, appreciative, and he can talk."
"Yes: Dick's a real good sort. Glad you approve of him. And as for talking . . .youcould draw conversation out of a stone wall!"
"I don't always succeed with the one I am leaning against just now!"
"Well, I'll swear it's not your fault if you fail," he answered, smiling down upon her with such unfathomable sadness in his eyes, that she cried out involuntarily, between vexation and despair—
"Oh,mon Dieu, is it always going to be like this between us? Is there nothing I can do to make you happy again?"
"Nothing just at present, worse luck," he said grimly, looking straight ahead: for in the face of such an appeal he could hardly confess his desperate need to be left alone. "It's a question of time, as I told you, and my own strength of will. But if the situation becomes too intolerable for you, there is always the last resort of overstepping the limit, and setting you free for good."
Quita could not know how cruelly ill he had slept since her coming, nor how little a man tortured by insomnia can be held responsible for his utterances; and the significance of his last words so startled her that she clutched his arm.
"Eldred . . . Eldred, promise me you'll never even think of such a thing . . . never!"
He winced under her touch. "Quita, remember where we are," he said sharply; and she dropped her hand.
"But all the same, promise me . . what I asked; or I shall never have an easy moment."
"It might come to seem the kindest thing one could do for you," he persisted, still without looking at her. But fear gave her courage to strike deep while the chance of speech was hers.
"It would never be anything less than an act of cruelty and cowardice. Remember that. I am ready to put up with everything . . . everything rather than lose you, now."
"If that's the truth, lass," he said with sudden gentleness, "you may set your mind at rest. I promise."
"Thank you,mon cher."
Then they fell silent till the parade-ground came in sight.
This, their first appearance together in public, was something of an ordeal to both; and at the last minute Quita's courage evaporated.
"Eldred . . . stop, please," she said suddenly. "I'm shy of them all; and I don't want to talk to them just now."
"Thank the Lord for that!" he answered so fervently, that they both laughed aloud; and there is nothing like laughter for clearing the air.
"Take me for a drive," she suggested. "Show me your bungalow . . . our bungalow, will you?"
He hesitated. It seemed he was only to exchange one ordeal for another. "It's a ramshackle, comfortless place, Quita," he objected. "Wouldn't it be better to wait till . . till I can have it decently fitted up for you? Or you might like to pick another one."
"But no. I want that one; and I want to see it first just as you lived in it, please."
"Very well. If you wish it."
An officious chowkidar opened doors for them with a great clatter of bolts, and an elaborate air of being very much on the spot; and they stepped straight from the verandah into the one room Lenox had furnished besides the bedroom. It looked desolate, and smelt uninhabited; but Quita inspected the horns, the rugs, the sketches, even the handful of books left on the writing-table, with eager interest; and Eldred, stationed on the hearth-rug, answered her running fire of questions a little vaguely, because he was listening more intently to her voice than to what it said!
Suddenly his thoughts were checked by a vivid sense of having lived through this identical scene before; of standing near a fireplace watching her light-hearted explorations. But where? When? Then, like a dash of cold water, came enlightenment. It was at the Kiffel Alp Hotel, on the day of their wedding; and the bitterness of the lost years between, with their final heritage of evil, flowed over him like the sluggish waters of a dead sea.
Quita was hesitating on the threshold of the bedroom now; and an insane conviction came upon him that if she went in there he would lose her again, as on that earlier day. It was all sheer brain-sickness, and lack of sleep, but at the moment it was horribly real.
"May one look at the other rooms too?" she asked. "I want to see which would do best for my studio!"
"Look into every hole and corner, if it amuses you, dearest," he answered; but made no attempt to accompany her.
When at last she reappeared, the nightmare feeling took him afresh. He felt certain she would come straight up to him, and lay hold of the lapels of his coat. And this she actually did; lifting a glowing face to his.
"Eldred," she began, exactly as before . . . and it was more than he could stand. The oppression of her nearness set the blood rushing in his ears; and taking her hands from their resting-place he put her from him, almost an arm's-length, as though the better to look into her eyes.
"Well?" he asked, with an attempt at lightness that rang false. "Is your Highness quite satisfied with it all?"
But she was not to be deceived. Her cheeks flamed; and she almost snatched away her hands.
"Yes. I am quite satisfied," she said, in a changed voice. "And I think it's high time we went back."
Then she left him, a shade too rapidly for dignity, and sprang into the cart, before he could get near enough to help her up.
"Quita . . . why did you do that? What's wrong?" he asked, lamely enough as he gathered up the reins.
"Need you add insult to injury by asking that?" she flashed out, angry tears pricking her eyeballs. "I'm wrong. You're wrong. Everything's wrong. I ought never to have come here . . . before I was wanted."
He made no comment on that. It was not a question to be discussed in the open road, with asaisjogging on the tail-board behind; and no more was said till they reached home.
Then, as Eldred pressed the reins under the clip, he said in a quiet tone of command: "Stay where you are, please, till I can get round." And for all the rebellion in her blood, she obeyed.
He lifted her out bodily, and drew her into the hall. It was empty and almost dark: and before she guessed his intent, his lips had touched hers lightly, with a quick sigh that told of passion held in check. But she broke away from him, unappeased, and shut herself into her room.
She was relieved to find that a sprinkling of the tea party—the Ollivers, Norton, and Richardson—had stayed to dinner. Olliver was her partner; and evinced his appreciation of the fact by chaffing her laboriously throughout the meal; the one form of conversation she frankly detested.
But Richardson sat on her right, and, in Olliver's phraseology, "made the running with her all the time." For good, single-hearted Max frankly admired her. His conscience pricked him more acutely than it had yet done at thought of his own responsibility for the wasted years; and he longed for a chance to say as much to his friend. But Lenox was not in a mood to talk about his wife; and Richardson got no word in private with him throughout the evening.
Frank Olliver left early; and as Desmond half-lifted his wife from the sofa, Quita came up and said good-night also. She had been watching these two with reawakened interest throughout the afternoon and evening, and wondering whether she and Eldred could ever arrive at such perfect community of heart and mind.
In passing her husband, she laid butterfly finger-tips upon his coat-sleeve. "Good-night,mon ami," she said, just framing the words with her lips: and before he could get a square look at her, she was gone.
When the three men were left alone, Wyndham drank his 'peg' standing, and departed; but Desmond took Lenox by the arm.
"Come into the dufta[1] for half an hour," he said. "I've hardly spoken to you since Monday; and I think we have a thing or two to talk over."
Lenox submitted with a smile of resigned amusement, and the study door closed behind them.
[1] Study.
"I dare not swerveFrom my soul's rights; a slave, though serving thee.I but forbear more nobly to deserve;The free gift only cometh of the free."—O. Meredith.
"Well, old chap?"
Lenox tried to speak carelessly; to evade the inevitable; for he was sore, with the twofold soreness of insomnia and thwarted passion; and when all a man's nerves are laid bare, he naturally dreads a touch in the wrong place:—hence irascibility. To any one else he would have presented an impenetrable curtain of reserve, of ironical refusal to admit that anything was wrong. But Desmond had the man's tenderness, which is sometimes greater than the woman's: and, as Quita had once said, he was privileged, simply by being what he was.
Having set glasses and spirit-decanter within reach of their two chairs, he came over to Lenox, and set both hands on his shoulders.
"My dear fellow, it's no use shirking facts," he said straightly. "You're only flesh and blood; and the strain of all this is just knocking you to pieces again. No reflection on your wife. You know what I mean?"
"Yes. I know very well what you mean." Lenox spoke with repressed bitterness. "I once heard hell defined as disqualification in the face of opportunity."
Desmond turned back to the table, and helped himself to a fresh cigar. "Are you so dead certain about the disqualification?" he asked without looking up: and he heard Lenox grind his teeth.
"Oh Lord, man, if you're going on that tack, I'm off."
"Indeed you're not. There's a deal more to be said. As far as I understand matters, I imagine that your wife's coming here makes a decided difference in regard to—ultimate possibilities?"
"Yes; that's just it. She has cut away the ground from under my feet on all sides." He was thinking of his promise that afternoon, and his voice lost its schooled hardness. "She's set on going through with things, at any price. But then . . she doesn't realise . . ."
"Believe me, it wouldn't make the smallest difference if she did. Women are made that way, to our eternal good fortune. Their capacity for loving us in spite of what we are is a thing to go down on one's knees for. You'll appreciate it, one of these days, if you haven't done so already."
"Appreciate it? Great Scott, Desmond, haven't I ten times more cause to do so thanyoucan ever have had? But that doesn't wipe out facts or principles."
He left the hearth-rug, and paced the room in restless agitation. Desmond sat down, lit his cigar, and waited. His own suggestion could best be made if Lenox could be induced to unburden himself a little first. Presently he sat on the edge of the writing-table, well out of range of the lamp; stretched out his long legs, and folded his arms.
"By rights, I suppose I ought to have let her go back to Dalhousie at once. She suggested it herself. But it seemed too brutal; and I wasn't up to the wrench of letting her go just then. Besides, there was your wife's illness. It would have been out of the question. And now I'm in a bigger hole than before. We are living at cross purposes. She sees I'm holding back; and she's puzzled, and unhappy. But how the deuce is a man to tell her plainly that by an act of pure pluck and devotion, at the wrong moment, she has practically pushed me deeper into the pit than I've been yet? In fact, I'm beginning to be afraid that . . . the damage may be permanent."
Desmond stifled an exclamation of dismay.
"I wonder if you could bring yourself to tell me exactly what you mean by that?" he said quietly. "Perhaps I have no business to ask; but unless one goes to the root of a thing it's useless to talk of it at all."
"I know that. If I hadn't meant to tell you, I shouldn't be in here now. The fact is . . it's gone a good bit beyond tobacco this last fortnight." He hesitated; but Desmond made no sign. "Did you never miss that bottle of chlorodyne you brought me the day I was bowled over?"
This time Desmond started.
"Good heavens, yes! I had to get a fresh one . . for Honor. But it never occurred to me . . ."
"It wouldn't. You're not the sort. I emptied it, though, in no time. But it's poor stuff. It didn't half work. Then, one night—I was mad with pain, and want of sleep—I got hold of the raw drug, in pellets—from the bazaar." He shivered at the recollection: "I tell you, Desmond, it's appalling to feel the foundations of things giving way. But I've taken it ever since, . . pain or no.—Nowdo you doubt the disqualification I spoke of? Personally I don't feel fit to touch her hand."
The bitterness of conviction in his tone made Desmond lean forward to get a better sight of him.
"Lenox, old man," he said, almost tenderly, "such exaggerated notions are all a part of your unsettled nerves.—Smash up your devil's box of pills; or . . hand it over to me . . if you will . . . ?"
Lenox hesitated; but his face gave no sign of the short sharp struggle within. "You shall have the thing, if you wish it," he said at length. "It gives me no pleasure to make a beast of myself. But that doesn't touch the heart of the difficulty. So long as she's here, I haven't a chance. If I give up the stuff, I shall go to pieces with headache and insomnia. That's flat."
"Indeed I think you're mistaken," Desmond spoke with deliberate lightness. "At all events, I have a suggestion to make that may help you . . for the moment. I have quite decided that Honor must leave this, directly she is strong enough to stand the short journey to Sheik Budeen; probably in three or four days; and after a week or two there, she must go on to Dalhousie till September. Can you see a chink of daylight now?"
"Why, naturally. You want Quita to go up with her? A capital notion!"
His eagerness was an unconscious revelation of all that he had endured.
"Yes. I want you to tell her, from me, that she would be doing us both a very real kindness. Honor would break her poor heart alone at Sheik Budeen; and if you put it to Quita that way, I don't think she will take your suggestion amiss."
"I'm positive she won't. I'll speak to her to-morrow."
He got up; squared his shoulders, with a great sigh of relief; helped himself to whisky-and-soda; and emptied half the tumbler at a draught.
"By Jove, Desmond, you've put fresh spirit into me. This will give me a chance to fight the thing squarely; and I hope to God I may succeed,—even yet."
"Of course you'll succeed. We may take that for granted," Desmond answered, smiling. "You've won the great talisman that puts failure out of the question. As soon as we are officially through with the cholera, you should take sick leave, and go off into the hills. You'll not fight to any purpose, till you're in sound health again."
"How about Dick, though? It's his turn for leave."
"He'll survive missing it. He's in splendid condition; and this is a life-and-death matter for you. Besides, Courtenay will never let you start duty till you've been away. 'Dick' can take fifteen days when you get back."
"Poor chap! But I'm afraid that's the only programme possible."
He sat down at last; and for a time they smoked contentedly; then Lenox drew a letter from his breast-pocket.
"From Sir Henry Forsyth at Simla," he explained, "about my chances up Gilgit way. If we decide on re-establishing the Agency there, he evidently counts on sending me up again, with young Travers as my Assistant. He and I have done some decent work together in that part of the world. Nothing I should like better, of course. But . . in the face of recent developments, I swear I don't know how to answer him."
He handed the letter to Desmond, who read it and looked thoughtful
"If you get this chance, I think you must take it," he said. "With your special knowledge, you'd be the right man in the right place, up there: and apart from your own ambition, you owe something to India, after what you've done already."
Lenox sighed.
"I owe something to my wife also. You'd be the last to deny that.—Jove, it's amazing what a fine crop of complications will grow out of one false step. A little want of frankness on her part; a little over-hastiness on mine; . . and see where we've travelled in consequence. All my work in the past five years has been tending towards something of this kind. But it would never do . . for Quita. Think what a life for a woman, even if one could hope to have her there in time. Shut up in the heart of the hills, with half a dozen Englishmen, and a husband who might end in going to the devil. Not another woman nearer than Srinagar; and communication with India cut off for six months in the year. No. One would never get permission. It would simply wrench us apart again.—There seems to be a Fate against this marriage of mine every way. My fault, no doubt. Perhaps as a soldier with a taste for exploration, I was a fool to go in for it at all."
Desmond leaned forward, and flicked the ash from his cigar.
"Nonsense, man," he said emphatically. "You're talking heresy and schism! Soldier or no soldier, I believe in marriage. Always have done. With all its difficulties, it's an incomparable bond; as you'll find out, once you two are on the right footing. But you're hardly fit enough yet to see things in their true perspective. All this Gilgit business is still a good way ahead; and I can only say that if it does come to spending a good part of your service up in the wilds, you could not have chosen a woman more fitted for it than Quita. The better one knows her, the more one admires her . ."
The other's face softened.
"She's as straight and as plucky as a man," he said simply. "And whenever comes of it, I'm a lucky devil to be her husband.—Think I'll turn in now, and try for a little sleep. I never meant to inflict my affairs on you like this. But you bring it on yourself, Desmond, by being so confoundedly sympathetic!"
Before the two men parted, the box of opium pills had changed hands: and Lenox, by way of trying for a little sleep, lit a fresh cigar,—he was beginning to tolerate them now,—and went out into the garden.
Its open spaces were saturated with moonlight; while trees and bushes, solitary or huddled together, stood in black pools of shadow, and fragments of curded cloud trailed across the sky. Absorbed in thought, Lenox crossed a stretch of lawn set with rose-beds; and turning at the far end strolled back towards the house, that loomed, an unwieldy mass of shadow, against the palpitating radiance beyond.
The light in his own room showed through the split bamboo of the 'chick' in hair-line streaks of brightness; but from the door next his own it issued in a wide stream that lost itself in the moon-splashed verandah. Quita had rolled up her 'chick,' and stood leaning against the doorpost in an attitude that suggested weariness, or despondency, or both; the tall slender form of her thrown into strong relief by the light within. He knew that she must have seen him; and his hope was that she would come out and say good-night to him. Since he must speak, it would be a relief to speak at once, and get it over. It might even be possible to sleep, if matters could be definitely settled between them without further discord; otherwise, bereft of the opium, his chances were small indeed.
But though he drew steadily nearer, she remained motionless; to all appearance unaware of his presence. But the mere craving to touch her, to hear her voice, grew stronger every minute; and he was not to be thwarted thus. At the verandah's edge he paused.
"Quita," he said, scarcely above his breath.
"Yes."
"Have you forgiven me?"
"No. Not quite."
"But I want you."
"Come to me, then." A slight movement suggested a defiant tilt of her chin.
The verandah itself stood more than two feet above the ground; but instead of going round by the steps, he sprang up on it, flung away his cigar, and stood before her with proffered hands.
She surrendered her own.
"Now?" he asked, smiling.
"No, no."
He stooped and kissed her hair.
"Now, perhaps?"
"Yes, . . almost. Though I'm not sure that you deserve it."
"I don't," he answered humbly, taking the wind out of her sails.
Then objects in the room behind her caught his attention:—her dressing-table, with its silver-backed brushes and hand-glass, its dainty feminine litter; her blue dressing-gown flung over a chair; and, tucked away in a corner, her small comfortless bed.
"Come out into the garden, away from all this," he said hurriedly, almost angrily. "Why on earth did you drag me up here?"
"Because it's the man's place to come to the woman," she answered, with a demure dignity more provocative than tenderness. "It has been too much the other way round between us lately. As one has to suffer from the drawbacks of being a woman, one may as well enjoy the advantages also."
"And having enjoyed them, will you graciously condescend to come out there with me?"
"But yes; of course I will."
He turned on his heel; and they went out together. In the strong Indian moonlight her soft blue dinner-dress, sweeping the grass behind her, was blanched to a silvery pallor; her bare neck and arms gleamed like marble touched into life; and unconsciously she swayed a little towards him as she walked, like a tall flower in a breeze. The radiant mystery of earth and sky, the scarcely less radiant mystery of womanhood beside him, conspired with her veiled mood of gentle aloofness to strike his defences from him. But he kept his hands in his pockets by way of safeguard; and because he had small skill in broaching a difficult subject, he held his tongue.
Half-way across the lawn, she came deliberately closer.
"You know, you hurt me cruelly this afternoon, Eldred."
"Did I, lass? That was abominable of me. But you must make allowances, even if you don't understand. I'm a man, and you're a woman. That seems to be the root of the difficulty. And now I'm half afraid I may hurt you again."
"Why?"
"Because I'm a clumsy brute; and I do it without meaning to. But I suppose it's plain to you that we can't go on much longer as we are doing now?"
"Of course we can't." She let out a breath of relief. "I've been wondering when you were going to see that."
"I have seen it all along. Only, for the life of me, I didn't know how to make the next move. But I have just had a talk with Desmond, . . about his wife. He wants to send her to Sheik Budeen, the minute she's fit to spend a night in a doolie."
"Where . . and what . . is Sheik Budeen?"
The perceptible change in her tone disconcerted him. But the thing had to be got through; and he went ahead without swerving.
"It is an apology for a Hill Station, about fifty miles north of this. Just a handful of bungalows, on an ugly desolate rock, rising straight out of the plain. No trees; no water, except what they collect in a tank for use. But being nearly four thousand feet up, it's a few degrees cooler than this: and probably after a week or two there Mrs Desmond would be fit to stand the journey to Dalhousie."
It was characteristic of him that he made no attempt to soften facts: and Quita, edging a little away from him, lifted her head.
"Is it settled when one is to start for this inviting spot?" she asked, critically examining a distant star.
"In a few days, if Mackay agrees. Poor Desmond, he hates letting his wife go. But for her sake he wants to get her away from here as soon as possible."
"I see. And you want to get me away from here as soon as possible.It's a very convenient arrangement for you both."
Her implication stabbed him. He stood still, and faced her; his eyes full of pain. But he made no attempt to touch her: which was a mistake.
She stood still also,—head uplifted, hands clasped behind her,—without discontinuing her scrutiny of the heavens.
"By the Lord, you are hitting back harder than I deserve," he reproached her desperately. "At least you might believe of me all that I said of Desmond, . . that it is for your sake, and that I shall hate letting you go. The suggestion was entirely his own. He asked me to tell you, from him, that you would be doing them both a very real kindness by going with Mrs Desmond; and I thought . . you would be glad of a chance to help either of them; especially since you must know, after all I said at Kajiar, that it is impossible . . yet for us to start fair and square."
It was a long speech for Eldred, and it brought her down from the stars.
"Naturally I am delighted to do anything on earth for the Desmonds," she said sweetly, ignoring his final remark. "You speak as if I might refuse to go. But I haven't fallen quite so low as that."
"Quita, have younomercy on a man?" he flashed out between anger and pain. "There has never been any question of 'falling' on your side, and you know it. But surely you understand that, in spite of all that has happened between, what I dared not to do a month ago, I dare not do now."
"Do you mean . . is . . the trouble not any less?"
"No."
"But I thought you were going . . to fight it?"
"So I am; so I shall, till I break it, or it breaks me. But look back over the past few weeks, and ask yourself if I have had much of a chance so far."
She unclasped her hands and looked up at him, speech hovering in her eyes. But she dropped them again, and stood so, with bowed head, shifting her rings nervously up and down her slim third finger.
"Dear lass, what's troubling you?" he asked. "We've got to understand one another to-night; so don't be afraid to speak out. Better make a clean wound and have done with it, than think hard things of me that may be unjust. Tell me the thought I saw in your eyes."
"I was thinking of something Michael said." She spoke in an even voice without looking up.
"Michael? Well . . what was it?" Anxiety sharpened his tone.
"He said that if . . if you really . . wanted me back again, your conscientious scruples would be swept away like straws before a flood. I wouldn't believe him then. But now . . I'm afraid it's true."
"Confound the man! What does he know about my scruples?" Lenox broke out with irrepressible vehemence; and she looked up quickly.
"Please don't be violent, Eldred. You told me to speak out. Besides,Michael is my brother."
"I'm sorry. But if he were ten times your brother, I'd say the same. He had no business to try and set you against me like that." He caught her unresisting hands now, and held them fast.
"You take Michael's word against mine . . is that so?" he asked, a dull flush rising in his face; and he tried to look into her eyes. But she would not have it.
"Oh, my dear, can't you see it's not," she said, so low that he scarcely heard her. "It's . . your own actions, contradicting your own words, that make me feel he must be right."
Lenox stood aghast at this new and unanswerable aspect of the case; at the knowledge that, in respect of practical proof to the contrary, his hands were tied.
"Good God! what can a man do to convince you?" he demanded on a note of smothered passion. "Quita . . my very wife, look me in the eyes, and answer me straight. Do you honestly believe that I have been insulting you with mere lip-service all this while?"
He stood before her in mingled dignity and humility, trying to master himself, to find some admissible outlet for the tumult of feeling that was undermining the foundations of his will. But she did not answer at once; nor did she look up.
"Think how I welcomed you a week ago," he urged.
"I do think of it. But . . since then . . ." She hesitated; and a slow wave of colour crimsoned her neck and face, even to her forehead. "I . . I don't know what to believe," she added very low.
The words struck away his last defences, and he caught her in his arms; straining her to him, and kissing her almost roughly on lips and eyes and throat. She submitted at first, in sheer amazement and half-frightened joy at having roused him thus. Then she tried to free herself; but he held her close, and hard.
"Do you believe now," he asked, his lips at her ear, "that I want you . . that I love you . . with every part of me, heart, and mind, and body?"
For all answer she leaned her head against him with a broken sob.
"Oh, Eldred," she rebuked him through her tears. "I never knew you could behave . . like that!"
"No more did I," he answered bluntly. "Forgive me, darling, if you can. I was a brute to lose control of myself. But you pushed me too far. There are things no man of human passions can put up with; and if you are going to begin by doubting my sincerity, all hope of real union between us is at an end."
"Dear love, I promise I'll never doubt it again," she whispered fervently. "I'll go away, and stay away . . without any fuss, if only I can see things straight and clear; if only you won't quite shut me out from the best part of yourself."
"I've no notion of shutting you out from any part of myself, you precious woman. But the habit of half a lifetime is not easy to break through; and I suppose that when two people marry they have to learn one another bit by bit, like a new language; except in such a rare case as the Desmonds, where love and understanding are not two things, but one, like the man and woman themselves. There . . did you ever guess I had thought all that about marriage!"
She laughed contentedly.
"No. How could I? And it's your thoughts I want, Eldred;—the hidden you, that belongs to no one but me."
"Do you, though? It sounds rather wholesale! But I'll do my best."
"Come over and sit on the steps; and I'll try to tell you just how matters stand, and how I feel about it all."
He led her back to the verandah, and establishing her on the topmost step, seated himself lower down, one arm passed behind her, his left hand covering hers that lay folded in her lap. Quita, looking down upon it in a flutter of happiness, noted and approved it as an epitome of the man; large, without clumsiness, nervous and full of character.
Then he told her, simply and straightly, a part of what he had told Desmond; and more, that was for herself alone. Through all he said, and left unsaid, Quita felt the force of his ascetic personality, of a strong man, stern with himself and his own passion; and, womanlike, thrilled at thought of her dominion over him; her power to set him vibrating by a word, a look, a touch. Yet she listened without movement or interruption; for the which he blessed her in his heart.
"I suppose there are numbers of men who would take . . what I refuse without a twinge of conscience," he said finally. "But the fact that I should be acting dead against the right, as I see it, would make capitulation wrong for me, . . if not for them. Besides, one dare not trifle with an inherited evil. One's only chance lies in taking strong measures on the spot. You understand?"
"Yes, I understand . . now; though I didn't at first. And I wouldn't have you different by one hair's-breadth, though your strength and single-mindedness does make things harder for both of us."
He pressed her hands.
"It's worth all I've been through, and more, to hear you say that. Only remember, lass, it's not simply a question of principles that may seem to you high-flown, but of bedrock facts. I don't want to enlarge on the ugly or painful side of a very ugly subject; but I do want you to understand that not only my career, but our whole future happiness depends upon my crushing out this habit before it degenerates to a craving; before my conscience gets blunted, my will-power undermined. Opium is worse than drink in both respects: and if things ever reached such a pass—which God forbid—it would mean losing my commission; just going under, like dozens of ill-fated chaps, and sinking in the scale: or at best scraping along in the army by means of constant subterfuges, at the hourly risk of discovery and disgrace. A nice sort of life for you, my proud little woman. And for——" he broke off short.
She tried to speak, but tears were clutching at her throat; and after a moment's pause, he went on: "There is a great black something deep down in me, Quita, that rises up now and then, like a spiritual fog, and blots all the light and colour out of life. This, and the dread of those hideous possibilities I spoke of, made me feel, a month ago, as if it might be better for you to be left in comparative freedom, than chained to a man with a devil inside him. But your coming down here has put all that out of the question."
"Thank God I came, then."
"Yes. Thank God you came," he echoed fervently. "Though I was afraid you didn't quite realise . . ."
"Dear, I did. More than you imagine. But I wanted . . to help you in spite of yourself; and I hoped we could fight it out together."
He shook his head.
"Don't think me brutal, Quita, but a man's got to fight out this sort of thing alone with his own soul . . and God. You can only help just by . . loving me, and believing that I shall pull through. Dear old Desmond has done about as much for me as one human being seems permitted to do for another in big contingencies; and, by the way, he said rather a charming thing to-night."
"He has a gift for that. What was it?"
"He said I won the great talisman that put failure out the question."
She laughed again, softly.
"Oh, how I love that man, and his incurable idealism!"
"You do? You lawless young woman! How many more?"
"Only one more . . I think!"
And freeing her left hand she slipped it round his head, that was on a level with her shoulder, drew it close against her, and ran her fingers lightly through his thick hair.
"I'm going to weave a magic over your head to make you sleep, and reward you for giving up the opium, you poor, poor darling."
And with a sigh Lenox yielded himself to the ecstasy of her touch.
Their talk grew fitful, and fragmentary; intimate lover's talk, interspersed with luminous pauses, that were but hidden channels of speech; till Quita felt the walls within walls giving way under her 'magic,' and knew that she had reached the shy, inmost heart of the man at last. That enchanted hour lifted them beyond the ardours of passion, to the mastery of spirit; to a passing revelation of the eternal beauty underlying earth's tragedies and complexities: and both were conscious of an exalted strength.
The harsh clanging of the police gong, twelve times repeated, brought them back to the iron facts of life. With a murmur of reluctance they rose; and Lenox escorted his wife to the door of her room.
"Shall I let down your 'chick' for you?" he asked.
"Please."
He untied the strings that held it up. Then, as the curtain fell between them and the lamplit room, Quita turned, and with a gesture all tenderness, laid both arms round his neck.
"I shall never forget to-night, Eldred," she whispered, "even if we live to be cross prosaic old people together. You may go to the other end of the world, now, and stay there as long as you like! I am sure of you; and I feel in every fibre of me that we are going to win through in the end."
"In a hundred ages of the gods I could not tell thee of the glory of Himachal. As the dew is dried up by the sun, so are the sins of mankind, by the glory of Himachal."—From the Hindu.
That night Eldred Lenox slept long, and dreamlessly; and awoke with new life throbbing in his veins. The three uneventful days that followed were among the happiest in his life; and on the fourth, before sunset, the two women set out, in hospital doolies, on their primitive journey to Sheik Budeen.
Honor had protested, almost to tears, at being compelled to spend a fortnight with her heart in two places, and her body in a third! But Desmond, reinforced by John Meredith, had held his own; promising to escort her to the barren Rock of Refuge, whose only virtue was its elevation; and, by arranging a relay of ponies along the route, gallop back in time for 'orderly room' next morning. "Which is more than nine husbands out of ten would do for a headstrong wife!" Meredith had concluded, stroking her flushed cheek: and thus the matter had been settled.
Lenox and Quita spent the last afternoon together in their own bungalow, at her suggestion. The officious chowkidar unearthed two punkah coolies for the occasion: and the planning of their future home, a picnic tea served on Eldred's writing-table, and practical considerations in respect of furniture and house linen—though Quita had small inherent regard for either!—helped, more or less, to obscure the thought of separation. Before leaving the bungalow, she won through the dreaded last injunctions and kisses without ignominious collapse, since Lenox was to ride out for a few miles beside the doolie; and they parted finally with brave words, and a prolonged hand-clasp that left her fingers tingling for a good five minutes afterwards.
Quita never forgot that journey. Its weird fascination, clashing with the ache of parting, stamped every detail indelibly upon her memory;—the vast, featureless plain, empty as a widow's heart; the lavish moonlight poured out upon it like water, flowing unhindered to the naked spurs of the frontier hills, whose huge shoulders, peaks, and escarpments blotted out the stars along the western horizon; the occasional appearance of wild-looking Waziri militia-men, from the chain of outposts along the foothills, who had been warned to keep up a sharp look-out along the road: no villages; no trees; no sound or movement anywhere, save the distorted shadows and rythmical grunting of her doolie-bearers, the soft shuffling of their feet, and the click of hoofs, as Desmond rode at a foot's pace beside his wife, or dismounting, walked and talked with her, his bridle slung over his arm.
The suggestion of tenderness and companionship in their low tones seemed to accentuate the lifeless desolation through which they moved, the blankness and uncertainty of the anxious months ahead. Possibly something of this occurred to Desmond; for after the first few miles he deserted his wife now and again, and walked by Quita; exorcising the spirit of self-torment that haunts the imaginative, as he of all men best knew how to do.
Finally, lulled by the movement of the doolie, she fell asleep; and awoke to find herself in a changed world; a world of rough-cut volcanic rock and boulder, piled up on either hand in fantastic disarray; a world of white light and sharp black shadows; of mystery, and terror, and uncanny beauty. It was as if she had been transported back to the morning of Time, when the earth giants wrenched up the mountains, and pelted one another in pure sport: and as she flung back the loose flap of her doolie to get a wider view of it all, Desmond trotted up to her.
"It's less alarming than it looks," he reassured her. "We have only turned off into the Paizu Pass. It's a nasty dangerous bit of road; but our own men are on ahead, so we're safe enough. We shall be climbing the hill directly; and I'll be uncommonly glad of mychota hazri."
"You deserve it, you poor fellow! But it sounds an anachronism! I can't believe that anything so commonplace as a bungalow, with servants and tea and toast, exists within a hundred miles of this primeval nakedness."
But in the fulness of time, bungalow, tea, and servants were all forthcoming: and between three and four of the morning their fantastic journey culminated in a prosaic meal of eggs and buttered toast. When it was over Quita vanished, leaving Desmond alone with his wife; and before moonset he was speeding back along the road they had come; covering the fifty miles at a hand-gallop, in something less than five hours.
A fortnight later two very unwilling grass-widows were rescued byLenox, who had secured his sick leave; and who escorted them from DeraIshmael as far as Lahore, where he left them to go on into the mountainregion beyond Kashmir.
Hillmen have a saying, 'Who goes to the hills goes to his mother'; and Eldred Lenox, a hillman both by love and lineage, confirmed it for the hundredth time, as he pushed his way upward, by leisurely enchanting stages, from the steaming Punjab, through the great natural gateway of the Baramullah Pass, a towering defile, thunderous with full-fed torrents and waterfalls, into the familiar Valley, . . a very sanctuary of peace; its terraced slopes splashed with the vivid green of rice-fields, the russet and gold of ripe orchards and cornlands; up through Srinagar, 'the City of the Sun,' of carved and gilded temples, thronged waterways, and flat house-tops blazoned with flowers; and yet again upward, by ways well known to him, into the hidden mysteries of the mountains massed about the valleys; a mighty conclave of immortals brooding in majestic meditation; shrouded at this season by dazzling continents of cloud; and plunging green arms to the rivers and lakes, that gleamed like molten silver under a pale sky.
To know a character rightly it should be seen in its natural element; and the Lenox of the Himalayas was by no means the same man as the Lenox of the Plains. All his latent energy and vigour blossomed out like flowers at the first whisper of spring. 'The glory of Himachal' drew and penetrated and inspired him like nothing else on earth.
Here he tracked and brought down oonyal, markhor, and the great mountain sheep; explored on a small scale, because the fever of going was upon him; and slept as a man only sleeps when he is living close to the heart of Nature. Here, also,—fortified by solitude, by the uplifting sense of things awful and divine which is the gift of great mountains to those who love them,—he fought doggedly and systematically against a craving that persisted in spite of improved health. For the tyranny of opium is as tenacious as it is deadly; and the habit of five years is not to be broken in as many weeks. But the man who wills to conquer evil has God and Nature fighting on his side: and in the teeth of several flagrant lapses, Lenox made steady progress.
In Srinagar he bought a bottle of chlorodyne; and two days later flung it down thekhud. When his store of drugged tobacco ran out, he replaced it by a brand in which an innocuous admixture of opium just sufficed to produce the faint fragrance that he loved. The black fits of melancholy, which were native to his temperament, and which, in the past five years, had threatened to dominate him permanently, evaporated like morning fogs before the sun as the certainty grew in him that he must prevail: and Quita, who had done most of the harm, made unconscious reparation by letters whose consummate faith in the final issue was stimulating as the mountain air itself.
By October he was back at Dera Ishmael Khan;—a renewed man, bronzed and vigorous, the shadow gone from his eyes; testing his achievement and finding that it held good; bending all his energies to the task of fitting up a home for his wife; a task whereof Honor usurped as large a share as he would permit. Then, towards the end of the month, he wrote to Quita: "Come. We are ready, and waiting for you,—the house, Zyarulla, Brutus, and your impatient husband, who will pick you up at Lahore."
And on the last day of October, more than six years after their hasty wedding, Eldred and Quita Lenox entered upon their married life.
"Have you forgotten, darling, the nonsense I talked that day about the House, and the Enchanted Palace?" she asked, as they stood together on their first evening in the drawing-room, whose every detail he had planned with elaborate care.
"Is it likely? Why?"
His arm was round her shoulders; and putting up one hand she touched his face.
"Why . . because I said we would have to begin with the House. But we seem to have reached the Enchanted Palace before starting after all?"
"By a very roundabout route," he answered, a suspicion of the old sadness in his eyes.
"Yes; but wehavereached it. That's the main point, dear Pessimist; and the commonplace House I offered you has tumbled into a dust-heap of ruins. Don't let's build it up again, whatever else we may do in the way of foolishness. Retrogression is the one unforgiveable sin!"
It is the instinctive cry of love in the first flush of fulfilment. The grand impulsion of man to woman brushes aside lesser considerations like so many flies. But Life and Temperament, standing discreetly in the background, will have their say in the 'fateful second act' of the human comedy before the curtain drops.